Stellaris Dev Diary #361 - The Vision

[Psychokanti]

How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
I think this is fine. There are other systems, but in Stellaris it is okay for most of the time. Maybe I would like a count for one Pop (e.g. One Pop equals 250mio Individuals)

If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
Don't make them smaller. I like big battles.
The think that may be somewhat unrealistic is that my fleets "sit" around most of the time. In real life the navies are always somewhat busy and go around the globe. In Sci-Fi, Ships are often alone on a mission or in smaller fleets. Fleets in Stellaris wait until they are needed and go to the front as a doomstack. Small fleets make no sense because they cant do a lot against doomstacks.


What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
I like playing Stellaris RP-Style. So everything is somewhat important.

How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
I look for the Achievements. On the way to get them I always have minor goals. Get economy in order, get borders in order, vassalize someone.

How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
very little, only that it gives money und give small fleets something to do (Pirates) until you have enough Gateways to get every traderoute directly to the capital.

Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
Maybe, I like to colonize a lot. In late middle or endgame, it should be not that dificult. In reality getting on with a totally new biosphere would be very difficult, when you dont want to life in closed sealed of areas (like the humans in avatar).

Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
I never felt it was a problem. So no.

If you could remove one game system, what would it be?
Galactic storms. They are to artificial, to little of an annoiance and to much micro to get something positive from them.

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

Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?
Diplomacy feels somewhat boring. That is the case in most 4x games i've played.
I had problems spezialising different Space fauna. I cant make two different types of Ameoba because when they where upgraded, the "older" version is upgraded to the newest, regardless of specialisation. For example it was impossible to put one animal with a aura in the stock. After an upgrade, every animal had the same aura, the non aura animal (with one more weapon instead of the aura) was updated to the aura carrying one, despite beeing named differently.

 

[Medicine Man]

Oh yes. Please make a map editor.

 

[Giandalf]

• What is Stellaris to you?
  • For someone like me who likes to role-play empires, Stellaris is a wonderful simulation where I can create a sci-fi/fantasy empire (or play one from the many, many sci-fi tropes out there). From various "alternate reality" versions of humanity to alien races, I can simulate leading them to glory! And since Stellaris is such a complex game where hundreds or thousands of factors influence gameplay, I can even replay my favourites and have a totally different experience! It's a bit of a goldmine in the storytelling department, albeit I don't write down my experiences.
• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  • I like the idea of jobs. That you can assign certain common or special roles to parts of your empire. For example, if you play a feudal empire of plant aliens, it is nice to attribute a significant amount of the population to agriculture. I also like that this changes with civics, for example: Anglers changes agriculture jobs to be more underwater themed. You can have space dwarves mine diggy diggy holes, but you can also have them have specialist jobs with 'master crafters' to give them the flavour of being master artisans. Likewise, when the 'mysterious portal event' shows up, and you attribute a pop to 'portal research' I imagine a sprawling research complex full of scientists trying to probe this portal.
  • Managing pops however is fun for a little while, but as the game enters the mid-game it becomes taxing to control. In the extreme early game, I find that manually shuffling pop jobs to streamline my empire makes it so that my economy runs a lot better. However, because my APM is so low, this makes me tend to play on "extreme slow" 99% of the time. I don't really mind this, it makes most games an epic multi-day experience and I can take my time reading all the text and responding to most notifications. When you enter the mid-game, and you have 10+ planets to manage, however, it becomes a very tiring experience. Specializing your planets helps, of course, but since I don't really trust the AI to do it for me, this still leaves too much to manage. It sometimes burns me out before I hit the late game where the core planets are "done" and mostly pop generators for the outer planets.
• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
  • You can make significant changes. The best change I feel Stellaris ever made was forcing you to split your forces into fleets with a specified commander. I love this and often specialize at least one of my fleets or remember some "amazing thing" one of the fleets has done. Examples are: 'That time the *First Fleet* came to the rescue of the ailing *Second Fleet* at a crucial moment', 'Having a *Shadow Fleet* consisting of nothing but Stealth Ships made for ambushes', 'Executing a three-pronged attack with several fleets'. Especially in the early to mid-game, this is fun. However, because crises are often so massively overpowered that one of their fleets equals three of yours, you are forced to 'doomstack' your own fleets. If you then specialized one of your fleets or have an uneven division of ships (or just coming out of a war) it makes it so they don't move at the same speed and this makes it that battles are more dependent on 'jump timing' than actual fleet layout or strategy. Having to babysit your fleets is extremely exhausting, especially if you also have a war economy to manage.
  • I do want to make special note that I really like ship customization. It's not always super clear what everything does, but I like having fun with it. It also brings flavour to the empire I play whether they use lasers, kinetics, or missiles, and whether they prefer armour, shields, or a bit of both. I do wish it was a little more balanced, that armour is worth the enormous cost in materials. I still dream of my fleet of armour-only stealth aquatic ships that are impervious to space weather.
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
  • To start with, I do like having a nice portrait. It bothers me to this day that the 'aquatics' pack did not come with 'space mermaids', but I guess that is what mods are for. I like variety here in the clothing, hairstyles, looks, animations. It's even fun if they change a little as we cyberize or psionify them. I have to look at this species for most of the game, so having them look sort of how I want kind of matters.
  • I find inventing a society to be a lot of fun. But usually I don't really have enough tools to accomplish this. Don't get me wrong, we can already do a LOT, but there are aspects of a society are hard to define. Take for example my beloved space mermaids: How do I define their completely different technological progression? (A solution is 'enigmatic tech', but that comes later) Their underwater culture? (Portraits of the Aquatic empires do not even allow the cities to be underwater themselves) The fact they can not easily interact with anything that is not waterlocked (especially interesting during infiltration missions, I tend to view spying for space mermaids more as 'hacking'). If I want them to have an affinity with a certain special resource (like crystals, as an alternative to microchips) that is not easy to do (a solution is the paradise ocean origin that starts with crystal caves). Not to mention, the idea of 'religion' should really be a separate tab for all empires. It's way too generic.
  • The 'traits' tab is too short for me. I tend to want to add far more positive AND negative traits to my species than the game allows. Same for empire defining ones. Two options, with a third selectable during the game, is just so little. Take paradise Ocean for example: It always spawns in a nebula, so I really want to try the new options of 'astrometeorology' or 'storm chaser' as those seem in line for a species that has existed in a nebula all their existence. But in order for my build to work, I HAVE to take 'anglers' and 'catalytic processing'.
  • I like the new government system a LOT, but I sort of wish I could rename some of the departments. Sometimes they just sound out of place to me or I find I have a better name for them.
• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
  • They're usually dependent on whatever empire I created beforehand. I go quite in-depth with those. I find it not-fun to play with an empire I do not connect with. The new government feature does make it easier to switch up goals during the game as I sometimes pause the game, look at my governement setup and imagine what decisions they might take. Honestly it doesn't always work out, and sometimes I'm just too tired to do this all the time, but on occasion it has led to some fun story moments. Like when I kept finding Gaia planets, but my species was hydrocentric, so I had them sanctified and built a bit of a religion system around them.
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
  • I kind of like that it all flows to the capital. But it does sound very Warhammer 40K to me. Surely there are other forms of trade out there, no? I'm not too big of an economist, however. I do say that while I like the 'concept' of piracy, the way it is implemented right now (where I have to either sacrifice a fleet or make mini-patrol fleets) is an unnecessary hassle. There are also too little slots in a space station to make it fully suppress piracy and do all the other things I want it to do.
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  • Definitely: case in point: Space Mermaids (or if you want: tropical plant people suddenly in a desert or ice environment) Also, robots have it a bit too easy, I think. Yes they should be able to adapt themselves to other environments, but it should take up a trade slot, or they should have a dedicated centre of 'robot conversion' or something. There are other interesting things you can do with planets. Gravity, oxygen ratio, sunlight/radiation exposure, etc.
• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
  • My memory doesn't extend too deep into the systems to answer this. I could bring up a wiki list of both and check, but this article is long enough as it is.
• 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 desperately want espionage to work better. I absolutely love the idea of agents working in the shadows for the good of your empire. Some of the best moments in games were when I could swing a galactic senate vote with bribes or sabotage a powerful space station and then immediately attack it with a standby fleet that wasn't capable of taking it on before the sabotage. I also feel like 'hacking' should be more prominent, or economy manipulation, government manipulation. This doesn't necessarily mean assassination, btw. And wouldn't it be great to create riots on planets or create a surge in crime on one that already has crime issues?
  • Religion should definitely be the major focus of an expansion, especially internal religious conflicts or wars. As it stands now, all empires have a unified religious system, which I don't find realistic.

