[Stellaris] Drow of Stellaris >;-)

[Princessity]

If you have traits you only want for your race you could try turning off the randomization like I did and just add in "random" races via system initializers. The fun part about that is you can pick exactly what traits you want your pre-FTL/fallen/full civs to have. So at the moment, one never runs into an elf without the one of the elven traits. Not sure if that's what you're after however

I'm just trying to add a few generic traits. Most of them are just additional tiers of vanilla traits like a middle ground between Enduring and Venerable, a bigger version of Charismatic and so on. And also a whole bunch of negative traits that give 2 or more points because the game needs those. The only 2-point disadvantage in vanilla is Nonadaptive and taking it is pretty much required if you want an expensive trait.

 

But you're most likely right. I did disable genetic engineering for the big traits, I didn't know it affected AI's ability to randomly spawn with them.

[Princessity]

Ok... so I've been thinking about balance. And... I realize I'm pathetic at it.   That being the case, here's my proposed traits. So everybody pile on and give opinions on how to balance it better. (I can write events, retexture ships, make outfits.... but don't ask me about balance! )

 

Those Crazy Elves

 

Elven Trait

Cost = 4

leader_age = 750

species_leader_exp_gain = -0.75

 

Sidh Adherant

cost = -1

pop_other_species_happiness = 0.01

army_damage_mult = -0.05

 

Elven Beauty

cost = -1

pop_food_req_mult = 0.25

pop_happiness = 0.05

pop_other_species_happiness = 0.01

 

Mage Discipline

cost = -1

pop_growth_req_mult = 0.25

ship_evasion_mult = 0.05

all_technology_research_speed = 0.05

 

Those Naughty Drow

Ilythiiri Trait

cost = 4

leader_age = 750

species_leader_exp_gain = -0.75

 

Eilistraeen

cost = -1

pop_growth_req_mult = -0.05

pop_other_species_happiness = 0.01

pop_environment_tolerance = -0.1

 

Ilythiiri Metabolism

cost = -1

pop_food_req_mult = 0.25

building_time_mult = -0.05

tile_resource_minerals_mult = 0.05

 

Warrior Ethos

cost = -1

all_technology_research_speed = -0.05

army_damage_mult = 0.15

ship_weapon_damage = 0.05

 

Ummmmm to be totally honest I can't justify any of these negative traits being negative. The way I usually balance my traits is give each aspect of them a value proportional to the values of vanilla traits that are similar. With a healthy application of common sense in situations where Paradox messed up.

 

So here's how I would break up each of these:

 

 

 

Sidh Adherant

pop_other_species_happiness = 0.01 ^{+1, same as "Charismatic" (1)}

army_damage_mult = -0.05 ^{-0.1ish, a completely insignificant fraction of "Weak" (-1)}

 

Total estimated cost: +0.9 ~ +1. This in no way deserves to be a negative trait. It confers the advantage of vanilla Charismatic while offering a malus that can't even match it, let alone surpass it.

 

 

Elven Beauty

pop_food_req_mult = 0.25 ^{-1.5ish, similar in end result to "Slow Breeders" but slightly more crippling because food production requires investment}

pop_happiness = 0.05 ^{+1, same as "Communal"}

pop_other_species_happiness = 0.01 ^{+1, same as "Charismatic"}

 

Total estimated cost: +0.5 ~ 0. 0-cost traits don't exist and probably for a good reason. The game limits the number of traits you can pick in addition to their total value in order to prevent stacking of multiple small traits. The trait should probably be rebalanced around a nonzero total value.

 

 

Mage Discipline

pop_growth_req_mult = 0.25 ^{-1.67ish, almost twice the effect of "Slow Breeders" but not quite}

ship_evasion_mult = 0.05 ^{+0.5ish, this is a tricky one, I have no idea how much it's worth but it is same as the free buff from the amoeba event so maybe not worth a full trait point.}

all_technology_research_speed = 0.05 ^{+1ish, another hard one! No trait equivalent but it is quite powerful and you do need to choose Despotic Hegemony to get a bonus of this magnitude from the start. For the sake of argument I'll assume that major government bonuses or basic research buffs are worth 1 point. However the common sense stipulation would make it +2. Explanation below.}

 

Total estimated cost: -0.17ish ~ 0. Same problem as with Elven Beauty. 0-cost traits are a bad idea and honestly I'm not sure it even is a zero-sum trait. Research speed is MASSIVE and scales in value as the game progresses. No, no, no, after giving it a second look, no way this can be a negative trait XD

 

 

 

Okay, all that said I actually put a lot more thought into this as I went along and came up with some ideas to make the traits more balanced and unique, both against each other and vanilla traits. So here's how I would change them:

 

 

 

Sidh Adherant

cost = -1

pop_happiness = 0.03 -^{0.5ish, half of "Communal"}

army_damage_mult = -0.5 ^{-1.25,  based on the values of "Weak" and "Strong", army_damage_mult = 2 is roughtly worth 0.5 (the rest comes fromt he mineral penalty but it's not used here)}

 

Explanation: I had to stretch this one a bit but I think this makes a lot more sense than the original. Changing the bonus to happiness also makes it distinct from Elven Beauty which has become a positive trait to synergises with this one.

