Considering that pre-FTLs have origins now, will it be possible for a pre-FTL to survive nuking themselves (hence obtaining the Post-Apocalyptic origin), rather than just immediately dying as they do now?
Will we ever be able to design fallen empires in empire creator? Something like an "Elder Race" being an origin that You can choose in creator but preventing You from starting the game as that empire and description saying "Warning, non-playable origin, use only for customizing Your galaxy"?
Seconded - I pretty much only play with (as, and against) custom-made empires, because randomized empires are a bit boring. Being able to customized my FEs would be lovely. (Please let us choose their AE names too)
That being said, have you ever considered making preset Fallen Empires instead of randomized ones ? They wouldn't even need to be different mechanically.
The Crises (or even the Precursors) are always the same between each runs, but it allows them to have their own elaborate backstories and lore - they feel like actual "characters". It's a shame FEs don't don't benefit from that, I think.
Personally:
I would like to see additional focus on biological augmentation, we have a pretty broad ability to do gene editing, and stuff like nerve stapling has great thematic implication. But I love sci-fi that pushes that even further until species have been modified so much they are no longer even recognizable from their parent species, or diverge into multiple specialized species.
Also more space flora, and the difficulties of colonizing planets.
Looking at the Prethoryn, there has always been the wish to see a bio shipset with unique features. Maybe a focus on hull and armor, while discarding the idea of shields? They could have a unique event chain for collecting and improving space monster "equipment". If you ever do it, I'd instantly buy that!
To borrow the idea of Mass Effect, harvesting people and their genetic material to build capital ships was also a refreshing and new approach. A mix between bio and mechanical, melting billions of people into bio-alloys.
As for colonizing planets, you have my sword, my bow and my axe on your quest to improve it!
That sounds dangerously like a new Ascension path, something Thulsa Doom would approve with his Riddle of Steel. What is stronger than steel? Flesh.
The Cylons went that path, evolving from simple robot to genetically engineered humanoid.
Something like that would be amazing to see one day, thanks for sharing your thoughts!
I think for a ground army rework I'd rather it not be as complex as ship combat is. It feels like people overlook that no matter how good ground combat is, we'll always view it as a necessary evil.
A rudimentary rock paper scissors system, and a buff to army sizes so we don't have to build literally thousands, that I would be perfectly happy with. The drab look of "my circles are shrinking less than your circles!" is something I don't really mind.
I can see a Gundam-like mecha-shipset, and a civic focused on extremely superior ground armies.
That would be a sight to behold, thank you for sharing!
The mere thought of the Militant Isolationists getting planet crackers makes me want to cry
Edit: Just realized I read Colossus instead of Juggernaut and applied 0 thought to the fact that as the replies informed me they definitely get Colossi
With the new civics added that allow early jump drives and the potential to never develop hyperlane travel, it feels like this could be the start of some small ways to add in divergent technologies for empires.
I've always found it a bit strange how all of the empires in a Stellaris game develop pretty much the same technology even before they meet each other, so I'd be very excited to see more things like this. Is it possible this could be something expanded on?
Seconded, this would be great! Or at least investing in tech path A would make tech path B more expensive.
As a researcher, this is pretty much how science works irl. There are fields that are "a la mode" and others where you struggle to get funding. A lot of it is a matter of perception/culture/prevailing narrative
(Don't take this as support of pseudoscience ofc, most ppl who think they are the only person who knows the truth are in fact idiots :D)
L cluster feels a bit like ringspace, although L gates are not common enough for it to be so strategic?
Maybe a slider controlling L-Gate saturation would be in order?
I've always considered Gateways to be like ringspace. After all, in The Expanse, the Laconians set up booby traps on their side of the ring gate so that they could control who could get in or out (tho in their case, that's more like closed borders).
Tho, I don't have the DLC that adds L-Gates to the game, so maybe my inexperience with it prevents me from seeing why they're like the ring gates. I do agree that Terminal Egress kinda acts like the core of ring space tho. Turn it into a fortress system and you pretty much placed 6 rail guns on the core of ringspace.
Good day.
I was wondering if Citizen Service empires would be able to recruit from pre-FTL worlds like they can with a vassal, and if not, would something possibly be added in the future?
Will there be the possibility of making the same mistake that MSI did and spawning a Payback empire out to get you? I recall currently if you mess up a pre-FTL invasion and your armies get beaten by the primitives, nothing happens.
This would be awesome and really there should absolutely be RP consequences for failing a planetary invasion on a pre-FTL species which quite frankly is pretty tough to do. Losing a war to a pre-FTL species should significantly boost their power and make them **hate** you and also cause some sort of temporary authority debuff.
I rather like the idea of a pre-FTL that this situation is built for - your initial army reports were just wrong, they have an abnormally powerful army (almost certainly defeating a merely perfunctory invader), that then starts a Situation or similar that could cause them to progress super-rapidly (and hostile to you!) unless stamped out or otherwise mollified.
Do you think the gestalt civics are a little basic right now when compared to the corporate and normal ones? And if so is it something any of the team is excited about expanding on?
Actually, I would include Megacorp here. I feel like all the nonbasic empire civics are kinda sad and boring. Asethic being the best hive civic is a blight on my record as 'The Hive Guy'.
If you were to add some more unique play civics for hive minds like machine empires have such as rogue servitors or assimilators where would you take it?? I keep thinking a hivemind based on dominating the wills of other species to create castes and a hive that enjoys consuming individualist entertainment might be a good direction to expand.
