Stellaris Dev Diary #361 - The Vision

[Z0197]

Longtime player, first time poster. I have a few thoughts on the questions posed in this post:
"How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?"

I feel the current pop system is balanced against non-planetside forms of production. That is to say, with the introduction of Arc Furnaces and Dyson Swarms in the Machine Age DLC there are viable means of production with and without a population focus.

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

I think the current fleet system works, but the auto designs are unoptimized to the point of losing some fleet combats where you theoretically have a stronger fleet power but the auto design has outfitted your fleets with only energy weapons. Auto designs also sometimes just don't assign augment slot components on ships for some reason, even if there's power present. Perhaps instead of calculating on just the highest damage/day, auto design takes into account building a ship that has better mixed damage. Other than my gripes with auto-design, I quite like the current fleet system. I think a change to how naval capacity works could be in order, but I think the core elements of ship components, fleet command limit, and ship size should stay in place.

"What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?"

In the group that I play with, roleplay takes a backseat to doing cool thing mechanically and exploring different ways of becoming a powerhouse on the galactic stage (be it through diplomacy, military, tech, or economy.) As such, the most import aspects to my civilization tend to be mechanical parts, not the flavor parts. I love finding cool optimizations like reducing pop amenity usage to next to nothing with dictatorial government and philosopher king combined with effective leader level +X effects, or creating an unemployment engine with synthetic assentation and utopian abundance living standard by assimilating every pop in the galaxy and forcing them all to make tech and unity long past the job cap of my planets. Keep adding new things to the game. I love diversity and options to mix and match fun combos with.

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

I typically set goals at empire creation. I build empires for a purpose and then attempt to execute that purpose. Most of the time, this takes the form of making an interesting combination of origin, civics, and species to make a powerful empire in an unconventional way. Other times it's for the purpose of hunting achievements. Occasionally, my goals will shift in the middle of play if some big event happens that I feel is worth diverting my interest towards. I like constructing ring worlds in azilash (you do have to blow up zeya first, sorry Formless,) and other thing like securing Gray out of the L-Cluster and conquering fallen empires.

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

I don't really love or hate the current trade system. It's just kind of there, and I use it when I play as a megacorp but almost never otherwise. I haven't ever optimized for trade as a non-megacorp empire. As gestalt empires, I do find it annoying that piracy can occur within your borders because of another empire's trade routes running unprotected through your systems. I wish there was a way to prevent this that didn't involve closing borders or having a couple patrol fleets consuming your naval capacity. I would be okay with a complete rework of the trade system.

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

From a gameplay standpoint I think the current system is mostly fine. There are some edge cases where late game colonization takes about 5-10 years for reasons I don't quite understand (I think it's related to the pop growth taking longer as you get more pops in your empire and as the game progresses.) From a roleplay standpoint, I think there is room to expand on how your species colonizes the planet. As a suggestion, perhaps colonization can be a situation with different approaches and events based on those approaches as compared to the static progress bar that it is now.

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

I think Syncretic Evolution and Post Apocalyptic are really underwhelming as far as origins go. They each have their uses in builds either optimizing tomb worlds with Relentless Industrialists or individualistic machines having remarkable combined pop growth and assembly with their servile partners, but they don't have the same kick that the other origins do. The same can be said for Prosperous Unification, but one origin has to be the default and in that it serves its function. From a flavor standpoint, it makes perfect sense why SE and PA are origin (they define how your empire came into being after all,) but I find them underwhelming compared to the other origins available.
As for civics, I think Dark Consortium (and Shadow Corporation) could be its own origin exploring the depths of dark matter. Some civics are very game changing, but most don't make sense as full 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?"

