Dev Diary #91: Starbases

[Spleenman]

It's not going to be a complete re-write.

I believe there's a teapot in orbit around the sun between the orbits of Earth and Mars.
It's unclear how limiting ranges would prevent/lead to any of the things you mention. Either way FTL changes will be explained Thursday, there might be something you like there.

The AI can only send demands when you're at negative warscore ie losing. Their demands are also in relation to how much you're in the red meaning they sometimes sue for peace just asking for a colony or humiliation (much like your MOO example).
Why should influence be gained or lost by space combat?
Larger empires are already more daunting opponents, they don't really need to be made more so. How would this system be an improvement on the current warscore system (that's also getting an update, fyi)? What you're describing are essentially wargoals but for some reason with influence instead of warscore. And as influence gain is pretty even between large and small empires right now you'll have to completely rework that, and then how do you adjust all the things that cost influence now? Hard to imagine how that would be an improvement.

You'll still have your fence, it's just moved. Unclear how "fixing" the first two would do anything about the problems of the current system.

Then you should probably put your researcher that's good at physics in the physics slot.
What researcher you put where affects the weighting of the different techs so you can guide your research, to a point. Your suggested improvement is essentially how it works now.
Tech costs going up with empire size is a classic 4X mechanic, without it you basically force all empires to blob as much as possible or fall behind not just in economy but also in technology. Wide and tall doesn't need to be equally viable but it's nice if tall isn't completely thrown under the bus. If you'd like a "realistic" motivation then we can say that it's more difficult to coordinate research over a huge empire, there will be more unnecessarily duplicated research etc.

You can already do this.

Thus never improving on anything that isn't "broken".



To sum up, you don't like the revamp of the border system but would like complete revamps of a number of other systems. Because when you want it it's not a complete rework but when you don't it is

- I really don't appreciate someone with a condescending attitude. You need to park that. If you want an honest discussion, I'm cool with that, but I'm not here to please the fan bois.

- Limiting ranges completely slows down the game, gives an inefficient human a little time to react and consolidate their empire. I don't have an issue with that. Sounds like you do. I suppose you also believe energy is unlimited. There is no perpetual motion machine. I think you need to keep in mind not everyone has thousands of uninterrupted hours of play time in the game yet. For new players, it's a little overwhelming. Slowing down the computer in your face at turn 60 isn't a bad thing. Ranges SHOULD be limited. It gives a perfect reason to make any star system a strategic target. Maybe you simply need to take it so your empire has more range. Completely sensible. Unlimited ranges are extremely OP, especially when your government is an imperium type and maybe mixing it up with multiple AI's early on.

- Classic tech costs increasing with empire size makes zero sense. A bigger empire has more resources to spend. So you're telling me that it should take just as long to learn how to develop disruptors X or something, but scores of researchers have to invest the equivalent time in understanding the base mass driver? Makes no sense at all. It needs to be based on the equivalent primitive or advancement of the tech.

- Well of course I put my physics researcher in the physics slot. But that doesn't do any good if he isn't researching a physics tech, but instead a randomly generated non-physics choice now does it ...? How exactly would I prevent that?

- Why should influence be lost by space combat? Because that's what war is. The ultimate diplomacy tactic. The winner gaining influence based on winning engagements makes perfect sense. Think of the Coral Sea. Think of the Solomon Islands. Think of Stalingrad. Until those battles were lost by the Axis, they thought themselves invincible. Perhaps a morale tug of war makes more sense? Essentially that's what the game has now, as if you are losing, the computer simply rapes you of your influence until you must capitulate. Interestingly enough, if you declare and achieve your war goals, which I did, last game, the computer simply ignores that it happened at all. I hope that is addressed to be more sensible.

 

[Spleenman]

I think you misunderstood me.

If a system is empty and you've got infrastructure in the nearby system, building a civillian outpost (mining station, scientific station) should be possible. Even if you don't have military control of the system, you're the one paying the workers salary, so yes, they will do what you say without the presence of a small millitary outpost nearby.
But doing so does indeed expose you to the risk of another nation coming and gaining control of the system. Afterall, you do not control it, you just exploit it.

