Stellaris Dev Diary #315 - The Velvet Glove

[DrewDidIt]

Could some attention be given to how the "relative power of subjects" trust modifier works?

I'd like to see more options for ensuring vassals' loyalty than just: bigger fleets with bigger boom = loyal

Some AI should have more varied ways of viewing their vassalage (ie pacifist AI subjects will be pleased if their Overlord rarely starts wars and will care little about relative fleet power) They may rebel if their overlords' actions contradict their culture

Ethics and Policies incompatibility should also be a much bigger deal

 

[King Harkinian]

Maybe Federations shouldn't be locked behind the Diplomacy Tradition? That was a big topic some time ago. Many people dislike the tradition, and locking Federations behind it just feels incredibly bad. So either you're forced to pick it really early, take over a Federation someone else formed, or better off with vassals.

On the contrary, vassalization should be made to require the Domination Tradition again, like it used to in the past. Stripping big features from Traditions to be replaced with more minor numerical buffs is a terrible idea. In fact, every Tradition tree ought to have some kind of big feature locked behind it! Remember when Traditions used to unlock a few buildings, for example?

 

[OnyxAbussos]

Won't this make a low-military early phase completely impossible?

Like now a Corvette rush is the only way to survive the first 30 or 40 years now?

I'm specifically referring to the Trust and Favor changes.

 

[Varren]

That is a point, but I feel like this change favored them and nerfed diplomatic empires. Overall, I don't really care; for me, it is, as I said, fighting symptoms of a simplistic power point-stacking system. Your empire's power level is too easy to determine, and if that is mostly connected to military and how the military is scaled, the other systems diverting from it are also too simplistic or cannot evolve to a certain level.
This goes so far that you can just compare the numbers on the fleets to determine who will win wars before they even start. And the AI operates on that level when it comes to vassalization and other means. Maybe no more, lets just wait and see.

It doesn’t seem like a militarist buff. It’s not any easier for bullies to get subjects now. They will now have to actually expend time and materiel to get underlings, instead of just waving their big sticks around.

It’s true that we’ll most likely see vassals as a militarist thing, while diplomatic empires will favor treaties between equals, but that hardly seems like a bad thing.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Won't this make a low-military early phase completely impossible?

Like now a Corvette rush is the only way to survive the first 30 or 40 years now?

I'm specifically referring to the Trust and Favor changes.

I don't see why?

At a glance, all it means is that rather than getting an early federation 2208-2212 based on favour trading to start diplomatic agreements earlier and mostly short-circuiting the need for trust buildup as is currently possible, you'll get it perhaps a decade, decade-and-a-half, later if you make an effort, and might have to make a greater effort than picking only the Diplomacy opener+Federations for the 2 envoys + Federation creation ability to do it very quickly - picking the higher trust growth Diplomacy tradition comes to mind if you really want to speed it up.

And that's for federations. If the player is satisfied with diplomatically neutralizing AIs, much less is required.

I guess I might be wrong, but certainly I don't see anything in the numbers shown that supports your fears. More effort will be required, and the number of boundary cases where the player can't form a good federation or defensive alliance in time will increase, especially if neither taking Diplomacy nor having extra sourcers of envoys*, but as a general problem? No.

The joker here is leader consolidation. Currently envoys are a separate class of leaders that can be stacked high with the right approach. What the change to Diplomats, if it goes through, does to the early game diplomatic equation is completely unknown at this point.

If Diplomats come under the general leader pool, does that mean we can recruit arbitrary numbers of them and that they have traits and can level? In which case existing sources of +1 envoys will be changed to something else? If they remain their own pool, are there any changes to numbers, sources, or functionality - and if not, why rename the class?

