Stellaris Dev Diary #106: 2.0.2 patch notes and the Road Ahead for Cherryh | Page 27

ius · Mar 2, 2018

Van-d-all said:
Fleet manager isn't mentioned in patchnotes, but it seems to have some tracking of outdated designs, as it shows an upgrade arrow on outdated ship number. Not sure, but I'm not risking the mess I got myself into, last time I left auto templates on, just to check it out.

Next to multiple active bug reports on the Fleet Manager there is already an Improving the Fleet Manager suggestion thread going on: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/improving-the-fleet-manager.1071998/

Sakkura · Mar 2, 2018

Van-d-all said:
I can see a lot people complain about the outpost cost, but I don't really get where is it coming from. I for one welcome the change, because in 2.0 even after stripping thrifty off my guys, I still had several constructors dedicated to building new outposts exclusively in every game, and it felt like 50% of my gameplay time was microing expansion. Is it some kind of EU map painting thing? I pick clusters of profitable sectors and just connect them with possibly reasonable number of other ones to keep territorial continuity. Maybe it's a matter of how you perceive resources - ie. when you expect similar energy surplus like with minerals vs. just try for it to be above zero like with food? I noticed it mentioned in relation to synthetic empires, and in this regard I don't know, as I only play organics, but if so, isn't it actually a problem with them? I think the new cost easily communicates the need to actually only blob when it's reasonable, unlike the somewhat more indirect other maluses from sector count. And, no I'm not spreadsheeting anything, I play everything by ear, on hard difficulty. Nor am I trying to mock anyone, I'm genuinely astonished where are those problems coming from.

It depends how much you want to be skipping systems, I think. Personally I want to see mostly contiguous empires, but with a few Swiss cheese holes and maybe a few small sections left empty. I prefer when the cost is mostly making you prioritize some systems before others, rather than leaving whole swathes of space useless.

The new pirate spawn mechanic, as well as the extra influence cost for building outposts away from your existing borders, seems to indicate Paradox doesn't intend the latter scenario either.

Personally I do think there was a bit too much energy going around, and adding a bit of energy upkeep to outposts could be reasonable. I just think 1 energy per outpost is too punitive - 0.5 would be my suggestion.

aderwolf · Mar 2, 2018

The only thing i see i rly dislike is that you guys took aways FTL traps from Habitats. There often is wide areas of Space where no Planet is anywhere near to create a chokepoint when you want to defend yourself. Creating FTL traps with the already significant Ressource cost you put in when building the Habitat was in my eyes a decently balanced aproach to it.

Starcomet · Mar 2, 2018

They should reduce it to 0.5 energy per station or if they keep it at 1, it should not increase with each upgrade. I mean at citadel level it would have a base energy maintenance of 5 in addition to all of the modules and buildings you have on it. This forces you to upgrade only a select few systems to star ports and above (which I already do anyway).

And I do not see why everyone says they are swimming in energy. My energy income has not gone over 400 and I am in the year 2480 with 2 habitats dedicated to energy production and spitting out 12 energy for each tile and one planet focused on energy.

ius · Mar 2, 2018

Sakkura said:
It depends how much you want to be skipping systems, I think. Personally I want to see mostly contiguous empires, but with a few Swiss cheese holes and maybe a few small sections left empty. I prefer when the cost is mostly making you prioritize some systems before others, rather than leaving whole swathes of space useless.

The new pirate spawn mechanic, as well as the extra influence cost for building outposts away from your existing borders, seems to indicate Paradox doesn't intend the latter scenario either.

Personally I really like the new expansion system, in my opinion it is far more realistic to claim only the profitable systems, especially in the early game. Only a late game civilization controls everything (in between). However currently the linear increase in influence cost actually steers me in taking system by system, because I decide not to care about the unity/research penalty.

Talking about balance, yeah I grasp that something is amiss. In the early space race, surely mass expansion should be very expensive. But I don't believe the solution has to be of an universal nature, nor does the proposed maintenance cost have to be linear, meaning it could scale or be depended on certain technology. Take EU4 as an example: you have the rate of oversees expansion characterized by a number of colonists, but you are free to go over that limit, albeit paying a steep cost. Also maybe adding a civic or two and some more traditions to make smooth expansion more feasible to civilizations that opt to blob.

