Stellaris Dev Diary #304 - 3.8.4 Released, What’s Next?

[Standstill]

Late game not only is flooded with Habitats, but also Gateways. It makes late game wars incredibly messy, and it's basically impossible to "form a frontline" once you have conquered some enemy territory (but still have enemy pockets among them).
If possible, please consider discussing this matter as well.

Just an idea, but wouldn't it be much more fun if Gateways had some kind of construction cap (or simply were incredibly expensive to build/maintain), so the player (and hopefully the AI) has to think very carefully where to place the few of them they can afford?

 

[Millbot]

Yeah, the AI has the same issues it has with gateway. It seems content to build them everywhere, even if it makes no sense. I suspect both run into the same issue that we see with habitats. AI hits a point where there are no systems to claim, it has it's resolution in the senate going, has no one it wants to make claims on and currently has no need to negotiate vassal contracts, orbital rings to build but it has influence it needs to burn.

Unlike players, the AI doesn't really understand how to properly value the use of resources. It runs off of guidelines and that can run into problems. Players can figure out what systems shouldn't get hyperrelays and how to best setup gateways. Players can also learn what the ballpark is before you can expect to see a return on investment for habitats, so if someone has a resource to refer to, they can more or less figure out how far out from end game, that it becomes pointless to build another habitat. It's alloys and minerals that would be better spend elsewhere because by the time they break even on that habitat and colony ship, the game will be over.

Unfortunately, the AI is incapable of doing such actions. It looks at the list it's given on how it's suppose to behave. Sees it has influence it needs to spend and then picks something to spend that influence on and it gets messy once that actions begin to make no sense. Players, will begrudgingly sit at influence cap, if they don't have anything worth spending that influence on, the AI doesn't. Sure not every player does, but most do figure out that sitting at influence cap isn't the end of the world, if you don't have any worthwhile sinks for it.

 

[GnoSIS]

I'm dissapointed in all of this. I was expecting more changes and at least some discussion and collaboration with the community on future features and perhaps even some early reveals. Now you'll just experiment untill the summer brake and we'll see you again in September, for something that may come out past October... Yawn...

This is so meh, that I feel the need to set Stellaris aside, for at least a year, and that's comming from a player with about 2200 hours in the game. Even if I wanted to play I'd continue an old galaxy that I keep playing in an older version of the game. As you can see on my profile, I didn't even buy the previous 2 released products, while I have everything else...

Good Luck Guys....

 

[PanzergrenadierBBC]

I'm dissapointed in all of this. I was expecting more changes and at least some discussion and collaboration with the community on future features and perhaps even some early reveals. Now you'll just experiment untill the summer brake and we'll see you again in September, for something that may come out past October... Yawn...

This is so meh, that I feel the need to set Stellaris aside, for at least a year, and that's comming from a player with about 2200 hours in the game. Even if I wanted to play I'd continue an old galaxy that I keep playing in an older version of the game. As you can see on my profile, I didn't even buy the previous 2 released products, while I have everything else...

Good Luck Guys....

Cannot agree more. This Dev Diary and everything thing, especially the direction and reaction of the devs, since paragon is very frustrating. This Dev diary is very disappointing, too.
I feel like you and I also will set Stellaris aside, after 7 years and nearly 2200 hours.
Question is how much people think similar.

However farewell and thanks for the fish and good luck guys.

 

[GnoSIS]

Cannot agree more. This Dev Diary and everything thing, especially the direction and reaction of the devs, since paragon is very frustrating. This Dev diary is very disappointing, too.
I feel like you and I also will set Stellaris aside, after 7 years and nearly 2200 hours.
Question is how much people think similar.

However farewell and thanks for the fish and good luck guys.

It's not a Dev diary, it's marketing.

 

[Red Earth]

Currently lowering the habitable planets multiplier just pushes the heavy colonization phase to later when habitats are available. I think there needs to be more space objects that can't support a habitat, and an additional slider/multiplier at setup for them, to populate systems with things that aren't inevitable anchors for habitats.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Is it too much to ask for that leaders in a Shared Burdens society don't become literal capitalists?

