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

[Marconius]

Generally quite happy with the looks of this!

Some points:

1. Is automation entirely planet-based then, except for the stockpiles? Is there no sector-wide automation, like making sectors balance their multiple planets?
2. Do sectors also have their own stockpile of food and consumer goods? I hope to see sectors become their own political entity with some autonomy, and actually making them have NEEDS would be a good start to this; with sectors becoming less satisfied, rebellious or starving if their needs are not met. This could potentially allow players to give one sector preferential treatment over the others, like turning their core worlds into a paradise at the expense of industrial sectors, or treating a newly conquered area more harshly or exploitatively.
3. I'm not entirely convinced by the UX flow for sector creation; having to open the planet window (and covering the map) feels clunky, and I'm also worried I'll have no idea where the sector is actually going to end up... am I supposed to count 4 jumps by hand?
   1. Maybe consider a more robust interface for this, including the 'nudging' feature you have planned. I would prefer to be able to lay out sectors on the galaxy map myself, and actually see the result. My approach would be to have a 'planning mode', that only actually comes into effect when you click the button; but after that, it costs influence to take planets away from an established sector.
4. Idea for frontiers: somewhat based on https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/neutral-zones.1164664/ this suggestion, I like the idea that frontiers aren't a hard border; you can have planets or orbital stations, but they don't fully count as part of your empire. Meaning that other empires can freely enter them, and perhaps even take hostile action without being at war (though giving a casus belli), basically frontier border skirmishes. Once a planet reaches a certain size, it will want to become part of a proper sector (satisfaction or production efficiency loss if not); perhaps planets NEED to be a certain size to be a sector capital too, so developed planets are required to make frontiers into proper, organized sectors. Once a system is added to a sector, the borders become 'hard', so other empires can no longer enter them without proper diplomacy; other systems, such as trade, may be disabled for frontiers as well.
   1. I like this idea because it invokes the feeling of frontier skirmishes and lawlessness that you see in a lot of sci-fi, or even during colonization of the Americas; territories starting out unincorporated, with just some pioneers living there, and eventually becoming more organized, with strictly defined borders. Think of how many little skirmishes there were in Star Trek, frontier colonies constantly attacked, etc.
   2. The key idea here is to give frontiers different gameplay from sectors, and encourage players to properly set sectors, for reasons beyond just the automation. I'd really like sectors to be their own political entity, that the player HAS to deal with, making management of a sprawling empire all the more interesting; having to potentially deal with secession and rebellions, having to meet specific sector demands, exploiting one sector to strengthen another or the core... all interesting internal politics that would make empire management more intriguing.

 

[Nathgar]

I hope with sector capitals that trade routes for the sector will go to the sector capital, and then there is an option for a more secure trade route from the sector capital to the empire capital. Instead of a piracy rate for that one you would get a smuggling/corruption loss and maybe some story events to maintain those super trade routes. I also think trade routes to other empires should be a thing. Depending on the war/piracy/corruption there would be a bribe tax to keep the goods flowing. The bribe could go higher then the amount on the route depending on the total crime it suffers.

 

[FiddleSticks96]

This isn't relevant to this dev diary, but I would love to see some more options for empire Trade Policy. Being able to generate some science or the three basic strategic resources with TV would be pretty neat.

 

[Spartakus]

Sounds like Stellaris is going places

Could you add a "designate core world" button that allows for worlds to never be put in a sector?

I always liked the idea of having a couple of worlds that are "yours".

Why? Worlds in a sector are just as much "yours" as are worlds outside of it. Remember that planets can be "automated, regardless if they are in a sector or not"! So if you have a single special world (like something you're trying to turn into an ecumenopolis) in a sector where everything else is handled by the AI you just don't klick the button to automate. If I read this correctly, in fact everything inside or outside a sector is "yours" unless you specifically decide to hand it over to the AI and you make this decision on a per-planet basis.

The only thing affected by belonging to a sector is that planets inside it can share a governor and a special resource pool that planets in the sector have exclusive access to (for example for developing a freshly conquered region of space).