 

[firespark 84]

Though getting rid of favor trading is good to get rid of the exploits it created, I think that the ability to buy political influence from other empires is a good mechanic as long as it can’t be exploited. I hope it makes a return in a less exploitable fashion. Things like giving an ai uprising a ton of resources to ensure their victory in exchange for favors from them should be a possibility. Similarly, once civil wars get added proper, backing one side should give you a lot of sway over their political influence like with favors now.

 

[Harvey_James]

i wish resource trading becomes improved at some point, like make it visible what resources an empire has and is willing too trade.. and actually receive offers from empires wishing too trade resources with us.. atm its so hard too find anyone willing too trade resources and u have no idea what they have and u take so long clicking plus 10 on lots of resources too see them say -1000 and no.. could we see at a glance if they are willing too trade and have something we need before even negotiating.. and why megacorps who should want too trade with you just be hostile all the time instead?? ... plus not too mention how they can 2 seconds later after alll that negotiation just say no for no reason at all... or break them in a few months again no reason given or any real option too maybe do something about it if they lost resources or something...

 

[b3ryl]

I noticed there's something very important missing in this rework/patch. Why is there no mention of Xenophobes no longer having a -1000 opinion malus against Fanatic Purifiers of the same species, and +200 opinion buff if they have purging policy enabled? Seems like a pretty big oversight to me

Or has this fix not been implemented... yet?

 

[amib]

Hi everyone!

3.9.2 has been released with a handful of bugfixes.

Spoiler: 3.9.2 ‘Caelum’ Patch Notes

############################################################​

#################### VERSION 3.9.2 ######################​

############################################################​

Balance

• Catalytic empires can now build bio-reactors.
• Pre-FTL empires now have reduced technological development before the mid-game year.

Bugfix

• Anomalies that reward Scientist Expertise traits now apply those traits to the Cognitive Node for gestalt empires.
• Blocked empires without the Scientific Method technology from constructing research districts.
• Federations End should no longer spawn empty habitats if the pre-FTL slider is set to 0
• Fix a CTD when loading a save containing an invalid species archetype
• Fix for wrong value for evasion in ship design.
• Fixed being able to build multiple gaia seeders on a single planet.
• Fixed Fallen Empires not triggering their monthly random events
• Fixed pre-ftl civilizations that naturally progressed to the Early Space Age being unable to become space faring.
• Fixed Secrets of the ... no longer granting Expertise traits.
• Fixed stage 4 gaia seeders being buildable, but immediately destroyed by non-Idyllic Bloom empires.
• Fixed the Colonial Remains deposits not spawning for the Remnants origin in some cases.
• Fixed the Patron achievement not firing.
• Fixed the Prethoryn getting stuck because their starting system contains an FTL inhibitor that prevents them from expanding
• Fixed the Surveyor not spawning resources in some cases.
• Gardening Drones will no longer have an unlocalized string.
• Habitat Central Complexes constructed around stars should now be placed further away, so they no longer clip into the star.
• Industrial designation is now only available on habitats for gestalt empires, if they use consumer goods.
• Merc enclaves now inherit their shipset from their creator.
• Paradisiacal Habitat modifiers in Ithome's Gate no longer use placeholder icons.
• Restored -25% penalty if the government doesn't have a head of research.
• Set a manual planet size for the Toxic God star asset, as it otherwise counts the large visual effects as part of the planet.
• The Crystal Splitter will now hopefully stop blowing up Fruitful Partnership colonies
• The spiritualist fallen empire will now wake up if you eat their holy worlds.
• The knights will no longer try to quest if you pacify their habitat.

