Stellaris Dev Diary #361 - The Vision

[Door-keeper]

While I'm sure internal politics is already on the rework train. I'd like to note my specific trouble with democratic crusaders. While I love going out on liberation wars and making the galaxy a better place at laserpoint, it feels like the militarist faction and the egalitarian faction just don't mix well. I'd like it if there was an alternative militarist that liked having benevolent subjugation and didn't mind not having rivals. Similar to how there are two different xenophobe factions. One which wants to assert supremacy, and one which wants to be left alone.

 

[lobsterGun]

Leaders

• When a leader dies, give an icon to select their fleet/planet/army so they can be replaced. Or pop up a "Hire Replacement" dialog. Or a checkbox to auto-hire a replacement.
• Add initial leader level buffs for facilities like Research Institutes and Military Academies. This can offset the inherent bonuses that collective intelligences gain late-game when non-collective leaders start retiring.
• I absolutely HATE getting a legendary Scientist with traits that reveal additional resources on system survey. By the time they show up most of the galaxy is already surveyed.

Fleets

• Selecting a stack of ships on the map should sum up the total fleet strength.
• There should be a movement mode toggle that causes stacks of fleets to move at the rate of the slowest fleet in the stack.
• Grant access to Motes/Crystal/Gas edicts on a per fleet basis. Or just get rid of fleet buff edicts completely.
• Give all fleets the evasive mode. Don't limit them to just constructors, transports, and science ships.

Planets

• Add a "Stability" field to the hover text on the planetary Outliner. Or maybe a red/yellow/green warning system.
• Move Orbital Rings to a tab on the planet dialog instead of being a separate popup
• Add an icon to the planet to open its systems starbase.

Game Creation

• Include additional midgame crisis, late-game/ crisis, and fallen empire fleet size scaling factors. In the current game, if you want to play a low tech game you pretty much have to turn off Khan/Crisis/War-In-Heaven.
• Add customization option for the fleet size cost for the various ship types. Example: I want a game where fleets are smaller so I set Corvetes to cost 3 and Battleships to cost 12).

Traditions

• Rebalance less popular traditions to make them more viable options.

Govt.

• Make Edicts the primary panel when the government tab opens or put them on their own hotkey.
• Make a macro button to toggle combat edicts on/off.
• Need to be able to deactivate/activate Furnaces and Dyson Swarms. Currently they can only be destroyed, but not during a war. Conquering a couple furnaces/swarms in a war can wreck an economy with the costs of upkeep.
• Add a "starbase type" option (I.E. Anchorage/Bastion/etc...). That will auto-upgrade without you having to micro-manage it.
• Internal politics is the Ground combat rework for govt. Everybody thinks they want it but will complain about how it slows down the game when it's implemented.
• UI needs a line victory graph like in SMAC.

 

[Dr_Gentech]

Something I would really love to see is a reduction in average fleet sizes, like a drastic reduction. I'd like it if there was a stage of the game where military ship names & veterancy levels are relevant mechanics you should pay attention to. Something like an 8x decrease in the total number of ships (with attendant balancing) is what I'd really love to see, so the late game super navies consist of hundreds of battleships, rather than thousands. I think this could also make one off ships like the Juggernaut more interesting and worthwhile to build, as well.

 

[SolarSailor19]

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

I've been playing since the tile system was in place and like the switch to Pops, Jobs and Districts. It gave a sense of my planets developing from 1 Pop frontier worlds with 2 districts to 100 Pop words with 40+ districts and buildings. If the system could better simulate how a planet changes economically, societally, culturally and physically as it develops that would be wonderful for RP. After all that 1 Pop frontier world at year 3 isn’t going to be anything like the 100 pop Alloy Ecumenopolis it becomes at year 120, replete with orbital rings, Ascension tiers and upgraded buildings.

It would be nice for the game systems in some way to perhaps recognise my core worlds or worlds of strategic importance or give me a system to further enhance their position in the narrative of my empire and then have this reflected with the AI empires too. At the moment, part of my issue with the war system is that I can capture and invade an enemy planet that is clearly their main food planet, or mineral planet, or industrial or scientific world and there's not a meaningful response to this. Surely capturing a planet that serves as a 60% of a Synthetic empires Alloy production or 50% of a biological empires Food supply or, later in the game, capturing the Matter Decompressor system that generates 90% of an empires Minerals, should have greater ramifications than capturing a 2 Pop border colony.

In a similar vein it would be nice if AI empires could build their planets out quicker and more competently – it feels odd to wage a 20-year war with an enemy empire who are seemingly a military and economic peer or even an overmatch only to realise their capital still only has like 5 districts and 3 buildings late into the midgame.

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

I think having fewer, more impactful ships would be interesting. Perhaps integrating something like EU4’s flagships or allowing special ships of any class that reach a certain XP threshold to be refitted with extra or unique modules. With accompanying cosmetic changes to reflect their battle scars.

Cloaking particularly lends itself to the production of specialised stealth ships like Mass Effects Normandy. Whilst the mid-battle destruction of an enemy Battleship that is serving as a Flagship could temporarily injure or even kill an enemy Commander and turn a near-loss into a lucky stalemate or extraordinary victory. Whilst this could make Commanders and Paragons more vulnerable, it might also make them more meaningful as a high-level Commander would be risky to deploy instead of always a good choice.

Also, if the current system could be modified to incorporate some sort of randomisation in weapon stats and effects that are individual to each game that could break the stranglehold that a meta imposes. Perhaps certain weapons, defences and ship classes will always have a niche, and certain counters always exist but if, within bounds, for example Missiles rolled high in one game where PD rolled low an opening for divergent unique ‘meta’s’ could be created on a per game basis.



What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

Origin, interactions with the Galactic Community, Ascensio and the transition from a planet-based economy to a megastructure and Ecumenopolis based economy.

Had a phenomenal game where I started as Teachers of the Shroud, turned my home world into an Ecumenopolis. Lost massive swathes of my empire to the Formless trying to seize the Eternal Throne and then played a follow up game as a Remnant empire with the same design but slightly different names and civics to reflect the passing of countless millennia as they built back up.

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?

It is currently underwhelming, but I wish it could be tied somehow to the Market, Megastructures and the Community. It could make it interesting to see how the galaxy responds to an empire flooding the Market with Minerals, thus depressing the price astronomically, after building a matter decompressor and how the galaxy responds when the inevitable war for the decompressor just as suddenly constricts galactic mineral supply due to the resulting disruption of trade. This could also feed in to building a sense of how the galaxy changes at every level as the quantity and rarity of resources rapidly expands throughout the game.