 

[Heomji]

• 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?

1. The jobs and pops system is fine, you can deal easily with problems with the right micro-management (nothing like playing StarCraft in terms of actions per minute of course) and if you use the right traditions, techs, and other stuff.
2. I think the biggest thing that could happen to fleets is to create new ship classes between the ones we have right now, as many modders have dedicated themselves to do it with a ton of different ship classes, like exploratory cruisers for example, but it is far from necessary to me. However, it still feels like a fleet with a huge number of different ship classes cannot really compete to a fleet of 30 battleships in some cases, but I'm not really a professionnal at dealing with these, and since I'm a huge roleplayer, I don't optimize my fleets in a way or the other, I just build fairly diverse fleets because I think it makes sense.
3. As I said, I'm a huge roleplayer. I have almost 30 custom civilizations (human military commissariat included) with civics and government based on the backstory I imagined about the evolution both as a society and as a species.
4. As a roleplayer, my goal isn't always to "win" the game, but to prosper while playing as I imagined my empire would evolve in a galaxy. Frustration only comes when it looks like I'm gonna be completely overwhelmed with my empire just because the enemy has more battleships than me and faster. But sometimes, I just tell to myself that a form of government has to change if it is unable to defend itself. Maybe it's not important after all.
5. The current trade system ? Er, I don't understand everything in it except that it brings a ton of energy if I do it right. I try to build a few bastions on the commercial routes when I need to, but only when I must, and sometimes even create some police small fleets of corvettes, frigates and destroyers patrolling in my own space to reduce piracy. It's okay. Of course it would be great if I hadn't to manage this, but what would be the point of having a commercial system if you don't have to secure the cargo highways in your space ?
6. Habitability is okay, I don't think I have to say anything about it.
7. A vast question, I could launch the game and look at it because I easily could have answers to it but right now at the time I'm writing this I don't have much time to launch Stellaris and look at every single civic and origin.
8. Of course, ground combat is what many of us desire for Stellaris, but we often forget that we're not playing Total War or somethingl ike that, wwe're playing a grand strategy game and not some kind of RTS game. I think the situation system used for revolts could be good to expand the planetary invasion gameplay, but I don't really know.
There are some things I would enjoy in the game though, and one thing I think about right now is a true problem with hegemonic federations. I have an empire that I love to play because I really imagined a huge story for them and their past and why they are a miliatry empire seeking to unite the galaxy under their banner, thinking they were picked by an ancient species to be the guardians of the galaxy. I have a huge problem with the hegemony-type federations because it has no link with the Overlord DLC features (different vassal types, etc). A hegemony is a type of federation with a great empire acting as the alliance's core and possibly one or many satellite, smaller empires acting as satellites. It is the exact same thing as getting vassals, but at the time when the Federations expansion came out, it was better. BUT, the Overlord DLC changed that, because you no longer have to build a federation to have many vassals with different focuses, etc.
So, what am I supposed to do ? Build a federation or just take vassals ? It's the same thing, and I think I should get the option to create a hegemony with my vassals as a new kind of overlordship if I spend a traditions tree slot to unlock federations and another one to get the option of creating a hegemony. Because right now, if I do one, I can't do the other one, while they are the same.

Right now that's the thing I think about, because the most recent game I played was with this empire and I really thought to myself "well, it's very boring". And I think it would be simple to add in game as a feature, just having the option of creating a hegemony with your vassals when you unlock the option of creating one.

 

[Grosshaus]

I consider the POP system as it is fun to tinker with in a small empire, but cumbersome as you expand and multiple species and their upgrades came into play. The vision of different rights and traits for each species allowing different jobs or performance in those jobs is excellent and in a way easy to grasp, but overwhelming at some point. A simple tweak could be to allow making templates of race rights, i.e. with simple click you could make changes to all your slave species or all your overlords.

I have never liked the idea of fleets as individual ships. It does make sense for flagships, but hundreds of destroyers should be treated more as a swarm. Few games have done this better than the original Master of Orion. Not just when moving the ships for combat, but also when constructing them. I don't want to see a pageful of lines about individual destroyers being under construction, I want to see that 100 altogether are being built. Or in upgrade.

Initially I did bother tweaking ship designs, but for the past few years I've trusted the suggested templates to be good enough. More ships with bigger numbers in systems is always better anyway.

I have never understood the trade system and feel irritated about pirates. I am missing a feature where I can put a fleet to patrol duty in a sector and not bother with the topic until I need the fleet for an active war.

Colonisation is interesting, but indeed somewhat too easy as the game progresses. Terraforming is so cheap, fast and reliable that there is really no reason to bother with multiple species for different climates.