Performance

• Removed MTTH from anomaly.6710, bane of ship events, horror of designers
• Removed MTTH from assorted fallen_empire_tasks events
• Removed MTTH from communications_spread.1 and communications_spread.3
• Removed MTTH from crime.1, crime.40 and crime.41, plus added pre-triggers to all crime-events
• Removed MTTH from fallen_empires.1, fallen_empires.3, fallen_empires.10, fallen_empires.11
• Removed MTTH from leviathans.660 and leviathans.662
• Removed MTTH from pop.1-13, madness that should have never existed
• Removed MTTH from random caravaneer events (cara.4000-4050)
• Removed MTTH from refugees.5, scourge of the game, destroyer of performance
• Removed MTTH from the Migrating Forests event chain (colony.1 to colony.12)
• Removed MTTH from the Orbital Debris event chain (colony.171 and colony.171)

UI

• Added new main menu gradient

Modding

• Added researchers_add.txt and archaeoengineers_add.txt inline scripts for buildings.
• Added chemist_add.txt, factory_add.txt, foundry_add.txt, refiner_add.txt and translucer_add.txt inline script for buildings.

3.9.3 is currently planned for a few weeks from now, and will include some more bugfixes as well as some diplomacy changes that we’ve pulled in. The recommended DLC screen updates I mentioned a few weeks ago have shifted to 3.10 at the earliest.

Let’s talk about Diplomacy now.

Diplomacy and Trust​

A common complaint since the release of Overlord and the 3.3 ‘Cepheus’ update is that the galaxy frequently degenerated into a handful of powerful vassal blocs, and things like Federations only formed rarely. A significant cause of this was due to the willingness of AI empires to quickly diplomatically submit to more powerful empires, even if the difference in power really wasn’t all that high. This then led to a snowball effect, as newly encountered empires would generally be less powerful than this already established bloc.

We’ve made a few minor adjustments to AI Acceptance in past releases, but decided that we need a more impactful change to delay this sort of behavior. We do want it possible for these political formations to form, but it shouldn’t be a fast and virtually guaranteed phenomenon.

Trust is an existing concept that grows over time between empires that have diplomatic ties. It grows up to a Trust Cap based primarily on the magnitude of those diplomatic ties, but is also affected by traditions and other sources of modifiers. Since the release of Federations and the 2.6 ‘Verne’ update, Envoys could be assigned to Improve Relations to waive most of the requirements for diplomatic pacts - this has now been largely shifted over to Trust and having an Embassy with the target or the Diplomatic Networking tradition.

View attachment 1025829
The Centralized Yibrak Systems would like to join your network.​

These requirements will change the initial flow of the game quite a bit - it’ll be harder to meet someone and have a Commercial Pact, Research Agreement, and the like a few days after finishing first contact, but similarly as a MegaCorp it’ll be rarer to encounter an AI Empire that already has their fill of Commercial Pacts and refuses to enter any more. It takes a bit of getting to know one another before they’re willing to entwine their economies or swear eternal allegiance to one another.

View attachment 1025830
Let’s not be too hasty, maybe get to know one another first.​

Spoiler: Some Preliminary 3.9.3 Diplomatic Patch Notes

Balance

• Rebalanced requirements for diplomatic treaties to require trust.
• Having less than 50 Trust with an empire imposes a -100 Acceptance to them becoming your subject or overlord.
• Removed the ability to trade favors.
• Insulting someone decreases their Trust of your empire.
• The Intimidation menace perk now allows you to ignore diplomatic requirements for proposing subjugation.

AI
The AI will no longer request to become the subject or overlord of another empire unless they have 50 Trust with the other party.
Certain AI personalities (Federation Builders, Spiritual Seekers, Migrating Flocks, and Peaceful Traders) are now 25x more likely to select Diplomacy traditions.
The AI will no longer request to be subjugated by empires that are equivalent or weaker than them.
Trust between nations is now visible in the main diplomatic screen.

As another general diplomatic change, we’ve removed the ability to trivially trade favors between Empires. The traditions related to them and the Extort Favors operation will be the most consistent source of favors going forward, though in time we plan on adding more to various events that feel like they really should include a favor exchange. (This pass will not be complete in 3.9.3.)

