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Dev Diary #91: Starbases

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary marks the start of dev diaries about a major upcoming update that we have named the 'Cherryh' update after science fiction author C.J. Cherryh. This is a major update that will include some very significant reworks to core gameplay systems, reworks that we have been prototyping and testing for some time. Right now, we cannot say anything about the exact nature of the update or anything at all about when it will be released, other than that it's far away. Normally, we wouldn't be doing dev diaries on an update at this stage at all, but there's simply so much to talk about that we have to start early. Cherryh will be a massive update, the largest one we've done to date, and there are many new and changed things to talk about in the coming weeks and months.

Please bear in mind that screenshots are from an early internal build and will contain art and interfaces that are WIP, non-final numbers, hot code and all that business.

Border Rework
We've never been entirely happy with the border system in Stellaris. While it generally works fine from a gameplay perspective, it has some rather quirky elements, such as being able to claim ownership of systems that you have never visited and indeed have no ability to reach and making it hard to tell what the exact border adjustments will be when planets are ceded or outposts are built. For this reason, we have decided to fundamentally rework the Stellaris border system to be based on solar system ownership. Each system will have a single owner, with complete control of the system, and borders are now simply a reflection of system ownership rather than a cause for it to change. In the Cherryh update, who owns a system is almost always based on the owner of the Starbase in said system.
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Starbases
A Starbase is a space station orbiting the star of said system. Each system can only have a single Starbase, but this can be anything from a remote Outpost to a massive Citadel with its own 'fleet' of orbiting defense stations. Starbases can be upgraded and specialized in a variety of ways (more details on this below), and is the primary means of determining system ownership. This means that wars are no longer fought for colonies controlling a nebulous blob of border that may not actually include the systems you really want, but rather for the exact systems you are interested in, and their starbases. This change of course would not be possible if we kept the wargoal system that exists in the live version of the game (just imagine the size of that wargoal list...), but more on that in a couple weeks.
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As Starbases now determine system ownership, it will no longer be possible to colonize or invade primitives outside your borders in the Cherryh update, but if a system contains a colony and no starbase, it will still count as being inside the borders of the colony's owner. These restrictions are moddable. Since Starbases now cost influence to construct (see below), we have removed the influence cost for colonizing and attacking primitives.

Starbases entirely replace the old system of Frontier Outposts.

Starbase Construction
With borders from colonies gone, empires now start only owning their home system, with a Starbase already constructed around their home star. To expand outside their home system, empires will have to construct Outposts in surveyed systems. An Outpost is a level 'zero' Starbase that has only very basic defenses and cannot support any buildings or modules, but also does not count towards your maximum Starbase Capacity (more on that below). Building an Outpost in a system costs influence, with the cost dependent on how far away the system is and how contigous it is to your empire as a whole, so 'snaking' or building starbases to ring in a certain part of space will be more influence-costly than simply expanding in a natural way. Starbases do not cost any influence upkeep, just an up-front cost when first building one in a system. As this change makes influence far more important in the early game, there will also be significant balance changes to empire influence generation in the Cherryh update.
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As an aside note, because we felt it made very little sense to have a home system with a fully built Starbase but no surveyed planet, empire home systems will now start surveyed, with a only slightly randomized amount of resources, and mining/research stations for some of those resources already in place. This should also help make player starts a little less random, ensuring that you are never *completely* without resources in your home system.
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Another thing we have been wary about when working on this is making sure that building the Outposts for each system does not simply feel like adding tedium. Right now, between the fact that which systems you choose to spend your limited influence on is an extremely important choice, and various tweaks and interface improvements we are making to ease up the process of developing your systems, we are confident that this will not be the case. We've also made it so that there are no entirely 'empty' systems (systems with no resources at all), as we discovered during playtesting that spending influence to claim such a system felt extremely unrewarding.