Land combat is too cumbersome. As first step creating a unit capable of assaulting should create transportation for it simultaneously. There should be no generals at all in the game that you need to bother attaching to armies. You should be perhaps able to tell troops to land after a defined threshold of defending forces have been bombarded. Meaning you shouldn't need to babysit sieges, but they would result eventually in victory CK/EU-style if you have artillery and troops present.

Overall leaders are a useless chore. They are not unique enough individuals that you would care as in CK. Explorers and researches have some meaningful traits that impact the game besides adding percentages here and there. Admirals and governors are just stuff requiring you to click at. Democracy should be nice to play with bonuses and goals given to you from time to time, but I tend not to bother since it means there will be a need to do more with leaders as they keep getting elected from time to time.

There should be something a construction ship does in the late-game or if you aren't able to expand at the moment. Science ships can be assigned to a system to provide science, why not allow construction ships to be assigned to systems to provide resources?

 

[HFY]

I consider the POP system as it is fun to tinker with in a small empire, but cumbersome as you expand and multiple species and their upgrades came into play. The vision of different rights and traits for each species allowing different jobs or performance in those jobs is excellent and in a way easy to grasp, but overwhelming at some point. A simple tweak could be to allow making templates of race rights, i.e. with simple click you could make changes to all your slave species or all your overlords.

We might call this Named Species Rights Packages.

Basically, for my default Full Citizens, I want one set of rights -- and if I have enough CG production later to change from Stratified -> Academic, or Decent -> Utopian, then I want that change to apply to EVERYONE with that set of rights. In the current game, I need to pause and click through the whole list of species, which can be quite long.

Likewise, if I'm playing a less-nice empire, I might want to be able to change all Displacement Purge -> Lathe Purge at some point.

I have never understood the trade system and feel irritated about pirates. I am missing a feature where I can put a fleet to patrol duty in a sector and not bother with the topic until I need the fleet for an active war.

There's a "patrol" button on your fleets which you can sometimes use to suppress Piracy.

But usually it's too much of a pain in the butt.

 

[Grosshaus]

We might call this Named Species Rights Packages.

Basically, for my default Full Citizens, I want one set of rights -- and if I have enough CG production later to change from Stratified -> Academic, or Decent -> Utopian, then I want that change to apply to EVERYONE with that set of rights. In the current game, I need to pause and click through the whole list of species, which can be quite long.

Likewise, if I'm playing a less-nice empire, I might want to be able to change all Displacement Purge -> Lathe Purge at some point.



There's a "patrol" button on your fleets which you can sometimes use to suppress Piracy.

But usually it's too much of a pain in the butt.

I have seen the button to patrol, but have not figured out how to do anything meaningful with it.

 

[Zellith]

I really just want you to get rid of fleet commanders and planet governors. All empire bonuses (at least in the case of democracies) should just be empire wide bonuses. I have neither the time nor the inclination to min max every single world. I dont even use sectors unless things get really big, and even then I dont care to pay much attention to their leaders and bonuses.

I could technically "fix this" by just making a mod where it removes planet, and commander bonuses and just buffs the council to high heaven, and honestly Ill probably end up doing this shortly. I think this type of system is a much better way to go. Your choices would have much more impact there, and its easier to see everything at a glance. There comes a point where I simply do not care what the perks are on every single leader, nor do I care to check what they are!

Im sure it needs a lot more thought and consideration put into it (I cant mod the systems I want to in the way I want, so I didnt think tooooo hard about it), but Im really not happy with the current implementation. Im curious as to what about the current system people actually enjoy.

 

[smile444]

• To start with, I do like having a nice portrait. It bothers me to this day that the 'aquatics' pack did not come with 'space mermaids', but I guess that is what mods are for. I like variety here in the clothing, hairstyles, looks, animations. It's even fun if they change a little as we cyberize or psionify them. I have to look at this species for most of the game, so having them look sort of how I want kind of matters.

Minor nitpick, but...Yes. Please. Make us a merfolk portrait paradox.

 

[Lunar_Mission11]

Rebellion empires should take their ships from existing fleets. It is unfair that a 5 minute old empire can have epic fleet power

 

[Lunar_Mission11]

Lag created by pops and disorganization of the species tab makes genocide a neccesity for those with lower end computers or low tolerance for chaotic user interfaces

 

