Stellaris Dev Diary #361 - The Vision

[Delterius]

boarding cables are for when VLURR leaves your empire without at least saying hello

 

[Imp0815]

Oh this is going to be exciting!

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  • Not at all. I could go for a much larger-scale population simulation and remove job management interactions, as I can count the times I need to do that on one hand. If you could fit the species traits within a simpler but grander system, I would go for it.
• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
  • Please alter it as much as you like, the Fleet and combat system, along with the rampant doomstack issues, are holding back major parts of your vision, at least for me!
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
  • The origins, and I’m sad that some just drop off when they are "done" and get lost in the mix. I would like them to be a major part of each playthrough and remain relevant throughout.
• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
  • Always and every time. I lose interest if no meaningful differences come to mind, and playstyles and builds dry up. I get back into the game when I see major changes to gameplay and systems. It's somewhat limited by my imagination and curiosity, but I feel invested enough to notice interesting things.
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
  • Absolutely not important.
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  • Maybe, as all systems cascade into each other. It would be interesting if changes to this impacted other areas and had clear reasons why. If colonies became more complex and long-term, with goals and events per challenging colony, I would go for it. But the implication is that my fleet power would snowball slower, which some people might dislike (not me, though).
• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
  • I have no opinion on that.
• If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?
  • The RTS-like fleet and military systems and their doomstacking problems. I would like to see a full rework of that; I would even pay for it, as I think the game is being held back by these systems.

 

[jmxd]

• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
  I believe it would not be changed unless there is a good good vision for a new system, and i'm am a fan of full measures instead of half measures, so go off.
  
  
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
  It is completely ignored, i would rather see an actual trade route system between empires
  
  
• If you could remove one game system, what would it be?
  I hate factions, and most often play empires that do not use factions

 

[namewhichisnottakenyet]

Finally I can catch the Enigmatic Cache for failing to uplift me for the past several years!

 

[Myphicbowser]

Personally, to me
Stellaris is a roleplaying game, the only parts of it that I find lacking are the interactions between Empires. The current trade system is one I would love to see re-vamped, able to interact with more when reaching out to other empires. Obviously, this would be touching up with Megacorporations to, but I think a revamped new Trade System would be nothing but good!


To me, the most important part of defining our Empire is the way it interacts with the Galaxy at large. I would love to see a better implementation of interactions, see smaller scale interactions and choices that impact our empires at large. Federations don't feel impactful, the Galactic Community itself is fantastic, but it all feels like you aren't interacting with people. There are no REAL issues with the laws being proposed, there is no conflict or embargos or even interacting with empires on a vote apart from Favors. A better system of Favors would be neat.

A system I feel like I want to enjoy but really can't is Espionage and the Intel system, it feels far too static. I think that trying to add more options to it itself would be fun, options to lower the Intel Cap in general for other empires, the ability to construct blacksites within enemy space with cloaked Engineering ships that can be detected and result in opinion loss, the ability to decide what the Spy Network is doing when you aren't doing operations, maybe even the ability to increase crime or lower stability in general on worlds, something to add indepth interactions and true espionage.

And honestly, when it comes to Origins I have an interesting idea

Instead of one big lump sum origin (Shattered Ring, Primal Calling, etc)

We divide it into Cultural and Planetary Origin
Shattered Ring is now a Planetary Origin, but your cultural origin on that world is Primal Calling

Void Dwellers is a Planetary Origin, and you could pair it with Cybernetic Creed as a Cultural Origin

This would be pretty powerful, obviously, but it would impact more what our Empire is and WHERE it Came From

 

[JagoTheFanaticalPurifier]

I feel like ship and space combat could use a bit of a rework. Right now it really just kind of feels like smashing two doomstacks against each other, and I feel there may be room to improve upon that. However, I am personally unsure of how I would fix it.

Now if we are talking about a system that we could remove entirely and make the focus of an expansion... GROUND COMBAT PLEASE! I would really love to see the addons for armies that used to be in the game come back, and I think something like different units such as tanks and ground vehicles alongside your armies would be really cool.

Another thing I find annoying is how difficult it is to build a federation with multiple members. I would really love an interaction to gradually improve relations between two nations that you are on good terms with, so that you could more effectively build a local federation. That would be an amazing diplomatic option.

 

[Krissotep]

the decimals of Pi for Updates of course : 3.141592653

 

[Emperica]

1. Trading and routes to the capital are completely irrelevant and don't add anything to the gameplay.
2. Habitability stops mattering after early game, so since I play tall, my only consideration is planet size.
3. Remove ground combat and factions, they are completely useless.
4. Change fleets far enough as at least auto designer is not auto bad, all the time every time.
5. Psionics and their ascension need a rework on par with Machine Empires

 

[Delterius]

1 - How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?

