Stellaris Dev Diary #361 - The Vision

[SupremeGodEmperor]

A late reply, but I hope someone sees this (because this is late, please let me know if you have seen this).

I have some ideas (along with general requests, which you might have seen elsewhere, but I thought I'd add them, anyway), in no particular order:

• More map options, such as star placements and empire placements. Allow us to choose which empires get advanced starts; this is good, as it allows us to give exterminator A.I empires a head start, making them THE bad guy to deal with, as otherwise, sometimes exterminator empires get eliminated early on.

• A scenario creator and editor

• Get rid of the pop system and have statistics, similar to Victoria 3.

• Get rid of habitats as they currently exist and merge them into starbases – less micromanagement

• Reduce the micromanagement needed in the late game by being able to control sectors as a whole rather than planets. I am not talking about automation here. You would need to completely rework the system for this to work, so this is a tricky one. It’s too much having to handle anything over 50 planets, and normally I have to play with over 150 (including habitats), as I play wide (and we should be able to play wide).

• Have roaming/nomad empires (megacorps, for example). Megacorps could live within the systems of other empires, extracting their resources in return for providing other resources; both “empires” can benefit, but there can also be downsides. There might be a “balance” feature, where you may benefit more than the megacorp or vice versa.

• Internal politics and ethics rework, with religions. More ethics options, which should be slider-based. It’s silly for an empire to only focus on, say, militarist and spiritual ethics and not to have environmental vs industrial as well. You should also be able to have the option to go for the middle of the slider, where there are no benefits or negatives. You need to bring back individualism vs collectivism. It’s also silly having “egalitarian”, where you have the beacon of liberty and shared burdens civics being part of it.

• Merge the origins and have different options, like three or four different options: 1: Planet type (Gaia/life seeded, normal, etc.); 2: Story type (On the Shoulders of Giants, Galactic Doorstep, etc.); 3: Species alterations (clone army, necrophage, etc.); note, this is a MERGER of origins, not double origins, but naturally, some origin picks would not be compatible with other origin picks.

• As for a civics rework, well, that would depend on what you do with the merging of origins.

• Create a Fallen Empire and mid-game crisis difficulty slider (like how the End-game crisis has a difficulty slider).

• Allow us to customize the empires that come with common ground and hegemon starts. Of course, allow for “random” as well. Customize fallen empires, too. Pre FTL as well.

• Ascension theory should be a permanent research option after you finish all the traditions.

• You can choose your precursor. If anyone thinks that this would mean that everyone would choose “Cybrex”, this is not the case. But assuming that were the case, then it would be a simple matter of buffing the other precursors.

• Demonoids or Eldritchoids

• Eldrich crisis / demon crisis

• Necro crisis (zombie apocalypse)

• Plague/disease crisis

• A scenario where the centre of the galaxy becomes an option to traverse through. This might not involve a “crisis”, but what could happen is that some unknown force exists there and they are hard to penetrate and conquer. They never expand outwards (so your normal systems will never come under attack), but even if you claim the inner systems, they (the inner systems) will constantly be under attack, so you have to weigh up your options if you wish to spend resources in order to constantly protect the inner systems.

• Religion DLC (perhaps this can go into internal politics)

• Better espionage; internal terrorism, etc. Irregular and proxy wars.

• Potentially giga structures…

• Bioships

• Achievements for GOG

• Spectator view replay; that is, other people can watch a stream and look at what’s going on themselves while watching the stream (big ask, so probably only for Stellaris 2).

 

[Critical Ethics]

Anecdote of the morning:
I was reading through the thread at the bus stop this morning and was so into it that missed my bus and was 20 minutes late to work. Whoops.

I think you meant to say you engaged in a spontaneous off-site user feedback review session. It's basically overtime.

 

[DC E1G]

+1 to this. The frequency of notifications is markedly higher than it was a couple of years ago. I like to keep my speed on normal for most of the game as I like a calmer pace but now within the first few decades of the game there’s multiple notifications and pop ups a minute. I just reflexively close most of them which doesn’t feel like great engagement with the game, more that the noise has risen to the point things like anomalies are a burden more than an interest. Grand Archive is great but it’s added even more complexity on top of anomaly spam by introducing further steps for us to consider after most of them complete.

I don’t know what the solution is but I’d love some thought given to the frequency of notifications along with steps to cut down on them. Some simple ideas off the top of my head; get rid of the anomaly/special project combo. We don’t need double the amount of clicks and pop ups. With things like storms only create a pop up of its near or in our borders, I don’t care about storms half way across the galaxy. And for empire notifications add more context. Colour code or add descriptors that show me what my relations are with empires so I can care if I’m getting notified one is at war.

A way to actually manage notifications is only becoming more and more important as time goes on. The defaults should be adjusted too because there's way too many things I don't care about that I'm getting notifications for.

The desire to include "new" mechanics in every expansion is definitely starting to cause a certain level of attention bloat, much like what drove me to stop playing EU4.

 

[Zaknafeein]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?They don't feel realistic. All types of governance operate the same way, allowing you to decide what's important and manually move Pops without consequences. For instance, a planet that's been dedicated to mining for a hundred years can suddenly switch to farming without any penalty or backlash from the displaced miners. Even machines shouldn't be able to transition instantly without being reprogrammed for their new tasks. Scientists becoming police officers or bureaucrats face the same issue.
  
  If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
  Significant changes would be welcome. Right now, fleets are just lists of the most powerful ships available, with little sense of specialization. It would be great to introduce features such as:
  
  • Specialization: Patrol Fleets could have bonuses for intercepting pirates but be limited in the number of medium and large ships they can field, while Assault Fleets could serve a different strategic purpose.
  • Bases of Operation: Instead of simple service discounts, bases should have comprehensive features like logistics, accommodations, dry docks, and entertainment for the crew.
  • Ship Roles: Ships should have real roles within the fleet, rather than being interchangeable or easy to ignore.
  • Crew and Captains: Crews and captains should gain experience and influence fleet effectiveness.
• How important is the current trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
  I usually ignore the trade system. Setting up two or three trade stations to cover the entire empire and a few stations to block piracy is enough to forget about it. Additionally, the infinite resource market feels unrealistic. If you have a strong credit production, you can buy any amount of resources effortlessly.
  
  A more complex trade and logistics system, with routes to transport resources between planets and empires, would be ideal. This could also impact war and politics meaningfully.
  
  Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  Colonizing planets with less than 90-95% habitability should be challenging, especially in the early stages of the game. Without advanced logistics, technology, or expertise, colonization shouldn’t be a guaranteed success. Adding event mechanics to represent the difficulties faced by new colonies would add depth. Players could choose to spend resources to mitigate these difficulties or speed up the process.
  
  Trade logistics should directly impact habitability and colonization speed. There’s a big difference between a new colony relying on its own limited resources versus one that receives regular supplies and help from developed worlds.
  
