Stellaris Dev Diary #361 - The Vision

[mattywise4]

Thanks for the support the team has given to the games, not many games I can say i've accrued over a thousand hours on and Stellaris has been one of them and I appreciate the support it still receives.

For me what's sacred is the ability to customise the ship types, I don't play multiplayer and am not interested in 'optimization' I like to create ships that are unique to the empire im playing as. Origins and civics I think are also sacred, essentially anything that adds personality to your custom empire is what i find sacred.

How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
Whilst I've always thought the ability to customise planets in this way is nice, I am actually in favour of abandoning it. If I recall correctly pops are one of the major sources for late game lag, I have a very expensive PC, top of the line by 2015's standards, still high end today, but I play small systems and dont allow games to run much longer than year 2500 with the number of planets set to x0.25 so i can maintain a smooth game for as long as possible. I also think they take away from the RP side as the pop count is obviously much smaller than what the population of a planet would actually be. Only thing I would say is the district and buildings are a positive for me, and if a similar system could be retained that would be cool.

If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
As noted in what I find sacred, I think if you removed all customisation and forced pre-defined ships that would be too far for me. I am not especially unhappy with the current system, would only ever be in favour of more customisation and options.

What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
Origin, civics, ascension perks, traditions, ethics, traits, government type. In that order I think.

How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
When I start the game and am chosing the civics and origin I have a general idea of what aspects of the game I want to explore on the given playthrough. How lucky or unlucky I am in the early game may have a some impact on my choices, i.e. if I am really successful i stick to the plan, if I am feeling pressure in one aspect of the game or another i'll adapt traditions/ascension perks to suit. Once I've met all the empires in the galaxy, that's when I pretty much lockin what I want to do for the rest of the game. Only way it would change after that is if I was under serious threat, that would usually be a couple of powerful federations or overlords forcing me to consider either joining one, or diplomacy, vassals or military build up when those things might have otherwise been lower prioty or out of scope.

How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
I think it's mechanically important in the sense that otherwise credits would need to come from mining stations or power generation which i think would be a worse overall simulation of economies, but if it could be revamped that would be a positive. Perhaps trade could be generated as a percentage of other resources? The more valuable the resource on the market the better the trade value? We could have robot empires fueling their domination by manufacturing and selling consumer goods to pacificist empires!

Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
I think it's boring but I don't think hability should be used as a way to make colonization more difficult. Humans have colonised every biome on this planet and often times those who live in the extremes have and require less ammenities rather than more. Personally i'd be in favour of making colonization easier but more involved. Surveying, staged terraforming, expeditions, investing in more settlements and much more planetary features could make colonization demand more attention.

Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
The following civics I think could be better as origins, I haven't listed megacorp/hive mind variations: Feudal Society, Shared Burdens, Death Cult, Eager Explorers, Genesis Guides, Inward Perfection, Fanatic Purifiers, Barberic Despoilers, Oppressive Autocracy, Dark Consortium, Soverign Guardianship, Planetscapers, Galatic Curators, Beastmasters, Driven Assimilator, Rogue Servitor, Galactic Soverign, Divine Sovereign.

The only origins I think are candidates for civics would be Mechanist and perhaps syncratic evolution and maybe overtuned.

I generally think all permanent civics are candidates to be made into origins, my general view is that origins are defined by: Permanence, story enhancement and how much the impact your playstyle. Admitedly the ones that just affect your homeworld or home system don't achieve much in the way of story enhancement and playstyle impact but they do at least offer a more neutral for empires that the player doesn't want to be defined by a narrative origin.

Also note I added galactic and divine soverign because I think these along with potentially being a fallen empire could be interesting origins if executed well. Essentially start as the most powerful empire on the brink of war with other empires in the galaxy stifling under your authority.

If you could remove one game system, what would it be?
Empires requesting to be vassalised. Why would a nation seek to be vassalised by another nation they already have a defensive pact with and if they didn't have one why wouldn't they pursue one first? I find empires far too ready to give up their sovereignty, this is usually because there is one really powerful empire that starts vassalising others or leads a federation, and perhaps another threatening empire somewhere that the smaller nation is feeling threatened by. This is the weakness of systems built on 1s and 0s i suppose but I find this mechanic tends to get out of hand. Secret fealty is a good idea though, if a particular empire is oppressing you, but otherwise giving up sovereignty should be a last resort when no empire will ally with you and a threat is next door and actively seeking war. Coalitions against a specific empire could be an answer to this?

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 think i'd want to see more of precurser, fallen empire and crisis enemies. At the moment these are really cool mysterious aspects of the game and I like that some of the astral plains events have allowed further insights into some of them. But I think at the moment they are all a bit of a dead end. The spiritualists are definately the most interesting of the fallen empires due to zaarlaquin's head and the connection to setana, followeed by the ancient caretakers due to their implied relationship with the contigency. I'd like to see deeper explorations of these factions and in particular their connections to crisis events and the precursers, I think the relationship between Cybrex, Caretakers and Contingency is a cool thread and would like to discover more connections like this. Maybe also unique interactions between the crisis' themselves if we allow multiple to appear.

 

[Eluchil404]

Sorry for posting this so late. Hope it is still helpful.

Some examples to comment on could include:

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

Moderately. Stellaris needs pops to allow for the creation of both diverse and mono-species planets. The current implementation is okay, but my preference would be for variably sized Vicky-like pops. Each pop would have a size ranging from 0.001 to 4,294,967.295 (or 1,000.000 or whatever) and would be defined by species and job. Political factors like ideology and faction would be implemented as percentages within the pop (e.g. 20% Materialist, 40% Spiritualist, 40% implied Neutral on that axis). Not necessarily a performance saver but I think it could be implemented to be as efficient as the current system and it would be able to show the extreme differences between newly established frontier colonies and Coruscant-style Ecumenopoli better than current integer pops. It would be a big change to implement in what I assume is the back half of the game's development but it's something I definitely hope to see in Stellaris 2.

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

A bit. I want to control individual fleets and I want to be able to customize their composition. Individual ship design is something I might be able to live without but I'd prefer it be deepened and expanded rather than cut. My biggest wish in this area is to make Science Ships fully customizable so we could make armed explorers like the famous USS Enterprise.

What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

Civics, Origin, Species rights, and Policies. It would be nice to be able to save the latter in the Empire creation datafile.

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

I set goals based on the kind of Empire I wish to Role-play as. I mostly set them during empire creation. As I encounter new empires, species, and situations I refine them but only occasionally change them. I am more likely to restart if the particular galactic situation make my goals impossible rather than reset my expectations for a play-thru, though I have done it.

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

0%. I would barely notice a modest rework and a complete redesign or rescope would not bother me much at all as long as it was interesting and fun. Random pirate spawn is not particularly interesting or fun, for example. Local trade hubs, international trade, long-lived pirate factions, functional patrol routes for fleets. All these are interesting possibilities.

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

Yes and Yes. I consider Planetary Diversity a must have mod and won't play without it. Increasing and differentiating the planet types would be a big boost to the base game.

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

Probably. It can be hard to decide if a cultural practice (as opposed to a physical event) should be a civic or an origin. Sometimes you want it to be Empire defining, like an Origin should be, but other times you want to be able to combine it pretty freely which means it has to be a civic. I would like to mention More Ordinary Origins as another great mod that the team could take inspiration from. Having lots of simple origins with minor buffs to differentiate "normal" empires make for a more fun and diverse Galaxy, IMO.

[*]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'd remove ground combat and abstract it as options in the existing orbital bombardment interface. Way to much fiddling for little gain.

I would have another archeology expansion. Bring all Precursors to the same level of implementation, expand the number of archeology sites, anomalies, and Astral Rifts, maybe add another cool event chain like The Worm in Waiting.

As for cool features poorly implemented I would focus on "special Empires", i.e. Enclaves, Caravanners, and Marauders. They are too static and their responses don't depend enough on the state of the galaxy as a whole. E.g. whether you meet them as the first intelligent life in the galaxy or after founding the Galactic Community. I'd love to see Marauders be able to slowly migrate across the galaxy or Enclaves reform in a friendly empire offers them a station after one is destroyed.

Thanks for all your hard work on a great game and for implementing so much player feedback over the years. I hope this was a useful exercise.