 

 

Elven Beauty

cost = 1

pop_food_req_mult = 0.20 ^{-1.25ish, milder than the original but not by much}

pop_other_species_happiness = 0.02 ^{+2.25ish, due to the compounding effect of this modifier (stacks additively between multiple pops) its value scales non-linearly}

 

Explanation: I made it a positive trait since I could not tweak the values in a way that would make either the disadvantage or the advantages feel fair. Even after removing happiness (I added it to Sidh instead to compensate) both of the remaining aspects scale somewhat nonlinearly so I decided to emphasise one and de-emphasise the other. I tried to make it more unique by making it a better version of "Charismatic" but with a disadvantage that justifies the 1-point cost.

 

 

Mage Discipline

cost = -2

pop_growth_req_mult = 0.30 ^{-2, I increased the modifier to twice the effect of "Slow Breeders" because I'm allergic to repeating fractions}

category_psionics_research_speed_mult = 0.15 ^{+0.30ish I could not justify in any way adding all research speed bonus to a "negative" trait. So I decided to narrow the scope down but increase the bonus to compensate.}

 

Explanation: I decided to toss the ship evation bonus out because I'm not sure how it thematically fits the trait and it was also difficult to quantify. I just didn't want to deal with it. I didn't want to deal with all research speed either so I gave it the old kickarooni too, offering a more fitting alternative. I hope anyways, I think psionic research suits "mages" better ^_~

 

 

 

Overall the changes are meant to diversify the trait effects while allowing an elven species to potentially use all its trait points to pick them all (assuming vanilla starting points distribution: 2 free points, 4 traits maximum)

 

I did not touch upon the age trait in my analysis because it's more of a common sense thing than a simple math problem. My personal opinion is that Paradox severely overestimated the value of extra lifespan. Long lifespan can be a mixed blessing because while the species gets to use its good leaders longer, it also has the potential to get stuck with bad or irrelevant ones. Sooooo... in short I'm not using vanilla values as a guideline when ti comes to leader lifespan.

 

That said I think 750 may be a bit redundant. Anything over 400 makes the species funcionally immortal because I honestly can't imagine playing the same game for that long. I usually start over once the lategame gets stale and turns into a constant string of expansion wars.

 

Pluuuus all species have a minimum lifespan of 76 anyways (or was it 74?) and there are technologies, edicts and government types that can extend it even further. Transcendent Oligarchy with Capacity Boosters, after the well of life event and after researching lifespan extension once or twice can easily reach 200-250ish lifespans by late midgame.

 

So maybe you could consider turning the lifespan bonus down to 400 or something around that value? Making the 750 lifespan a target rather than starting point? It wouldn't matter that much but it would make all those lifespan techs and events feel slightly more rewarding ^^

 

Anyways that's it from me for now. I don't consider myself an authority on Stellaris balance but I hope I managed to at least give you some ideas ^^ I wanted to analyse the Drow traits as well but it's 4 am Monday and I have actual paperwork to do later today... RIP! Bedtime now! 

 

I'll try to tackle the remaining traits when I'm no longer a zzzzzz...ombie

[Nessa]

Whoa! I didn't expect such a thorough analysis! Thanks!!! 

 

I'll probably just implement everything you said blindly just so I don't have to think about it. (Really, I have clothes that need finishing! That's the important thing!! LOL!)

 

So you've never made it to the 750ish level? It is pretty hard to make it there I admit. I've only had 3 games so far where a ruler has died naturally. And the funny part? Not long after the death we quit the game anyway!

[Princessity]

Whoa! I didn't expect such a thorough analysis! Thanks!!! 

 

I'll probably just implement everything you said blindly just so I don't have to think about it. (Really, I have clothes that need finishing! That's the important thing!! LOL!)

 

So you've never made it to the 750ish level? It is pretty hard to make it there I admit. I've only had 3 games so far where a ruler has died naturally. And the funny part? Not long after the death we quit the game anyway!