I feel like the growth of the Hyper Relay Network, Gateway activations and Wormhole stabilisation should really bolster or at least significantly impact trade. Maybe the ability to form Trade deals with your neighbours that act as non-aggression pacts, link up and thus amplify your respective trade networks and allow each other partial access to each other’s strategic resource deposits (to abstract how your traders and theirs are actually trading in physical goods) would be great.

Doesn’t need to be a Vicky level eco sim, just the sense that if something revolutionary happens the galaxy reacts.

Also the ability to economically support and influence other empires would be great – investing in strategic resource extraction and getting a cut, supporting a recently subjugated vassal get back on their feet quickly so they provide more long-term tribute, sending Aid that is used meaningfully to support indirectly in a war or implementing trade embargoes or tariffs to allow the economy to be used for ‘cold’ wars.

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

Colonisation feels fine. But if habitability and climate were more impactful it might add greater importance to developing tech and pursuing ascensions. If certain habitability techs were pushed high up the tech tree or locked behind certain ascension it could make the exploration and expansion phase overlap more nicely with the mid and later game as we backfill in our empire and seemingly unimportant, uninhabitable worlds at borders or in uncharted space suddenly become viable and valuable.

Could tie this into Storms and Weather or Astral Rifts as storms alter a planets climate, leave rare deposits or a Rift suddenly adds a bunch of space and infrastructure to a planet that was doomed to perpetual underdevelopment.

Be nice if we could create and set up basic colony templates for each of the Planetary designations – I know each of my initial food worlds needs a city district ,a couple of agricultural districts, a gene clinic or replicator and a food processing centre. Let me set a basic template up that I can fund each time, then go into micro to adjust on each planet to account for blockers, features and rare deposits.

Something potentially interesting could be the implementation of some sort of logistics system so infrastructure has to be developed to a certain point before colonies automatically get hooked up to the empire-wide centralised resource pools. Would make colonising the other side of a wormhole or settling the L gate more of a challenge and further incentivise Hyper-relays, gateways and the like.

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?

Espionage, its too costly for too little reward. Parse down the available operations and make the survivors more meaningful – why can’t my spy of 20 years arrange to sabotage the exact Starbase on my border with a rival or steal a particular technology I need and why is it costing so much influence to do so.

Let me put together a heist to steal a valuable relic or even a fleet asset like Bubbles. Let me hijack a rival’s ship in unclaimed space to reverse engineer for tech. Or even put together a very expensive, specialist team to infiltrate the Fallen Empires for their tech. With cloning and Synthetics why can’t I insert a spy to mimic an enemy’s leader or even their Ruler for a short time for my benefit. Or steal the production of one of their planets or megastructures for a time.



Please make Galactic Community Resolutions pass quicker.

 

[bubblehoppers]

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

Not super important to me, a means to manage, separate and join together populations to some extent is satisfactory enough for me. The management is fun at times, but can become tedious when my empire grows.

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

I feel like the ship classes are somewhat important, it is difficult to invent a better concept for combat myself but the ship manager could be more visible. Playing casually I sometimes forget the ship designer exists, if I'm not worried about optimizing my ships.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

The name lists, ship art and potentially planet types could all use more content in my opinion, to expand and explore new artistic themes. While I find the Origins to be by far the most important gameplay feature that defines my civilization. Secondly would be the Civics for game mechanics purposes.

While I find that the Traditions and Ascension paths are very deep into mechanics, they provide more "Upgrades" that fail to highly differentiate my empire, and regarding the Ascension pathways it feels more like a sorting hat situation splitting the galaxy's empires between Evolution, Psionic, Cybernetic and Synthetic. So as a result, I feel like the real late-game "rewards" (to me) are the Ascension Perks that unlock niche ways to play or give me cool powers.

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

Usually I have my idea set at the beginning of the game, hoping for some good Archaeology sites or a Precursor I really want and make the best of the situation I'm given. The only major in-game decision is choosing to become a crisis. I find that the Origins really set the tone for me and my goals, often I play socially with friends, or if it is an Ironman game maybe going for a particular achievement. Either way most of the deep thought happens before I see the galaxy map, the rest is mostly reactionary. I feel like this emphasizes the pre-game setup options as-is, and their value.

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

While Stellaris has a lot of cool stuff, I feel like this is one area it pales in comparison to the other Paradox games like HoI4, EU4, and CK games. I have felt, since Megacorps came about, that the trade and market systems feel fairly utilitarian and minimal. I'm a fan of the trade zones of EU4, that the contracts that can fail in some of the games, the lend-lease in HoI4 or mercenary armies in EU4, and some of the stock market simulations in other games.

As an idea I've felt that Megacorps could, if in the Galactic Community, be able to participate in the sale of shares in a stock market, as an example of a more bold feature to consider.

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

I'm ok with how colonization works, I feel like complexity here is alright unlike the trading which could be a bit more robust. I think this would make the game quite a bit more difficult to play, as managing the populations is already a bit challenging at times.

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

I have an alternative to this, and think that there are some Ascension Perks that could be Rare Technologies.

Thinking on this, I find that the Origins could be complemented with more unique Ascension Perks and even extending your total capacity for Ascension Perks, which to me feel like the extraordinary results your empire may achieve, or late-game powers you can utilize. I also feel like some of the Ascension Perks feel less useful and could be instead rare technologies, making them more enticing that way. Some examples would be like World Shaper, Arcology Project, Master Builders and ones that feel more like upgrades to technologies than cool thematic unlocks. The exception would be the first level Ascension Perks you pick first, I have no complaints for the first 1 or 2 being as they are.

• 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?

Ah, so hard to choose a main feature. I currently enjoy Origins, Civics are ok as they are, technologies are fine, combat is satisfactory and in-line with Paradox games as I'm not playing Grand-Strategy games for intricate combat. For me, based on the hints of these questions, I would say either late-game Planetary management for populations, or Trade. Probably Trade.

As an unsolicited feature I've hoped for, and see no reason not to append it to this, would be a Fallen Empire theme for ships, city art, Origin, and perhaps various events and related features. I do enjoy the Cosmogenesis, but would love to be able to start the game as a decrepit in-their-twilight version of a Fallen Empire such that I'm basically a regular Empire with a storyline to rise again in tandem with the regular power curve of most player empires. I've envisioned it to be similar to a cross between On the Shoulder of Giants (but rather your predecessors), Remnants, and Knights of the Toxic God for the situations, and inspired in a way from the "Purple Phoenix" missions for Byzantium in EU4 who are on the precipice of their demise.