I really disliked the fact that in Stellaris, only claimed system could be exploited. Economic and scentific developments are big motor for expension and are in fact the most common one. We should start with the exploitation of rssource and then securing it.
No sense in having an heavy border defense when as far as you know, you are the only intelligent race out there.

But this is Capek V1.8, and with the Clausewitz engine, you are NEVER alone in the vast expanse of space. In fact, you should bank on an AI being right next to you, with a double your fleet doomstack, that you'll meet on turn 60.

 

[Peko?]

- I really don't appreciate someone with a condescending attitude. You need to park that. If you want an honest discussion, I'm cool with that, but I'm not here to please the fan bois.

I didn’t mean to be condescending (but I can see how the jab about Russel’s teapot could be interpreted that way).

- Limiting ranges completely slows down the game, gives an inefficient human a little time to react and consolidate their empire. I don't have an issue with that. Sounds like you do. I suppose you also believe energy is unlimited. There is no perpetual motion machine. I think you need to keep in mind not everyone has thousands of uninterrupted hours of play time in the game yet. For new players, it's a little overwhelming. Slowing down the computer in your face at turn 60 isn't a bad thing. Ranges SHOULD be limited. It gives a perfect reason to make any star system a strategic target. Maybe you simply need to take it so your empire has more range. Completely sensible. Unlimited ranges are extremely OP, especially when your government is an imperium type and maybe mixing it up with multiple AI's early on.

I’m not necessarily against ranges but I don’t think they will have the effects that you seem to want. Limiting ranges could slow down the game, it wouldn’t necessarily, at least not without making the initial ranges very small which has it’s own issues. I doubt that it would do anything to help new players, if the AI is beating you at 60 years in (I’ll assume that’s what you mean by turn 60) it will probably beat you worse later on. 60 years in isn’t exactly early game in Stellaris, it’s more like early mid-game. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for the AI to wage war with you at that time of the game. If you feel like you can’t win those wars that’s another issue.
It could make certain systems more strategically important I’ll give you that, I just don’t think it would necessarily do so.
There is an FTL type in the game which mimics a range system, wormholes, except that wormhole-stations take the role of supply depots in this framework. You could try some wormhole only games and see if you like that better.
But, this is all somewhat academic, they’ll give us details on the planned changes to FTL tomorrow, if they don’t introduce range limits then I wouldn’t expect to see them in the game for a long time (there are indications that they’ll introduce some changes that aren’t exactly limited ranges but which might have some of the consequences that I believe you want).

- Classic tech costs increasing with empire size makes zero sense. A bigger empire has more resources to spend. So you're telling me that it should take just as long to learn how to develop disruptors X or something, but scores of researchers have to invest the equivalent time in understanding the base mass driver? Makes no sense at all. It needs to be based on the equivalent primitive or advancement of the tech.

And how do you balance that for large vs small empires? Should large empires always be superior to smaller ones in practically every regard?
Game mechanics needn't always make 100% sense. It makes some sense in that throwing more manpower at a problem doesn't necessarily help you solve it and coordinating research across several star systems would be a difficult enough task that seems likely it would introduce inefficiencies to your research.

- Well of course I put my physics researcher in the physics slot. But that doesn't do any good if he isn't researching a physics tech, but instead a randomly generated non-physics choice now does it ...? How exactly would I prevent that?

You can't prevent it, you can only nudge it, for example by having a scientist with the right expertise in the relevant slot (so that’s some good that it does).

- Why should influence be lost by space combat? Because that's what war is. The ultimate diplomacy tactic. The winner gaining influence based on winning engagements makes perfect sense. Think of the Coral Sea. Think of the Solomon Islands. Think of Stalingrad. Until those battles were lost by the Axis, they thought themselves invincible. Perhaps a morale tug of war makes more sense? Essentially that's what the game has now, as if you are losing, the computer simply rapes you of your influence until you must capitulate. Interestingly enough, if you declare and achieve your war goals, which I did, last game, the computer simply ignores that it happened at all. I hope that is addressed to be more sensible.