 

Oooh! Clothes! Any chance you could treat us to some teasers? ^^ I feel so fashion-starved in Stellaris right now! Aside from you and like one other person I haven't seen anyone else who makes outfits for humanoids.

 

I wish I had like any artistic talent at all so I could make my own clothes (maybe then I would be able to release my mods since 90% of their assets wouldn't be stolen from somewhere else XD) Literally the best I can do is do basic recolours or try to blend some things together to make something unique looking. I actually put the bra and shawl from your mods together yesterday and it ended up looking better than I expected!

 

 

Ummmm but I'm getting completely sidetracked. I just looked at my post so far and I have no idea how I ended up here. Blaming orbital mind control lasers. ANYWAYS...

 

As for length of my games: I think the longest I played was 550ish-something years. I reached a point where the galaxy was kinda set in stone. No room for expansion for most of the empires, Crisis already dealt with, Fallen Empires no longer relevant and the map was divided between a couple of superpowers that had consumed all smaller empires and were just back and forth fighting over random planets (like seriously who in their right mind cedes a planet smack dab in the middle of another empire???) It felt very repetitive, slow and uneventful.

 

But I just read the new dev diary earlier and the changes to Fallen Empires look very promising for the' lategame. War in the Heaven sounds like an extra large Crisis and even just being able to serve an awakened Fallen Empire (biding my time until I can take over their pretty worlds of course) beats moronic federations any day! XD

 

Like really federations in Stellaris are the most annoying things. The AI has no idea how to manage the fed fleet, the voting AI makes my head hurt (from banging against the desk) and UGH! Now I know why everybody in Star Trek wants to destroy the Federation. They actually want to do its members a favour!

 

Wait... I did it again *drags herself away from the ranting podium* baaaack on toooopic...

 

ANYWAYS I'm happy you like my analysis <3 I'll try to have a look at the Drow traits now. At first glance they look more balanced than the elven ones so my suggestions will probably be less drastic.

[Nessa]

I'd show you some teasers but if I did that, I might as well wrap up an outfit. And I did just that! Several in fact! Teaser (and you may recognize the origins of this set):

 

 

 

 

You know, if you want to use my clothes (or any of the assets) in a released mod, go ahead. I don't mind a bit.   

 

I usually end around year 550 to 650-ish. Provided I've lived that long. A lot of the time lately I'm getting wiped out by crises. For the games I outright quit, it's for the same reasons as you. It just gets tedious or too bland. A couple games I've just stopped because I was tired of expanding. Let's face it, Stellaris NEEDS a way to search for things. Sure I can search for a planet or star, but what about... the nearest uninhabited planet with X resource? Most 4X games have search windows for this purpose.

 

I'm really liking what I'm hearing about the fallen stuff. That should definitely make things more interesting.

 

Uh oh federations....  WHAT IS WITH FLEET MANAGEMENT!? So, there I am, the latest Federation Queen er I mean President. I get ugly, messed up, totally unorganized groups of fleets all with different warp engines and like 120 years out of date! What. The. Hell? So my first order of business is sorting out the messy crap of a fleet. And I finally get it all ironed out... and then my term is up. By the time I'm Queen President again, the fleet is messed up AGAIN. ARGH!!!

Oh and how about this gem? I'm Federation Empress President and some stupid idiot nation decides to attack. My entire term is sucked up fighting this stupid war. I get near the end of the war and have the Federation Fleet blockading the strongest empire's homeworld. It was a tough fight, but we did it. With the blockade in place I have enough of a "warscore" to force the other empires to surrender. Then BOOM! I'm not the Federation President anymore! The other idiot stupid moron of a President sends the Federation fleet to his stupid homeworld (which was NOT in danger) and I can't force their surrender because my fleets are all busy! End result, I had to resort to a White Peace because of that stupid Federation Fleet abandoning its position! UGH!

After that I quit my own federation that I started! Enough of that!

 

And thanks again for your trait analysis. I mean, you want to know what I was more interested in with traits? Getting the icons to look right.

[Princessity]

Oh my gosh... yes! Federation fleet is a mess. I had a situation once where somehow the AI ended up merging the bulk of federation fleet with their own fleet (clever...) and kept control of it when my term rolled around! I could select it from the federation window but I couldn't see it in my fleet tab or give it any orders. The stolen fleet would just sit in the previous president's home system doing nothing and that was the worst timing ever for that bug because I had spent the last like 20 years preparing to take over the spiritualist Fallen Empire that was being a major pain in my expansion plans' butt. Without the fleet I didn't have enough forces so I threw a fit and just like you quit my own federation XD I never actually came back to that playthrough, that game upset me too much.