 

[Sherry Fox]

Is it too much to ask for that leaders in a Shared Burdens society don't become literal capitalists?

I think that trait manipulation is lacking in general. Nearly everyone gets the same pool of traits. Would be nice if certain civics and ethics allowed/forbid different traits. Or at least adjusted weights for getting them. Functional architecture empires should get more governors that know how to build. Or distinguished admiralty should have Naval Logistics as a common trait.

 

[Rooker75]

Big wall of text

Paragraphs are your friend

 

[Rooker75]

I don't think that they should be limited this way at all, but if they were to be: wouldn't exactly the opposite be what should happen? The less territory you have, the more important it is to intensively use what you do have. The places in real life with high-density, resource-expensive, buildings and elaborate construction to create usable space where there wasn't any are usually places (cities or countries) with a combination of wealth and severe restrictions on their "horizontal" sprawl for one reason or another. Hong Kong, Singapore, New York, Tokyo, the Netherlands, etc.

What if the cost for a habitat was multiplied by the empire's sprawl factor as a starting point? "Tall" empires would not have much penalty, but "wide" empires would find them increasingly expensive.

This is a really good point.

 

[drawar]

I know I repeat myself.
But I think if we have to rethink the system for habitats, we have to rethink the system for all spatial structures : Abstract logistics system for spatial structures and spatial developments

The idea is that all spatial structures (we could also include planets and related things, but I'm not doing that here, but that could also be interesting) consume a logistic capacity.
This logistical capacity acts as a soft limit for spatial structures and is also a more impactful cost than energy which can be easily 'infinite'.

Logistic capacity is mainly produced by logisticians.
Logisticians are produced by capital buildings and warehouses.

The logistician jobs also increase empire size.
The systems no longer increase empire size.
*If planets consume logistic capacity, planets might still increase empire size or not, districts would not increase empire size, but would consume logistic capacity.


Logistician :
- Upkeep : -1 Consumer Good, -1 Alloy (-2 Alloy for Machine, -1 Alloy and -2 food for Hive), +5 Empire Size
- Produces : +5 Logistics capacity

Reassembled Ship Shelter : +0 Logistician
Planetary Administration, Resort Administration, Governor's Palace : +1 Logistician
Planetary Capital, Resort Capital-Complex, Governor's Estates : +2 Logisticians
System Capital-Complex : +3 Logisticians
Imperial Palace : +4 Logisticians

Habitat Administration : +1 Logistician
Habitat Central Control : +2 Logisticians

Hive Core : +1 Logistician
Hive Nexus : +2 Logisticians
Imperial Complex : +3 Logisticians

Deployment Post : +1 Logistician
Administrative Array : +2 Logisticians
Planetary Processor : +3 Logisticians
Primary Nexus : +4 Logisticians
Imperial Center : +5 Logisticians

Small warehouse : +2 Logistician
Warehouse (-1 Rare Crystal) : +4 Logistician
Big warehouse (-2 Rare Crystal) : +6 Logistician

Hive Mind :
Hive empires might have a harder time producing logistics capacity, but they would also consume less logistics capacity.

Machine Intelligence
Machine empires might have an easier time producing logistics capacity, but they would also consume more logistics capacity.

Corporate or civic Merchant Guilds :
Logistician : -1 Logistic capacity, -1 Empire Size, +2 Trade Value
Merchant : +2 Logistics capacity


Stations :
Each station (mining, research and observation) would consume base 1 logistics capacity.

It is therefore not necessarily interesting to build, especially at the beginning, as many stations as possible.
Building a station becomes more of a choice than an automatism.
More stations = more logisticians needed, so more pops and buildings slots not available for other tasks.

However, the stations would be more useful and productive than now.
Each mining and research station could increase in size depending on the importance of deposits exploited.

For example, if the base mineral deposit is 3. The mining station can be enlarged 2 times.
The station therefore becomes more productive, but with a secondary cost.
Each level of expansion of the station increases its consumption of logistics by 10%, 20% or 25% (I don't know).
So the station consumes more logistics, but less than if we build a new mining station. It may therefore be more interesting to first build your stations on the larger deposits.