Upgrades and Capacity
Each empire will have a Starbase Capacity that represents the number of upgraded Starbases they can support. There are five levels of Starbases:
Outpost: A basic Outpost that exists only to claim a system. Costs no energy maintenance and does not count towards the Starbase Capacity, and cannot support buildings or modules. Outposts will also not show up in the outliner or galaxy map, as they are not meant to be interacted with at all unless it is to upgrade the Outpost to a Starport.
Starport: The first level of upgraded Starbase, available at the start of the game. Supports 2 modules and 1 building.
Starhold: The second level of upgraded Starbase, unlocked through tech. Supports 4 modules and 2 buildings.
Star Fortress: The third level of upgraded Starbase, unlocked through tech. Supports 6 modules and 3 buildings.
Citadel: The final level of upgraded Starbase, unlocked through tech. Supports 6 modules and 4 buildings.
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Regardless of the level of the Starbase, so long as it is not an Outpost, it will use 1 Starbase Capacity and will show up on the map and in the outliner. Overall, the design goal is for the vast majority of Starbases to be Outposts that you never have to manage, with a handful of upgraded Starbases that are powerful and critical assets for your empire. Going over your Starbase Capacity will result in sharply increased Starbase energy maintenance costs. Starbase Capacity can be increased through techs, traditions and other such means. You also gain a small amount of Starbase Capacity from the number of Pops in your empire. If you end up over Starbase Capacity for whatever reason, it is possible to downgrade upgraded Starbases back into Outposts. It is also possible to dismantle Starbases entirely and give up control of those systems, so long as they are not in a system with a colonized planet.
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Spaceports and Ship Construction
Starbases fully replace Spaceports in the role of system/planet defense and military ship construction. Spaceports still exist, but are no longer separate stations but rather an integrated part of the planet, and can only build civilian ships (Science Ships, Construction Ships and Colony Ships). To build military ships you will need a Starbase with at least one Shipyard module (more on that below). Starbases also replace Spaceports/Planets in that they are now the primary place to repair, upgrade, dock and rally ships, though civilian ships are also able to repair at planets.
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Modules and Buildings
All non-Outpost Starbases can support Modules and Buildings. Some of these are available from the start of the game, while others are unlocked by tech. Some modules and buildings are only available in certain systems, for example Trading Hubs can only be constructed in colonized systems.

Modules are the fundamental, external components of the Starbase, and determine its actual role. Module choices include Trading Hubs (for improving the economy of colonized systems), Anchorages (for Naval Capacity), Shipyards (for building ships, duh), and different kinds of defensive modules such as gun turrets and strike craft hangar bays that improve the Starbase's combat ability. There is no restrictions on the number of modules you can have of a certain type, besides the actual restriction on module slots itself. This means, for example, that you can have a Starbase entirely dedicated to Shipyards, capable of building up to 6 ships in parallell. Modules will also change the graphical appearance of the Starbase, so a dedicated Shipyard will look different from a massive defensive-oriented fortress brimming with dozens of gun turrets.
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Buildings represent internal structures inside the Starbase proper, and typically work to enhance modules or provide a global buff to the Starbase or system as a whole. Building choices include the Offworld Trading Company that increases the effectiveness of all Trading Hub modules, and the Listening Post that massively improves the Starbase's sensor range. You cannot have multiples of the same building on the same Starbase.
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Defenses
One of the fundamental problems with the military stations in the live version of the game is that they simply do not have enough firepower. Even with impressive hit points and shields, a station with at most a dozen or so guns simply cannot match the firepower of a whole fleet. An another issue is the ability to build multiple defense stations in the same system, meaning that no single station can be strong enough to match a fleet, as otherwise a system with several such stations will be effectively invulnerable. For this reason we decided to consolidate all system defenses into the Starbase mechanics, but not into a single station. Starbases come with a basic array of armaments and utilities (gun and missile turrets, shields and armor, etc), with the exact number of weapons based on the level of the Starbase. These are automatically kept up to date with technological advances, so your Starbases won't be fielding red lasers and basic deflectors when facing fleets armed with tachyon lances.
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Additionally, Starbases (with the exception of Outposts) have the ability to construct defense platforms to protect them. Constructed defense platforms will form a 'fleet' around the Starbase, supporting it with their own weapons and giving Starbases the firepower needed to engage entire fleets. The amount of defense platforms a Starbase can support may depend on factors such as starbase size and modules/buildings, technology, policies, and so on. The exact details here are still being worked on, but the design intent is that if you invest into them, Starbase defenses will scale against fleets across the whole game rather just being completely outpaced in the late game as military stations and spaceports currently are in the live version.
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One last note on Starbases: For a variety of reasons (among them to avoid something like the tedious rebuilding of Spaceports that happens at the end of wars) Starbases cannot be destroyed through conventional means. They can, however be disabled and even captured by enemies. More on this in a couple weeks.