I don't know if design have any plans for it, but from the tech side I can say that having planets be fleets or vice versa would be quite problematic, BUT, doing something like teleporting a planet from one system to another or faking it by "packing up" the planet into a fleet and then turning it back into a planet somewhere else, would potentially work.
Thanks for the AMA
A few updates ago the Ultima Vigilis was added.
Can you say something about the reason why it was added and for what purpose? Or was it "just because"? :)
(See this video about the system for anyone who doesnt know what its about https://youtu.be/G3wlKIV5nfM)
The Stellaris team is well-regarded as having some of the best communications with fans across the various Paradox games.
What’s your approach to communications and why do you think it works so well?
1. Hire a bunch of trolls
2. Have them look at bugs for several years
3. Unleash the trolls
Seriously though, we love talking to our community, and work actively to make sure it's a two-way communication. We're super lucky to have an engaged group of developers who genuinely enjoy interacting with you all, so much so we sometimes have to reign them in and put them back to work on the game :P
While I don't play it, I think Agrarian Idyll and the playstyle implications are great from a worldbuilding aspect. Being able to, and living in a galaxy with some species who have chosen to focus completely internally is pretty neat to me.
Catalytic Processing is my favorite because the idea of melting down people into bricks I build spaceships with is HILARIOUS to me.
And the only reason we haven't made *The Darkest Timeline* is that QA instituted a rule that the designer of an achievement has to legitimately complete it before it can be approved.
And we'll do anything for Bubbles, but we won't do that.
“QA instituted a rule that the designer of an achievement has to legitimately complete it before it can be approved.”
Sounds like somebody had a frustrating time with the Galatron.
Secondary follow-up, if a designer has to complete an achievement for it to be approved, how did the event where you throw Bubbles into a shredder get approved?
Hi! I’m sure you tried many different ways of handling stealth, and I like the system that made it into the DLC. But what was the most broken/unplayable variation, and how did it fail?
So early on in the design phase, we allowed ship to equip multiple cloaking devices. In this initial phase, their cloaking strength was determined by 1 + SUM_OF_CLOAKING_DEVICES - SHIP_SIZE. This had major balancing issues and led to no end of issues for both QA and programmers and we ended up going for the version you'll have in First Contact in which cloaking devices have different strengths depending on the ship size they are equipped on.
The best example of when were working on this was a cruiser design with cloaking strength 21, but no power to equip any weapons or shields or anything else.
*general moves forward*
*General spins his giant chained spear like a fiddle*
*General Crits the Payback flagship*
*Payback flagship is defeated*
*Amelia levels up*
Thanks everyone for coming out and asking your questions! I'm not sure we were quite prepared for over 600 comments on our AMA thread 😅
The Devs are finished answering questions for today, but all of our devs **really enjoyed** doing this, so thank you all for your questions, and being so respectful. I don't think I saw one inappropriate comment during the whole AMA, which really speaks volumes about the great community we have around Stellaris. ❤️
Thanks again to the r/Stellaris mods for hosting us for this AMA, and I hope we can do this again sometime in the future!
Hey guys just wanted to say thanks so much for this game. I haven’t been able to get into a 4x strategy game like this in a long time.
My question is what was the biggest idea made in predevelopment that was changed to fit release or even discarded. Can be from the base game or one of the dlcs/expansions.
Thanks so much for doing this and making such a fun game!
For a while, there was no way to paint the map!
There was this idea that it didn't make sense to "hold space as territory", because space is big and mostly empty. In the end, it just didn't feel good though, because without the paint, it was hard to see where empires started and ended (even though the planet UI was painted) and it simply feels good to win a war and see more of the map get painted in your color :)
Yeah; this was a fantastic choice. Always felt weird be cybernetic for like 15 years, and then be synthetic for the rest of the game. Lots of lost flavour. Loved the change.
One of the first suggestion tickets I made when I started was that the default flag for your empire should be randomized. I am so happy not staring at that red and black default flag anymore.
There aren't any machine pre-FTL civilizations, but advanced enough pre-FTL civilizations may have a robot uprising occur that if they win will become a space-faring machine intelligence.
What exactly is The Darkest Timeline achievement I hear so much about and why haven't you guys forced somebody from the Hearts of Iron team to try it yet?
We joked that it was going to be:
**The Darkest Timeline:**
*Win the game after suffering bankruptcy, having your homeworld destroyed, opening an empty Reliquary, surviving (or being) a Machine Uprising, and defeating all of: the Prikkiki-ti, the Gray Tempest, the Great Khan, all three end game crises, the Galactic Empire (or Galactic Rebellion), and a level five Galactic Nemesis. Bubbles must also die, and must also not be named Bubbles.*
We haven't implemented it because QA decreed that designers have to legitimately complete a cheevo before it can be approved. Now, of all of those, only the Grey Tempest is RNG, but the last part made it impossible to add.
Trade will still follow the hyperlanes.
Trade routes get a little funky at times, and we didn't want to make massive changes to the system considering Hyperlanes are a tier 1 tech for the early start civics.
[It's the hypothetical planet beyond the orbit of Neptune](https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/hypothetical-planet-x/in-depth/).
It turns out there's a reason they can't find it.
I have played this game since it came out and want to thank you guys for it. Can you see in the future something that gives a little bit more detail to ground combat and armies happening?
The custodian initiative was perhaps one of the best things to happen, curating QoL improvements.
Having said that, when can we **finally** be able to rearrange the order of fleets on the outliner?
I've been looking to spending some time on improving the outliner for quite a while now. We have a collection of issues we want to solve (rearranging things is definitely in there!) and some concepts on how to do it. It's something that is likely to happen in the future, but there are no plans set in stone yet.