 

[HerrComrade]

Colonization does feel too easy for me, but I set planets to .25 and turn off guaranteed habitable worlds.

I like how pops work but it does reach a point where they feel overwhelming to manage.

Changes to fleets make me very hesitant as my biggest complaint about the game remains the drive changes in Cherryh still. The option to set weapon and drive origins was pretty fun, and just removing them to streamline it for hyperlanes is still a big complaint for me. Making changes to fleets and how they're managed fundamentally alters the game at several levels so if that's something to be changed it needs more attention and testing than most systems, I feel, and changes should be ready to be scrapped if they go too far regardless of investment.

The trade system feels so bland you could do almost anything to it and it would probably feel like an improvement to me.

I believe ground combat is important. I know people want it removed but it's an aspect of the game I would rather see expanded on. Population is a driving component in space empire management, and both conquering and managing populations can't be done solely from orbit outside of annihilating a planet entirely. Paying attention to that aspect and finding a way to balance its importance alongside a fun factor that removes the aspect of tedium some people seem to experience would be great.

The most important aspects of the game to me are ultimately the roleplay side of it. I like to build civilizations that have a story to them, and I generally end up with my space chickens (because A) I have chickens and geese and goats and B) you don't seem to have added space goats or space geese yet), or empires as close to the Confederation from Glen Cook's Starfishers series as I can make (my favorite sci-fi series). If you haven't read them, at least check out the Passage at Arms prequel, it's basically a submarine story in space. Though the Killer Bunnies as an end game Crisis or a human Admiral Beckhart as a legendary paragon hero would make me cry out in joy.

Civics and Origins are fine and simply continuing to expand the number available works, I think.

 

[dontnormally]

My 2c: Stop trying to make a balanced game for multiplayer and really lean into deep asymmetry where vastly different playstyles and mechanics are possible

 

[frostlips]

What sets stellaris apart from other space sims is how different each playthrough is and how the sub-plots interact. I would like more of that. And more unique planets/systems. I'd like more enclaves, and also factions that spread across nations, like illumanati or etc. I'd like more relics, more relic slots, more archeology and the chance to trade, steal or warring to get a relic. Also i dont understand why limit on buildings on planets? The limit should be based on planet size.

I never really use the political parties, so that system can go, IMHO.

 

[Mech_infect]

just want to double words about wide empires from another devs diary -

we need a system against wide empires and a system of "administration tracking points" - if they are not enough, then all sorts of troubles, corruption, resource shortages occur. Well, and as the peaks of this "could not keep track" - disaster. (at a thermonuclear station, for example). A system for accounting for the delivery of a resource to the consumer also fits here. For example, if the alloy production center is 10 systems away from the shipyard, then let this logistics be reflected (maybe here the storage bunkers will play their new role) Yes, complication. But this is a NECESSARY complication in the context of the fact that broad empires generally don't care about current restrictions.

By the way, I already wrote about the obvious gap in the life of society in the form of catastrophes and as a mechanic for large empires.

DLC "Disaster" ( Actual for version 3.8.4. August 2023 )

DLC "Disaster" UPD. God, I forgot that this type of new events from the overlord is called situations. In this post, I talk about situations about different disasters, leading to branched chains of different situations with different endings...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[Ganthraxx]

Is there any chance of getting QoL regarding surplus and shortages of goods? Would love an option to auto sell goods to the market if you're resource capped and an option to auto-buy if you're about to hit 0 stockpile.

 

[Panzerslothen]

I can't believe it's taken me most of the month to be able to post these opinions. Don't get a job, kids, it'll consume all your time! ANYWAY:
Stellaris is my most favourite game, but I describe it as an "Imperfect gem". It's really, really good - and I think that with a bit more tuning and optimising, the foundations of the game could be absolutely astounding. I like most of the fundamentals of the game as they are. I think that many mechanics/systems aren't really linked, which could be. For example: Government, Policies, Espionage, Diplomatic Relations and the Council could all be on a single grouping - at the very least this would display things a bit better.

Modability: adds so much to the value offering of the game and I hope to see modability support (and changes to further open-up modding) as the game continues to update and evolve. Basically "Civilization, in SPAAAACCCEEE!".

Update schedule: I don't mind the Quarterly schedule of updates. In fact I think that's a pretty good cadence. What I mind is that, in 2024, most of those updates have focussed on DLC offerings and have been very light on Custodian patches.
2022 and 2023 had some brilliant and extensive Custodian work, consisting of QoL improvements, UI improvements, rebalances, feature enhancements, modding support, and above all bugfixes. The relative prominence of those has fallen by the wayside this year and I think it's a real shame. Had either Cosmic Storms of Grand Archive been pushed to the right by one slot, with a Custodian run in their place, I would have been much happier.

Suggested Topics:
Pops and Jobs: These are reasonably important, I guess. You've done a lot of work getting them to where they are now. However, the pop growth system is odd. I don't like that the game tries to get all species in my Empire to some state of equilibrium, which I don't like (even above my Xenophobic tendencies). Eladrin suggested a per-species per-empire growth system and I would REALLY like to see that - ideally soon. Also, the current system incentivises having lots of planets (as pops grow on a per-planet basis) rather than having good planets or even good pops (besides Rapid Breaders and Existential Interparity). I’ve been doing a bit of research into the Pop systems of other games, such as Victoria 3, and I really like some of those ideas.

Trade: I do make use of it. However, it's very limited and simple in the current iteration, and therefore weak. It only has interaction with other Empires in terms of Commercial Pacts - when Trade historically was a massive thing between Empires. I had some simple suggestions on how to improve Trade (insert link). Commercial Pacts are too simple and limited.

My top systemic gripes / ambitions:
War: My biggest issue with the game as it is. War is important, but flawed, and needs a lot of attention IMHO. Currently no way of joining a war-in-progress, no way of providing illicit proxy war support to one side or another (with associated opinion bonus/malus if you're discovered); no way of buying and selling ships to other Empires; no way of directly threatening another Empire 'Do this or it's war!'. Also (once Contact is made) there's no gradation in the use of force or minor skirmishes; no 'grey zone' stuff. You're either at peace or at war. The War system could adopt the 'negotiation' methods as used in the Vassal system.

Space Combat: It’s One of my least favourite parts of Stellaris, honestly. Lots has been written about this and in particular the Doomstack problem, which I agree with, but above all: for the love of the Shroud, *please* free us from the aggro trap!

Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Espionage: There's no way of mediating between two other Empires (either convincing them to end an ongoing war, or to make them like each other more). There's very limited ways of meddling in the affairs of other Empires, such as influencing their ethics or their Factions. I really want Espionage to be more powerful (and I don't mind if I suffer from this power from time to time).

Victory conditions: Stellaris really needs a diplomatic and a cultural victory condition. It essentially boils down to conquest by the laser-gun, either through sheer alloy output or supreme science output. Production of Alloys / Science, CGs, StratRes's, and Unity (in that order) is, really, all that matters. While understandable from a gameplay perspective. Unity is my favourite resource but I've finally come to accept that it's not the foundation of victory the same way alloy economy or science output is.

Domestic Policy & Government: Every Empire feels the same. The penalties for not having a Head of Research, Minister of State, and Minister Defence feel contrived and artificially restrictive - HFY . I long for Internal Politics (even if it is a meme at this point), and someday soon will record some thoughts on that. I have some ideas on what I would like to see from ‘Internal Politics’ which I’ll write up seperately (probably over Christmas) but it basically revolves around culture (could be linked to cultural victories), and also a bit to Espionage/Subversion.

And there's lots of little details in and of the game which would add up to greater than the sum of their parts:

• Colonisation is way too simple and boring - point and click, pay your resources, wait a while, and boom - you have a colony.
• Terraforming is way too simple and boring as well - research a tech, point and click, pay your resources, wait a long while, and boom - you have a planet. While we do now get the post-terraforming events, these are very simple - a single pop-up box to change a few more districts. Why not make use the Situations system for Terraforming and inject developments/events to it which add quirks such as Blockers/Planetary features?
• I think both Colonisation and Terraforming would/could have little mini-games or something more to add to them.

QoL needs:

• I think we need a system by which we can add notes to ourselves - things such as 'Plan on building X on this planet', 'Come back to this system later' etc. A system by which we can set notifications at specific in-game dates, or timers (both stopwatch and/or timers) for a set number of days/years, would be really useful.
• I really think we need a Jobs Manager. Or at the very least, a way to discriminate which jobs certain species must/can/cannot take. At a bare minimum I'd like to limit Robots to taking Worker jobs even where the technology allows them to take Specialist/Ruler jobs!
• I think Pre-Designed Empires in the game setup screen should be on a slider of how likely they are to spawn, rather than the toggles of 'Can't / Can / Will'. Other options are on a slider/multiplier and something like this would be good for them: Maybe a 'Can't / Might / Probably / Definitely'? I'd also like to be able to add a few conditions, such as 'If Empire A exists in-game, Empire B will too, but Empire C will not".

Wishlists:

• Religion is very simplified and I'd like to be able to shape this more. Having the tenets of my faith, and bringing enlightenment to the non-believers and all that.
• Planets are almost all 'Specialised' and there's not really a 'Generalist' designation type (Urban Worlds not really counting, IMHO).
• Some other ways of playing the game besides a purely static planet-bound existence, such as 'Craftworlds' (moving 'Planets'/Colonies) and playable Marauder (or Marauder-like) Empires.

 

[Uburian]

I know it's been some time since The Vision dev diary was posted, but I have finally found enough time to answer it with the attention it deserves. This delayed response has also allowed me to consider the developer's response to the initial series of answers the community gave. Hopefully my responses are useful!

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

Being able to perceive and interact with your Pops and jobs is a very important part of the game, but the current system scales really poorly as the game progresses, becoming overwhelming for the player, and a performance hog, past the mid game, and specially in the late game.

Seeing that the developer team is now dedicated to adapting Victoria 3's pop system to Stellaris in a manner that is sensible to the game feels me with Joy, as said system manages to attain a proper balance between concrete population and cultural representation and governmental abstraction. If done well, this change could allow the game to grow way beyond its current nature, specially in what concerns the stimulation of culture and governance, while being more performance friendly to boot.

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

Being able to directly control fleets and military actions is an essential part of the game, and should not be abstracted. However, i consider that the current combat and warfare system too simplistic and overwhelming at the same time, for on the one hand it lacks the deep that a proper grand strategy space game such as Stellaris deserves, and on the other it scales too poorly into the late game, becoming overwhelming both for the player and the game's performance.

Current late game warfare generally descends into being a game of wack a mole in which we simply make doom-stacks crash against each other, in which defensive structures are largely useless, and in which the occurrence of multiple faction wars tends to cascade into bugged unending conflicts as a consequence of the attrition and claim system being largely unprepared for such events. It works, barely, but could be significantly better.

We also have to consider that currently a very significant part of the game economy, or better said its design philosophy, is related to feeding and maintaining of military fleets, which detracts from the non military aspects of the game in a way that feels both odd and too on the nose.

I think that, Ideally, the whole warfare and combat system should be redesigned alongside the game's economy itself, the former into a system more reminiscent of cold war era and contemporary conflicts (with logistics, diplomacy, fleets, indirect attacks, static defenses and super-weapons playing a constant game between each other (the game really needs to move away from making doom-stack fleets the core of the late game experience), and the later from the universal logistic system we have now to one that simulates resources as a fluid that requires proper logistics and storage networks to work.
In regards to that last part, I'm well aware that the developer team has no intention of creating a complex localized resource system for the game, and that they are likely planning on retiring the current (and extremely flawed and performance unfriendly) trading system, but as it is the case with the Pop system, I think that there is a lot of good a sensible reinvention of the system could do to the game, even if it was largely abstracted, as a sensible logistics, resource scarcity and commerce system (including inter-empire and galactic commerce) would not only make empire building and warfare more interesting, but would also open the game to completely new types of wars, such as commercial ones.
This is however a very complex topic that would require further consideration and study. For now though, I would urge the dev team not to discard the potential good an interconnected rework of these systems could bring.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

As a role playing player, I consider all aspects that configure my civilizations important, as they all define the tone of each play-trough.

However, I do consider that empire creation could use some more granularity in regards to the nature of the different aspects that define it, and that two very important aspects of Civilizations should be represented on it: Culture and Economics. In this regard, I think that the current Civics and Authority systems should be re-tailored as a way to define governmental structure, with Culture and Economics inheriting parts of them, as well as some aspects of the Traits system, and with Ethos dominating them all except the pop traits.

Similarly the Origin system should become less restrictive and granular, and differentiating between the origin of your civilization in-game and its relation to the galaxy at large. This would require re-balancing of certain origins, but I think it would be worth it.

This was a bit confusing, so I will now create a point by point outline of how system like this would work.

