More details on the DLC!

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wminsing
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More details on the DLC!

Postby wminsing » Tue Aug 29, 2017 2:37 pm

http://store.steampowered.com/app/69828 ... _Legacies/

SO! Lots of exciting stuff; beyond the Tinkers we get a new NPC faction, new locations, some new mechanics for stations and some other exciting stuff. Really looking forward to this adding some additional depth to the game. What do folks think of the annoucement?

-Will

nweismuller
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Re: More details on the DLC!

Postby nweismuller » Tue Aug 29, 2017 2:53 pm

Definitely going to be interested to dig into this and work with the nitty-gritty details. Curious about purchase methods, since I usually play on the test updater, rather than on Steam...

zolobolo
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Re: More details on the DLC!

Postby zolobolo » Tue Aug 29, 2017 3:39 pm

Looks great and the list of features is also great.

One feature that I have not seen being mentioned on the forum are the "Arda Seed"
Their premise and the hint for upcoming Lore extensions and end-game crisis is a welcome surprise :)

My suggestion is: make sure the AI will use mobile bases and harmonization (we need to see the cold-heartless spread of the machine mind in the galaxy when fighting those bots :))

nweismuller
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Re: More details on the DLC!

Postby nweismuller » Tue Aug 29, 2017 4:09 pm

zolobolo wrote:My suggestion is: make sure the AI will use mobile bases and harmonization (we need to see the cold-heartless spread of the machine mind in the galaxy when fighting those bots :))


Yeah, I've been hoping they'd get the Gremak AI around to using enslavement more. I think the Gremak AI should probably be biased to shutting down dissidents hard with a slave collar- and this is a related thing.

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Arioch
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Re: More details on the DLC!

Postby Arioch » Tue Aug 29, 2017 6:13 pm

nweismuller wrote:Curious about purchase methods, since I usually play on the test updater, rather than on Steam...

If you're on the test version, then you won't have to worry about purchasing it. :D

zolobolo
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Re: More details on the DLC!

Postby zolobolo » Wed Aug 30, 2017 5:30 pm

Read the DEV diary on the seed. Have to say very impressive concept, and cool ideas how it connects to the lore and game mechanics.

It reminds me a bit of the aliens in Beyond Earth. There they were a huge letdown as they did not scale well, had no diplomacy options and did not serve an endgame scenario. Confident that it will work much better here as I can see they will be bound into diplo system.

Questions:
- Are Harpies going to relocate and reproduce now?
- Is the Herald going to wonder around on the map? Would be of course cool but need to consider how this would affect diplomacy especially on large maps (if diplo deal needs direct Herald contact, this can be denied if Herlad ships are taken down). Maybe have several Herald ships on larger maps?
- Are Herald(s) attackeable? Same consideration as above

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Arioch
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Re: More details on the DLC!

Postby Arioch » Wed Aug 30, 2017 6:08 pm

zolobolo wrote:- Are Harpies going to relocate and reproduce now?
- Is the Herald going to wonder around on the map? Would be of course cool but need to consider how this would affect diplomacy especially on large maps (if diplo deal needs direct Herald contact, this can be denied if Herlad ships are taken down). Maybe have several Herald ships on larger maps?
- Are Herald(s) attackeable? Same consideration as above

The baseline harpy swarms in normal space still don't move or reproduce on their own, but as the game goes on there will be new groups of harpies and higher-tier Seed units making forays from their bases in hyperspace, and eventually some of their reproductive infrastructure can spill out into normal space systems.

Details of Herald interaction are still being finalized, but the idea is that the Herald vessel periodically pops out of hyperspace and offers to trade, and then is gone again. To maintain continuous contact, you will need to be able to establish some hyperspace infrastructure yourself.

You will still be able to attack the harpies or any of the Seed units, including the Herald.

zolobolo
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Re: More details on the DLC!

Postby zolobolo » Wed Aug 30, 2017 8:25 pm

Arioch wrote:Details of Herald interaction are still being finalized, but the idea is that the Herald vessel periodically pops out of hyperspace and offers to trade, and then is gone again. To maintain continuous contact, you will need to be able to establish some hyperspace infrastructure yourself.