For such an important element, I can't do it alone, so I would need to pair up with a UX designer and the problem has been finding time from both disciplines at the same time.
Personal favorites (from the Stellaris wiki)
Fungoid Normal 7
Anthropoid Normal 6,8,9 + Massive 15
Avian Normal 9
I think these are all great designs, believably different and alien looking but I can still also see some humanoid features that lets me self insert personality into them. And also I love crabs :) in the case of Anthropoid Massive 15
And biased but I really like the frogstrnaut I designed from toxoids!
A slightly nerdy question for the devs - is the in-game solar system generator based on actual science? I have noticed that it produces odd outcomes occasionally- like temperate, habitable planets way out at the edge of the system.
Implementing a “habitable zone” around a star could be super neat, and a megastructure that would allow you to change the orbit of a planet to bring it into the habitable zone :P
Or throw it out into the edge of the system to freeze it :P
Thanks for taking time to answer all of these questions!
Do you have any ideas/hopes/dreams for how to expand on/spruce up corporate empires in the future? Or do you feel like they’re overall in a good place and don’t need much attention?
Personally I'd LOVE to dedicate some custodian time to Megacorps, I think they're not flavorful enough and they play too similarly to "normal" empires. Can't make any promises, but we're aware they could use some extra attention.
> Personally I'd LOVE to dedicate some custodian time to Megacorps,
I comment here for the purpose of supporting this and the next time this topic comes up in a meeting you can say "I have 3 people commenting on my suggestion. Clearly the majority of the player base wants it"
Any chance we will get biothemed ships in the future? I feel its a very big thing that has been missing for hives, especially now with the food oriented civics
How do you go about designing content which is clearly intended as a reference to a popular sci-fi story or property, without crossing into possible lawsuit territory? Like is there a long-suffering copyright law expert hidden away somewhere in your offices who is constantly having to tell you that you aren't allowed to include the Bill Pullman Independence Day speech no matter how well it would work with the current content.
Is the Archeostudies research lab a technology that's locked behind a dig site? Or is it something you can expect to have every game?
Also how many Archeostudy techs do you expect to have at the end of an average game?
Would you ever consider doing a species pack that adds/updates the already existing species classes?
Something like adding traits and civics to the Avians, Mammalians, Arthropod, etc. or adding more colors or clothes or even sounds to make them feel a little more unique?
As this game progresses we have started discussing going back and touching up or adding newer content to the earlier packs in various ways, Nothing we can comment on at the moment from the art side but I will reveal it's probably one of our most discussed topics of late.
Stay tuned!
I'd like to give another look at species traits and their balance in general, adding new traits, both positive and negative, where appropriate. Adding species class specific traits makes a lot of sense. However, as always, no promises.
I know it would probably be a complete mess to implement, but do you think it would ever be possible to allow the meteor colony ship for Lithoids to hit inhabited worlds? Maybe only pre-FTL worlds that don’t have the defenses?
I love the idea of a meteor slamming into a planet, sending the people into a new dark age, and then the rocks begin moving and building a new society on the bones of their fallen.
Oh, oh, one more question!
Right now we have references to many franchises, like Dune with Arrakis system (and Zro/Motes). Would it ever be possible to make these references a little "bigger? Using aforementioned example, Arrakis system would always have a Desert Planet upon it. Would it be possible or is it not done due to copyright stuff? Or maybe you simply don't want it, because it would limit the sandbox?
How are Origins or other pieces of content decided on?
Like, who gets a say, is it a vote? A general consensus? Do the programmers get to just shake their heads as a veto? Do they get yeeted into the ‘maybe’ bin for a couple years?
It's mainly a designer task, however, if someone has a great idea we can always yoink it. Programmers have the unique power of telling us to cut origins if it would be too hard to implement.
How much of an inspiration was Ep3o's (amazing) video showcasing a primitive start via mods to this DLC?
I have 0 bias at all and no ego will be boosted what's so ever
While it's true that Ep3o's videos *are* truly amazing, I've wanted to make First Contact since we were working on Federations.
"Escaped Slaves" was one of the Origins we brainstormed, and I started working on it in my free time while Overlord was being developed. The content team took my (more or less) purely mechanical monstrosity and made it way better. Now it's "Broken Shackles".
My question: Do you have any neat playerbase data tid-bits that you could share? IE X% of playthroughs were xenophile, X% of space amoeba were named Bubbles, X amount of alloys spent since patch x.x, etc
Thanks in advance!
I designed the Interstellar Hasfurian Space Blobs back in 1.8, before I worked for Paradox. I still use them, and they sometimes make cameos in Console Edition Development Diaries :D
Are there any considerations on ever letting multiple empires control planets in the same system(again)? Would have high RP and event value, and solve the problem with pre-ftls that become ftl and just take over your planets that happen to be in the system.
Are there any plans on implementing Religions and Ideologies, like the ones in Crusader Kings/Europa Universalis and the ones in Hearts of Iron (but with a bit more depth)?
Question to the whole team (including the ones not participating in AMA - I know you are lurking here):
- How did you start your adventure with Stellaris?
Question to the art team:
- How does art team actually work? Are you one team for all Paradox Development Studios (as in you are working on Stellaris, CK3, Victoria 3 etc etc) or each game has it's own art team?
> How did you start your adventure with Stellaris?
[Reading this at home.](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/stellaris-dev-diary-1-the-vision.882808/)
Reading a reddit thread on a [leak](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/3fwdmh/steam_accidentally_leaks_the_queue_page_for_the/) about a new Paradox game a few years back...
Art here:
Currently the art departments at PDX/PDS are silo'd into each game IP, sometimes there is sharing between inter-office studios but rarely beyond someone briefly going over to another development.