• Phase I: Species Creation (What is the Biological or Mechanical Nature of your species?)
  • The player chooses Species portrait and Pop Traits. Additional species slots are opened if certain planetary origins are choose.
  • Pop traits are restricted to the physical and cognitive capacities of your species.
  • The player chooses Species name and gender system.
• Phase II: Namelist
  • The Namelsit is chosen
• Phase III: Local Origin (Where and How did your species evolve?)
  • The player chooses a planetary origin for its species (for example: Prosperous Unification, Resource Consolidation, Void Dwellers, Doomsday, Ark Welders, Under One Rule, Necrophages, Clone Army, Knights of the Toxic God).
  • If non-restricted, the Player chooses planet type.
• Phase IV: Galactic Origin (Which one is your species relation to the rest of the Galaxy?)
  • The player chooses a galactic origin for its species (for example: Galactic Doorstep, Scion, Hegemon, Teachers of the Shroud, Imperial Fiefdom, Treasure Hunters).
  • If non-restricted, the Player chooses Star system type.
• Phase V: Culture (What are the main Culture and Ethos that define your Empire?)
  • The player chooses it's empire's Ethos.
  • The player chooses up to two cultural traits (for example: Thrifty, Traditional, Pompous Purists, Death Cult, Memorialists, Nationalistic Zeal, Warrior Culture)
  • In case of spiritualism being one of the Ethos, the culture is considered a religion.
  • Many new traits would have to be created for this aspect to be effective, and certain gestalt traits would have to remain trait bound).
  • Ideally, cultures would not be static, but would rather evolve and propagate trough the new pop system, both in your empire and beyond.
• Phase VI: Economy (Which one is the Nature of your Empire's Economic System?)
  • The player chooses it's empire's economic system, using a mechanic similar to the Authority system (for example: cooperative, free market, corporate, interventionist, feudal, state-controlled).
  • The player chooses up to two economic and industrial traits (for example: Relentless Industrialists, Mutagenic Spas, Scavengers Catalytic Processing, Masterful Crafters, Merchant Guilds, Slave Guilds, Dark Consortium)
  • The player choose the trade system, restricted by the economic system.
• Phase VI: Government (Which one is your Empire's Government System?)
  • The player chooses it's empire's Authority system.
  • The player chooses up to two governmental Civics (for example: Police State, Philosopher King, Parliamentary System, Shadow Council, Diplomatic Corps).
  • Ideally, this section would be expanded alongside an expansion of the Game's Internal Politics system.
• Phase VII-XI: Empire Name, Flag, City and Room Type, and Ship Type
  • Not much else to say here. Just reorganized it.
• Phase XII: Aspirations (What does your civilization aspire to?)
  • In this section, the player would choose a short of open-ended goal for its civilization, and thus its play-trough.
  • In contrast to Origins, which set how the game starts, Aspirations would define, trough a series of less concrete goals, events and rewards, what your civilization aspires to accomplish in the long term trough its venture trough the stars.
  • Aspirations would be more open ended, and instead of being completely defined at game start, they would evolve as a game progressed. If completed they would trigger game victory, and an option in galaxy creation would allow Ai empires to trigger them too.
  • Some existing Origins could be retooled into this system.
  • Examples could include:
    • Prosperous Unification (aspire to become a better civilization) -> Galactic Utopia (Create an expansive civilization where all citizens live in equality and abundance, and propagate such a culture trough most of the galaxy),
    • Seekers of the past (venture to the stars with an insatiable curiosity for the history of the galaxy) -> From the past, to the future (Explore a significant part of the galaxy, complete a precursor chain, and fill a grand archive).
    • Ascendant (aspire to enhance your species and civilization trough technology and the domination of the natural world) -> Galactic Ascendancy (Ascend your species, and reach a technological level comparable to that of the Awakened Empires)
    • To Rule them all (aspire to subjugate other civilizations) -> Galactic Overlord (Subjugate a significant number of other empires, and form the galactic Imperium if Nemesis is owned),
    • Fear of the Dark (venture to the stars knowing of its dangers) -> Ebrace the dark Forest (Eradicate all other species and civilizations in the galaxy).
    • Knights of the Toxic God (venture to the starts in search of the Toxic God) -> Spear of the Righteous (Complete Cosmogenesis, and become one with the Toxic God).
• Phase XII: Ruler (Who/what rules your Empire at game start?)
  • The player chooses it's starting empire's ruler and up to two ruler traits.
  • Ideally, significantly more authority and ethos specific traits would be added.

This is just a general overview of my idea in this regard. If I ever have the time I'll develop it further.

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

As a role player who usually plays on Iron man mode, I tend to set them at game start and develop them as the game progress. Some games tend to be more static while others are more frenetic.

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

To be frank, the current systems leaves a lot to be desired, as it offers too little interesting gameplay while being performance heavy. However, as I commented before, redesigning into into a more abstract yet expansive logistic and trade system would be the best course of action here, instead of a complete removal of the mechanic.

I also think that galactic trade should be way more involved, with resource scarcity playing a mayor role in it (as in, each galactic region should only offer a series of strategic resources in abundance, making galactic trade and trade lanes more important).

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

Definitively, it should be way more difficult to colonize other worlds, specially those your species is not prepared for, but this is probably a topic that should be addressed only when the ongoing rework of the pop system is completed.

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

I already addressed this topic when I talked about empire creation. I argue that a more granular empire creation system would be extremely beneficial to the game.

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

In their current state, Galactic Storms add very little to the game for the problems they cause. Usually I tend to deactivate them completely, unless if I want to play a Storm-Centric civilization.

They need a complete rework.

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

Three systems actually, or better said about the co-dependent and synergistic relationship that they have: Culture, Education and Technology.

This a topic that most strategy games, and specially grand strategy games centered about Empire Building, tend to overlook: Species (human or otherwise) tend to develop technology as a way to grow beyond their natural limitations, which allows them to shape complex societies as a result but makes them dependant on a never ending race between technological evolution and societies capacity to adapt to said evolution, with both culture and education playing key roles in this dynamic, and the ascension to the next significant complexity level in the scale of evolution being the end goal of it.

While this might be too complex of a mechanic to see properly implemented in a game such as Stellaris, I think that if done well it could make the entire game experience way more interesting, and I would personally love to see an expansion, or a series of expansions centered around this.

(Disclaimer, this is the topic that I explored in my Doctoral Dissertation).

We also have to consider that, as many others have pointed out already in this thread, the game seriously requires an expansion of its internal politic mechanics, specially in what concerns the differentiation of the authority systems and the administration of large empires. Having said that, I consider that my posed rework of the scientific and cultural mechanics could complement such a rework really well.