If I could remove anything it would be space storm anomalies. Space storms have a lot of issues in my opinion, and I enjoy keeping my situation log tidy. Space storms constantly dropping anomalies all over the place is very annoying. There's also a bug with these, where if you research one outside your borders it won't trigger the rewards for researching the anomaly. Furthermore, space storms can spawn duplicate anomalies. I'd much prefer to get an anomaly once, get the rewards, and be done with it. Also on the topic of space storms, there are some cases in which the Stormbound event chain doesn't work correctly. I've had it fail to work such that once the ship appears with the 1 day to research special project, nothing happens. This leaves the Stormbound ship idle in my borders and grants no rewards. I've started just ignoring Stormbound for the unity reward to get it out of my situation log.
I'd love to have more origins be the focus of an expansion. I'm not a mod maker, but if I could mod there are many things I'd like to add in the form of origins. I'd like to have an origin where you are an extradimensional empire. The Extradimensional trait is really cool to me, and I'd love to start the game with my founder species having that trait. Another origin I'd like to implement would be an isolated trinary start. You'd begin play in the isolated trinary system with the mysterious tanker and a friendly (but not controlled, similar to Here Be Dragons) psionic entity and Wormhole Stabilization as a guaranteed research option after finishing a dig site (similar to Riftworld gaining quick access to Rift Sphere tech.) I'd also like to see a non-organic space fauna civic/origin/ascension perk. I think this might be best as a machine intelligence civic that functions similar to the hive mind's Cordyceptic Drones that allows for the hacking, repairing, and controlling of space automata and mechanical leviathans.
(Part of my post got cut off here, likely due to it's length. Oops.) I'll keep it brief here: I'd like to see Starbase template, copying and mass construction. I'd like to see some form of mass resettlement for those times when you need to resettle an entire planet of bio-trophies or feed the synaptic lathe. And please fix the desync caused by the voidworm midgame crisis.
Thank you for reading if you read all of this, I'm glad my voice was heard in a game I love.

 

[cubelith]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  • They aren't important by themselves, but I would be sad to lose the options they allow us (also in terms of modding). Features like X Research per Materialist Pop or 1 Food per Farmer or 0.01 Exotic Gasses per Aimian are neat [why doesn't the forum allow the addition character?]. Of course, these should be even easier with a fluid system, though I don't know how the internal code works. So any change would be fine, as long as it still allows all the cool options (and preferably more)
• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
  • Fine with any, I never was much of a combat fan anyway.
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
  • Honestly, it really depends on empire. I usually start with a "seed", which may be a vague idea, a portrait I like, a civic/origin I want to play, or anything else. Then I try to make a coherent design by using all the other choices, from name to species traits. It's wonderful how these many little systems come to work together to make a coherent whole.
• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
  • I might have an overarching goal when creating an empire (such as trying out an Ascension or Crisis Path). Sometimes I will also set local goals during gameplay ("I really gotta get rid of these guys over there"). But instead of large-scale plans, I typically focus more on roleplaying the empire and making each particular decision in a way they would make it.
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
  • More of an annoyance really. I like the flexibility of Trade Value - unlike other resources, you can choose whether you want to invest in it or not, and trade policies allow it to supplement whatever you feel you're missing (Trade Policies for resources should really be available by default). But the actual routing system is more of an annoyance, so you just need to make a patrolling fleet and forget about it. I wouldn't be against trying to make an actual logistics system though. Summary: Trade Value good, Trade Routes annoying, logistics system possibly good.
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  • Yes. Terraforming techs come a bit early, and migration pacts make it even more trivial (honestly, Xenophilia seems overpowered in general). At the same time, it's nice to actually be able to expand, so there needs to be a balance. Maybe some sort of Civilization-like system of Luxury Resources could add a neat cost-benefit analysis to settling on worse planets. So don't kill expansion, but make it less trivial.
• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
  • Eager Explorers and Natural Design in particular. Honestly any Civic that cannot be removed and added is suspect (though definitely not all should become Origins). I think no Origins should be Civics though.
• 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?
  • There's a few systems that could be either removed or developed much more (Espionage, Ground Combat). I don't think there's anything I'd outright want removed, though perhaps early combat could be made a bit harder, as it can be annoying when I just want to develop my empire.
  • I think Species could use a bit of a fixup - right now it feels like the traits are both not that impactful, and that Xenophilia is too strong. I suppose traits could be buffed a little (and some missing options added), while also making it harder to fully integrate different species into your empire (after all, the infrastructure and dietary need of Avian and Fungoid species would be rather different). Plus it just feels bad that it's typically optimal to use so many foreign species instead of relying primarily on your own - the default should be only slight immigration (and more trade, tourism, and deals), with only dedicated Xenophiles being truly multispecies.
  • A system I'm not a fan of is Factions. Pretty much all they do is force you to use specific Policies instead of being more flexible in your roleplay. I think it's cool that an empire has incentives to use some over others, but right now it feels a bit too rigid - you either choose the "right ones" or lose Unity and Happiness.