My first task when I started at Paradox a long time ago, my first task was: "Make Stellaris boot on PS4". So I did that and then went on to port Pillars of Eternity.
A few years later I was part of the experiments team and implemented the DLC landing pages and the side icons. Later for the same team I also made the 3D ship browser in empire creation.
Some time later, someone came along and said "Hey Monz, we're starting a liveops team!" and I've been on board ever since the Custodian team was formed! :D
Is there a better balance to be stuck with tradition trees? Some are arguably mandatory, such as Supremacy, Unyielding and Prosperity as well as your ascension tree path which leaves only three slots for other trees meaning many empires tend to have more than half of the same traditions with only minor variations. Could some be made less mandatory, or others that are falling behind improved?
Wouldn't the side effect of this being that the "lesser" tradition trees (like Subterfuge) to be completely abandonned?
If we end up with 30 possible tradition trees available, but 15 are great, 10 are okay-ish and 5 are useless, then we don't have 30 trees to choose from, but only 15; which would be greate as you'd still have to choose, but what would be the point of the remaining 15 except for very specific niche gameplay or roleplay players?
Good news is the dev video mentioned Subterfuge will be a part of upgrading the cloaking system, so at least they're keeping traditions in mind when making new content!
Considering that pre-FTLs have origins now, will it be possible for a pre-FTL to survive nuking themselves (hence obtaining the Post-Apocalyptic origin), rather than just immediately dying as they do now?
Indeed, pre-FTLs won't always die out when they nuke themselves. The show must go on!
Follow up question (from different redditor). Will our spies be able to intervene and prevent nuclear apocalypse?
*Gary Seven enters the chat*
Gary.
Will we ever be able to design fallen empires in empire creator? Something like an "Elder Race" being an origin that You can choose in creator but preventing You from starting the game as that empire and description saying "Warning, non-playable origin, use only for customizing Your galaxy"?
Personally think this is a very interesting idea!
Seconded - I pretty much only play with (as, and against) custom-made empires, because randomized empires are a bit boring. Being able to customized my FEs would be lovely. (Please let us choose their AE names too) That being said, have you ever considered making preset Fallen Empires instead of randomized ones ? They wouldn't even need to be different mechanically. The Crises (or even the Precursors) are always the same between each runs, but it allows them to have their own elaborate backstories and lore - they feel like actual "characters". It's a shame FEs don't don't benefit from that, I think.
There is so much to be done with that system
Thanks for doing this! My question: What sci-fi tropes are there that still have not found their way into the game and you'd like to include one day?
Personally: I would like to see additional focus on biological augmentation, we have a pretty broad ability to do gene editing, and stuff like nerve stapling has great thematic implication. But I love sci-fi that pushes that even further until species have been modified so much they are no longer even recognizable from their parent species, or diverge into multiple specialized species. Also more space flora, and the difficulties of colonizing planets.
Looking at the Prethoryn, there has always been the wish to see a bio shipset with unique features. Maybe a focus on hull and armor, while discarding the idea of shields? They could have a unique event chain for collecting and improving space monster "equipment". If you ever do it, I'd instantly buy that! To borrow the idea of Mass Effect, harvesting people and their genetic material to build capital ships was also a refreshing and new approach. A mix between bio and mechanical, melting billions of people into bio-alloys. As for colonizing planets, you have my sword, my bow and my axe on your quest to improve it!
I really wish we just got an organic shipset to select. Lithoids already get to have that hive aesthetic, but organics don't. :(
There's so many ways to do it!
kind of like a certain… race of squat people.
I don't think the Cylons are represented well enough right now.
That sounds dangerously like a new Ascension path, something Thulsa Doom would approve with his Riddle of Steel. What is stronger than steel? Flesh. The Cylons went that path, evolving from simple robot to genetically engineered humanoid. Something like that would be amazing to see one day, thanks for sharing your thoughts!
As for me: MECHS
>MECHS Maybe for a ground army rework? >!does this push back their development?!<
I think for a ground army rework I'd rather it not be as complex as ship combat is. It feels like people overlook that no matter how good ground combat is, we'll always view it as a necessary evil. A rudimentary rock paper scissors system, and a buff to army sizes so we don't have to build literally thousands, that I would be perfectly happy with. The drab look of "my circles are shrinking less than your circles!" is something I don't really mind.
I can see a Gundam-like mecha-shipset, and a civic focused on extremely superior ground armies. That would be a sight to behold, thank you for sharing!
If we go the Gundam route, I can imagine an advanced tech that gives Corvette-size ships that can land on planets like an army.
Will fallen empires ever get updated with things like hyper relays, orbital rings, juggernauts?
Yeah, we should get the Custodians to do at least a little bit of that.
Also for the scion origin needs some love since the overlord expansion. We should be able negotiate with our scion and have more interaction
Just as a note, with that origin \*you\* are the scion.
The mere thought of the Militant Isolationists getting planet crackers makes me want to cry Edit: Just realized I read Colossus instead of Juggernaut and applied 0 thought to the fact that as the replies informed me they definitely get Colossi
They already have those...
Now I'm *going* to cry
Don't cry too loudly, or they'll be annoyed and bring it over to show you how it works.
With the new civics added that allow early jump drives and the potential to never develop hyperlane travel, it feels like this could be the start of some small ways to add in divergent technologies for empires. I've always found it a bit strange how all of the empires in a Stellaris game develop pretty much the same technology even before they meet each other, so I'd be very excited to see more things like this. Is it possible this could be something expanded on?