I can see two possible expansions being tied to those reworks:

• Stellaris: Path to the Future, a story pack centered on technological development, education and academia.
  
  • Open the path to the future by utilizing the new Institute of Sciences to coordinate and expand the scientific capabilities of your civilization (An upgrade able kilo structure that would unify and expand the current scientific features of the game, and would eventually become the science nexus if Utopia is installed).
  • Explore the new Maniacal Minds (mad scientists) and Broken Singularity (a civilization that survives a destructive technological singularity) Origins.
  • Research more than a hundred new unique technologies, including new impactful dangerous technologies (for example, hyperlane manipulation, Self- Replicating Geo-engineering Systems, Teleportation, Automated Research Systems, Singularity Harnessing) and deal with the consequences of their utilization.
  • Help your society adapt to technological progress, and educate them to make a better use of advanced technologies...
  • ... or embrace unconstrained technological development, without any regard to the horrors it might unleash.
  • Face a series of new mini crises resultant from the insensible use of dangerous technologies (for example, robot uprising, pandemics, technological overloads, hyperspace fractures and extra-dimensional invasions), or weaponize their effects against your adversaries.

• Stellaris: Ascendancy, an expansion centered on culture, internal politics and the evolution of civilization.
  
  • Guide your civilization trough the stars like never before, harnessing expanded governance and culture mechanics to create an expansive Star Nation capable of surviving trough the ages.
  • Explore the new Reemergence (a civilization that starts submerged on the aftermath of a pre-ftl societal collapse), Workshop of the Stars (a civilization where the scientific, academic, cultural and artistic world have managed to become fully synergistic and aspires to unveil and help shape the culture of the galaxy) and Will of the Void (a spiritualist civilization focused on imposing its religion trough the galaxy) Origins.
  • Gain access to a plethora of new Cultural, Religious, Economic and Governmental Civics, as well as to new impactful authority types.
  • Build two new and imposing Kilo-structures, the Sky Forum that will house and enhance your governmental institutions, and the Grand Workshop, where those of your empire and beyond will be able to partake in cultural, artistic, and technological exchange and innovation.
  • Face a galaxy full of wonders, challenges and terrors, and manage its impact on your civilization and its people, bringing forth Golden, Stagnant or Dark Ages.
  • Propagate your culture trough the stars and interact with those of other civilizations. Will you close yourself to outside influence, Impose your ways to others, or attempt to help shape an emergent galactic culture alongside other species?
  • Succeed in your work, allowing your civilization to become a Galactic Ascendancy.

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

The Ethos system, as I think that it should be expanded into a more complex culture system.

However, as it is the case with the habitability concerns, there is no much point in discussing this topic in deep until the new pop system is released.




------------------------------------

Well, that was longer than expected.

Hopefully this will be of use to you.

 

[Slash Voltic]

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

While I like the current system, especially with how it feels over the previous system I do think change would be a welcome thing. As it stands the current pop and job mechanic can be buggy (with certain jobs not optimising e.g. enforcers not assigning until last even with crime present etc) and on top of that we all know the issues with lag that this system has, especially in the late game. I think another system wouldn't be opposed, and from a roleplay perspective getting some actual numbers associated to a pop would be interesting.
My concern with this system at the moment is that If my economy becomes stable and strong especially around mid game, I can often opt to ignore my pops and planetary issues. It would feel nice to keep some of the more interesting aspects of early game going into mid - late to keep me engaging in my planets rather than either opting for automatic (which is a bit silly with its choices - especially with planetary assignment), or ignoring unemployment/crime till I see a noticeable hit to my economy which normally means I then have 10-20 pops just to resettle and build for - which feels like it could be a more proactive than reactive system.
The only concern is in systems such as other PD titles, how would traits be affected. Flat empire bonuses would feel dull, and wouldn't work well with multi-species empires.

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

I think there are two key points to this question - first Space Combat.

Honestly, I think space combat needs to be addressed in full again. I loved the direction you guys took last time, trying to incentivise mixed fleets versus doom-stacks. However from a balancing perspective it seems to have failed. Cruisers are just better than all lower tier ships, and with the ability to use hangers you can counter the corvettes which would normally be a pain for battleships. Meaning you only ever need those two ship types from mid to late game. Destroyers are often advertised in guides and general play as useless - either you do a lot of them or you don't bother, and wait for the more efficient use of cruisers.
Ideally, I'd love to see a system where having a mixed fleet really is optimal. What you did with frigates worked amazing but it struggles with the fact they can only cloak if the rest of the fleet also sacrifices its slots for cloaking - which isn't useful on anything cruiser and above. Meaning I tend to doom-stack frigates as an assassin group for those battleship and above only fights (or the khan himself).
A system where each ship has some advantage/bonus/buff over another of a different class e.g. - Fighters/Frigates < Corvettes < Destroyers < Cruisers < Battleships/Titans/Jugs/Col < Frigates etc. This would incentive having a mixed fleet and allowing players to specialise in ship types of their own preference more rather than just going for what is obstructively better and more resource efficient (cruisers).

Secondly - Ground Combat.

This definitely needs work - I know its something that has been said for years, and something that I realise is easier said than done. But as it stands ground invasions are not even a part of the game for me, or even remotely fun. Armies tax my economy and thus I tend to only build them at war, meaning the only purpose they have in my existing games is to drag out a war for longer while I wait for them to build, only to send them planeside in a 1:2 ratio against the defenders to win, then repeat till I win the war and dismantle them. Generals are not even worth having, they often die instantly in invasions and in the smaller invasions they do survive against, they gain little XP meaning they never level to go anywhere and will probably die in the next 2k versus 1k ground invasion. They are the purest form of doom-stacks outside of combat and inside of ground invasions.
Some suggestions I would make is to have ground invasions act more like a situation, that still requires an investment and soldiers to do, but has events that occur that both sides can react to gain different outcomes. Maybe intel levels impact what responses you get or when you get them so that you can react to an enemy's choice or get more information/% of success. I think invasions as they stand need major rework.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

This is an easy one, for me its three things.
- Ethics
- Civics

These two because they both impact the way I will play the game and the story I will lean into. (As a player who prefers to focus on the RP elements but also make a viable build).

- Possibilities
This one is more ambiguous. The RNG aspects of the galaxy are the main thing here. I can replay a single empire several times and get a different story due to the dynamic of the galaxy. Are there enough empires with the same ethics as me to push resolutions through and befriend? Do my neighbours want to befriend me or exterminate me? Who am I in the galactic community/what agendas are needed? What events/relics/anomaly's did I get etc etc. These are all essential along with the above to defining my civilisations and its rise or fall on the galactic stage.

