• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

Stellaris Dev Diary #33 - The Maiden Voyage

Hi everyone!

Well folks, here we are again, one week later… The development team has mostly weathered the release jitters and nerves are starting to calm down. The ship we worked so hard on for the last three years has been successfully launched and is currently on its maiden voyage. The crew seems mostly happy but some of the inspectors have raised concerns about mid-ship structural issues. As chief architect, I am not entirely surprised, but the reports will allow us to commence upgrades as soon as HMS Stellaris returns from its round-trip to Alpha Centauri. Alright, enough with the metaphor, let’s talk about our future plans for Stellaris!

First off, for those of you who are unfamiliar with our post-release policies, we will release a lot of expansions over the coming years. Each expansion will be accompanied by a major update (for Stellaris, these free updates will be named after famous science fiction authors) containing a whole bunch of completely free upgrades and improvements to the game in addition to regular bug fixes. As long as enough players keep buying paid content for the game, we promise to keep improving the game for everyone, almost like an MMO.

Now, before we begin the expansion cycle in earnest, we will spend the rest of May and June only focusing on bug fixes and free upgrades to the game. We carefully listen to all your feedback, which has already made us alter our priorities a bit. As a veteran designer of our complex historical games, I was anticipating a fair amount of criticism regarding the mid-game in Stellaris compared to that of our historical games, but I was more concerned with the depth of the economy than the relative lack of diplomatic options, for example. I also find much of the feedback on the Sector system interesting; the GUI and AI concerns will receive the highest priority. One area I was not at all surprised to get flak for is the lack of mid-game scripted content, however. We simply took too long getting all the early and late game stuff in, and neglected a whole category of events called “colony events”, which were supposed to be the bread and butter of the mid-game for the Science Ships.

We’ve been digesting and discussing your feedback and how to best go about improving the mid-game to make it more dynamic, both in the short and long run. Let’s start with our short term plans. When the game was released, we had already proceeded to fix a lot of issues. Together with some other pressing issues that have been reported, the plan is to release the 1.1 update - “Clarke” - near the end of May. We will try to cram as much as we can into this update, but the more fundamental stuff will have to wait until the next update (“Asimov”), which is scheduled for the end of June. The “Clarke” patch will mainly be a bug fix and GUI improvement update. Here are some of the highlights:

"CLARKE" HIGHLIGHTS
  • Fixes to the Ethic Divergence and Convergence issues. Currently, Pops tend to get more and more neutral (they lose Ethics, but rarely gain new ones.)
  • The End of Combat Summary. This screen looks bad and also doesn’t tell you what you need to know in order to revise your ship designs, etc.
  • Sector Management GUI: There are many issues with this, and we will try to get most of them fixed.
  • Diplomacy GUI issues. This includes the Diplomatic Pop-Ups when other empires contact you, but also more and better looking Notifications, and more informative tooltips on wars, etc.
  • AI improvements: Notably the Sector AI, but also plenty of other things. This kind of work is never "finished"...
  • Myriads of bug fixes and smaller GUI improvements.
  • Late game crises bugs. There were some nasty bugs in there, blocking certain subplots and various surprising developments.
  • EDIT: Remaining Performance Issues. We know about them; they might even be hotfixed before Clarke.
  • EDIT: Corvettes are too good.

Stellaris_new_Diplo_Notification_Mockup.png

New Diplomatic Notification. This is a mock-up, not an actual screenshot!

Stellaris_End_of_Combat_Mockup.png

New Fleet Combat Summary. This is a mock-up, not an actual screenshot!


After that, we’re moving on to the “Asimov” update, and this is when we can start making some major gameplay improvements to especially the mid-game. As you might have guessed, we plan to add some new diplomatic actions and treaties. Another thing that struck me during our discussions is that the normal lack of access to the space of other empires makes the game feel more constricted than intended. It limits your options since you can’t really interact much with the galaxy beyond the borders of your empire, and you only tend to concern yourself with your direct neighbors. This is bad for your Science Ships too, of course, since they might not be able to finish some of the grander “quests”. Compare the situation with Europa Universalis, where you usually have access to the oceans and can thus reach most of the world, or Crusader Kings, where you can even move through neutral territory with your armies. We also intend to add as much mid-game scripted content as we can. Thus, this is currently the plan for “Asimov”, but it’s not set in stone yet, so please bear with us if something gets pushed or altered:

"ASIMOV" HIGHLIGHTS (NOT SET IN STONE!)
  • Border Access Revision: Borders are now open to your ships by default, although empires can choose to Close their borders for another empire (lowering your relations, of course.)
  • Tributaries: New diplomatic status and corresponding war goals.
  • Joint Declarations of War: You can ask other empires to join you for a temporary alliance in a war against a specific target.
  • Defensive Pacts.
  • Harder to form and maintain proper Alliances.
  • More war goals: Humiliate, Open Borders, Make Tributary, etc.
  • Emancipation Faction. We had to cut this one at the last minute. Needs redesign.
  • Diplomatic Map Mode. Much requested!
  • Diplomatic Incidents: This is a whole class of new scripted events that causes more interaction with the other empires.
Past “Asimov”, I can’t give you any kind of specifics yet, but I am currently leaning towards honing in on the following general areas for the “Heinlein” update (these are not promises!):

CURRENT "HEINLEIN" INTENTIONS
  • Sector and Faction Politics: We are working on a design for this. I always wanted to make Factions more closely tied to Sectors, for example...
  • Federation and Alliance Politics: As a player, you need more ways of interacting with the other members, push your will through, and get elected, etc.
  • Giving Directions to Allies and Subject States.
  • Strategic Resource Overhaul: You should need these and search for them far and wide. They should be extremely important.
  • Battleship Class Weapons. Some Battleship front sections will be repurposed for an XL size weapon slot. There are currently four ship sizes but only three sizes to weapons, creating an imbalance. Also, Battleships should have fewer small weapon slots and have to rely on screens of smaller ships.
  • Fleet Combat Mechanics: Formations and/or more complex ship behavior is needed.
  • Mid-game scripted content: Guarded “treasures”, mid-game crises, colony events, etc.
  • Living Solar Systems: Little civilian ships moving around, etc.
Again, remember that we need to be somewhat flexible when things don't work out or when something else takes priority, so please take these later plans with a large grain of salt. As always, we also listen keenly to your feedback, so keep it coming!

Now, I am sure you are full of questions about the details, but hold your horses; it will all be explained in the coming dev diaries!
 
Last edited:
  • 1K
  • 289
  • 6
Reactions:
This game remind me a lot of Imperium Galactica 2 and I have to say I miss a few things from that game when I play this, like spying, more control over fleet combat.
 
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
Isn't that already an option? Set "Allow Redevelopment" to off and your sectors can't replace your buildings?
Sadly it seems not to work always, may be buggy.
I have the option set to off and the "respect tile resources" on. But still found buildings not fitting, e. g. farm on research tile. And as i only build labs on research tiles, it must have been the sector AI that build it.
We´ll see what the patch brings.
 
The optimization is being worked on. The granularity of control will have to wait for a later update.
Hi, If you could enforce the two flag rhere is already to respect tiles no matter what and do not replace no matter what then you would fix it probably. Right now despite them it just removes mine from a +3 mineral field to replace it with farm when it has empty tiles. Adding a4th neutral focus. - Focusing on strengths would make it 10/10
 
This game remind me a lot of Imperium Galactica 2 and I have to say I miss a few things from that game when I play this, like spying, more control over fleet combat.
I second the spying-system. I already posted that under "suggestions"-post; but I'll post this here as well, in a bit more "compressed" form.

Firstly, the major things:

Spying - I'd like it to be the sum of espionage (spy) / sabotage -system including both possibilities; perhaps backed up by selecting a racial trait (or new ethos) increasing chances, thus costing you points from other areas if you decided to go that way: tech, information spying & sabotaging wormholes, planet sectors, assassinations. Could really give another nice way to plan tactical attack or strike your enemies. Penalty on relationships with the target empire (and perhaps others, as well) would be received, when if your plot was discovered. Would make a good DLC imo (or a part of it).

