Stellaris Dev Diary #361 - The Vision

[NotAYakk]

I think that Stellaris becomes a greater and greater game the more we move away from tabletop mechanics, arbitrary limits and hard caps (I find that most games that take too much from tabletop suffer in the end because of it as opposed to specifically being a computer game).

For example, stuff like Leader cap, leader level cap, starbase size limitations, building amount limitations/building slots and districts amounts, and certain events as well, in my opinion cheapen the game a bit by railroading the flow of the game and thus limiting freedom in gameplay. Basing the game more on gameplay loop rather than limited happenstances would greatly help the replayability of stellaris (and perhaps it's pereniallity once it's finished).

I think Stellaris having more transient states as opposed to some hard limitations encasing it would allow the game to reach further for players.

Without Leader Cap you get Leader Slosh.

I want my decisions with leaders to be meaningful. If I have a continuum of leaders, those decisions are not meaningful.

The leader limits are, if anything, far too loose - as the game progresses, my leaders do turn into soup, a nearly uniform resource I just toss at slots. I do some specialization work, but it is at a very crude level, and eventually I get tired of it as not being worth thinking about.

With fewer leaders, those leaders can in turn have larger impact. Each decision matters more to the game, and so does each leader.

...

For starbase sizes and the like, the problem is that whenever something has a great return on investment, if it is uncapped it individually breaks the game.

Ie, suppose starbases cost X resources to grow in size and there was no limit. For each size, you can build a structure that produces Y resources per turn. If Y/X is too high, then the entire game turns into a starbase building singularity.

On the other hand, if starbase sizes and counts are capped, and Y/X is really good, then ... you get a modest bonus by building the Y structure.

You can also "soft cap" this with exponential costs and non-exponential benefits. So the cost of upgrading the starbase is X * K^(previous size of starbase), and the benefit is Y. I can even be X K^(#) cost and Y M^(#) benefit, with M<K. Now you can make insanely huge starbases, and eventually the cost:benefit ratio falls far enough that it is a vanity project and not a serious benefit.

The game can then have ways to discount the cost of starbases (X), reduce the cost-increment rate (K, so long as it stays far enough above M) or boost the benefit of starbases (Y).

But this does mean that you are leaving "newbie traps" in the game. And tuning this kind of thing is harder than tossing out a hard cap.

 

[Mohreb]

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?

If i could just propose one thing:
Quality of life for the inter galactic community.
I would like to use it instead of dreading to interact with it (it ask to often to state what is my position on an issue, even if i already stated that i am for/against a thing)
To me the ideal solution would be to set an optional "target" to resolutions, where my country positions itself when propositions are made do manual interaction is still a possibility but i am not forced to (maybe except some unprevisible resolutions, like galactic threats, but that is ok to alert once in a while, but not constantly as it is today)

 

[coreymckrill]

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

In the same vein as this earlier comment, the espionage system feels half-baked to me. The list of available operations against other empires seems small and unfinished--there are even filters to show only certain types of operations, but there aren't actually enough available to make filtering necessary. In addition to the things mentioned in the other comment, I think it would be cool to add more operations, and potentially make the Subterfuge tradition more interesting to adopt. Some off-the-cuff ideas:

* Propaganda campaign to change the ethics of a certain number of target empire's citizens, or perhaps just increase ethics shift chance
* Propaganda campaign to lower stability and/or increase crime in a specific sector or planet
* Sabotage colony operation, when completed lets you pick an empire's colony and add one from a selection of debuffs that lasts 5-10 years
* An "underground railroad" operation that allows citizens of the target empire to migrate to your empire even without a migration treaty. Or perhaps make it specific to slave pops, "stealing" them from the other empire, but only allow the operation to be performed by empires that don't allow slavery, so the pops become free once they are stolen
* Operation that allows for building hidden holdings on target empire's worlds
* Sabotage a fleet
* Assassinate a leader, or give them a negative trait
* Steal ship design
* Plant misinformation (reduce target empire's intel level on your empire)
* Hack a fleet to temporarily put it under your control
* Siphon a monthly amount of a specific type of resource for 5-10 years
* Defend against hostile operations of a specific type

Some other ideas to make espionage more interesting:

* An option for assets to defect, which would remove them from the asset pool, but give you a one-time intel bump
* Make intel levels in different categories more dynamic, so that you can focus on a particular category and raise it, rather than having to, e.g. get your total intel level up to 90 to get a high level in military intel. Perhaps acquiring assets from different categories helps with this.
* Make envoys a full-blown leader type that can gain experience and traits
* Allow for espionage against enclaves, marauders, and fallen empires

 

[Critical Ethics]

I will leave here what I wrote on reddit:

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

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

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

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

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

I don't think anyone hates ground combat. What everyone hates is transports. I think I've said this elsewhere, but I think each ship should have a "bombardment" module with ground combat being what happens when some of the ships bombarding a planet (or station in this crazy new world) have their bombardment module full of troops.

 

[judicator070]

I'd like to thank the Stellaris team for having this discussion with players! Much of my feedback will be about how I would like to see more use cases for situation progress and events. It's a great game mechanic and it should be more widely integrated into the game.

I think that planet colonization is too easy. I believe that situation progress and events should occur during colonization, such that throughout the colonization process you would have to dedicate a continuous flow of resources, and deal with any events that come up, such as dealing with the local wildlife and climate, and the type of events could depend on habitability and planet type.