As it should be! Thanks PDX for listening to the community on this. Update When?

I like that the governor portrait now sits on the planet. Its nice to be able to see portraits in more prominent positions now that pop jobs are buried a bit.

Now I just hope you will someday put the planet tile graphic beneath buildings again rather than that sad and lonely green grid. See how nice it could look:

View attachment 479204

(this is not suggesting a reversion to tiles. Just a a graphic tweak so that features and deposit art is less buried in menus)

YES! Planet window beautification pretty please!

 

[6076]

So basically you return old sector creation, ability to set some more priorities, and shared stockpile to address inability of AI to manage resources. Would rather see user defined development plans with transition from type to type, as were in Master of Orion 3 (yes, game was a mess, but had a lot of interesting ideas), better yet - allow AI to use them too, for example, but looking what sort of planets player use them on.

 

[Borgratz]

Why? Worlds in a sector are just as much "yours" as are worlds outside of it. Remember that planets can be "automated, regardless if they are in a sector or not"! So if you have a single special world (like something you're trying to turn into an ecumenopolis) in a sector where everything else is handled by the AI you just don't klick the button to automate. If I read this correctly, in fact everything inside or outside a sector is "yours" unless you specifically decide to hand it over to the AI and you make this decision on a per-planet basis.

The only thing affected by belonging to a sector is that planets inside it can share a governor and a special resource pool that planets in the sector have exclusive access to (for example for developing a freshly conquered region of space).

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks!

 

[AresOfThrace]

A good update but please allow me to give my honest opinion here. About sectors part specifically.

Please allow us to define and create the sectors we want in size too.

Perhaps tie max system jumps size to a few technologies that boost it (start at 4 and up to 20 for example).
Hell, tie sectors system size to different civics and technologies at the same time
Imagine a civics with a +100% sector size modifier and while the base max size changing with techs longterm for everyone in general

Also please let us add and remove system as desired. Give us the manual option even if the "auto" is on by default (by turning it off in the sectors panel)

I personally want to use sector system to organize myself and right now being forced to 4 system max jump will mean hundreds of sectors late game.
Not exactly thrilling and it means I wont use this feature

I actually like to personally manage all the planets but sectors were good for organization purpose.
At this moment looking into it its not a feature I will use that much if Im forcefully restricted in customizing my sectors how I want them.

Because instead it will be a sameless "heres 4 jumps of systems" multiplied by several times

Just my 2 credits

I'm 100% with this. This is how it should work. Never understood why the old sector system of designating sectors system per system was removed, it was so... handy.

 

[AlleyTheToaster]

This looks awesome! Sectors are free feature?

 

[Rip Off Productions]

I think this may be what is meant by:

• Add nudging of systems between sectors

Just would like some clarification on what is meant by that.

in one of the previous dev diaries I think it was stated that this was about letting you pick which sector systems that are within range of multiple sector capitals are assigned.

 

[sr999]

Yes. They will be in "frontier space", but can still be automated if you wish so. No governor tho.

I note that "Add nudging of systems between sectors" is postponed.

There's a really, really, really annoying 2.2 feature I get in pretty much every game. Currently the game auto-assigns a new sector for a controlled system, including colonizable planets, unless there is an unbroken chain of contiguous controlled systems to the capital. This applies even if it's within 3 jumps of the capital.

Why is this annoying? Because I normally rush at least one colony without "filling in" every single intervening system (usually alloy and/or sprawl constraints). But then I'm stuck with an extra sector, even after I fill in the gaps. It's not about hiring a new governor. It's about using the same governor. I wouldn't mind at all if I could reassign it back to the new(edit: I mean capital!) sector if/when I've filled in the gaps... but that option is forever unavailable.

I will accept my annoyance may be disproportionate in the larger scheme of things (if you accept that my annoyance exists!)

So I ask a question. Is it possible for you please asap to tweak the initial sector auto-assignment rules to include non-controlled systems when counting the number of jumps to the capital? (rather than auto-assigning a new sector or shoving it into frontier space)

Alternatively, if that's not possible (and I understand and fully appreciate an answer of "no" is reasonable, especially if I'm the only person intensely annoyed!), can you please please prioritize the "Add nudging of systems between sectors"?