View attachment 1025831
All values are subject to change, but we’re generally pretty happy with them so far.​

Internal testing has shown these changes to be pretty effective at reducing the vassalization blobs while still allowing them to form either over the long term or through judicious application of violence. (Subjugation wargoals do not require trust.) This also gives a potentially interesting hook for the Smear Campaign operation when we revisit Espionage sometime in the coming updates.

Next Week​

Next week we’ll be examining a potential 3.10 feature - the Leader Consolidation and trait balancing.

View attachment 1025832
Hey wait, who put you in charge of that planet?​

See you then!

you mentioned leader consolidation and trait balancing. will you guys consider adding more ways to remove negative traits from leaders? either through special projects, planetary decisions, or agendas? a lot of builds, especially with dictatorial, imperial, or machine intelligence end up with immortal rulers you can't get rid of who get crippled by negative traits. the event that removes negative traits seems to be purely and completely random and follows no logic from what i can tell. an agenda or an edict to help the player actively deal with these kinds of things would be so awesome

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

you mentioned leader consolidation and trait balancing. will you guys consider adding more ways to remove negative traits from leaders? either through special projects, planetary decisions, or agendas? a lot of builds, especially with dictatorial, imperial, or machine intelligence end up with immortal rulers you can't get rid of who get crippled by negative traits. the event that removes negative traits seems to be purely and completely random and follows no logic from what i can tell. an agenda or an edict to help the player actively deal with these kinds of things would be so awesome

I can't help thinking that if removing negative traits was possible at the player's discretion, that would significant devalue the existing mechanics to avoid negative traits, namely the traits, civics, and traditions reducing the maximum negative traits, which you can stack if you want to limit or outright make your leaders immune to gaining negative traits, as well as going a long ways towards removing the tradeoff of over time having slightly subpar leaders due to accumulating negative traits if you do not.

 

[iniudan]

@Eladrin
Any chance that the law's default could be changed to vassals not joining federations?
I.e. for vassals to automatically join a federation, the federation would first have to change the law.

Currently, nobody ever changes the law to stop vassals from automatically becoming members.
It would be nice for gameplay if we got to see both states of the law (enabled, disabled), rather than just one of them.

Personally I would make it so that except under Galactic Union and Hegemony, vassal wouldn't join by default.

 

[Millbot]

The ability to form a federation really should be decoupled from the diplomacy tradition. IT would put federations on a more even footing with vassal blocks. I'd argue that you'd really have to buff that tradition a ton to put it on even footing with other early tradition picks. I'd also argue that probably isn't good for the game either, not all traditions need to be the first or second pick. It fine for some to be things we pick later, provided they are worth picking for a build.

If you are going to insist that the ability to form a federation has to be part of diplomacy, then could it at least be made part of the adoption effect. That would feel less bad, since then people could pick the tree to be able to form federations at a reasonable time, before going back to work on getting or filling out other traditions.

I will also second the idea of making it so that vassals being banned from from joining a federation, is something that is on from the start. It makes a ton of sense really, you might trust an empire enough to say join a federation with them, but not enough that you're willing to essentially let them backdoor a bunch of behind the scenes influence. Hell, you might not even know their vassal that well, to the point that you don't even want to be in a federation with them. This would also be a way to level things out because vassals joining by default, is just another perk for being an overlord. I'd even go further here and go with a setup where your first have to convince your federation to allow your vassal in, but they'd have reduced clout given that everyone knows they aren't independent. Let's say they only get half their normal diplomatic weight in the federation. Then you'd have to pass another law that would let them get their normal level of clout. Both could be locked behind different tiers of centralization and the first one should requires some level of centralization.

Finally, I'd argue that we really should get federation holdings. Make them mutually exclusive from overlord holdings. So a vassal can't have both. This is where we put a knob in to force the overlord to make a choice. If an overlord wants to get federation holdings on a vassal or wants those holdings. They have to go to their policies and select between either overlord holdings or vassal holdings. Idea being we don't want double dipping here. Federation holdings seem like a good way to close the gab between federation blocks and vassal blocks, but at the same could also be a way to introduce some additional differences between the two. Maybe federation holdings have some sort of synergy that encourages members to try and coordinate what they build.