This also ties into my thoughts about conquering planets. I believe that situation progress and events should occur during conquest. Remove army fleets altogether and replace them with situations and events, such that throughout the conquest process you would have to dedicate a continuous flow of resources, and deal with any events that come up. Essentially, slowing down the conquest and inserting events for aggressive or siege stances, and the same could apply to having events for different defensive stances. The stances could be changed in the situation progress screen. And at each level of situational progression, your choices to events, your stances along with your military power would affect the outcome of planetary conquest until either the situation completes or is abandoned with having either succeeded or failed.

Go ahead with making significant changes to fleets. It would be great if you removed those defenseless army fleets, and instead, fleets would have ship component modules representing which armies they carry, which also contribute to military power. And again, events, stances and military power would be affecting the outcome of the conquest situation. Fleets could initiate orbital bombardment and/or deploying their pods down to the planet. Oh, and orbital bombardment with situation progress and events too.

If I could remove one game system, it would be the trade route system. I often seem to forget that it even exists. Sure, I'll guard the trade route with a small fleet of corvettes or build other defenses, but again, I believe that events would fit nicely here to deal with pirates and smugglers.

Please have an expansion that expands on politics. Don't remove political factions, just make them more important in influencing members of the council, the agendas, diplomacy, as well as empire and leader modifiers. And create new events that could make political factions a cause for praise or concern depending on which of the factions hold power and what our governing ethics are.

The current systems that use individual pops and jobs are not important to me, so I'm not opposed to this being changed. I recall hearing the game director once say that pop mechanics were better in other games, and so as long as Stellaris has years of continued support, I'm okay with the change.

After reading Dev Diary 363, I'd like to add onto my previous comments here and say a few more things.

I'm so glad to hear you agree that the situations system is an incredible tool for the content designers! As I've previously mentioned here, situation progress and events are a great game mechanic, and it is all the more reason that it should be more widely integrated into the game. I would like to see situations and events for colonization, terraforming, planetary conquest, orbital bombardment, and so much more!

For the colonization situations, events could include stories such as colonists dying from hypothermia and other illnesses, especially when attempting to colonize a planet where the habitability isn't so great. And for the terraforming situations, events could include decisions between whether to completely destroy the local fauna and flora without any care or at least trying to preserve some specimens as an act of kindness. I'd also like to suggest senate resolutions for determining whether terraforming is even permitted. For the conquest situations, events could include the army suffering from attrition while fighting on inhabitable planets. For the bombardment situations, events could include targeting civilian or military buildings.

I feel strongly about removing army transports altogether. I personally enjoy the idea of having situations and events during planetary conquest and orbital bombardment. It would be very entertaining, and events would help capture that thrill as every conquest is a new story.

I think the situation screen would be a great place for setting offensive and defensive stances. The more aggressive stances would require a higher dedication of monthly resources. I'm in favor of adding army modules to ships. I think it would be appropriate that these army modules require a monthly upkeep of minerals to represent maintaining the armies. Fire up that Arc Furnace! The armies could advance in rank through researching technologies, e.g. Assault Army modules levels I thru V. Larger ships would have more availability than smaller ships for army modules.

I'm looking forward to reading the next Dev Diary to hear more about changes to fleets!

 

[McAwesome123]

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

Individual pops felt meaningful back when this game had tiles; now they just sorta... exist. I don't see much point in having individual pops if all you can do with them is click on them to see their stats.

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

Personally, I don't care too much for the current system. It works, but I wouldn't mind it being changed. Currently, my biggest gripe with fleets is how combat works - you don't exactly get to influence much, if anything. The most influential things you can do are picking roles for your ships (which requires upgrading them) and clicking the emergency FTL button. at the very least, being able to tell your ships to move somewhere and/or ignore combat would be nice, rather than them just being locked into combat until either side is dead.

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

Not very. Plus, some things about it annoy me, like how you could be losing exactly 0 trade value to piracy, but still have pirates appear.

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

I'd say so. You used to not be able to colonize planets below 40% habitability, but now you can just colonize anything you want without much care.

• 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?

Maybe the current war system.
Currently, wars between empires are only able to end in exactly 3 (sometimes 2) ways: One side's war leader chooses or is forced to surrender, both sides' war leaders agree to a status quo or one side's war leader forces status quo if the other side's war exhaustion is too high, and one side ceases to exist.
Additionally, you don't have much choice over the outcome; you either get everything you asked for at the start, just the things you conquered, or sometimes even nothing. It's also annoying when someone you're fighting has an ally on the other side of the galaxy where neither you can reach them nor they can reach you, so they just stall out the war and sometimes don't even let you enforce demands at all.

Also, as it stands, the current espionage system feels slow as hell, which leads to me not using it for anything other than intel most of the time. Infiltration level is treated the same whether you're at 20 or 80, meaning that doing operations at anything other than the bare minimum level required results in needing significantly longer to rebuild it. Also, some of the operations are just completely useless. Ah yes, I'll spend an asset to stop infiltration from going down for 30 years. A length of time during which it will go down by 360, which above 72 infiltration, is not even a single level. And I'll definitely spend 14 years building a spy network, so that I can destroy one (1) random starbase module.

 

[Colin2002]

Here are my 2 cents on the questions i think i can best answer.

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

For me its not particularly important. I dont mind the current implementation but if there was a different option that could improve performance i would much prefer that option.

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

I think you can and should make somewhat significant changes to fleets. I still would to keep the modularity but it needs to be improved. Most playthroughs you end up choosing the same design every time and it mostly ends with bigger fleet wins. Buffing some weapons and adding more options could result in more variety as i think there should be a greater focus on strategy rather then just a plain numbers game. I think the biggest change i would like to see is significantly fewer ships such that each ship and fleet becomes more valuable and most importantly so performance can improve. Late game performance heavily tanks due to overwhelming amount of ships especially on larger galaxies.

