I translated the binary and it came out to RlYPCZuY9cZQVuE0zwL1mKa5G4axzQSxavxd7xHV2p5178PFADCC11QAwcs+4nxyqerNMcDlc1AxRDLlr6Ae6WsAZFAEOnIAPbI2Nf1dRhx/3S/PxhIBDBfLnuXljhT1IK7XFWRv60vBeWTfa4jpDbXi3WvzochfPrqg=
Except the current spiritualist fucking hates bots. So would be cool to see them rework things so that you do get machine cults and maybe have materialists that don't view psionic as pure poppycock shit.
Yeah, I was thinking of like a spiritualist civic that allows full ai rights and better science. Technocults are kind of missing from Stellaris right now.
Actually, they could do a whole expansion of hybrid civics. Pacifistic Crusaders, Multi-cultural xenophobes, an authoritarian empire where all are equal under the ruling caste, etc. etc.
I translated the binary and it came out to RlYPCZuY9cZQVuE0zwL1mKa5G4axzQSxavxd7xHV2p5178PFADCC11QAwcs+4nxyqerNMcDlc1AxRDLlr6Ae6WsAZFAEOnIAPbI2Nf1dRhx/3S/PxhIBDBfLnuXljhT1IK7XFWRv60vBeWTfa4jpDbXi3WvzochfPrqg=
So, uh.. touche, Paradox.
It's base64 the trailing = is a dead giveaway, as is the title too probably, but the data itself is binary encoded
But it's also not even valid base64, it's 165 characters long and b64 must always have a multiple of 4 characters, so presumably we prefix the 7 bytes that are in the title. This gives us a nice round 128 bytes and a properly sized and terminated base64 blob, but the data is encoded further
It had a bug when I first played it where it wouldn't quit properly, so Steam thinks I have dozens of hours in it when I didn't even finish the first game.
I was going to get back to it when they fixed the bug and then didn't get around to it. Looking at their Dev Diaries, they haven't updated since early December.
The thread "Is this game abandoned" on the forum has no official responses despite being there for months. The closest is someone saying the devs were waiting "for a new contract" or something on the discord, but that is second-hand information at best.
The developer, Nimble Giant, may have been part of the large Saber Interactive sale, so maybe that'll loosen things up, though they apparently had layoffs late January.
That said, if you really want Star Trek Stellaris, there's a large mod that largely accomplishes it. I believe it's called Horizons.
Maybe they'll do another round of shit for hiveminds or get into the whole bio ships and building thing next. Granted, we still need the internal politics rework and frankly megacorps need a revisit, namely branch offices, but would love to see all gestalts have some limited interaction with commercial packs, while actually having trade be a thing that rogue servitors deal with, even if it's limited to an additional civic because biotrophies have wants that could potentially be solved via trade. So maybe not, depends on what the devs prioritize.
Origins
Cybernetic Creed - Holy Cyborgs, will apparently have specific empire factions and faction events.
Synthetic Fertility - Dying species, starts with a lot of pops but can't reproduce, must store their minds digitally until they can build robot bodies. (Or continue to live digitally, apparently?)
Arc Welders - New Machine Origin; start with a "kilostructure" in your system and you're basically prepped to be megastructure masters.
Mechanists - Old origin is getting an update, +2 trait points/+1 trait pick, increased mechanical pop assembly and apparently it'll all tie in to a new "automodding" system.
Ascension Paths - Apparently when you go down cybernetic or synthetic ascension paths, not everyone in your empire is going to necessarily be on board with getting implants or even full body conversions, so there will now be events associated with dealing with that. Ascension paths will now also offered advanced government types based on your ethics.
This expansion is actually looking pretty good, all things considered.
Wonder if the next major expansion, next year, will do similar advanced government types for psionic and bio ascension paths, along with the situations and events. I'll put odds on the devs likely locking bioship sets behind an origin and it won't just be ships, but buildings as well. Not sure people would be in full agreement, but I think the logic would be that one's empire was going all in on the biotechnology before FTL.
Anyways, this does appear to be weaving in some of the much needed internal politics rework. Assuming they don't do a brand new type of alien portraits, I have to wonder if they'll forgo a species pack and we'll get another storypack because depending on how this patch revamps things, it could potentially set the stage of an internal politics rework as part of story pack for this year or next year. I'd say next year, if the game plan is to ultimately do another major expansion that fleshes out the last two ascensions in the manner that cybernetic and synthetic are getting in this patch.