 

Also ohhh! So you make new outfits by taking screenies of models in nifscope and editing out the grey background? I didn't even think of that! I thought they were all hand-painted! Anyways love the new outfits <3 I'm personally looking for more sci-fish styles to add to my collection but these look great too!

 

Thank you so much for the permission to use them <3 Hopefully I can get the rest of the permissions I need one of those decades. Steam Workshop makes it really hard for modders to communicate.

 

Okay... before I go on another random tangent adventure I just finished poking at the Drow traits. This time I'll be a bit less in depth because when I did it yesterday it took me waaaay too long!

 

 

 

Eilistraeen
pop_growth_req_mult = -0.05 ^{+0.5, half of "Rapid Breeders", relatively insignificant effect, seems redundant}
pop_other_species_happiness = 0.01 ^{+1, same as "Charismatic", a rather big advantage for a "negative" trait}
pop_environment_tolerance = -0.1 ^{-2, same as "Nonadaptive", a disadvantage that will become much bigger next patch but is rather tame right now}

 

Total estimated cost: -0.5 ~ 0. Zero-sum problem again. However the bigger problem is that it makes "Rapid Breeders" + "Charismatic" + "Nonadaptive" redundant. That can't be thing. One trait shouldn't do everything that 3 already existing traits do only cheaper.

 

Ilythiiri Metabolism
pop_food_req_mult = 0.25 ^{-1.5ish, same as my estimate for "Elven Beauty"}
building_time_mult = -0.05 ^{+0.3ish, I have no idea how to rate it. No direct comparison but it's so tiny that it can't be significant. In fact feels a bit redundant}
tile_resource_minerals_mult = 0.05 ^{+0.5, half the effect of "Strong"}

 

Total estimated cost: -0.7ish. In theory relatively acceptable but... I feel like none of the aspects is emphasised enough to be interesting.

 

Warrior Ethos
all_technology_research_speed = -0.05 ^{-1, a powerful disadvantage that will scale throughout the game, a good basis for a negative trait}
army_damage_mult = 0.15 ^{+0.38, less than half the effect of "Strong", feels redundant and also while it may fit thematically I feel like it doesn't belong next to a research debuff}
ship_weapon_damage = 0.05 ^{+0.75, I don't know how to rate it. On one hand it's one of the Militarist ethic effects which is a big deal but then again, ethics are somehwat unbalanced against each other so I have no idea what the actual value of this is. I'll with a middleground between 0.5 and 1.}

 

Total estimated cost: +0.13. Zero-sum problem. While the modifiers make sense, this trait suffers the same problem as the other Drow traits: the aspects cancel each other out and none of them stands out enough to give or cost a full trait point.

 

 

 

So having gone over these a few times I noticed a few common themes. All of these traits are so... tame, neither the negative nor the positive side stands out enough to make them impactful. They also take elements of existing traits at the same or similar magnitutes and puts them together. That results in a lot of redundancy that's very unhealthy for diversity. What's the point of picking vanilla traits if these are overall more efficient?

 

 

 

Eilistraeen
cost = -2
pop_growth_req_mult = -0.07 ^{+0.7, slightly less than "Rapid Breeders", attempting to make up for the removal of pop happiness. Also I like James Bond}
pop_environment_tolerance = -0.15 ^{-3, 150% the effect of "Nonadaptive", emphasises the Elistraeenians' (this is the hardest word everrrrrr!) dependency on their perfect environment}

 

Explanation: in my mission to rid the galaxy of redundancy, I decided to take a slightly harsher stance on it here than I did with the elven traits. I'm aiming to make the the drow traits feel more extreme and striking, something that stays with them for the whole game

 

Warrior Ethos
cost = -1
all_technology_research_speed = -0.07 ^{-1.5ish+, still no idea how to rate it but I feel it compares better with fellow research modifiers than other things. All research is divided between 11 categories, therefore single category modifier ~ 9% the value of an all research modifier.  I rounded it up to 10 to make the math easier.}
category_military_theory_research_speed_mult = 0.15 ^{+0.3ish, overall makes militray research 8% faster than normal}

category_voidcraft_research_speed_mult = 0.15 ^{+0.3ish, overall makes naval research 8% faster than normal}

 

Explanation: Soooo I took a little liberty with this one. Dealing with research speed is complicated so I decided to confine this trait within the context of research rather than try to estimate its relative value against unrelated modifiers. In the end I came up with this. The purpose of this trait is to focus the research on martial things. All research will be 7% slower, but army and navy related pursuits will actually enjoy an 8% bonus.