 

[Paradox Song]

I'm greatly concerned that the Sector size limit is once again being made with only the early-mid game in mind.

Much like Imperator Rome feel into a trap of having far too many provinces in the late game that needed management. They fixed this by adding "regions" and abstracting governers to that level.

This screams of exactly the same trap: I will have so many sectors, They might as well not exist. The sector system works great when you have two to five of them, but what about when I have twelve? or twenty? If I have to manage surplusses and subsidy's and a plethora of planetary governors, on top of situations where the 4-hop limit happens to exclude a mining planet generating hundreds of minerals, or generator or farm or whatever, did you succeed? You improved, but, did you solve the problem?

 

[Kingman]

I'm 100% with this. This is how it should work. Never understood why the old sector system of designating sectors system per system was removed, it was so... handy.

Thank you

 

[sillyrobot]

I'm greatly concerned that the Sector size limit is once again being made with only the early-mid game in mind.

Much like Imperator Rome feel into a trap of having far too many provinces in the late game that needed management. They fixed this by adding "regions" and abstracting governers to that level.

This screams of exactly the same trap: I will have so many sectors, They might as well not exist. The sector system works great when you have two to five of them, but what about when I have twelve? or twenty? If I have to manage surplusses and subsidy's and a plethora of planetary governors, on top of situations where the 4-hop limit happens to exclude a mining planet generating hundreds of minerals, or generator or farm or whatever, did you succeed? You improved, but, did you solve the problem?

Indeed, and not just early/mid game, but a game setting problem as well. Since there is no mention of any form of scaling system, a 1,000 star galaxy minimal-lane galaxy and a 200 star full-lane galaxy will have the same sized sectors. The 1,000 star galaxy will just have 10-20 times as many. 10-20 times a decent number is way too many for a human to care about.

 

[Spartakus]

I'm greatly concerned that the Sector size limit is once again being made with only the early-mid game in mind.

Much like Imperator Rome feel into a trap of having far too many provinces in the late game that needed management. They fixed this by adding "regions" and abstracting governers to that level.

This screams of exactly the same trap: I will have so many sectors, They might as well not exist. The sector system works great when you have two to five of them, but what about when I have twelve? or twenty? If I have to manage surplusses and subsidy's and a plethora of planetary governors, on top of situations where the 4-hop limit happens to exclude a mining planet generating hundreds of minerals, or generator or farm or whatever, did you succeed? You improved, but, did you solve the problem?

Can you elaborate why this is a problem? With these changes Sectors are nothing more then a collection of systems you can assign a governor and an additional exclusive resource pool to. What harm is done if a single (even ridiculously productive) mining world is outside of it. And if you consider 20 sectors to be too much then it begs the question why you've created these 20 sectors in the first place. Why don't you just stop creating new sectors and leave everything in frontier space or dissolve old ones no longer necessary?

 

[Paradox Song]

Can you elaborate why this is a problem? With these changes Sectors are nothing more then a collection of systems you can assign a governor and an additional exclusive resource pool to. What harm is done if a single (even ridiculously productive) mining world is outside of it. And if you consider 20 sectors to be too much then it begs the question why you've created these 20 sectors in the first place. Why don't you just stop creating new sectors and leave everything in frontier space or dissolve old ones no longer necessary?

These changes don't fix the fundamental flaw of sectors, which is that they linearly increase time spent tending to them without any interesting decisions. These sectors aren't like CKII, where duchies may be upset and move against you as head of government. Normally, it's fine if things linearly increase. Imperator Rome does it. But My main complaint is that if the sectors aren't going to be given personality, they shouldn't be limited to size 4 forever. The ability to make them larger, either through adding size limit increases to Government techs (With all the headache that would bring on existing sectors) or by making them uncapped but each added system costing some fee of a resource ( That does not scale with size - we do not want to punish optional automation) is needed.