  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?
  Logistics and Economics need a complete overhaul. Starting with sectors: currently, you can create sectors on a whim, even on planets that were colonies just yesterday. Planets should require a certain level of development to become sector capitals, and the level of development should influence the sector's size:
  
  • Planetary Administration: No sector.
  • Planetary Capital: 1-2 system radius.
  • System Capital-Complex: 2-4 system radius.
  • Building upgrades and specialist staff could further extend this radius.
• Consider removing construction ships entirely and shifting their function to planets, which would send workers to develop nearby systems. Planets would then accumulate resources and contribute them to an empire-wide trade network. The trade system should flow from planets to sector capitals and then to the empire capital, with the option to create specialized trade centers that have logistical requirements.
  
  Introduce real logistics lanes to move resources, creating meaningful choices between highly efficient but vulnerable specialized planets and more stable, decentralized production. Finally, stations should be revamped into orbital rings or habitats. As it stands, stations are too formulaic, often built with set blueprints like six shipyards, six trade hubs, or six anchorages. Making them extensions of planets to improve logistics and trade, or as specialized habitats (Fleet Bases, Sector Shipyards, Logistics Centers), would offer more meaningful gameplay and future upgrade potential.

 

[StellarisPlayer]

On pops: Rather than count them as discrete units with jobs and political preferences, I would just have each planet have a total number of pops of X species and not link them to specific jobs. If you have 8 Blergian pops on Planet Y and they're good at mining, you get a bonus to mining output up to eight jobs. We don't need to worry about which Blerg is doing what, just that their presence in certain numbers contributes to the jobs on the planet based on their traits. That way we can cut down on the job calculations and some of the per-pop slowdown while keeping the same basic system in place.

On trade: Trade routes should go from the capital of one empire to their neighbors, instead of going from each planet in an empire to the capital. Trade should start to accrue if you have open borders, and a trade agreement should significantly increase the amount, alongside the trade value of each empire. Now, instead of a system that mostly hums along in the background but occasionally provides a small measure of irritation, trade can be part of the grand strategy and 4x parts of the game. Asking for open borders allows your freighters to start hauling goods back and forth with your neighbor, and potentially to reach empires beyond them. Closing your borders, or enacting an embargo on trade ships from a certain empire, cuts off part of their economy and can be a source of conflict. Megacorps might get certain advantages, allowing them to move other empires' goods around under their own flag - for a price.

Also, I think a major rework of each government type to be more distinct would be good. They should each have their strengths and weaknesses, and their own ebbs and flows. Monarchies should be balancing favor between noble houses, democracies should have elections that feel more like vic3, with different parties gaining power based on popular sentiment and the attributes of their leaders (and for the love of god, political parties should pretty much never be active duty scientists or admirals or council members), coming into power with their own agendas that the player has to roll with. Instead of having the player pay some unity to choose the president, the player should be boosting or negating different parties over time, and putting together coalitions based on the election results.

 

[TheArchduke]

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

Decent.

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

The current system is abysmal. Eu4 has the much better combat system. Go crazy.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

I actually love the preset civilizations. All of them.

• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?

Beat the crisis.

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

The trade system is terrible. Eu2 or Eu4 would be better.

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

Yes.

• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?

No opinion.

• 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?

Ground combat. Either make it less micromanagy and abstract like MOO or just cut it.

 

[BlankGlow]

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

Having been here since the start of the game, I’m happy with any system that the devs think works best or would want to try out.

That said, I’m also happy with how things are now; the system is simple enough to be taught to new players without too much difficulty and interesting enough to still have a good degree of optimisation left.

It could perhaps use some more complexity in representing scaling populations, and possibly interactions between jobs? Rather than having ‘THIS IS MINING PLANET, THIS IS ALLOY PLANET’ perhaps having more flexibility in assigning ‘areas’ of a planet for different jobs, boosting the other areas? Like ‘we mine here, most of the planet then gets used to process alloys, but a little bit gets used as factories’.

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

As much as needed. Currently, while certainly way better than it used to be, it still feels a little statstick-y – fleet formations, more ability for the user to affect the outcomes of space battles, more ease of use for smaller ships as part of a larger fleet, more interactions between ship classes (Frigates were absolutely a step in the right direction) – these are things I would love to see.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

In order; Origins, Civics, Species Type, Ethics, Government Authority, Species Traits. I love the current Origins, but wouldn’t be opposed to a system with more depth and modularity to it (so long as the *depth* of the current system is kept, which is more important than gaining customisability in this case), and Civics are great.

I think the most potential here funnily enough is Authority, combined with Civics – I really like the system for custom empires that’s used in Endless Space 2, where you slot in governmental leanings and perks, then you have a Species Trait-esque selection of things to change about your species’ governance and culture over their physical form to very specific detail. To that end, an internal politics rework would be amazing; perhaps something like the Galactic Council, but for your own species?

• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?

Very often! I usually go into the game with a goal of some kind, even if it’s just ‘BIGGEST NUMBER’, usually thematic to whatever Empire I’m playing. Spite can also be a great motivator where if my current objective no longer works due to an AI Empire doing something, I can focus on simply outperforming them. I really like the story-focused quests and excavations that give more to the flavour of the game as well.

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

Honestly, Trade to me is just another way of generating EC with a nice side effect of CG and Unity for dedicated builds. Space-Trade I barely touch and barely notice the effect of, so the system is not important at all – I think this is one thing that really could use a rework. The best trade system in terms of a combination of simplicity but depth to me is Civ 6 (I know, a very basic opinion here), but that falls apart somewhat without having minor civilisations / city states to work with; EUIV and Crusader Kings III are also very interesting in this regard. Honestly, there’s a lot that could be taken from other Paradox titles, particularly the very grounded games like these two and converted to Sci-Fi to make Stellaris even better - from the politics to the ground battles to the trade to internal politics.

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

I don’t think it’s too easy, but perhaps there should be more depth to it – planet specific techs that allow you to overcome a bad luck start with Tech, events that fire that allow you to slowly adapt or change the environment to what is more hospitable, ongoing colony events based on its class to add more flavour over the course of the game. More on this at the end as I think Events could use some more.

• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?

Mechanist could be a Civic at this point, I think, as could Syncretic Evolution – or part of the more complex Origin system as modifiers. Or hell, in the mentioned Governance/Civic point system, a more expensive purchase there. Similarly, Slingshot To The Stars would be a good expensive purchase; maybe even converting it to ‘Ruined Megastructure nearby of your pick’ and have an event associated with it. Riftworld and Subterranean could use some event-based love added.

I’d like to see a few more Hive Mind and Machine-specific Origins as well. Also, biggest request; Treasure Hunters is great, but it’s not the full-on Museum Curator fantasy. Gimme an origin solely focused on making the GRANDEST Archive – perhaps maybe then going into making megastructures to show off your civilisation further? Or integrating it into the Unity megastructure?