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

I barely do anything with it. I just don't really touch it cause its very basic and doesn't add much gameplay. Trade should be something less abstract and more gameplay impacting. Furthermore i rarely trade with other empires cause i can just use the galactic market for whatever i need which for some reason has an unlimited supply of any resource provided you have the credits to pay for it. Furthermore i would be nice if you could trade more things with other empires like relics or fleets or pops or research and stuff, cause right now the system feels lacking as really all you can do is trade resources and some intel and comms and thats about it Suggestions from others are all very interesting like actual trade vessels the move around and making trade more robust. With it you could also improve space piracy which feels more of an annoyance than an interesting gameplay aspect. My one concern is always performance in particular in the late game and adding trade vessels could negatively impact this significantly.

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

Too easy isn't exactly how i would describe the current implementation but i think there are significant changes you could and in my opinion should make to make it more challenging and fun. Even on the default amount there are lots of planets in the galaxy so the challenge of finding a suitable new planet to colonize is almost non existent. I do understand that that's partly the case so that you can find other places to colonize that fit your habitability/climate preference before terraforming is unlocked or you obtain foreign pops but still it means that later once you have migration treaties and/or terraforming its a non issue and both of those things can be obtained reasonably early anyway. Colonizing a planet in general should be a bigger challenge and along with terraforming should be a situation with player decisions influencing the result rather then just waiting. It would also be nice to see more varied planets and planetary features some of which could be uncovered during the colonization or terraforming situation. I also think there should be more events relating to planets and colonies in general like rebellions or the spread of a dangerous disease or earthquakes to keep thing fresh while adding a slight element of challenge.

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

In my opinion origins should be about the history of your species and therefore be much more important than your civics which are more about how your society functions. This also because while most civics can be removed or changed, origins cannot and therefor their effects should be greater and last for the whole game. For example there are some origins like prosperous unification which just give you some minor bonuses at the start of the game and nothing else for the rest of the game. These should be civics not origins. Additionally, origins should give you powerful and unique features exclusive to that origin making your empire more unique and different that all the others. Furthermore some civics in particular the ones that cannot be removed or added afterwards during the game could be modified and expanded to be origins as the whole concept of not being able to change/remove them should be only for origins and not 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?

The main aspect of the game i would like to see improved is the late game performance. Both on my laptop and my powerful desktop the endgame after about 2400 turns the game into a slow mess. There are many reasons for this like the high ship count, trade, pops which i am sure you are well aware of and in general these systems should be improved to drastically increase performance. I understand that this is difficult but overall I'm not asking for silky smooth early game performance with hundreds of frames per second, I am asking for the game to at least run somewhat consistently and a lot faster that it does now. Since i like to play on the largest map cause i think it makes a playthrough more fun this problem is even worse to point where sometimes i just stop a game after the reaching the endgame as the poor performance becomes such an annoyance. That's why certain games i start never actually get finished which isn't great nor fun.

Now for that actual in game content. There is no system that i currently feel should be removed, rather there are many that should be improved rather then removed. These could also be the idea for future DLCs

Some of things i think could be improved I've already mentioned above like trade and colonization. Now for some of the others. In general i think older systems that have been around for a long time like war, trade and fallen empires are things that could all be modernized to better work with all the other new DLCs and content.

Firstly the recently released cosmic storms needs to be revamped. The idea is really cool but the implementation is just a mess. From storms having only minor effects which can quickly be ignored once you unlock the appropriate tech to defend against them to them not adding a huge gameplay aspect in the first place. Like i played an entire playthrough using the new storm chasers origin and the accompanying civics and overall the benefits from going all in on the storms were so minor it wasnt worth it, all the while whist having to deal with their negative effects which were particularly annoying in the early game like the one storm the significantly slowed down planetary build speed. The relics and the ascension perk also aren't amazing. Its annoying that the ascension perk galactic weather control doesn't let you create nexus storms (you need the tempest invocator relic from adAkkaria Convention for that) which is main storm that could actually be used to hurt nearby players. Also since most storms and their negatives can be mitigated early with buildings or techs by the time you have meet the requirements to unlock the ascension perk there no incentive to use it as the negatives it would give other empires are insignificant. At best Galactic Weather Control should just be a tech you can research and even then only if if there was a greater incentive to use it. In summary you could remove the entire DLC from the game and the game would feel exactly the same and not because its bad idea but because its a bad implementation. Again don't get rid of it rather improve it and make it better.

Ground combat also needs some work. Kind of like with ships, with armies its basically bigger number wins and that's it. The idea of ground combat is a good one as i think using troops to conquer planets is cool but this needs to be majorly changed. One idea which many have suggested and i agree on is removing transport fleets and instead adding a module to normal ships allowing them to deploy units to planets you are invading. Other than that there should be a greater focus on strategy rather then just bigger number wins. One way that you could add variety and depth to ground combat is to add more units units like tanks or mechs and allow us to create our own designs like with ships. Furthermore there should be a greater focus on combining your space fleets and ground units effectively to conquer and enemy planet. You could also add a new ship type or components that focus on orbital bombardments

Internal politics is something many have request and I agree that a rework is necessary. I don't think you need to add a lot as i don't want things to become too complicated. I do think overall factions should play a greater role and that penalties should occur if for example the demands of a certain faction aren't meet. For me i mostly again ignore factions other than embracing some when they get created and then every few decades check back in to make sure said factions demands are being met. This feels very static and boring and i think you could expand in various ways to make this more gameplay engaging. Adding more political events could also make things more interesting like mini challenges such as building or doing something in the next 5 years with rewards and penalties depending upon the result. Furthermore leaders, factions, laws and edicts should all play a greater role together. They all feel like their own separate thing even though since they are all government related they should have a greater connection and impact on each other.

