Dev Diary #91: Starbases

[lilsaihah]

Hi Wiz. Update looks cool!

I'm very curious about how systems which have two pre-flight empires will work, if one ascending will grant them ownership of the system. That seems like it'd mean that the other one then ascending would deprive the first of their capital system, which'd obviously be a bit weird. I hope double primitive systems don't go the way of the dodo because IMO it's a really cool thing to see, when it appears in game.

 

[J0hn5n0w]

On the contrary, the multiple FTL types actually cause a lot of balance problems with the game. See the balance of wormholes compared to everything else except jump drive.

I do understand the balance issues but is that not what one would expect when traversing the stars and meeting other species? Is there not unbalance in real life? If we met an alien race today would you expect them to be balanced with us? I feel that adds to the immersion, running into a species that has a better tech then you and thus makes them stronger then you so you want to befriend them so they do not try and destroy you. Plus I love how it can cause you to have to change strategy on the fly just to compensate for another FTL method that you as a species was unfamiliar with.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

Thanks for the great dev dairy! Very ambitious!

I have two questions:

1. You've said this update won't be soon. I'm assuming definitely not in 2017 then?
2. Will it still be possible to destroy planetary space ports and mining/research station outside of the engagement range of the star base?

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

wow, this will change the entire game o.o
from the sound of it it could even change the whole "expansion rush" since you no longer expand your boarder with colonies. interesting.

though what happens when you uplift an empire in your boarder? how would they be able to "claim" their system? In the current build they either form a tiny bubble in your space or get a striped system

 

[Coconut_Cookie]

I'll give more details on how Starbases are neutralized/captured in a future dev diary.

We have absolutely no intentions of getting rid of 'wide' playstyle. Expanding should be rewarding.

Expanding should be rewarded when going wide. But if you want to expand "tall", why are there so many limits on improving a certain planet/system? In victoria 2 you can improve a state almost infinitely or at least for the course of the game. As long as you have enough people you can build or expand your factories and thus expand the economic power. Improving a system stops in stellaris when planets are full and all resources are mined. The only thing that still helps you improve are the repeatable techs for energy/minerals/food. I do like these changes though because it forces the player to specialize some of their systems.

 

[romothecus]

Even if it did require more clicks, I'd take a EU IV style "click system to set it as war goal/demand it in peace offer" system over the current "have fun with this 100 item long list of unpronounceable, unrememberable names" system any day.

I mean I agree overall, but you know it's searchable, right?

 

[Alblaka]

1. You've said this update won't be soon. I'm assuming definitely not in 2017 then?

@Wiz Sorry for summoning you, but please confirm this, so we can make a meme/defaultanswer out of your post to ward of all the countless people who will keep spamming the forum mid-December for a Christmas release.
(Because, obviously the release will not be before January, more likely Feb-Aprl)

 

[mwyeoh]

A very interesting change to the game.
Since there will be no empty systems, will the overall amount of systems decrease then?

 

[CrowScape]

That's like saying choosing which rival you'll declare war on first isn't a strategic decision because your long-term plan is to attack them all.

Wait. You aren't supposed to declare war on everyone as soon as you meet them?

 

[pieman]

are systems becoming more of the player interaction level and are planets becoming just more of a part of the system?

It'd be interesting to see an empire that has lost all its planets but still exists as an empire of space assets.

Though it looks like you'll still require at least some planets in the new system, in order to have some pops.

 

[chrisjwmartin]

@Wiz Will there be any compensation to Scientists for the loss of the easy exploration XP now that the start system is pre-explored?

 

[iniudan]

I feel like everyone will be inclined to make every module a shipyard

You need anchorage to increase your fleetcap.

 

[romothecus]

Or you could just... not do that? If the systems don't interest you?

C'mon. This is a game about building a star empire, which mechanically and (mostly) thematically requires constant economic expansion. There is no such thing as a star system that doesn't "interest" me, especially when you just told us that there won't be any more empty star systems. Every source of minerals/energy/research is going to be exploited.

And where is the extra click "per star system" coming from? A right-click to bring up the menu, a left-click to build starbase.

You have to select the construction ship first, no?

I wouldn't worry so much about an early iteration of a system you will not play for a long time yet.

Wouldn't this be the best time to worry about it? Once you've implemented it, it's not going to change much for a while, right? Seems like the logical time to get all uppity about a system is *exactly* when it's in an early iteration.