Edit: Federations should also allow some coordination on building hyper relays and gateways. Each independent empire could say click on a system and if they have half the need resources and influence needed for whichever one they want to build. They could select an option saying "Hey, I'd like to build a hyper relay/gateway in this system." Then in addition to that system getting a special icon, a notification goes out that a fellow federation members wants to construct on of those structures. Other members can then click the icon or maybe even have a thing in the federation UI that displays those requires. Then independent members of the federation, including the one that requested it, can contribute resources and influence to the request (I'd suggest probably set increments, like 1/16ths). AI will always prefer to get a project going before contributing to another one). Vassals initially can't make the request, nor can their overlord make that request for them, in addition they can't contribute to such requests. The overlord would have a policy option that would allow their vassal to make such requests and contribute, but they still couldn't use the system to designate their vassal's systems and the policy would come with an influence cost, that would be subsidizing their vassal(s) ability to build those structures throughout the federation. Granted, this does mean that we really need to have gateways not contributing to border friction, which really shouldn't be a thing, given how their mechanics work.

 

[CMDR Exorcist]

I really like the trust reworks. In many cases right now, if you don't vassalize everything in your path as quickly as possible, you're going to run into a bunch of AI overlords and it just becomes a mess.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Won't this make a low-military early phase completely impossible?

Like now a Corvette rush is the only way to survive the first 30 or 40 years now?

I'm specifically referring to the Trust and Favor changes.

It is entirely possible to play GA on max aggression without favor trading exploits, diplomatic subjugation, or a corvette rush, and it will remain entirely possible after these changes remove the exploits and fix the broken willingness for empires to enslave themselves.

 

[Gorehuchi]

Will we be able to trade systems again with high enough trust?
Being able to give them away has their uses, but it feels bad not ever being able to swap geographical enclaves with allied neighbors. Maybe this could be squeezed in as a high trust option?

 

[amib]

I can't help thinking that if removing negative traits was possible at the player's discretion, that would significant devalue the existing mechanics to avoid negative traits, namely the traits, civics, and traditions reducing the maximum negative traits, which you can stack if you want to limit or outright make your leaders immune to gaining negative traits, as well as going a long ways towards removing the tradeoff of over time having slightly subpar leaders due to accumulating negative traits if you do not.

if your game runs long enough eventually you'll get the random event that does it anyway. the leader traits are an annoyance most of the time, but they can absolutely cripple your empire if you get unlucky at the start of the game. having a ruler with an upkeep of 10 alloys right off the bat is basically "lol gg scrub restart"

the problem isn't with the negative traits per se, it's with having the negative traits on rulers and leaders you cannot get rid of, ie the dictator, the imperial ruler and heir, or the "ruler" with gestalt empires.

 

[mrt1212]

Which I find interesting because I often times will play like Megacorps and find myself really hating taking the Diplo tradition because I'd rather take Mercantile, and Prosperity and Leader cap tradition, the ascension tradition and the station tradition and the military tradition. Largely because I tend to only grow to a manageable amount and then focus on externalized growth to make money, and whilst Diplomacy tradition makes that 'easier'...it does seem to be largely a 'win more' in that case rather than 'this is vitally necessary or else I won't win at all.

Or even when I play non-megacorp, outside of the federation perk, the rest of diplomacy feels...weaksauce. I rarely use envoys, or if I use them I shuffle them around. I don't engage the galactic community that much, and I don't tend to use espionage because...why? Once you have pacts with other governments it doesn't take much to keep them happy...and once again....once I'm chugging along....I tend to vassalize (if not create my own vassals) which doesn't require me to do take a tradition, and I reap larger economic bonuses and have more distinct control of the vassals than I do federation members and bonus points, if an AI takes the diplo tradition and asks me to join, I de facto take control of the federation because I have majority vote share.