Next is Fallen Empires. Fallen Empires are a cool idea but their current implementation feels very primitive. For starters not all ethics have an accompanying fallen empire and it would be nice if there were a greater variety to each one cause with only 5 fallen empires you end up getting the same ones every time and it quickly feels repetitive. Adding a small pool of fallen empire civics and origins could make each one feel more unique and could allow you to generate more types. Secondly, it would nice if fallen empires played a greater role in the game rather then just some minor trading or demands for 75% of game and then occasionally waking up towards the end to go to war. Fallen empires should have a greater role in particular once they wake such as in global politics. I understand that they are fallen empires and therefore are dormant meaning they don't do or interact much in general but i still feel like they could be made more important in the early and middle game.

Other area that is just kind of underbaked again due to poor implementation is espionage. I basically ignore the current system because the rewards are not worth it. Most of the missions don't really do much even if you succeed like stealing a piece of tech or slightly damaging relations between two empires. These are things that have little to no impact at all on the overall game due to their lackluster end results making the time spent to setup the spy network, the fact you need to use a precious envoy, and the resources needed to start it useless. I understand that greater espionage options like tampering with fleets, destabilizing the government or the people on a planet, assassinating a leader and such can be somewhat overpowered but then you should alongside this also strengthen an empires defense options more than just an encryption number you increase by researching some tech. Overall bigger rewards but therefore also bigger costs and bigger risks and more ways to counter espionage from others against you. Like right now the only somewhat worthwhile mission is the consume star option unlocked by defeating the stellar devourer. The rest are not worth it. The problem is even worse on larger galaxies with more empires as not only do you not have more envoys but the minor effects of missions like damaging relations are even less important as there are so many empires that slightly hurting one isn't going to change anything.

Another area that has been around for while and desperately needs improving is war and the endgame. I already mentioned earlier how there should be significantly less fleets to help endgame performance but that also there should also be a greater emphasis on the design and modules of your ships and how you approach a fight rather then just bigger number always wins. Firstly, it would be nice if there were more varied endgame options as right now after the year 2375-2400 it basically all comes down to who has the biggest and strongest fleet. All the crisis end with fighting including Cetana and awakened empires. It would be nice if there was more to the endgame in general than just fighting and if there were more crisis than just war related ones. Like idk one option could be adding a crises where a deadly disease spreads across the galaxy forcing players to combine research efforts and to search the galaxy to find a cure in time or similar natural disasters which could make gameplay more engaging. Secondly, on the topic of fighting, war in general needs to be improved. It would be nice to be able to have others join your war midway through like allies or hired empires like megacorps or you being able to leave a war you were dragged into cause your ally/friend decided to fight someone and the fight keeps dragging on. Secondly when it comes to peace settlements the AI needs to have better decision making. Its crazy that's its almost impossible to get the AI to surrender in general even when you have control of almost all of their systems and planets. It would also be nice to able to create more in depth peace settlement like for example saying look we will make peace but you need to pay me some amount alloys every month for the next X years or we will settle peace but i want that relic/specimen you have, kind of like a trade deal or ill stop attacking you but cannot attack me back for the next X years ( i know already in the game you cannot go back to war with someone you just settled peace with but that number is fixed and applies both ways, my suggestion is to make that more customizable)

Speaking about war another aspect that i saw others talk about is starbases. Currently its just usually better to have a strong navy rather then to just invest in powerful starbases cause even if you go all in on them by taking for example the defense tradition tree and ascension perk you aren't building defenses that are strong enough to stop awakened empires or crisis. The whole modules and building concept also feels weird cause like why is a slot that is could be used for defense weaponry also be populated with a shipyard. Defense modules like the gun battery should have their own slots and be upgradable through research to unlock more options. It would also be nice to see more defense module ship types with upgrades. This is so that in the future there is an incentive to actually invest in starbases and defensive options rather then just building large fleets and using those to secure your borders.

On the topic of the endgame, it would be cool if there was more endgame tech in the game. I know the idea of more tech can cause the problem of making it harder to find and research specific technologies like mega engineering but there are ways you could sorta balance things by maybe letting you choose which area of a given tech tree to focus on. For example if for engineering you decided to specialize in propulsion, propulsion associated tech would have a higher chance of appearing when new research options are chosen. I feel like we need more tech cause overall even despite this years major tech rebalance i can still, with default settings, research most of the tech trees about halfway to 2/3 of the way through my playthrough even when not actively trying and given that I am not a very experienced player. One option you could argue is if this annoys you just increase tech cost in the settings but that's not gonna help cause it just means everything takes longer including critical things like improved weapons which you might need if you are in constant wars in the early game. Plus because you need a strong navy anyway to fight midgame crisis like the grey tempest higher costs would delay the time until you can fight these things which could spill into the endgame where you have other bigger issues to deal with. You could add more mega or kilo structures more ship types like a bombing ship best suited for orbital bombardments or just more weapon options and upgrades.

Another aspect that could be easily improved is situations. There are many things in the game that currently just involve waiting that could be transformed into a situation instead. I already mentioned colonization and terraforming but other examples include the building of megastructures or the research and building of large ships like a colossus. These type of large buildings both take lots a time and skill to build and should be make into situations to reflect this better. By changing them to situations you can make them more interesting with player decisions adding bonuses or penalties depending upon the choice.

Overall though my main point is that future DLC should focus less on adding completely brand new ideas that either add a new complicated gameplay mechanic that needs to be learned and /or that don't work well with the existing game (like cosmic storms and astral planes). Instead they should focus more on expanding and improving already existing systems like the ones i mentioned above.