Civics-wise, Genesis Guides is great, but a full primitive origin could be interesting as well. Eager Explorers seems like it struggles as a Civic and could use converting to a full Star Trek Federation-esque Origin perhaps. Barbaric Despoilers should remain a civic, but a Barbarian/Pirate Origin could be good (with interactions with Criminal Enterprise megacorps picking it). A no-ascension-path Origin could be interesting as well.

Hive Minds could use a rework along the lines of the Machine DLC to give them some love, as could Genetic/Psionic ascensions (Virtual obviously needs still a little bit more kneecapping, and Cybernetic perhaps a tiny buff, but those two really need a buff – Genetic the most).

More Civics for Hive Minds and Machine Empires would be nice, even if just ripped from the Individuals list and adapted.

• 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?

Trade currently needs reworking to have more interactions between Empires.

Minor states / civilisations beyond Primitives could help this be more interesting, and more detailed interactions with Primitives as well, while making Exploration and Expansion significantly more interesting, especially if you could integrate components of other empires into your own, or maybe have some more detailed form of internal politics. I really like the idea of a co-op game where you’re running *parts* of an empire each a-la CKIII.

I’d like there to be more events that run longer periods, or ones that take place later in the game; once you’re capped on exploration, things tend to die down for quite a long period of time in the midgame and only really pick up lategame. Internal politics and Leader (particularly Ruler) Events would help a lot with this, as would more detailed political interactions in the Galactic Council (which is currently a little slow for my liking) – the ongoing events in EU4 and CK3 again are great representations of this, and would give us a lot more investment into our individual leaders than just statsticks. More Political events with neighbouring empires as well. And just more events that occur later into the game; a plague running through your empire and potentially to neighbouring ones, discovery of a precursor weapons station that you investigate, etc.

Rather than tech being random, it may be worth into touching on a Tech Tree-based system? That way, even in a game where you’ve all rushed, say, Engineering, there’d still be great specialisation potential; one person going for tall planet-based development, another going for warfare, another going for space industrialisation.

Ground Battles need more flavour, even if just minimal – air/tanks/infantry, tactics, etc. Same for space battles for that matter. This is the biggest one; it’s awesome to see the fights, but I really want some more depth to it.

Storms! I love the concept, but it needs absolute ways to negate and stronger ways to resist, along with better ways to take advantage of it. Buff the crap out of the Civics and Origin, and make all the buildings better. But the concept is great; honestly, I think the effect isn’t great ENOUGH. It should be galaxy-altering if a massive storm hits, with multiple Empires having to adapt to the changing conditions. Gimme more big events like this, but HAVE MECHANISMS TO COMPLETELY NEGATE THEM with some effort, or even take advantage of it; or else it just gives massive frustration. At the very least, make the effects symmetrical on multiple nearby empires so your neighbour can’t just take advantage of your weakened state, or just annoying (Devastation for no real benefit is just frustrating – gimme events where the energy grid is overloading, or motes are falling from the sky and exploding; each storm should be a Situation, not just an annoyance!), and once that’s perfected, DO MORE OF THIS!

Final thing as mentioned is more detailed Empire customisation. I really liked the idea of the first page commentor talking about Cultural and Locational origins, but I think it should be further – a point based positive/negative system combining Origins and Civics where you can purchase components of Origins and Civics as well as more minor benefits, customise the government with more detailed internal and external politics!

Speaking of, that. Just, Internal/External politics big rework with the Trade rework. Literally just take massive chunks of your other games and throw 'em in there my boys. Especially with variance depending on your government type to make that significantly more impactful than just 'limit civics to this one'.

Also, we need a way to be more invested in our Leaders. Politics helps with this, as would CK3-esque Ruler events and other leader events. Vassal and sectors could be more detailed to help with this, as could being able to play PARTS of an empire, again as per CK3.

• Anything else?

THANK YOU FOR THE BEST GAME EVER.

 

[talhydras]

What is Stellaris to me?​

Stellaris is an absolutely fantastic sandbox to explore science fiction ideas. It is a top tier playground for realizing all these scifi stories that I have rattling around in my head. It's a comfy simulator that allows for a great degree of player expression in how they expand and explore. It's an incredible skeleton that mods have done truly incredible things with. It's been a constant companion for eight years - though I may not be playing it every day, I'm always checking in to see what fresh new adventure and surprise awaits.

How does this match what you think Stellaris is, and where it should go? Would you change any of these vision statements?

Right now I think Stellaris is in an uncomfortable place. I think the core tension in Stellaris is the tension between Stellaris developing its own ideas and its own setting, and Stellaris being a sort of sci-fi Smash Brothers game. There's very compelling lore in Stellaris governing the shroud and the nature of reality and the many hints about a cyclical rise and fall of galactic powers, but it's also a game where you can be sort-of the United Federation of Planets vs sort-of the Galactic Empire from Star Wars vs sort-of Chaos cultists from 40k.

I think Stellaris needs to lean in with mechanics to being more of a sci-fi Smash Brothers. I mentioned above that I use Stellaris as a playground for bringing my own scifi universes into a 3d game space. I wish I had more control over how my faction functioned and how my faction changed over time. A great bugbear for me is shields. I want to play factions that eschew energetic shielding for enormous armored units, but from day one I have deflectors. I think allowing players to choose how their faction interacts with a technology could be really interesting. To be fully constructive with this example, I'd love to have the option to instead go into electronic warfare and have powerful jamming fields or armor hardeners and fulfill the fantasy of being, for example, the Zentraedi.

I want Stellaris to allow the player to fully customize their experience as they travel through a well designed and evolutionary technology tree that changes how they interact with the game. Consider: from the beginning of the game to the end, with a handful of exceptions, you're generating alloys from a Foundry job working in a factory. There should be a totally different job for managing self-assembling nanite swarms, for working in an orbital shipyard, etc. I think each technological era should come with its own associated resources - the "alloys" used to build a fusion-era warship and the Neutronium used at endgame are almost by necessity totally different products!

What systems and content are “sacred” to you, which would make Stellaris not Stellaris anymore if we changed them?

I'm not sure I have any, truthfully. I like the incremental feeling of everything, I like the evolution of my empire. I wish it evolved more over time. I have played the game since 1.0 so it's remained Stellaris despite losing tiles and gaining mandatory hyperlanes and starbases and jobs. I think Stellaris should feel free to explore and reinvent itself aggressively. I only ask that content not be left behind - Zanaam and Sanctuary and the Asteroid Hives are ancient, ancient content that used to be very powerful and special but now feel very minimal.

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

I think Jobs are actually the real problem. Tiles were simplistic but they also meant that there was much less overhead in developing a planet. If planets were more distinctive, if there were unique or rare districts and unique or rare jobs with unique pros and cons, I think that would be really cool. Otherwise it feels like a lot of effort to provide very minor bonuses. Factions are so rarely angry enough to launch serious separatist movements, and if we're going to model each pop's ethical attraction it should matter.

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

Go nuts. There's huge, huge room for improvement here.

Just remove utility slots. Ships should have an "armor" slot with the option for heavier or lighter armor, ships should have a "generator" slot where they have internal special functions like shield generators, cloaking devices.