 

 

 

Now... I left "Illithiiri Metabolism" alon ebecause I don't know what the intention of it is. I'm not sure what mineral extraction and building speed have to do with metabolism. The trai is kinda balanced the way it is if we go by nothing but math but it's hard to make it more interesting without knowing its purpose and context.

[Nessa]

I remember one time, I just had become president and I ordered all the fleets to my primary shipyard for "cleaning up the mess from the other idiot presidents" fleet program. Then something wonky happened. The fleets would arrive at my world as ordered... then leave. On their own. I ordered one fleet back and forth I don't know how many times until I just gave up. Apparently I wasn't really the president or something...  

 

Actually... not nifskope, no. Nifskope can't render anything well enough to be of use. (It's really bad at lighting.) For my Skyrim stuff, I just take shots in game (using an orc in a green room), remove the green, then hand adjust as needed. Some of the outfits are hand drawn though. A good portion of them are my own outfits from Oblivion as well. Which is kind of funny. I made them in Blender, and now I'm remaking them in Photoshop!

Don't laugh (too much ) but I'm kind of partial to that set of mods that makes all the aliens dress up in fancy clothes. Though I do wonder why nobody is bothering with new clothes for humans. I'd have thought there would have been dozens of clothes mods by now.

 

Steam Workshop is.....  OK, when I have nothing good to say, perhaps I should just shut up.

 

Thanks for your assessment on all my crazy traits! I'll be sure to implement all that for the next updates. As for Ilythiiri Metabolism.... um... intent? I had no idea what to call the trait and there was a "Fast Metabolism" trait in AlphaMod, so I just tacked on Ilythiiri because: Drow. There really wasn't a whole lot of thought going into any of this trait business!  

[Princessity]

I remember one time, I just had become president and I ordered all the fleets to my primary shipyard for "cleaning up the mess from the other idiot presidents" fleet program. Then something wonky happened. The fleets would arrive at my world as ordered... then leave. On their own. I ordered one fleet back and forth I don't know how many times until I just gave up. Apparently I wasn't really the president or something... 

 

XD Okay this is funny. I've never run into this but the federation nonsense I did have to deal with made me swear off any agreements more binding than defensive pacts forever. They serve the same purpose as federations anyways and I don't have to deal with Artificial Stupidity doing random stuff all the time!

 

The devs did say they want to improve federations and give them actual politics to play with but it's not slated for Heinlein :C

 

As for clothes... oh, that's more complicated than I thought then ^^ Although using orcs as green screen manikins is clever! When the TES universe finally goes into modern age they will be amaaaazing fashion models!

 

And yah... Steam Workshop... is. That's the nicest thing I can say about it.

[Nessa]

Maybe if there was some actual internal struggle... and they get rid of the fleet mess nonsense, federations might be interesting again. Lately I've been seeing the very big advantages of just having vassals and protectorates. Expand the empire without the stupidity of all the democracy nonsense.

[Princessity]

I love the new outfits! I think the new gown is one of my new favourites ^^ And I love what you did with the "metabolism" trait!

 

I also managed to run into drow primitives near my empire for the first time ever! (usually they get taken by someone else before I get to them) But I noticed a little bug with them:

 

Turns out their trait (savage) doesn't go away after being assimilated into my empire so not only do they keep the slightly overpowered benefits but also despite joining a highly advanced civilisation of space elves, they're still wearing their primitive outfits! And I'm not sure how to fix it. I don't have access to genetic modification yet but I doubt I can remove it since the trait is set to modification = no.

 

Maybe you could consider changing the requirements for those outfits and decouple it from the trait? I did some poking around pre-FTL civilisations and discovered that they actually have their own government forms. So if you changed the conditions to

or = {
	owner = { has_government = primitive_feudalism }
	owner = { has_government = fragmented_nations }
}

you wouldn't have to use the trait and could just give them the standard elven traits.

[Nessa]

Yeah, that new gown turned out so well I added it to the governor clothes.

 

Well... with the savage elves/drow they're kind of a bonus. I mean, if you can manage to get any inside your empire the armies they make... OUCH. It's actually a bit overpowered currently on the Ascari I think but that is also one of the only generated civs of mine that seem to be sufficiently deadly.

I've seen the Ascari actually declare war and win against fallen empires!! Those Ascari armies are so good they apparently can repel those crazy fallen genomorph armies. It's going to be interesting to see what happens when fallen empires can "wake up". I myself have only gotten into a tiff with the Ascari once and lost the war. But they wanted to take out an allied empire. Odd thing... they didn't attack any of my worlds at all.