 

[jackychan37]

Stellaris is like a sandbox strategy game where I can build & shape my own empire, then be a part of a galaxy. For every of my play through, my goal never to be the best & dominating the whole galaxy. I want to be a part of the galaxy, interact with other AI empires (I only play single-player), face the crisis together with them.
So to me, AI behaviors are very important, and there are something I want the AI to be improved:
- First, it seem to me AI always hold back their power, even they're in a war that can lead to their extinction. It's reasonable if they're causing an Offensive War and lose it without using their full potential strength. But if they're in an Defensive War and they are losing, I think they should not hold back anymore & should use everything they had to survive, like building a massive fleet. There are many times, I feel like they still got a lot of resources, but never use these resources to build a huge fleets to fight for their survival.
- Second, I like how the intel work in Stellaris, where you need to build Spy Network & collect intel to roughly know how powerful your enemies are (in Military, Economies, Technology). But it seem to me that AI Empires always know exactly how strong you are. They will never attack you if your Military Strength is stronger than them, even they hated you a lot. In my opinion, AI Empires should be affect by the Intel as well. They should not know exactly how strong you are. For example, at first, when there are no intel, they know nothing about your strength. Then they will build a Spy Network and collect intel to roughly know how strong you are. After that, these intel will affect their decision, if they want to declare war on you. If the intel tell them that their strength maybe weaker then you, but they hate you a lot and see you as their main threat, they will more likely to declare war on you, even with the risk that it will cost them a lot. But because they hate you, they're willing to take that risk. And also, intel can be fake, you can create false intel to make AI Empires think they're weaker than you, and more likely to take actions against you. But beware, AI Empires can also do the same.
- Third, there's an diplomacy action that I don't like, which is "Insult". In my opinion, It didn't cause any impact on the one who being insulted. I think the "Insult" option should be more impactful. For example, if you receive an insult, and did not take appropriate actions, there will be a faction rising within your empire, your pops may become unhappy, your unity will reduce, and revolutions & civil wars will happen when your pops are unhappy. This "Insult" will also impact AI Empires as well, as they will even more likely to declare war on you if they already hated you. To get rid of you once and for all, or just to take appropriate actions to satisfy their pops.

 

[Veag]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  • The current system? I don't care for it.
• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
  • I like the ship designer. But fleets? I wouldn't care if you reworked how fleets are built, organized, given orders, etc.
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
  • Ethos. in my mind, everything else that makes a civ unique follows from that.
• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
  • When starting up my civ I have an idea of the story I want to tell with them. Then I end up expanding like mad so that I don't end up threatened by the AI civs. Which can derail my plans. Then, by the endgame I usually get bored and start again.
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
  • Not important that it works the way it does, but it's important that there is one.
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  • yes and yes
• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
  • Origins should modify your start, especially your starting planet. Civics should be the defining traits of your society. It seems like devs instead treat it as though origins are where new narrative content goes. I think all of them should be looked at and a bunch of origins can be reworked into civics.
• If you could remove one game system, what would it be?
  • I don't know. Stellaris is getting a bit bloated, but I would rather see most things reworked or simplified somehow rather than just cut out. Edicts, maybe. They're just not that interesting.
• Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion
  • A *theme* rather than a system. That theme being the *vastness* of the galaxy. It should never feel like you've explored everything, conquered everything, and researched everything. But it often does long before the endgame is supposed to happen. I am not asking for the galaxy to have more stars or the ai to be stronger. It's something else. I want travel to still take meaningful time late game. I want gateways to be proper megastructures and not something mass produced. I want revolutions and independence movements to be a constant threat to large empires. I want more options in civics. I want more techs, especially more rare techs and more high-tier techs. I guess fleets and internal politics would be the main systems I would want to focus on. But minor changes to other systems to would be vital to what I have in mind.
• Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?
  • Warfare. I am disappointed with pretty much every part of it is except for getting what I want when I win.

 

[TSBasilisk]

My favorite portion of the game is the early game exploration phase. My main complaint is that it feels so front-loaded and once it's over the Scientists often feel extraneous outside of a few for exploring Rifts. I wouldn't say no to technologies unlocking better sensors later in the game for a second phase of exploration - finding previously missed deposits, obsure anomalies, etc.

Colonization I feel could really benefit from the Situation mechanic. The base speed of the Situation could depend on the habitability mismatch, with a less habitable planet taking much longer. You could choose different stances on what sort of aid is being supplied to the colony to increase speed, while events could accelerate or slow it. If the colonization is too difficult, it might even cause the effort to fail due to colonists losing morale. Edicts and technologies to increase colonization speed would help alleviate the difficulty in the late game.

While I like to see pops assigned to individual jobs, the system definitely feels like it could use some serious consideration on how it fits into the current design and what changes could be made, especially in regards to helping with performance. I still feel that one easy win would be a halving/doubling - halve all housing and job slots, double the growth/upkeep/output of pops. Done right, you could have the same empire with half as many pops and thus half as many calculations required.

Fleets and war in general could use a rework. At present, it's largely devolved into pitting doomstacks against each other and 3D printing replacements on automatic. Fighting a defensive war is more about putting your doomstack in the right position now rather than building sturdy defenses.

For expansion focus, I think an internal politics/culture focus would be nice.

I enjoy the multi-part event/archaeology/system stories and would love to see more.

 

[osarusan82]

Thank you for taking the time to collect all this feedback.
I'm a longtime reader but have never posted before, but as I have over 1090 hours of playtime, I figured I'd offer my thoughts.

Right now, the most fun part of the game is early game. Designing your empire, then developing it and building outwards, discovering what else is out there, are the most exciting parts of the game. Finding out where you are in the galaxy and who your neighbors are, and then shaping your playstyle to that are really fun. I wish this part of the game was extended longer. I feel like the galaxy fills up way too quickly. We survey the whole galaxy and settle every available system in just 100 years or so. Realistically I'd like to see it move at a much slower pace, where by midgame we've maybe only discovered 50-75% of the galaxy, with untold horrors or wonders still waiting for us to discover.

As it is, once we've scouted everything between our home system and our neighbors, and filled in those gaps, it becomes a slog. Expansion, both in terms of new planetary colonies, and in terms of claiming new systems, could be more dynamic and slow-paced. Give us internal dealings to play with, like EU4 does with Estates. And make it so claiming and holding systems is not so easy to do. Space is so big and vast, it's silly to think that whoever builds a buoy around a sun gets the claim the whole place. Contested systems, systems owned by multiple civs, "no mans land" and neutral zones, pirate systems, and stuff like that could all bring interesting story pieces to our games.

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

My goals change during gameplay based on what happens a lot. I love the way Fear of the Dark works, allowing your society to drastically change based on choices you make and things that happen. Same for things like machine uprising, Under One Rule, Cybernetic Creed, and some of these other new civics and ascension perks. I would love to see more event-based things that prompt you to radically change your empire, taking it in one direction or another (or fighting to stay the same). This would be especially fun in the mid-game when things start to drag.

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

I'm sorry but I loathe the current trade system. Trade routes and especially pirates are a chore and immediately suck the fun out of every campaign when they arrive. I want piracy to be a part of the game, and even trade routes ought to be, but there needs to be something more than a game of whack-a-mole, sending a fleet halfway across the galaxy to kill some podunk pirate sitting in a system. And clicking 100 times to re-establish every trade route after a war is just tedious and awful. I'm not sure what the best way to handle it is, but PLEASE rework piracy and pirates entirely. Even if it were something like EU4's autonomy system, where systems distant from your home sector lose productivity, that would be preferable to spawning random fleets. Especially since the AI is never able to handle pirates in their own systems.

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

Yes, far too easy and straightforward. Colonization is ripe for a major rework.
This could be something like the way archaeology sites or rifts work, with stages and numerous events going on. It would also help to make each planet feel more unique and special to actually watch them go through this stage.
I'd also like to see this apply to terraforming. Terraforming tech could start very early and take generations to complete. It's weird to think that Earth would colonize different solar systems before we have bubble domes on the Moon, Mars, etc. We should be able to set up dome colonies on poorly habitable worlds early on, and later with terraforming tech turn these into lush worlds.
I always play with 0.25 habitable planets, and I want those planets to mean something. The game loses interest when I can just spam colony ships and settle 20 new worlds... at that point I usually just want to start over. Making colonization more slow and more involved would help that.

If you could remove one game system, what would it be?

Two things need a rework for me: pirates (as mentioned above) and science ships. Both for the same reason: click spam. I already talked about pirates, so I'll just explain my gripe with science ships. Having to constantly restart auto-explore every time a ship bumps into something is so frustrating, especially when ships keep auto-pathing through fallen empires or whatever. Please allow the ships to resume auto-exploration afterwards. That would be a HUGE QOL improvement.