I'm just hoping they are finding some leads on how to better improve game performance though. Base game just chugs at a certain point and I'd agree that given how they have changed things, they probably have some tech debt somewhere they could maybe payoff and get things improved. I mean it often times gets worse with mods because those are seldom optimized, but the the base game definitely needs a pass somewhere. Only question is if they can do it and if they'll agree it's worth the time. Sadly, I could see it getting nixed because the bean counters decide that everyone using mods will take a shit on the efforts, when their mods hose any and all improvements they manage to make to game performance.
They are making some pretty major changes to machines.
The first big change is that machine leaders will no longer be immortal. All non-organic and non-lithoid pops will have a base lifespan of 80 years, with machines getting another 20 years to bring that up to 100. They didn't mention synthetic lifespans specifically, so that could be 80 or 100 years baseline for those that have synthetic pops, but didn't go down synthetic ascension. This means they'll actually have an improve lifespan over organic pops that haven't done anything to increase their lifespan. Do wonder if they'll revisit this when someone points out Lithoid leaders have a base lifespan of 130 years. It actually makes sense, given that hardware breaks down, software starts to become incompatible with newer software and hardware and data tends to corrupt without strict monitoring and backing up of data. Also an awesome quality of life change because it means machine empires won't have cases where they start a game and fire years in the random death event ends up claiming one or more leaders because RNG decides fuck you. Gestalt nodes will still be immortal though, just think of it as your empire willing to put the most into ensuring they are backed up and upgraded to keep up with the times because they are the heart of the empire, well more like the brains. Also machine empires should be getting access to stuff that increases lifespans.
Habitability is also being adjusted. Non-organic pops will no longer get 200% baseline habitability. Instead they will get a floor of 50% minimum habitability and will get to pick non-organic planet preferences. The devs took the suggestion of making that dry, wet and cold, so machines still have the best habitability range, even if that preference only means 75% max habitability at the baseline. They are going to get access various habitability techs. This meant that the devs were comfortable giving machines access to various origins, that were closed off because the devs felt that the bonuses of those origins combined with 200% habitability would be too powerful. Worth noting that some of these origins come with unique machine climate preferences. I actually like this change because it makes more sense that robots on say an arctic world are going to be build with cold climates in mind and probably aren't going to be well suited for dry worlds initially.
The last major change, is that machine empires, that aren't cyborg, will be given access to three new ascension paths. One of those is going to be a redone synthetic path, that is only available with the new expansion. Those without the expansion, but that own Synthetic Dawn will have a slightly reworked synthetic tree. The new synthetic tree will be called Modularity. The two completely new paths are Virtuality and Nanotech. Modularity sounds like it will give you the best pops. Virtuality will be a new tall style that will limit you based on colonies because you don't have to worry about pops anymore, but having too many colonies will fuck with your production and you also get immortal leaders because everything is in the cloud. Nanotech essentially makes you into the gray tempest, not in that you become a threat to the galaxy automatically, but that it will likely be intended as a wide build. I'm assuming all three of these will be open to organic and lithoid empires that are gestalts. Don't think they will give hiveminds the option to essentially transition into being a gestalt machine consciousness.
Lots of other minor changes, a ton of new traits for non-organic pops. Some more hints of things that could be the foundation for an eventually internal political rework.
Feels like all these changes open the door for psionic gestalt empires. Honestly, really does feel like the next major DLC will either be bio focuses and give people access to their bioships and biobuilding or maybe we get a major psionic focus expansion. Looking at what has dropped so far, if they go with this level of features for either psionic or bio, then they could easily get a feature rich expansion, maybe not to the extent of this one though. I'd hope they'd do both at the same time because my fear is if both get their own major expansion, bio will get shafted by being put off till last and honestly, I'd think psionic would get the least number of features, given how much has been put into it already and I have doubt they could split it even further into new ascension paths (I suppose they could do one for each covenant, but they'd have to have something for those that either get the end of cycles covenant or are stuck fishing for a specific covenant). Feels like bio might have room to be split into more than one path. Also would love to see an ascensi8on path that is essentially "fuck mucking about with what makes us who we are, we'll just bend reality to our will! No, blue space drugs! No, modifying our DNA! No, unsightly mechanical implants! None of this uploading your mind into a PC shit! We'll just use our tech to make our worlds super comfy for our needs and use automation to not just keep up with all the losers modifying their bodies, but to beat them!"