In addition each station can be leveled up. The level limit is mainly increased by technology.
Each additional level increases the station's productivity and increases its logistics consumption by 1.

Mining Station: +1 level max, Zero-G Refineries, Long-Range Mineral Scanners, Mineral Cutting Beams, Autonomous Mining Drones and Nanite Mineral Probes
Research station : +1 level max, Zero-G Laboratories, Miniature Containment Fields, Quantum Probes, Autonomous Station Protocols and Multi-Dimensional Analysis
So with these technologies, these stations can reach level 6 and consume 6 logistics capacity, more if these stations have been enlarged.
The stations can therefore be a very interesting source of resources and research, but more logistics capacity must be devoted to them.

Civic Mining Guilds :
- -20% logistics capacity cost for station
- +1 Minerals from Miners

Civic Private Prospectors:
-33% logistics capacity cost for station


Starbase :
Starbases have no fixed limits.
They consume instead of the logistics capacity according to its level:
- Outpost : 1
- Starport : 5
- Starhold : 25
- Star Fortress : 50
- Citadel : 100

Before you panic over the numbers, there are several ways to reduce these costs!
- Adopting the Unyielding tradition tree : -33% logistic cost for starbase in a colonized system
- Fortress Doctrine from Unyielding tradition tree : -5% logistical cost for starbase per weapon modules
- Stellar Expansion technology : -10% logistic cost for starbase
- Manifest Destiny technology : -10% logistic cost for starbase
- Fortify the Border edict : the starbase adjacent to a rival empire or considering us a rival does not count towards the starbase number logistics penalty
- Trading Posts civic : -5% logistical cost for starbase per Trade Hub modules
- Grasp the Void ascension perk : -20% logistics cost for the number of starbases
- Covenant: End of the Cycle : I do not know.
- Interstellar Expansion repeatable technology : -5% logistics cost for the number of starbases (25% max)
- Strategic Coordination Center : -10% logistics cost for starbases per level (30% max)

However, in addition to the logistics cost for each starbase according to its level, there is also a logistics cost depending on the number of starbases, the more starbases there are, the more complex the network becomes, the more the logistics cost increases.
It can therefore be interesting to improve your starbases instead of building new ones.

Cost for number starbase = (number starbase-3)*number starbase^0.5
Minimum 0
The first three starbases do not generate a penalty, but each additional starbase increases the penalty which increases faster and faster.
Obviously, for the formula, it's the general idea, it could be different.
For example, one could add either via the number of systems possessed (like now) or via another means of the "free" starbases which does not count the number of starbases, thus increasing the -3 value.


Resource collection :
An important, very important change is that resources from a station or planet are only collected if they are within range of a starbase.
A planet can only use resources if it is within range of a starbase (to see, if we add a planetary stock to the planet, so that isolated planets could be autonomous, during colonization, the planet would start to have a reserve of resource, taken during the construction of the ship).

The gestalt empires would have the equivalent of the Trade Hub.

Naval capacity :
The Anchorages modules of Starbase would be the primary means of increasing naval capacity.
The Anchorages are used to "deliver" logistics to military fleets.
There is therefore no "military or civilian logistics".
Each Anchorage consumes 2 logistics capacity.

The soldiers would have a different role that deviates from the core of this idea of logistics, but they have to be given another role to keep them useful.
Instead of increasing naval capacity, soldiers generate manpower for use by land armies and ships, much like manpower/sailors in EU4.
Obviously, this could be more developed, but within the scope of this topic, I keep the system simple.
It therefore becomes as important to have Anchorages (therefore logisticians) to support a large fleet as to have soldiers to generate manpower to replace the dead in armies and ships.

Civic Citizen Service : +15% Naval capacity ---> +15% Manpower from Soldier


Megastructure :
A central use of logistics capacity would be the maintenance of megastructures.
Logistics would be the “limit system” to megastructure numbers. So there would be no fixed limit to megastructures, if you want to build 100 dyson spheres, you could theoretically... If you can produce enough logistic capacity...
But some bonuses of megastructures would not be additive, for example, 2 Mega Shipyard will give as bonus for the empire +100% Empire Ship Build Speed and not +200%.

