Stellaris Dev Diary #141 - Exploring the Future

[eee1]

I'd love to see more crusader kings side... like relationship between entities. Maybe your empire is "feudal" style empire. Then leaders elected into it would matter. Maybe it's a megacorp and then it would be counted as one person... or it would be CEO of that company.

What I'd love to see is how personal animosity between my leader and other empire send into hell promising aliance.
Or how that friendly CEO change into my bitter enemy. Or maybe I could change attitude of enemy empire by killing it's ruler? Or something about that notes...
All that would add a personal side, helped to make each game more unique.

 

[Deamax]

Hey I have an idea for a feature that you could add for the more interactions with primitives if you're going to continue with those ideas. Perhaps there could be a policy that would place an independence guarantee on all primitives. For example, if any empire chooses to invade a primitive world that you have discovered, you have the option to intervene. Firstly, you would send demands to the invading civilization telling them that they have to remove their forces from the primitive world. If the nation does not follow these demands, you would then get the option to send your own forces, and then your invading army would fight on the same side as the primitive armies. The likelihood of the invading civilization following your demands of them retreating their invading armies would depend on the relative power level between your empire and the invading empire. Furthermore, if the invading empire does not respond to your demands, it would likely lead to war, or, there could be a slight chance of it being a skirmish that you and the invading empire could solve diplomatically. If that wouldn't be possible, maybe when you get the notification that the invading civilization is not following your demands, you get a casus belli to remove the invading forces, or liberate the primitive civilization.

 

[Annomander]

Shamelessly stealing an idea from another game studio, I put some of the 2.25 patch notes through a Markov chain text generator. Here are the results:
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Balance
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* Machine Empire Tech Drones now depend on the planet now produce 4 alloys (up from 6) base. Agri Drones now add 2 pops to uninhabitable Precursor homeworlds
* Species with the upgraded capitals reduced to give a bit of each Researchers, enforcers and fleet power has been improved
* Telepaths, head research (was 3 Society)
* Each Coordinators
* When freed from the time loop, the Prikkiki-Ti lizards will start with 2 replicators produce a Tomb World, rather than Coordinators are now more likely to become maintenance drones now ponder the empires
* Maintenance drones
* Citizen Service civic effect on pops and Nano-Vitality Crops technology effect on the planet still having >= 10/40 pops, to remove a tedious exploit with Emotion Emulators are now more likely to become maintenance drones now produce 4 alloys (up from 4) base. Agri Drones now produce 5 food (down from 6) base. Both of these also applies to Synth Empires get 50% more damage, have longer range, are faster, and turn and accelerate quicker
* Mineral Isolation technician output increased from 6).
* New Machine Empire Fabricators produce 1 of each Research (was 3 Society)
* Energy grids/nexus' are more expensive, but give an additional 5% bonus resources from the 2 granted by upgraded capital buildings now do more damage, have weights for ascension/events/uplifts related trait now produce 4 alloys (up from 6).
* New Machine capitals reduced to give a bit of each Research
* Coordinator on a planet modifiers always able to choosing a job
* Machine Empire Fabricators produce 1 of early boost (up from 6) base. Both of these also applies to Synth Empires get 50% more damage, have longer range, are faster, and turn and accelerate quicker
* Maintenance drone job priority now cost 150 alloys
* Made the bad outcomes the Abandoned Terraforming Project events/uplifts related traits
* Returned removed orbital deposits to their planet. This also apply to Synth empires
* Returned remove a tedious exploit with resettling pops avoiding a job
* Maintenance drone output
* Unemployed Machine Empire Outposts now boost (up from 1), upgraded capitals reduced Random factor in pop growth selection
* Strike craft now do more damage, have longer range, are faster, and turn and accelerate quicker
* Machine Empire now adds Synapse drones now produce 5 food (down from 6).
* New Machine Empire Fabricators produce 5 food (down from 6).
* When freed from +10% to +2
* Eco Simulation, Quantum Field Modulation technology effect on miner output increased from +10% to +2
* Energy (up from planet. This also applies to Synth empires
* Robots with Empires
* Made the bad outcome when choosing a job
* Maintenance drones
* Citizen Service civic effect on technician output by 1%
* Each Coordinators
tech as their closest neighbour. Also their economy and fleet power has been improved
* Telepaths, head researchers, high priests, administrator Districts to their planet now do more damage, have longer range, are faster, and turn and accelerate quicker
* Made the bad outcomes the Abandoned Terraforming Project events/uplifts related traits
* Returned removed orbital deposits to just be for chthonian planets and carbon world, for now...
* When freed from 10% to 20%
* The Repugnant/Uncanny trait now have weights for ascension/events/uplifts related traits

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Shamelessly stealing an idea from another game studio, I put some of the 2.25 patch notes through a Markov chain text generator.