But that's not really what influence is in Stellaris, it’s (mostly) a measure of your ability to enforce your will on your own empire.
Morale and war weariness is reflected in the war score mechanic more than anything else. Negative war score means you’ve lost enough that your empire’s morale is down. When you pay influence to reject a peace proposal that’s you enforcing your will on an empire that wants to accept the proposal.
It only costs influence to reject proposals when you’re losing (by the metric the game uses, war score). You have a leg up on the AI here, the AI has to accept a peace proposal that would cost you influence to deny. So you have the option to continue the war and hope to get your war score up, but only for so long (there’s supposed to be a cool-down for the AI between sending you peace proposals).
For that last thing, did you send any peace proposals to the AI? The AI mostly wont surrender until you’re at 100 war score but will often accept a peace treaty where you get all your war goals at lower war scores.


It seems to me that at least some of the things you have issue with comes from not understanding all of the mechanics and from being a new player. I wont tell you to “git gud” but there are a lot of threads with useful gameplay advice, or just start your own if there are things that seem odd, there could be something you overlooked (or not, it’s not a perfect game… yet).

 

[Riftwalker]

tech costs getting higher is part of the empire being able to spread this tech through out the empire and applying it to the multitude of circumstances that it needs to be applied to. this is later part of the reason colonies take time to set up as tech is refurbished to work there. autocannons need to be able to be manufactured all across your empire, new farms need to be able to withstand the different environmental concerns of each planet, etc. Research facilities include applied science, not just theoretical.

 

[elandread]

cool, still not hundreds. people were acting like people were gona have to build 500 outposts to cover a 1000 star map and didn't realize that you would gain the vast majority of your space-flags from conquest.

Hmm, in my case, like I said, it was ~20% of the galaxy which is ~200 systems, i.e. two hundred systems. So yes, hundreds.

Anyway, it's technicalities, my point is that I'm worried that it can become tedious. I hope that the devs will solve this problem, but the danger is certainly there.

 

[Riftwalker]

Hmm, in my case, like I said, it was ~20% of the galaxy which is ~200 systems, i.e. two hundred systems. So yes, hundreds.

Anyway, it's technicalities, my point is that I'm worried that it can become tedious. I hope that the devs will solve this problem, but the danger is certainly there.

you said 150, and I said 200 as a conservative number for people's expectations. so yes, it's technicalities, that technichally you can just barely get within the claim of hundreds if you do everything right, but let's face it when people say hundreds they don't literally meen 200+, they mean ~300-999. even then, this is merely 2997 clicks spread out over a 10 hour or so game(going by my pace). this is an extra click every 12 seconds if you built personally an outpost in EVERY SINGLE SYSTEM, including your homeworld somehow. an outpost every 36 seconds.

not even mentioning how many clicks shipyards save over a game.

the math doesn't add up.

 

[Kayden_II]

Hmm, in my case, like I said, it was ~20% of the galaxy which is ~200 systems, i.e. two hundred systems.

So yes, hundreds.

Anyway, it's technicalities, my point is that I'm worried that it can become tedious.

Without any relation, 200 "clicks" sounds just tedious, but that're probably fewer ones than to build up the mining-/research-stations in that star-systems or to build up + upgrade the core-colonies in any game - So, in comparison, it's "nothing".

 

[Balesir]

Hmm, in my case, like I said, it was ~20% of the galaxy which is ~200 systems, i.e. two hundred systems. So yes, hundreds.

Anyway, it's technicalities, my point is that I'm worried that it can become tedious. I hope that the devs will solve this problem, but the danger is certainly there.

OK, so around 200 stations over, as a conservative estimate, 100 game years; 2 stations (4 clicks) per game year, on average. You know what? I think I'll cope.

 

[Balesir]

yep. Computer with less stars and resources? No problem. He'll just show up with a doomstack twice as big as your fleet and chew through defensive numbers twice his own size like they are butter. Literally just experienced this as a 1.2k starbase, a 350 defense station AND a fleet of 1.2k couldn't stop an attacking force of only 1.9k.