I really don't like how everyone has "corvettes", "destroyers", "cruisers", etc. The Expanse depicts a pre-FTL solar system with a full order of battle from quick corvettes and frigates to hulking battleships, and I think this should be eminently possible in Stellaris. But just as easily one can imagine that civilization encountering something far more advanced, with far more powerful construction and material technologies with "corvettes" that dwarf these pre-FTL or early FTL "battleships".

Ships don't change enough with technology.

A fusion-era battleship and an antimatter-era destroyer might be comparable, and this could easily scale up to building death stars - but once you approach a technological singularity you might approach a point where ships start getting smaller again. A neutron star is about ~20 km in diameter and is ~half a million times the mass of the Earth, so a ship built out of angry sentient neutronium should be able to tear a weaponized planetary body apart with its gravity alone before even engaging its weapons. It would be an interesting statement to have Stellaris allow you to simulate a fleet of thousands of star destroyers, and then allow you to ask where this civilization would go next?

But, uh, yeah. Do all of that and I'd love it more. Change away. I have no sacred calves in the Stellaris fleet system right now.

What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

How do I generate resources? How do I build and specialize my basic economic units? I'd love for this to be much more aggressively explored with new and expanded mechanics. I really, really miss the old 1.0 days when space deposits were a very big deal and while I appreciate that the arc furnace exists, I think there should be ways to dedicate pops on planets to improving orbital output. I'd like to have simple systems for investing into orbital deposits - I should have an easy button that routes a colony ship from a shipyard to an uninhabited planet and transforms it from an orbital mining station into an enhanced, domed colony. Not one that requires interacting with through the main planet interface, not something that's a full megastructure or even an orbital habitat, but something I can expand and invest in further.

How do I go to war? The united federation of planet's shipbuilding doctrine is totally distinct from the Galactic Empire, which in turn is totally distinct from The Culture or the Xeelee, and Stellaris nominally depicts all these kinds of civilizations. I'd love to be able to build enormous multipurpose warmachines like the Star Destroyer, hybrid exploration / warships like the Federation, or incredibly powerful AIs that can reinvent themselves on the fly when threatened in combat.

How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?

Often I set goals in the empire design screen, but that's because I'm more interested in Stellaris as a sandbox. They rarely change unless I encounter a radical new threat, usually through mods.

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

It's interesting in concept but I think it deserves more impact. I've tried out the mod that disables it and its absence wasn't keenly felt.
I like the idea of trade much more than I like the way trade actually works. Protecting trade routes should be an absolutely essential and vital task - and if it's going to be essential and vital it should also not be a giant pain in the ass. It should be easy to assign ships to a trade route, and being on a trade route should be necessary to move materials around your empire. Pirates cutting off your new colony from food? People should start starving.

Others have proposed logistical systems, I think "trade value" should be something that comes more from concrete things than from specialized service jobs, and I think trade routes should represent the logistical flow of your empire. It should support your fleets and your far flung outposts - making that far flung exclave of yours self sufficient or provided with a stockpile of resources so it can hold out if it gets cut off from resupply should be possible, but it should be an interesting choice.

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

Colonization is a little too easy and I think planets should have more to distinguish them and how they are developed. There's a reason Guilli's Planet Modifiers, and to a lesser extent Planetary Diversity/Real Space have been top mods so consistently. I actually find that due to the way population growth takes more and more time as the game goes on, the duration between a planet being settled and a planet being operational is agonizing now. This is something I kind of miss from the days of planetary tiles.

I also think that planets should be the focus of more ongoing exploration. Over time, there should be new resources discovered and new mysteries unearthed. Surveying is far too quick! As others have pointed out, we're still finding new deposits here on Earth after thousands of years.

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

Mechanist should just be a civic. Origins should be a powerful tool for storytelling and for orienting your faction towards the game world - your Origin should tell the story of how your empire works for the rest of the universe. Civics should be a tool to customize the internal workings of your faction or factions. Similarly, I'd want Civics to be a big deal for your empire. Want to have fiercely competing internal noble houses, ala Dune? That should be an option!

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 game system? If I could make one system the focus of an expansion? If there's one feature I want to enjoy but just doesn't work? It's probably gotta be jobs for all three! I think pops are actually more or less fine, I think jobs are in a really, really strange place. Right now it's optimal to minimize Clerks - but if everyone working the service sectors vanished right now, I don't think our planet would be more optimal, I think there'd be riots. Healthcare isn't just a nice bonus, it's something that people will suffer enormously without having. When planets are newly settled and developed, jobs are way too granular - if you build too many labs on that nice planet with a research modifier, you might not have anyone actually producing amenities. Similarly, once planets are highly developed, jobs are way too bland. Our entire planet's population is approximated by a handful of pops - if you imagine 80 pops all working in a planet-wide military industrial complex, 80 Foundry jobs, you'd imagine some of them are pampered elites and others are working the worst jobs imaginable within that hellscape. Once you have 80 Foundry jobs, or 300 clerks or something on a ringworld, these should stratify out.

Jobs don't evolve enough over time. The technological gap between a factory worker today and someone knapping stone tools is comparable to the technological gap between that same factory worker today and whatever the hell supervising antimatter-powered nanites 3d-printing warships would be. I think each technological era should involve a gradual transformation in all walks of life. Each planet should influence this as well. There's no sense of technological diffusion that would allow for opulent core worlds to live in fully automated luxury while the hardscrabble frontier still has to do backbreaking labor - reference DS9 "it's easy to be a saint in paradise". Despite the memes, I really enjoy how Ancient Caches of Technology institutes very distinctive technological tiers that transform your economy, how you use resources, and requires a significant investment to distribute these new technologies.

 

[TOEMONGER]

I think Stellaris is the perfect sweet spot of flavorful RP and pause spamming minmaxing.
The only thing really ruining that vision for me is the sheer number of truly mediocre/flavor pick level options present in the game. I'm fairly active on the Discord and it breaks my heart every time someone asks for build advice and I hate to tell them to click off citizen service or franchising, not for the sake of multiplayer balance but for the sake of letting people play more of what they want should there be a more active attempt of raising the power level in civics/origins.

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

Its a nice feature, pop managment is nice, but I'm sure a vast majority of players would prefer its instant death as a mechanic if it could save the lategame lag situation.

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

Hmmm. I think fleets arent actually that entertaining as a mechanic and more exists as a "build" made manifest, all roads lead to big fleet number as they say. So I don't really know if theres ANYTHING you could do to fleets outside of remove Merc enclaves which I would deem deal breaking.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

The amount of control I have over the fine details of empire creation, gameplan, and intended flavor is key. Permanant advantages taken from game start in the form of civics/origins tend to define my stellaris flavor and gameplay. I think its that gameplay/flavor flexibility that keeps me coming back to stellaris over other 4X.

• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?

I like to make a build, define what I want to get out of it, and see how quickly I can do that goal, then play out the game to about 2300, maybe die to an early crisis. And let myself get swept away by the variance of the game as far as events, neighbors, and crisises go. For instance I like to see how quickly I can complete Knights of the Toxic god, my record is year 69.