Do that again, but feed it all the patch notes for Stellaris from the start.

 

[joriandrake]

Please fix the graphical side of the game, since the changes to ship model types were implemented things are off-color.

Ships now use the colors of your emblem, unlike how in the past ship types had a preset, specific color like a certain green hue for fungal or plantoid ships as example. Still the ships use the old original choice of scanning light cone color and things like the ring worlds also still use the old preset colors. Please make all of them use the same method of coloring as the ships currently too, depending on emblem coloring.

I specifically called out ring world, because on these megastructures can you see the difference most.

https://imgur.com/a/3dYZu

There are also a couple nice retextured ship models which could be added to base game so we have a couple to choose from even in a single style. As how Asian portraits and olther mods got added to base game for EU4 this could be done for Stellaris as well.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=796045259&searchtext=white+plantoid

Examples could be the white plantoid ship set, black avian ship set, silver & black reptilian ship set, golden fungoid ship set, blue & gold humanoid ship set, silver fungoid ship set, purple arthropoid ship set, grey molluscoid ship set, or more unique ones like the "Xenon Sector ship set" or those elven ones. All of them should still use the color of the faction emblem for the lights but have various options for your ship textures in addition.

 

[VNhasty]

Galactic Council: Create a sort of a ‘space UN’ with galactic politics and diplomacy.

This make me wary. I would like Federations to have it within their structure. Egalitarians might even have true vote split inside a single empire. Egalitarian and Authoritarian always being opposites prevents parliamentary monarchy type of government type. Megacorporations should also have shareholder/executive board vote on proposals and each of this things should come with diplomatic and other ways to skew the vote to a preferable direction. Some government types make full sense to have council of Governors - where it makes sense that a ruler needs to maintain support of majority of Governors (like Emperor of early HRE in CK2 relying a lot on support of powerful Dukes, having way less centralization power in comparison to early Byzantine Basileus for example).

When it comes to Space UN - this was the thing that I modded the most or opted to leave as early as possible in Galactic Civilizations 2. It had some really nice votes, but it also can have immersion breaking ones - depends on the type of empire played. Worst part was that this mechanic is such that same vote can be really nice or game breaking, depending on the type of empire. Stellaris have so much more variety of the empire types right of the start and game can start with so much more empires on the map, that a potential for a Council that includes everyone for passing a vote that screws up the very Sci-Fi fantasy you wanted to get from specific empire setup rises dramatically. And the worst is, if none of the resolutions can have such an impact, then it doesn't really serves a meaningful role to care about it enough and bother trying to get any of the votes passed or rejected. Complex system which can either be game breaking or completely ignored is the one that shouldn't exist. I am around Paradox games since HoI2 and fully aware of jokes about trying to make good espionage system. In that sense I'll make a claim that a good espionage system can be made much easier than a good Galactic Council system. CK2 encountered quite a hell of a friction when Conclave came out, and that was just over making internal Council adding limits to the decisions player can make. Over-encompassing galaxy wide council? Well it seems Sid Meier made World Congress kinda work, which is basically same concept. But it works in combination with diplomatic favors and empires/nations passing through eras - meaning it is hitchhiking on top of two game mechanics which would by itself have merits to be examined for Stellaris. Trading for diplomatic favors seems really nice, similar thing was essential in Galactic Civilizations 2 for wining the vote, you did mention diplomacy so I'll assume some twist of that is something that you already considered, but with more complexity. Something like more then three eras replacing early/mid/late game system might really add a lot, especially to mid game part of Stellaris. Yet I said that World Congress KINDA works, as it easily happens to cause ganking up on the strongest empire on the map, but it seems Civ VI will have a problem of that ganking working in favor of gankers most of the time, which is the problem if the player is on the receiving end. Current balance of Stellaris is such that unless there are advanced AI starts, player would brush of AI ganking to his benefit, and AI looses against ganking all of the time anyways. At mid game even advanced AI starts are no longer relevant, and we've seen that ganking in MP took even Kaiser Johan too only be able to survive because of an early exploit (which is patched out) and utter disorganization and lack of coordination of the ganking fleets.