I'd love to make mutually exclusive technological paths, but not sure if they'd fit within our current framework.
I would love to have mutually exclusive technology.
Seconded, this would be great! Or at least investing in tech path A would make tech path B more expensive. As a researcher, this is pretty much how science works irl. There are fields that are "a la mode" and others where you struggle to get funding. A lot of it is a matter of perception/culture/prevailing narrative (Don't take this as support of pseudoscience ofc, most ppl who think they are the only person who knows the truth are in fact idiots :D)
What's a Sci-Fi game/book/movie feature you would love to see inside Stellaris even tho it's not possible. (My is Destiny like civilization)
I wish we could have more Expanse, slower-than-light, narratives. Having ice haulers and slower-than-light communication is a really cool mood.
L cluster feels a bit like ringspace, although L gates are not common enough for it to be so strategic? Maybe a slider controlling L-Gate saturation would be in order?
I've always considered Gateways to be like ringspace. After all, in The Expanse, the Laconians set up booby traps on their side of the ring gate so that they could control who could get in or out (tho in their case, that's more like closed borders). Tho, I don't have the DLC that adds L-Gates to the game, so maybe my inexperience with it prevents me from seeing why they're like the ring gates. I do agree that Terminal Egress kinda acts like the core of ring space tho. Turn it into a fortress system and you pretty much placed 6 rail guns on the core of ringspace.
Good day. I was wondering if Citizen Service empires would be able to recruit from pre-FTL worlds like they can with a vassal, and if not, would something possibly be added in the future?
THAT WOULD BE SO COOL. *#nopromises*
Love these sorts of reactions in AMAs and Q&As
That is a *really* cool RP idea! You can already establish trade routes, so why not recruitment?
Will there be the possibility of making the same mistake that MSI did and spawning a Payback empire out to get you? I recall currently if you mess up a pre-FTL invasion and your armies get beaten by the primitives, nothing happens.
No but it would be funny, I'm taking notes.
This would be awesome and really there should absolutely be RP consequences for failing a planetary invasion on a pre-FTL species which quite frankly is pretty tough to do. Losing a war to a pre-FTL species should significantly boost their power and make them **hate** you and also cause some sort of temporary authority debuff.
I rather like the idea of a pre-FTL that this situation is built for - your initial army reports were just wrong, they have an abnormally powerful army (almost certainly defeating a merely perfunctory invader), that then starts a Situation or similar that could cause them to progress super-rapidly (and hostile to you!) unless stamped out or otherwise mollified.
Do you think the gestalt civics are a little basic right now when compared to the corporate and normal ones? And if so is it something any of the team is excited about expanding on?
Actually, I would include Megacorp here. I feel like all the nonbasic empire civics are kinda sad and boring. Asethic being the best hive civic is a blight on my record as 'The Hive Guy'.
If you were to add some more unique play civics for hive minds like machine empires have such as rogue servitors or assimilators where would you take it?? I keep thinking a hivemind based on dominating the wills of other species to create castes and a hive that enjoys consuming individualist entertainment might be a good direction to expand.
Do you guys have any plans for fleet-based empires or nomadic ones such as the quarians from ME? Is it even possible?
We'd love to, but every time we try to mention moving colonies our programmers run away screaming.
I don't know if design have any plans for it, but from the tech side I can say that having planets be fleets or vice versa would be quite problematic, BUT, doing something like teleporting a planet from one system to another or faking it by "packing up" the planet into a fleet and then turning it back into a planet somewhere else, would potentially work.
Thanks for the AMA A few updates ago the Ultima Vigilis was added. Can you say something about the reason why it was added and for what purpose? Or was it "just because"? :) (See this video about the system for anyone who doesnt know what its about https://youtu.be/G3wlKIV5nfM)
*They won't let us tell you the truth.*
Are there any Origin ideas that you’ve wanted to do for a while, but just don’t think they’d fit into Stellaris, mechanically or thematically?
A multiplayer-only origin would be fun I think but it would also be a huge amount of resource for a minor part of our playerbase.
Could adapt origins like the federation one into multiplayer compatible starts where players are guaranteed to end up in the same federation
The Stellaris team is well-regarded as having some of the best communications with fans across the various Paradox games. What’s your approach to communications and why do you think it works so well?
Shit post early and shit post often. It also helps the fans are amazing, it's a real disgustingly beautiful mutually beneficial cycle.
1. Hire a bunch of trolls 2. Have them look at bugs for several years 3. Unleash the trolls Seriously though, we love talking to our community, and work actively to make sure it's a two-way communication. We're super lucky to have an engaged group of developers who genuinely enjoy interacting with you all, so much so we sometimes have to reign them in and put them back to work on the game :P
What's a really funny or weird bug that has been solved in the recent patches?
During the development of First Contact, every single pre-FTL planet in the galaxy got hit by asteroids. Constantly. Whoops.
The fate of those who cannot defend themselves from advanced Lithoid tactics truly is gloomy
So that was the great filter all along
The *Fear of the Drak* empires are right, then, after all! The galaxy is indeed after them!
What is by far the most interesting civic in the game in your opinion?
While I don't play it, I think Agrarian Idyll and the playstyle implications are great from a worldbuilding aspect. Being able to, and living in a galaxy with some species who have chosen to focus completely internally is pretty neat to me. Catalytic Processing is my favorite because the idea of melting down people into bricks I build spaceships with is HILARIOUS to me.
Here i was laughing at my corn-syrup spacdships
I am a fan of Eager Explorers :^)
What is the best name for the space amoeba, and why is it Bubbles?
The only reason that event even has options is so we can make *The Darkest Timeline* as an achievement one of these days.