... whew, this was a long one but that's all for today! Next week we'll continue talking about the Cherryh update, with the topic being Faster than Light travel...
 
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I'm going to leave 'X' where it stands for now and just say this: As I wrote in the dev diary, our aim is absolutely not to just add 'X' to the game. I think once you guys see how it actually works in practice, you'll understand that.

I made a template I'm sure you'll use again :p

Sounds great! My only comment so far is do these have to be built next to stars? I'm sure it's easier to take the existing frontier outpost mechanics and repurpose them for this, but would you consider the idea of building them around any orbiting body in a system to claim it?
 
This looks pretty cool.
 
I really love Stellaris, and what you all have done with the game since launch which is why it's pretty distressing that this is the first dev diary where my initial, instinctual reaction is "I hate everything about this" like what am I gonna do, play 1.8 forever? I hate that I'm gonna have to laboriously claim systems one at a time by building hundreds of outposts over the course of a game; I hate that this is gonna make expansion and thus game progression in general slower; I hate that this is going to make borders even more concrete going in to the mid/late game; I hate that colonization will no longer have a strategic element common to games like Civilization where I'm picking the best planet/tile not only for the specific city/colony but to claim territory for my empire by planting a flag there and getting boots on the ground; I hate that influence is gonna become both more important and more of a total shit-show with regards to the wide verity of things that it's used for; I hate that my borders are gonna end up looking like a swiss cheese 'cause there will always be a bunch of systems that are moderately worthless and deep inside my actual zone of control (ie. what the old borders represented); I hate the incoming border-gore that's gonna be caused by me ignoring a system with 1 worthless energy resource in the star and an AI building an outpost there despite it being next to a bunch of my colonies. TL;DR: every one of the 37 trillion cells in my body is filled with hate right now.

Unless you're playing a pacifistic and/or tall empire, most of your systems will be acquired through war, as it has always been, so no reason or even chance to ever build more than tens of outposts per game and we have no way of knowing as of yet, of how laborious something will end up being. As stated by Wiz, there will be a buff to systems, so that you don't end up claiming a system only to find next to nothing from there.
 
I dont understand why border couldnt just be anywhere you build. Either settlement or mining. And then just make it so that it cost influence building outside your border. Would make protecting your mining facilities more important in war if the enemy could just push back The border and build there themselves.
 
Yes.


I kind of see what you're getting at, but your concerns are overblown. Wouldn't all non-reflexive actions, taken after thinking to take that action, be mindless by that definition?

Have you considered reducing construction micro by having ships automatically fulfill jobs? Instead of us having to select a construction ship and tell it what to construct we could just have a construction queue and the closest free construction ship we own would go build the highest priority job in the queue.
 
Going to quote a friend from another forum:

I think the borders as currently implemented make space feel small; they constrain you, hem in you, and exist primarily to restrict your possibility space. Because borders are so absolute, they remove the most basic tension-building mechanism you see in Star Trek and similar; two peoples find something, they both want it, a dispute over ownership occurs. That dispute does not exist in Stellaris; it's always absolutely clear who owns what because there's a big coloured blob over it.

Yes, you can argue that outposts make the borders even more concrete and absolute, but, you know, you actually have to have real estate in a system to claim it so that claim has a basis in fact, and because border expansion is slowed down so much with the new system, that opens up a huge probability space with all these unclaimed areas that you can't just eat up in one go with a single colony and several dozen stacked +border range modifiers.


Admittedly, I would still like some sort of fuzzy border where it's "hey, this is supposed to be our space, what are you doing here?", and then the aliens frowny face because you're ignoring their territorial integrity and they make a big fuss with your embassy, but one step at a time.