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?

Diplomacy. All levels of it. From dealing with individual empires, to federations, to galactic diplomacy, I wish there were more to do. Fleshing this out would really improve the mid-to-late-game slog where the only real thing to do is to conquer everyone.

Looking back over my post, it reads like a list of gripes and I'm debating not posting it after all. I really don't want to give the impression that I am complaining about everything without offering concrete examples of how to improve the systems. Hopefully other posters have also posted great ideas that do a better job of offering constructive criticisms than me. Anyway, I love Stellaris and I am exciting to see so much more come out of it. You guys are doing an amazing job coming up with new ideas throughout the year, and I can't wait to see what you cook up next. (And if some of my ideas above are addressed, I'll be even happier.)

Keep up the great work, and thanks for listening!

 

[Seridor]

One more thing that I often encounter and can be game breaking sometimes:

The resolution of wars, especially when it becomes multisided. There can be unfortunate empires that are fully occuppied for several decades, and can't opt out of war, and this happen quite often. Overall many wars can be dragged for too long unecessarily.

Occupied empires should have an option to surrender, even if it means abandoning their alliance- ofc these kind of moves should be measured somehow.

 

[Shongesabbe]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  • I feel the a pop system of some kind is a core factor of Stellaris. It just wouldn’t be the same game without it. That being said there have already been several changes to pops over the course of the game so further changes would still be welcome as long as there is still a pop system of some kind.
• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
  • I think that the way that fleets currently work is pretty good. There is room for improvement, yes, but I think that if you were going to make any major changes to combat, I would focus on ground combat. Right now ground combat is almost completely useless. It is often faster and far cheaper to just bombard planets till they surrender. Getting a large enough army to take a planet mid to late game takes way too many resources, upkeep, time, and replacement compared to the alternative.
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
  • Personally, I like to come up with what the civilization does from the interplay between the civics, origins, and government that I use. The interplay between them dictates my civilization's personality and changes how I play it how aggressive and what I prioritize changes based on these.
• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
  • Most of my goals are based on what type of civilization I made. I don’t change much unless I find myself in a unfavorable position or finding a very valuable system like being next to a belligerent empire when I designed a cooperative or not having access to L-gates and being next to an empire with an L-gate.
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
  • I can’t comment much on this as I usually like to play as Gestalt so I don’t have any trade.
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  • Mostly, it is good. The only problem is that there is almost no way to make or gain access to tomb worlds. There are civics and origins that are devoted to making oceans worlds better, a colossus weapon that creates them, and you can terraform any world into a ocean world. If you’re a void race you can just make habitats. Gaia worlds can also be made and found with relative ease. But it's so hard to find and use tomb worlds. The only practical way to get more is to go to war and use Armageddon bombardment.
• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
  • The only one that I can think of is fruitful partnership should be a civic. It's just a lot weaker compared to the other origins. There are some civics that I could argue are stronger. Past that, there should be a balance pass done on the origins. There are some powerful ones that outshine others. In particular the origins that change your habitability or home world type. Life-Seeded, Post-Apocalyptic, Void Dwellers, Resource Consolidation, Ocean Paradise, and Shattered Ring are not made equal at all. Some have almost nothing going for them, like Post-Apocalyptic, whereas others have a lot designed around them, like Ocean Paradise, with others in between with Life-Seeded and Void Dwellers, where they have some stuff but not as much as others.
  • I saw another post on here that had a what I think is a great idea. Splitting the origins up into separate categories. Allowing you to effectively mix them. Some combos would be really cool and can make a lot of since. Like Void Dwellers and Clone Solders just completely artificially created race.
• 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 be armies. Or I would overhaul it a lot. Maybe introduce a building that would launch strike craft or something that would damage ships bombarding the planet but make them not target armies that could go in and disable them. Just anything to make them actually useful or remove them entirely.
  • I would love to see an expansion to tomb worlds like what we got with ocean worlds. Similarly, I would like to see expansions for most planet types, but tomb worlds need the most love, in my opinion. But that’s more for the custodian team since some have DLC around them. So, an actual new DLC, I think, should focus on armies since they are the withered limb of Stellaris.
  • I really want to enjoy and use armies, but as things stand now, they are just terrible by almost every metric.

 

[Darkrenown]

I have never really fully enjoyed the fleet system. It's actually been a while since I've played so I don't have detailed answers on hand, but one thing that has always bugged me since it was first implemented is: Why is there a fleet size limit when there's no penalty to just... stacking multiple fleets?

I have also never really enjoyed the war system in Stellaris. It has always felt weird that the War exhausting system is so restrictive, much more so than in any other PDS game. I often feel like I am handily winning a war, but because only certain losses generate WE my victorious conquering empire is often forced to stop because for some reason I'm upset I have lost too many clone troopers or deathrobots.

For some changes, I would love Trade to be better. More focus on connecting and trading with specific empires, having trade routes and trade access. Maybe even producing rare goods in each empire. I'd also love to see a thing I enjoyed in Galciv 2: being able to look at another empire and seeing how much we earn from trading with each other as a percentage of our GDP and having this value be a major factor in diplomacy, i.e. I probably don't want to fight my largest trading partner unless they do something insane, and equally I want to protect them if a devouring swarm starts eating them, etc.

We have always desperately needed a template system for starbases and a way to centrally upgrade them + defense platforms + rebuild defense platforms or have them naturally regenerate over times. And speaking of, unless it was improved, the army template system was pretty bad - I had a bug report about it.

I would also love for the galactic council/empire system to be deeper. More stuff where you can generate both temporary and long lasting political power by fighting rogue states and threats to stability (also add more space monsters and minor threats like early pirates which are easier versions of the marauders). I want to manufacture a crisis if non exists, then fight it, and turn the credit for solving this problem into galactic political power.

 

[Tommi414]

1. War Mechanics

a) Enhancing the Peace System

• Flexible Peace Negotiations: The current peace system offers limited options—total surrender, achieving the war goal, or accepting certain territorial changes. Previously, the game featured a more dynamic peace system similar to that of Europa Universalis IV, allowing for separate peaces, joining ongoing wars, and adding war goals during conflicts. Reintroducing some of these features could greatly enrich strategic gameplay and player engagement.

b) Expanding War Goals and Claims

• Broader War Objectives: The existing war goals feel somewhat constrained. For example, when subjugating an empire, it would be beneficial to have the option to influence or change their ethics. Additionally, if a subject empire rebels, allowing other subjects the choice to join the rebellion could add depth to diplomatic and military strategies.
• Enhanced Occupation Mechanics: Introducing new war mechanics like detailed sieging of planets and systems could make warfare more immersive. Clarifying whether occupying systems completely halts their income or only reduces it would help players understand the economic impacts of their military actions.

c) Refining Combat Mechanics

• Logistics and Supply Lines: Incorporating logistics into combat could add a meaningful layer of strategy. Even in space, maintaining supply lines should be crucial. Implementing a system where repairing fleets requires alloys—and making those repairs contingent on secure supply routes—would encourage careful planning.
• Ground Combat Rework: It might be worthwhile to either streamline ground combat if it's not a primary focus or to revamp it to make it more engaging. Enhancing this aspect would give more significance to civics, species traits, and leader traits that affect ground combat.

d) Open to Radical Change

• Rethinking the War System: I am open to radical changes to the war system, as I believe the current one lacks engagement and fun. While I’ve outlined some potential expansions and refinements, I am also curious to see what a completely new system might look like. If you have an idea to scrap the existing system and create something entirely different, I fully encourage exploring it.

e) Positive Developments

• Recent Improvements: The addition of planetary surrender mechanics and clear indicators for systems with planets yet to be occupied are excellent enhancements. These features have significantly improved gameplay clarity and strategic planning.

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2. Internal Politics

a) Making Factions More Impactful

• Ethics Influence: Allowing factions to more actively influence an empire's ethics could deepen internal politics. Rather than simply pressing a button to shift ethics, players could engage in more intricate methods to guide their society's direction.
• Policy Depth: Adding complexity to laws and policies—such as requiring certain conditions or processes to change them—would add realism and strategic depth.
• Dynamic Civil Wars: Implementing civil wars based on faction happiness, the political power of different social strata, and population demographics could create engaging internal challenges.
• Inter-Empire Influence: Enabling players to influence the ethics and factions of other empires—perhaps through cultural or ideological exchange—would add a new dimension to diplomacy and espionage.