It had a bug when I first played it where it wouldn't quit properly, so Steam thinks I have dozens of hours in it when I didn't even finish the first game.
I was going to get back to it when they fixed the bug and then didn't get around to it. Looking at their Dev Diaries, they haven't updated since early December.
The thread "Is this game abandoned" on the forum has no official responses despite being there for months. The closest is someone saying the devs were waiting "for a new contract" or something on the discord, but that is second-hand information at best.
The developer, Nimble Giant, may have been part of the large Saber Interactive sale, so maybe that'll loosen things up, though they apparently had layoffs late January.
That said, if you really want Star Trek Stellaris, there's a large mod that largely accomplishes it. I believe it's called Horizons.
We finally got an update on this, but it's not good news: there will be no further updates to Star Trek Infinite.
I suspect some of Star Trek: Infinite's issues came down to it being mostly a reskin of Stellaris, with a Trek theme. That brings a couple of issues, one there are a certain number of buyers they just weren't going to get because those players already had both Stellaris and had downloaded or made various mods that add Trek stuff to the game. Sure they did some twists, but likely not enough to entice many of those players to by Infinite. Hell, Infinite likely shows the big issue that a Stellaris two would ultimately run into as well because the content it had, was just dwarfed by the content that Stellaris has. Why spend money and time on a new game that is very similar to Stellaris, but has significantly less content.
I'd also argue the other issue is that Stelaris has a shit ton of warts and in some ways it's really showing it's age and that is likely the bigger issue. Probably lost more sales to the fact that enough potential buyers are aware of how Stellaris handles. A big one is that Stellaris requires a fair bit of time devoted playing to it. This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for two particular issues, which does impact different groups of players.
For single player, it would be a bit easier o play around, except I'd argue that Stellaris doesn't exactly have a setup like Stardew Valley or Minecraft, where a player could take a break and come back weeks later and easily pick up where they left off. Stardew Valley has a setup where you can easily figure out what you did last and effortlessly continue what you were doing. Minecraft it's a bit easier to forget what you were doing, but at the same time, there isn't any risk of that biting you in the ass if you completely forget. Stellaris, you take a few months off, you pretty much have to check a shit town of stuff when you return because there are a number of things that could potentially blowup in your face if you happened to have gotten them and then forget to continue to deal with them until they are resolved and not all of those concerns are easily found in the situation log.
For multiplayer the time investment is a much bigger issue because if you don't finish a campaign with people on the day you get together, well you might never go back to complete that game because no one will have the free time anytime soon. This then gets into the previous issue where if you do get back to it, people have likely forgotten a number of things they were doing and unless Paradox did a major fix, there is a fair bit of risk in having the game paused, while people click things. It won't result in the game data being ruined, but could have even more eaten up as a result of desync issues. I know everyone time I've watched one of Paradox's multiple player streams, where they invite a bunch of creators to highlight the latest major expansion. They always tell people to not click around in game when it's paused because of desync concerns.
I'd argue the base game does need to tackle the the game length better. Yes, players can lower it, but that requires a fuck ton of trial and error, which is a shit ton of time that players are unlikely to have. I'd say that any successor titles absolutely will have to address that aspect of the game and I don't recall Infinite actually solving that. I also don't think it has to be an either or thing. I suspect they devs could put a little more time in to get a setup where people could either have shorter game sessions or still opt to have the long ass game, if that's what they really want. I also do get annoyed with some parts of the player base because the official boards have a handful of people that are very vocal about how they feel the game should be long, perhaps longer than it currently is and that people shouldn't be asking the devs to make the game more accessible to people that do feel the default settings are too long and that too much trail and error is needed in order to try and fine tune down to a shorter game time, that is still satisfying.
As for Paradox as a whole, yeah, their current track record is a bit concerning. I'd be worried that one of two things will end up negatively impacting Stellaris.