 

[Star Heintinuse Dragon]

Agree totally with joining and leaving pointless wars, adding in CK3 options to join would be good. I also would like the AI to actually trade a damn planet or system! Even vessels that love me will never part or trade a system.

As a side note, allow religious civs to declare a crusade and have your religion spread like you could do in Civilization.

Oh yeah the ingame AI and the player have the option to trade System but somehow the AI never did it. Whats the point of putting the option there in the first place if it wont do anything? Similar to rare resources zro, dark matter, living metal if theres no choice in the first place then remove it I swear the bloat in this game is something else.

 

[great lakes]

I'll note briefly that the burden of managing an empire gets way too high by around midgame. automation can help, but there are limits. it can become something to check on to make sure it's automated the way I want it to be. it's kind of core to the design, but still a problem. an economic pass is also in order - by midgame we face far to few economic constraints.

I also want to recommend small story details here and there, like Under One Rule having some sort of features/modifier/something to reflect the unification that ended generations of endless war. that sounds like the type of thing that would leave planet-level scars, right? even if it's like earth's unique features, that would add a lot.

lastly, I wish dark matter was a bit easier to use.

 

[Grenartia]

So, this is gonna be a bit of a grab bag.

1. I've already put this in as a suggestion, but I really think the hardcoded limit on council slots should be eliminated, and that thread has some other good ideas other people have said that should have a dev's eyes on.

2. Honestly, most of the vanilla limits (civics, council slots, ascension perks, traditions, etc.) were always arbitrary and the scope of the game has inflated so much that they should be increased by at least a factor of 2 across the board, and at least 5 for civics and council slots.

3. Empire size has never been handled properly, but it was at least ok when it could be mitigated, and its always felt weird that you get penalized for owned systems, colonized planets, AND pops. In essence, you're getting penalized 3 times for the same thing. A better option would probably be to take each empire's total owned systems and multiply that number by the number of hyperlanes from the capital to the farthest owned system. That's the empire sprawl. Then assign each system a value between 0 and 1, depending on how many of that system's total resources (including habitable planets) are unexploited, with 0 for totally unexploited (other than the outpost), and 1 for every exploitable deposit being exploited, and every habitable planet being colonized. Add up all of those values to come up with sprawl reduction. You could probably also throw in some bonus reduction weight for, say, hyper relays. The point is to reward players for developing their systems, not penalize them.

4. Remove hangars from battleships completely. Add more to cruisers, to give them a better niche as carriers. IDK, maybe that's dumb, but it always felt off that cruisers don't have a solid niche like the other ship classes do. Sure, their flexibility in being able to do most jobs is useful, but having a thing they're good at (and that thing being deploying lots of strike craft) would be nice, too. While we're at it, can we get designable strike craft, and with different roles?

 

[Tunon]

I don't want to repeat too much that other people have already said, but I, too, don't mind some core changes as long as they address the late-game performance issues.

I agree with others that the Trade system should be revamped. Also, for Gestalts specifically, I always wondered why Empath/Diplomatic Protocols Civic doesn't enable trade. Even though they don't have trade inside their empires, they still have access to the Galactic Market and can trade in the Diplomacy Tab. So, perhaps that kind of civics, or some future analogue of them, would enable the trade available for regular empires for the Gestalt empires as long as they had access to the gal. market.

 

[Fjallsbak]

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

I like it as is. Seems clear 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 don't like spending time designing the fleets, I just go with automation. So there could be a lot of changes, and I would not notice, as I don't pay attention.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

Origin and ethics, and some RPG theme that I pick.

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

Single player - At the start, and then if something major happens durin the game. perhaps once or twice.
Multi player - At the start together with my friends. We play MP in co-op, and band together in a federation of some sort.

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

Low

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

Seems ok, perhaps a little to easy. I dislike robots, so I almost never play them. I feel playing is cheating somehow, as you can settle anywhere.

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

Sometime I would like to make a combo between two Origins. Fx how would I do with Broken Shackles and Doomsday?

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

The new storms

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

More exprolation events

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

Espionage

 

[lucasmpereira]

I think that a good quality of life feature would be being able to create buildings and districts of my planets in a simple list view, rather than having to keep switching the planets tab ad checking one by one. That would be nice for the early to mid game where I don't want to rely on the planet automation yet.

Also, when playing a cybernetic/synthetic I found that it would be good to set up the pop assembly priority of a planet in the list view I mentioned too, because of the same problem of tabbing through the planets to optimize pops in jobs.

And lastly, I think that when selecting the pops to apply a new species (a gene modification or a robomodding) we should be able to apply by jobs instead of by planets. Preferably it would be better to make it an automated feature, where every time that a pop becomes a miner it would be refitted to my species template of a miner for example. ( maybe having a constant science cost and a research penalty for that), that would be nice for the later stages of the game where you have more resources and can afford to spend them in place of automation .

And Thanks for the hard work! Great game you have built here

 

[Lito Atreidis]

I want darloks.

I want espionage, like in MoO!
I want to organize a normal sabotage, I want to blow up some building on the planet, or a space base platform. I want to throw money at pirates so that they cause chaos in the enemy's communications. I want to destroy the stability of the planet, and watch as the enemy colonies rise up. I want to bribe vassals so that they start a rebellion. I want to kill leaders and members of the Council, watch as the enemy empire plunges into chaos and falls apart...

I want to invest in counterintelligence so that all this does not affect me.
I want to be able to win by espionage.
Well, or at least see what my actions lead to in quantitative terms. Why now, having "quarreled" the enemy with some empire, I can't see HOW MUCH these relations have worsened? (

 

[TG Masaryk]

Vision statements: I want to add how large the scale of Stellaris is – few games simulate an entire galaxy with 1000 stars.