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3. Espionage

a) Enhancing Engagement

• Mission Variety and Impact: Revising espionage missions to make them more impactful and diverse could encourage greater player interaction. Currently, many missions feel less significant or are focused on building the espionage network itself. Introducing missions with tangible benefits or strategic importance would make this aspect of the game more appealing.

b) Expanding Espionage Scope

• Ethics Manipulation: Adding missions that influence the ethics of other empires—such as increasing attraction to certain ethics on specific planets—could provide new strategic opportunities. The difficulty could scale with the target planet's population.
• Policy Influence: Developing missions that create movements within other empires to abolish or enact certain laws could open avenues for indirect influence and deepen the espionage system.

---

4. User Interface and System Improvements

a) Implementing Drag-and-Drop Functionality

• Streamlining Management: Introducing drag-and-drop capabilities in areas like the army builder, shipyards, and planetary queues would greatly enhance usability. This feature would simplify reordering tasks and improve overall efficiency.

b) Optimizing Fleet Reinforcement

• Shipyard Utilization: Improving the fleet reinforcement system to better distribute shipbuilding tasks among available shipyards—including the juggernaut and megastructures—would optimize build times and resource allocation.
• Safe Routing for Reinforcements: Ensuring that newly built ships automatically avoid hostile territories when joining their fleets would enhance strategic planning and reduce unintended losses.

c) Continuing UI Enhancements

• Tooltip Expansion: The initial implementation of expanded tooltips is a valuable addition. Continuing to develop this feature across more aspects of the game would improve player understanding and accessibility.
• Army Builder Improvements: While the army builder has been a positive step, further refinements could enhance its functionality and user experience.

---

5. Diplomacy

a) Vassals

• Influence Costs for Vassal Management: Introducing influence costs tied to vassal contracts would add depth and strategic complexity. For instance:
  • Integration:
    • Prohibited: 0
    • Permitted: −1.0
  • Diplomacy:
    • Independent Diplomacy: 0
    • Restricted Voting: −0.25
    • Limited Diplomacy: −0.5
  • Expansion:
    • Permitted: 0
    • Regulated: 0
    • Prohibited: −0.5
  • Contribution:
    • For every 10% overlord subsidy: +0.1
    • For every 10% subject tax: −0.1
  • Wars:
    • Joining overlord wars:
      • No wars: 0
      • Defensive/offensive wars: −0.25
      • All wars: −0.5
    • Joining subject wars:
      • No wars: 0
      • Defensive/offensive wars: −0.25
      • All wars: −0.5
  • Holdings:
    • No holdings: 0
    • One holding: −0.1
    • Two holdings: −0.2
    • Three holdings: −0.3
    • Four holdings: −0.4
    • Five holdings: −0.5
  • Sensors:
    • Independent Sensors: 0
    • Unified Sensors: −0.25
  • Traits such as Shared Destiny, Feudal Society, and Franchising could halve these influence costs, adding more strategic options for empires specialising in vassal management.
• Improved Contract Interface: The vassal contract interface could benefit from a more precise and flexible design:
  • Replace fixed categories (basic, advanced, etc.) with sliders for each resource, adjustable in 1% increments instead of 15%.
  • Allow overlords and subjects to trade resources directly, even those taxed or subsidised under the contract. This flexibility would encourage dynamic economic interactions.

b) Galactic Community

• Expanding the Galactic Community: While the Galactic Community adds a layer of diplomacy, it currently feels underutilised. Suggestions for improvement include:
  • Interactive Denouncements: Introduce a denouncement system that is more dynamic and impactful, allowing council members to denounce empires directly during deliberations.
  • Faster Deliberation Process: Reduce the sluggishness of passing resolutions to keep the political gameplay engaging.
  • Expanded Laws: Add more diverse laws, such as:
    • Electing council members under specific conditions.
    • Freezing the council composition to prevent future elections.
    • Allowing council members to more easily denounce or influence other empires.
  • Multiplayer Enhancements: Reintroduce the ability to trade favours between players, which is essential for engaging multiplayer diplomacy.

c) Diplomatic Interactions

• Broader Diplomatic Options: Diplomacy could be enriched by adding new interaction possibilities:
  • Sharing Technologies: Introduce a mechanism to share specific technologies between empires at an influence cost. This could benefit alliances and federations striving for mutual growth.
  • Fleet Trade: Allow empires to trade fleets, potentially gated by specific technologies or perks, such as the Lord of War ascension perk.
  • Advanced Treaties: Expand treaties to include more nuanced agreements, such as joint resource management or cooperative scientific ventures.

These changes would greatly enhance the diplomatic layer of the game, making it more interactive, strategic, and rewarding for players focused on both single-player and multiplayer experiences.

 

[wisecat]

I have been playing Stellaris since launch and I do believe it is the best 4X in space available now.
But there is much room for improvement:

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?

Very important and colonisation is way too easy.

My overall take is - a lot less planets but more individuality for each one. With current over-abundance of planets (and especially with Habitats spam and cheap terraforming) - even at lowest Habitable Worlds setting eventually you lose track of individual planets. And you can't manage all of them. Automation makes them even more faceless. Most importantly planets lose their importance as main goal in expansion. And it harms your overall goal of "new story every playthrough" because when there are so many planets they balance each other out and do not influence playthrough and/or strategies or goals of player.

As an example - MOO used to have such planet characteristics as gravity level (they had 5 tiers - V. Heavy - Heavy - Normal - Light - V. Light) and it was tied to planet size and metal (industry) resources available and influenced habitability and costs of building and maintaining society on that planet. Of course species in those games also had preferred gravity. So you might want to grab the largest planet with the most metals available, but it was most probably was a V. Heavy Gravity planet and you had to take into account whether your species will be able to function normally there.
Given how the games have progressed since MOO heyday implementing more influence of biosphere should also be possible. Now there are some features/events (like Natural Aphrodisiacs" but not enough by far and not enough influence on habitability, colonisation and course of development of each planet.

Colonisation - more events and choices for colonisation would be most welcome. For example if you encounter extreme seasonal rainfalls you might be able to chose between attempting weather manipulation (with a possibility of either very good or tragic results) or building underground (and get a defence-against-bombing bonus later on).

Terraforming - this is something that should be made much more difficult and diverse. At the moment there are 3 techs to research and then you just pay some energy credits and voila - refurbished planet.
I suggest that it should be made into a process, a multi-generational project with resource and personnel demand, events and variety of results. And of course it should be dependent on which planet you are trying to terraform and what your goal is. Its availability should be a function of sum total of your origins, species preference, technology researched and planet being terraformed. Not just 1-2-3 techs.
For example for a species with nuclear wasteland origin terraforming almost any world with breathable atmosphere into their version of paradise is easy and does not require much tech beyond 1960 level - just nuke it.
Likewise for humans starting terraforming of Mars is probably feasible even now - provided we spend all national budgets on space programs and are unafraid to send astronauts on one-way missions we can probably start hurling blocks of ice from the Asteroid belt into Mars within 10-15 years, But making Mars wetter and its atmosphere denser would accomplish only part of terraforming process. We don't have a way to create a magnetosphere for it, which is essential for protection against radiation.
For Venus - I don't know of any logical ideas how a density of atmosphere can be reduced to survivable levels.

Another idea for terraforming - have a scientist or civil servant leading project (probably more that one since terraforming should really take scores of years depending on what is to be done and with which technology) and outcome and features being influenced by their characteristics and traits. For example a meticulous bureaucrat with no artistic sense at all can create a planet with round continents and rivers running by pre-planned routes. A machine or hive civilisation may find such planet attractive, whereas some artsy anarchistic elves would rather die than live in perfectly ordered world.

 

[wisecat]

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

Please, oh, please make fleets controllable! (and a million more emphasis marks). I want to control my fleets during combat! (and another million of emphasis marks)! I want to be able to outmanoeuvre the enemy or just plain run past him from one wormhole to another. Or make a quick anti-economy raid. Or even a quick bombing run against the planet. Instead now if a fleet sees another one or the central fortress - there is no way to avoid combat. And nothing to do but watch how two stacks duke it out.

Please make ship designs unique with more than 1 model being feasible for each role/size. Again - MOO is something to consider. I want to have different types of rocket cruisers to use against different enemies.

ATM warfare is just doomstack size competition. Something needs to be done.