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

I think this can be referred to my previous answer - possibilities.

"This one is more ambiguous. The RNG aspects of the galaxy are the main thing here. I can replay a single empire several times and get a different story due to the dynamic of the galaxy. Are there enough empires with the same ethics as me to push resolutions through and befriend? Do my neighbours want to befriend me or exterminate me? Who am I in the galactic community/what agendas are needed? What events/relics/anomaly's did I get etc etc. These are all essential along with the above to defining my civilisations and its rise or fall on the galactic stage."

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

Unfortunately, its overly complicated, and not used. I cant remember the last time I opened the trade section other than to figure out where a pirate station was based. A system which would allow for blockades/logistics along with commercial trade would be incredibly positively received and increase strategic decisions in war in my view.

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

I think colonisation could use some change, but not major. The system in place is a good framework, but modernising it to the new features such as rng situations events etc would be a great thing. Even profitable in story pack format.

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

Perhaps some like mechanist etc would be similar to rouge servitors or vice versa.

• 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 think combat needs the biggest overhaul, because where it did try to overhaul and become different it failed. Ground combat has needed reworks for years and fixing the issue with ship doom-stacks could be combined into one.

Alternatively bringing existing ascensions up to date with the cybernetic and synth ascensions is also necessary.

Finally, as somebody who enjoys playing as a criminal syndicate and being able to harass my friends and be a nuisance just enough to annoy them, but not enough to justify war. I would like to see more systems like this and espionage in place. Maybe expanding the existing framework. Mods do this amazingly, but seeing some vanilla content like assassinations or counter-espionage with envoys (like in hoi) would be amazing. Being able to arm and form militias and rebellions in opposing empires without direct public involvement would be nice.

I realise this is long, but thank you to all for reading, if anyone has anything extra they think is good to add or inputs/questions I'd love to hear it!

 

[diagrapher]

Some things I forgot to mention in my previous post:

- The influence system often feels arbitrary. I can kind of understand "if you keep aggressively expanding other countries will be reluctant to repay favors or maintain research agreements". I don't see why (from a flavor perspective) any of those things should trade off against building orbital rings, gateways, and so on.

- The thing where the galactic core is just empty space feels like somewhere the game is unfinished, to me. I'm not sure what ought to go there instead but I feel like something should.

 

[ATerafin22]

Also, I think having an option in the Expansion Planner to view planets inside/outside your borders would be helpful.

 

[Masked Ermine]

Is part of the plans fixing the 'Thanks, don't show this again' button for the Circinus update...because the button don't work...and I've started noticing that new empires I've built aren't actually being saved. Two hours I just wasted building empires only to have to go away for a request and come back to all that work gone, despite the game saying everything was saved. I'm sorry but Stellaris's quality has become increasingly a crap shoot...this is getting annoying when basic Pre-play functions aren't working.

And before anyone tediously asks, no mods, nothing was noncompliant or incompatible. The Game just isn't saving stuff it says it's saved. Again, I think we just need a damned year or five of bug fixing, optimization and making the game work before doing the endless DLC money grab bug that continuously breaks games.

 

[LordWookie]

I feel a large, total naval overhaul is once again needed. As it stands, we have drifted back into doom-stacking large fleets of cruisers/battleships. I feel we may need to entirely re-imagine how naval combat in Stellaris works, and it likely will take a while to get there.

I think many agree that they would like to see fewer ships on the field, with each ship having more meaning. I want to care about the name, level, and history of each ship, not just print out 100+ battleships every time I lose 50.

Outside of this though, another suggestion I have is to completely break up the current structure on naval combat. Add buffs (and maybe debuffs) into each hull type. But also allows the player to start with all the "basic" hull types at the start. Having a basic "Tier 1" Battleship, Cruiser, Destroyer and Corvette. But as the game progresses, you unlock a tier 2, tier 3, tier 4. These new tiers could be handled on a tab in the shipbuilder, so if someone wanted, they could still use a lower tier ship, which would be cheaper, but have fewer weapon slots and fewer buffs / more debuffs. These tiers could be improved based on technology with an event which fires and provides the player choice of a few ways to tailor their ships.

From there, a few new weapon types and modules. They should focus more on specific purposes but with less "overall" usability.

Finally, we could potentially add new ship types, such as dedicated "Carriers," which could branch off from, say, T2 Battleships with their own hull type.

I understand this could be a lot of work, but it may be an interesting way to add depth to fleet designs, and also help to solve the early game issue of "Who can spam more destroyers/corvettes"

 

[Crazyross16]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  • Needs major revision - the current system generates a LOT of lag late game due to trying to move and balance pops, and typically, if you don't need a job you are going to replace the building/district rather than try to mess with the jobs on the planet. The only exception is if you do a tall planet, but if you do that, then the lag causes issues due to the high number of pops on the planet.
  • Make the pop counter in the Ruler/Specialist/Worker/Drone level, then all the "Jobs" currently provide a modifier to the job level type. The job level type works on the % of pops assigned to the level out of the number required. Add a soft and hard cap on the total number of pops.

• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
  • Change is good, especially if it makes the strategy part of it better. Doom stacks need to be restricted, and ships also cause lag due to volume.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
  • Origin, Ethics, Civics and Species. Who, What, Where, How
    • Origin should be divvied up into at least 2 categories, possibly 3 - Planet/System Origin (type of planet - Desert, Ocean, Arctic, planet modifier such as Post Apocalyptic or Shattered Ring), Species Origin (Mechanist, Syncretic Evolution, Clone Army). This is the "Where the species came from."
    • Ethics - Gestalt should be a toggle, then the other 8 as modifiers. Gestalts with Xenophobe should generate Exterminators for example.
    • Civics - Generally good, this needs a bit of tuning but is generally pretty good, Stuff like Exterminators or the like should be a 0 cost item as it should generate from Ethics like the Machine trait is given to machine species.
    • Species - Psionic needs a small boost, Bio/Lithoid need a boost like the Machines. Machines need an option to go to a non-machine race like the bio/lithoid get to change to machine.

• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
  • Make those with the origin/ethics/civics/species. Each game generally has a different goal, although it generally is to control everything.

• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
  • It's nice to generate resources, but is another lag generator and should be simplified or adjusted.

• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  • Yes, habitability and planet climate need to matter more - there's tons of boosters and such that make habitability a less important, with terraforming making it a nonfactor. Situations might work here for either or both.

• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
  • Yes. See Origins and Civics above.