More events tied to empire relationships and politics: Events within your empire, of which handling and solutions are tied to neighboring empires' relationships. You may gain a quick benefit for handing an event one way, or be saved from trouble within your own empire, but it may damage relationships (the score) with neighboring empire(s). I'd like to see such political events (or event-chains), which affects relationships directly with the other nearby empires. So far I don't think I've seen any. That, and generally more depth added to the politics and political interaction (tied to your empire's and racial backgrounds preferably).

Other more minor things I'd think would be nice ideas to give some more life to the space would be:

Mercenaries - 1) free roaming fleets entering your terrain, so you'd recruit them. 2) Discover able mercenary outposts (on space), which will remain there for longer limited period of time. Will offer repairs for price, and varying recruit able limited fleets to be hired. Perhaps appearing more often and offering better price for empires with certain ethos/racial traits. Mercenary fleet aren't counted in your maximum fleet limit per se (but do cost rather much you monthly - amount of merc fleet would be listed after your current/max fleet as following, for example: 48/50 + 5 (whereas 5 indicates number of mercs; the additional 3 ships over 50 won't cause any additional taxation to your empire, since the limit of your efficient fleet management is passed by 3 purely by amount of mercs, not by your own ships)).

Improved pirate risk (possibility for birth of pirate-factions) - bigger threat mid- to late-game. If a pirate fleet wasn't dealt early enough, they could form a pirate-faction and colonize a single planet (no more allowed per pirate-faction); they would be restricted outside any other communication than paid for not to attack for time amount x (temporary cease fire), or bribed to plan attack on another empire (only if paid for temporary cease fire, first; direct attack to certain route, planet?). Other than that, they would always be hostile and randomly attack anyone at nearby areas of their planetary base. They would also evolve gaining better fleet over time if not dealt with.

Prisoners
- to be captured for ransom, knowledge, executed to cause fear etc. Perhaps you could tick an option with your fleet to "try to capture the fleet leader, science ship scientist, governor" instead of destroying whatever object you were attacking. Your attack values (damage) would suffer a penalty, and you'd had certain % of change to success capturing your target alive instead of blowing it all up.

Neutral space stations - Something like Babylon 5 -style neutral space stations to be interacted with on space, with their own relationship score towards anyone. There could be something like 0.2-0.3 towards each empire, and the stations could be "ancient", and rather strong with their defense, having decent fleet, as well. They could give quests, gifts, or turn to be hostile instead, depending of your actions. Dealing badly with them could damage relationships with other real empires neighbouring the neutral space station. They'd have their own region border within one "warp point", with no planets whatsoever located at the same point.

Other than that, the things which are already officially listed on Dev Diary to be worked on next look good! Ai, mid-game diversity, combat, and so forth. Keep it going!
 
Last edited:
  • 5
Reactions:
Does AI sector management improvements include proper slavery management? Empires that use slaves are currently unplayable because AI put them in energy producing and science tiles. Also, empires government forms are totally inbalanced, some of them too overpowered, like give 10% more energy and minerals produce or increase researches speed rate, or allow to have a giant fleet for a penny and some of them are just useless, for example everything where slavery concerned (it is just unplayable) or main domain increased or just +1 leaders pool etc.
 
I've got a bug. It existed in the original game (no hotfixes) and it still exists after the hotfixes (not a new save though). It Might relate to another bug I've observed recently . . .

1. When I build a colony ship, when it completes there is very briefly a "transport ship" icon with the title "1st Strike Force" in the station's orbital list. The robot helper says, Production complete, and then the icon just disappears *poof* no colony ship. I certainly was able to build lots of them up to this point, and I'm not sure what might have happened in game to cause it to happen. Will probably need to provide a save file.

2. The preceding bug: I had a leader, and admiral, and tried to replace him with someone else. He got duplicated, and then there were two of him (three at one point!) for quite a while. That one might be more difficult to replicate, but I've got save files. Pretty sure he's somehow now back to normal, with only one of him.

When I follow the link on the Steam page to the "bug reports sub-forum" it says I cannot access it or something. My Steam name is "Diche Bach" so maybe that is it? Let me know (PM or Email) how to follow up on this; I cannot be bothered to hunt down the right place to report this tonight . . . file is too big to upload to this post.