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

I like the idea of trade routes a lot. But it doenst really create any gameplay besides slapping a starbase on each planet and making super wide players hate themselves. I dont know how but I'd like trade to be given a full rework at some point. I would especially like to be able to see a better breakdown of its income, as currently it shows up as just "trade" on the income screen, very unsatisfying.

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

I think its in a sweet spot actually, I see a weird amount of people get excited about running mole bots and a red planet is a solution that needs to be solved in the short term. Its a jank system but in the scheme of stellaris it works out ngl.

• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?

I'd need to see numbers/design intention. Even something as simple as Big Pharma could be scaled up into a whole multi stage health care empire with locked in non synthetic ascend and a quest chain about what the "ultimate healthcare is".

Off the top of my head though Calamitous Birth remains one of the least compelling origins in existence and should probably be a civic.

Criminal heritage (You should add a thing to toggle it off for new players btw) could also be pretty easily scaled up into a full origin I feel. Whenever I witness some poor fool try to run criminal heritage I always notice that their build is now a criminal heritage build not a, whatever they were running build.

• 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?

I pretty frequently say most of stellaris could use another pass by the dev team but in particular I think the contact screen should be this wealth of knowledge but actually relays very little information to the player, it doesnt even show you what deals you have with enclaves requiring a lot of hassle in clicking.



This is my favorite game atm. I love you guys.

 

[QuietFoods]

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

I think the job system currently is very basic and core buildings like holo theater being obsolete sometimes because of archive is an example of a system that could need change. I like how pops work in this game compared to others and while they are also basic they have a lot of customization so they become what your envision.

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

I think fleets could do with some changes and as long as it doesn’t become a requirement for advancement I probably would be curious to see what changes are made.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

To me it’s my ethics/civics, traits and origin. These answer the Who/what are you, where did you come from, and how did you become a galactic species.

• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?

During gameplay I find myself focusing on exploration, research, military, and diplomatic advancement. I change my goals and set them accordingly to these categories and change every game depending on the game which is great. I usually set these goals every time I play or I fall behind on something.

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

I think it could be expanded upon and would love to see a more In-depth system. I don’t really pay attention to it unless I’m a mega corp since it usually just automates itself.

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

It’s easy but I think that’s also okay. I would like to see habitability matter and planet climate matter more since it would add a little more to planets and add to the story of the planet. The current system I just make sure I have the resources and often place the planet on low habitability planets anyways for the resources.

• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?

No strong feeling on this really. Origins normally have a nice story to each.

• 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?

I wouldn’t remove anything since it would only remove from the experience. an expansion on ethics and traits would be very cool as they feel very underwhelming at the moment and the least loved. I use my ethics to define every empire and having some additional options could increase the customizability. Traits dont
feel like they have much of an impact and I usually choose the same traits every time. The lack of negative traits makes it difficult to have an empire that’s unique in that way and would love to see it expanded upon.

 

[Gornova]

Late to the party, maybe someone can answer my questions:

1. Respect my time. I love long games, but you know.. life happens. I love when games from Paradox (EU4, I look at you) let me be lost in them.. but Stellaris require a lot of time.. too much (more than one year ago for me.. ). What is the shortest game, time-wise, for a player ? 2/3 hours is possible to achieve something or require 10/100 hours for a decent empire and half of the galaxy explored?
2. Invasion, assimilation, extermination. In my last plays I was lost in the middle of this. I was playing with a race of humans trying to conquer and devour everything.. but invade a planet, assimilate, etc.. require too much time. There is a simplify version or race to speed up this ?
3. Roleplay and evolution. There is a way (always time wise ) to see changes player's empire/civilization... I mean drastic changes? Like for example human - cyborg - robot for a race ? Is this possible ?
4. Expansions and dlcs. How much the base game require expansions and dlcs to solve "problems" stated before ?

Thanks for the effort to anyone able to answer me

 

[Asperge Blanche]

Hi, thanks for doing in such a tedious work. There aren't many game dev teams out there which engage with the community that way.
I'm only going to give my opinion only on questions where I feel like I can give a unique contribution.

What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

At first I'd say the most important part is origins, but when I think about it, it's the uniqueness of the gameplay that results of the choices I made, and the "head lore" I attach to the civilization. I like it when I can make choices in game that reflect that lore and resonate with the design of my civilization (eg. some civic or ethic giving an extra choice during an event or a unique way to approach one of the game's aspect), but it throws me off when something doesn't fit with that lore, which can happen with highly scripted event chains, despite me liking that kind of content quite a lot.​

How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?

For me, almost all of the choices I do are when I create my civilization (I only do singleplayer btw). Sometimes it even feels like I'd like to be able to play the "perfect game" for that particular build, and be able to choose everything that happens. But then it's not really the same game, or is it?​

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

Yes. In my experience the main issues are:​

• there are some origins that feel like they'd be nice to use together, maybe that's a hint that one of them should be a civic
• there's an increasing amount of origins and civics that feel like they're just a boost towards a specific feature of the game. I think once you have "consumed" the new content, they kinda become obsolete. I feel like those should be something else than origins or civics
• there are some origins and civics that you only take for their early game benefit (or penalties), and quickly forget about (or throw away in the case of civics)

Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion?

The first time I proclaimed the galactic empire, I realized the game was basically over, while it feels like it should only be half of the story. I might be asking for too much, but I want an "after the pinnacle" expansion. I don't think games should be longer, but I wish there was content to do and challenges to encounter designed specifically for an empire that has already snowballed. Not necessarily an existential threat like the end game crises currently in the game, it could be something that challenges the vision of the player without threatening the civilization itself. Example: something that shapes your empire into a future fallen empire, or a rebellion.​

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

• Species modification is still annoying. The new automatic traits feel like they solve the wrong problem. Maybe species modification should be entirely automatic, pops would (virtually) decide for their own traits depending on their job, ethic, planet, etc. The player would have access to higher level choices, could be something like a perk tree where you can unlock empire-wide traits like "miners mine more" "egalitarian pops generate more unity" "lithoids generate motes" "pops in cold worlds have +20% habitability", but only enable some of them at the same time, with a cap similar to the current trait cap and cost system. The possibilities would be endless! (Please make it a perk tree)
• I think diplomacy and the market system should be less micro too. An economy system closer to Victoria could work, with closed and open markets and everything else is automatic. The shortage events also often act as a negative snowball effect. I'd rather have something drastic that solves the crisis for good (for example, an event where you "lend" a whole system to a private company and get resources for 20 years in exchange of a localized penalty or losing the ownership of the system temporarily).
• Repeatable stuff like some planetary decisions or the minor artifact things could really help being toggle like how you did with edicts

Please don't waste time trying to fix espionage. It feels like something impossible to make fun.​

Thanks for taking the time to read my comment, sorry for making it so long.