 

[Tyrannical Prince]

Lower outpost building cost comes to mind.

I was thinking something like that too. Before the DD, I was thinking there was going to be a soft cap on controlled systems and the xenphobe ethic would get a flat or percentage bonus to that.

 

[ᛒᛖᚱᛋᛖᚱᚲ]

Not a fan of the changes. Players shouldn't be forced to build indestructible starbases in every single system just to own the system - and for that matter, why can't systems have split ownership, especially in times of war? Also, why does every home system now have to have starting resources in orbit? Why does every home system have to start explored?

I get the devs are trying to make the game more standardized and uniformed, but to me that's antithetical to the whole design in the first place. Stellaris just isn't shaping up to be what it could have been and I'm starting to doubt if I'll be spending any more money on it.

 

[Nemmerle]

If you have a large number of systems that have been swallowed up by natural border progression in the current game, then you still need to go through and build mining stations etc in them if there's to be any point in owning them. It seems to me much of the potential micro-management could be eliminated by having a 'build stations in system' option on the constructor ships include building an outpost in that system.

 

[Switch2501]

Oh! I just realised as well, this means that in multiplayer games with friends I'll no longer have to suffer that issue of when our boarders accidentally expand over the planet they wanted.

"Accidentally "

To all the people nay saying over these changes, can we just let the Devs get on with... well... dev'ing?
I'm really interested in these new changes and can't wait to see what they come up with.
And please remember this is just the tip of the rework iceberg. There's war score and doomstack changes coming. Lets not go nay saying when we can't see the whole picture. I'm happy the Devs shared this much to be honest

 

[Elfwind]

To some degree it actually mitigates the mining/research station clicking because you typically take things one system at a time instead of suddenly claiming five new systems that need to be built up. We're discussing ways to make construction of stations easier though, including having mining/research stations be disabled rather than destroyed, better construction of them from the galaxy map, and possibly automation via Starbases.

Since we are going to be interacting with the starbases a lot, maybe having the count for stations on the starbase's ui and a button to build all?

 

[I_am_Nemo]

I mean I agree overall, but you know it's searchable, right?

Yes. Still a barely comprehensible mess.

 

[Woopzilla]

Choosing which system to expand to is absolutely a strategic decision, because you can't simply expand to them all. That's like saying choosing which rival you'll declare war on first isn't a strategic decision because your long-term plan is to attack them all.

I don't think there's much to be argued about how important a decision is... but I think 'micro' is just synonymous with individual clicks.

Back in the 90s and early 00s, micro basically meant 'fine control'. E.g. in Warcraft 3 you micro your units to get the most out of them. It takes more effort and increased 'apm' (actions per minute), another favourite RTS term.

Now, instead of claiming multiple systems at once with a frontier outpost, you have to claim each star individually, hence the notion that it's adding 'micro'. It doesn't matter how much strategic weight the action itself carries... I think what they were concerned about is that that it's adding more clicks in an already click-heavy game.

There's quite a few click heavy activities in this game which all add up to cause tedium:

• Have you ever built a Ring World that instantly filled up with migrants and then you had to build a mining station on all 24 tiles? That's 48 clicks right there (plus all the confirmation dialogues to ignore the resource tiles). A system similar to building multiple robots would be nice.
  
• Upgrading buildings on a planet is also click intensive (no upgrade all button).
• Checking planet tiles (I made a thread about that) is a repeated chore of clicking (and sometimes scrolling if a building is being constructed) to check the resources of a tile.
  
• Ordering large amounts of ships late game can be very click intensive and difficult to order the exact amount.
• Same issues are present with armies and adding attachments is extremely tedious.
  
• Late game construction of mining stations and research stations (although this has been mentioned as an issue)
• Certain pages don't have hotkeys (Leaders + Strategic resources). Maybe some Shift+F# keys could be used.
• Researching large amounts of debris can be click intensive after a war if it's spread across many star systems.
• Building fleets from Ring Worlds is a chore. They need to be classified as Planets. If you have a ton of Habitats then you will collapse that on the Outliner - but Ring Worlds are added to that list.
• And now with the projected changes... what about late-game space grabbing when you already have 200+ systems to your name?

Individually, the issues might seem trivial. But collectively, they all can make the Stellaris experience a little tiring at times.