The system proposed is perfectly acceptable if they plan to introduce something akin to the Ethos system for the whole sector, or Sector Loyalty or the like. If they do not, they are stopping short of making a useful solution to the tiring management of a vast stellar empire. I hope this elaboration helps you to understand my view on the matter.

 

[Spartakus]

These changes don't fix the fundamental flaw of sectors, which is that they linearly increase time spent tending to them without any interesting decisions. These sectors aren't like CKII, where duchies may be upset and move against you as head of government. Normally, it's fine if things linearly increase. Imperator Rome does it. But My main complaint is that if the sectors aren't going to be given personality, they shouldn't be limited to size 4 forever. The ability to make them larger, either through adding size limit increases to Government techs (With all the headache that would bring on existing sectors) or by making them uncapped but each added system costing some fee of a resource ( That does not scale with size - we do not want to punish optional automation) is needed.

The system proposed is perfectly acceptable if they plan to introduce something akin to the Ethos system for the whole sector, or Sector Loyalty or the like. If they do not, they are stopping short of making a useful solution to the tiring management of a vast stellar empire. I hope this elaboration helps you to understand my view on the matter.

OK, but why do you anticipate spending significant time with them? After creating one and assigning a governor what's to do until that governor get's reassigned or dies off? I do agree that there could/should be intersting features like rebellions in the future which might not fit well with this fixed size. But until those mechanics exists why bother?

 

[ShadowDaPatriot]

Thank you, would love to reinstall Stellaris (deleted it after 100hrs in 2.2)

 

[Ridixo]

Pretty obvious that they're systems which have an Archeology site.

Glad it's obvious, to you, not so much for me, that is i was asking. I knew it was at or other thing, but since i wasn't sure and it would have been interesting to be other thing i made my question, thanks for your answer and have a good day

 

[Kayden_II]

Designations

Previously planets would automatically assume a role depending on what was built on it. It’s now possible to set this manually, if you wish to.

Good ...

Automation

A new neat feature is that it’s now possible to decide which planets, regardless if they are in a sector or not, should be automated. Automated planets will build things according to a certain build order, which is set up per designation.

That's not so good since it's already the case, that players don't "trust" sectors, whether to build stuff how they want it or at least in a reasonable / "smart" manner, so that I guess, that this won't work, too. It's a better idea to implement UI-/Quality-of-life-improvements to deal with the zillion of colonies ...

Sectors

In the new system, sectors will be created by making a planet a Sector Capital.

Good ...

This will immediately form the sector and include all systems within 4 jumps of the Sector Capital.

There're different galaxy-sizes, which should influence this, too ...

Sectors now also have a Shared Stockpile, in addition to their Local Stockpiles.

At the first glance, one of them looks "redundant", but to have a local sector-stockpile gives the possibility to prioritise a / multiple sector(s) and I guess, it's somewhat "important" for a later sector-diplomacy-update. On the other hand, this shared sector-stockpile is such an UI-/Q-o-L-improvement I've meant since ... fewer clicks ... to "manage" sectors. Long story short: I would keep both of them, even in the future ...

What remains to do

Allow players to have control over the build orders for the different designations

That's what I've expected in regards to "automation" and as an UI-/Q-o-L-feature ... fewer clicks ... again ...

Add nudging of systems between sectors

Good, but why not add star-systems to sectors ?: The capital-star-system is made, the sector is formed within 4 jumps (altough I've still the opinion, that the galaxy-size should influence this, too) and this sector can be extended (by the player) within 1 or 2 additional jumps, so that the actual sector has a size of 4 - 6 jumps. This minimizes the problem, that sectors look "bad" / unreasonable ...

Allow you to create new sectors from within a sector

Good ...

Display non-sector systems as a “Frontier Space” sector

Good, I guess ...

Rework Governor traits to be more widely applicable

Good, but I don't really care ...

Look into automation for construction ships

Same "automation"-problem like in the case of sectors. As an UI-/Q-oL-feature, it's a better idea to terminate the construction-ship since it's already possible to do its orders / commands in the galaxy-/star-system-screen.

 

[Kautz]

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