Then those nasty pirates occupying the pocket systems, they are a pain in the ass, especially in larger empires where gateways are not yet up and running and since hyperlane travel is kinda slow. One way to effectively counter their harassment might be how EU4 handles rebels, add a button to the fleet display to automatically search for and kill pirates. This way I could keep one or two policing fleets around and automate the process. I do would want to have a sort of indication of their potential strength and possible arrival/uprising time.

Coming back to this, I believe Stellaris should adopt an overextension mechanism, controlling the rate of expansion and effecting the number and frequency of pirates.

Nueva12 · Mar 2, 2018

Is it intentional that consumer goods are now a fixed 0.75 instead of 0.5 + 0.01 per planet?

Hinochino · Mar 2, 2018

Jamor said:
When we made 2.0, we knew that the scale of changes would be huge, and therefore I budgeted a larger than normal amount of dev time for post-launch support.

Jamor said:
2.0.2 is planned to be a "rolling beta", meaning we will continue to update it at intervals when we have new tweaks/fixes that we want to push to you.

Those are two very great decisions.
Even for the player who understands the appearance of new bugs when there are major changes, it is always frustrating to wait too long for the fixes for a newly published version. It can ruin the "magic" of the discovery of new or modified content and mechanics, and that is specialy grave when there is a percentage of players returning anxious to see and enjoy certain changes/improvements announced, subjectibly for the player, long time ago. The worst part is that I think the type of player that most suffer the waits beetwen fixes are the core players that will mantain Stellaris "alive" no matter the frequency or flashiness of the new content.
I encourage to use this approach not only by the scale of the changes, but also for the demand or importance of them from the player point of view.

Sakkura · Mar 2, 2018

aderwolf said:
The only thing i see i rly dislike is that you guys took aways FTL traps from Habitats. There often is wide areas of Space where no Planet is anywhere near to create a chokepoint when you want to defend yourself. Creating FTL traps with the already significant Ressource cost you put in when building the Habitat was in my eyes a decently balanced aproach to it.

You get FTL inhibitors on Starbases.

Xygerii · Mar 2, 2018

ElwinSP said:
Eh, one doubt. In offworld trading company it says it gives energy to resource reprocessors in contrast to the previous bonus to trading hubs. What are resource reprocessors? Tried searching it with no result. I guess maybe its trading hubs and nebula refineries and so on but can anyone confirm this?

Resource Reprocessors are renamed Trading Hubs for Hive Minds, I think. I also have this issue where the Offworld Trading Company incorrectly refers to Resource Reprocessors rather than Trading Hubs. I can confirm, however, that the Offworld Trading Company correctly increases the energy output of Trading Hubs. (I apologise if someone has already replied, I'm new to these forums and don't know how to check)

Ex Mudder · Mar 2, 2018

I don't see the problem with making outposts cost 1 energy just like almost everything else does - buildings, mining and research stations, etc.

I was swimming in energy, to the point i was not building energy mining stations in systems I claimed. And when I did, I just trades the excess to the trader guilds for more minerals.

I would like to see us start the game with 200 energy instead of 100 though.

Twoflower · Mar 2, 2018

Ex Mudder said:
I don't see the problem with making outposts cost 1 energy just like almost everything else does - buildings, mining and research stations, etc.

I was swimming in energy, to the point i was not building energy mining stations in systems I claimed. And when I did, I just trades the excess to the trader guilds for more minerals.

I would like to see us start the game with 200 energy instead of 100 though.

I started a game in 2.02 beta yesterday, and having tried it I don't think it's too bad. It simply adds one more aspect to the decision of whether to claim systems or not. I assume that the reason for the change was to make energy matter more, which is generally a good idea.

Mitchella35 · Mar 2, 2018

+1 Energy for outposts will really impact the early game. It won't make any difference to late game where you can easily run in at 600+ energy even without the dyson sphere. It will also disproportionately affect machine empires as they already have tremendous difficulty balancing energy early to mid-game. If each outpost takes 1 energy then it massively hampers the ability to grow your borders, especially as the AI doesn't seem to care about it.

I think it would be better to rethink the outpost energy costs and apply a different penalty if you think they're too strong, but as growing your borders now absolutely requires then as opposed to 1.9 where it happened organically, I think this will render playstyles unavailable, rather than opening playstyles. It will also cripple machine empires excepting determined assimilators, who will simply be forced to use their cyborg race to populate all their planets.