I feel that having A pop system is core to Stellaris. I wouldn't mind if things were changed to something akin to Victoria or Project Caesar. But whatever change is made, one thing I enjoy is the idea that pops are abstract. That a single pop of humans can be a billion people while a single pop of a fungus colony alien being can be a handful of giant Pando-esque creatures working as 'scientists' in an abstract way.

2 - If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?

Not gonna lie, I'm one of the people who is so focused on empire management that I yolo all of my fleets at danger zones with no care to what their armaments are.

3 - What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
4 - How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?

I'll answer both of these together. To me, every civilization I come up with is holistically tied to a specific fantasy. If I want to play with the last cyberpunk DLC, I'll look up every feature available of every stage of the game and my ultimate goal is to accumulate all of them. Origin, civics, ascension, type of homeplanet, type of species and so on, in order of importance.

5 - How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?

I try to minimize its existence as much as possible. In fact having two dozen colonies close by for trade is one of the reasons why I like Void Dwellers a lot.

6 - Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?

I'm not sure they should matter too much. Stellaris is so big on scalability that if you just run into a planet poor part of the galaxy, then you just end up restarting the game or going on a conquest spree.

7 - Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?

Oh I never cared for that, just made use of what is available.

8 - If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?

Most of the time it's a matter of balance of older features. I want to enjoy something like Inward Perfection, but I feel like it lags behind if you aren't Void Dweller. I want to enjoy pop modification and Genetics Ascension, but its so flavourless it needs its own expansion. I want to enjoy Detox but I don't think there's much of a point to it. Communal Parity is a civic that feel pointless, if I'm fanatic egalitarian I might as well run utopian abundance.

 

[Ch4rybde]

I must say the main weakness of the game for me currently is its war system. More precisely, how peace negociations and alliances work. You cannot join a war once it have started nor quit it before it have ended. You cannot negociate peace, you just have to choose between surrender, enforce goals and statut quo. I also realy don't like how in conquest wars you need to conquer all the systems you want anex, because the ai will never surrender if you do not control all of them, even if you crushed 99% percent of their fleets, you are overwelming to them and invaded all of their core worlds.
I would realy love to see a rework of war negociation, with a way to ask for systems, ressources or even relics in exchange of peace. With real stakes and warscore, like conquering the capital or loosing a flag ship should heavily impact the war score. And if possible it would be great if other beligerents could have something to say in the peace negociation, and the ability to leave or join war in their own term.

 

[Kim the Mindcaster]

• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?

Yes, for now colonization is a purely mechanical event that does not bring any discoveries or adventures. I would really like to see colonization revealed, with some events or mechanics that would allow the colonization of planets to become an individual story. As for habitability, now it is just set of different pictures that do not make sense -- if at very early game you choose which planets to colonize, then very quickly this ceases to be important. And there is no need for terraforming because of this. By the way, terraforming is also very boring now. I like how it is implemented in the Real Terraforming mod, but this does not mean that it cannot be done better.

Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?

I really want to enjoy the planetary combat system, the invasions could be a very interesting part with strategic choices and decisions. It doesn't matter how it will be done, by some events or mechanics, but it seems obvious to me that it should be made deeper. It's a pity that many commentators suggest to abandon planetary invasion altogether - it would be a terrible mistake. Even the current bleak system is better than nothing.

• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?

The trading system seems to me to be not clear and transparent enough and I avoid it. I don't think the system of piracy and trade on the routes is obvious and clearly shown, I don't really understand how to influence it correctly and what the results are from my various attempts to do this

 

[Oimes]

• I believe it would not be changed unless there is a good good vision for a new system, and i'm am a fan of full measures instead of half measures, so go off.
  
  
• It is completely ignored, i would rather see anactual trade route system between empires
  
  
• I hate factions, and most often play empires that do not use factions

I completely agree. This is a system that requires a complete overhaul. It is vdery possible that we will see the changes only in the sequel, but the game has changed so many times that I remain optimistic.

However, the faction requires expansion, not removal.

 

[Sete]

I will leave here what I wrote on reddit:

"I see they laying the ground work to remove ground combat. No pun intended.

I would prefer smaller fleets and a bigger focus on ground combat, unless having deathstacks running amok, but it seems soon this won't be the game for me."

To add before people drop with the exaggerations:
It does not need to be HoI.
Make Armies more valuable to capture stations and defending stations, or just have a setting to blow them up with your ships.

Same with planetary shields and fortresses. Landing an army to defeat defenders.

Have ships with troop modules instead of the following caravan. Make choices matter on fleet composition.

 

[Tr33]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?

Individual pops are in a weird spot right now. Traits don't matter as much as they have been, so only the pop number counts. I would rather like to see the current system with fewer pops and more important and distinctive features. Job modifiers outshine trait modifiers by far

• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?