Is it possible to make placement of fortresses in systems non-central? And separate them from shipyards? If I know where the wormhole to the enemy system lies - I might want to place my fortress near that wormhole (or at least between that wormhole and local planet/shipyard/other valuable stuff) and shipyard / naval academy at the other end of the system. If we can chose where to place things like Gateways - why can't we chose where we put our main bases?

Please make spaceports destructible - this will necessitate uncoupling spaceport building from system ownership, but it will be much more realistic. If I want to capture spaceport with all its shipyards, stores and other goodies I will need to invest into some sort of space marines, not just blast at said spaceports from all my guns.

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

Very and it needs improvement. Some features actually were there but got lost. Please bring back the domestic piracy that made patrolling fleets worthwhile. Also - I remember that it used to be so that piracy was more intense while you were bordering unowned systems. Somehow this got lost somewhere. Please bring back this feature.

• If you could remove one game system, what would it be?

Habitats. They get spammed, they are absurdly unreasonable, way too cheap and somehow indestructible. I compete, plot, maneuver, scheme and fight to get prime real estate and resource-rich systems and then it all is pointless.

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

Council agenda - probably could be something very enjoyable (maybe connect it to interest groups representation on council or councillors personal politics - say if you pack your council full of bleeding heart pacifists they would probably do badly at military build-up programme), At the moment however it is just 4-5 clicks once every X game years and you get some sort of percentile benefit to one area or another.

 

[Cogneter]

Hello! My first post on the forums. I played a few hundred hours of Stellaris and purchased all the DLCs, so figured I'd give my feedback as well.

For context - I'm mainly playing on Grand Admiral difficulty, with Aggressive empires and Crisis Modifier at around x5-x10. I'm also often playing cooperative multiplayer with 3 friends.

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

It is an interesting and complex system, which is easy to use and hard to master, but it does add a lot of micromanagement, especially for genetic empires, which need to settle specific pops to specific planets. I feel like the popularity of virtual ascension is, in part, due to the removal of most of the micromanagement related to jobs, and planets in general.

I feel like these systems can be simplified without significantly losing the overall complexity and the feel of "easy to use, hard to master", although I don't have specific suggestions.

Bonus points if the simplification of these systems will visibly reduce the amount of lag in late-game and desyncs in multiplayer.

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

Although it is sometimes fun to watch huge fleet battles of hundreds of ships, I wouldn't mind if they were a little simplified, like if a fleet of 100 Corvettes was visually represented by just 1 Corvette - if it helped reduce the late-game lag and desyncs. Or at least make it a setting.

I'm also missing a mechanic that would allow to "sync speed" of multiple fleets so that they move and attack together, with the sublight speed of the slowest fleet. It's especially relevant when using a rather slow Dimensional Fleet - sometimes it arrives when the fight is already over.

Speaking of Dimensional Fleets - they are not a very fun mechanic to play against in situations when you fight against a federation or the whole galaxy (as a Nemesis) and multiple empires send multiple waves of Dimensional Fleets against you. I feel like the military bonus from Astral Threads should scale with the size and power of the empire, otherwise a declining empire with just 1 system left can regularly field a fleet as strong as the strongest empire. And if there is a federation of 10 such empires, they can collectively send 10 very strong Dimensional Fleets, even if they have no economy to build normal fleets. Maybe change Dimensional Fleet to a multiplicative bonus that just grants extra damage or ship fire rate to the current fleets (or to 1 fleet)?

Other than that, I'm comfortable with the current fleet system and don't see how it could be positively changed. Well, maybe improve merging fleets just a bit - it takes some time and patience currently.

What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

Origin, Ethics and Civics pretty much set the tone for what my civilization is going to be doing. They are then further reinforced by Traditions and Ascension Perks.

I think there is currently a good variety of Origins/Ethics/Civics that do not necessary lock you into a specific playstyle, but give you flexibility to play and develop your empire however you want. And, for advanced players, there are Origins/Ethics/Civics that do lock you into a specific playstyle that you'd like to try out. So it's a good and versatile system, I think.

A little side note - please add a note somewhere that flag colors define your empire's colors on the map. I wanted to add a little secondary red color to my flag and ended up being a huge red empire (even though I always play blue, since it's my favorite color).

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

I usually divide goals into three categories - early game (until I have no more systems to annex without fighting), mid-game (until the end-game year 2400) and late game (fighting the end game crisis and becoming the dominant empire). Each of these stages has challenges and goals unique to it, managing which I find quite fun.

If we're talking end goals, I usually have a vague idea when starting the game about how I'm going to end it. I always plan to defeat the end-game crisis, and then it's either a military (become a Nemesis) or a diplomatic (everyone joins your federation) victory by the year 2500. The end goal may change depending on how mid-game goes - sometimes it just naturally devolves into lots of wars, but sometimes there's a War in Heaven and suddenly everyone's already in a federation with you.

When playing cooperatively with others, we set the end goal at the start, and it's usually "defeat the crisis and see who has the highest score by 2500". We also have a gentleman's agreement to not suddenly become a Nemesis, although it would be cool if there was an option to make a whole federation a Nemesis, so that we can go down that path together.

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

I do not engage with that system much. I keep in mind that it exists and tend to it so it doesn't fall apart, but I do feel like the trade routes system could be improved to be less of a nuisance.

At the very least, allow connecting routes within a sector to a sector capital, which can be designated by building a specific trade building.

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

I don't feel like this system could or should be improved. I think habitability matters a lot in the early game, but in the mid and late game becomes less relevant after you research habitability-improving technologies - and that makes sense to me.

One related thing I would suggest it to change the "Detox" Ascension Perk to a rare researchable technology (maybe with rarity on par with Mega-Engineering), because it's really not strong enough to be an Ascension Perk.

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

I think the current Origin system is good, but a little flawed. I agree with what some of the others said - that Origins should be didived into a few types of mutually inclusive Origins. That would significantly enrich the complexity and uniqueness of starting empires.

I would propose 3 types:
1) Planetary Origin, which defines where your civilization came from - Shattered Ring, Void Dwellers, Doomsday, Subterranean, etc.
2) Cultural Origin, which defines how did your civilization achieve spaceflight - Prosperous Unification, Mechanist, Remnants, Teachers of the Shroud, etc.
3) Galactic Stance, which defines how your civilization views its role in the galaxy after achieving spaceflight; I would put all unremovable civics here - Inward Perfection (leave us alone), Fanatic Purifiers (kill them all), Idyllic Bloom (improve all planets), etc.

I would also love if every Origin came with a unique storyline, preferably one that lasts until the end year. Some origins already have associated storylines and events, but they usually finish in mid-game, so by late game your origin does not really matter (although, I concede, it does make some sense - in 200+ years you've already written a new history of your species).

If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion?

You can safely remove Espionage, without a doubt. In its current state, it doesn't really do much, other that providing intel.
The aforementioned Trade Routes system can also be removed without any significant consequences, at least for me.

Speaking of expansions focusing on new features, I would suggest two:
1) Espionage.
I've recently played a little indie 4X game called The Pegasus Expedition, which in many ways resembles Stellaris, but has actually useful Espionage. It has additional Agent fleets, which can't be detected and can move through enemy borders - they can sabotage enemy fleets, stations, planets, and even release bioweapons. I think Stellaris already has some groundwork and counterplay in place - cloaked Science Ships currently work as part-time Agents, and stations can equip decloaking to detect and stop them.

Some function which I believe could make espionage in Stellaris actually useful:
* The ability to damage fleets, or even bring them to your side.
* The ability to build initially invisible "black sites" that can siphon resources from enemy systems/planets, and need to be discovered in order to be stopped.
* The ability to destabilize planets and systems, maybe even sparking rebellions or releasing bioweapons.
* The ability to assassinate, or at least temporary incapacitate, leaders.

Of course these abilities can be pretty strong, so would require a lot of balancing and counterplay, but I believe it's doable.

2) Storylines.
Again this idea came after playing The Pegasus Expedition - I really enjoyed having a storyline in a 4X game, even though its 4X mechanics were far inferior to Stellaris. You could just as well have interesting engaging characters and interactions in Stellaris.

There is already a lot of groundwork in place with Origins - unique events and even characters. I would just love to make them form a coherent storyline throughout the whole playthrough with a definitive ending (which can be disabled for multiplayer).

The only problem I see is that interesting characters could have trouble living over 100 years, so I would suggest maybe adding a "story mode", in which the game plays pretty much at the current pace, but the dates change 10 times slower. So events that are currently happening every month would happen every 3 days, and the whole game would last at most 20 years instead of 200+ years.