Those two issues said . . . I want to write a lengthy laudatory review, but right now I'm too tired . . . this game is utterly fantastic, and contrary to Paradox reputation, one of the most well-tuned, high-performing games I've ever played. This game has been sucking the life out of me for nearly a week, and it is with heavy heart that I accept I must get back to work tomorrow, instead of binging on it all day long.

Wow, you guys have created a masterpiece here, seriously *APPLAUDS*
No CTDs AT ALL! No lag, no real performance issues (other than those two, and a few other very minor ones).
As well-done and complete as it is now (and gorgeous, and intriguing and engaging, etc.) the mind boggles at the possibilities for updates, expansions, mods, etc.

Quite possibly the best strategy game ever made, and definitely the best galactic expansion strategy game I've ever played by far. Makes everything else seem amateurish!

I do have a few UI suggestions I'll try to post about in the near future (some features that are lacking that I think a lot of players would find handy . . . unless I just haven't figured out they are actually there yet . . .)

If any devs read this, let me know how to get those save files to you (or how to do the proper procedure to report the bugs). The email associated with this account is still valid, though I don't check it a lot, and I have it set to spam box anything that isn't given permission, but I go through my spam folder about once per week
 
Great game. Really good job. I can only think of one thing that would significantly improve it.

That would be Black Ops/Espionage. If this was an option it would increase your options against an AI or a Human. It would provide ways of fighting wars that would make the game more interesting.

Specific things would be setting up an intelligence agency that's job is collecting information on the Military/Economic status of nations you have targeted. Other interesting changes would be: Sabotage, Assassination, Piracy, Revolt, Steal Tech, Infiltrate colonies and ships to start a revolt or betrayal, having the capability to commit sabotage with specific options to plant "evidence" against other nations, Smuggling, Kidnapping, Extortion. There are countless other Black Op possibilities. These would improve gameplay by adding another dimension of manipulation along with Diplomacy and Warfare it would also enhance the other two.
 
  • 2
Reactions:
Another thing would be overall build queue including sector spaceports so I don't have to manually click on everyone. And give the ability to set rally points for the love of god, I can't believe a game launch without that one. Also when upgrading fleets, I manually split the fleet to go to all my spaceports to get it done faster. I shouldn't have to do that. It should upgrade intelligently, then come back together.
That would be very helpful. It is really annoying to search and select all spaceports manually to start a build.
 
Last edited:
  • 3
Reactions:
I've got a bug. It existed in the original game (no hotfixes) and it still exists after the hotfixes (not a new save though). It Might relate to another bug I've observed recently . . .

1. When I build a colony ship, when it completes there is very briefly a "transport ship" icon with the title "1st Strike Force" in the station's orbital list. The robot helper says, Production complete, and then the icon just disappears *poof* no colony ship. I certainly was able to build lots of them up to this point, and I'm not sure what might have happened in game to cause it to happen. Will probably need to provide a save file.

I had my built colony ships disappear when I deleted the colony ship blueprint. Without a blueprint of a colony ship u can build one but it will vanish upon completion.
There needs to be a message preventing u from building a ship without a blueprint.
 
  • 2
Reactions:
What this game desperately needs is some kind of fleet limit. I am disappointed in the stack-o-doom approach, you have one mega fleet and basically you have to play hide and seek. Maybe outright limiting the number of ships in a fleet, or by adding penalties above a certain fleet size, representing the elongated chain of command would work. And the ship classes should have more meaning besides only being larger and slower, the battleships only having large weapons is a good start, but you can do more. Corvettes for screening, and cheap protection for distant systems or civilian ships, destroyers for "air defense" and hunting small ships, battleships for delivering the big punch. Maybe the classes should have bonuses to weapons depending on their type AND size.

And finally, the cruisers. I find them the most interesting class but most neglected. Currently they are just a step behind battleships, but historically they have very different role. Battleships operate in a fleet, but cruisers should have the ability to operate independently. I would really love it, and that's one thing I really miss from space strategy games. For example faster jump compared to other ships, and no emergency ftl penalty. Let's say you have a fleet limit in place, so your fleet is spread out in your systems. A cruiser can jump into the system, attack a mining base, start fighting with the defending corvettes, but jump out before she is defeated. That would also work in favor of a real front line instead of the single stack-o-doom fleet.
 
  • 5
Reactions:
DOH!