[Playwars]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  Not very. As much as I've been attached to pops as a day 1 player, they're also a massive source of micromanagement headaches and lag. I've loved games like Space Empires 4 that simplify population to hell and back and I'd be fine with it in stellaris.
• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
  Ooooh that's a tough one. Honestly ? I would be utterly fine with it being a purely turn based autobattler à la Conquest of Elysium 5. Maybe even make it so that fleets cannot engage more than one at a time to prevent doomstacking.
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
  Ascension perks and civics, hands down. I also think we could really use more esotheric ascension paths, as I treat 'be the crisis' ones like Cosmogenesis more or less like one. Having an ascension path focused on megastructures would be amazing for example.
• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
  Generally I set goals for short to medium term objectives that change every hour or so of gameplay. Like building up ecumenopolises and I'll laser focus on that for an hour, or taking down the Khan, which I'll focus on for a bit, ect.
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
  Utterly unimportant and, I would say, useless. The system has been nothing more than an annoyance for me, every step of the way, with the interface for telling you where piracy is occurring breaking down most of the time and it being more or less just a way to tie down a fleet of corvettes until gateways are built. Either establish full logistics with having to ship all resources home to the capital or don't bother at all. I recommend the latter.
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  Oh boy. Yes, and no. Colonization is too easy in the sense that there is never any reason not to do it, bar as a species that literally cannot inhabit other world (usually with one of the unique planet type origins). There's simply no reason not to grab another planet, ever. Expanding is, in effect, far too powerful for that because population growth is tied to the number of colonies you have. No in that I do not wish to have research a billion techs and have genetic engineering to be able to colonize other worlds. Stellaris' greatest strength for me is the wonders, of exploration and construction. Discovering new worlds, relics, artifacts, and then using them to build an empire and build wonders of your own. It's why I love the latest expansion, megastructures and Cosmogenesis (with its fallen empire buildings and ships it feels like you are becoming a precursor of your own, that will leave debris, ships and artifacts for others to find afterwards).
• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
  Synthetic fertility, mechanist, tree of life, progenitor hive, all those should be civics. Anything that doesn't affect the starting system by forcing it to be a certain configuration should be, and I really want to play those 'origins' on, say, life seeded, shattered ring, ect. Dark Compact (the dark matter one, I might have gotten the name wrong) should be an Origin with some kind of special black hole starting system.
• If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?
  Remove ground combat (and, to a lesser extent, espionnage). Ground combat has been a fallacy from day 1 and has remained one for the entirety of the game, as a half forgotten system most people try to pretend doesn't exist.
  Megastructures should be the core focus of an expansion. Give us megastructure ascension paths, traditions and civics, please. They're the coolest thing in the game and I always rushed to take over the keepers of knowledge before they had their ringworlds removed. Furthermore, they could use with a more modular upgrade systems, similar to orbital rings. Give ringworld segments a new tab allowing you to specialize them, deciding for example what the fourth district type on them should be, ect. The same could be done with every megastructure, really, allowing them to be unique for each empire. Something similar to the synaptic lathe for most would be amazing, with some unique buildings and districts allowing them to be modified in various ways. Hell, making them all inhabitable could be really interesting, with all the pops on them given their appropriate jobs (miners for matter decompressor, technician for dyson sphere), with limited housing, amenities, ect, that have to be balanced against resource production, and retire them from being purely a way of breaking the pop efficiency economy, just like the synaptic lathe, though in this case it may need a science nexus rework given that it and the lathe would overlap quite a bit.
  Lastly, I really, REALLY want to enjoy diplomacy but I can't. I actually liked the system pre-rework but the update just completely ruined it. I cannot for the life of me remember when I last used espionnage and the current diplomacy system just sucks. Any cultural or ethical common ground or differences are literally meaningless and will be countered by a single envoy. Once I actually knew who I could probably swing an alliance with from the get go and who I'd need a serious mutual enemy for even the smidget of cooperation to appear. Now the magic 'improve relations' button makes it all meaningless as any cultural and political differences get paved over by the arcane envoy of charming might. An envoy that has no skill level, traits, or anything else, unlike literally every other leader in the game, including generals who literally do nothing besides lead a 'number vs number' minigame that most people pretend doesn't exist. Furthermore, locking an entire core pillar of diplomacy, federations, behind a tradition tree that then requires even more tradition trees to unlock other (better) federation types is just bad. Just let every tradition tree unlock their respective federation, and make the diplomacy tree buff diplomacy and being a federation member. At worst, make it an ascension perk to unlock federations, part of Shared Destiny (that sorely needs a buff) or a new perk 'We Stand As One' or something similar. Then, reverse the diplomacy system to what it once was.
  
  As an afterword, some general requests/comments :
  Please tie the Fallen Empires more tightly into exploration. I love the Head of Zarqlan but there should be more. They are the previous galactic powers, there should be artifacts, outposts, derelict ships and all of that scattered around the galaxy for the player to find. Fallen Empires are one of my favorite bits in the game but they saddly lack a lot of interactions and feel out of place sometimes, having had seemingly little to no impact on the galaxy around them. An expansion centered around them would be a nice touch, as they have been a core feature since day 1.
  Galactic Contender would make for an amazing 'be the crisis', where an Empire seeks to take the 'lightning from the gods' so to speak, and attempting to rise against all the elder species and their wonders.
  The aquatic DLC was a mistake, tying specific traits, ascension perks and such to a single planet type is a terrible idea, especially when the game has 'super planets' with entire ascension perks revolving around them like gaia worlds. Aquatic species (as in the trait) with their ocean only benefits, by default, make them utterly obsolete, and even counter productive. It also makes it so that people don't want to deal with other alien worlds and just terraform everything they encounter.

 

[Baron von Duke]

Sorry if someone else has already posted something like this. I haven't had time to read anyone else's posts.

My only idea to contribute would be that before you could set your scientists to capture space fauna or investigate anomalies post Storms, your science ships stopped being able to 'discover/survey' new systems once everyone blobbed and formed borders. Since I like the eXplore bit the most in my 4X, I wondered how interesting/useful it would be to have more star systems start disconnected from the initial hyperlane network. Then over the course of the game you research Tech that allows you to reach these other systems.
This could be via the ability to create new hyperplane network connections (or destroy them to create new tactical bottlenecks), or else they do exist, but it requires a certain tech to make use of them.
This would give certain origins/civics a distinct advantage if they can use all the star systems within their 'borders' from the get go whilst everyone else needs to scramble for the tech to reach them. In this way, there would be an initial rush to explore/claim stars, then at some point in the mid game you get another chance to explore a new set.
I see this leading to horrible borders if someone has a sufficient tech advantage to enable them to claim stars that might sit 'within' another nation's borders.

 

[Khalael1155]

Hi. Wall of text incoming ...

How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
I’ve gotten used to it, but it feels lackluster in mid to late game. Afaik, all players tend to "focus" worlds on tech, alloys, etc.; pop count doesn’t matter much at that point. I would suggest that (a) if you maintain the same "district" system, you merge building slots with district slots, so that everything takes up the -1 district count (from a mine to a research lab); just keep some limitations or bonuses for planet diversity. (b) If you change to "real" pop numbers (no tokens), then overhaul everything related to jobs/buildings.

If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
To be honest, all I want to preserve is the fleet icon and the arrows showing where the ship icon will move. The "inners" could (and should) change however you like. If I may suggest, preserve units as ships, retaining some variety and configuration, but make them work more like "armies," blending them together into a single unit (not a swarm of individual units with an illusion of coherence). Add tactics and real counters (like in Imperator: Rome). I like "designing my own ships," but feels more like a time sink rather than an strategic choice ("refit-to-counter"). On the other hand, land combat and sieges need to be more relevant or removed entirely.

What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
Origin and race—that’s the "theme" of my games. In that regard, I think races should be A LOT more different than they are now. I’d personally group them Humanoids (Humanoids, Mammals, Avian, Reptilians), Invertebrates? (Arthropods, Molluscoids), Plantoids (Plantoids, Fungoids), Lithoids, Necroids?, Mutants (Toxoids, Mutants), Robots; and give each family its own set of unique traits (like plantoids).

How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
For me, the game builds from the start with a goal and theme in mind. Then you tweak some things depending based on the map (ie: neighbor compatibility, crises, precursors, archaeological sites). As for now, I think the lacks a good way to end it, aside from the implicit "Conquer-all" or "Win-by-Score" and the very recent Nemesis and Cosmogenesis updates.

How important is the current trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
How importan is it right now? It feels meaningless.
What if would like to see: 1 - Redraw trade routes. 2 - Make it significant (and maybe limited); trade should represent inner logistics and outer commerce. Regions should starve or outer resources if not connected to the trade network and distance should be a fector in its efficicency. You can't trade outwards with something you can't reach or at least not at 100% efficiency. Maybe use sectors to centralize trading regions.

Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
Yes, is too easy, but it's not the main issue. Rather than focusing on habilitability (which might be a little too irrelevant late game), I would work on worlds / climate themselves. Aquatic worlds are a good example of what can be done.

Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
Any civic that cannot be removed after the game starts, should be an Origin (just balance the numbers); after all, that’s the history and legacy of your civilization up to that moment. It should also remain relevant throughout the game, or offer a defining reward if you complete its associated goal / story (like Bounty Hunters or Knights of the Toxic God) .

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?
Systems to remove: None; Systems to improve: A bunch.
Focus of the next expansion: Quick answer: Races and Traits. Long answer: Races, Traits, Origins, Worlds, and Jobs. I want to feel a real difference when I change someting.
Systems that doesn't work or could be improved: (a) Espionage: it doesn’t feel like a useful investment and is boring; (b) Diplomacy: needs some love and a UI update; (c) Factions: nice for unit in early game "more unity", fades late game, hapiness is somewhat irrelevant.

 

[Star Heintinuse Dragon]

Repost here cause I have added too much edit so I decided to delete the previous post and make a new one with better format.

1. Can there exist other type of necro gameplay other side Reviving ground army and space fauna please?
The reanimator civics were weird you can revive leviathan but not space fauna?
For mechromancy to be unique they can revive mech pops, mech leviathan like scavenger bot, infinity machine, enigmatic fortress, artificial ships? (those ships we normally produced with alloys, not too much to be overly OP of course) ....

2. Can Necroids revive some fallen ships? now that you also have some idea in mind for bio ships? Aside from resources that civic is pretty bland in gameplay.

3. Necroid is based around necromancy so can we randomly add some dead pops like bones or skeletons or zombies to be our workers? That will turn all purged xenox into one type of pop that only used one portrait or their portrait changed like that one paragon Azaryn. There are empires that mess with ascension, eldritch, genes, but I dont see a lot of lore messing with Death or corresponding gameplay (lifespan is more leaning on Life). Most have argued Driven Assimilator is a better version.
I know some of this is so weird for ideas but please just rework Necroids gameplay or add something I'm begging.

(Please necromancers players help me out for this part)

4. Player crisis or natural crisis is usually dangerous and everyone wanted to kill them as fast as possible but what if those crisis is not dangerous and give boost for everyone at first? Then can turn from docile to dangerous based on 50% roll dice like defender of the galaxy FE? Similar to Cetana where we cant fight her at first even though we surely knew she was a crisis. This new player crisis will be bio focused, the crisis boost tech gain and amenities they dont have any fire power at first only pop growth boost or anything else tremendously that require other empire to protect them and can engage in diplomacy. Its the counterpart to Cosmogenesis Crisis. So I can finally have an excuse to let the xeno fry my PC and be a good guy. When the crisis got big enough its behavior changed like the voidworms, with every empire that have pop from the crisis they got bombardment stance or lower stability from the crisis pops or worst get infected and get converted into the crisis's pop (any mechanic is fine as long as I dont have to fight). I did play genocidal empire but warring for countless times got boring and I want non-war route for a change of pace in a while. A crisis that is so beneficial that you are unable to kill it or just wanted to let it live instead, until it hit you to the face at end game when it stole some planets from you "a small price to pay for power". I want more non-fighting option but can still be a crisis

5. Intel map. Its weird that the player can only see their intel on other empire but cant see how much intel other empire have on the player it will be easier for me to conduct purge secretly without Xenophile FE right behind my back wanted to end me. And some weaker empire with low intel on me so I can taunt so much till they get angry at me and launch war at me before getting a reality slap or I can hide my genocidal intentions from xenos eyes. Some spy action to decrease intel of other empire on the players more effective when their empire is stronger or just bluffing (without getting discovered theyre actually very weak so we have to make second guess making war is a good idea).

- Spy, Factions, Scheming, Politics is what I wanted to experienced more along with Trades so that Suberfuge Tradition isnt that useless anymore. The influence cost for each spy actions is not worth spending because all of them either does not work well with current mechanics cause influence gain is so slow, stealing tech or sabotage starbase is bad compared to building doom stacks or scholarium. Make it when you have stronger spy tech to the target you have reduced influence cost.

Or spy actions do not need influence cost anymore and only cost infiltration level or intel (any other cost is fine as long as is not influence because spy is something we need to do usually in real life, gathering information frequently, so placing a limit on espisonage with influence cost which is the the slowest resources to be gained in the game is weird)

- Give spy the options to leak information to the enemy of the target or vassal that we want to guarantee independence, we have the option to create private arms inside their border than it mean we can leak those info of borders to others right? It will be pretty funny that one big enemy of yours got invaded by smaller empires, cause they send all their fleets to fight the smaller fleet while leaving their home planet undefended cause a third party leak their intel and fleet composition. Even better is that some weaker enemy empires make a secret alliance with our spy, we provide them the intel they do the war for us. Or a service of renting spy master from stronger empires that the cost is influence per month or a sum of influences with discounted price from Suberfuge Tradition. Or a spy enclave, shroud enclave only give us intel and nothing else to do while our spy can do better without spending that much influence.

- Give spy the option to spread ethic, create situations life changing situations to lower stability and cause revolt, add some way for spy to increase target crime rate and negotiate with their crime lord to steal resources from that planet without the owner knowing because our intel or spy tech is higher, we get resources in exchange the criminal will get more political and reduce enforcer effectiveness, those drug lord modifiers or crime meta will be viable again, sabotage trade routes so sometimes the route must be fix or else (Its a death sentence for MegaCorp or trade focused empire or if trade get a rework in the future). The Faction mechanics will finally be more interesting than resources generation now, cause spy will have more ways to influence them and causing internal politics to be more engaging.

6. Add UI rework and Quality of Life updates. I really love these updates centered around this. My biggest hooked in the recent patch is literally the UI new game start UI rework, I know how the mechanic work but clicking every each one of them and having to remember what buttons do is exhausting while I should be focusing to play instead.

Resources pannel should seperate basic resources and strategic resources, abstract resources and action that can be done with astral, minor artifact and Influence in the same tab that once clicking on the resources icon the action for that resources can be chosen.

The battle mechanic in this game is not fully represented aside from numbers something i didnt know what retarget range of strike craft mean and why are they seperated from range, 25 degree arc what is that? Why tracking is different to chance to get hit? maybe give a short video intro section so each time we view a weapon components to show how it work? Like how the point defense shot down missle or strike craft animations? its not a pleasant experiences for newbies to understand what point defense, with just description please give indicator or affinity effectiveness or sth.