 

[GOLANX]

What is Stellaris to you?​

How does this match what you think Stellaris is, and where it should go? Would you change any of these vision statements?

I don't often find that much changes up the initial plans, there may be setbacks but there is never a need to change Ethics or Civics. I wouldn't mind seeing some situations, driven by player actions, that can force a Shift in Ethics or Civics. For example if you go to war a lot and build a lot of military you would get a Situation for becoming more Militarist, you could spread propaganda in either Direction but the best way to stop it would be to go several years without war. By accepting the Change you should be rewarded so that changing Ethics in response to the will of the citizenry is a good thing.

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

Would like for genetic traits to matter more. pop genetic traits get overwhelmed by the Deluge of other modifiers that they don't matter past the Early game.

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

I want fleets to Shrink so individual Choices matter more.

• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?

As I said earlier the plan i start with rarely changes. The moment the Galactic Community Fires up I know everything i need to know about all the Empires in the Galaxy,

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

It gets ignored in most games, i wouldn't mind seeing Trade being Converted into a Logistics system even if very Basic, Trade would be the Logistics for individualist species who generate income based on the Transportation and distribution of goods, Gestalts would also need to build Logistics but rather than focusing on Profits simply maximize efficiency increasing throughput.

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

Absolutely Habitability feels like it's barely a speedbump. Colonies should be long term investments. With the Early ones encountering many situations to explore and manage the Colony. Low Habitability planets should be uncolonizable so that it's rewarding when you invent the Technologies that makes that colony feasible, and which ones the player chooses would speak more to their empire, also Migration Treaties shouldn't be so easy, it's too easy an out to bypass those negatives and also contributes to nasty demographic pie charts. Migration treaty should require not just good relations but technologies that allow other species to adapt to your civilization. Species with Talons, tentacles and Fingers can't immediately use the same doorknobs keyboards, and laser drills of the others.

• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?

Origins probably should be split up into at least Social an environmental Origins which would mean some permanent Civics could be converted into an Origin.

• 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?

I would rework or remove Archeotech. It feels too much like looting the museum for guns and putting that into service rather than reverse engineering Ancient Technology and adapting the lessons learned for military and civilian use. Given the Random Nature of Archeology the Archeotechs you find in a playthrough should be random and unpredictable, using special projects and situations that consume research and artifacts you can master those technologies and use them without needing to loot the Tomb world anymore.

As an expansion, Politics and diplomacy, both internal and External. Politics is the route to encourage empires to change within a given playthrough, to cause plans to change, as former Allies turn enemies and vice versa due to shifting governments and ethics.

I would remove the checksum that triggers on cosmetics mods. For goodness sake a portrait and a flag aren't going to let me cheese Achievements.

 

[FleetMaster]

I would like more to be done with trade and economics. We can break empires fleets, but it would be fun to break their economy. We have sanctions in the game but (and not trying to mirror real life here....but), they could do further. What about banning other empires from commercial pacts with a targeted empire? Or even banning targeted empires from accessing the galactic market?

I guess what I'm asking for is Economic Warfare.

Also, we have Galactic Stock Markets in the game. It would be fun if we could do more with them. Maybe auto-create some shares based on each planet's specialization type and encourage other friendly empires to invest in them?

Create a situation where if empires invest in your shares, and the value of them collapse (due to warfare, not dealing with the crisis properly etc), those 'investors' would be very unhappy with you. They may even ask for compensation, say, a star system. Or two. On the other hand, if the shares do well, the investors/friendly empires are happy with you and you can gain favours or other gifts from them.

The only other thing I can think of, is more flexible ways to seize systems. At the moment its war or nothing, but there are real-life example of military incursions which don't immediately result in war. Where territory is seized or occupied and the conqueror is thinking 'Well, its only one system. They wouldn't goto war over that.......would they?'

Everything else is gravy for me. Just keep allowing us to create our own stories based on the great content you provide.

Thanks for reading.

 

[M@ni@c]

The best trade system in terms of a combination of simplicity but depth to me is Civ 6 (I know, a very basic opinion here), but that falls apart somewhat without having minor civilisations / city states to work with

There's enclaves and pre-ftl civs to send trade routes to.

 

[ruhrbaron]

Stellaris is a work of art. No game tells random stories quite as well as this one. I like that I can go on a sci-fi power trip. I love that some mods allow me to indulge even better. I love the crisis, I love the events, I love the awe, the music, the worm.

On the technical side, ive been waiting for better performance and an Apple silicon native port for quite some time, I thought that one was going to come with stellaris 2 but if u keep developing stellaris for a few more years, that is what I would like to see.

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  • The current system is sorta clunky. Neither do pops grow exponentially like they should nor do they offer that much depth compared a bit more abstraction.
  • Technology is underscored, Doug cobbles this aint.
  • I think there should be more building slots and building upgrades. The exclusivity is a bit odd. Although most sci fi shies away from the implication of massive scale, wide scope and it probably leads to bad gameplay, it is kinda silly that a 100+ pop planet can only use 8 buildings + districts..

• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
  • Please fix the overflow issues if possible (that one is important for modded games)
  • And the UI death associated with fleet power
  • I would let starbases built either more defense platforms per level or at shipyards, because otherwise they’ll never be good
  • Also please improve the auto load outs of them
  • I’d also love if shipyards could be linked together, because the scheduler isnt good. Gigastructural engineering and other mods have went into this direction
  • More importantly, please give us the EU war system. Wars in stellaris are outright infuriating before total war cbs, particularly with how war exhaustion works. Not fun

• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
  • Beat the crisis, beat all the crises
  • Or if I get bored

• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
  • I like trade but gateways trivialize it and it’s laggy. So not really important. And the way trade works as a resource is also sorta weird

• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  • Probably too easy in the beginning of the game but it should be trivial with mid and endgame tech
  • Imho its fine that robots trivialize it

• My own dream changes:
  • A search tooltip for everything, I hate scrollbars, whether it be buildings, or ships, megastructures
  • Id love if we had more control over the way leviathans spawned
  • A quick restart button with the same settings (sometimes I have the defect of checking every single start in observer and then ill restart for hours)
  • I’d be great if mods could add their own settings to the game settings menu
  • Id love map seeds, map editors…
  • Better performance
  • I miss the worm, ive never seen it since the changes. Events like the worm make me adore Stellaris
  • We have far too few ascensions slots to play with relatively to the mandatory dlc content.
  • Bio Ascension needs a buff
  • Id love to mix ascension paths but can see why u dont like that (thank goodness for mods)
  • Id love a list of all discovered and explored anomalies and dig sites

 

[ImprmAfrcnm]

Hello, I understand this is probably too late to be seen, but just in case:

This post is much appreciated. I really like most of what Stellaris is. It's perhaps my favorite strategy game (and it competes with other Paradox titles). But I want to comment on this element of the developer's vision:

"Stellaris is a Living Game"

One of my best friends says strategy games are her absolute favorite. So naturally I told her about Stellaris but I had to append it with "but...". While most of the changes over the years have been remarkably thought out and positive I often find changes feel like they exist only for the sake of change or for balance reasons in a multiplayer scene neither of care a slightest bit about. I feel like single player and co-op centric players like myself and my friend are underrepresented because players like us are less likely to give feedback (after 15 years I think this is the first time I've ever given some kind of feedback for a Paradox game besides liking some forum posts). The mod-breaking changes were frustrating enough that, up until about a week ago, I completely stopped playing (and thus stopped buying DLC). But the posts about recognizing that maybe those changes were coming on too fast reeled me back. And I even bought some old DLC. If hope that focus holds up. If not, I think I'll be leaving Stellaris behind permanently (which actually just means leaving it on a particular version and backing up all my mods, but from an accounting perspective I may as well not be a user anymore then).