That is bound to be it! :) I did a mass delete-off of all my blueprints (irritation at ships upgrading into types I did not intend) and that is bound to be the explanation.

One of the things I find 'mildly' irritating about the game is how the 'upgrade' mechanics work. I know why: the developers have quite wisely opted to make the game more accessible to RTS fans, less micromanaging, less time spent pondering numbers, less time in pause mode: keep auto-upgrade one = just one click and a fleet will head to the best place and upgrade to the "best" designs, i.e., calculate whatever power, weaponry and utilities offer the highest main stat for each category. That is all well and good, but there are those of us who do not want to run our fleets that way, and a toggle(s) to turn on/off "Advanced Ship Designer" would be wonderful . . . or call it "Complex Ship Designer" if you do not want to make the RTS guys feel bad . . .

In the first place, I do not think that what the designer considers to be "the best design" is always the case, even in the solo ship context, much less in the aggregated fleet or emergent dynamic of several interactive fleets. Of course, the algorithms would be 'unwise' to try to take account of those things, so the current one is fine for its purpose. But it is limiting if a player wishes to push the envelope with his existing techs and build fleets that are "more potent" than they should be "on paper." So far I believe the combat and scouting dynamics are in fact set up so that this higher level of strategy IS a valid playstyle.

Some examples:

1. My society has a couple techs that amplify energy weapons effects. My preferred corvette design "Beskytter" should have a disruptor and two X-ray lasers if memory serves. This is preferential for two reasons. The disruptor does extra damage to shields, the X-rays do extra damage to armor, so this design is balanced for facing enemy ships which are either shield protected, armor protected or both. Also, the ranges on the weapons are approximatly the same and allow the ships to engage the enemy at enough distance that any short-range weapons on the enemies are ineffective. Combine this with either an aggressive combat AI for raider fleets (which are not meant to take on other fleets but simply act as bait and destroy stations) or a defensive combat AI for escorts (which are meant to stay close to capital ships and absorb damage and add flanking fire) and my design is in my opinion better than the one the auto-designer comes up with: my society also has discovered rail guns and for some reason (damage X fire rate likely) he wants to not only change the weapons to rail guns, but also change the freaking core (which I understand costs more to upgade than if you only upgrade the modules and keep the same core between designs) which resuls in a vessel with "greater power" but which will not (based on my observations so far) function as effectively as the one I would have made.

2. Cruisers. I want three types: A. Ridder (a cruiser with big guns and only one or two point defense hard points) which will hang back and snipe enemy at range; B. Rakett Ridder (a cruiser with a couple more point-defense hard points, but with all large and medium slots filled with long range missiles) which will also hang back in the pack with the Ridders; C. Vinge Ridder (Carrier ;) ) which has a fighter squadron on it and ONLY small point defense weapons, also meant to hang with the back (advanced defense mode) and provide protection to the other ships from small interlopers.
D. Sounds good on paper but with the present game, it is tedious to implement and does not seem to work exactly as intended.
i. With Auto-design on, if I send any vessel of any of the above classes back to upgrade it will upgrade ALL of them to its own thing, even to the point of adding different cores and obliterating my clever support roles.
ii. With auto design on, and me making "upgraded" versions of each of the above classes it STILL wants to upgrade each sub-class of cruiser to whatever design has the highest combat value, (most likely the carrier). This seems to happen with ALL the ship classes and it really needs to be looked at.

Suggestion: allow us to tell a model how it should be upgraded. For example, define upgrade paths. It would be nice to be able to upgrade a carrier Mk I into a carrier Mk II without having to delete ALL the parent class models (except the one you want to upgrade, e.g., a Cruiser-carrier sub-class), separate the carrier sub-clasess from their fleets, put them back into orbit and then upgrade them to the single sub-class type you presently have in your blueprints. Then . . . do the same thing for a missile sub-class type, a disrupter sub-class type, etc., etc.

A simple way to this might be: have three or four "settings" for a design: two parent class settings "Archived" and "Active." for Archived, you can build them, but they will never be used for upgrades. For active, two or three sub-settings: i. Name of upgrade path (which will cause only vessels of the same upgrade path to choose that model as an alternative); ii. Upgrade path number (a number 1 model will upgrade to a number 2 or 3 if it is in the same path); iii. Open model, a model that will upgrade to any other version of the same class. If all of these settings could be turned on or off it would be much more functional.