• 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 the current presapent systems and move the whole thing over to situations. The choices each period and such would influence the planet/people. They get modified by ethics and civics, along with research and the like. Either that or the whole spy situation needs to be revised on them.
  • Central focus of expansion: Politics - internal/external/wars - this would be for factions, interactions between empires, how wars are handled.
  • Change:
    • Vassalage - winning a war to make someone a vassal should automatically kick you to the create vassalage screen so you can actually make it work for you. The generic terms are nonfunctional. Alternatively, add a Contacts submenu to let us make templates such as like what the shipbuilder has that we can apply on winning a war to individual enemies. If I have to win to get to vassalize, but then have to wait 5 years before modding it, or even get the favor positive without doing trade deals separate to even break even?
    • The mouseovers on the boosts to various statistics - you changed it so that when you mouse over dictionary terms it would bring up a summary of those terms, change it so +/- # and +/- % are also like that. If you have mods that give boosts, they eventually make some screen unreadable or push information offscreen. Make it one line for additions/subtractions and one for %, with a mouseover to show the makeup of that total instead of listing every modifier in a list that is longer than the screen.
    • Civics and Species modification screens need major changes - make them like the race change screen in the race creation menu rather than the mashup that we currently have.
    • Planet Templates - Planets and Sectors menu should have a tab at the bottom for Planet Templates which lets players create their own templates like the shipbuilder has. Checkbox for the district to be built, if more than 1 selected, then % based with a slide bar and text box or a ratio for the districts (1 forge for every 2 mining), if a district has a limit, once that limit is filled then it won't factor into the building process.
    • Situations - there should be options/research/artifacts/etc that change the speed of situations or give a flat bonus/increase - If I am a machine empire and I am pursuing Transformation, I should be able to do a research option that boosts the situation or if I encounter the L-gates and kill them all off, it grants a x point increase. If these are applied to Terraforming - the various terraforming researches should increase or change the available options. For 1st contact, higher encryption/decryption should also have breakpoints that also make it faster (less time between event phases).
    • Auto Build/Auto Survey - need to change this, if I have 5 constructors set to autobuild, they should not all travel together to each point and then go off. Ditto for surveying. Make them go down the situation list, 1st is sent to 1st option, 2nd is sent to 2nd, etc. If they aren't allowed to build/research/check x then they skip it on the list. Or based on systems rather than individual rocks in a system.
    • Situation Log - break it out a little, 1st contact and Situations should be on a different tab from stuff the science ships do.
    • Auto Research - add a check box on each research card, if it is checked, then it is valid for auto research, if not checked then auto does not research it and you manually have to select it to have it researched.
    • UI in general just needs a couple good clean-up runs - take a look at some of the really common mods that adjust the UI to make modding a little easier and to just clean it up/make it easier to understand.

 

[Thiend]

I feel a large, total naval overhaul is once again needed. As it stands, we have drifted back into doom-stacking large fleets of cruisers/battleships. I feel we may need to entirely re-imagine how naval combat in Stellaris works, and it likely will take a while to get there.

I think many agree that they would like to see fewer ships on the field, with each ship having more meaning. I want to care about the name, level, and history of each ship, not just print out 100+ battleships every time I lose 50.

Outside of this though, another suggestion I have is to completely break up the current structure on naval combat. Add buffs (and maybe debuffs) into each hull type. But also allows the player to start with all the "basic" hull types at the start. Having a basic "Tier 1" Battleship, Cruiser, Destroyer and Corvette. But as the game progresses, you unlock a tier 2, tier 3, tier 4. These new tiers could be handled on a tab in the shipbuilder, so if someone wanted, they could still use a lower tier ship, which would be cheaper, but have fewer weapon slots and fewer buffs / more debuffs. These tiers could be improved based on technology with an event which fires and provides the player choice of a few ways to tailor their ships.

From there, a few new weapon types and modules. They should focus more on specific purposes but with less "overall" usability.

Finally, we could potentially add new ship types, such as dedicated "Carriers," which could branch off from, say, T2 Battleships with their own hull type.

I understand this could be a lot of work, but it may be an interesting way to add depth to fleet designs, and also help to solve the early game issue of "Who can spam more destroyers/corvettes"

To be honest, I think there's a sufficient framework in how ships and their components operate to make monobattleships/cruisers stop happening already with some consistency modifications.

1. Weapons get more DPS efficient and long-ranged at higher sizes, except strikecraft which have 90% (effectively capped out, because that's as high as evasion gets) tracking at Improved Strike Craft, which is 85% more than the highest L-slot weapon they are otherwise roughly equivalent to.
2. Smaller ships usually have high evasion but low hard stats, except frigates which are trash in both categories.
3. All hanger-designed ships also have actual point defense, in addition to strikecraft being able to attack PD targets.

This is most of the problem - smaller ships SHOULD be a problem for larger weapons to hit, but because strikecraft are already very strong they aren't due to completely bypassing tracking. Meanwhile, a fleet of all hangers and presumably primarily large ships like battleships will include not only the strikecraft itself but also actual point defense, so on top of being able to destroy frigates with ease despite frigates being designed to counter them the larger ships that should be a prime target for frigates to destroy also all have massive amounts of point defense so torpedoes can't hit them. Neutron Launchers should serve a role here as a torpedo that can't be shot down, but they're bad so they don't.

To summarize: strikecraft need to lose DPS, tracking, ability to hit PD targets or some combination. Hanger sections need to lose PD slots (which could actually make them better as carriers by giving them more hanger slots). Frigates need to gain durability, preferably weighted towards evasion.

Given these changes, frigates would start countering larger ships as is their intended single function, which would make monobattleships/cruisers stop working. Frigates should be balanced to be countered by corvettes, which would have otherwise similar stats except they'd be using all S/P slot weapons instead of 1S1G and would thus be far more capable of hitting other evasive targets despite perhaps not having the raw DPS to take on larger ships.

The ideas are all there, tracking and lack thereof is how corvettes frigates and destroyers can all be useful for things while cruisers and battleships exist. Destroyers can then be the counter to BOTH smaller ships while being largely vulnerable to both larger ones, by having the midrange stats to still hit corvettes and frigates while having the sheer stats and PD to not be as vulnerable to them in return, but not being evasive enough to take on cruisers and battleships.

 

[m-a-d-o-k-a]

合金的中文文本里多了一个$导致文本出现错误，已经持续好几个版本了，可以修复吗？
There is an extra $ in the Chinese text of Alloy, which causes text errors. This has lasted for several versions. Can it be fixed?