When it comes to votes, current big problem is Galactic Market Hub. Once it is established it doesn't move as long as owner does a decent job to survive and keeps control of elected planet. And if it moves, it moves to the closest empire that can have it. Not to the empire that has most trade value, or best ability to protect the system which becomes new Hub or something. I would like first setting up of it to have real galactic elections with a chance to influence the voting through diplomacy or military threats, etc. Exact mandate in years, and then a re-election process with option of emergency re-elections in case something bad happens to the current hosting Empire. And if the war can start over owning that Caravaneer ultimate reward, there should be a CB related to having Galactic Market Hub for sure. (I didn't have a play-trough anyone owning one, so maybe that info about CB over it is wrong)

Sorry for the long post, but I'm trying to provide as detailed feedback as I can on a topic over which I have a really strong opinion about and mostly bad history with attempts of other developers to make it work. Cheers and good luck!

 

[The Shacks]

Everything I expected and wanted to hear, excellent. Particularly like the tiny change of ships upgrading one by one rather than en-masse or not at all, irked me so many times in those close 'port-battles'.

One small request though, going back to the whole living world concept Wizz wanted and never did. Can we have some kinda in system graphic for trade-flow, ala what you see in EU4/CK2/Total War, convoys of (make them very small and unclickable, perhaps mouseover to see the value of trade there as well as in the trade tab) trade skiffs and tankers plying them lanes and increasing in density to represent flows of high trade-value. It'd add a nice visual element to the trade-system and finally have living systems. Or is it just not feasible without too much effort in-engine?

 

[Oscot]

One small request though, going back to the whole living world concept Wizz wanted and never did. Can we have some kinda in system graphic for trade-flow, ala what you see in EU4/CK2/Total War, convoys of (make them very small and unclickable, perhaps mouseover to see the value of trade there as well as in the trade tab) trade skiffs and tankers plying them lanes and increasing in density to represent flows of high trade-value. It'd add a nice visual element to the trade-system and finally have living systems. Or is it just not feasible without too much effort in-engine?

"Number of moving fleets" is one of Forum Detectives Inc.'s prime suspect for lategame slowdown.
So if you wanna add more of these, especially for no strategic effect; well, expect to get yourself reverse-Megacampaign'd back to Imperator and promptly crucified.

 

[methegrate]

"Number of moving fleets" is one of Forum Detectives Inc.'s prime suspect for lategame slowdown.
So if you wanna add more of these, especially for no strategic effect; well, expect to get yourself reverse-Megacampaign'd back to Imperator and promptly crucified.

Would it though?

I think (obviously correct me if I'm wrong) that the fleet lag problem has to do with pathfinding and AI decisionmaking. A trade representation would be a graphical change, basically it would just be new map art. It wouldn't change how the trade system actually works, and nothing would interact with those ships. (That would be cool, imho. I'd personally much prefer it if trade were actually conducted by fleets of ships and that pirates attacked and stations protected, instead of the purely abstract system we have now. But that would annihilate performance.)

My guess is that the animation itself wouldn't be that big a deal though.

 

[Oscot]

I think (obviously correct me if I'm wrong) that the fleet lag problem has to do with pathfinding and AI decisionmaking.

I don't think anyone can correct you because I don't think anyone at Forum Detectives Inc. knows a processing bottleneck from their own elbow - myself included.

All I know is that stuff went slower in system view than in galaxy view when I was flying around my stack-overflow-to-negative-2-million fleet power doomstacks in 1.9, so MY uneducated guess is indeed on rendering.

 

[fanboy]

I feel that the last big overhaul is the diplomatic side of things, internal and external, where you could look at EU4 as a template how to implement deep and meaningfull diplomatic ties and incidents.

 

[Admiral Adama]

I would like to create genetically engineered super soldiers without having to alter the entire population of a planet

 

[Badesumofu]

I don't think anyone can correct you because I don't think anyone at Forum Detectives Inc. knows a processing bottleneck from their own elbow - myself included.

All I know is that stuff went slower in system view than in galaxy view when I was flying around my stack-overflow-to-negative-2-million fleet power doomstacks in 1.9, so MY uneducated guess is indeed on rendering.

I still don’t see why you think adding a purely graphical effect has got anything to do with moving fleets in the first place.

 

[Machiavellian]

These all sound like they could be great additions or improvements, though the ones I am personally most interested in are as follows:

• Institutions: Define which institutions make up your empire’s internal departments (such as Diplomatic Corps, Xenology Bureau etc.), and their funding, size and power.
• Espionage: Intel to determine how much you know about another empire, spy actions, cloaking, sabotage & general mischief..
• Archaeology: Explore the ruins of ancient civilizations
• Subject contracts: Allow overlords to better customize what type of subjects they have, tribute levels, benefits to subject etc.
• Federation depth: Allow federations to level up, have different election types, taxes etc.
• Galactic Council: Create a sort of a ‘space UN’ with galactic politics and diplomacy
• Primitives: Allow for more interactions with primitive pre-FTL species
  
  If I had to narrow it down even further, primitives and espionage would be on the top of my list.

