Stellaris

[Undercovergeek]

Ah - that explains that - I now can’t get to the Gaia planets as there’s no way round - I’ve tried to make friends with both but they won’t open their borders - I’m going to have to go for the megacorps or the machine world

Is it still the paradox game of old - you have to practically take over the whole enemy just to get the 2 or three planets out of them you wanted?

[Martok]

Today's dev diary isn't anything special.  Rather, it's a summary of the Q&A session from earlier this month: 


https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/stellaris-dev-diary-255-overlord-q-a.1527771/

There are over 100 questions asked & answered, which I'm not even going to try and summarize.  You're better off just watching the video, where Stephen and "Mirror Universe Stephen" answer (more or less) some of the more interesting questions that were put forward by the community. 

[Martok]

Is it still the paradox game of old - you have to practically take over the whole enemy just to get the 2 or three planets out of them you wanted?

Short answer, yes. 

Though I have found that the number of systems I'm claiming does make a difference in the war-score needed to achieve victory.  So it still helps -- somewhat -- to be claiming only a handful of systems, as opposed to a bunch of them. 

[Martok]

ASpec has another podcast interview with game director Stephen Muray.  Topics include the aftermath of Overlord's somewhat messy launch, Situations, and Hyper Relays: 

[Undercovergeek]

Is it fixed yet?

[Martok]

This week's dev diary is largely filler, unless perhaps you work as a professional artist.  Still, I do always find it interesting what art teams in games development use/find as inspiration(s) for their various designs & models: 


https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/stellaris-dev-diary-256-making-a-station.1529138/

Is it fixed yet?

Short answer: yes.  Longer answer: depends on what issues from the Overlord/Cepheus launch have been especially bothering you. 

The 3.4.3 patch (I refuse to call it a "hotfix") from a couple weeks ago seems to have done a credible job of addressing the most critical and/or annoying problems for the majority of players.  If you're wanting/waiting for the game to be "fully" "fixed" before you resume playing again, however, then you may want to wait for the 3.4.4 patch, which I'm estimating will be out in another two weeks or so. 


For myself, I'd probably be playing Stellaris again already -- *if* I wasn't already so occupied at the moment with Interstellar Space: Genesis and (to a lesser extent) Old World.  As it is, however, I'm content to wait for the 3.4.4 patch while I'm playing other things.   

[Martok]

Having since listened to the entire interview, it sounds like the 3.4.4 update now won't be coming out until the end of June or early July, shortly before the Paradox personnel take their annual summer break.  This was apparently due to the devs being able to get more of the fixes into the 3.4.3 patch than originally anticipated, thus decreasing the urgency of releasing 3.4.4 as quickly. 

Given that, I may hold off on firing up the game until then.  I'm still enjoying Interstellar Space: Genesis, and am looking to circle back around to Old World, so I'm not in any hurry right now. 

[Undercovergeek]

quick noob question - about to start a war to open a corridor between system a and b of mine - ill claim the planet/s that are creating the choke point but to max out the war score for me is it best to take the planets as well as the systems - so actual planetary invasion as opposed to neutralising the star bases and owning the area

[Martok]

Yes.  Invading & occupying planets helps a great deal -- probably more than any individual system, in fact. 

[Undercovergeek]

First test game scrapped - should have checked I had a path to the enemy before declaring war - none of my systems were connected to theirs - it all went wrong fairly quickly - game b been set up tonight

[Martok]

Fingers crossed you have better luck this time!  (And don't forget to grab those choke-point systems when/as you can!)   

[Undercovergeek]

Going to breathe and just get my head around vanilla stellaris

Briefly dabbled with 3 planets tall but I don’t understand the nuances

There’s swarms, planet eaters, pop eaters, slavers, wonderful tales of growing pops as food and selling that food on the galactic market - all deliciously evil and interesting but I don’t understand it yet

Going to go for a classic civ style find planets, populate and expand - I know this much and take it from there

[Martok]

You could always play as a Fanatic Purifier if you want to keep a generalist approach and still be evil -- or a Determined Exterminator if you like robots.   

[Undercovergeek]

All to come!!

Totally had the game open up today as I’d forgotten about outposts and improving them - couldn’t work out how everyone else was getting wider than me then I noticed adding a shipyard to an outpost makes it a proper starbase so just leave it as an outpost

[Martok]

Ah yes, that will definitely make a difference.    And don't forget to upgrade your Outposts to Starbases in critical chokepoint systems!  Make the enemy break their teeth on your defenses!