Hmm. Maybe a second border marking an empire's influence zone, and and then it costs you extra influence to expand there and can cause diplomatic events to trigger and stuff like that?
 
People complaining about building outposts is "mindless micro" is almost the same as saying building mining/research stations is "mindless micro"

Ridiculous. The dev diary clearly states every system will now have resources so thinking of where to expand and where not to will be rewarding. Its not mindless at all. Building an outpost every 5 or so minutes of gameplay doesnt sound micro intensive to me.

EDIT: AND keep in mind expansion phase is only for a certian part of the game. Mid game will probably be you taking outposts from other empires. Not building them.

Building mining outposts does become mindless micro later in the game.
 
Well most player play on large maps so you will be.I see nothing this systems adds that is better than what we have now.Placing frontier outpost was a strategic choice and costly.This is just adding clicks.It is also silly can't be destroyed.

max map size is 1000

I'm going to assume 15-20 nations.

that means for hundreds you'd have to take up 20% at least. that divides the remaining space evenly at 4%-5% per AI empire. THIS IS WITHOUT ANY WAR AQUISITION. (this is without FE)

these numbers people throw out are not even remotely probable.
 
I agree that "micro" is probably the wrong term for the quality of "how does it feel to interact with the game."

I've made several posts before about how when people talk about "micromangement" in a game in an negative context what they actually mean is that the UI is shit.

Which is pretty much what I mean here but micromanagement is the generally understood term and wasn't assed to get into it, so I went with that.

I wish I was at home, then I could get some screenshots of some of the games I have and the vast areas of unclaimed space in those games I could expand into under this new system, and how much of a UI pain it would be to do so with an outpost per system.

But I'm not, so I can't.

And now I am.

THE STORY SO FAR:

Some people, myself included, have pointed out that the new border system, with the player required to construct an outpost in every system they wish to own is going to end up being 'micro' intensive.

Martin, and others, counter that you are not required to go around spamming outposts everywhere and that doing so is, in fact, not a good idea because you have to think very carefully about every system you claim as you are making a Vital Strategic Decision.

AND NOW THE CONCLUSION.

Ok, so now let's take a look and what a game of Stellaris actually looks like.

wilderness_space.jpg

Vast expanses of unclaimed space, ready for outpost spam.

(I established communications with everyone via the console before I took this, so no there isn't anyone lurking in that unexplored territory)

See, the thing you can't get away from - no matter how much deep thinking you reckon you have to do before you claim a system - is the maps in Stellaris are enormous. I think this was an either an 800 or 600 star map, so not even the biggest you can have. Any one way or another, by the end of that game, most or all of those systems are going to be owned by someone. Because why wouldn't you? The cost in influence is one off, so it will pay for itself eventually no matter how shitty the system is - just a case of which ones you go for first.

Now pretend you're the Dyss Consciousness for a second. You want to expand 'left' and rimward into what I'm going to call the Perseus Arm because it kinda looks like it. Maybe there's a load of cool resources and worlds there or something. You just want the lot. Because why wouldn't you? So, say you expand along the pseudo-perseus arm until you're about level with the XT-489 Continuity at which point you'd probably brush up against someone expanding from the other side of the map. That's about 60 systems, I think. Assuming 3 clicks per system, 180 clicks. A fucking pain in the ass, in other words. If you do it in batches you can save yourself some effort because you don't have to reselect the construction ship each time, but that's not going to be viable for the whole job, because you won't be able to pay for the influence costs at once. On top of that you then have to go and build all the mining stations and stuff, so that's fun.

This idea that claiming ever single system is some kind of major decision doesn't hold up when you simply look at how big Stellaris maps are. It would be true in the early game, but the early game is the shortest part of the game. Once you have dozens of systems under your control, you're not going to be sitting with your chin in your hands about adding another one, you're going to be taking half a dozen to a dozen at a time because otherwise expanding at the same rate you do in 1.8 would take bloody forever.