I feel like this would be a really awesome and interesting expansion, and I would be among the first to buy and play it.

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

One system that I want to enjoy, but it doesn't quite work, is the AI of NPC empires. The current difficulty scaling basically adds a lot of extra resources to them, instead of making them actually smarter. They do not adapt their fleets to players, sometimes uselessly attack a stronger fleet/station, do not declare a war when they would easily win, etc. They also often do not follow best practices for managing their economy and fleet building, even though I believe it should be much easier for an AI to micromanage everything.

Not all of these features should be enabled on the Normal difficulty, of course, but I would like to have them gradually enabled at the top difficulty, instead of just giving NPCs extra resources (which the player can also take advantage of through trading/subjugation). Right now, playing Grand Admiral with Aggressive empires I do not really feel challenged by other empires, so the only real challenge comes from scaling up the crisis numbers.

Another much needed system that doesn't currently work is resync in multiplayer. In all my time of playing, when a desync happens, if the host tries to resync - desync happens again right away. The only way to fix this is to exit to the menu and restart the game from save, which isn't very convenient.


In conclusion, I'd like to thank you for your work on Stellaris - it's truly a great game. And thank you for (hopefully) reading my feedback.

 

[smile444]

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

Something i'd REALLY like to see changed are democracy mechanics. As it is, it is by far the weakest goverment type, and mandate are very boring. I would like make a mandate some kind of situation, with various ways to solve it rather than just building 4 station. It would also be a good thing if leader level increased the chances for a given leader to be elected as the ruler.

It would be nice If a given ruler have several mandates that have to be activated rather than being automatically launched, with new ones being able to manifest based on what happens in a game. I.E if a war happen then a new mandate would be created that is basically the "Win the war" mandate.

Each completed mandate would increase the leader's popularity.

Not all mandate would be equal and some could be mutually exclusive for exemple if you are not confident you can win the war there could be a "survive the war" mandate that could be launched.

Democratically elected rulers could have preference for different mandates, and a mandate for which a given ruler have a prefference would have bonuses to help complete the mandate faster.

It would make me feel the need to please voters much, much more. And make mandates generally good given which is important because as a tradeoff we get a lack of control

 

[Tuteau]

I'll offer my two cents, though I'll add a bit of context. I've been slowly losing my interest and haven't purchased any of the latest dlc. I have up to galactic paragons and from around that time I figured out that the core of the game just doesn't really appeal to me and no amount of content added to that is going to be worthwhile for me while the core is what it is. Checking steam, the last time I played was february, and if memory serves me right, it was just a short session.

The first issue that turned me away from the game is the amount of micromanagement. Due to constant micro decisions, I get overwhelmed and don't get to pursue any real macro decisions and create a narrative. Which then causes me to abandon playthroughs after one or two sessions, since I just don't feel any particular connection to my empires and the playthroughs. I load in, land in a sea of spinning plates, having to figure out what I was doing, why, and any new decision requires spinning up even more plates. I don't get to see the forest through all the trees.

The second issue is the lack of identity of any empire. In EU4, each nation seems on the surface much more same-y - a name, a colour and a flag, but due to historical context feels significantly different. The asymmetrical starting position also helps a lot there. In stellaris, empires feel like just the sum of a collection of traits. I need context in order to see each empire as an actual distinct entity. Another game that has unlimited customization and randomization but doesn't suffer the same issue is dwarf fortress, since beyond a map, also a history is simulated. If something like that could be done in stellaris, I believe it would go a long way.

The third issue is the 'line go up' and 'bigger number better' design. If you want to play optimally, you just need to end up with the strongest fleet. You don't get to specialize, you're just offered different ways to achieve that stronger fleet. I'd love to see more directions in which to effectively compete that just fleet strength.

A fourth, more general issue is the amount of abstraction. Things like trade, global resources, and the almost complete lack of logistics. Abstraction is useful as a tool to streamline the players' experience, but to me the experience doesn't actually feel streamlined as I mentioned in my earlier point on micromanagement. In my opinion simulation (if done well) is the superior experience. There is a place for abstraction, but only to serve the goal of streamlining the experience and focusing it on the core of the gameplay. If it doesn't achieve those goals, it just detracts from the experience. If the economic aspect is abstracted, it shouldn't take up as much time as it does. If it takes as much time up as it does, it should at least be simulated, so that I can surgically strike key logistics systems and hamstring my enemy that way. Since I can't, the only way to defeat an enemy is to bash heads with their fleet until one side wins.

I understand that there is a large playerbase that is mostly happy with the core design of the game, I'm just expressing my individual opinion. My goal isn't to call the game bad, rather to provide feedback as to why I personally enjoy the game less than others.

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

Not vital, but if kept, let us queue up buildings and districts, automatically only enable upkeep for districts and buildings that are actively worked, and make amenities shareable between planets or automatable through, say, services companies popping up that can be tasked to cover amenities needs for a proportional upkeep

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

Should be easier to control at higher numbers of ships. Maybe create a flotilla - fleet - armada tier system where you can build, control, and reinforce ships based on the appropriate scale? Let me build a template for different flotillas and build them in one click, let me compose fleets out of several flotillas, let me bundle fleets in armadas based on the strength needed at any time. I can then send an armada to hunt the enemy fleet, then disperse into fleets to siege down enemy systems. Also - automatic carpet sieging.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

Ethics and civics. Love the modularity, and the more unique and impactful you can make each of them, the better. Ties in with the need for more diverse win conditions though, if I'm focusing on unity, I want that unity to fuel a level of strength that can rival sheer military power, not just be a pathway to it.

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

Without context, I don't have a narrative to anchor my goals in. So just an idea and setup of an empire, and then - que sera, sera.

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

It sucks. I prefer trade and logistics simulation, with trade actually moving goods around rather than being abstract. Also funneling everything into the capital makes it rather static. I'd rather see a system with dynamic trade nodes, where each planet and each trade station counts as a node, with a certain strength, that it propagates outwards. Those nodes then consolidate into proper trade nodes that can propagate their power across borders, based on access and empire policies. It would help to split out military access from the borders policy to make open borders easier to attain.

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

Yes, but in the sense of how much of a planet is accessible. If I have a cold preference, I should have most of a cold planet available. If I find a desert planet, I should be able to set up at least a small presence without penalties if the poles are cold. A tidally locked planet could be interesting in that sense too, where they offer either half the planet's surface to cold and hot preference. A species of penguins that settles on a desert planet's cold poles should see no penalties for using those poles, just have less space to work with. A planet could be divided up into latitude bands of climate to facilitate that, with unique features boosting production or modifying the characteristics potentially tied to these bands.

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

Not that I can think of

• 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?

Revisiting the core design of the game like I elaborated. I can fully understand if this isn't realistic for the scope of dlc's, but maybe for the next installment (project palpatine when?)

 

[Little Tee]

I already made a post further back, but I've had some more thoughts.

​

What is Stellaris to you?​

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

If you keep the system, I'd be fine with it how it is. But... If it were optimised in both the game performance sense (I know you did this already, but it needs more) AND in the micromanaging sense - so more fine tuned options for auto-assignment of jobs, etc - that would be much better and far more user friendly in larger empires. I personally don't mind the micromanaging.

If you were to get rid of individual pops, then fine, I guess. As much as I like the visual representation of pops, and species portraits are a MASSIVE point of immersion for me, I wouldn't notice not seeing those particular portraits anymore. It would be very nice to finally see actual realistic numbers for populations on planets too.

The difficulties I foresee with any move away from individual pops would be to do with how Species Traits interact with planetary production, Migration and Multi-Species populations, Ethics calcualations, Social Policies, and probably more things - Like... How would these things all be calculated? How would this alleviate lag issues, but more important it seems for most players, how would this help with micromanagement?

So like... given that the existing system has such far reaching effects into almost the entire game - It will affect most Traditions, Traits, Origins, Civics. Buildings, Districts, Edicts, Policies, etc - please don't take any potential change in this system lightly as a quick 'we did the thing you asked for' and pat yourselves on the back for being good devs who listen to their players (which for the most part, you are). Instead, please try to understand what it is about the system as it currently functions that people don't like and first try to make the current system alleviate those grievances. I feel like it's mostly lag and micromanagement first, and then realism and immersion as secondary concerns. I could be wrong on that. Obviously.