Have you actually watched the battles, or checked the combat report? Fleet "power" is a generalised value against an "average opponent", but your fleet design compared to what it's fighting can make quite a difference. The incoming fleet may also get to fight your fleet first, then the station - so two 1.9 vs. 1.2 battles, not one 1.9 vs. 2.4 battle. Expecting battles to be just a nubers game invites problems; if it were so there would be no point in many of those techs and such you get options on.

 

[razaron]

I've noticed this before as well, a lot of experienced players don't know some of the important shortcuts.
Placing outposts should only take 2+x clicks, where x is the number of systems. 1 click to select a constructor, 1 click to select the outpost icon and 1 shift+click per system to place the outpost. You can try this for mining and research stations.

Of course, you won't be building tonnes of outposts at once so the 2 initial clicks will add up, but this is a PC game. Clicks happen. The only way to get less clicks would be to automate the building of outposts (I heard sectors are a fan-favourite feature) or have the game forcefully deselect whatever you are doing and selecting a constructor with build outpost toggled whenever you have influence.

PS. I'm not saying I'm an 1337 player or anything. It's just that I prefer to game with 1 hand on my balls, so I quickly learn shortcuts. No I don't have a third hand, the shift key is mapped to my mouse.

 

[terrycloth]

I've noticed this before as well, a lot of experienced players don't know some of the important shortcuts.
Placing outposts should only take 2+x clicks, where x is the number of systems. 1 click to select a constructor, 1 click to select the outpost icon and 1 shift+click per system to place the outpost. You can try this for mining and research stations.

Of course, you won't be building tonnes of outposts at once so the 2 initial clicks will add up, but this is a PC game. Clicks happen. The only way to get less clicks would be to automate the building of outposts (I heard sectors are a fan-favourite feature) or have the game forcefully deselect whatever you are doing and selecting a constructor with build outpost toggled whenever you have influence.

PS. I'm not saying I'm an 1337 player or anything. It's just that I prefer to game with 1 hand on my balls, so I quickly learn shortcuts. No I don't have a third hand, the shift key is mapped to my mouse.

Or to have each manually placed outpost claim half a dozen systems, like it does now.

 

[Hype]

OK, so around 200 stations over, as a conservative estimate, 100 game years; 2 stations (4 clicks) per game year, on average. You know what? I think I'll cope.

2 stations would be 5 or 6 as you have to select the construction ship but otherwise pretty much.

The issue isn't the potential micro but that the UI for construction could and should be much better. For example using the sector claiming system and a visible construction queue that you're ships will build in order would be much nicer. Allowing the queue to be re-arranged on the fly and having a autobuild command on construction ships that would make them follow the queued construction order. Similar to auto survey that science ships have but still only building what you order. This would allow you to still individually command your construction ships when you want or have them follow your set development order. Also allowing you to plan out future expansion during down time to be executed when you want by just telling the ships to get to work.

Just because the current system may not be terrible doesn't mean there isn't a lot of room for improvement. Now seems like the time to make that improvement as they're currently overhauling the system.

 

[Ursul]

But this is Capek V1.8, and with the Clausewitz engine, you are NEVER alone in the vast expanse of space. In fact, you should bank on an AI being right next to you, with a double your fleet doomstack, that you'll meet on turn 60.

WE know that, the players. And yet from the "first life form discovered" event is a "great event" for our people. Just because we assume (and rigthfully so) that we have opponent, it doesn't make sense for a young spacefaring civilisation that barely know what is outside it's own solar system (and as of 1.8, not even what is inside it's own solar system) to be working with the assumption that it's going to meet hostile spacefaring alien.

 

[Kosh N]

Did i understsnd it rigtht that you gain controll over a planet when you comtroll the starbase?

If yes, armys will be complete irrelevant ir what?

 

[Adamsrealm]

This update is stupid. A full conversion wasn’t necessary. You should have let colonies claim the system they were in and then require a starbase to expand the border projection range from the colony.

FFS paradox... stop with the ott changes.

