Stellaris Dev Diary #147 - An update on Sectors & Designations

[Zoolimar]

How much real logistics you would like to see in Stellaris?

Depends on how it will be done. Distant Worlds has a lot of resources and you need a good number of them to build ships/bases - lacking in any of them will stop you from building certain parts of the ship/base - and you can even put trade restrictions on your opponents to weaken their military and economy. But you do not control the actual trade and shipping and is more concerned with application of your military and macro control. It works and AI even sometimes is capable of putting the trade restrictions on you.

It depends on what Stellaris wants to concentrate on. Personally I would like something similar to how trade routes work right now just with a little more depth. Especially for war. Getting 8 jumps into the enemy empire for years should not be a stroll in the park.

If they can make it so it is possible to choke the empire by sitting on a lane that cuts a good chunk of it's resource production from shipyards while not actually taking any planets or other systems it would be even better.

 

[MichaelJanuary]

At the moment you can cut off trade by capturing chokepoints. Not sure what effect capturing an outpost has .... does it actually embargo the planets or do you have to capture the planets? Never really paid attention to that.

Would be interesting if your systems had to maintain a trade route to your capital for all resources. (And they were all subject to piracy or blockade?)

If all resources had to be transported to your capital and suffer from an efficiency bonus proportional to trade route length this would force you to designate sector capital's that collect all trade in a sector, and the distance from the sector capital to the empire capital could have a secondary efficiency modifier. The intent being that organising your empire into geographic sectors would be an economic requirement not merely an artificial one.

The one idea I agree with is that captured starbases should remain unrepaired and unusable. At the moment the system favors the offensive force rather than the defending force.

Would be great if they were forced to retreat from time to time for repairs, or have to be concerned about defending their beachheads.

 

[Shirasik]

Distant Worlds

Didn't play it myself, but its page in Steam store looks like Distant Worlds don't support mods. Meaning that game is completely hardcoded, is it? While Stellaris allows mods to introduce at least new units in predefined classes (modifiers, resources, pop stratums, pop jobs, etc) along with arbitrary mechanics to work with introduced units. And AI of Stellaris must somehow handle all those units with their mechanics.

It depends on what Stellaris wants to concentrate on. Personally I would like something similar to how trade routes work right now just with a little more depth. Especially for war. Getting 8 jumps into the enemy empire for years should not be a stroll in the park.

Let's say there exists some code to work with trade routes. So the question is: "How that code is divided between modules and a hardcode?". In another terms, this question is "What is possible to make with module API provided by hardcode?".
I mean, your.. umm.. request may probably be possible via modding; I just don't know if it is possible, or not. Don't get me wrong, this isn't another modtrain. If supposed mechanics isn't possible via module code, then it isn't possible ATM in the game at all, until another expansion of hardcode.

 

[Shirasik]

The one idea I agree with is that captured starbases should remain unrepaired and unusable.

Why? It gets a 30-gay cooldown for occupying forces to get familiar with the starbase and make use of it. Ultimately, as long as it is under full control of occupying forces, there is no actual reason to not being able to repurpose a starbase, after all.

 

[Kayden_II]

Personally I would like something similar to how trade routes work right now just with a little more depth.

Rather exactly like trade-routes since I see no reason to not extend trade-routes as supply-lines:
01. Within my own territory, the lines (in between my own starbases) function as supply-lines as well as trade-routes ...
02. Within hostile, but occupied territory, the lines (in between hostile, but occupied starbases) function just as supply-lines.

 

[MichaelJanuary]

Why? It gets a 30-gay cooldown for occupying forces to get familiar with the starbase and make use of it. Ultimately, as long as it is under full control of occupying forces, there is no actual reason to not being able to repurpose a starbase, after all.

If you consider how long it took to build the initial base plus the time for upgrades to starhold or even citadel, and that the entire base was just subject to extensive bombardment by nuclear level weapons, 30 days is an eye blink in stellaris timescales.

