v2.6.0 Changes Discussion Thread

[Ghostly]

Those are some excellent changes! I longed for some first contact wars that weren't caused by my own stupidity, and having actual fog of war in regards to spoilers is a vast improvement too.

May I suggest changing the "boarding action" bit to a "ground combat event"? This would include boarding actions but also make it possible to identify Rakhas, who wouldn't be able to get identified under current rules (as IIRC species with 100 xenophobia can't generate population intel? maybe their STO active sensors could generate an intel event, but that's terribly counterintuitive) and make Precursors and Raiders easier to identify as well. Swarm will let you know regardless.

Wrecks will usually appear in systems with planets. They may be in orbit and, if so, they are more likely to appear in orbit of planets with better environments.

I like the idea of a 'fallen race'. I could probably generate the race normally, then wipe it out, then pass a random amount of historical time to reduce what remains, including radiation. Substantial addition though, so might not be soon.

Fallen empires, especially ones generated by simulating the destruction of an actual race, do sound complex indeed. I understand postponing that as I would also like to see 2.6.0 before the decade's over Giving wrecks a more direct relationship with ruins feels like a rather natural addition though, albeit with a high enough ruin chance them spawning near low-CC worlds could be close enough. I still think having their tech level correlate with nearby ruin tech level would be neat as hell though.

Have you considered adding a startup setting for random wreck frequency?

[Serina]

-Snip-

The progression for refuelling is 20k, 30k, 40k, 60k, 90k, 135k, 200k, etc.

The small craft version still exists, with half the previous refuelling rate.

I do believe then that the main benefit you obtain from having more, smaller tankers is when your fleet is overall very low on fuel. What I mean by that is if you have one large tanker, and ten ships to refuel, then it can only refuel one ship at a time, and so depending on the fuel level of the fleet, you might run out of fuel on the other ships before you finish refueling the fleet, ( I do believe it refuels ship by ship, not the fleet as a whole). Having more numerous smaller tankers however allows you to not only double your refueling rate at the very minimum due to each needing a refueling system, but instead of only refueling one ship at a time, you can now refuel two, three etc, reducing the odds of your fleet running out of fuel while on the move as your tankers will move through your fleets twice as fast.

This generally isn't an issue if you have a tanker that can keep up and it's refueling capacity exceeds the total fuel burn of the fleet, but you can see where in certain cases this might lead to several interrupts for out of fuel. So I would like to request that you consider if another module or Tech can be added/researched that allows for increased simultaneous refueling. Whether this splits the total capacity or in a sense multiplies it is up to you, but it would be a workaround to smaller tankers being superior as you mentioned earlier. If one large Tanker can refuel say 4 ships at once(A good maximum, four ships flying in a plus formation around a tanker seems doable), it is doing the job of 4 smaller tankers. Though making the refueling systems heavier and more "powerful" as you've done would also shift the balance more in favour of larger tankers in general.

As for possible release dates to this long awaited update, are we looking at something late July/August if all goes well?

[Hazard]

Oh that is going to make tracking mineral production, stockpiles and usage so much easier.

[Zap0]

Will that track mineral usage for the past year, or since the start of the campaign?

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Will that track mineral usage for the past year, or since the start of the campaign?

Just for the past year.

[Ghostly]

Between pre-industrial and minor races, will we be getting conventional races as well? I suppose a race with conventional tech/industry wouldn't be too different from a pre-industrial one, except for offering more spoils to its conqueror as it's easier to convert conventional industries than to build brand new ones. Still would add more variety, though, and it'd be fun if such races became capable of progressing into the trans-newtonian era.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Between pre-industrial and minor races, will we be getting conventional races as well? I suppose a race with conventional tech/industry wouldn't be too different from a pre-industrial one, except for offering more spoils to its conqueror as it's easier to convert conventional industries than to build brand new ones. Still would add more variety, though, and it'd be fun if such races became capable of progressing into the trans-newtonian era.

Conventional is a lot trickier, because the AI has to manage the transition from conventional to TN, including all the basic research, which is not straightforward. I would have to add a huge number of exceptions into the AI code for capabilities it would normally expect to exist. I might do it one day, but it would be a major piece of work.

[Ghostly]

Conventional is a lot trickier, because the AI has to manage the transition from conventional to TN, including all the basic research, which is not straightforward. I would have to add a huge number of exceptions into the AI code for capabilities it would normally expect to exist. I might do it one day, but it would be a major piece of work.

The pre-TN to TN transition being the difficult part makes sense, but even without it, conventional races would still be interesting to encounter. Even if they can't ever tech up or really do anything with their industries, they'd just be another flavor of primitives with an even bigger prize for conquering them still not sure how the NPRs handle their industry, but I vividly remember my starter NPR failing to build a single STO battery during the year and a half it took me to invade their homeworld after defeating its existing defenses from orbit. That is of course assuming such races aren't in the game already, but I've never encountered one like that.