Another thing I'd like to point out is that while Anomalies, Dig Sites and Astral Rifts are obviously great for exploration, they can feel a bit repetitive. Unless you intentionally curtail your exploration, you pretty much get the same ones every game (not all of them, but enough to feel familiar). Right now, it's best to never research Blue Lasers and just get them from the anomaly. Obviously getting even more would always welcome, but I think another good change would be to make them a bit more rare and more impactful. Dig Sites and Astral Rifts could have more branching stories, possibly even with options depending on Ethics or just sheer randomness, Anomaly results could be both stronger and more randomized. Procedural generation would be great, but doesn't sound viable.

And on a more general note, I think the game needs even more emergent gameplay. There should be interacting systems that don't exist in a vacuum. While I do enjoy story-based Origins, we need more Civics - and other options - that can have a deep effect throughout the gameplay instead of just being a self-contained story or a single modifier. The story origins should have a bit more of a persistent effect too. Something like Master Crafters or Subterranean is great - it really affects how you build your entire empire on a deep level. That being said, simple options are great too. Sometimes it feels like there aren't enough "basic" options: there isn't a species trait for increased/decreased upkeep, and there is only a single "generic" origin instead of (for example) one "basic" one for each ethic (United by Conquest, United by Religion etc). And even though Ascension Paths feel almost necessary, there isn't a "generic" one for empires that don't fit any of the "specific" ones (and most sci-fi empires in fiction are neither Synthetic, Cybernetic, Psionic, or Gene-focused). It'd be good to fill out the simple, generic options, as they tend to be the ones that allow the most build versatility.

And obviously thank you for the great work! Stellaris is one of my favorite games ever, and continues to (mostly) move in the right direction. And I absolutely love how easy it is to mod - sometimes I find that to be more fun than actually playing.

 

[Voidwaker]

Better late than never, eh? I probably won't say much that hasn't been said before, so expect a lot of tangents:

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

I find it cool and ambitious that the game tracks every Pop individually. However, in practice, this system has several issues:

1. Tedious Management
   Both the job overview on planets and the species tab are clunky and time-consuming, making them frustrating to use. Slaver empires, for example, are almost unmanageable: every time a "Master" Pop is created, it displaces a slave Pop from a mine. This leads to unemployment for the slave Pop, requiring special buildings or manual resettlement. Add robots in servitude to the mix, and it becomes a micromanagement nightmare. Since I started playing Stellaris (around the Nemesis), I’ve gravitated toward Necrophage or Synthetic Ascension empires because they let me assimilate species instead of having to manage them.
2. Nonsensical Pop Growth
   The current system doesn’t make much sense to me. It’s essentially node-based, where even a 2 Pop colony has equal or higher growth than a thriving capital planet. I’d prefer an empire-based growth system that distributes growth across planets, incorporating migration and logistic growth into the mechanics.
3. Minimal Impact of Traits
   While the Machine Age update added some improvements for machine traits, biological and cybernetic traits still feel meaningless. Traits like "Strong" offering a 2.5% increased output come across as flavor text rather than impactful mechanics—especially in a universe with dark matter engines. I’d prefer traits to have more significant effects, such as +/-50%, or for them to be multiplicative rather than additive to make them feel more meaningful.
4. Overreliance on Pops
   With 95% of the economy tied to Pops, the system feels constraining. This might make sense in medieval or contemporary 4X games, but in a sci-fi setting, technology should play a far greater role. Technology should enable economical advancements that can’t simply be replaced by having more Pops.

I’d love to see more focus on system improvements. Things like science bases on moons around habitable planets affecting or giving a direct research output ect. Dyson swarms and arc furnaces were fantastic ideas. However, if Stellaris were to move further in this direction, the UI and megastructure systems would need some overhauls.

Given how many issues the current system has, I wouldn’t mind getting rid of it in favor of something more abstract.

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

Things I’d Like to Keep:​

• The ability to move fleets wherever I want.
• Automatic battles.

Beyond that, I’m open to completely reworking the system. Fleet management is one of the main reasons I don’t finish 99% of my games—it’s just so tedious. This is also why I only engage in wars where I can crush the other side quickly. Wars of equal strength often devolve into slugfests. Big fleets are also a major contributor to endgame lag, as the nanomachines have shown.