-The bean counters notice that the game is getting a ton of resources, note it's old and also note how must of their new stuff isn't fairing well. Then decide that Stellaris is getting to many resources, pull a bunch of shit from Stellaris and potentially fuck it, while actually not succeeding in fixing their real issues that are resulting in the new games not succeeding. I suspect a bunch of new stuff isn't succeeding because the company management isn't bothering to give those games an ideal environment or they end up playing things too safe because I'd argue that Infinite is probably a choice that was too safe, givne it's a Star Trek reskin of one of their most successful games.
-Paradox doing poorly could be a result of not doing enough to get solid staff and that means Stellaris is on a greater level of borrowed time, than people initially though. I mean, it's nearly eight years old, so it's likely nearing the end of its officially supported lifespan to begin with, even if Paradox can continue as a viable company, sooner or later they'll pull the plug on this game. The issue if they aren't doing a good job at attracting solid new hires, is that attrition will eventually catch up and kneecap the games that are doing well. Granted, it's somewhat possible that is already happening to Stellaris, they are still rehashing shit with Paragons and as much as I loved Astral Rifts, there were some issues that cropped up, which probably shouldn't have been a thing. We'll see how things go with the new DLC because the previous issues could just be a result of how they reorganized some stuff.
Star Trek Infinite's fate doesn't seem that surprising since it's just an inferior version of a mod that was already out for a very popular game. And while Stellaris is $40 to STI's (there's an unfortunate abbreviation) $30, Stellaris is marked down to $10 several times a year, STI had I think one sale for $20.
Buying the game is the most expensive and least complete way to play the game, so it never got many players away from the Stellaris mod.
It was also weird to play it because it wasn't just Stellaris, it was an old version of Stellaris. Not super old, but missing features that had been added to the game since STI's development started. And those changes were often done for a good reason.
They briefly go over the new crisis, a rogue servitor-esque threat known as the Synth Queen.
Also they're doing a season pass (20% discount over buying them seperately) and thus had to reveal the expansions coming this year, which is cool.
But there’s more - based on the popularity of Crusader Kings’ Chapter III, we’ve decided to celebrate our eighth anniversary by offering a similar expansion pass including all of the major Stellaris releases of the year for $39.99, which comes out to over a 20% discount.
There’s a chance that we might experiment with some other ideas that might or might not come out later this year, but Stellaris: Season 08 will include all of the major releases of 2024.
Stellaris: Cosmic Storms (Mechanical Expansion - coming Q3 2024 - $12.99)
Cosmic Storms includes:
8 Galactic Storms with unique visual effects
1 Origin
3 new Civics
2 new Relics
2 new precursor story arcs
Stellaris: The Grand Archive (Story Pack - coming Q4 2024 - $14.99)
A new Megastructure: “The Grand Archive”
200 specimens to collect
A vivarium with space fauna capturing mechanics
Hatchery starbase and cloning facilities to alter space fauna and use them as fleets
2 new types of spaceborne fauna - Voidworms and Cutholoids
A new Mid-Game Crisis - the Voidworm Plague
2 Origins
2 Tradition trees
I'm at the point now with Stellaris that I'm waiting for a deep discount bundle or a discount bundle that accounts for all the expansions I already own. I haven't played the game for a few years, and the cost to catch up is not worth it when I can easily play something else or buy 4-6 other games for the same price, even on sale. This is true for pretty much all Paradox games these days (City Skylines, Europa Universalis, Stellaris, Crusader Kings), which has meant that I haven't touched any of these games and won't buy anything from Paradox until I can buy a complete edition with everything (the same way I handle Civilization games, but with a much longer timeline between purchases).
If I were to purchase Stellaris new and all of its expansions, with a 10% bundle discount but not on sale it would cost $400 CAD. Even with a 50% discount, it's an off-putting amount of money.
I have a feeling there arent going to be much DLC discounts. They’d rather you do that subscription thing. Didnt know that was a thing until I saw it as an option.
Apparently there's a new voice pack in this one that is "AI generated." I dislike this, paradox. Pay a fucking voice actor please.
I can kind of see the argument if the character is actually meant to be a machine. An AI would logically sound like an AI-generated voice.
But yeah, pay your fucking voice actors.
That is the argument they put forward for it, except AI robot aliens are not real so there is no authentic way for them to sound. A simple text to speech engine would be a good joke voice but this is just "we don't have to pay a voice actor."
Apparently there's a new voice pack in this one that is "AI generated." I dislike this, paradox. Pay a fucking voice actor please.