If I remember correctly, ships are a big contributor to lags. But I like the current system, what about reducing overall numbers?

• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?

Kill it >)

• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?

Too many habitability +% modifiers make it easy to ignore habitability and making climates not matter as much after midgame. Terraforming is too easy and often just boils down to: "make this a ecumonopolis, gaia, hive or machine world". This is probably one of the systems I would like to see changed. Terraforming should be way more challenging for empires, especially if you want to have giant cities spanning the entire world.

• If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?

Internal and wartime politics. I would like to see more instability in empires (AI empires in high difficulty get a free 20 stability, making uprisings impossible). Something along more dangerous succession movements, strong individuals grasping for power and rebellions. Let me struggle!

In terms of wartime politics: the system is not engaging at all. There was a great post regarding that: Here. In short: individual peace outs, "bartering" with occupied/claimed systems and reparations. Vic3 has a great wartime politics system

Looking forward to what will change. Reworks bring fresh air into the game and combined with feedback are often more enjoyable for me than DLCs. Because you listen to your community

 

[Toppe25x]

• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
  • I hope, all Civics can be changed in play, what can't is in Origin.

 

[Cassilda]

If i could change something, and something that can immediately come to my mind, I would add more variety to planets. All planets of the same class look always the same (unless things changed with the last patch/DLC, I've yet to play it, my bad), and as a player, I'd like to have at least some visual variation for them, a bit like it is in Star Trek Infinte.

I'd like more alien species portraits and more "heroes" unique leaders. There are many, but especially the older packs haven't received many updates over the years. I'd like to see at least some added for free every now and then, or also bigger packs as DLCs. As some graphical DLCs have been outsourced to talented artists in other PDX games, maybe it can be done for Stellaris too.

The idea that a poster said of splitting planetary and cultural origin is quite nice, as it increases the empire customization.

Political factions inside an empire needs to be completely redone in my opinion, more like the Victoria 3 interest groups, and possibly nuanced according to the origins/civics/ethics of the Empire. At the moment, they are the less satisfying aspect of Stellaris for me, as a player.

I'd also like the "white" of the galaxy core to be a bit toned down, to my eyes it's a tad too bright.

And I'd like a game rule about border gore like CKIII, making unconnected, uninhabited systems to be "decolonized" after some years, at least in single player games.

 

[tyzxc]

Although I know it's a lot of work and maybe it will be left for Stellaris 2, they should change the pop system, where instead of each pop being individual it belongs to a grouped category of those pops like in VIC 3 to reduce one of the biggest generators of lag later.

 

[Obeliskkai]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation? I have no real opinion on this beyond recognising the current system contributes to late game lag.
• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love? The biggest issue with fleets for me is that deathballing is always the most effective way of crushing the enemy. I would love a rework that rewards better tactics with smaller fleets.
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization? Origins and ethics are clearly the most important aspects as they define the flavour of your civilization.
• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play? I define my strategic goals based on the build I use at the start and then my short to medium term goals as I play. I think that Stellaris wouldn't be hurt by some 4X style victory conditions though as we see in other genre games.
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital? The trade system is completely unimportant clearly ripe for an overhaul. It could be an advantage for non gestalt machine empires, who would entirely be cut out of the system if implemented in a more interesting way.
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more? I am unsure on this.
• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins? Feudal society should NOT be a civic. In a hypothetical internal politics rework, I would like feudal society to be type of government (perhaps with powerful Houses tied to each ethic?)
• If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you? If I could remove one system, it would probably be cosmic storms...they feel like the addition we see to some mature paradox products where something is added for the sake of it. If I could make one system the centre of an expansion, it would be internal politics...it has been asked for for years, it still hasn't arrived, it is badly needed to flesh out the internal machinations of states and we are still waiting. Hopefully it is the 2025 expansion, but I won't be holding my breath. If there was one feature I wanted to enjoy, it would be espionage. I think espionage as introduced was a good stab at a system that wasn't frustrating for the player to be on the other end of it but it badly needs further iteration (and some UI love).

 

[exi123]

What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
- There is still no different art works for buildings across the galaxy, they all look the same except for the planetary main icons.

How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?

- It feels more like an exchange for energy and maybe unity or consumer goods. It fails to represent the wealth and fails as a "resource" my empire generates to actually buy things on the markets.

In general, the whole growth scaling is still way, way to big for me. I am sure the game would also work with cutting a lot of pops and jobs from the economy. Colonizing planets can be slower, pops growing can be slower, fleets can be smaller.

And just in regards to pops: I love them in Stellaris, but I still think that the way they grow is a big issue. Every planets for itself, the empire wide ceilings are totally weird and factors from the current play are not really relevant. I still think that an empire wide growth system would be a nice thing tbh.