Stellaris

So for fun I made the fanatical purifier race of shivans. First start I got put next to a fallen aggressive empire who declared war every time the truce ran out to humiliate me, so I restarted

 

yeah. fuck the AI in my current game. I just formed an alliance with awakened ascendency.

 

Nothing major in new DD. Talk about 1.6 Adams, stuff that I've mentioned here too.

Design corner with Wiz and Dan was pretty interesting though.
Couple of things that I caught from the discussion:

- Traditions will get some balancing/small changes.

- FTL system will get small overhaul. Plan is that everybody starts with hyperlanes, then you can research warp/jump drives if you want/need. Worm holes would occure naturally and you need tech to actually use them. This would allow interesting shortcuts over long distances. The idea is similar to games like Endless Space, and I'm totally okay with it.

- Team will concentrate to warfare and diplomacy next. Mostly warfare.

- PD and armor will become somewhat similar defence layer as shields and hull. Different weapons will have clear pros/cons against different defences. For example, autocannons rip defenceless hull apart but need time to get through armor.

- The size of fleet will affect how it will be able deal with relatively smaller or bigger fleet. Without proper coordination/sensor tech bigger fleets would have problems engaging smaller fleets as they can't organize huge amount of ships to fire effectively. Not final, but the overall idea is that you would want to think about the balance of fleet size and ship classes in it.

- FE's and endgame crises will scale with galaxy size (finally). AI rebellion is being reworked to be much more interesting and to involve synth empires in it properly.

- Fleet and defences will share your fleet capacity and depending if you want strong defence or offence you can dedicate more points to either. Putting points to defence allows you to fortify systems much more effectively than currently, but you have to sacrifice from fleet strength, and vice versa.

- Ground warfare will get rework. One possibility is that you will attach armies to fleets, reducing microing a whole lot. Troop types will also have distinct pros/cons and effects in defence/offence.

- Territory system should become more dynamic and not completely revolve around planets. Possible system is that you need to build frontier outpost to every system you want to properly own. The outpost system will of course be reworked to work with this idea. This would allow you to grab lucrative mining/research systems without touching enemies main territory and planets. Would make skirmishes and raid style warfare viable. Cut the enemy empire from their resources to bleed them out.
Forementioned changes to FTL would also synergize with this system, making galactic geopolitics much more meaningful.

- Wiz would like to make federations much more involved. Idea is that federations would have AI controlled "capital". Players and other empires can gain influence and seats in the capital by contributing to the federation in different ways. More power you have in capital, the more you can dictate the overall direction of the federation.

Will possibly add more later when I rewatch the design corner, but these are the most inportant ones atm.

 

I like the attaching armies to fleets.

 

I've read the dreadnaught is coming.

Yep. From hunter's post on previous page where he pasted the "beyond utopia" stuff.

 

going to test 2 mods. One is a missile mod (I think it's the one magnus found) that makes them faster, higher health/evasion. and the torpedos as well. The other is also a missile mod but it adds 2 XL missile weapons (does nothing to vanilla missiles as far as I can tell). Because it is kinda odd there are no XL missile weapons. It's like paradox is saying "yeah missiles suck so we didn't bother making any XL weapons of them".

 

This one also sounds good. I like that it's the same for all empires not just players.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=917506933

Better Starting Planets

- Forces all Homeworld planets, for player, AI, premade, random, and primitives to be size 25
- Garuntees at least 2 size 20 or larger planets near the starting system
- Increases the amount of planets, asteroids, and other bodies in the systems near the starting one
Note: I did not design this to make the game "easier", as every change made applies to every empire in a game. I simply liked having garunteed good starting areas, without getting an advantage over the AI.

 

Haven't played to much yet but that missile mod does make missiles better but they still seem to outclssed by kinetics because of fire rate. I think missiles need a much better range to actually be competetive . Probably plus 25-50% (less range increase as the size goes up. Small gets the most range increase with large getting the smallest or no range increase). I think a range increase would help the most.

 

Yeah. I think the real role of missiles is to be a really long range softwning up weapon. Like the small slots should have a range of 90 at least. Long range, low damage and fast (or high damage but easy to kill due to low health.) But the small slot missiles should equal or outrange the large slot kinetics (maybe not the kinetics art/battery) which is 85.

The biggest problem with this is then empires with missile starting weapons might be at even more of a disadvantage.

 

Okay. That isn't the one i got (which does most of the same stuff but range increase.) That sounds better than the one i downloaded.

 

Just in case there's still someone who doesn't have this game, it's in the humble monthly again.

 

Patch 1.6 is out!!

 

Magnus they made your habitat mod vanilla (well the ideas)

• Habitats are now a little better at mineral production, and a little worse at energy and science production (though still much better at the latter than the former)

They also removed weapons from mining and research stations.

 

Not a huge fan of removing the weaponry, not because there that effective, but it slows down starting fleets enough to make raiding risky. With no weapons you can quickly raid through a system burning down infrastructure without the other fleet catching you

 

Yeah especially the early game pirates. Mid/late game whether the stations have weapons doesn't really matter. But early they kinda need them.