Example: flak strong against strike craft they have green arrows like in
Pokemon effective elements and you can see the post of someone who posted in 2018 named Compact Combat View UI by Agamidae for reference.
+other people post: Reference for the most urgent UI/UX problems in current Stellaris by King Harkinian

Another one is species tab UI rework, There are a lot of different species I have but on the specie tab they only show capital planet when I tried to locate them, so everytime I need to find them to resettle and literally name my planets Factory 1, 2 to have an easy time recognizing where that species is currently in. For pre sapients species I agree that you have to colonize them first then uplift later for logical sense, but can we have any way to mark them differently? Like for planets with sapient give some indicator or sth so its easier than just checking every planet on the map in expansion planner.

Also I have an idea that if you have enough intel on the foreign empire you will know which pop or species is located in the foreign empire, which will give espionage some flavours. And sending some of noxious and repugnant pop to add in the mix. Imagine you conquer the planet just to terraform the Enemy aquatic species planet from ocean world to dessert with the highest pop count planet then return it the planet after you failed to conquer it, that strong fleet power empire now have an economy crisis and a revolt coming.

Example: I only wanted to target some enemy specie because of their traits but when I finished conquering I dont find them cause they migrate before I get to bombard them. I cant wage war after that cause I'll risk another federation war. Or when I wanted to kill only the enemy pop when purging, not a non enemy pop to also add another enemy in the process.

7. Storms I love the idea or more non static events like storms, its like real life challenges where you have to deal with harsh weather and terrain effect.
(Even if other players find it annoying)

But the current implementation is not very good, the buildings does not heal storm devastation on planet gain daily only reduce portion the damage is giving which is DMG reduction. Can we have some tech that affect buildings to reduce the negative effect like we can neutralized ship negative effect from storm how about buildings? Planet? Tech to make the storm end quicker than normal and tech to prolong it, perhaps way to increase the lethality to make storms one of the weapon for war (so the storm chaser origin dont suck anymore), that when the storm creator got found out without cloaking they created the storm on another empire border the storm creator get bad opinion (listening post and cloak tech will be more meaningful).

The empire with the storm chaser unique origin and ascension path got the unique ability to cancel a storm immediately (with cost to balance out) this cause empire that does not have this ascension perk or origin to think twice angering storm chasers or storm focused tech, cause they'll give you cosmic storms crisis gifts + with the effect of spawning in border multiple storms higher then usual, it discourage warring empire to attack the empire with storm chasers origin to conquer planets (they have less fleet but no warring empire want to anger them). They also get to have a way of reliably choose what planetary buff they get after a storm have past their borders, (the unity buff help me a bunch late game after a storm give me one)

Aside from causing devastation how about some storms that do not give devastation? and give plenty of bonus that is rare to get that you tried your hardest to attract them or prolong them to boost your economy? Pop growth storm, Tech quantumn storm, Storm that cause mutations (I loved event like these cause this show the mystery and potential of the galaxy is endless)... They can spawn unique events or species or creatures, empire (we literally have shroud storm spawn deposit of nanite and zro imagine combine this with knight of toxic god event where we spawn daemon incursions). An idea for a non genocidal crisis, the crisis of natural force that spawn devastation they dont kill, they can have diplomacy, but other empire died on their own because their economy cant handle it.

After being the storm chasers you harness the power of natural enviromental force. I noticed that we dont have a lot of empire utilizing natural forces in this game we have clouds lightning with lore stating damaging ships but none take advantage of that, space amoebas attacking fleets,... why dont any empire manipulate those space fauna and natural forces in the dark? Example: for xenophobe the special project to turn new fauna species go into berserk stage and attack random empire on the map, but the mastermind dont own the berserk fauna, so no empire attack the initiator (unless the intel is too high), like those empire knew someone cause the fauna to turn more hostile than usual but they dont know who to make the blame.

I just notice another problem with Stellaris namely Devastation mechanic: Please add tech to reduce devastation for planets daily or heal from devastation for nomal gameplay without storms as well as with storms gameplay. Aside from building Fortress theres no other way to deal with devastation mechanic, sometimes we do some stupid choice on anomaly and we have 40 devastation with the only thing to do, is to just wait till they recover slowly. Even kill new runs after just spawned.

Like how come the new storm mechanic came with devastation which is one of the "death sentence" mechanic in game? Devastation cant be healed and have little way to interact with it, no wonder it create more annoyance than hooking players, the devastation mechanic need a rework. Either rework devastation or seperated storm negative modifier with something else not associated with devastation, because with the current devastation mechanics it doesnt help with making the storms more attractive. Make those storm chaser have trait to decrease devastation daily or sth (or they are not affected by storm devastation or devastation mechanic because they adapt too many time to curp storm negative effect so they outright exempt from devastation mechanic in general), also for whatever empire have pops with the trait storm chaser the storm negative effect got lessened which will made the origin or mechanic more nuanced and interesting, empire will more likely to have migration treaties with storm focused empire. (Another crazy idea) The storm related empire will now be one of the neutral OP empire so if you have research agreement with them, they provide a buff devastation heal daily tech (crucial for war and non war at the same time)

Next is buildings i agree that the buildings needed to build for storm are invasive for other slots, so instead of buildings on planet we can let the military ships (least usage outside of war) using their shields to block the effect for the planets in exchange the ship gain exp for engaging in the storms or constructions ship help lessen the burden by making environmental hazard force field (cheap if you research the tech of course). Buildings build for storm (just give the original buffs modifier for these buildings and add some more) will give additional research bonus, research modifier, and storm relief have their unique specialist clerk (or another specialist job) that give resources depending on storm taking place (the shroud storm zro, nanite resources is insane potential for storm mechanic) and made them upgradable buildings of course with no strategic resources upkeep. Storm attraction center is my biggest (?) because they give very little amenities compare to holo theatres, storm relief give less resources than interstellar complex? the storms mechanic is bad already but you have to combine it with the bad buildings as well? Storm repulsion center and storm attraction center is in the middle of how I like it because of unity boost and research jobs, so im not really against that building.

8. I would like to see more ascension on the strategic resources and rare resources ascension path and gain more of them in the process. Like the machine with nanites tradition, what about dark matter? Astral threads, minor artifact, living metal, zro? (we have moles, exotic gas, crystal are perfect for lithoid too but I want to have an ascension or traditions path for this)

9. An ascension path where machine turn into biological. The machines got bored or wanted to try other possibility and turn from metal to fleshes. A machine empire that longs for the complexity of flesh and blood. I mean gray the nanite swarm can change into our species portrait, in real life meat can be artificially create in the lab without killing livestock.