I can kind of see the argument if the character is actually meant to be a machine. An AI would logically sound like an AI-generated voice.
But yeah, pay your fucking voice actors.
Why do that when you can charge $20-25 for nothings worth of content and pay nobody for working on it
Apparently there's a new voice pack in this one that is "AI generated." I dislike this, paradox. Pay a fucking voice actor please.
I can kind of see the argument if the character is actually meant to be a machine. An AI would logically sound like an AI-generated voice.
But yeah, pay your fucking voice actors.
Why do that when you can charge $20-25 for nothings worth of content and pay nobody for working on it
$25 dollars is for the whole expansion, not just the voice pack.
Apparently there's a new voice pack in this one that is "AI generated." I dislike this, paradox. Pay a fucking voice actor please.
I can kind of see the argument if the character is actually meant to be a machine. An AI would logically sound like an AI-generated voice.
But yeah, pay your fucking voice actors.
Why do that when you can charge $20-25 for nothings worth of content and pay nobody for working on it
$25 dollars is for the whole expansion, not just the voice pack.
That's my point. Their DLCs have been releasing for $20 and been progressively more content sparse compared to their earlier stuff. Nemesis was the last straw for me and Astral Planes was the first one I didn't buy on release, and indications are that was the right move. If they're going to be "okay now give us $25 this time", we're gradually approaching the base cost for the game itself.
I do think it's hilarious that 2 of their first 7 big bullet points are just content from other expansions, weird look for the $25 DLC:
Individualistic Non-Gestalt Machine Empires
Gestalt Machine Intelligence Empires (also unlocked by the Synthetic Dawn Story Pack)
Three new Origins
Civics
Two Mid-Game Structures
New Ascension Paths for Machine Empires
Cybernetic and Synthetic Ascension (also unlocked by Utopia)
Not sure I'm following on this one?
You obviously need the content to use other features in the expansion, so they have to include it. If you don't own those other expansions, then it is content you don't already own and should be advertised as part of the expansion. And people who do own the prior content (or those who'd be willing to buy the older expansions) should be informed that the content exists elsewhere.
Posts
I translated the binary and it came out to RlYPCZuY9cZQVuE0zwL1mKa5G4axzQSxavxd7xHV2p5178PFADCC11QAwcs+4nxyqerNMcDlc1AxRDLlr6Ae6WsAZFAEOnIAPbI2Nf1dRhx/3S/PxhIBDBfLnuXljhT1IK7XFWRv60vBeWTfa4jpDbXi3WvzochfPrqg=
So, uh.. touche, Paradox.
If this means we're getting machine cults, then it's about time!
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Actually, they could do a whole expansion of hybrid civics. Pacifistic Crusaders, Multi-cultural xenophobes, an authoritarian empire where all are equal under the ruling caste, etc. etc.
It's base64 the trailing = is a dead giveaway, as is the title too probably, but the data itself is binary encoded
But it's also not even valid base64, it's 165 characters long and b64 must always have a multiple of 4 characters, so presumably we prefix the 7 bytes that are in the title. This gives us a nice round 128 bytes and a properly sized and terminated base64 blob, but the data is encoded further
3B00B267CAD19583C266E63D719415B84D33C0BD6629AE46E1AC73412C5ABF177BC47576A79D7BF0F1400C20B5D5003072CFB89F1CAA7AB34C70395CD40C510CB96BE807BA5AC01914010E9C800F6C8D8D7F5751871FF74BF3F184804305F2E7B97963853D482BB5C5591BFAD2F05E5937DAE23A436D78B75AFCE87217CFAEA8
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/stellaris-dev-diary-335-announcing-the-machine-age.1626445/
I'd say, get it if you're really into Star Trek and can get it for cheap. If you don't care for Star Trek, then don't bother, get Stellaris instead.
I was going to get back to it when they fixed the bug and then didn't get around to it. Looking at their Dev Diaries, they haven't updated since early December.
The thread "Is this game abandoned" on the forum has no official responses despite being there for months. The closest is someone saying the devs were waiting "for a new contract" or something on the discord, but that is second-hand information at best.
The developer, Nimble Giant, may have been part of the large Saber Interactive sale, so maybe that'll loosen things up, though they apparently had layoffs late January.