As I said above, if you are able to reduce lag and make micromanagement less micro by giving far more detailed automation options (similar in concept to how the 'default rights' in the species window, for example), then after reading a lot of comments, I feel like most/enough people will be happy with that. How you would go about doing this is a question for one of your many dev meetings.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

I already said that the visuals are extremely important for me. I will say though, that in the more general game, limits on choices is massive for me too. There are a lot of mods and requests out there for more this and more that. More trait points/picks, more ethics points, more civic slots, intercompatibility between ascension paths, more tradition and perk slots, etc. I can't stress enough how much I really do not want these things to become part of the base game (+DLCs). A huge part of the fun in this game for me is considering choices and having to live with them. I'm fine with irreversible choices like traditions, and I like that you have to work really really hard to change your empire ethics. for example. These things make every game different. That said, there are a lot of things in the game that I never choose because there are other no-brainingly superior options.

Being able to choose everything is great for my ego and my underlying desire for galactic domination, but is incredibly bad for replayability.

As with all elements of the game, if there is a choice to be made between one civic or tradition and another, make it a meaningful choice or you might as well not give it to me. I would very much like to see a substantial increase in the available number of civcs, perks, traditions, traits, etc, without seeing an increase in the amount I can have of any of those things at any one time.

It's fine, and maybe even intersting, to have 'the best way to play X type of civ', but in any game, the existence of a superior Meta is bad for replayability. If I play Machines, I'm always going to choose X, Y, and Z. If I want to take Genetic Ascension, I'm always going to choose A, B, and C. It can get very boring if you play a lot. Please try extra hard to keep up with and pay attention to what the player base is saying in this regard and instead of nerfing this or that, make other things more competitive. This will make the game far more interesting. There are many forum/steam discussions and even more YT videos on this subject. It should actually be someone's job to look at these things exclusively, if it isn't already. Yes, Stellaris is a living game, but it's not a MMO. Please don't fall into that trap with the season pass thing. I'm pretty sure that people don't spend money on this game to get the latest uber gear, rather, to have more challenging and interesting gameplay options and more fun mechanics.

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

I said before that I didn't want this to become a 'process' like First Contact. I'd like to clarify. If Terraforming and Colonization become Situations with events with meaningful choices, I'd love that. What I don't want is the Digsite/FC/Astral window for them. It would be really cool to get different planet modifiers (good and bad) because of choices I made during these situations.

Habitability is fine.

• 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 already said what I'd remove.

But I'd also improve:

Others have said it. Espionage. Others have also said that they are yet to see a game that implements it well. I tend to agree. Like, keep it in the game, but I don't know... Look at ways to make it more interesting.

Oh... and Enclaves (not Mercs). A lot of untapped potential for narrative here.


For an expansion? I'd like to see internal politics become much, much, more immersive. At a certain point in the past, there was a real issue with 'End Turn' syndrome in the game, where you'd spend a long time before mid-game just kind of sitting there waiting for stuff to happen - Pops to grow, influence or unity to accumulate, ships to build, techs to pop, etc. Things like Digs and Rifts, and I guess now chasing Space Whales, went a long way to making that part of any given game much less boring.

Depending on how deep you want to dive into ethic+factions becoming some kind of senate idea, all authority types could have differents ways of representing it. The essence is how much political support you have which would be based on faction support and approval. The nuts and bolts I leave to you, but it would be interesting to have to keep factions happier in order to do things like make commercial pacts, change specific policies, or declare war, rather than simply for stability and unity bonuses. There would also be space for interesting situations, events, and so on.

It could also make espionage more interesting by allowing influencing the factions in other empires if you decide to take Subterfuge as a tradition, thus making both game elements far more relavent to the general game than they both currently are. Spitballing I guess, but having a domestic senate, landed elites, shareholder group, chamber of nobles, or whatever you want to call the particular version for each authority that can veto stuff or call for you to do things might be interesting and shake gameplay up a little. As long as, of course, all of this is able to be influenced by the player in some interesting and engaging way. For Gestalt... I don't know what you'd do, but it would have to be some other, equally engaging mechanic that doesn't leave the game with a glaring gameplay and fun imbalance. 'Ethics Bug Branch' mod type thing, perhaps?

 

[Vahilior]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
• I enjoy being able to feel the experience of individuals in my and other empires, I dont mind the system being replaced but I want features that give a feel for the experience of individuals.
• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
• You could replace it entirely, the system is not a strong point of Stellaris.
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
• Objectives, interaction with populace, economic structure.
• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
• At the beginning during Empire creation but I enjoy it when circumstances force me or offer chances to change them.
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
• It's underdeveloped and currently largely irrelevant, it should be based on inter-empire trade and become utterly critical for non-xenophobic empires as the game settles into mid-game. Trade routes and resources should be of vital interest as they are in the real world and a driver for conflict and diplomacy.
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
• Yes
• 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, as above it should drive conflict and diplomacy for non-xenophobe empires and force you to engage and think about the terrain and now storms of the Galactic map. End game warfare should have an element of mutually assured destruction where the forces that can be deployed permanently scar the map. A plague type crisis or other crisis which require non-combat solutions or not exclusively combat solutions would be exciting (see Peter F Hamilton Nights Dawn Trilogy for inspiration).

 

[Commander Tobe]

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

Even after 1500 hours of playing it still is sometimes a mystery to me how pops work. So gonahead if you have ideas to improve the system.

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

Warfare is to me one of the weakest aspects of the game. You throw a fleet against another and hope for the best. There is no way to manipulate an ongoing battle and younhave no clue if your ship equipment will work simce most of the time you dont know what the equipment of the enemy is. It is boring and sometimes frustrating. Please go ahead and change it for the better. Same goes for ground army battles which are even worse. Bo-ring. Change it. Please. It can only get better.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

Is the build fun to play? Is it an interesting RPG build? Doesnit work mechanically or is it frustrating to play?

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

My goal is always to be a force to reckon with and to be a powerful member of the galactic community. I want my economy tonbe self sufficient and I want to be powerful enough to defend my empire in war. I often set my specific goals when creating my empire. When I play UNE this is the only time when I just want to ride along and see what happens - so that's when I change my goals depending on the situation. I just wish it would be easier and more manageable to change empire ethics.

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

Not important at all. It's like many things: You can't micromanage trade routes very well and I have no clue what mechanisms work in the background when trading with another empire. I wish it was more like trade in Sid Meiers Civ games - that I can at least understand.

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

Hard question. I don't think its too easy but it could be more interesting. What I really don't like is the Ring world and habitat preference that occurred some versions ago. It makes building habitats not worth it. Which is a shame because it is otherwise such a cool feature. You should be able to have dry, wet, cold habitats. That would be better than the current system which is a pain for all pops who dont have habitat preference from the beginning.

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

Why?

• If you could remove one game system, what would it be?

Galactic storms! Its so annoying. In fact I bought the DLC and deactivated it after 10 hours because I couldn't stand it anymore.

• 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?

Espionage, trade and diplomacy really need some rework. Look at how Sid Meiers Civ 4 and 5 did it. If Stellaris had that it would be so much more enjoyable since you really had some agency as a player. Right now espionage isn't worth it for what it does and the diplomacy is simply: envoy improves/decreses relationship. Is that fun to you? I sure isnt to me.

 

[TranscendentalDragon]

So, I only wanted to reply after reading all the responses written up to that point, to avoid too much redundancy, but the devs said even they're struggling with that and this is their job, but that they are reading all the responses...

Anyway, I feel the individual pops are in a weird spot. On one hand, many people, me included, like getting all the right modifiers on the right pop, sometimes to an extreme degree. But after some point, you stop caring at the quality of your pops rather than pure, brute quantity, much to misfortune of our CPUs. Sure, I like seeing my species and various xeno/robo species (many of them in one way or another created by me) on my planet, most often living in harmony, but sometimes having more interesting dynamics, hell, even choosing which ones go to the lathe, but I don't think current system even does that well. With all the quirks of the system, like change in network-wide migration pull cancelling months of growth, or automatic growth favoring underreptresented species (resulting in rainbow piecharts everywhere), or preventing the decline of your own species by purging another, just to name a few I personally know, it can cause a lot of unnecessary frustration/ruthless exploitation that doesn't even fit the simulation, not the mention the operational load.

Regarding fleet combat... I don't care how much you change it, but make it all fit togeather. Can Menacing Destroyers still not equip Torpedo computers, despite fitting the role? And please, make Neutron Launchers useful again, I'm not asking return of their glory days, but they're such a late tech, and a cool concept, but they get clowned on by a humble laser. I'd like to be able to utilise them effectively, even if in a niche role.