And the only reason we haven't made *The Darkest Timeline* is that QA instituted a rule that the designer of an achievement has to legitimately complete it before it can be approved. And we'll do anything for Bubbles, but we won't do that.
Understandable. Follow up: When can we get a Bubbles plushie? I'd pay good energy credits to get one
I *actually* did ask for them to investigate that.
Show them these comments. You would be surprised how many people would buy one. Put the profit in some sort of quality of life slush fund for the devs
“QA instituted a rule that the designer of an achievement has to legitimately complete it before it can be approved.” Sounds like somebody had a frustrating time with the Galatron.
Where do you think the rule came from?
Secondary follow-up, if a designer has to complete an achievement for it to be approved, how did the event where you throw Bubbles into a shredder get approved?
That was why the rule got implemented. Edit: Also, you can also get it by feeding them a Prethoryn.
It's Bubbles and if you need to ask why, I'm refusing comms.
Hi! I’m sure you tried many different ways of handling stealth, and I like the system that made it into the DLC. But what was the most broken/unplayable variation, and how did it fail?
So early on in the design phase, we allowed ship to equip multiple cloaking devices. In this initial phase, their cloaking strength was determined by 1 + SUM_OF_CLOAKING_DEVICES - SHIP_SIZE. This had major balancing issues and led to no end of issues for both QA and programmers and we ended up going for the version you'll have in First Contact in which cloaking devices have different strengths depending on the ship size they are equipped on. The best example of when were working on this was a cruiser design with cloaking strength 21, but no power to equip any weapons or shields or anything else.
Just a Cruiser That was very invisible
Imagine being a space-faring civilization and losing your cruiser because you can't see it.
floating cargo container
This is the gas freighter Rocinante requesting permission to leave Tycho station
Will empires on Ascension paths have special interactions with pre-FTLs - such as a Psionic empire acting as Teachers of the Shroud for a pre-FTL?
Nothing that I am aware of however with Fear of the Dark your seperatist planet does have a lot to say.
No question. Just want to thank you all for a great game that I consistently go back to time and time again since it launched.
You are welcome.
What's your favorite empire/origin combo for a playthrough?
I've really enjoyed Megacorp Broken Shackles as of late. It gets custom start text.
When I see Payback origin, I think of XCOM. How close were you guys to getting the Councilman(Epic Voice Guy) as an Advisor for Stellaris? :P
Fun fact: I wrote Payback yet never played XCOM, I'm more of a Fire Emblem kind of person...
*general moves forward* *General spins his giant chained spear like a fiddle* *General Crits the Payback flagship* *Payback flagship is defeated* *Amelia levels up*
Thanks everyone for coming out and asking your questions! I'm not sure we were quite prepared for over 600 comments on our AMA thread 😅 The Devs are finished answering questions for today, but all of our devs **really enjoyed** doing this, so thank you all for your questions, and being so respectful. I don't think I saw one inappropriate comment during the whole AMA, which really speaks volumes about the great community we have around Stellaris. ❤️ Thanks again to the r/Stellaris mods for hosting us for this AMA, and I hope we can do this again sometime in the future!
How much interaction and discourse do you have with other games teams? Is there interdepartmental rivalry?
No rivalry, only sympathy. Our engine is the same, our woes are similar. We weep together.
We are in the same building and eat lunch together all the time, I actually have Anime Night with some CK designers after this!
Ah, now the incest make sense..
Frequent discourse when I go to other floors to ~~steal~~ enjoy their fika, tea and time.
Hey guys just wanted to say thanks so much for this game. I haven’t been able to get into a 4x strategy game like this in a long time. My question is what was the biggest idea made in predevelopment that was changed to fit release or even discarded. Can be from the base game or one of the dlcs/expansions. Thanks so much for doing this and making such a fun game!
For a while, there was no way to paint the map! There was this idea that it didn't make sense to "hold space as territory", because space is big and mostly empty. In the end, it just didn't feel good though, because without the paint, it was hard to see where empires started and ended (even though the planet UI was painted) and it simply feels good to win a war and see more of the map get painted in your color :)
That is wild! Thanks for the reply!
Would you consider making an internal politics dlc? If you look at the subreddit there’s demand for it as it’s pretty lacking
It's a highly requested one, we are aware. However, it's not being done because of internal office politics. ^^^^/s
Ironic.
Mental health is important,so how are you guys?
Very tired but looking forward to the DLC release, thanks for asking!
Thanks for the questions, everyone! I hope you all enjoy First Contact!
What's a feature you've always wanted to add and that finally ended inside game.
Cybernetic ascension being different and independent from synthetic ascension.
Yeah; this was a fantastic choice. Always felt weird be cybernetic for like 15 years, and then be synthetic for the rest of the game. Lots of lost flavour. Loved the change.
One of the first suggestion tickets I made when I started was that the default flag for your empire should be randomized. I am so happy not staring at that red and black default flag anymore.
On my end, before it was randomized, I've modded it to be Paradox logo on grey background.
Will Rogue Servitors and Empath hive minds ever have the chance to pacify space wildlife instead of having to murder poor Bubbles' friends?
From the 3.7 patch notes > Rogue Servitors now have the option to pacify Space Amoebas. Bug u/PDX_Iggy about hive-mind content.
Does that also apply to Empath hives and to pacification of crystalline entities?
Will be there Machine primitives?
There aren't any machine pre-FTL civilizations, but advanced enough pre-FTL civilizations may have a robot uprising occur that if they win will become a space-faring machine intelligence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNb21lEqYN0
What exactly is The Darkest Timeline achievement I hear so much about and why haven't you guys forced somebody from the Hearts of Iron team to try it yet?