That said, if you really want Star Trek Stellaris, there's a large mod that largely accomplishes it. I believe it's called Horizons.
Yeah, I’ve played the mod a long time ago. Was wondering why pay for the official version when the mod exists.
You know what, I take that back, this expansion is basically a smorgasbord of "I wish they'd add X to the game."
Isn't that in Utopia? Organic Hive Mind, Devouring Swarm civic.
Don't get Genestealer Cults, though, so there is that.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Yeah but they have to get around in metal ships shooting lasers and missiles.
Do an expansion that goes whole hog on a fully organic species and I’ll come back to this game.
Edit - I know about the mod that gives you the end game crisis Tyranid ships, but it’s a band aid solution. Enough fucking robots.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/stellaris-dev-diary-336-the-origins-and-situations-of-the-machine-age.1635464/
Origins
Cybernetic Creed - Holy Cyborgs, will apparently have specific empire factions and faction events.
Synthetic Fertility - Dying species, starts with a lot of pops but can't reproduce, must store their minds digitally until they can build robot bodies. (Or continue to live digitally, apparently?)
Arc Welders - New Machine Origin; start with a "kilostructure" in your system and you're basically prepped to be megastructure masters.
Mechanists - Old origin is getting an update, +2 trait points/+1 trait pick, increased mechanical pop assembly and apparently it'll all tie in to a new "automodding" system.
Ascension Paths - Apparently when you go down cybernetic or synthetic ascension paths, not everyone in your empire is going to necessarily be on board with getting implants or even full body conversions, so there will now be events associated with dealing with that. Ascension paths will now also offered advanced government types based on your ethics.
This expansion is actually looking pretty good, all things considered.
Anyways, this does appear to be weaving in some of the much needed internal politics rework. Assuming they don't do a brand new type of alien portraits, I have to wonder if they'll forgo a species pack and we'll get another storypack because depending on how this patch revamps things, it could potentially set the stage of an internal politics rework as part of story pack for this year or next year. I'd say next year, if the game plan is to ultimately do another major expansion that fleshes out the last two ascensions in the manner that cybernetic and synthetic are getting in this patch.
I'm just hoping they are finding some leads on how to better improve game performance though. Base game just chugs at a certain point and I'd agree that given how they have changed things, they probably have some tech debt somewhere they could maybe payoff and get things improved. I mean it often times gets worse with mods because those are seldom optimized, but the the base game definitely needs a pass somewhere. Only question is if they can do it and if they'll agree it's worth the time. Sadly, I could see it getting nixed because the bean counters decide that everyone using mods will take a shit on the efforts, when their mods hose any and all improvements they manage to make to game performance.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
They are making some pretty major changes to machines.
The first big change is that machine leaders will no longer be immortal. All non-organic and non-lithoid pops will have a base lifespan of 80 years, with machines getting another 20 years to bring that up to 100. They didn't mention synthetic lifespans specifically, so that could be 80 or 100 years baseline for those that have synthetic pops, but didn't go down synthetic ascension. This means they'll actually have an improve lifespan over organic pops that haven't done anything to increase their lifespan. Do wonder if they'll revisit this when someone points out Lithoid leaders have a base lifespan of 130 years. It actually makes sense, given that hardware breaks down, software starts to become incompatible with newer software and hardware and data tends to corrupt without strict monitoring and backing up of data. Also an awesome quality of life change because it means machine empires won't have cases where they start a game and fire years in the random death event ends up claiming one or more leaders because RNG decides fuck you. Gestalt nodes will still be immortal though, just think of it as your empire willing to put the most into ensuring they are backed up and upgraded to keep up with the times because they are the heart of the empire, well more like the brains. Also machine empires should be getting access to stuff that increases lifespans.
Habitability is also being adjusted. Non-organic pops will no longer get 200% baseline habitability. Instead they will get a floor of 50% minimum habitability and will get to pick non-organic planet preferences. The devs took the suggestion of making that dry, wet and cold, so machines still have the best habitability range, even if that preference only means 75% max habitability at the baseline. They are going to get access various habitability techs. This meant that the devs were comfortable giving machines access to various origins, that were closed off because the devs felt that the bonuses of those origins combined with 200% habitability would be too powerful. Worth noting that some of these origins come with unique machine climate preferences. I actually like this change because it makes more sense that robots on say an arctic world are going to be build with cold climates in mind and probably aren't going to be well suited for dry worlds initially.