You will still be able to attack the harpies or any of the Seed units, including the Herald.


This system seems to circumwent the issues described. It should not be affected by map size and the Herald cannot be intercepted...
Guess the remaining time untill Herald pops up would be then visible in diplomacy screen , or maybe just an estimate like: within 10-15 turns it will pop up again but within that, determined via a random number generator

The way of maintaining continous contact sounds very thematic, nice :)

One more thing I noticed: Tinkers on the sample screenshot of the DLC have both forced labor and experiemnt available just like in case of slaves
I guess the idea is that they can be utilized the same way due to their mechanic nature, but there is a danger in here:

When this ability is combined with their natural khm... "naturalnes" when it comes to moral, it can create a micro-hell. As they would not be held back by the moral penalty, usage of this ability would be regular and sort-of obligatory on developed worlds. When there are numerous planets under player control, this gets probematic fast.

This was not an issue for the Gremak so far as they:
1. Mostly used their own pops when colonising and only conquered races were enslaved (a small portion of the overall pops and not present on all the planets)
2. Both slaves and other pops of the same race were hit by moral penalties, preventing the pacification of slaves for more resurce production and risking rebellions on distant planets - none of these balances would apply for the Tinkers as all Tinkers are always mechanic and would never rebell right?

A way around this would be to introduce moral penalty for Tinkers, and make them rebel, or not allow for these two features for harmonised pops and leave them as a slave specific option. I think both would equally be feasable, as it would make Slaves a viable option also for Tinkers, or make managing Tinkers also more complex by having to watch their moral as well

Another solution might be to apply a serious moral penalty towards all living pops within the empire + diplomatic penalty towards other empires when the two options are used

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Arioch
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Re: More details on the DLC!

Postby Arioch » Wed Aug 30, 2017 10:09 pm

Harmonized population cannot be enslaved; they are already under a form of control. Thus Tinkers and other Harmonized cyborgs can be used for Forced Labor or Science Experiments in a similar manner to slaves.

Using Forced Labor or Science Experiments reduces the target population by 1, so there's an inherent limit to how often it can be used. Neither slaves nor Harmonized cyborgs are affected by negative morale as long as the appropriate controls are in place, so morale of the target population has never been a major barrier to using these functions. The normal population growth of cyborgs is halved, so running out of population to spend will be a bigger problem for Tinkers than for Gremak.

I agree that Harmonizing population and spending them harshly can and should have more diplomatic consequences, but I think the same thing is true of slavery.

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Re: More details on the DLC!

Postby Wyvern » Wed Aug 30, 2017 11:38 pm

Speaking of Gremak and harmonization: are there any plans to allow (some?) of the native races to be harmonized or enslaved?

Aside: it makes perfect sense that you can't do either to Gaiads or Viscid (and possibly also the Pell), and several native races (Wremmit, Pell, Spice Traders, and Threshers come to mind) would need non-standardized statistics, but it'd seem reasonable for Scavengers and Algoran yetis...

This is actually one of the things that makes me less likely to play the Gremak to their stereotype: the boosts from Forced Labor or Science Experiments are, generally, smaller than the advantage to be gained from not pushing whatever minor races I acquire into active revolt with morale penalties.

Also on related topic: is there going to be an AI update to let it make more effective use of non-standard population types? For example, if you're playing as the Teros and you acquire a planet with Threshers, there's a large advantage to be had in spreading those Threshers to every ocean-biome you control; the current AI doesn't do this, which usually gives the player a sizeable mid-to-end-game advantage. Similarly, the Gremak should be spreading Enfi to every arid planet they acquire - or, arguably, to -every- planet so as to be able to take better advantage of Forced Labor & Science Experiments.

zolobolo
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Re: More details on the DLC!

Postby zolobolo » Thu Aug 31, 2017 5:29 am

Arioch wrote:Harmonized population cannot be enslaved; they are already under a form of control. Thus Tinkers and other Harmonized cyborgs can be used for Forced Labor or Science Experiments in a similar manner to slaves.