Speaking of which, it's a shame you can't have an AI type that wants to eradicate anything not in it's category. Like...  a mammilian that wants to eradicate anything not mammalian. Currently the xenophobic AI's want to wipe anybody that isn't them. Might make for a more interesting thing to see the Ascari for instance go on a crusade to wipe out all non-elf civs.   And OUCH if they ever do!

 

That's... a point on the clothes though. I was originally thinking they'd be like typical wood elves. Or perhaps Bosmer is a better example since they're a bit on the savage side. Meaning they'd stick to their natural habits even if they're in a high tech empire. The other thing was the different clothes easily distinguishes them from normal elves on your worlds. 

 

Perhaps what I should do, is gather together even more savegey clothes. While they're under primitive governments they can have the current set of clothing they wear. When they move into a full empire, perhaps a different set of clothing. Maybe use the animal skin colored stuff just for when they are pre-FTL? Colors only when in an empire? Something like that. It is getting to the point where I'll have enough clothes to do that.

 

Speaking of clothes... since the slave thing is working so well, I was also tossing around some other ideas:

• Pops/leaders of fallens all have black, scary looking clothes. (Currently just the leaders do.)
• Pops clothes change based on their ethics. That would mean identifying which ethics are "good" corresponding to happier colors. (Say... pacifists have more white-ish clothes, etc.) So-called "bad" would correspond to better  darker colors.
• Fallen pops/leaders only get certain eye colors and hair color. Red/white for Drow maybe... blue/blond for elves? I don't know, something to make the fallen pops look sort of...  village of the damned or something.

Oh yeah, one more thing....  Ascari are only in the Elven mod... I've been -thinking-.... of perhaps making a nasty Drow empire that can randomly show up that's on the same order. Basically it's an advanced start Drow empire. I notice most of the time my "evil" Drow civ is conquered before I ever see it.

[Princessity]

Oh I didn't know it was intentional. I was under the impression the savage trait was supposed to go away. Tho after further investigation I realised it didn't actually happen in the game... why did I even think that was the case? Am I imagining things? Brain? HELLO? BRAIN? ARE YOU OKAY?

 

I still think the trait is a bit too much, especially since the -3 cost gives them 3 extra points for genetic modification which is... unheard of. Maybe it would be less silly if the trait was worth something like 5 points so while the primitives are powerful, they're at a point deficit so they can't be genetically engineered to be better than they already are.

 

More outfits sound amazing tho! Always more outfits! Mooooore! <3 And I like the implementation idea too! Assimilated savages adopting a modern wardrobe but with their own spin on it would be amazing from the roleplaying perspective.

 

Colour-coding based on ethics/traits/status is something I'm personally playing around with as well! Currently in my Asari mod I made it so pops with the "deviant" trait wear your pirate outfits (since pirates don't last enough for those clothes to get much use), militarists wear uniforms, materialists wear scientist outfits and... that's as much I as I've gotten to work so far. I've experimented with various other conditions but I noticed that nothing that doesn't directly refer to pops or the owner empire works.

 

I don't know if it's something I'm doing wrong with the syntax (I wish the game would spit out some kind of errors when something is coded wrong) but I've been trying about forever to make my pops wear clothes based on their environment and I can't. I want them to wear lighter clothes on warm planets and be more covered up on cold worlds but the game seems to be ignoring my conditions. Have you ever tried the same? Maybe you could look at this and point out if I derped somewhere?

#Pops on desert/tropical planets
random = {
	trigger = {
		or = {
			planet = { is_planet_class = pc_tropical }
			planet = { is_planet_class = pc_desert }
		}
	}
	list = {
			"gfx/models/portraits/asari/asari_outfit_civA_1.dds"
			"gfx/models/portraits/asari/asari_outfit_civA_1a.dds"
			
			"gfx/models/portraits/asari/asari_outfit_civA_2.dds"
			"gfx/models/portraits/asari/asari_outfit_civA_2a.dds"
			"gfx/models/portraits/asari/asari_outfit_civA_2b.dds"
			
			"gfx/models/portraits/asari/asari_outfit_civA_3.dds"
	}
}

[Nessa]

  I think the other pre-FTL traits vanish when they start a real civ. ... I think...

 

Erm... you can still genetically edit the savages? Oops. Ok, I'll up that trait to 5 for next update! (OK, so I've never actually done the genetic edit thing in game before! ) In fact, it seems some of them are -really- strong. You can sometimes run into savages with the strong trait. OUCH. But since they're a bonus sort of they shouldn't be genetically modifiable. I mean, they're elves, they're already perfect!  