The last major change, is that machine empires, that aren't cyborg, will be given access to three new ascension paths. One of those is going to be a redone synthetic path, that is only available with the new expansion. Those without the expansion, but that own Synthetic Dawn will have a slightly reworked synthetic tree. The new synthetic tree will be called Modularity. The two completely new paths are Virtuality and Nanotech. Modularity sounds like it will give you the best pops. Virtuality will be a new tall style that will limit you based on colonies because you don't have to worry about pops anymore, but having too many colonies will fuck with your production and you also get immortal leaders because everything is in the cloud. Nanotech essentially makes you into the gray tempest, not in that you become a threat to the galaxy automatically, but that it will likely be intended as a wide build. I'm assuming all three of these will be open to organic and lithoid empires that are gestalts. Don't think they will give hiveminds the option to essentially transition into being a gestalt machine consciousness.
Lots of other minor changes, a ton of new traits for non-organic pops. Some more hints of things that could be the foundation for an eventually internal political rework.
Feels like all these changes open the door for psionic gestalt empires. Honestly, really does feel like the next major DLC will either be bio focuses and give people access to their bioships and biobuilding or maybe we get a major psionic focus expansion. Looking at what has dropped so far, if they go with this level of features for either psionic or bio, then they could easily get a feature rich expansion, maybe not to the extent of this one though. I'd hope they'd do both at the same time because my fear is if both get their own major expansion, bio will get shafted by being put off till last and honestly, I'd think psionic would get the least number of features, given how much has been put into it already and I have doubt they could split it even further into new ascension paths (I suppose they could do one for each covenant, but they'd have to have something for those that either get the end of cycles covenant or are stuck fishing for a specific covenant). Feels like bio might have room to be split into more than one path. Also would love to see an ascensi8on path that is essentially "fuck mucking about with what makes us who we are, we'll just bend reality to our will! No, blue space drugs! No, modifying our DNA! No, unsightly mechanical implants! None of this uploading your mind into a PC shit! We'll just use our tech to make our worlds super comfy for our needs and use automation to not just keep up with all the losers modifying their bodies, but to beat them!"
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
We finally got an update on this, but it's not good news: there will be no further updates to Star Trek Infinite.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/star-trek-infinite-dev-log-13-what-you-leave-behind.1629503/
And I liked Star Trek: Infinite. I think it had definite promise. But it didn't have sales figures, so...
I'd also argue the other issue is that Stelaris has a shit ton of warts and in some ways it's really showing it's age and that is likely the bigger issue. Probably lost more sales to the fact that enough potential buyers are aware of how Stellaris handles. A big one is that Stellaris requires a fair bit of time devoted playing to it. This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for two particular issues, which does impact different groups of players.
For single player, it would be a bit easier o play around, except I'd argue that Stellaris doesn't exactly have a setup like Stardew Valley or Minecraft, where a player could take a break and come back weeks later and easily pick up where they left off. Stardew Valley has a setup where you can easily figure out what you did last and effortlessly continue what you were doing. Minecraft it's a bit easier to forget what you were doing, but at the same time, there isn't any risk of that biting you in the ass if you completely forget. Stellaris, you take a few months off, you pretty much have to check a shit town of stuff when you return because there are a number of things that could potentially blowup in your face if you happened to have gotten them and then forget to continue to deal with them until they are resolved and not all of those concerns are easily found in the situation log.
For multiplayer the time investment is a much bigger issue because if you don't finish a campaign with people on the day you get together, well you might never go back to complete that game because no one will have the free time anytime soon. This then gets into the previous issue where if you do get back to it, people have likely forgotten a number of things they were doing and unless Paradox did a major fix, there is a fair bit of risk in having the game paused, while people click things. It won't result in the game data being ruined, but could have even more eaten up as a result of desync issues. I know everyone time I've watched one of Paradox's multiple player streams, where they invite a bunch of creators to highlight the latest major expansion. They always tell people to not click around in game when it's paused because of desync concerns.