Reduced the cost of logistics capacity of megastructures :
- Master Builders : -10%
- Architectural Renaissance (Ambition) : -10%
- Shattered Ring (Origin) : -10% [Unrestored Capital Segment and Ruined Sections cost no Logistics Capacity]

Habitat :
A habitat would consume 50 (level 2 : 75; level 3 : 100) logistic capacities.
Voidborne : -20% logistic cost for habitat
Void Dwellers (Origin) : -20% logistic cost for habitat, the Arcane Replicator will generate a logistic capacity to support the 3 starting habitats.

The habitats would therefore be more expensive, but they could receive some bonuses.
For example, level 2 and 3 would unlock new building slots.
Maybe also increase the number of districts.
Habitats built on a resource deposit (including research) could receive a percentage resource production bonus depending on the size of the deposit. For example 5% per 1 base mineral of the mineral deposit.

The goal would be to have slightly more powerful and potentially fewer habitats.
A habitat can perfectly produce more logistic capacity than they consume, but this takes up slots and pops.

For the Trades districts, a clerk job could be replaced by a logistician job.
And/or habitats have a “Logistics Center” designation that adds one or two logistician jobs to Housing districts with -2 or -4 housing.

Gateways :
The Gateways would have an upkeep cost of 100 logistic capacity (and I'm hesitant even maybe 125 or 150).
Yes, the cost is high, but this structure is also very useful, so it is an important investment for construction, but also in the long term.

Hyper Relays :
The Hyper Relays would have a logistics capacity cost of 25.
I think it's high enough that it's a significant cost when built in large numbers, but low enough that in the mid-game and late game it's viable to create some routes on the important runs.

Orbital Rings :
Logistics capacity cost :
- T1 : 20
- T2 : 40
- T3 : 80

Ring World :
Logistics capacity cost :
- Site : 100
- Stage 1 : 200
- Stage 2 : 400
- Stage 3 : 600
- Stage 4 : 800
- Stage 5 : 1000

Dyson Sphere :
Logistics capacity cost :
- Site : 100
- Stage 1 : 200
- Stage 2 : 400
- Stage 3 : 600
- Stage 4 : 800
- Stage 5 : 1000

Science Nexus :
Logistics capacity cost :
- Site : 100
- Stage 1 : 300
- Stage 2 : 600
- Stage 3 : 900

Sentry Array
Logistics capacity cost :
- Site : 100
- Stage 1 : 200
- Stage 2 : 400
- Stage 3 : 600
- Stage 4 : 800

Matter Decompressor :
Logistics capacity cost :
- Site : 100
- Stage 1 : 250
- Stage 2 : 500
- Stage 3 : 750
- Stage 4 : 1000

Mega Art Installation :
Logistics capacity cost :
- Site : 100
- Stage 1 : 300
- Stage 2 : 600
- Stage 3 : 900
- Stage 4 : 900

Strategic Coordination Center :
Logistics capacity cost :
- Site : 100
- Stage 1 : 300
- Stage 2 : 600
- Stage 3 : 900

Interstellar Assembly :
Logistics capacity cost :
- Site : 100
- Stage 1 : 200
- Stage 2 : 400
- Stage 3 : 600
- Stage 4 : 800

Mega Shipyard :
Logistics capacity cost :
- Site : 100
- Stage 1 : 200
- Stage 2 : 400
- Stage 3 : 600

Quantum Catapult :
Logistics capacity cost :
- Site : 100
- Stage 1 : 200
- Stage 2 : 400
- Stage 3 : 600

Aetherophasic Engine :
Logistics capacity cost :
- Stage 1 : 100
- Stage 2 : 275
- Stage 3 : 475
- Stage 4 : 775
- Stage 5 : 0


Obviously, the bonuses of the megastructures and their cost in logistics could be adjusted as needed.
This is to give a general idea.
Megastructures are powerful, but are "expensive" to build, but also and above all to maintain (not just energy which is very easily produced).