Starcomet · Mar 2, 2018

Ex Mudder said:
I don't see the problem with making outposts cost 1 energy just like almost everything else does - buildings, mining and research stations, etc.

I was swimming in energy, to the point i was not building energy mining stations in systems I claimed. And when I did, I just trades the excess to the trader guilds for more minerals.

I would like to see us start the game with 200 energy instead of 100 though.

Twoflower said:
I started a game in 2.02 beta yesterday, and having tried it I don't think it's too bad. It simply adds one more aspect to the decision of whether to claim systems or not. I assume that the reason for the change was to make energy matter more, which is generally a good idea.

I guess I play differently from others or I expand very slowly. I never have an issue with too much energy. If anything, my income constantly usually remains equal with my mineral income.

Jamey · Mar 2, 2018

Jamor said:
Increased energy upkeep of all Starbase sizes by +1. Outposts now cost 1 energy maintenance

That will be a very expensive transition at my point in the game. I’ll definitely need some more energy income before the transition.

nairmak_gren · Mar 2, 2018

I still dislike the change to starbase upkeep. As I have said it is already slower to grow and advance your empire, so why make it even slower? Energy can be scarce in some games - going whole systems without finding a single energy deposit - so why decentivize people to expand?

Saryn · Mar 2, 2018

Nox Eterna said:
Nice to see patches coming through so swiftly. Didn't see anything about titans though, hope that doesn't mean devs are completely satisfied with their performance.

They're likely focused on non-expansion content bug fixes first.

Remwulf · Mar 2, 2018

Very good update, but please remove the Energy upkeep for starbases/outposts - or atleast lower it a bit, to 0.5 each! Other than that a very good update.

babuchas1 · Mar 2, 2018

rtho782 said:
I know lots of people love the forced "status quo" peace, but in my recent game I had an inferior neighour I was trying to tributary. I didn't want their crappy planets, which would increase my tech/unity costs. They had a defence pact with a sprawling but equivalent overall and inferior fleet power empire the other side of them.

I rolled the tributary target, occupied all his worlds and systems. Still no where near accept demands. Started rolling his ally. ~10 systems and 5 planets in, I ran out of WE (despite having barely lost anything) and despite my +50 fleet power, zero systems lost, OH WELL LET'S JUST HAND EVERYTHING BACK AND END THE WAR.

That was very immersion breaking, and I think has finally lead me to give up on 2.0. I have put about 30 hours into trying to play this - completely different - game since the patch, but... it's just an exercise in tedium.

The problem here is not the war exhaustion, but your enemy don't giving up with 100% occupation. That should be always impossible. You occupy all their systems, including the capital. So if they don't give up you just execute all their leaders and install new ones. You will deal with the massive rebellion later on, but you make them give up. So please, balance so someone with 100% occupation and 100% WE surrender, because the opposite doesn't make sense.

TheFunMachine · Mar 2, 2018

Started a game with 2.0.2. Energy is no problem so far, not sure why it is such a problem for some.

Twoflower · Mar 2, 2018

Mitchella35 said:
+1 Energy for outposts will really impact the early game. It won't make any difference to late game where you can easily run in at 600+ energy even without the dyson sphere. It will also disproportionately affect machine empires as they already have tremendous difficulty balancing energy early to mid-game. If each outpost takes 1 energy then it massively hampers the ability to grow your borders, especially as the AI doesn't seem to care about it.

I think it would be better to rethink the outpost energy costs and apply a different penalty if you think they're too strong, but as growing your borders now absolutely requires then as opposed to 1.9 where it happened organically, I think this will render playstyles unavailable, rather than opening playstyles. It will also cripple machine empires excepting determined assimilators, who will simply be forced to use their cyborg race to populate all their planets.

Yes, it has an impact, but I do not think it is necessarily a bad one.
It makes energy matter in the early game, and gives you a good reason to invest your early minerals and population in stuff that produces energy.
Before, the (in my opinion too) obvious strategy for the early game was to focus on minerals and unity, and only ever use planet tiles and excess minerals for energy production when you started to run a deficit. Having your capacity to sustain rapid expansion dependent on energy - along with the new energy-based campaigns - makes investing in energy early on a valid option, while keeping minerals and unity relevant as well.
Making choices more meaningful is always a good thing in a strategy game, even if it makes the game a little harder.

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