Which leaves being in a federation in a similar place that 'going psionic' was before the most recent patch.... I'll do it, if it makes itself available but I'm not going to sit there and take a tradition that otherwise is pretty meh to do it. Federations are like diplomatic megastructures, if there's one laying about I'll probably invest in it, but I rarely build my own....

Hilariously enough, I take the complete opposite tack with the megacorp bread and butter I fool around with. Diplo is always a strong contender for an early grab for two reasons not Federation related, but instead raising trust caps to get over the hump on some interactions and the envoys, because a small yet significant portion of this game for me is allocating envoys to task. Even though active espionage is kind of a mug's game for everything but stealing tech and even then, kind of a mug's game, I have enjoyed aspects of it for allowing more research options upon success. The faster passive benefit of intel on modifiers, ship locations, relations, etc etc because of an active envoy are nice. But it all takes envoys and more envoys, and then some envoys on top of that. Once you have an envoy for whatever reason, you might as well use and abuse them because there isn't ongoing associated cost passively, just the sunk cost of however you accrued their slot.

In fact, the 100% fleet contribution increase compositional tradition is the one sore spot because if you take Diplo early enough, you can't capitalize on that actual compositional tradition, because you haven't reached to the level to raise Fed fleet contribution from None to Low.

The actual Federation benefit is immense though because generally having a buddy that has your back is enough to ward a lot of empires at near parity off from you and if you're going to go all that way to securing a defensive pact and whatever other deals were used to get there in the first place, you might as well call it a marriage and act like it to some extent.

To the extent that Federations need fixing or a gate taken away, I am already lined up at the gate with cash in hand to bribe my way in if I cant sweet talk my way in. And exogenous Federations stink because they aren't defact trade leagues, which has that lovely associated trade policy, and stumbling into a Federation even relatively early still means you might not be able to change it early enough and then let it grow into the level 5 one in any timely manner.

I think it's actually a testament to the flexibility of megacorps that the details of how you play a megacorp and the game itself might influence whether you think Diplo is a must have in the top 3 of traditions, situationally in the top 3, or a free cookie that isn't very good but a free cookie is a free cookie and you'll take it if it falls on your head and begs to be eaten. I also am vassal happy to a fault, so per another convo that was talking about gating vassals behind Dominance, it's been a weird week of seeing completely polar opposite takes on what should be done with gates for two pretty weighty mechanics.

 

[iniudan]

if your game runs long enough eventually you'll get the random event that does it anyway. the leader traits are an annoyance most of the time, but they can absolutely cripple your empire if you get unlucky at the start of the game. having a ruler with an upkeep of 10 alloys right off the bat is basically "lol gg scrub restart"

the problem isn't with the negative traits per se, it's with having the negative traits on rulers and leaders you cannot get rid of, ie the dictator, the imperial ruler and heir, or the "ruler" with gestalt empires.

Gestalt have an agenda to get rid of negative trait.

 

[Kiwibaum]

Changes sound good, tho I think another good way to go about this would be to make vassal blocks be more instable, where it's more likely that vassals will group up and rebel.

I actually like that empire relations might now have an impact on player empire interactions. Always found it a bit weird that all types of empires can just ignore how their population is thinking of the other empire.

 

[mrt1212]

The ability to form a federation really should be decoupled from the diplomacy tradition. IT would put federations on a more even footing with vassal blocks. I'd argue that you'd really have to buff that tradition a ton to put it on even footing with other early tradition picks. I'd also argue that probably isn't good for the game either, not all traditions need to be the first or second pick. It fine for some to be things we pick later, provided they are worth picking for a build.If you are going to insist that the ability to form a federation has to be part of diplomacy, then could it at least be made part of the adoption effect. That would feel less bad, since then people could pick the tree to be able to form federations at a reasonable time, before going back to work on getting or filling out other traditions.