Some issues have been adressed such a fleet splitting, management and rally points (and more recently, pop modifications). But there's many more issues to address... and I think the worry was just that this change may add more clicks back into the game - particularly in regards to the late-game.

 

[TheDungen]

Spoiler: Loads of replies

Simply amazing. Also, USN Kelvin, Star Trek reference?

Neo trek reference to be exact.

There may be special Starbase modules/buildings to interact with certain types of stars though.

*drools*

Can you already tell us how Starbases will interact with Megastructures, specially Dyson Spheres?

Would be cool if they got integrated into these considering they are both indestructible.

i really hope we can throw trash into blackholes then.

The worm in waiting is most displeased.

I can see how perhaps science nexus and sentry array can be incorporated, however this is not clear for the Dyson sphere......

Would be cool if some of the mega structures that are built orbiting a star became unique upgrades for the citadel.

Does Mars automatically start as a terraforming candidate then since it will already have been surveyed?

Yes.

Again, please add a small chance for Venus to be the terraforning candidate instead.

Excluding black hole systems? Because otherwise they'll be immensely powerful with an almost completely guaranteed research production.

I have no problem with that, but perhaps black holes could be a bit rarer.

You're misreading that. The Logistics office makes each Anchorage give an extra +1 naval capacity on top of what it already (which is more than 1). We're experimenting with having smaller naval capacity limits right now, though.

I can very much support this move, I have done something similar in my mod and it makes things much better. I have also cut down on emergency ftl time and the danger of using emergency ftl.

"Offworld Trading Company" made me think of the game called like that. I hope one day you'll rework the economy in Stellaris and add independant companies and make that part of the game less linear

Well stellaris started out pretty bare bones but they keep adding things all the time so I have no doubt it will cover all these things.

Um, i think you might be overstating the problem. Consider this, we already have a command to build all mining or research stations in the system. And you already can select to build outposts in the system with a separate command. With this change, you either add one more click before ordering those stations or, hopefully, the devs will integrate both commands into one for ease of use (build all stations) or smth else.

I hope we can order construction ships to queue mining stations after a outpost.

This is something we're currently sorting out, I'm currently leaning towards giving the empire who owns the system of the spacefaring primitives the choice between making them a protectorate and ceding the starbase or stopping them from becoming spacefaring altogether.

The latter should have a chance to lead to some kind of conflict.

I'm a bit surprised by the general enthusiasm for those changes. For me it looks like a back to the roots approach, switching back to simplified game models from past 4X games.
I won't claim that it'll necessary be bad/less fun to play, I'd have to play their update to know that. But to me it feels like the less ambitious approach, giving up on a feature that did its part to define Stellaris.

Eh the border extrusion system is the one used by almost all 4x games. And it works well for games like civ where you are on a continent filled with things but in space the distance between the stars is extremely large and empty, if you like to you can pretend that the game is a HUD which only shows systems of significance, esepcially now that every system has a significance.

And that's why a developer can chose to improve it, instead to replace it by the most simple "My base, my system" solution. That's why I called this the less ambitious approach.
Was the old system perfect? Certainly not. But this "improvement" just feels like a surrender.

Why should they? It's totally not suited for a space game to start with.

Will admirals be able to gain a Magician trait to let them capture starbases ridiculously easily?

Haha I'm guessing not but there could be an event.

I would strongly support mining/research stations being disabled rather than destroyed. That would be a huge QoL improvement.

Yeah very much seconded. They should slowly start to repair when at peace. Perhaps a construction ship could also be ordered to repair stations in system at any time.

I think there's an actual argument to be made that building mining/research stations is excessively micro-intensive beyond the very early game, and that's an area we could target for 'less clicking' much moreso than outpost building.

Maybee you could have a future update when developing a system becomes more of an offhands thing with initiatives in the system developing resources, perhaps evne finding some more (or even additional annomalies if you're lucky) could sort of be like the capitalists in Vic2.

As amazing as that would be, i don't think any player would be happy about being on the receiving end of getting Yang'd.

If the enemy having Yang means I get Reinhard Von Lohengramm, Sigfried Kircheis, Wolfgang Mittermeyer and Oskar von Reunthal I could live with it...

Spoiler: Legend of Galactic Heroes

There's reason the alliance lost the war

You assume that you'll be able to afford this. I imagine that claiming systems will be the top priority early game where you spend every single point of influence as soon as you are able to. Once midgame hits, all systems are claimed.

You assume not having played the patch.