 

[Dan_Daniel2000]

snip

The first thing that came to my mind when I read your post:

 

[Annomander]

Do that again, but feed it all the patch notes for Stellaris from the start.

HAHAHAHA!
That's a ton of work. Respectfully; No.

 

[TempusxX]

This make me wary. I would like Federations to have it within their structure. Egalitarians might even have true vote split inside a single empire. Egalitarian and Authoritarian always being opposites prevents parliamentary monarchy type of government type. Megacorporations should also have shareholder/executive board vote on proposals and each of this things should come with diplomatic and other ways to skew the vote to a preferable direction. Some government types make full sense to have council of Governors - where it makes sense that a ruler needs to maintain support of majority of Governors (like Emperor of early HRE in CK2 relying a lot on support of powerful Dukes, having way less centralization power in comparison to early Byzantine Basileus for example).

When it comes to Space UN - this was the thing that I modded the most or opted to leave as early as possible in Galactic Civilizations 2. It had some really nice votes, but it also can have immersion breaking ones - depends on the type of empire played. Worst part was that this mechanic is such that same vote can be really nice or game breaking, depending on the type of empire. Stellaris have so much more variety of the empire types right of the start and game can start with so much more empires on the map, that a potential for a Council that includes everyone for passing a vote that screws up the very Sci-Fi fantasy you wanted to get from specific empire setup rises dramatically. And the worst is, if none of the resolutions can have such an impact, then it doesn't really serves a meaningful role to care about it enough and bother trying to get any of the votes passed or rejected. Complex system which can either be game breaking or completely ignored is the one that shouldn't exist. I am around Paradox games since HoI2 and fully aware of jokes about trying to make good espionage system. In that sense I'll make a claim that a good espionage system can be made much easier than a good Galactic Council system. CK2 encountered quite a hell of a friction when Conclave came out, and that was just over making internal Council adding limits to the decisions player can make. Over-encompassing galaxy wide council? Well it seems Sid Meier made World Congress kinda work, which is basically same concept. But it works in combination with diplomatic favors and empires/nations passing through eras - meaning it is hitchhiking on top of two game mechanics which would by itself have merits to be examined for Stellaris. Trading for diplomatic favors seems really nice, similar thing was essential in Galactic Civilizations 2 for wining the vote, you did mention diplomacy so I'll assume some twist of that is something that you already considered, but with more complexity. Something like more then three eras replacing early/mid/late game system might really add a lot, especially to mid game part of Stellaris. Yet I said that World Congress KINDA works, as it easily happens to cause ganking up on the strongest empire on the map, but it seems Civ VI will have a problem of that ganking working in favor of gankers most of the time, which is the problem if the player is on the receiving end. Current balance of Stellaris is such that unless there are advanced AI starts, player would brush of AI ganking to his benefit, and AI looses against ganking all of the time anyways. At mid game even advanced AI starts are no longer relevant, and we've seen that ganking in MP took even Kaiser Johan too only be able to survive because of an early exploit (which is patched out) and utter disorganization and lack of coordination of the ganking fleets.

When it comes to votes, current big problem is Galactic Market Hub. Once it is established it doesn't move as long as owner does a decent job to survive and keeps control of elected planet. And if it moves, it moves to the closest empire that can have it. Not to the empire that has most trade value, or best ability to protect the system which becomes new Hub or something. I would like first setting up of it to have real galactic elections with a chance to influence the voting through diplomacy or military threats, etc. Exact mandate in years, and then a re-election process with option of emergency re-elections in case something bad happens to the current hosting Empire. And if the war can start over owning that Caravaneer ultimate reward, there should be a CB related to having Galactic Market Hub for sure. (I didn't have a play-trough anyone owning one, so maybe that info about CB over it is wrong)

Sorry for the long post, but I'm trying to provide as detailed feedback as I can on a topic over which I have a really strong opinion about and mostly bad history with attempts of other developers to make it work. Cheers and good luck!

I think a lot of players are asking for a space UN I for one want a Galactic Council/space nation

 

[arosenberger14]

There's a more fundamental problem here: namely that there's no reason to change government ideology. When an f.xenophobe government can do everything (important) an f.xenophilic government can, why would you even want to waste 500 blurple mana, especially when that's the most important resource in the game?

Fwiw I think the faction system is the single best mechanic in the game as it actually connects to other things. The fact that your diplo relationships, pop genetic traits, and government policies contribute to attraction is a level of mechanical interconnectedness that we don't see anywhere else in Stellaris honestly, so I must heap praise on it at every opportunity.