 

I have enough clothes to do it now I think. I just need to organize everything better. Of course, it is a good excuse for.... MORE CLOTHES!

 

For code errors check out "Documents\Paradox Interactive\Stellaris\logs\error.log".   Though it's best just to have your mods loaded as a lot of mods spit out all sorts of errors. Mine don't generally except.... there are some ship errors that still pop up that I've so far yet to figure out how to stop. Missing parts that for the life of me I can't isolate yet! They only show up when playing the game. General script errors and the like should show up if you just load the game up. No need to load a save or anything.

 

For the pops thing... first of all, GREAT IDEA!  I did a quick test and it seems to work for one planet at least. I wonder if the or is messing with it? Though it shouldn't.   I tried making all pops on tropicals get slave clothes:

# Slaves get their own "clothes"
		random = {
			trigger = { planet = { is_planet_class = pc_tropical } }
			
			
			list = {
					
					"gfx/models/portraits/drow/drow_female_clothes_chains1.dds"
					"gfx/models/portraits/drow/drow_female_clothes_collar1.dds"
					"gfx/models/portraits/drow/drow_female_clothes_collar2.dds"
					"gfx/models/portraits/drow/drow_female_clothes_collar3_steel.dds"
					"gfx/models/portraits/drow/drow_female_clothes_collar3_gold.dds"
					"gfx/models/portraits/drow/drow_female_clothes_kinkyslave1.dds"	
			}
		}

And that works at least. Tomorrow I'll play around with the or statement too. Sometimes the scripts can be a bit ... finicky!

 

EDIT: Just thought of something. I wonder if switching the scope first, and then using the or might work? Like:

planet = {
			or = {
					is_planet_class = pc_tropical
					is_planet_class = pc_arid
			}
		}

Of course that might still cause your error log to go nuts. Worth a shot maybe... I'll try out some more ideas tomorrow.

[Princessity]

Huh... Maybe there's an error elsewhere that prevents the trigger from being evaluated in my asset selector. I've never had problems with Or and Nor conditions but... humm maybe I messed up my curly brackets somewhere? For now the file has a lot of placeholders copypasted from other places so there's a real possibility I made a structural mess somewhere along the way ._.

 

I'll check tomorrow, knowing me it's probably something silly and obvious like that. Thank you for testing it out for me <3 I was starting to lose hope but if it works for you it means the issue is fixable and the cause is probably Scatterbrain Syndrome

[Nessa]

I wish there was some kind of .. validator thingy so I didn't have to actually load up the game to see if I made errors. THAT is annoying sometimes.

 

Anyway, your idea was so great I've decided to do a new line of "cold" clothing. (Guys and girls of course!) I haven't really ever done any hats so now is a good time to try it. When that's finished I'll setup a new system that changes the random clothes picked depending on planet type. I can maybe restrict the skimpiest clothes for say.... ocean and jungle. Continental/arid/desert can be more general. Then follow up with the cold planets getting the full coats and hats.

 

Of course the Sidh/Eilistraee are so good they don't -need- clothes apparently.

 

Another thing I'd like to consider is playing around with planet modifiers. As in... if it's got the aphrodisiac thing pops are a tad skimpier. I wish vanilla had asteroid colonization though. I'd love to do a series of spacesuit outfits for pops living there.

[Princessity]

I'm happy you like it ^^ The portrait base I'm using has very little variation (pretty much just skin colour) and only one gender so I'm trying to use clothes as the main way of distinguishing pops and leaders from one another. I didn't even think of using planet modifiers! Yesterday I had way too much free time on my hands so I used the magic of painstakingly erasing bits of the texture to skimpify one of the outfits I had. I liked the end result but I couldn't find a good subset of pops to use it.

 

(I just need to find some collar for this. Right now it looks like the only thing keeping it on is the gravitational pull of the character's body XD)

 

But now that you mention it atmospheric aphrodisiac sounds perfect! I could remove some of the skimpy out of character outfits from the general population and confine them to "love planets"!

 

I like how we're helping each other out with our brainstorming n_n I'd probably still be stuck wondering if conditional clothing is even possible if it wasn't for your mods <3

[Nessa]

That looks great!! Love the face too actually!   In some ways I kind of wished I'd opted to not bother with animation. Then I'd have a lot more freedom with bases. (Hey, maybe -cute- asians!!! ) There is a guide on animating for Maya I just haven't bothered to check it out yet. Too many clothes to make. Yes, that's it!

