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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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There aren't 10s of empires unless you set the game up that way. The default setting for the very largest map is 15 non-fallen empires. You can if you wish play with far fewer. If you use clustered starts, those are going to be bunched together leaving vast areas empty and making it more likely that many of those starting empires get eliminated.

If you're telling me that this new system is going to work well if you play with certain settings at game start, then I'm going to go ahead and say it's not a very good system.

Plus they should do what I said with the UI anyway, because it's just good practice.

guess what fallen empires are also empires with outposts...

still once again for hundreds of planets to be done by you, that's 200 minimum, that's 20% of the largest map, at standard 15 that's ~5% reserved for everyone else, meaning on average you'd have to make quadruple the outposts of other people, this to me seems extremely improbably to reach without going to war. You always can be space Russia, but if so this is going to be stretched out over a larger chunk of the game thanks to influence costs.

primitives can become new empires, the war in heaven can happen, there's so many reasons for you not to gobble up huge chunks of the map on your own. I'm more inclined to say you're saying very specific circumstances that make these mechanics kinda tedious. Specifically huge map with low AI empires. this system will not see you claiming 'hundreds' of outposts on the vast majority of settings, not specific ones.
 
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.

Because shift clicking loads of system as you described is actually pretty good way to implement this which doesn't require too many clicks. Compare those few extra clicks to the benefits of not having to guess where the borders are going to be drawn when I build an outpost, conquer system or when someone gets bonuses to border projection. Plus that an empire can't just claim a system it has never been to and without any enforcement stop anyone else ever visiting there. All of that sound pretty good even at the expense of a few more clicks.


Because Stellaris maps have hundreds of stars on them.

Which you are still not going to claim yourself. Even if the largest map only has 15 non-fallen empires standard, that's still nothing close to hundreds of outposts. Yeah, I'm sure we'll be faster to colonize than a regular AI, but I've never really had that problem of huge unclaimed territories or AI not competing with me for those in my games. Might be because of my difficulty settings and if that's the case, I can understand a player having easier time colonizing on normal settings.
 
So two things: 1.) As a quality of life improvement can you mark an outpost as special interest so that it can show up in the planner? Maybe you want to eventually upgrade it the the next level. If I understood the info right because they are not meant to be interacted with most of the time you'll have to search it out amongst potentially dozens of systems.

2.) I feel like, depending on where I place my outposts, I should project a sphere of influence to claim an area of space. So if I decide to not claim the system next door, but claim the system just beyond that, then I have influence in the star system that is in between them due to virtual traffic. If I do that with enough systems then I should be able to claim an area of space and the systems that fall within it. There would have to be a range component invloved so you aren't claim 10 systems out. As a simple visualization I'm thinking of a pie chart with the point in the middle as your starbase and then a concentric circle of star systems around it with a second ring further out. After I claim enough systems in that second ring to create a "slice of pie" my influence should be high enough that I can claim that this is my space and not have someone snake a claim on a system that falls between them.
 
Hoo boy Stellaris is in for a rework. If the Starport changes are the tip of the iceberg then i think we are going to end up with something pretty significantly different from initial release. I am also 100% predicting that they're going to rework FTL in this update so everyone starts with hyperdrives and more systems get unlocked through tech, so as to give the galaxy a "geography" that the initial map generation can use to seed interesting things
 
Great stuff, Wiz, absolutely the right direction for the game.:)
 
"poor UX in this one game is acceptable because this other game has even worst UX"

It has nothing to do with "poor UX". You can have only so much information on the screen at one time. You can only automate so many things and there are several problems with automation that are being ignored by the naysayers.

That has nothing to do with what I was saying though.

Starbases allow for more natural empire growth that the player can drive with 0% ambiguity.
 
guess what fallen empires are also empires with outposts...

Fallen empires don't expand.

still once again for hundreds of planets to be done by you, that's 200 minimum, that's 20% of the largest map, at standard 15 that's ~5% reserved for everyone else, meaning on average you'd have to make quadruple the outposts of other people

Hundreds was your word. Everyone has a different tolerance for this sort of thing, but I would consider something in the order of 'dozens' to be excessive and irritating, given the current UI.

primitives can become new empires, the war in heaven can happen, there's so many reasons for you not to gobble up huge chunks of the map on your own. I'm more inclined to say you're saying very specific circumstances that make these mechanics kinda tedious. Specifically huge map with low AI empires. this system will not see you claiming 'hundreds' of outposts on the vast majority of settings, not specific ones.