My main goal when playing Stellaris is to have fun. When I no longer have fun or something frustrates or stesses me out too much, I reroll. Naturally, I don't finish most games the costumary way. What civilisation I will play, what will the central conciet of that civ be, are all at the whim of my fancy. I usually roleplay more than powergame, but I usually don't bother typing out the backsory of my species as I mostly play single player, it would be only for me, and I prefer flexibility of my backstory not being set in stone. What usually defines my civilisations are circumstances we find ourselves in, and direction I want to take us in/we have already taken (i.e. crisis/ascention paths, fed/custodian/imperium). That direction is usually decided on in advance, but can change depending on the circumstance. While certain civics/origins/traits fall more under circumstance, and sometimes even those, everything else, from species traits, to goverment and civics that can be changed, serves as tools to reach my vision.

Anyway, may write more in the morning.

 

[Medicine Man]

Hi everyone!

Now that the Grand Archive Story Pack is out, I want to do something a little different. With 360 Stellaris Dev Diaries complete, I thought it was time to circle right back around to the beginning: what was, will be.

Stellaris Dev Diary #1 was “The Vision”, and so is #361.

What is Stellaris?​

The vision serves as a guiding tool to keep the entire development team aligned. As the game evolves, we work hard to update it regularly to remain accurate and consistent with our core vision.

Here’s how I currently answer “What is Stellaris?”:

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The Galaxy is Vast and Full of Wonders​

For over eight years, Stellaris has remained the ultimate exploration-focused space-fantasy strategy sandbox, allowing players to discover the wonders of the galaxy.

From their first steps into the stars to uniting the galaxy under their rule, the players are free to discover and tell their own unique stories.

Every story, trope, or player fantasy in science fiction is within our domain.​

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Stellaris is a Living Game​

Over time, Stellaris has evolved and grown to meet the desires of the player base.​

• At launch, Stellaris leaned deep into its 4X roots.​
• It evolved from that base toward Grand Strategy.​
• As it continues to mature, we have added deeper Roleplaying aspects.​

All of these remain part of our DNA.

Stellaris is a 4X Grand Strategy game with Roleplaying elements that continues to evolve and redefine itself.​

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Every Game is Different​

We desire for players to experience a sense of novelty every time they start a game of Stellaris.

They should be able to play the same empire ten times in a row and experience ten different stories.
A player’s experience will differ wildly if their first contact is a friendly MegaCorp looking to prosper together or if they’re pinned between a Fallen Empire and a Devouring Swarm.

Stellaris relies on a combination of prescripted stories (often tied to empire Origins) and randomized mechanical and narrative building blocks that come together to create unplanned, emergent narratives.

A sense of uncertainty and wonder about what could happen next is core to the Stellaris experience.
​

---

What is this About?​

Fundamentally, as the players, Stellaris is your game.

Your comments and feedback on The Machine Age heavily influenced our plans for 2025. We work on very long timelines, so we’ve already been working on next year’s releases for some time now. Most of what I’m asking will affect which tasks the team prioritizes and will help direct our direction in 2026 and beyond.

We’re making some changes to how we go about things. Many people have commented that the quarterly release cadence we’ve had since the 3.1 ‘Lem’ update makes it feel like things are changing too quickly and too often, and of course, it disrupts your active games and mods. The short patch cycle between Vela and Circinus was necessary for logistical reasons but really didn’t feel great.

We’re going to slow things down a little bit to let things stabilize. I’ve hinted a couple of times (and said outright last week) that we have the Custodian team working on some big things - the new Game Setup screen was part of this initiative but was completed early enough that we could sneak it into 3.14.1. My current plan is to have an Open Beta with some of the team's larger changes during Q1 of next year, replacing what would have been the slot for a 3.15 release. This will make 2025Q2, around our anniversary in May, a bigger than normal release, giving us the opportunity to catch up on technical debt, polish, and major features.

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?

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

Some examples to comment on could include:

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
• What aspects are most important in defining 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?
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
• 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?

To the Future, Together!​

I want to spend most of this year’s remaining dev diaries (at least, the ones that aren’t focused on the Circinus patch cycle) on this topic, talking with you about where our shared galactic journey is heading.

Next week we’ll be talking about the 3.14.159 patch.

But First, a Shoutout to the Chinese Stellaris Community​

Before I sign off, I want to commend the Chinese Stellaris Community for finding the funniest bug of the cycle. I’ve been told that they found that you can capture inappropriate things with Boarding Cables from the Treasure Hunters origin, and have been challenging each other to find the most ridiculous things to capture.

You know, little things like Cetana’s flagship. The Infinity Machine. An entire Enclave.

I’m not going to have the team fix this for 3.14.159, but will likely have them do so for 3.14.1592. I want to give you a chance to complete your collection and catch them all. After all, someone needs to catch The End of the Cycle and an Incoming Asteroid. Post screenshots if you catch anything especially entertaining!

See you next week!

Stellaris: Grand Archive is now available as a standalone purchase or with a discount as part of Stellaris: Season 08!
​

---

Edit:
It's come to my attention that an Incoming Asteroid has been captured! Excellent job!

A late reply to this thread and I bet most of my points have been made by other people, but here I go anyhow:

• Regarding pops -- I'm not married to the current system. The only thing I really like about it is its transparency in representing how much population you need to fill jobs, and what you get from those jobs. I think this nowhere makes up for the performance downsides of managing their movement, ethics, and assignment on a monthly basis. The fact there are game settings included to make pops not grind the engine to a halt is a clear sign they should be revisited in favour of something more demographic based.
• Changing the way fleets and fleet combat work would make the game feel very different, but this is imo one of the areas the game needs the most help. Combat is a a visually muddled lightshow with little sense to how any fleet comp and ship design decisions matter. I know they do matter, but how they matter is something that is only revealed when content creators run tests matching different ship builds against one another. Players should be able to see the effects of their decisions play out in an intuitive way, in game, and the current system is just too much like bumping numbers into each other.
• Combining civics, species traits, origin, and ethics together into a cohesive RP concept that is also (hopefully) somewhat viable in game mechanics.
• I often generate my maps with preset empires, so I like to make a personal goal of defeating some rival or dominating some sector of the map. Sometimes, I make my goal a successful crisis run or becoming galactic emperor. The game could use more victory conditions actually. I never play until the end date.
• I find the trade system adequate but not really engaging. The fact trade builds buff clerk jobs doesn't help, given the weakness of clerks. That said, I do think having trade as another way of generating energy credits is important.
• I wouldn't say colonization is "too easy". I wouldn't want to make it a lot harder. The way the game is balanced requires players expand, so I'd think carefully before throwing more gravel on the path. What I would like to see is planets feeling more special and unique, and for no habitable worlds to feel useless or undesirable. I think I'd prefer habitability matter less, at least in the early game. I'd prefer a system where a number of pops proportional to their hab% can work productively on a non-favoured climate planet, only taking penalties to production, maintenance, and happiness after exceeding a soft cap. Make habitability more of a factor in getting the most value out of a planet, not whether it's useful in the first place.
• Also regarding colonization, I'd love to see some ability to create domed colonies on inhospitable planets. I think the best way of doing this would be to allow domed or subterranean colonies -- with their own special districts -- on terraforming candidates. I'd also like a slightly more complex terraforming system.
• This is a hard one to answer; hadn't thought of this. A version of Mechanist as a civic would be nice. There are times when I'd like to combine another origin with an improved aptitude for robotics. I think some civics need help (Inward Perfection comes to mind; it should have some of the tall build potential of Sovereign Guardianship). I do feel like some of the recent Origins -- Storm Callers, Primal Calling, and Treasure Hunters -- are a bit redundant with their civics. I think I'd prefer they were only civics. There is a disincentive about taking the civics on their own if haven't built your empire concept around the origin centred on the same feature.
• You could remove Espionage without affecting the game or my enjoyment of it. Also, the Galactic Community. Neither of these features are that impactful or engaging and the tradition trees focused on them are absolute dogs as a consequence. I feel like the most notable effect of the GC is that it stomps on exploration and first contact, which are better features in Stellaris. I have no idea what to do with the GC but for Espionage you need to stop being afraid of making it powerful. I understand not wanting to create annoying mechanics -- a lot of sabotage events the player cannot counter -- but you could increase the buffs provided by some mission types. For example, stealing tech could provide the benefits of a research agreement until your mission is rooted out.