Changes I’d Love to See:​

1. Reduce the Number of Ships
   Cut the total number of ships by at least 80%. Massive fleets could be visually impressive, but they lose their appeal when they turn into gray 2D carpets running at 3 FPS.
2. Remove the Fleet Cap
   Replace the fleet cap with a command limit that scales Commander traits inversely with fleet size. I dislike how the current fleet cap feels like a game balance tool at the expense of qol.
3. 3D battles
   I can dream, right?

What aspects are most important in defining your civilization? How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?​

I mostly set my goals before the game begins and rarely change them during gameplay. The defining aspect of my civilizations is excelling in whatever goal I’ve chosen. Here are some examples:

• Tall Techrush with a single choke point that will not let X strength crisis pass
• Necro Terravore Stargazer - eat whole galaxy
• How much tech can you get before 2300?
• Broken Shackles co-op that will virtually ascend
• More Dakka
• Driven assimilator with Curator civic and Treasure planet origin - Gotta Catch 'Em All
• How much pop assembly you can get as hive? With "you know which" fungoid portrait

There is only one thing I would like to see in regards to that:

- Allow me to pick a precursor. I need zroni stormcaster for my chokepoint!

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

It only affects me when I change capital and need to set all trading routes again. As long as trade builds are still possible, it could not exist for me. Also pirates are annoying and feel like something that should have been changed/removed/improved a long time ago.

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

I’d love to see this system expanded—honestly, a Machine Age-sized expansion focused solely on planets would make me really happy. Especially if you like Stellaris to have emergent narratives we should have way more planet types with highly impacting differences between them. This would also require reworking terraforming, as the current system feels lackluster: unless you have taken Hydrocentric, terraforming is often ignored until Ecu/Mech/Hive worlds become available.

What I’d Love to See:​

• More Planet Types
• More Unique Planets
• More Impactful Planetary Modifiers
• More Planet Specific Jobs
• Expanded Terraforming System: Make terraforming a deeper, more engaging process.
• Terraforming Events - Mid-situation events that steer terraforming in unexpected ways.
• Worldshaper being a real perk

My biggest issue with constant updates breaking mods, is that I have to play w/o Planetary Diversity - that’s how much Stellaris is missing in this field.

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

I think both Origins and Civics are limiting in their own ways, so not really. Instead, I’d prefer an expanded system where we can mix and match current origins, allowing for greater customization. For example:

• Our Starting Conditions: Life-Seeded, Post-Apocalyptic, Remnants.
• Our Culture: Mechanist, Necrophage, Cybernetic Creed.
• Our Story: Lost Colony, Knights of the Toxic God, Under One Rule.

This way, Civics like Planetscapers could fit better as part of a cultural origin rather than as a Civic.

If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?​

I wouldn’t want to remove any system entirely, but espionage is the obvious candidate for improvement. I enjoy putting spies and gathering intel on other empires, but all operations just suuuuck.

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

• Caste-Style Civilizations/Xenophiles/Driven Assimilators: The current Pop system makes these playstyles tedious.
• Big Dynamic Wars: Epic fights against crises or powerful empires are hampered by the limitations of the fleet system that folds under big numbers.
• Specific Empire Visions: Sometimes, I have a clear vision for my empire, but Irrassians prevent me from realizing it fully.

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

Terraforming, Planet, and System Improvements. This could include:

• Outposts on barren planets in systems with "normal" planets.
• Mining facilities in asteroid belts.
• Orbit-sized particle accelerators.
• Moving planets like solarpunk.

If we can bend the rules of reality, there is no reason to not have six moons orbiting our capital (or maybe a game engine reason).

 

[SupremeGodEmperor]

Just as an addendum to my last post:

1: In the Empire Creation Screen, it would be great if we could create GROUP SETS of empires (of the empires you create) so you can have different pre-sets of empires for different games (that you force spawn). For example, in one scenario, you can have a 24-AI-empire set pre made, each varied for a normal game (so, a nice mix of peaceful, exterminator, odd, etc.). But then you could have another SET of force spawn empires ready to choose from, where they could all be Determined Exterminators, for example, and you have to face a whole galaxy of them (say, 30 determined exterminators). This way, it's, much easier and quicker to set up such games instead of having to try and find each empire to click to force spawn them, as the number of empires you would have would increase dramatically in the set up menu if you were to have all of these empires. Of course, you should still be able to copy and paste empires from one group into another.