Guess what: the UI, and game design, needs support all play styles and circumstances that can realistically crop up in an unmodded game, not just the ones the devs want to consider.

The border rework is necessary for the warfare rework.

It's not the concept of claiming systems individually I object to, it's building outposts in every system with the current three clicks a time UI.

I'd prefer it if they just took the sector management interface and used that to let you buy border systems in exchange for influence but Martin says they need the outposts there for other reasons, so they need to do something to speed up the process of building outposts.
 
It has nothing to do with "poor UX". You can have only so much information on the screen at one time. You can only automate so many things and there are several problems with automation that are being ignored by the naysayers.

If I'm expected to have to personally add every system to the my empire in a game where the star count is in the 100s, I expect to be able to do so with one click. Not three plus scrolling.
 
If I'm expected to have to personally add every system to the my empire in a game where the star count is in the 100s, I expect to be able to do so with one click. Not three plus scrolling.

What 4x game allows you to add territory with one click?
 
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.

Maybe this system means it's time for the death of construction ships?

With the retirement of military stations the only things buildable in neutral territory will be outposts and wormole stations (if the multiple FTLs survive). Everything else will require an outpost at least anyway, so why not make it a function of the outpost and roll the things that can happen in neutral space into science ships (call them something like Pioneer ships to reflect the change). (Yes, they'd take some time away from surveying to build, but land grabbing would be slower now anyway so that wouldn't be as much of an impact).

Even better, roll an average cost & upkeep for buildable stations into the cost of building the outpost and just have the outpost construct the mining stations by itself over time.
 
Fallen empires don't expand.

Hundreds was your word. Everyone has a different tolerance for this sort of thing, but I would consider something in the order of 'dozens' to be excessive and irritating, given the current UI.

Guess what: the UI, and game design, needs support all play styles and circumstances that can realistically crop up in an unmodded game, not just the ones the devs want to consider.

they do when they awaken, also regardless it's still like 10-20 outposts you don't have to make per empire.

yes over the course of a game 50 on average(for standard huge games) seems more than tolerable for the average human being, it's not game breaking or something to riot over. and no I specifically quoted (someone like 3-4 pages back now) the hundreds.

they do support them, don't know what you're going on about here, unless this is merely more hyperbole.
 
I do love the update on starbases because they do lack some uses, especially when they get destroyed but I also think you should update on combat for both space battles and planet battles because it lacks the tactical value in them which war in the game a bit dull. Another suggestion is to add superweapons into the game since other games like Spore and Endless Space 2 actually give you the option of creating a planet destroyer. You can even create different types of superweapons besides planet destroyers like a giant emp weapon that would disable machinery and destroy synthetic beings on the planet or a giant biological weapon that could destroy or pacify specific or all types of organic species on the planet. And also make us terraform and colonize dead or dangerious planets because its kind of counterproductive to use inhabitations on top of inhabitable planets when you can terraform and that people have talked about the science of terraforming dead worlds through shows and movies. We can still use installations on top of gas planets since their is no physical surface to terraform and colonize. I hope you would consider these ideas in the future and hope it would make a better playing experience for all of us.
 
Depending on your definition of midgame, I don't think that's true - you can expand peacefully until right into the end game on some maps. Not everyone plays with the number of AI empires cranked up to maximum.

True, but those type of games often have so little going on it just doesnt seem like extensive micro to me. The idea of building outposts in each system just doesnt sound very micro intensive to me. Especially since you will have to wait until you have enough influence to do it each time. Having to build...lets say 50 outposts over the course of a few hours of gameplay time doesnt sounds too bad to me atleast.
 
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.

Does this imply that if all of your starbases are destroyed, you will have no capacity to create any military ships of any kind? Because that seems like an incredibly easy way for someone to complete destroy a large empire in one go, as by killing off all their starbases, they will no longer have any means of building up their fleets. Would it be better for planets, maybe even just the capital planet, to be able to build the lowest level of military ships so that this does not equal a death sentence?
 
they do when they awaken, also regardless it's still like 10-20 outposts you don't have to make per empire.

According to you the entire map has already been filled by the time they awaken, so they don't count :eek:

I'd say most games require you to put down structures to claim resources.

Most games don't require you claim each individual tile with multiple clicks, then put down structures to claim resources, and most games don't have maps the size of Stellaris ones.