I'd argue the base game does need to tackle the the game length better. Yes, players can lower it, but that requires a fuck ton of trial and error, which is a shit ton of time that players are unlikely to have. I'd say that any successor titles absolutely will have to address that aspect of the game and I don't recall Infinite actually solving that. I also don't think it has to be an either or thing. I suspect they devs could put a little more time in to get a setup where people could either have shorter game sessions or still opt to have the long ass game, if that's what they really want. I also do get annoyed with some parts of the player base because the official boards have a handful of people that are very vocal about how they feel the game should be long, perhaps longer than it currently is and that people shouldn't be asking the devs to make the game more accessible to people that do feel the default settings are too long and that too much trail and error is needed in order to try and fine tune down to a shorter game time, that is still satisfying.
As for Paradox as a whole, yeah, their current track record is a bit concerning. I'd be worried that one of two things will end up negatively impacting Stellaris.
-The bean counters notice that the game is getting a ton of resources, note it's old and also note how must of their new stuff isn't fairing well. Then decide that Stellaris is getting to many resources, pull a bunch of shit from Stellaris and potentially fuck it, while actually not succeeding in fixing their real issues that are resulting in the new games not succeeding. I suspect a bunch of new stuff isn't succeeding because the company management isn't bothering to give those games an ideal environment or they end up playing things too safe because I'd argue that Infinite is probably a choice that was too safe, givne it's a Star Trek reskin of one of their most successful games.
-Paradox doing poorly could be a result of not doing enough to get solid staff and that means Stellaris is on a greater level of borrowed time, than people initially though. I mean, it's nearly eight years old, so it's likely nearing the end of its officially supported lifespan to begin with, even if Paradox can continue as a viable company, sooner or later they'll pull the plug on this game. The issue if they aren't doing a good job at attracting solid new hires, is that attrition will eventually catch up and kneecap the games that are doing well. Granted, it's somewhat possible that is already happening to Stellaris, they are still rehashing shit with Paragons and as much as I loved Astral Rifts, there were some issues that cropped up, which probably shouldn't have been a thing. We'll see how things go with the new DLC because the previous issues could just be a result of how they reorganized some stuff.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Buying the game is the most expensive and least complete way to play the game, so it never got many players away from the Stellaris mod.
New Dev Diary up
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/stellaris-dev-diary-340-a-new-crisis-a-release-date-and-announcing-the-stellaris-season-08.1662209/
They briefly go over the new crisis, a rogue servitor-esque threat known as the Synth Queen.
Also they're doing a season pass (20% discount over buying them seperately) and thus had to reveal the expansions coming this year, which is cool.
Stellaris: Cosmic Storms (Mechanical Expansion - coming Q3 2024 - $12.99)
Cosmic Storms includes:
8 Galactic Storms with unique visual effects
1 Origin
3 new Civics
2 new Relics
2 new precursor story arcs
Stellaris: The Grand Archive (Story Pack - coming Q4 2024 - $14.99)
A new Megastructure: “The Grand Archive”
200 specimens to collect
A vivarium with space fauna capturing mechanics
Hatchery starbase and cloning facilities to alter space fauna and use them as fleets
2 new types of spaceborne fauna - Voidworms and Cutholoids
A new Mid-Game Crisis - the Voidworm Plague
2 Origins
2 Tradition trees
If I were to purchase Stellaris new and all of its expansions, with a 10% bundle discount but not on sale it would cost $400 CAD. Even with a 50% discount, it's an off-putting amount of money.
Welp, done paying for Stellaris DLC now. If you want me to pay for something which cost you nothing to generate? Nope!
I can kind of see the argument if the character is actually meant to be a machine. An AI would logically sound like an AI-generated voice.
But yeah, pay your fucking voice actors.
Why do that when you can charge $20-25 for nothings worth of content and pay nobody for working on it
$25 dollars is for the whole expansion, not just the voice pack.
That's my point. Their DLCs have been releasing for $20 and been progressively more content sparse compared to their earlier stuff. Nemesis was the last straw for me and Astral Planes was the first one I didn't buy on release, and indications are that was the right move. If they're going to be "okay now give us $25 this time", we're gradually approaching the base cost for the game itself.
Not sure I'm following on this one?
You obviously need the content to use other features in the expansion, so they have to include it. If you don't own those other expansions, then it is content you don't already own and should be advertised as part of the expansion. And people who do own the prior content (or those who'd be willing to buy the older expansions) should be informed that the content exists elsewhere.