So it's not enough to produce tons of alloys to build megastructures. You have to be able to provide the logistical capacity.
But it is still possible to produce enough logistic capacity, as long as you have pops and building slots to dedicate to warehouses.
For example, for a Ring World, without bonuses with basic logisticians which produces 5 logistic capacities. It would take 33.3 large warehouses (less counting the logisticians of the capital buildings) spread over the 4 sections of the Ring World for it to be self-sufficient in logistics capacity. Yeah, that's a lot, but precisely the districts of the Ring Worlds are very powerful.

Obviously, for example, a Dyson Sphere cannot be self-sufficient, so you have to build the warehouses on planets/habitats/ring world.
But it produces a lot of energy without using pops, districts/buildings and strategic resources, apart from the need for logistics.


Insufficient logistics capacity :
If the need for logistics exceeds the production of logistics. The structures depending on it will work less efficiently, if the shortage becomes too great, these structures will be deactivated.

Habitats will lose stability and habitability.
Restored Ring segments will slowly gain devastation (or other modifier) after 10 years (or 20 years?) the segments will become Shattered Ring World.
Structures can be deactivated and reactivated manually for a cost in unity depending on the importance of the structure.
Megastructures that have been inactive for too long (10 years or 20 years?) will become ruined megastructures, except Ring Worlds which will become Shattered Ring Worlds, which will have to be restored if we want to use them again.

The habitats in critical situations will have a special decision to evacuate pops at a unity cost based on the number of pops (regardless of empire law) and trauma for the pops.

For habitats, it is important not to set fixed limits so as not to arbitrarily block a style of gameplay and also to allow adaptation to the circumstances of your game.
The maintenance cost of the habitats just has to be high enough to make their deployment slower and more expensive, the current alloy cost is quite ridiculous and the influence cost is not necessarily a brake.

At the same time, this would be an opportunity to rethink the space economy.
Allowing stations to be upgraded according to technological level and deposit size would provide different gameplay possibilities and create a choice, instead of simply automatically building all stations.

This could also remove the arbitrary limit for Starbases.
So also offer choices to players, you want more Starbases, no problem, you just need to create more logistic capacities, so more pops and building slots that are dedicated to logistic production and not to other productions.

Also, if the soldiers no longer contribute directly to the naval limit, this prevents the fortress worlds from being both powerful worlds for land battles and from supporting the naval capacity in a significant way.
Certainly, currently it is better to have a powerful fleet than powerful land armies.
But if soldiers generate “manpower” for ground armies and ships, they will be useful and even quite indispensable.
Indeed, if you develop a powerful fleet, without having many soldiers. You will have a low manpower generation, which can quickly become problematic in a war, if you are unable to replace the sudden losses, a ship with an incomplete crew is a less efficient ship.
Also, if the main means of increasing the naval capacity are the anchorages of the starbases, he can quickly have to make choices for the use of his logistic capacity between the economic development of the stations, defensive starbases, economic (and others) , megastructures...


It could also be very useful to put a brake on megastructures, without setting arbitrary limits.
Obviously, if necessary, we can rethink the bonuses and powers of these megastructures.

 

[Echo Candor One]

Habitats make me feel tired, especially in the mid-game, so I am excited to see what changes about them. I'd like to see a system where habitat size categories and the associated expansion decisions go the way of the dodo -- spending alloys to get a few more districts doesn't feel good on a habitat compared to a oribtal ring, where there are more alternative options. IMO, make the decision to upgrade a habitat size go away and replace it with some kind of natural or tech-based expansion. I'll outline one way that might look:

Tie habitat size to the planet it's orbiting, and make the habitat techs open up new types of planets. The first habitats are just domed communities on barren worlds. Make there be a ton of blockers that are expensive to remove (make it cost influence and alloys to keep it in line with the orbital ring?). The next habitat tech could add
frozen / toxic / magma worlds, and maybe allow the removing of more blockers. Make the final type of habitats for gas giants, and let those be the ones we're familiar with. Give some arbitrary but useful number of districts to any gas giant habitat, but add all of its non-colonizable moons size to the total.