Sacred systems: The three types of technologies and head researchers.

Individual pop systems: Completely unimportant to me. I get that pop tiles were too simple, but the pop system feels needlessly overcomplicated and hogs a lot of my (limited) processor power. Please *heavily* simplify pops, or reduce the scale of them. Maybe you could apply the demographic data to a single planet instead of dividing it among 100+ little .png men.

Fleet changes: You could make the system different and far more complex, but I don’t think you could make it any simpler. I’d like to decrease late game fleet size also.

Defining civilizations: Civics. I like to play each time with a civic like Agrarian Idyll or Warrior Culture that changes the empire.

Goals during gameplay: I have given up on setting goals during play because everything is too random. When I look for an event or leviathan, it doesn't spawn. When I invade an empire, Fallen Xenophiles massacre me. I don't know if this should be changed, though.

Trade system: I like the current trade system, it feels rewarding. However I want a lot more automation for patrol fleets, because they get destroyed during every war and need to be manually set up.

Implementation problems: I would like to do something with my extra scientists after I run out of systems to survey.

Colonization: Yes, I think that colonization is too easy. I think the +5% habitability technologies level the field too much.

 

[Child of the Omnissiah]

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

I would pay good money for the pops system to be deleted. Playing with more than a handful of planets quickly becomes extremely tedious.

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

Wouldn't mind, as doomstacking is a bit of an issue

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

exploration the game to me is ultimately about the sandbox experience

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

I tend to play multiplayer with friends against modded crisis type enemies, so my goals are simple and i generally dont change them much unless a great opportunity for something else is given.

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

trade routes go back to your capital? i almost never interact with the trade system i find it pretty meh.

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

Sorta? but id put this in the "good enough" category

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

Don't have an opinion on this

• 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?

Id remove pops. It feels like a system born a bit out of needing things to manage early-mid game. I wish this planet micro was replaced with some inter-empire trade and politics, internal stability, more meaningful factions, logistics and things of similar nature.

Fortress systems. alot of defensive stuff feels pathetically weak to me, easily bypassed, instantly destroyed or just annoying to deal with. being able to edit starbase weaponry and defenses, aswell as larger defensive platforms would help. But there should still be something more to fortress systems than stacking -% bombardment damage and having 20k army strength on the planet.

which leads me to the next thing. land battles are just blob fights much more so than even space combat. id really like an expansion + update that focuses on trying to fix that. a limit to the amount of land based armies should probably be added aswell.

my best suggestion would probably be some war game ttrpg elements type thing? place units on a map, use different units that do different things. or something

regardless a great game, love me some stellaris

 

[Zogist]

Id remove pops. It feels like a system born a bit out of needing things to manage early-mid game. I wish this planet micro was replaced with some inter-empire trade and politics, internal stability, more meaningful factions, logistics and things of similar nature.

Fortress systems. alot of defensive stuff feels pathetically weak to me, easily bypassed, instantly destroyed or just annoying to deal with. being able to edit starbase weaponry and defenses, aswell as larger defensive platforms would help. But there should still be something more to fortress systems than stacking -% bombardment damage and having 20k army strength on the planet

I disagree with the pop price, it is something I enjoy seeing. It is core to me and I like seeing who is working where. I also like is is loosely abstract.

I love the idea of fortress system, but to make them more impactful you should have to conquer it or it acts as a hyperlane inhibitor. Good luck moving forward with a planets and some habitats to slog through!

 

[A_Dozen_Lemmings]

A couple of things have come to mind in the last couple of updates. A big one is that I'd like Espionage to be made more impactful. If I'm being a Sneaky Git, I'd like to be an absolute bastard about it. Let me devastate my neighbors production. Let me Drag their shiny new Orbital Habitats into their host gravity wells! (Operation Meteor from Gundam)

Also and I have no ideas as to how, But maybe the Invasion and Armies systems could use some TLC I think... Especially as play area widens out in the mid-game that a more granular Army builder but more macro scale user interface might be fun (A bit like Vicky actually now that I think about it.) OTOH it might be neat if as I've seen brought up a couple of times the trade system upgrades people are asking for had a a parallel Logistics Chain system implemented for the military side of things. Having to plan my campaigns around the availability of supplies. Both for fleets as well as armies. This could also make trade centers and industrial hubs something that have to be considered in defense and attack. As taking control of a sectors largest logistical node makes it easier to push forward on campaign.

 

[risker34]

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

Not very important at all. I've long held the belief that the first and best change a potential Stellaris 2 could make is scrap the entire pop system and build the game around a pop system more like Victoria or Imperator from the ground up. In many ways it is obvious the game was never designed or intended to have the scope it now does. While it handles it admirably it is an albatross around its neck that hind sight should help to alleviate. Talks of changing things closer to a Vicky system are something i am very interested in seeing more of!

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

So long as there are fleets that i move from system to system i feel like it would continue to be the same game. With over 2.5k hours in Stellaris i've seen a lot of iterations of fleets and naval combat and i've never been perfectly happy with any of them, apparently neither has the team. The lack of a real purpose for mixed fleets and the fact that losses are both difficult to inflict but incredibly punishing to take make the fleet system somewhat frustrating and immersion breaking at times. Personally, i think that the game needs to accept the fact that Corvettes shouldn't be viable in the late-mid to actual late game. Historically, realistically, major powers shouldn't be fielding corvettes in blue water (er, Black Space?) conflicts once you have cruisers and battleships. Trying to ensure a place for every hull type throughout the entire game just smushes many of the later hulls potential.

