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Stellaris Dev Diary #293 - Introducing Coop

Hello everyone!

One of the major Custodian features planned for the 3.8 ‘Gemini’ update is the addition of two cooperative gameplay modes. Up to five players will be able to control the same empire and work together to play the game as a team.

Two Modes of Play​

Surveys suggested that there are two distinctly different reasons people want to play together.

  • I want to play a PvE game of Stellaris with my friends, either to teach them how to play the game or to have a more relaxed game where we can share the duties of empire management.

Stellaris is a complex game, and learning to play can be difficult without a guiding hand. While some people learn well by watching informative videos created by the community, others might do better playing alongside a friend.

  • I want to play a multiplayer PvP game of Stellaris where teams of players go up against each other.

The cognitive load when playing competitive multiplayer can be at times overwhelming, especially during wars. Being able to split duties with other players on the same team could provide an enjoyable experience.

We’ve tried to support both goals through two different modes of play, with slightly different game rules.

Cooperative PvE​

A new main menu entry exists for starting a Cooperative PvE game where all human players control the same empire.

Main Menu Bar now includes Cooperative mode

This will bring them to the Game Browser screen, where one of them can choose to Host a New Game, just like the regular Multiplayer flow.

The hosting player will go directly to Empire Selection, where they can create a new empire or select one they’ve already created as normal, select the Galaxy Settings for the game, and then begin the session.

Unlike regular Multiplayer, the Cooperative PvE flow bypasses the Game Lobby, and the coop players will not need to select an empire. These players hotjoin directly into the hosting player’s empire once the game has begun.

For most purposes, Cooperative PvE is treated the same way as single player PvE is.

Competitive PvP​

The flow for creating a competitive multiplayer coop game is similar to the normal multiplayer flow. One player will host the server, ticking the “Allow Coop” checkbox.

Host Server window with Allow Coop toggle

Other players can join the Game Lobby and open their empires up for additional players.

Game Lobby with slots open for Coop

pdx_eladrin has opened his empire up for cooperative play.

Example of someone joining a coop empire

After Loner has joined the empire.

Empires that have been opened for cooperative play add an “inspect” icon to the portrait so prospective players can see the details on the empire before deciding to join.

Inspecting the Roccan Resistance

Inspect a coop empire.

For more competitive players, the primary player of the empire will be able to lock their empire, which will add a password requirement to joining or inspection.

New Coop Features​

It’s often useful to know what your teammates are up to. To make it a little easier to understand what’s going on, we’ve added Presence Markers to the UI to show which tabs your teammates are currently using.

Presence Markers and the Goto buttons

pdx_eladrin is currently taking care of our research issues, so Loner can worry about something else.

We're currently exploring the addition of Goto buttons in the top right corner that will allow you to bring your camera to your teammate’s location, but this isn't fully functional yet. (And is unlikely to be during the Open Beta.)

Events will be shown to all members of a coop team, and any of the players can select a response. The window will remain in place with the selected option marked with the icon of the player that made a choice.

Event with an already selected response

Only one option for this one, but it’s nice to know it’s already been selected.

What’s Next?​

Next week we’ll be talking about the 3.8 ‘Gemini’ Open Beta.

As the Coop game modes touch a lot of moving parts, we’d like to gain feedback on your thoughts of how it plays as well as find where desyncs and other bugs crop up before the actual release.
 
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This sounds great.

PS - would it be possible to stop showing the Detox advert popup after it's already seen once in a game?
 
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Can’t say i’ve ever been a big fan of stellaris multiplayer but this does seem to be a very nice addition, and possibly a very nice change of pace given how most stellaris games are usually extremely cutthroat.
Roleplaying multiplayer players will get a lot out of this in all likeness.
 
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The big guns are out eh?

Really hope this can be expanded into player being able to play 2 empire like that and have them being synergetic ( more specifically, Lost colony coop, Hegemony coop, Common ground coop, Payback/Broken shackle coop release)
 
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I very rarely play multiplayer but this seems a nice addition.

Will 3.8 also feature balance changes and tweaks? There's still a lot of weird and annoying issues from First Contact like Starbases equipping archeotechs even though better tier 5 components have been unlocked and the extreme costs of minor artefacts (an order of magnitude more than other strategic resource components).
 
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Hello everyone!

One of the major Custodian features planned for the 3.8 ‘Gemini’ update is the addition of two cooperative gameplay modes. Up to five players will be able to control the same empire and work together to play the game as a team.

Two Modes of Play​

Surveys suggested that there are two distinctly different reasons people want to play together.

  • I want to play a PvE game of Stellaris with my friends, either to teach them how to play the game or to have a more relaxed game where we can share the duties of empire management.

Stellaris is a complex game, and learning to play can be difficult without a guiding hand. While some people learn well by watching informative videos created by the community, others might do better playing alongside a friend.

  • I want to play a multiplayer PvP game of Stellaris where teams of players go up against each other.