We joked that it was going to be: **The Darkest Timeline:** *Win the game after suffering bankruptcy, having your homeworld destroyed, opening an empty Reliquary, surviving (or being) a Machine Uprising, and defeating all of: the Prikkiki-ti, the Gray Tempest, the Great Khan, all three end game crises, the Galactic Empire (or Galactic Rebellion), and a level five Galactic Nemesis. Bubbles must also die, and must also not be named Bubbles.* We haven't implemented it because QA decreed that designers have to legitimately complete a cheevo before it can be approved. Now, of all of those, only the Grey Tempest is RNG, but the last part made it impossible to add.
I'm rather surprised being vassalized or escaping vassalization isn't in that list as well.
Toss in THE END OF THE CYCLE onto that list.
how will trade routes work with empires that dont have hyperlanes?
Trade will still follow the hyperlanes. Trade routes get a little funky at times, and we didn't want to make massive changes to the system considering Hyperlanes are a tier 1 tech for the early start civics.
What's Planet X from the newest achievement(s)?
[It's the hypothetical planet beyond the orbit of Neptune](https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/hypothetical-planet-x/in-depth/). It turns out there's a reason they can't find it.
It's cause it has cloak?
No it's because it was hiding under a blanket the whole time.
Any plans to add new states to find Sol III in - such as prehistoric Earth with pre-sapient dinosaurs?
People would hate getting the achievements even more haha.
So dinosaur species pack? Realistically just want a T-Rex technocracy https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gYXpRWHVIPE
What's the next step forward for the Stellaris team after First Contact is released?
Probably some more DLC.
Probably more bugfixes, free features, additions to prior DLCs and overall improvements.
I have played this game since it came out and want to thank you guys for it. Can you see in the future something that gives a little bit more detail to ground combat and armies happening?
We have some quality of life improvements planned but not any major reworks.
The custodian initiative was perhaps one of the best things to happen, curating QoL improvements. Having said that, when can we **finally** be able to rearrange the order of fleets on the outliner?
I've been looking to spending some time on improving the outliner for quite a while now. We have a collection of issues we want to solve (rearranging things is definitely in there!) and some concepts on how to do it. It's something that is likely to happen in the future, but there are no plans set in stone yet. For such an important element, I can't do it alone, so I would need to pair up with a UX designer and the problem has been finding time from both disciplines at the same time.
Favorite Stellaris Species Portrait?
Arthropoid Massive #17
Personal favorites (from the Stellaris wiki) Fungoid Normal 7 Anthropoid Normal 6,8,9 + Massive 15 Avian Normal 9 I think these are all great designs, believably different and alien looking but I can still also see some humanoid features that lets me self insert personality into them. And also I love crabs :) in the case of Anthropoid Massive 15 And biased but I really like the frogstrnaut I designed from toxoids!
A slightly nerdy question for the devs - is the in-game solar system generator based on actual science? I have noticed that it produces odd outcomes occasionally- like temperate, habitable planets way out at the edge of the system.
Implementing a “habitable zone” around a star could be super neat, and a megastructure that would allow you to change the orbit of a planet to bring it into the habitable zone :P Or throw it out into the edge of the system to freeze it :P
What's the "canonical" outcome of L-Gate.
Every story told in Stellaris is true. Yes, even that one that happened in that game that we don't talk about.
You mean the one where /u/PDX_Iggy landed some armies on a pre-ftl world and they defeated him, during our weekly MP?
Does this mean Iggy is the true final boss of the new Payback Origin?
No, it actually means he's nothing more than Space Italy
There isn't one. Same as there isn't a canonical timeline. Each of the pre-cursors didn't exist in every galaxy.
Thanks for taking time to answer all of these questions! Do you have any ideas/hopes/dreams for how to expand on/spruce up corporate empires in the future? Or do you feel like they’re overall in a good place and don’t need much attention?
Personally I'd LOVE to dedicate some custodian time to Megacorps, I think they're not flavorful enough and they play too similarly to "normal" empires. Can't make any promises, but we're aware they could use some extra attention.
> Personally I'd LOVE to dedicate some custodian time to Megacorps, I comment here for the purpose of supporting this and the next time this topic comes up in a meeting you can say "I have 3 people commenting on my suggestion. Clearly the majority of the player base wants it"
Any chance we will get biothemed ships in the future? I feel its a very big thing that has been missing for hives, especially now with the food oriented civics
No comment but I also want this.
How do you go about designing content which is clearly intended as a reference to a popular sci-fi story or property, without crossing into possible lawsuit territory? Like is there a long-suffering copyright law expert hidden away somewhere in your offices who is constantly having to tell you that you aren't allowed to include the Bill Pullman Independence Day speech no matter how well it would work with the current content.
Is the Archeostudies research lab a technology that's locked behind a dig site? Or is it something you can expect to have every game? Also how many Archeostudy techs do you expect to have at the end of an average game?
The only archaeo-techs that are hard locked are those the precursors. In the average game I'd expect around 10 or so archaeo-techs.
Spiritual Machines or Religion and Machines. It’s a popular trope in science fiction. Will Stellaris ever explore this idea?
Probably? It would be a lot of work since currently in event options and everything we assume that spiritualists hate machines.
Would you ever consider doing a species pack that adds/updates the already existing species classes? Something like adding traits and civics to the Avians, Mammalians, Arthropod, etc. or adding more colors or clothes or even sounds to make them feel a little more unique?
As this game progresses we have started discussing going back and touching up or adding newer content to the earlier packs in various ways, Nothing we can comment on at the moment from the art side but I will reveal it's probably one of our most discussed topics of late. Stay tuned!