Also, I don't want to nag, but it really feels like you missed a rule for Alien Race Portraits that would allow Rakhas to get identified, as they have no populated colonies, ships, lifeboats or anything to generate ELINT off of (besides maybe their STO active sensors, but I really wouldn't want to rely on that out of all things). Making all ground combat events trigger portrait discovery instead of boarding actions only would fix that, allow players who don't use boarding to identify Precursors and Raiders as well, and frankly would make a lot of sense in general as it'd be quite hard to engage your enemy in glorious melee without ever seeing who you're fighting.

[Garfunkel]

I would also love to be able to encounter conventional races as they would nicely bridge the gap between preindustrial and minor races. If that feature was added, we could encounter races at all possible "levels" of the game - multi-system NPR, single-system NPR, minor race, conventional race, and preindustrial race. They don't need to be able to progress to TN level ever, either.

Can't wait to play the role of Stormtroopers fighting Ewoks!

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I would also love to be able to encounter conventional races as they would nicely bridge the gap between preindustrial and minor races. If that feature was added, we could encounter races at all possible "levels" of the game - multi-system NPR, single-system NPR, minor race, conventional race, and preindustrial race. They don't need to be able to progress to TN level ever, either.

Can't wait to play the role of Stormtroopers fighting Ewoks!

I guess one option is conventional-only Empires, rather than "conventional progressing to TN". They would have ground forces and a few non-TN facilities, but not research facilities so they are 'stuck' at that level. Maybe even some conventional-engined spacecraft and ordnance. I'll give it some thought.

[BwenGun]

Between pre-industrial and minor races, will we be getting conventional races as well? I suppose a race with conventional tech/industry wouldn't be too different from a pre-industrial one, except for offering more spoils to its conqueror as it's easier to convert conventional industries than to build brand new ones. Still would add more variety, though, and it'd be fun if such races became capable of progressing into the trans-newtonian era.

Conventional is a lot trickier, because the AI has to manage the transition from conventional to TN, including all the basic research, which is not straightforward. I would have to add a huge number of exceptions into the AI code for capabilities it would normally expect to exist. I might do it one day, but it would be a major piece of work.

Could you cheat to get the same result? Like have a timer start after the player first encounters a conventional civilisation, and then every three months after that they have a chance to gain a point towards TN, with it becoming more likely to gain points as time passes, and then once they hit a certain number it unlocks some/all of the starter TN techs and they then function like a regular AI faction?

[Serina]

-Snip-

They do apply to spoiler races. At the moment, you know immediately if you have met certain races, which takes away some of the fog of war. The only one where it is impossible is Swarm, because you can't board their ships in v2.6. However, I should have included aliens boarding your ships as a condition, which solves that one too.

Would it be possible to make it so that before you've positively identified, or heck, tried boarding the starswarm, then you still have an option to board them, but when boarding is initiated, you get a combat message along the lines of: No boarding possible, ship is biological in nature? After that you can't board the ships at all. This could also become an interesting feature if you ever decide to add aquatic races or races with particularly high gravity requirements, I can only imagine trying to operate space rated guns in liquid methane under 5xG while attacked by angry space Piranha's would be.. challenging.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

-Snip-

They do apply to spoiler races. At the moment, you know immediately if you have met certain races, which takes away some of the fog of war. The only one where it is impossible is Swarm, because you can't board their ships in v2.6. However, I should have included aliens boarding your ships as a condition, which solves that one too.

Would it be possible to make it so that before you've positively identified, or heck, tried boarding the starswarm, then you still have an option to board them, but when boarding is initiated, you get a combat message along the lines of: No boarding possible, ship is biological in nature? After that you can't board the ships at all. This could also become an interesting feature if you ever decide to add aquatic races or races with particularly high gravity requirements, I can only imagine trying to operate space rated guns in liquid methane under 5xG while attacked by angry space Piranha's would be.. challenging.

What I will do at some point is allow ships to know when a contact is biological - in the same way you can tell the difference in military and commercial engine emissions.

[Louella]

What I will do at some point is allow ships to know when a contact is biological - in the same way you can tell the difference in military and commercial engine emissions.

Engine type: Biological ?

And contacts would show as Thermal B300 for a 300 power bio-engine ?

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

What I will do at some point is allow ships to know when a contact is biological - in the same way you can tell the difference in military and commercial engine emissions.

Engine type: Biological ?

And contacts would show as Thermal B300 for a 300 power bio-engine ?

Yes, something on those lines.