As a big fan of military sci-fi i've read of many theoretical space navies, i think that This Corner of the Universe by Britt Ringel offers a concept closest to Stellaris. With engagements happening in phases as very long range weapons and missiles open a battle, survivors close to a standard range knife fight, and extreme close range actions happen if one side is suffciently desperate. This is in contrast to the current stellaris fleet battles where the two fleets charge headfirst at each other while individual ships will either run away or stand still while their comrades rush ahead. I don't think slowing down the battles would be that damaging to the gameplay experience while giving the devs more control over what is happening, more time for things to happen, and being more believable considering the supposed distances involved.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?​

Personally i would say its culture but the game doesn't really have a way of defining your culture. It has ways of defining your governments values and ethics which are assumed to match those of the people, at least initially. In game, i often rely on the origin and maybe 1 civic to anchor my empires sense of identitty while the other civic is mostly taken for gameplay reasons. From there i generally try to make decisions based off my understanding of the empires civilization and values.

• 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 start a game with a vague goal "Today i want to try the Nemesis path" "Today i want to be the galactic Imperator" "today i want to try megacorps" etc etc....
Once in game i take stock of the area i spawn in and the resources i have. As i reveal more of the map i plot of ideal borders, stretch goal borders, and perfect world borders. I wont accept anything below my ideal borders and will fight continuously until i've secured them (granted they are usually just the firs set of chokepoints around my capital). The strech goal borders ill take if i can but i won't be too agressive with it and the perfect world borders are just to have a plan in case i somehow end up gaining that much territory.

Next my attention is my economy, keeping unemployment low, production high, and boosting science to 1k as fast as possible. From there the goals mostly revolve around getting certain techs and either upgrading buildings, building things, or overhauling my navy. The "goals" change very infrequently, even between games, but the way i go about persuing those goals changes dramatically. Sometimes i end up needing to conquer one or mor empires to secure my frontier, sometimes i go an entire game with only a handful of small conflicts. Sometimes i'm trying to rush battleships but realize i need more energy and end up focusing on my economy and dyson swarms. Its all about "what do i have now and how can i use it to accomplish my objective?" with what i have now constantly changing as the game progresses but the objective being fairly consistent.

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

Honestly, i ignore the trade system until i have gateways and then i build gateways in all the systems that have high trade planets. It circumvents the need to surpress piracy and i don't need to constantly reroute trade from station to station. I sort of feel bad for completely subverting the mechanic because i did think it was an interesting idea when it was announced and i like the concept but it can be very obtuse to work with. I also dislike that once you enter the trade mapmode it doesn't go away and you need to repeatedly manually select a different map mode.

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

I would say yes, especially for the AI. I often restrict myself from colonizing anything yellow or red just for personal roleplay reasons. But the AI often colonizes everything it can get its hands on as soo as it gets its hands on them. This is 1) very annoying during wars where you need to conquer a million tiny 2 pop planets, and 2) very immersion breaking as the desert cactus people are just hanging out on a tundra world with the only issue being they order twice as many toasters.

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

i will need to check and come back for this one, my mind says yes but will not elaborate further. I will say, and i understand balance wise why, that it has always been somewhat sad that certain origins are exclusive like, why can't my on the shoulders of giants empire be really into robots at the start of the game? Or why can't my tomb world origin empire have a secondary species that evolved in the radioactve after math?

• 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'm not sure i would remove any system, but if i had to remove a system i'd say it would be the emergency FTL mechanic. I understand why it exists and the purpose it intends to fill. However, i don't think it actually accomplishes that purpose and instead it rewards and encourages meme builds that abuse it to further abuse the war exhaustion system which is heavily geared toward ships destroyed being the deciding factor in wars. It is also cripplingly punishing in the event you made the mistake of losing a battle abroad. It regularly takes longer to ftl back than to simply retreat but you can't spend that time preemptively building reinforcements or really doing anything other than waiting. Especially in the late game it is often faster to have an entire fleet be destroyed to a ship (fighting the entire time instead of whimping out one by one) and rebuild it at home than to watch it get whittled down and then wait for it to come home to replace half of it and repair the other half.

I would make a War & Peace Expansion tomorrow if i could. The war systems have languished with basically no attention since launch and the naval combat system has been tweaked a few times but only through rebalancing not in a comprehensive rework of how fleet actions relate to the broader war and peace deal systems. Peace Deals also are in desperate need of help. Status Quo peaces do not performe like any other Paradox games status quo option and operates differently depending on the CB used. Enforcing demands does all sorts of whacky things depending on the situation, sometimes doing exactly what you expect, sometimes doing more, sometimes doing less. Gaining CBs other than conquest is so esoteric and arcane that i sometimes think i need a literal techpriest to gain certain CBs, other than the liberation war CB which is somehow the only CB excluded from the Unrestricted War Doctrine.

If i had a nickle for every time my civilization began to grow tired and seriously consider simply laying down and accepting its fate of being eaten alive by the horific alien hordes at the gates even though those aliens declared war 5 years ago and have no actually been seen since i would probably be able to fund the development of Stellaris 2 myself. Because the War Exhaustion system and the War Score system are tied together and many civics, origins, and other things impact war exhaustion rate you can often run into situations where someone declares war on you to do unspeakable things to your people and Your people are the ones saying "hey, maybe they're right after all." imagine if soviet citizens heard news of what was happening to occupied parts of their country and their first thought was "i don't know, maybe we really do deserve it, i mean a lot of our tanks did explode so clearly war is bad." or the british citizens heard of their air losses during the blitz and said "this is too much, just let them take over. We shouldn't sacrifice one more plane to protect our freedom." but this happens in almost every run of stellaris and it can be incredibly frustrating. Specifically because someone declares war on you and you need to then occupy most if not all of their territory in order to convince your people that you are winning.