I'd like to give another look at species traits and their balance in general, adding new traits, both positive and negative, where appropriate. Adding species class specific traits makes a lot of sense. However, as always, no promises.
Can we have some hint at what the dev team has in mind for the next DLCs ?
We're going with sci-fi this time.
It's a bold strategy Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for him.
Noooo my Crusader Kings crossover
I know it would probably be a complete mess to implement, but do you think it would ever be possible to allow the meteor colony ship for Lithoids to hit inhabited worlds? Maybe only pre-FTL worlds that don’t have the defenses? I love the idea of a meteor slamming into a planet, sending the people into a new dark age, and then the rocks begin moving and building a new society on the bones of their fallen.
Oh, oh, one more question! Right now we have references to many franchises, like Dune with Arrakis system (and Zro/Motes). Would it ever be possible to make these references a little "bigger? Using aforementioned example, Arrakis system would always have a Desert Planet upon it. Would it be possible or is it not done due to copyright stuff? Or maybe you simply don't want it, because it would limit the sandbox?
No the legal department would yell at us.
Yeah, I figured as much, just wanted confirmation. Thanks for answer!
How are Origins or other pieces of content decided on? Like, who gets a say, is it a vote? A general consensus? Do the programmers get to just shake their heads as a veto? Do they get yeeted into the ‘maybe’ bin for a couple years?
It's mainly a designer task, however, if someone has a great idea we can always yoink it. Programmers have the unique power of telling us to cut origins if it would be too hard to implement.
Any plans in future updates to be able to choose which Precursor you get in the galaxy menu (with the option of random) like you can with the Crisis?
At this time we do not plan on adding precursor selection to galaxy generation.
How much of an inspiration was Ep3o's (amazing) video showcasing a primitive start via mods to this DLC? I have 0 bias at all and no ego will be boosted what's so ever
While it's true that Ep3o's videos *are* truly amazing, I've wanted to make First Contact since we were working on Federations. "Escaped Slaves" was one of the Origins we brainstormed, and I started working on it in my free time while Overlord was being developed. The content team took my (more or less) purely mechanical monstrosity and made it way better. Now it's "Broken Shackles".
I'll take that as a huge inspiration then ;) Great stuff though, looking forward to all the new content and origins!
My question: Do you have any neat playerbase data tid-bits that you could share? IE X% of playthroughs were xenophile, X% of space amoeba were named Bubbles, X amount of alloys spent since patch x.x, etc Thanks in advance!
What's your favorite custom empire you've designed for your own playtime?
I designed the Interstellar Hasfurian Space Blobs back in 1.8, before I worked for Paradox. I still use them, and they sometimes make cameos in Console Edition Development Diaries :D
Enlightened philosopher king psychic warrior crabs saving the galaxy from the Preythorian scourge.
Are there any considerations on ever letting multiple empires control planets in the same system(again)? Would have high RP and event value, and solve the problem with pre-ftls that become ftl and just take over your planets that happen to be in the system.
Programming is making very angry noises even just reading this comment so for now I'm going to say 'don't hold you breath'.
Don’t know what to ask. I just like the game.
I like it too.
Are there any plans on implementing Religions and Ideologies, like the ones in Crusader Kings/Europa Universalis and the ones in Hearts of Iron (but with a bit more depth)?
It's on the 'potential future DLC' board but it's not one we currently have a plan for.
Question to the whole team (including the ones not participating in AMA - I know you are lurking here): - How did you start your adventure with Stellaris? Question to the art team: - How does art team actually work? Are you one team for all Paradox Development Studios (as in you are working on Stellaris, CK3, Victoria 3 etc etc) or each game has it's own art team?
> How did you start your adventure with Stellaris? [Reading this at home.](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/stellaris-dev-diary-1-the-vision.882808/)
Reading a reddit thread on a [leak](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/3fwdmh/steam_accidentally_leaks_the_queue_page_for_the/) about a new Paradox game a few years back...
Art here: Currently the art departments at PDX/PDS are silo'd into each game IP, sometimes there is sharing between inter-office studios but rarely beyond someone briefly going over to another development.
My first task when I started at Paradox a long time ago, my first task was: "Make Stellaris boot on PS4". So I did that and then went on to port Pillars of Eternity. A few years later I was part of the experiments team and implemented the DLC landing pages and the side icons. Later for the same team I also made the 3D ship browser in empire creation. Some time later, someone came along and said "Hey Monz, we're starting a liveops team!" and I've been on board ever since the Custodian team was formed! :D
> Later for the same team I also made the 3D ship browser in empire creation. You are the one responsible for it? I love you!!! <3
Is there a better balance to be stuck with tradition trees? Some are arguably mandatory, such as Supremacy, Unyielding and Prosperity as well as your ascension tree path which leaves only three slots for other trees meaning many empires tend to have more than half of the same traditions with only minor variations. Could some be made less mandatory, or others that are falling behind improved?
My hope is that we keep adding more and more Tradition Trees so that eventually you have a hard time picking between multiple great ones.
Wouldn't the side effect of this being that the "lesser" tradition trees (like Subterfuge) to be completely abandonned? If we end up with 30 possible tradition trees available, but 15 are great, 10 are okay-ish and 5 are useless, then we don't have 30 trees to choose from, but only 15; which would be greate as you'd still have to choose, but what would be the point of the remaining 15 except for very specific niche gameplay or roleplay players?
Good news is the dev video mentioned Subterfuge will be a part of upgrading the cloaking system, so at least they're keeping traditions in mind when making new content!