 

[Bl0wf1sh]

I find this change interesting, but am still a little concerned about the additional micro management required. Things that should make this transition better IMHO:

• A right-click menu item on the galaxy map to "build all stations", which builds first the outpost, then the mining stations and research stations
• A completely reworked war demands screen... first of all, it should be by system (if a system has two/four planets/sections, then it should include all) and a graphical view where I can click the systems I want to have, so that I can end up with nice borders after the war (well, somewhat similar to EU4... )
• An option to use a global build queue for ships that uses all available shipyards to build in parallel, with each ship going to the highest-priority rally point
• Claim certain systems as special interest so that if I happen to be in a war with an ally where I am not the war leader, they are more likely to give it to me in the end (since I cannot control my demands in such a case apparently). Of course, there have to be limitations for AI special interest, otherwise they will just claim everything.

Outposts should likely cost a small amount of crystals and influence (25/10?), not just influence. Cannot build the outpost out of thin air after all. I like that this change would allow me to expand to those resource rich systems in a more targeted way, instead of either building an outpost that costs influence to maintain or waiting until my borders happen to encompass it.

 

[SolSys]

Or to have each manually placed outpost claim half a dozen systems, like it does now.

This update is stupid. A full conversion wasn’t necessary. You should have let colonies claim the system they were in and then require a starbase to expand the border projection range from the colony.

FFS paradox... stop with the ott changes.

No, thanks.
I prefer the improved warfare this change will bring.

 

[SolSys]

yep. Computer with less stars and resources? No problem. He'll just show up with a doomstack twice as big as your fleet and chew through defensive numbers twice his own size like they are butter. Literally just experienced this as a 1.2k starbase, a 350 defense station AND a fleet of 1.2k couldn't stop an attacking force of only 1.9k.

Beginning to really dislike this game.

The AI doesn't work in the same way as a human opponent.
It will stack resources to a high amount and spend them when it feels it needs to -- thereby, creating the illusion of AI "cheating" for new players.

Regardless, if you feel you encountered a problem with the game, feel free to make a suggestion or post a bug report on the matter [use the "account sync" link below].

 

[Balesir]

Or to have each manually placed outpost claim half a dozen systems, like it does now.

Except that that brings nonsensical "grabs" and a lack of control that I find annoying, now. Every system has a downside; I find the ones likely with the new system far less annoying than those with the old. That may be "grass is greener" thinking, but I don't think so - even if station building has not changed at all I would prefer it system-by-system.

2 stations would be 5 or 6 as you have to select the construction ship but otherwise pretty much.

Sorry, my mistake, I forgot the "starter click". I usually do that from the "construction complete" flag, which selects the construction ship in the same click as it tells you what was completed - then I just set up the next task(s). A queue is already possible through shift-clicking, albeit you cant shuffle it with drag and drop (which I agree would be nice).

The issue isn't the potential micro but that the UI for construction could and should be much better.

I agree, but I think changes are likely there and we haven't seen them, yet. Actually, one change I would really like for the early to mid game is for mousovers on systems to show not just the total resources in a system, but how it's broken down. Is that "8 minerals" two 4s, or four 2s? Early on, I commonly want to hit the 4s and 3s by preference because I need the return on energy to be worthwhile.

 

[ohaunlaim]

I like a lot of the ideas behind these starbases... but it sure feels "game-y". I can see it already taking me out of my imperial throne room and slapping me right back down in front of my computer on ancient earth.

As a side... Since the whole expansion mechanic is being re-worked. I think it would be much more interesting to work a way to keep the old "blob" system in play as well. Heck come up with a third or fourth expansion mechanic. This would firstly add to race variety but also increase conflict. See the example below.

Race A uses the blob method and has the opinion that anything within 6 light years of any of their colonies is theirs, whether they can actually get there yet or not (like a system they just found called Desire). Race B falls into the camp that physical presence is the defacto rule of ownership, slap a starbase in a system and its yours - easy peasy (like they just did in a system called Desire). Oops suddenly you have two races with, in their minds, legitimate claims to a system.

What would this lead to? War? A negotiated surrender of rights by one party? An agreement that the system be declared neutral territory? What about joint ownership by both race as a way to strengthen their ties?

Anyway... Don't throw the old ownership system completely out just yet... keep it and add more!