10. Space fauna that come from DLC is really a let down with the civic and origin. Also why no weapon replacement for fauna only preset? 6 slots hardly mean anything coupled with the high resources cost, its better to do it at mid or end game but the investment is not worth it because of the problem above id better off with alloy ships. Pls add some more things to do with vivarium and expand the limit why only 200? I was looking forward to capturing cloud lightning, vluur or having lore about vluur but i guess I was expecting too much. Add some more diverse fauna ecosystem, in game right now the galaxy have loads of mysteries but the space fauna species count are only 7 (8 if you have here be dragons origin).
Extra: Aside from Necroids rework, add some thing to base game species too fungoid, molluscoid, mammalian, anthropoid, avian, reptilian. I really like the species only mechanic features and made them more relevant and crucial, unique and also because most species are left in the dust for ages. Xeno compatibility will reign terror once more. (I like this weird feature if only my PC wont be fried by this one). Along with space fauna and bio ships I hope biological pops got some love too

Extreme Extra: About game optimization, welp, I'm beating a dead horse anyway everyone knows of Stellaris performance issues and bugs, lag (the worst and crucial issue of all these time), multiplayer, etc other will speak for me regrading this.

Stellaris has remained the ultimate exploration-focused space-fantasy strategy sandbox
I agree with this sentence a lot I came here for this, but somehow most of the mechanic in going forward, meta or end game, casual game have the minium requirements of military power. Please add or buff or make it equal between war gameplay and non-war gameplay, most of the time being a good ethic empire without fleet cripple everything. Whats the point of being pacifist and have many friends when just fleet power is to render your play over, I mean we are pacifist why would I build that many fleet? Make it the more friends we have the higher political power so AI less likely to fight, else its pointless to be those good ethics when the best way to play is to have a minimum of militarist. Give us more non fighting option for events, anomaly, gameplay....

The game right now make everyone go war or fighting because it is too rewarding to be a warmonger than the opposite play style. I'm not telling you to nerf the game but to buff underwhelming part to be at equal with each other.

I really like this dev diary for revising and update past contents we have tons of new stuffs already theres no harm looking back and improving stuffs we already have. Some of these are are very hard to be implemented but I can dream right?

 

[MetalSil]

I'll be writing this in list of priorities

1, improved ground battles. Planetary invasion needs to be fun and interesting its a core mechanic of wars and so needs some attention.
2, Bio-tech, im not talking the current path im talking pythorian like, tyranids, zurg and so on. Living ships, all the tech being fleshy and alive. A hive mind variant of this would also be good but it should have non hive mind stuff too.
3, A new Crisis, something to bring about a new challenge that we have not seen before.

 

[user192823]

Imo, Stellaris has two big problems:
A) SPACE COMBAT: It's simply bad. All it amounts to is dumping as many alloys into ships as possible, there's little to no interactivity. There's 4 big powerspike techs: Cruisers, Disruptors, Kinetic Artillery and Proton Launchers, and then there's the two Crisis AP perks that give unique ship types that obsolete the regular ones and basically amount to player cheating. The AI is also terrible because it has static designs based on personalities, which are based on ethics.

To put into perspective how badly designed Stellaris space combat is take a look at Galactic Civilizations 2, a game from two decades ago: it also has a basic combat with a three split of energy/kinetic/explosives, except all three paths are viable to either hyperfocus, or be a jack of all trades. And the AI actually counter retrofits fleets against enemies. If nothing else, Stellaris AI should atleast be made to retrofit ships to counter player cheese: at least put those armor hardeners if the player is disruptor maxxing, and the weapon/armor priorities, if not tailored to counter an enemy, at least randomized.

There's much that can be done for space combat but an example of simple change would be to imitate Endless Space 2 space combat: implement an enhanced rock/paper/scissors "combat strategy" fleet stance that gives buffs/debuffs during combat when faced with other fleet stances. Different fleet strategies could require different techs and ship type proportions in the fleet. This would give at least some seasoning on simply overwhelming/being overwhelmed by superior production, would discourage mono-fleets and may give the player a surprise or two for being reliant on overproduction. Of course, it would require enemy fleet stats to not be visible by hovering over an enemy ship, and the AI to make use of such feature correctly.

B) ILLUSION OF CHOICE: most game stats and mechanics are either overabundant, non-impactful, or both. Only two really matter: resources from jobs and pop growth/assembly, and both can be obtained in abundance, ship cost/upkeep also used to be among those but it has been trimmed down. Amenities are weak, stability is important but can be easily capped, happiness is weak and can be easily capped, habitability, housing, crime etc... Most civics are weak gameplay wise, usually as a result of most modifiers being trivial in game impact, some civics are must, same for traditions, ascension perks, ethics, techs, ship types, ship weapons, origins... It's rare for the game to have you choose between several equally viable power-wise and mutually exclusive paths: the most notable are origins (among the few impactful ones), and ascension paths, though they have major power gaps depending on resources from jobs and pop growth that they can give.

 

[Izileth]

• To me Stellaris is a single player (I know people do multiplayer) roleplaying game with grand strategy and 4x elements. Being able to craft and rp distinct empires that have unique attributes both in terms of their race and their governments. The more freedom and control I can have to do this and the more meaninful choices are the more interesting and fun the game is to me.

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  Not important in and of themselves, but specialized and optimized planets, the the level of control you have on planetary production is very important to me.
  
  
• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
  I honestly haven't liked the system since the rework, I feel like it added complexity without having a good payoff. I would like fleets to have more distinct identities, and control over how they engage other fleets. Control is a key aspect for me, don't like the current system so a change would be fine.
  
  
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
  Everything. Specifically, I rarely change my civics, origin is a big deal for me, I like to RP so I make decisions based off my empire's personality and the goals/concept I decide on before starting a playthrough. I like decisions that have lasting and meaningful consequences, especially relations with AI empires.
  
  
• 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 up my empire/race concept and set a play style and goals before starting and generally stick with it given a little flexibility based off the way things play out.
  I normally decide on certain goals like victory condition, rather I will take vassals, rather I want to start a federation, and what style of early mid end game fleets I want, how I will treat AI empires (both enemies and allies), what ascension path I will take (along with sub paths for psionics and mechanical), how I am going to deal with AI and slaves, any oddity combo goals (like conquer and enslave the corporate overlords in payback, then nerve staple them and turn them into livestock), what ascension perks and traditions I will take and in what order. I normally have pretty complicated goals and detailed goals and plans for each playthough.
  
  
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
  Don't care for it at all, I wish trade between empires was more important.
  