 

[Zoolimar]

Didn't play it myself, but its page in Steam store looks like Distant Worlds don't support mods.

Not using Google, or other search engines, in our day and age is a crime. Distant Worlds Universe has mods. Not that many, cause community much smaller than Stellaris, but some of them are pretty large - like those rebuilding tech or adding a lot of new species with their own storylines.

Why? It gets a 30-day cooldown for occupying forces to get familiar with the starbase and make use of it.

You shot it full of nuclear missiles, kinetic shrapnel and so on, and so on. And frankly realism is tangential here. Giving attacker ability to repair in enemy territory for free and ability to get defence points in enemy territory for free is really bad.

 

[Shirasik]

If you consider how long it took to build the initial base plus the time for upgrades to starhold or even citadel, and that the entire base was just subject to extensive bombardment by nuclear level weapons, 30 days is an eye blink in stellaris timescales.

You don't need nukes neither to depressurize internals of a starbase (to make impossible to operate it ATM), nor to damage its energy core. This is another side of Stellaris's simplifications: weapons has just damage stats, not even such as collateral damage, structural damage, etc.
I, personally, would like to get an option to completely destruct starbases and outposts via usage of certain types of weapons. I need neither to get empire sprawl, nor to keep my rivals be well.

Not using Google, or other search engines, in our day and age is a crime. Distant Worlds Universe has mods. Not that many, cause community much smaller than Stellaris, but some of them are pretty large - like those rebuilding tech or adding a lot of new species with their own storylines.

Well, okay. Does mods for DW may contain any executable code that is written as a plain text and handled by DW binary files? I.e. some logic that isn't already coded in the main game?
I downloaded the New Dawn (387 MB, quite large for a mod), looked into it and saw just structured defining of various data, but not a sign of any code.

 

[Kipsta]

Great changes. I love the direction Stellaris is going, but please keep balancing habitability, pop growth and ascension perks, because right now it feels like nothing matters besides growing pops as fast as possible and integrate the Automatic Pop Migration mod mechanics into the base game, because that's what everybody does manually anyways.

 

[Zoolimar]

You don't need nukes neither to depressurize internals of a starbase (to make impossible to operate it ATM), nor to damage its energy core.

That assumes a very badly built civilian starbase. Military starbases should follow the same principles as most military craft do - redundancy and effectiveness. Which means multiple reactors, automated doors and depressurising before battle with whole crew getting into space suits (coincidentally also lowers risk of fires spreading around station). Even in a real world you'll need a direct nuke hit to destroy something like this fast.

ell, okay. Does mods for DW may contain any executable code that is written as a plain text and handled by DW binary files? I.e. some logic that isn't already coded in the main game?

There should be at least storyline events for new species, but how they are done I don't know. Never checked.

 

[Shirasik]

That assumes a very badly built civilian starbase. Military starbases should follow the same principles as most military craft do - redundancy and effectiveness. Which means multiple reactors, automated doors and depressurising before battle with whole crew getting into space suits (coincidentally also lowers risk of fires spreading around station).

So more sense would be if most of starbase isn't pressurised at all, whole crew wearing suits all the time and occupying requires actual troops to take a base, isn't it? With necessity to destroy at least some of outer defense first to make very landing possible.

Even in a real world you'll need a direct nuke hit to destroy something like this fast.

Nope. The worst effect of nukes is residual radiation. Blast wave, flash of light, EMP discharge and penetrating radiation are very brief and very limited in range. Well, light, EMP and penatrating radiation are just sorts of EM waves, so there's no big difference between those; also, any starbase orbiting a star closer than any planet should endure such intensive radiation on a day-to-day basis. Blast left. Here's the trick: if single nuke wouldn't do neither structural damage to base, nor surface damage to armor plates, i.e. there exists some "damage threshold", then you will need to nuke until blasts will fatigue materials that starbase is made of. Or simultaneously nuke single point to surpass threshold faster than in ages, just to make a single hole in first layer of armor plating.
But...
All Stellaris's military-grade materials is just alloys. Without ever tiers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Armor plating has tiers, but it's just a matter of bulkiness - all armor is still made of alloys.