Habitats are bordering on mega structures, though, and are expensive to maintain. Represent this by making it impossible to keep more than one habitat in a system, with one additional habitat per colonized planet in the system. This represents the vast personnel overhead on keeping such things maintained and supplied with critical gasses and exotic materials. Make the habitat ascension add to this limit and perhaps make it cheaper to clear blockers. Now give this ascension to the Void Born origin for free, the way the Psionic origin gets the psionic ascension.

Importantly, give habitats the same limits to building slots that regular colonies have, so that growing them is a bit less claustrophobic, since we're limiting habitats per system with this hypothetical change.

This is probably WAY more work than you intend to do, but hopefully it gives you some insight into what at least one of your addicted players would like in terms of feel.

 

[Harkinian's Dinner]

I feel like Stellaris development keeps falling foul of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" while leaving the things that ARE broken unfixed. Most of the big system overhauls have left the game in a worse state than before, and then it always takes years for it to be fixed again.

Planet overhaul/removal of tile system: Game broken for 2 years until custodian initiative finally repaired the AI.
Vassalization overhaul: Game still broken because of vassalization acceptance and AI inability to properly value the deals leading to massive extortion of resources.
Leaders overhaul: Game broken in numerous ways, though some of the worst issues have been at least partially corrected.

I feel like we had a really good period around when Nemesis came out, where the devs were focusing on finally fixing a lot of longstanding issues while adding features that don't mess too much with what's already there. First Contact was another such update. But then periodically they seem to get an urge to "shake things up", and it's usually ill-advised, leading to rushed and poorly tested systems replacing ones that have worked perfectly fine for many years.

It should be easy to avoid this kind of thing. At least do proper beta tests, with players who know their stuff and can identify balance issues and bugs, BEFORE releasing big changes to the wild.

 

[TankATron]

No changes addressing leader cap. A little disappointing.

Very.

 

[Rafss]

Is it too much to ask for that leaders in a Shared Burdens society don't become literal capitalists?

Speaking of which, we need a spin-off MegaCorp civic called Shared Burgers

 

[Eladrin]

I'm dissapointed in all of this. I was expecting more changes and at least some discussion and collaboration with the community on future features and perhaps even some early reveals. Now you'll just experiment untill the summer brake and we'll see you again in September, for something that may come out past October... Yawn...

But that's exactly what I said we're going to do?

I’ll have a broader feedback discussion later on during the summer where we present some of our ideas, discuss how experiments with them went, and collect additional feedback from the community.

I want to have some tangible stuff prepared before going too deep into it, and do some internal experiments on the ideas we've been tossing around. I'm planning on keeping the dev diaries continuing through the summer (though possibly on a once every two week schedule), with the exception of the couple of weeks I'm out during July.

No changes addressing leader cap. A little disappointing.

Changes were made in this update to some of the leader traits that created excessive micromanagement or stacking issues.

We feel that it should be in a reasonable state after these changes. More comprehensive updates to the leader system are in the plan, but will be on a longer timeframe.

Any plans to nerf AI willingnes to be vassalized in patch 3.9

We'll likely have a dev diary on diplomacy updates sometime during the summer.

 

[Zeta-0]

Well, I think attach habitat with star-base can be a good idea, you can then upgrade it to expand and access to other planet's resources.

 

[Idle America]

My two usual requests:

1. Base template for Fallen Empires' slaves, so we can remove the nerve-stapling without the Genetic Ascension perk
2. Nuclear War should be an event chain, instead of the RNG just going "Oop, everyone's dead now" without warning. At least some warning of rising tensions. Really, almost anything would be better.

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

Speaking of which, we need a spin-off MegaCorp civic called Shared Burgers

Only if we can pair it with Bacon of Liberty!

 

[sverlaind]

wouldn't a possible fix to the AI habitat spam be making it so the AI only builds habitats once they start running out of space on habitable planets? that way you aren't limited (beyond from the cost of building) in the amount of habitats you can have but the AI won't spam them.