The cognitive load when playing competitive multiplayer can be at times overwhelming, especially during wars. Being able to split duties with other players on the same team could provide an enjoyable experience.

We’ve tried to support both goals through two different modes of play, with slightly different game rules.

Cooperative PvE​

A new main menu entry exists for starting a Cooperative PvE game where all human players control the same empire.


This will bring them to the Game Browser screen, where one of them can choose to Host a New Game, just like the regular Multiplayer flow.

The hosting player will go directly to Empire Selection, where they can create a new empire or select one they’ve already created as normal, select the Galaxy Settings for the game, and then begin the session.

Unlike regular Multiplayer, the Cooperative PvE flow bypasses the Game Lobby, and the coop players will not need to select an empire. These players hotjoin directly into the hosting player’s empire once the game has begun.

For most purposes, Cooperative PvE is treated the same way as single player PvE is.

Competitive PvP​

The flow for creating a competitive multiplayer coop game is similar to the normal multiplayer flow. One player will host the server, ticking the “Allow Coop” checkbox.


Other players can join the Game Lobby and open their empires up for additional players.

View attachment 964356
pdx_eladrin has opened his empire up for cooperative play.

View attachment 964357
After Loner has joined the empire.

Empires that have been opened for cooperative play add an “inspect” icon to the portrait so prospective players can see the details on the empire before deciding to join.

View attachment 964358
Inspect a coop empire.

For more competitive players, the primary player of the empire will be able to lock their empire, which will add a password requirement to joining or inspection.

New Coop Features​

It’s often useful to know what your teammates are up to. To make it a little easier to understand what’s going on, we’ve added Presence Markers to the UI to show which tabs your teammates are currently using.

View attachment 964360
pdx_eladrin is currently taking care of our research issues, so Loner can worry about something else.

We're currently exploring the addition of Goto buttons in the top right corner that will allow you to bring your camera to your teammate’s location, but this isn't fully functional yet. (And is unlikely to be during the Open Beta.)

Events will be shown to all members of a coop team, and any of the players can select a response. The window will remain in place with the selected option marked with the icon of the player that made a choice.

View attachment 964361
Only one option for this one, but it’s nice to know it’s already been selected.

What’s Next?​

Next week we’ll be talking about the 3.8 ‘Gemini’ Open Beta.

As the Coop game modes touch a lot of moving parts, we’d like to gain feedback on your thoughts of how it plays as well as find where desyncs and other bugs crop up before the actual release.
But you guys STILL have not added a teams option... My group has only ever wanted one thing out of the game - the option to start with set teams clustered nearby. We don't want single race co-op, we all want to use our own races cooperatively from the start but that has never been an option.

This post gave me hope until I saw it's single race...

Is there any chance of multi-race co-op ever happening?
 
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Would it be possible to add a feature where one can delegate responsibilities?
Ie.
- president, gets all general empire popups and decides on traditions and ascension perks.
- Admiral of navy, controls all the navies and gets notifications about that.
- minister of science, decides the scientific direction.
- minister of the interior, desides buildings on planets, builds space stations etc.

And then one could have an option to lock who can do what and other players would not be able to perform the action.
Navies could also also be delegated by the admiral/president so that only a single player can operate a fleet. The president can at any given time rearrange who does what.
 
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Let everyone who is waiting for a comfortable game in a single company wash their faces with tears of happiness, because you won’t get it <3
But seriously, the host will work for two on the calculations. I think there is a great reason to think about optimization so that this great idea (without sarcasm) does not break on the lag stones.
The game synchronizes using deterministic lockstep, which means that all machines makes all the calculations in a synchronized manner (Hence why "Out of Sync" errors are so destructive). The only exception is the AI which runs on the host and this works the same way in coop as in any other MP session, so this won't affect performance in any meaningful way one way or the other.
 
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I don't think I'll use it because my friends and I value the individual, although a team function so that the empires of the same team meet and have some agreements would be interesting for me.
 
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Is it possible to add a ping system to the lobby? So it would be possible to immediately kick those players who lag for another or another reason and not during the gameplay!
Ping is most often not the issue.
Since the game is kept synchronized via deterministic lockstep, what matters is everyone's ability to keep up with the selected game speed.
Since the game itself hasn't started when you're in the lobby, there is no accurate enough way of knowing if they can keep up or not at that point.
 
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Do you have plans for adding in ‘team’ and / or ‘private’ chat messaging in this feature? It always felt a shame that mp games were so reliant on voice comms and discord when text chat with ‘channels’ and privacy would be enough for some of us :)
 
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As someone who advocated for a coop mode for a long time, and posted a few threads about it, I’m glad this particular suggestion has been heard. Thanks, custodians!
 
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How will this affect governing sectors? Will players be able to govern a given sector and if so will they receive a different resource ui since their sector uses their own resources to develop.
 
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Finally, my sector governors can be relied upon.

To mess up in spectacular new ways.
"I want this to be a mining world"

"Oh boy, this world is huge! Ecunomopolis it is!"

"REEEEEEEEEE"
 
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