You thought that we were done. You thought that maybe, just maybe, you were free from the weekly development diaries that have graced your eyes for the past 32 weeks. You were wrong. This week, Stellaris is on its maiden voyage; crossing the tumultuous seas of bug fixes, stinging criticisms, and all of the other post-release jitters that come with launching a game. Now we can look to the future.
So, don’t be surprised, but Doomdark has already said ” we will release a lot of expansions over the coming years. Each expansion will be accompanied by a major update (for Stellaris, these free updates will be named after famous science fiction authors) containing a whole bunch of completely free upgrades and improvements to the game in addition to regular bug fixes”. This follows in the tradition of free updates accompanied with paid for DLC that has kept players busy for years after release. That doesn’t mean that Doomdark hasn’t been listening to your criticisms of the game, specifically the mid-game. One area I was not at all surprised to get flak for is the lack of mid-game scripted content, however. We simply took too long getting all the early and late game stuff in and neglected a whole category of events called “colony events”, which were supposed to be the bread and butter of the mid-game for the Science Ships.
At the moment, there are three major updates for Stellaris, all free of course, that are slated for release between May and July. Here’re some details on what we can expect from our aptly science named updates:
“CLARKE” HIGHLIGHTS
- Fixes to the Ethic Divergence and Convergence issues. Currently, Pops tend to get more and more neutral (they lose Ethics, but rarely gain new ones.)
- The End of Combat Summary. This screen looks bad and also doesn’t tell you what you need to know in order to revise your ship designs, etc.
- Sector Management GUI: There are many issues with this, and we will try to get most of them fixed.
- Diplomacy GUI issues. This includes the Diplomatic Pop-Ups when other empires contact you, but also more and better looking Notifications, and more informative tooltips on wars, etc.
- AI improvements: Notably the Sector AI, but also plenty of other things. This kind of work is never “finished”…
- Myriads of bug fixes and smaller GUI improvements.
- Late game crises bugs. There were some nasty bugs in there, blocking certain subplots and various surprising developments.
- EDIT: Remaining Performance Issues. We know about them; they might even be hot fixed before Clarke.
- EDIT: Corvettes are too good.
“ASIMOV” HIGHLIGHTS (NOT SET IN STONE!)
- Border Access Revision: Borders are now open to your ships by default, although empires can choose to Close their borders for another empire (lowering your relations, of course.)
- Tributaries: New diplomatic status and corresponding war goals.
- Joint Declarations of War: You can ask other empires to join you for a temporary alliance in a war against a specific target.
- Defensive Pacts.
- Harder to form and maintain proper Alliances.
- More war goals: Humiliate, Open Borders, Make Tributary, etc.
- Emancipation Faction. We had to cut this one at the last minute. Needs redesign.
- Diplomatic Map Mode. Much requested!
- Diplomatic Incidents: This is a whole class of new scripted events that causes more interaction with the other empires.
There are more updates planned after the release of Asimov, but nothing is concrete enough to discuss yet.
So, what do you think of the latest additions coming to Stellaris? Let us know in the comments below.