2: New victory conditions - which may even include "cultural" dominance (like in Civ 4 - don't know about the latest civ games).

 

[Hank2012]

Making large populated galaxies more playable will open up so many fun scenarios that are currently limited by FPS death. There are many great ideas in the recent post, but this feels most important to me. Good luck and congratulations on all the great work to date.

 

[V01ds33r]

Hello! Thank you for inviting us to provide feedback. I hope I'm not too late to add a few thoughts to the mix.

With your example questions, I generally agree with the community. But I also want to add some of my "pains". But before that, I have to say that I really love Stellaris and really appreciate all the hard work you've done to create and improve this game to its current version. Stellaris is the best grand strategy game I know, and if any of my suggestions below come across as complaints, I apologize in advance. They are just my suggestions, and I'm glad you want to hear them.

1) After all this years I can't even remember for sure if the transfer system with an AI was ever a working function, but to this day it feels like it's been amputated. I can't count the number of times I've had to start a full-scale war with one or more of my otherwise friendly neighbors over just one or two systems that were useless in any way other than their location in the hyperlane web. I know that trading territories is not something to be taken lightly, and players shouldn't be able to trade an AI empire their capital for 100 credits and a coprolite sample, but trading territories via diplomatic means shouldn't be completely impossible. It's just unimmersive and brings nothing but headaches.

Maybe the "transfer system" option should be separated from general trade deals, and the AI should have more weight for its systems? Or, in the bigger picture, should the AI have a better value system for its expansion plans? It works fine for the most part now, but any crisis that brings devastation to a part of the galaxy leaves a full bordergore in aftermath, with AI empires adjacent to that newly vacated space sometimes ignoring it entirely, while others rush in from half the galaxy. If AI empires take a more human approach to their expansion and their systems, valuing systems with planets, systems with strategic features, and systems that connect these two types to each other, but valuing systems with no strategic value much less, this could limit the ability for them to trade systems, in the same time leaving a window to at least resolve some minor border disputes without bombing the hell out of each other's capitals.

2) I really like the idea of the Galactic Imperium as a whole, but I have to say that at the moment the role of the Galactic Emperor feels almost the same as the Galactic Custodian. Yes, there is some flavor in Imperial resolutions like ISD that give you some bonuses to espionage, or even some major resolutions like Pax Galactica, but there is still no control or power over other empires that you might expect from the Senate™. And because of this, the Galactic Imperium also doesn’t feel like the repressive force it could be when you’re not the ruler but the subject. There aren’t many reasons to start a rebellion. The AI empires also feel indifferent to the Galactic Imperium as an institution: I can’t say if I’ve ever seen them support or oppose Imperial authority in recent patches. I would like to see opportunities for the Imperial Core to extract benefits from the rest of the galaxy and impose their will on others, and for other empires to have reasons to resist and rebel against the Imperium when the Galactic Emperor clearly abuses his power.

And two more little things: a) It's strange that some Custodian resolutions don't have an Imperial counterpart (like the Anti-Piracy Initiative or the Galactic Standard), but remain active after the Galactic Imperium is declared. I think it would be better if they remained available for adoption as resolutions after the reformation. b) Some resolutions from the political tradition are perfect for the Galactic Emperor, like Constitutional Immunity.

3) As I understand it, there are many people who would like to see a feature that allows players to choose 2 origins that are not mutually exclusive. You are against this for several reasons. But what if players were limited in their ability to choose 2 origins? Currently, all the origins in the game vary greatly not only in their value, but also in their nature. You can clearly separate them into at least two groups: astrogeographic origins (like Life-Seeded or Slingshot to the Stars) and political-cultural origins (like Knights of the Toxic God or Cybernetic Creed). Maybe there could be a system where you could customize two this parts in your origin in this way?