There are two features i really want to enjoy, partly because they relate directly to my degrees, but struggle to actually enjoy.
1) Galactic Community:
I understand the fun meme of the Space U.N. being useless and all, but it has issues far beyond that. Firstly, it spawns far too early. You should not be meeting 2/3rds of the galaxy via the galactic community every game. No one arrived at the first U.N. meeting and was shocked to see a large group of delegates from civilizations that they had never heard of before. Even in other science fiction settings the United Federation of Planets was formed entirely of civilizations that all knew each other, but also had long and storied histories with each other. Exlcuding the newcommer humands who didn't have a long history of anything yet. The GalCom should be something that happens in the early mid-game maybe around the time you start unlocking cruisers. It shouldn't be a single event of "Do we Join" [Yes/No] it should be the top 3 or 4 largest/most powerful empires in the game get events on if they want to come together to form it and the smaller powers get invited if they do. Those events also help shape it, so you can start with the galactic council right out of the gate sometimes, or you could have certain branches be locked and require a resolution to unlock say, the pro-robot resolutions because the largest empire at its founding was a spiritualist and demanded no support for robots in order to join.

Trading favors is silly, why is a two system minor able to spend a bit of influence and make me vote against myself while i am actively voting? It shouldn't be an abstract thing, it should be literal favors. Spend influence to trade X resource to Y country and change their stance toward yours by Z amount, hell don't even limit it to resources, use the whole trade menu. Let me give away a few systems to a tiny empire in order to buy their support for me being the Custodian. Let me give a slightly outdated fleet to an empire embroiled in a civil war to get them to back my "Enact Council Veto" even when they aren't on it. Maybe even sendng leaders to help other empires for a few years in exchange for their support. The Victoria Mod "Better Politics" has a system of swaying parties in the legislature to approve laws you want to pass. It is fairly abstract but a similar and more grounded system would make the trading favors situation much less random and much less frustrating.

It takes too long, this is said every time it comes up and ya, they're right. Especially as more and more things get added to the GalCom.

There isn't a good way to check what is doing what. Unless you are actively breaking a rule there is just a giant wall of "Things Modified" but no way to link that back to specific resolutions which makes trying to repeal things that are hurting you very annoying.

The AI is bad at realisticly picking sides, but this is something that devs seem aware of and have tried a few times to rectify. Definitely making it better each time but never really getting it all the way.

2) Espionage:
This gets brought up time and time again so i'll try to keep things fresh or at least brief. Firstly, why is it my society has the capacity to administer dozens of planets across hundreds of systems, defended by a dozen fortress systems and literally thousands of ships, but reading the news of more than 2 alien empires is simply beyond us? Spy Networks should absolutely get a massive boost from having an envoy assigned, well honestly envoys need an overhaul but thats a story for another day, but they shouldn't need an envoy.

Spy networks need to either gather intel faster or have a better way of showing the player how much intel they are gathering per month/year and why. I've had empires that were inferior to me in everything and intel gathered about as slowly as empires that were superior to me. Only Overwhelming seems to matter and it just stops intel gain at all basically. I'm presumably paying these spys and informants hefty sum and the fact that after 5 years they still can't get me a childs map of the empire sometimes makes me think about refering them to my Counter Fraud task force.

There needs to be ways to queue missions or otherwise be alerted when missions have a decent chance of success. I've really tried to use Espionage and i haven't the faintest idea what the colors mean or what the terms mean. I almost never do anything more challenging then gathering informants because i have no clue if my spies can handle it and i only do it because it gives me a clear success or fail state. I either get an informant or i don't, many of the missions can succeed and you'll never even notice. Maybe have it so you can right click a mission and the spies will continuously do it so long as the chance of success if above, maybe 60%? or they will do it 5 times in a row unless the success chance drops below 60%. The strange interplay between needing a certain amount of network to unlock missions that i still can't do because they are do risky/difficult and even if i do them i'll never know what i actually did just makes it more hassle than its worth.

Many of the mission are just too weak. Yes, i know, many people will complain that "its only fun when you do it to others" but we'll get to counter espionage in a bit. Spawning privateers in a rivals system is one of the last things to be unlocked, it is very costly and time consuming, and it spawns like 5 corvettes and a destroyer when even mediocre empires are using titans. I'd rather spawn rebels on a planet and have it be occupied by event troops rather than throw my money and spies at something that wont even show up on the local news. Destorying a space station is another big one that is almost fully repaired when the month ticks over which might be literally the next day if you're unlucky.

Spies and Counter Spies. Spying really isn't tied to technology. Technology helps but the Romans and Persians had spies, ancient china was rife with spies, so was ancient Japan. Spying is more about interpersonal relations than technology and while stellaris really can't model that part of it, there needs to be more to spying than just "bigger tech number always wins". Likewise counter spying could be very interesting and especially give the species rights system some use rather than just setting everyone to residence and forgetting about it. Residence are more likely to join foreign networks but provide less value since they can't go far into the government, citizens will be hard to convince but are very valuable once in the network, slaves are just worse residence. enforcers and bureacrats could provide a chance of discovering spy rings and breaking them up. lowering their network and maybe killing an envoy assigned to it as well as lowering relations with whoever was spying. Likewise, you should be able to assist friendly nations combat spies using your own network, it could be as simple as providing a percent chance buff that they find a network if one exists.

 

[small tree]

Are the mysterious ships that used Phase Disruptors to melt the metal on the surface of the metal planet following the bombardment the ones depicted here? (Attached image)