Stellaris

Yea, in the extermination type strategy games that rarely happens. You lose your main fleet and it's basically over unless the enemy makes a tragic mistake. Mostly those games are just one crucial battle or two and then the winner rolls up the loser unless neither side has the strength to overcome. And in some games risking it and ending up with costly stalemate means that now your neighbor is in perfect position to invade you as you're at your weakest and already stretched.

Which in itself isn't that bad but certainly Stellaris deserves it's place as a different kind of game.

 

Some teasers from Wiz again.


I get the feeling orbitals will be big help for empires that lose the colonization race in early/mid-game. Alongside with terraforming.


More Culture references. Synths obviously can't use drugs though, so...



Ring worlds are also pretty much confirmed. Probably more on them on this weeks DD.

 

I would think synths completly lose the need for food though (obviously if you have organic pops in your empire they would still need food). Which brings up would synths even have a happiness rating?

 

another battle different war. total fleet power in that spot (mine and theirs) probably started somewhere around 400k. But I realized something shortly after the battle started. Nearly every one of my ships has multiple medium and large stormfire autocannons.

 

Boohoo that was going to be a big theme for my thing ...

*opens up a bottle of Jack Daniels... and another one...*

 

I think the habitats are also meant to help 'tall' gameplay, as in few but very advanced systems rather than always having to purely go wide.

 

DD 58: Orbitals

Orbital Habitats (Paid Feature)
One of the things we have stated that we want to address is the lack of options for building 'tall' in Stellaris: Even if you're playing pacifist xenophiles that have no interest in conquering others, sooner or later your empire is going to have their borders closed in on all fronts, all the habitable planets in your space will be terraformed, and your only option for further expansion is to grow your space through conquest. When we say that we want to enable building tall, however, this doesn't mean we're going to make being a five-system empire just as good as being a fifty-system empire: There should always be an incentive to expand your borders, but for those who do not want or simply cannot do this, we want there to options other than just stagnating.

Orbital Habitats is one of our solutions to this problem: Instead of expanding to new systems and colonizing new planets, you create new, artificial 'planets' for your Pops to live on. Orbital Habitats are massive space stations that function like small (currently size 12, though this may not be the final number) planets that (like Gaia Planets and Ringworlds) have 100% habitability for all species. They can be built around any non-habitable planet (not asteroid or moon) in your space, and there is no limit to the amount you can build other than the number of such planets you have to build them around. Habitats function exactly like a planet: They can be colonized with whatever Pops you want to live there, they can be worked for resources by constructing buildings there, and they count as a planet for the purpose of empire research costs. In order to build a habitat, you need to have researched the maximum level of spaceport technology and picked the 'Voidborn' Ascension Perk (for more info on Ascension Perks, see dev diary 56)

Habitats mostly do not have tile resources with the one exception that if the planet they are orbiting has a resource that could otherwise be worked by a mining or research station, that resource will be present on one of the Habitat's tiles. Instead, Habitats have their own, unique set of buildings distinct from the normal planetary buildings. Overall, Habitats are efficient when it comes to research and energy general, but do poorly when it comes to food and mineral production. These buildings are 'single-stage': they have a fairly large upfront cost and high immediate research production, but cannot be upgraded. The reason for this is to allow for easier management of systems with several habitats in them.

Graphics-wise, Habitats use different models depending on which ship set you have selected, and each ship set (including Plantoids) has its own habitat model. They also have their own planet icon and will get a unique planetary graphic and tile set (that is still a work in progress and thus not shown below), emphasising the ways in which they differ from regular planets.



Next weeks DD is apparently about something "big". My guess are the forementioned ring worlds and maybe new ship/station types. Likely that they will be big part of overall theme of the expansion.

 

I would love if they made habitats a tiered research that didn't necessarily require super late game, but are most useful later in the game, of course. I just see small space stations hosting 1 pop and basically getting a foothold to the massive moon sized stations they're describing.

 

They seem fairly late game though, having to research all spacestation upgrades. Would seem to me that its almost too late to really make a difference in the situation where you cannot expand enough to compete, but maybe I'll be wrong. My questions would be how much defense do these things have, and can you also have space stations alongside habitats or are habitats also space stations?

 

My guess would be not very well armed. Somewhere between mining stations and spaceports.

 

You're trying to earn a regular life saver badge or something?

 

I just realized something that the orbital habitats will do as well. It will (maybe) allow vassals to expand a little bit since they can build frontier outposts.

 

Wait vassals can't build colonies?

 

Not outside their borders. Not sure about inside their borders.

 

You guys need to show those worker pops of your country a new way of working hard without demanding as much in return, you need to build a real proper Armada with capital A and launch a crusade to free Tzeentch.

Alternatively you could try to scheme and develop science to empower you like never before, that should help him too, sacrificing 50%, heck, say 75% of your pops to him in return for advanced knowledge.

 

Wiz at it again.









Seems like this weeks DD will be about megastructures and specialized space stations.