E. Doesn't work exactly as intended: the defensive and advanced defensive combat AI module in general works fine, as long as every ship in the fleet is the exact same class. A fleet full of destroyers that have identical speed and weapon range set to "all aggressive" or "all defensive" will function properly, depending on however the player intended it to function: move in quick and attack, hang back and snipe whatever. But in fleets with a mixture of classes (or at least those with "carrier" classes like I describe above) the defense AI module seems to mess up how some ships function (the carriers at least and possibly others). I've got a few fleets comprising mostly cruisers and a few destroyers, all with advanced defensive combat AI and a mixture of lasers, rail guns and missiles. Everything functions pretty well, they all hang together, the missiles in the small modules (but still more range than the others) attack first as the enemy closes, the medium and small module lasers and/or cannons then come into play, and IF the AI uses fighters or bombers, the point defense would eventually come into play (which I have yet to observe) . . . but meanwhile the carriers are sitting back there behind the fleet going "Doh . . . nothing is in range, guess I'll just sit here where I was when combat initiated. It seems that, instead of "defensive" and/or "advanced defensive" combat AI causing a vessel to (some anyway) to stay with the rest of its fleet, it in some cases causes it to stay where it was shen combat initiated. This makes those carrier sub-classes I described above perfectly useless if and when they ever encounter enemy fighters or bombers.

F. One other thing: (well two or three related things actually):
i. The planets in Sectors should be listed in the Outliner. In its own section or a subsection of planets but somehow they need to be there.
ii. The outliner should quickly tell me what type of military infrastructure a planet has: have a military academy on a planet? Put a little icon for that on the planets entry in the outliner. Have a virtual combat arena? Need to know that at a glance too. I've resorted to renaming my planets something like: Elnath II* (for those that have a military academy) and Elnath II** (for those that have both an MA and a VCA). The same goes for ship building facilities. I've resorted to renaming things like Terra BB to tell me Terra has a battleship assembly yard, or Regulus CA to tell me Regulus has a Cruiser assembly yard. I've yet to "finish" the game (is that even possible!? :) ) but it is clear there are LOTS of these types of upgrades and a way for most of the important factors to be discernible at a glance in the outliner would be much appreciated. Obviously the preceding point about sector planets showing up in the outliner comes into play here as well. It will get complicated as you add things like the Navigator Guild, Lyrhuic gas thingy, etc., and maybe every single thing cannot be represented, but the basics at least.
iii. Armies and Transport fleets:
a. I'm not certain what happens if I have only one defense army on a planet, embark all 11 assault/psionic armies, then build 11 more, then land the armies again. Will the queue just lock up? Or will the armies go directly into transport fleets once they are built? If the former that is annoying, if the latter that is the way it should work.
b. Give us some toggles to determine how transport fleets are named. Presently they are named in a sequential fashion for the empire as a whole (Assault Transport Fleet #1, #2, etc.) but it would be nice if having them automatically take their name from their home planet was an option. Similar issue with fleet names: for solo fleets, it is preferable to me that they simply be named the same as the ship itself.
c. More options on how units behave once they are built: do they automatically move to an assembly point? Do they automatically merge with some other fleet in orbit? Do they automatically create their own new fleet?
d. Army naming: presently this does not seem to be possible at all, need to be able to name them and have that name stay permanently.

I think there are a few other things, but that is a lot for now. On the whole, an absolutely brilliant game and every 'improvement' I can think of so far is more appropriate for a patched if not 'expanded' version of the game. All of these functionalities (with the possible exception of the defensive combat AI problem with "carriers" not hanging with their fleet) are more "improved game play" than they are "not working as designed" issues.
 
Last edited:
  • 1
Reactions:
I disagree. There IS a fleet limit, it is your naval capacity. One mega stack is not as effective as: one mega-stack plus several support stacks which behave in more complex ways. I think you need to play more to see what I'm talking about.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Two more suggestions:
A. Boarding parties and ship capture.
B. Ship disassembly (to allow you to gain some insight into techs used on those vessels which you do not presently have; would need to be balanced, but would be neat).