 

I suppose I could make some more planet modifiers too. Have to double check if I can do that without editing vanilla stuff though. (Can't recall if I can do that at the moment.)

 

I know!! I'm glad you posted a comment a couple weeks back. You're giving me all kinds of great ideas!!

[Princessity]

I stole the face from the "Asari Species" mod but it used to have the default body so I glued the breasts from your birthday suits resources onto it. I spent like HOURS trying to blend the breasts with the body and get the transparency and colour just right! XD I wanted to use your outfits soooo much!

 

But eventually I ended up with a file that's basically just a layer of breasts and their immediate surroundings that I can paste onto any vanilla-based body I like and I just adjust the colours to match. It's the first useful thing ever that I made with a graphics editor!

 

What am I doing with my life...

 

OH! And you can add new planet modifiers independent of the vanilla files! You can see how they're constructed in common\planet_modifiers\00_planet_modifiers.txt, you can define their spawn chance, triggers and everything. The modifier effects themselves are defined in static_modifiers.

[Nessa]

I'm glad somebody got some use out of those "birthday suits"!!

 

Come to think of it, I should have released something like that instead. That would probably be more useful.

 

Just checked it out! OK, I'll have to start thinking up some suitably wacky planet modifiers that can have effects on clothes!

[Princessity]

Ooooh did you watch the Pax stream yesterday? The VOD is up if you didn't:

https://www.twitch.tv/pax2/v/87365037?t=11m39s

 

They talked a bit about their plans for the future and state of the game right now. I'm actually really surprised they're willing to just straight up say "we aren't happy with our game yet, it still needs work" and recognise the issues with it. It gives me some hope my little complaints will eventually be addressed ^^

 

Oh! Also pink mushrooms (<3) may or may not be on the horizon.

[Nessa]

Just when I get mad at Paradox, they do something decent. Like admit their game has some issues.

 

I went on another Skyrim binge (kind of) for my initial "cold" clothes line. It seems hats... may not be possible. Or at least, I can't figure them out yet. Aren't there some mods that add hats to humans? Maybe I should check out the Workship and see how they did it.

 

Sneak peak:

 

 

 

Also made some new skimpy stuff for no apparent reason. (Need to adapt the silly scarf thingy for guys too!)

[Princessity]

Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh, these outfits are the dopest yet! Where's the "rogue" outfit from by the by? I love it!

 

And as for hats, I was experimenting with adding face marks as "hair" to characters yesterday and I discovered that the models are actually quite restrictive. If for example you try to merge body and hair, the hair texture may end up going out of bounds and getting cut off, at least on the human female model. I'm pretty sure the "fatter" alien models would be more suitable for that kind of thing but I haven't tried that yet and I don't know what it would do to the character animations...

 

Anyways, HATS! Umm I think clothing has the same restrictions, it has to conform closely to the body box. I think the only way to add hats is to offer them as hair choices. I think that's how the human mods handled that. The only one I know of is "Fantastic Hair Styles" and it simply adds hairs with hats.

[Nessa]

It doesn't quite look the same anymore but the rogue outfit is based on Scarlet Dawn Armor.

 

That's kind of what I figured for hats. Which is annoying as hair selection is different than clothing selection. Though... I may still be able to do it. I was intending to make fallen pops/leaders look eerie and that will be done the same way. It's just the hats won't match the "cold" outfits necessarily anymore. Perhaps I can do some generic hoods and things. Oh, and what about ninja-style masks? That might be fun!

 

I'll have a look at the Fantastic Hair Styles to get some ideas.

[Princessity]

Oh! Thank you <3 I can't believe I didn't recognise that armour, now I remember downloading it ages ago XD

 

And ooooh! Will the Fallen Empires get sinister top hats? XD

 

 

Also! I finally figured out why planet-based clothing didn't work for me. Apparently I completely overdid conditions. I had stacks on top of stacks inside of stacks with wonky formatting that was causing logical paradoxes across the board. After going over everything it turned out I could easily reduce every set of conditions I had to ORs and NORs, without having to use ANDs, IFs and NOTs at all.

trigger = {
	or = {
		planet = { is_planet_class = pc_arctic }
		planet = { is_planet_class = pc_tundra }
	}
	nor = {
		owner = { has_government = primitive_feudalism }
		owner = { has_government = fragmented_nations }
		is_enslaved = yes
	}
}

Now I'll go back to all my other files and OCD-proof them as well n_n

[Nessa]

You know, I didn't even realize nor existed! I'll redo some of mine as well. I have a couple cases of not --> or. A simple nor should suffice there!