4) There is currently only one way to create your own Federation: take the Diplomacy tradition tree (which is good for nothing else). And if you want another type of federation, like the Holy Covenant, you have to take two tradition trees: the Diplomatic one, and one that actually helps you. Isn't that too expensive for the cost of the Federation ability? I support tying the Federation to the traditions, but maybe one tradition tree would be enough? There could still be additional requirements for creating a Federation, but ones that don't waste one of your very limited tradition trees on just that one option. Also, the Diplomacy tradition tree could be reworked somehow, like making it useful for influencing your federation's effectiveness in different ways (since we already have the Politics tradition tree).

 

[Zhe Toralf]

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

>I'd say 7 out of 10. I don't min max my pop jobs if I have different species on the same planet.

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

>If we had more micro management, that could be tedious. However, if that micromanagement led to more intuitive battles, I would be down for that. (See last answer).

What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

>Ethics and origin. After that, the civics.

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 with the civilization (do I want to be agressive or diplomatic? what ethics do I want? Do I want to build tall or wide) The origin and civics can form a general goal. (Subjugate everyone, form a federation or just build lots of megastructures fast)

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

>Depends on the civilization I am playing. If I have trade value and reasonably good diplomacy, I will invest in trade.

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

>I don't think it's too easy. The habitability effect on happines is an easy enough to understand concept. Though if you colonize enough planets, they all start to feel the same. If there was a way of making them more individual, that would be cool.

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

>Maybe, but I don't know them all by heart.

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?

>Not remove but improve: ship design. I have made a whole topic about this already, where I have outlined all my problems with it and suggested improvements:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/we-need-to-talk-about-the-ship-builder.1592526/

>Also, I only used the Engineered Evolution ascensio path once and will not again any time soon. The problem is that even after I modified my species, the non modified pops will pop up on my planets. Depending on how many different base species I have, I will have to constantly modify my new pops on different planets or accept that my carefully designed species will not be staying the majority on any of my planets. In which case, why do it in the first place? If I lose the advantage genetic engineering gives me unless I keep pouring resources into it, it is just not woth my time.

 

[Litjanov]

33 pages of wall-o-text-replies...

I guess this sums up the current dilemma. The game has grown so complex and intertwined, there are no easy answers.

I think the ONE thing that the game devs need to focus on is the interface. We still have a lot of 1990s Master-of-Orion-1 ways of showing information and interaction, tabs, menus, abstract numbers. Stellaris is sometimes called "a story generator", but I think the story is lost on many players because it is hidden somewhere deep down in the species-, factions-, or some other menu where no one ever looks.
You need to make the interface ergonomic. Let the player know what is going on, what he needs to focus on, where his action is needed!

Some ideas:

• Implement advisors that offer a " war room briefing" every week/month. They could tell the player that "a science ship has no scientist and just sits somewhere, wasting money". "The population is growing soon on XYZ, and soon there will be unemployment/shortage of consumer goods". "The relation with the XYZ has dropped to a perilous level and they may see us as an easy target", "we should upgrade our fleet..." Basically they need to tell the player the things that a veteran Stellaris player would hint at if he was watching over the player´s shoulder.
• Have a newsfeed scroll on the screen, like you see on CNN, news from around the galaxy that repeats over and over, generated by the events that happen "Piracy in the XYZ system has all but shut down trade!", "The planet XYZ is now blockaded by...", Scientist are on the verge of a breakthrough in the field of...", "the faction XYZ is growing restless, because they don´t feel presented.."
• Implement special information screens that DETAIL why things are the way they are. Understanding is enjoying. Too many mechanics are not explained, info is hidden behind too many tabs and a decision that is just a wild guess feels bad.

These are really just basic game design 101. I realize that Stellaris looks back onto a long history and carries tremendous technical debt. But the greatest problem that the devs (and @Eladrin) have, is their intimate familiarity with how everything works. It makes it impossible for them to see (and understand) what the normal player can not see (or understand).
A lot of the veterans here are total Stellaris geeks and experts...but I have seen games die because the geeks and experts had their say, they wanted even more stuff and complexity which made the game even more inaccessible and the veterans grew old and died and the game died with them. I fear that this will happen with Stellaris, too (just ask the average player for their age!) - unless it can be made to captivate the interest of new gamers who do not think that looking at a number representing minerals tick up or down is fun.

Just look at the trailers or the loading screens. There is NOTHING like that in the whole game. We need to close our eyes and imagine this, the glorious space battles, the futuristic cities. It is just in our heads, and only if we interpret some numbers correctly.