Yes, hence it seems that harmonisation is a better version of slavery and makes the later obsolete when available. Also assume it can be researched by reverse engineering harmonised pops or getting to it via and endgame tech due to the tech concept so far in the game

Arioch wrote:Using Forced Labor or Science Experiments reduces the target population by 1, so there's an inherent limit to how often it can be used. The normal population growth of cyborgs is halved, so running out of population to spend will be a bigger problem for Tinkers than for Gremak.


Haven't thought about this. It should work as long as the short term production benefit does not outweigh the long term loss of production which is doubled if reproduction speed is halved.
But it won't work for research as Tinkers do not produce research. Thus their pop amount does not directly contribute to research (except for building capacity) and sacrificing 1M pop per turn from large planets would be very tempting to do every turn

Arioch wrote:Neither slaves nor Harmonized cyborgs are affected by negative morale as long as the appropriate controls are in place, so morale of the target population has never been a major barrier to using these functions.


In case of slavery it does affect all other pop of the same race meaning: each time a pop is enslaved and used via one of the functions, the player runs into the risk of creating unrest on other planets. The player can chose to enslave all races of a specific type on all planets to avoid this but that takes a large ground force or slavedriver pop on each planet and thus usually not worth it.

This counterbalance effect is lost for Tinkers as they are both already all "enslaved" and also immune to moral effect, thus misusing them will not effect anything exempt their pop count on the specific planet, which is of no concern if the planet is big and not used for anything critical (production hub)

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Arioch
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Re: More details on the DLC!

Postby Arioch » Thu Aug 31, 2017 6:32 am

zolobolo wrote:
Arioch wrote:Harmonized population cannot be enslaved; they are already under a form of control. Thus Tinkers and other Harmonized cyborgs can be used for Forced Labor or Science Experiments in a similar manner to slaves.

Yes, hence it seems that harmonisation is a better version of slavery and makes the later obsolete when available. Also assume it can be researched by reverse engineering harmonised pops or getting to it via and endgame tech due to the tech concept so far in the game

Currently this is something only the Tinkers can do. There is more to being Harmonized than just being cyborgs; in order to be immune to morale effects, Harmonized cyborgs need to be connected to the collective via a Machine Altar. Other factions can research the cyborg tech, but currently this will only let them de-Harmonize colonists.

zolobolo wrote:
Arioch wrote:Neither slaves nor Harmonized cyborgs are affected by negative morale as long as the appropriate controls are in place, so morale of the target population has never been a major barrier to using these functions.

In case of slavery it does affect all other pop of the same race meaning: each time a pop is enslaved and used via one of the functions, the player runs into the risk of creating unrest on other planets. The player can chose to enslave all races of a specific type on all planets to avoid this but that takes a large ground force or slavedriver pop on each planet and thus usually not worth it.

This counterbalance effect is lost for Tinkers as they are both already all "enslaved" and also immune to moral effect, thus misusing them will not effect anything exempt their pop count on the specific planet, which is of no concern if the planet is big and not used for anything critical (production hub)

This situation isn't much different from current slaves and Gremak, who are immune to any negative morale associated with taking or keeping slaves. Harmonizing population will get you the same kind of negative modifiers from other non-cyborg populations as enslaving does.

wminsing
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Re: More details on the DLC!

Postby wminsing » Thu Aug 31, 2017 3:37 pm

Yea generally I would not worry about balance issues until we get a better sense of the mechanics; I suspect the 'harmonized cyborg' mechanic is deeper than 'no morale issues and can sacrifice them at will'.

-Will

zolobolo
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Re: More details on the DLC!

Postby zolobolo » Thu Aug 31, 2017 4:50 pm

Yes, will wait and see

It is good to see the mechanic has been analysed from all angles

wminsing
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Re: More details on the DLC!

Postby wminsing » Thu Aug 31, 2017 6:27 pm

I am particularly interested in seeing what makes the Arda such demanding allies; do they just ask for resources, or are their demands more.... disturbing (colonies, pop units, declare war on your most faithful friend....)?

-Will


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