Which could actually be the new meta for 1.9? Maybe you're not supposed to take up most of the map, maybe vast sections of the map are supposed to be uncontrolled for the majority of the game. I'd actually be comfortable with that. I like the idea of areas of "wilderness space". But there's no evidence that that's the intention so far, and I don't think everyone would be as comfortable with it as I am. People like painting the map their colour. And it's also no excuse for no making the UI good.

This doesn't mean the concept of an outpost per system needs to go out the window, what it means is that the UI needs to be Not Shit.

For Example:

not_shit.jpg


I've selected a construction ship. I've selected the build frontier outpost button. You know what's going happen when I click on Alioth?

not_shit2.jpg


Yeah, that happens. It brings up the system view and makes you click on the star. Because, you know, there are so many different places in a system you can build a frontier outpost so we really needed to clarify that. Now try doing that 30 times, or 10 times, or 5 times.

How about I just click on 'outpost', shift click on a load of systems and get that many frontier outposts queued up to build, hmmm? In fact, how about we eliminate all these damn excess clicks from the UI, because holy shit people.

Oh, and here's a shot from later in the same campaign so you can see the true extent of AI expansion. Lotta hypothetical clicking there...

holy_shit_dyss.jpg
 
Why exactly do some people think they're going to have to "build hundreds of outposts". You do realise the peaceful expansion phase only last until mid game right? You might have to build 30-40 outposts at most before there isn't much systems left to claim and you have to take other empires outposts to keep expanding.

Unless youre playing on an empty map, it makes no sense that you would be building hundreds of outposts...
 
I think the people complaining about micro are blowing this WAY out of proportion. This is clearly something smaller than building mining/research stations everywhere or building infrastructure on a planet or what about how you currently have to build/upgrade starports which I find quite annoying (especially after one gets destroyed) and that this replaces?


So you can't colonize/invade primitives outside your border? I'm meh on that. Actually one thing that might be cool is being able to do that BUT if you do, the colonized/invaded planet becomes a sovereign state. So if you colonize a planet outside your space, there would be another empire with you species that you'd have to decide to ally with, vassalize or outright invade. Or if you invaded primitives, it could develop into a slaver empire (with your species on top) that you'd have to deal with.
 
We've also made it so that there are no entirely 'empty' systems (systems with no resources at all), as we discovered during playtesting that spending influence to claim such a system felt extremely unrewarding.

I don't quite get this bit... Wouldn't the fact that a system is empty, become clear when you're surveying it? You seem to ba talking about a situation where someone claims a system and then finds out it's worthless, but I don't understand how you would ever get to that point?
 
Not convinced on the border system change yet. initial reaction is cool for early game, annoying mid game, and either super aggravating or completely ignorable end game.

It does feel a a bit gamey to me though. Less organic. Eventually wanting to build one in every system feels off, reminds me to much of games like endless space or sins of a solar empire, where the map is clearly build up out of nodes. While that's true in this game too (especially if you play hyperlanes) it still felt quite like an open organic map, I feel this change will remove a lot of that feeling. Making it feel more like node hopping your way to your objective rather then actual open space.

The change to making _every_ system have something useful in it really exacerbates that feeling too, and it's probably the part I like least. Space should be big, there should be stars without anything useful.
 
Which could actually be the new meta for 1.9? Maybe you're not supposed to take up most of the map, maybe vast sections of the map are supposed to be uncontrolled for the majority of the game. I'd actually be comfortable with that. I like the idea of areas of "wilderness space". But there's no evidence that that's the intention so far, and I don't think everyone would be as comfortable with it as I am.

Honestly, I do think this is the intent. We've only had a couple of screenshots of the early game so far, so it's too early to judge how it'll play out, but I suspect that is what will happen in practice.

Because why wouldn't you? The cost in influence is one off, so it will pay for itself eventually no matter how shitty the system is - just a case of which ones you go for first.

Pirates and space monsters, perhaps? Make them an exception to the rule that you cannot destroy outposts, have some way to spawn new monsters/pirates you have to patrol your borders, and let (the pirates) specifically take over outposts if you don't defend them properly, so you're punished if you overreach carelessly.