  
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  I wish colonies and planets had more distinct identities and personalities, I know sometimes they do (like the ones with the giant war beasts, or fungul spores, or brain slugs), I would love to see planets get distinctive cultures and bonus's penalties and events because of it, for instance I would love it if the manifesti event ark left long term effects on a planet.
  
  
• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
  Origins should not be changable Civics should. I would like to see more options for origins (planet origin, cultural origin, maybe even biological origin allowing for a lot more flexibility, no idea of to balance this). (For instance Things like Shattered Ring, Life Seeded, Doomsday, Void Dwellers, Ocean Paradise, ect are planet origins, things like knights of the toxic god, prosperous unification, imperial fiefdom, scion, teachers of the shroud, storm chasers, primal calling, ect are cultural origins, and biological orgins would be something like Progenitor Hive, Necrophage, Syncretic Evolution, Subterranean, would be biological).
  
  
• If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?
  I don't really want to see any system removed. I would love to see something that makes a full zerg fantasy possible, biotechnology, bioships, disease/plague operation options, assimilation, ect. I want to enjoy Empire Sprawl and Ground Combat but the current implementation of each doesn't work well for me.

 

[NotAYakk]

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

Current system isn't important, specifically. But I really appreciate how Stellaris gets behavior emergent from smaller details.

It is great for roleplaying that you see pops working on tasks. But, for example, if instead of directly producing resources, pops working on jobs changed the cost of buying resources instead of directly producing them.

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

I find the doomstack problem to be serious. I do like, again, that you have microscopic details that generate emergent results.

For fleets, something to make fleets fight fleets moreso than doomstacks. And for combat to interact more with the galactic map. Actual fronts.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

I find origin and civics to be highly important. Next up is ethos (when available). Sometimes the species type (plant, mineral, robot) also matters.

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

I mean, I'm usually doing some strange build at this point. So yes, goals and limitations. When I complete a goal, I look for another, and if I don't have any, well, the game sort of ends.

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

The trade-to-capital isn't that important. I do like that Trade interacts with the galactic map. But trade is no different than any other resource, other than it has different multipliers.

I think trade should be more interesting. And I think it should be a significant advantage for non-hive intelligence.

Trade on the map is important. Trade needs to interact with the galactic map. Going to the capitol is one way.

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

I find the game can easily devolve to planet spam. I think building a colony when you aren't the right species should require building infrastructure (life support infrastructure).

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

Most definitely.

We really need a "minor origin" feature. Origins are currently monolithic, and define a lot about how you start up.

There are roughly three kinds of civics. There are the ones that are a lot like a ethos or similar - they tend to be not removable after game start. These are a kind of "mini-origin".

Another kind significantly changes how your empire and its economy acts. Catalytic processing and a few others.

The last are just tiny modifiers that you could honestly ignore.

The "mini-origins" should be moved into an "ethos" category of origin, foundational principles of your empire. They are more similar to "egalitarian" and the like than they are to civics.

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

Ground combat is pretty bad, and I really want to make it enjoyable.

Influence-tied system claiming, especially early on, feels very gamey.

Space combat in general is far too doom-stacky. I want at least some eras of warfare to involve battle fronts.

Star bases are nearly irrelevant at every point in the game.

Planetary Ascension is the least interesting system you have right now. It is just a unity dump as far as I can tell.

 

[naluboard]

Hello! I don't think I've ever used my pdx forum account, but I saw this and wanted to leave my thoughts on this game as a relatively long-term... fan? of it(playing since Utopia!) as i respect the asking for feedback in this list format.

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

Not particularly important, but a few things that this system has for knock-on effects when you scale up just how many pops exist in any given empire. It makes micromanagement a nightmare, it makes bio ascension the height of atrocious micro, and i suspect it lags the game, so if these can be worked on i'd quite like it overall.

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

It was already done years ago. Give me back Wormhole FTL and make Jump Drive scary again!

Now, I know in my heart that it will never, ever return to be like this, so I will simply mention changes to the current system. I'd like all ship sizes to be useful in some way, and not fall into battleship and destroyer spam. I'd like to be able to save fleet designs between games like I do empires, and I'd like you to have to choose what basic weapon type you have at game start(so you can pick kinetic, but have to research laser and missiles as an example), like it was back then, so that there is irregular starts and tradeoffs in terms of advantages to research. I realize that this isn't the question, so let me say that feel free to make significant changes. Just take feedback!

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

That I won't be rolled by an insane corvette rush doomstack year 15, or face a 40k fleet size in year 20(looking at you progenitor...) so that there's genuine variety in empires vs what's good. Secondary is the space design fantasies.

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

More recently I've been playing multiplayer, so usual goals is to embarrass other players(in good fun), keep pace with a friend who's a god tier stellaris player, and prepare for crises. So it's more of a flow of priorities, goals are generally long term.

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

Bad system. Janky, fleet patrolling isn't appealing, starbase trade management isn't appealing, have to set up routes between systems which is janky, honestly the old pirates were more threatening. Overall starbases need a complete overhaul, they've always been bad but now they're outclassed fleet size wise by year 50, and are niche before then. I always avoid empires that rely on trade.

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

I like playing with a mod that adds a lot of different planet types, then arranges them based on a temperature & humidity chart. This adds big time to fantasies, as there's more types of planets depicted so you can imagine a way a civilization lives better, and makes more interesting choices for really middling habitability options.
On it being easy? Well, let me just say that lithoids and robots need to go. Never liked the habitability inflation going on throughout the game's dev cycle. DO NOT make habitability penalties matter more without giving other nerfs to lithoids and robots for ignoring this system!

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

Calamitous birth should be a civic. Anglers should probably be rolled into ocean paradise, since you are never ever taking one without the other and also not doing aquatic. Genesis guide is so powerful it probably should take up an origin slot. Inward perfection could use a little rework but could justifiably be a orgin, not needed though. Oppressive autocracy could be one, but then you can't pair it with under one rule so probably not an orgin.

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

Remove espionage, it does not work, straight up. Does nothing except for like 3 notable things for specific scenarios. Embarrassing system. For a central focus of an expansion, ground combat? You can tie it into xcom-like fantasies, and make the siege of planets a give/take thing in terms of building defenses then designing things to deal with those defenses. I want to enjoy dip weight and the galactic UN, but fleet weight just balloons and makes the whole system underutilized. Maybe less gunboat diplomacy in future?

This seems rather complain-y and nitpick-y, because it is! I just have had major issues with how this game has been developed over the years, so another change is fine by me. By the way, the new grand archive stuff is very good, to end on a positive note. Wouldn't mind more "smaller sized(distant stars, Leviathan, & Grand Archive)" packs in the future!