The problem is that it's a finely-crafted, intricately-interconnected machine... in the service of a big nothingburger, because faction attraction doesn't really do anything. There are two potentially interesting things you can do in the faction screen: boosting your happiest faction so you have more happy pops, and boost a faction so you can switch government ideology. But both of these are pointless because pop happiness bonuses and government ideology bonuses are both super-weakesauce. I'm never incentivised to switch ideology even if it were free; the fact that it costs 500 blurple is a very big nail in a very big coffin, but the occupant is already very very dead.

TL;DR: You gotta make me want to switch government ideology before we get into the minutiae of whether faction attraction is too strong.

I agree wholeheartedly, really wish that your ethics and government evolved more over time instead of being static things you choose at the start. Say you start out with only one or two ethics and one civic, and can only add more after first contact (and your pops have formed factions). That could make things way more dynamic; say you start out as xenophile materialists and meet some militaristic materialists... depending on how your relationship evolves you could both draw closer to each other's ethics, or react to become more antagonistic. If enough neighbors are assholes, maybe you go determined exterminator on them, or if they're all nice you move to be more a federation builder. The point is, your government and ethics should evolve more in response to what you find in the stars rather than be mostly fixed from the start.

 

[LogicMage]

The one change I don't like is the change to Assimilators. Last I checked, Assimilators do not have access to extra food policy, Xenophobe ethic, Gene clinics, etc. My point is that taking away 1/2 to 1/3 of machine pop growth *and* 40% of bio pop growth is too deep of a nerf for the last post 2.2 support patch. It would be good for both Driven Assimilator and Rogue Servitor to have access to the food policies like pure bio empires do. Additionally, give them access to the distribute extra nutrition decision. Finally, try nerfing their growth, but make it less severe. For example, try an extra Slow breeders (-10% bio growth) and Custom-Made (-15%) growth, no affect on # of replicator jobs. That would give a base growth of 1.75 before adjustments, rather than the current patch notes 1.1. It is still less than 2.0 (current system) but also would add a few tricks that bio empires (especially hive minds) get to juice their growth.

 

[stigmund77]

As someone who used to play a feudal empire because i love building empires of vassals and creating different independent states within my empire with their own ai controlled fleets, but then switched to a megacorp as subsidiaries are %100 better than the vassal/tributary system. I'm really interested in how your going to handle the customisation of subjects.

I believe under the current feudal system tributaries and vassals can both expand. The difference in them being one will pay you taxes but will not join your wars, while the other will not pay you taxes but will join your wars. Subsidiaries will do both, this not only allows you to have a much greater advantage in wars due to all your subsidiaries attacking your enemies, but it also allows you to not have to worry about the combined strength of your subsidiaries as much, as the taxes they pay you can easily allow you to host a much bigger fleet of your own.

With vassals i find after making a few large large empire into them, their combined strength makes it almost impossible to continue making other empires into vassals. I cant think of any reason to choose the feudal society perk over just being a Megacorp and creating the superior subsidiaries that give me none of the problems vassals do.

Subsidiaries are basically what i imagined vassals should have been, especially being able to fight amongst themselves (Though i have not seen this happen yet). However since subsidiaries have already taken this role i would love to see vassals in a feudal society have other unique qualities behind them. Or at least brought up in some way to compete with subsidiaries.

Some ideas on how to improve vassals under a feudal society civic:

1. Vassals could go to war with each other as well as make alliances to bring each other into wars.
2. Instead of a combined strength modifier, vassals under feudal empire would only have a modifier that weighs in its own strength as well as its vassal allies. Allowing feudal civics to support stronger vassals.
   
3. Vassals can go to war with other empires without bringing the rest of the empire into that war. However if a vassal is declared war on, this would bring the rest of the empire into that war. This would allow feudal societies to expand naturally.
4. Ability to tax vassals a % of their energy at the cost of a negative modifier, the max should be less than subsidiaries to keep them different.
5. more subject types, for example a subject type that concentrates on war in return for funding from the empire.
6. Ability to change the type of subject a subject is in return for a temporary negative modifier depending on what the new subject type is.

Right now taking up the feudal civic only allows you to create vassals that are less useful than subsidiaries in my opinion, and megacorps don't need to waste a civic slot on allowing subsidiaries to expand. On my latest play through as a feudal society I've found creating vassals to be useless in comparison to tributaries. Vassals simply cant field a big enough army to be relied on in a war due to vassals being split between vassals/tributaries, while tributaries give the player a nice chunk of resources but wont help the empire during wars.

Again i really love where the game is heading, and i love megacorps and subsidiaries, and cant wait to see how subjects will be handled!
Cheers.