To address the questions actually asked.

How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs[...]

I like the system a lot because it creates an impression of the inherent complexity of large societies. And I actually enjoy the micromanaging aspect. But I completely understand why some players find it tedious. If it were replace with a more performant system that recreates the feel of internal complexity I'd view that as a net positive. But if it stayed the same I would also be happy.

If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter[...]

Again I like parts of the way it is now, particularly how battles feel like days or weeks long campaigns or slugfests. But you could change a whole lot and I'd still be happy.

What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

I like the interplay of Ethics' and Civics' mechanics in how they define the relations of the state, both with foreign governments and with its own citizens and subjects. How do Civic mechanics and the attached Policies they bring reflect that state's culturally contingent goals and ideals? How does it treat its citizens and/or subjects? Does its actions reflect its supposed values when it interacts with foreign states? (It doesn't have to, Shadow Council is thematically one of my favorite Vanilla Civics. Note that with Civics I'm largely talking about *mechanics* here, not how the in-game writeups treat the particular Civic. I want to look at the mechanics and think about how that might reflect the values of a state's leader class. I prefer to think the in-game names and descriptions of the Civics as just guides for people who don't find that aspect of the game fun. I.e. essentially arbitrary.

Starting Species Traits are slightly less important here (though they rise in importance when considering Gestalts, especially Hive Minds). Origins are even less important, except obviously for the ones that have their own inherent theme (even then I dislike how some of those themes are treated as baked-in: I'm bothered by how negative, both thematically and mechanically, the Necrophage origin is treated. One can imagine a scenario where the Elevation process is a neutral or positive one, at least internally within that empire. I could ignore it if not for the foreign relations malus).

How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?

All the time. And I like changing goals as the wars, civil wars, and maneuvering of my neighbors create opportunities, whether those are gameplay opportunities or RP/thematic ones.

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

It's only important inasmuch as it makes it so pirate attacks are non-arbitrary in location. I think it's cool when a pirate attack cuts off my capital from the goods my state is dependent on and which I get from trade policy. But if it changed a lot that would be fine so long as trade is not equally distributed across systems. It makes sense for it to be located in certain areas like the capital. It should also exist in border systems. There's a mod that does it but it's simple enough that could be in the base game with little effort.

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

I think it's more or less just right. I'd like making habitability harder and making matter more in the Early-Mid Game but I think making it much harder would just make robots too tempting even when I don't really want to play with them.

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

I think some of the two-species-on-one-planet Origins (Necrophage, Syncretic Evolution) *could* be Civics. You could make them exclusive of one another. Prepatent and Syncretic species show up in Civics in mods. But if it stays the same as it is now it's no big deal.

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?

I don't think there are any systems I would completely remove. I certainly enjoy some less than others. I only like End Game Crises for the rewards I can potentially get from them for example. And for War in Heaven I guess though I think that belongs in the Mid Game and not End.

For things that could use an expansion I think a *slight* boost to ground combat complexity would be nice but it's not necessary (I think the traits from Galactic Paragons already helped diversify land combat a lot by diversifying the leaders that command them). It does not deserve anywhere near the complexity of current fleet battles. But again if it stayed the same that's fine too.

With regards to things that don't quite work: piracy could deserve an expansion but it's not enough for a DLC or story pack on its own and I feel that a nuisance-centric DLC would annoy players (e.g. the mixed at best response to the Cosmic Storms DLC). Being part of a broader DLC would probably work. A few short event chains, bonuses to keeping piracy low, punishments for letting it go wild in multiple systems, Leviathans like the Dreadnought suppressing piracy, etc.

Finally, for random nice-to-haves:

Again, the posts about being cognizant of the pace of updates breaking mods and saves is appreciated. I hope that attitude is actually implemented and sticks around. Because I'd like to stick around. Also, a random note just because I see the opposite opinion a lot: I like long games. That's part of why mod- and save-breaking updates are so annoying, because if I start a game a week before an update I know it will be ruined unless I set Steam to beta and backup all my Steam Workshop mods.

I'd like more internal squabbling, Factional politics relevance, and instability risks. I didn't include this in the section about "systems you would make the central focus of an expansion" because even as much as it would please me I don't think it would attract enough players to buy it, especially competitive multiplayer-focused customers. Like piracy, though, it might work if bundled up with a broader DLC.

Thank you for your time and good luck!

 

[Vibrax]

While I would certainly appreciate some of the changes requested by others here (such as a religion overhaul/internal politics rework/army overhaul/civilian space traffic/ etc.) My main concerns are performance, the growing number of "required buildings" but a static cap on how many building slots we have, and job bloat.

Better performance is always nice to have, and even though I have a high end PC I still struggle in the late game. I also thoroughly enjoy playing huge galaxies, but the late game (my favorite part of Stellaris) is almost unbearable. I'd be willing to have DLC/Custodian updates delayed a few months if it meant the entire team was focused on performance (and this is coming from someone who has pre-ordered every DLC since I started playing).

The latter issue was made particularly poignant with the release of Cosmic Storms, which made the Storm Relief Center essentially required on all planets otherwise you will get your entire economy obliterated by 30%+ devastation on half or more of your planets (especially painful if galaxy gen was such that all your planets are in 1 large sector). For certain--district focused--worlds like forge/factory worlds and basic resource worlds, this isn't really a huge issue because they don't use many building slots anyway. But for other worlds, namely research and unity producers but also trade and refinery worlds, the number of building slots is directly related to how productive they are. I often find myself having maybe 3 temples on my "unity world" because I've had to use so many building slots for things like civic-exclusive buildings, slave processing facilities, storm centers, etc. Orbital rings helped with this, but they only allow for two extra building slots and that simply isn't enough when I am playing as a Divine Sovereign slaver empire, for example. 4 building slots are effectively removed by default because I need 1 for holo theaters, 1 for the psi-corps, 1 for slave processing, and 1 for a storm center. Only two of those can currently be built on orbital rings (psi corps and slave processing [as a side note please allow for us to build storm centers on orbital rings]). This is even more problematic when you play with civics that add unique buildings, as I often do because I appreciate the role playing aspect they provide. This could be fixed in a few different ways, the most simple being the addition of a 3rd row of building slots. You could also make it so that certain buildings, like the capital and storm centers, don't actually take up a building slot and instead have their own separate slot that nothing else can be built in (called essential infrastructure or something like that; perhaps you unlock more of these slots as you upgrade the capital?)