I will also second the idea of making it so that vassals being banned from from joining a federation, is something that is on from the start. It makes a ton of sense really, you might trust an empire enough to say join a federation with them, but not enough that you're willing to essentially let them backdoor a bunch of behind the scenes influence. Hell, you might not even know their vassal that well, to the point that you don't even want to be in a federation with them. This would also be a way to level things out because vassals joining by default, is just another perk for being an overlord. I'd even go further here and go with a setup where your first have to convince your federation to allow your vassal in, but they'd have reduced clout given that everyone knows they aren't independent. Let's say they only get half their normal diplomatic weight in the federation. Then you'd have to pass another law that would let them get their normal level of clout. Both could be locked behind different tiers of centralization and the first one should requires some level of centralization.

Finally, I'd argue that we really should get federation holdings. Make them mutually exclusive from overlord holdings. So a vassal can't have both. This is where we put a knob in to force the overlord to make a choice. If an overlord wants to get federation holdings on a vassal or wants those holdings. They have to go to their policies and select between either overlord holdings or vassal holdings. Idea being we don't want double dipping here. Federation holdings seem like a good way to close the gab between federation blocks and vassal blocks, but at the same could also be a way to introduce some additional differences between the two. Maybe federation holdings have some sort of synergy that encourages members to try and coordinate what they build.

Edit: Federations should also allow some coordination on building hyper relays and gateways. Each independent empire could say click on a system and if they have half the need resources and influence needed for whichever one they want to build. They could select an option saying "Hey, I'd like to build a hyper relay/gateway in this system." Then in addition to that system getting a special icon, a notification goes out that a fellow federation members wants to construct on of those structures. Other members can then click the icon or maybe even have a thing in the federation UI that displays those requires. Then independent members of the federation, including the one that requested it, can contribute resources and influence to the request (I'd suggest probably set increments, like 1/16ths). AI will always prefer to get a project going before contributing to another one). Vassals initially can't make the request, nor can their overlord make that request for them, in addition they can't contribute to such requests. The overlord would have a policy option that would allow their vassal to make such requests and contribute, but they still couldn't use the system to designate their vassal's systems and the policy would come with an influence cost, that would be subsidizing their vassal(s) ability to build those structures throughout the federation. Granted, this does mean that we really need to have gateways not contributing to border friction, which really shouldn't be a thing, given how their mechanics work.

One of the kinda gamey things you can do if Vassals can't or don't join a federation, per Vassal settings, is create a DMZ of vassals who basically have no ability to to conduct their own diplomacy but are not required to join any of your wars, and obviously aren't bound by federation diplomacy, so they'll uphold a closed borders deal against an enemy youre at war with while not actually partaking in the blood soaked frolicking, creating a two way door for yourself, and a wall for the enemy. Unless they also declare war on the vassal as a side quest to actually get to you.

I have had to do this in reverse as the player where by accident, I declared on the Overlord not realizing their vassal who I really wanted to roll over basically had no attachment to them unless the vassal was directly attacked, so then I have two wars with overlapping effect on warscores...

So a potential unintended consequence of starting off with decoupling things is more federations in aggregate (now with no gate) with diverse vassal relationships (because they are not bound by Federation diplomacy) and potential gridlock wars, you know the kind, 3 different parties attack the same weakling and the war can not resolve because the two primary parties split things up close to 45/45 quickly and the third party has 10 and nothing to do but wait...while the two primary parties also wait...and wait...and wait...until status quo becomes available so that vassals can be created. This happened to me last night and I actually surrendered my subsid out because I had the most junior war against the weaklimg enemy, but also had just resolved a catch and release of another more crucial enemy. It was 4%/4% after 7 years of 'fighting', uh huh.

I just really dont know about any of the chatter on ungating Feds because I dont really consider vassal blocs in competition with Fed blocs except as Human meta analytical conceit