We got enough off of the topic, don't you think?

 

[MichaelJanuary]

We got enough off of the topic, don't you think?

Yeah. Can move the starbase thi g to another topic. It's not all that big a deal right now.

I am still trying to figure out the justification for having sectors in game right now.

Would hope that PDX hold off on the sector rework and just focus on planet automation. Delink the two mechanics.

To me, sectors are politically relevant in theory, and should have nothing directly to do with planet building, unless we introduce a system that requires sectors to be economically self sufficient.

 

[Zoolimar]

So more sense would be if most of starbase isn't pressurised at all, whole crew wearing suits all the time and occupying requires actual troops to take a base, isn't it?

No. You can't wear a space suit 24/7 unless you are some kind of robot or your body was specifically modified for it. Leads to a lot of problems.

But having a risky option to take the base intact by landing armies on it, and being able to station armies on it to defend would be nice. In theory.

Nope. The worst effect of nukes is residual radiation. Blast wave, flash of light, EMP discharge and penetrating radiation are very brief and very limited in range. Well, light, EMP and penatrating radiation are just sorts of EM waves, so there's no big difference between those; also, any starbase orbiting a star closer than any planet should endure such intensive radiation on a day-to-day basis.

That's why I mentioned a direct hit. Nuke blowing up some kilometres away is not a problem Nuke going off on your outer hull is. The blast wave would spread through the structure instead of air.

We got enough off of the topic, don't you think?

Yes.

 

[MichaelJanuary]

The way I originally envisioned sectors before Stellaris was launched was that it would be a function of galaxy generation.

So a galaxy would consist of quadrants, spiral arms, sectors or clusters, and these would be defined by galaxy generation.

As it is .... the hyperlane network naturally organizes itself into clusters of stars. And three or four clusters could form a natural sector or quadrant.

If that system was utilized, then 'sharing' a cluster or sector with another empire would lead to heightened border friction.

 

[VerKer]

This sounds very interesting - suggestion: Let the player choose (!) how many jumps from the sector capital he wants to add, with a slider perhaps? So we could add larger sectors when needed, and smaller ones if preferred (neutral zones or whatever).

 

[Zoolimar]

Or they could even tie it into planetary gameplay - number of clerks/administrators on a sector capital determines how far it can reach. Planets/Systems out of reach would cut some % of surplus resources they produce because you can't watch them good enough.

 

[VerKer]

number of clerks/administrators on a sector capital determines how far it can reach

Good idea actually, i d like it. Or the governors' attributes on the sector capital, or his rank could have an influence as well.

 

[Minuro]

I really hope they have sector-based factions that could have secessionist feelings which could result in large scale civil wars.

That is a really nice idea. In a game like this, realism and sociopolitical complexity should be welcome.

 

[Ingros]

Hey there was some discussion about my trade and physical resource management... somewhere in the suggestion forum i wrote an idea about trade and pirates which would not have much micromanagement on player side (at least i think so) but would change the gameplay especially for larger empires a lot
Hell even the sectors could be part of it

But i know that people like different gameplays... some might not be interested in this or will find it annoying if they cant simply build massives fleet everywhere

Edit: but i don't want to derail the thread... its about the sector change and i guess another trade change would require a new dlc ;-)

 

[grandad1982]

The way I originally envisioned sectors before Stellaris was launched was that it would be a function of galaxy generation.

So a galaxy would consist of quadrants, spiral arms, sectors or clusters, and these would be defined by galaxy generation.

As it is .... the hyperlane network naturally organizes itself into clusters of stars. And three or four clusters could form a natural sector or quadrant.

If that system was utilized, then 'sharing' a cluster or sector with another empire would lead to heightened border friction.

This is basically my preferred solution too.