Sort of related is the awkward relationship many jobs have with one another. For example, playing a spiritual empire and having a planet with a lot of culture workers producing unity but no priests means that I can't display minor artifacts to boost unity, even though I may be producing considerable amounts of unity due to the number of museums. This could probably be fixed by adding tags to each job based on resource production, such as "unity producers, society resource producers" etc. and having resource modifiers go by these tags rather than the precise job title. I really like the unique job titles because they add a lot of flavor, but we are only getting more of them and they rarely get grandfathered in to resource modifying techs/edicts/decisions/etc. Frankly it's just strange that I can get unity boosts for my priests by displaying minor artifacts in museums but I can't get a unity boost for the curators of my Holo Museums of Wonders/History/Geology or my Ministry of Culture. I mean they are literally working in the museums that the artifacts are presumably being displayed in. Or you could just change it to a flat bonus to [resource] produced by all jobs, rather than say specifically administrators or priests. The latter is probably more simple but allows for less fine tuning for balance than being able to blacklist/whitelist certain "tags" from receiving the benefits of various edicts/decisions/etc. since it wouldn't make sense for culture workers to get a boost to unity from something like the Veneration of Saints edict.

 

[mega elite gamer]

What systems and content are “sacred” to you, which would make Stellaris not Stellaris anymore if we changed them?

I think the early game pace is very good.

I much prefer the step by step discovery phase in early game and the comparatively **huge** choices when it comes to tech. I would *love* more anomalies you unearth at e.g. 15 or 20 districts built, or more significant weapon choices, compared to "Laser lvl 5". Huge choices in early game: robotics vs. weapons and ship hulls, energy infrastructure vs. lasers, "expansion research" vs. "society", which buildings to build first and second on new planets.

The gradual specialization, anomalies and dig sites, although outcomes could be more impactful, positive and negative. The "abandonned terraforming equipment" is always a "fun" gamble. The federation and overlord / vassal systems are in a pretty good spot. It would be cool if federations were a bit more flexible, like having a vote to change federation type (and lose 3 levels or something).

The high amount of customization with the species editor. Combining home planet, species, origin, traits and ethics allows for great and easy story telling.

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

I think they're a good middle ground between abstraction and totally smoothed out growth curves.

For every system, except population growth. That really should depend more on existing size and available space. Add to that the... silly limitation that space stations / habitats are mid game tech and that barren planets and asteroids can't be settled. It wouldn't stop **us** in real life, if it was remotely doable. And with sci fi tech that's assumed to exist in stellaris it would be easy.

It might be interesting to explore a) rapid overpopulation and negative consequences, like the Krogan in Mass Effect settling new worlds, overpopulating them, the destroying them as they fight over the now scarce resources or b) the opposite, extremely slow growth, although I guess we already have that with necrophages? There are anomalies that mention "periodic" species of fungi? that all get born, live for a while and then all die out? Also, the idea of cryogenic freezing to survive a lost war as it is the origin story, can't really get used in game as a mechanic.

In other words, the pop and slot system is good, but feel free to experiment with the actual amount.

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

The only thing that's remotely nice or interesting about ships, fleets and combat, is the ship customization, but that never really felt impactful to me, because for everything except crisis enemies, it is virtually impossible to counter a "build" anyway.

Change away, the more the better.

What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

The roleplay idea I start with. But I do dislike that the ascensions are (diplo penalties aside) usually straight upgrades. I feel railroaded into having to choose one.

How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay?

Depends on the map layout. Sometimes as a revenge quest against a particularly aggressive neighbor. Besides that, there aren't really good goals to go for. At most it's a checklist of "taking out the kahn".

With the current research system it is nearly impossible to set those goals anyway. The tech and through that, your actual options are nearly completely random. Only through very intense meta gaming do I know that researching more "blocker remover" will actually unlock terraforming. Because those are Tier 1 and Terraforming is Tier 2 or something.

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

It is insignificant. Pirates are no threat. Trade either completely replaces generator districts or it's so little that it's never even getting close. You could change it, but you can also leave it as it is.

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

I'm going to go with "yes" and leave the rest to you. I mentioned habitats and barren planets before.

If you want to go into more detail there, you could leverage that architecture would have to be completely different on a glacier planet, compared to a desert planet. Different challenges, different materials, etc..

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

I would still like a good "criminal heritage" origin or civic, the current system is barely good enough as an AI to fight against.

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?

Remove: astral rifts

Expand: Crime, uprisings, and the "criminal heritage". It is very binary right now, as you just build more enforcer jobs and the problem becomes solved.

You also never see big empires fall from the inside. Monarchies splitting over inheritance conflicts, religious schisms, etc..

What is Stellaris to you?​

How does this match what you think Stellaris is, and where it should go?

Overall if I have critique for the development process it would be that the fleet manager still doesn't work as it should. You know, like designing a template? and then having 5 fleets built after that template? And then you change the template and the 5 fleets all get changed to conform to the new template? Wild stuff.

No but seriously. It's my 4th most played game. It's pretty good

Most addons / DLC feel too much like added on fluff or cosmetic.

E.g. the ascensions don't actually change how you manage your empire. They don't actually change tactics in war. They don't actually change the way you do galactic politics. In all cases, you're still going to get to nearly 100% habitability, be it through terraforming, machine ascension or habitalility modification. You're still going to get huge navies, grab everything you can, etc.. The exceptions to those are the megacorp, federations, overlord DLC and the colossus and the "become the crisis" perk + path, megacorp in particular changes probably the most.

But the again... not actually fluff? There is no official DLC for like 50 cat species. If I actually planned to role play a space opera between Romeo cats, Juliet cats, evil robot cats, psychic cats and tinkerer engineer cats, that's not going to happen, because there aren't enough portraits.

I get the economic reality and what I'm asking for is wishful thinking but I can dream gosh darn it

I think stellaris has leaned very hard into the upgrades and been very very deliberate and careful that the game never takes anything away from the player. Population count goes up. Early wars aren't really a threat, except against determined exterminators. There are no "deep dark secrets where you dig too deep" the "dangerous" techs aren't really that dangerous. Just turn AI rights on and you're good. Jump drives just change chances for which end game crisis appears?

Tldr, it feels very safe. Maybe I played too much, but it feels very safe and samey now. And upping the difficulty only changes the amount the AI cheats, it doesn't change my choices.

Take some risks! Just, when you design a new system, bet on it, go hard and make sure it actually works, not like crime syndicates.

Anyway. Good game. Rock on!

 

[Son1luay]

in my humble opinion Stellaris needs a modernization program and to be more specific the interface of the game, make it more modern and smooth to attract new players, there were some changes in the past but that didn't cut it, Stellaris needs to keep up with today's games interface which requires full program in every 3 or more years to be a truly timeless game.