 

[4rC4n1]

I will make it short, since many of topics I would suggest were already covered in dev diary #364 and I am looking forward to implementation of them.

It would be cool to have larger differences between ship sizes and have less naval cap creep. I think current naval supply usage is too close between the ships and it would be much better to have something like ratio 1:3 or even more instead current 1:2. (like escort 1 supply, destroyer 3 supply, ... battleship 27 supply). It would need much rebalance, but it can make more interesting space battles. Also it would enable to rezise ship sizes and make it more eye pleasing that battleship blob and make capital ships more valuable and not so spammy.

Also i could be cool to have some army composition policies for example. That would grant some benefits if you adhere to that. Some empires would lock themselves more towards capital ships, some toward small ones or balanced composition.

I would realy appreciate some visual reads on supply and trade. They could be purely cosmetic and generated withou any major interaction. To see systems more alive. Like ships flying acording to trade routes, transport ships oscilating between mining and research outposts , if the planet would be in blockade, the trafic will cease to exist, etc...

One more think I would appreciate it to be able to do multiple surveys on space objects. It woul make late game more alive in as discovery will be continuous. Just to add small chance to add anomaly, dig site,... on secondary scan by science ship. Not everything it usualy discovered on the first try

Anyway thank you for an awesome game, I hope that it will thrive for years to come.

 

[brycen2737]

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

not at all, the scale of the game for me means that i would prefer that to be either way more abstracted, or for internal politics to matter enough that pops have interesting and dynamic opinions of one another, and complex alliances with multiple factions across multiple empires. the latter seems computationally expensive to the point of reasonably impossible, so i would probably prefer the former.

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

tbh, military feels like an economic abstraction, since doom stacking makes sense no matter how you slice it in space. i don't personally mind this since the economic part of the game is my favorite part of the game, but changing it would in no way reduce the amount i love the game unless it became much more complex and weighted in importance than it is now.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

so much! this is the best part of the game is the civ characterization and roleplay. i could say its the civics and the modification to pop traits and the governors unique abilities, the origins, and maybe most uniquely, the difference in planetary features and district availability. but the truth is that the most important part of civ definition for me is features that add asymmetrical economic needs and outputs. this is why my favorite events or civics or origins add unique job types or planets with unique districts.

one thing i would like to see affect asymmetrical economic needs more is factions. internal politics, with things like cultural leaders and movements, family houses striving for distinct resources, having to pay dues to powerful companies internally, managing class struggles or revolts, special interest groups, having factions that exist on other civilizations to push personal agendas, ect, these are the features i would like to have define my *economic agenda* the most. having factions demand resources from you in exchange for their favor having unique bonuses or access to in gameplay civics would make this game perfect for me.

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

i set goals twice in game, maybe once. i set a goal at the beginning, to be a certain type of empire by the late game- have mega structures, have certain traits or ascensions, some other niche roleplay combo like necro-wizard-imperia that, btw, has to actively seek internal rebellion for it to happen. then, once I'm there, I try to find a fun way to bring it all down from there. watching the cards fall is almost as fun as stacking the deck. but I'm never affected by any internal politics, and if i AM affected by external politics in a meaningful way, its an all or nothing arrangement usually. if they win, my build is fucked AND i don't have any interesting options because its ruined my economy and my expansion options. this is why i think faction overhaul would greatly impact the dynamism of the game.

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

an annoyance that doesn't drastically change any military logistics. trade and trade routes would be much, much more interesting if the things that we being traded were not abstracted. then they could have relative trade value, and megacorps would have real, economic grounds for trade wars over specific resources or unique services. it would also mean that international trade routes would have to be negotiated with third parties some times, and that would lead to interesting politics.

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

colonization is economically fine, but politically disinteresting. what has made colonization interesting in history are the stories of separatism and political deviancy (often *caused* by the colonizers willingly sending dissenters across the seas) and socio-economic choices to either exterminate or coexist with native peoples and nature.

having colonization be tricky from a *political* stand point, while actually offering more economic boons (like sudden trade value that comes from each planet having its own unique resource, for example) would be WAY more difficult, interesting, and cause dynamic storytelling to emerge more often from story's of separatism and old claims to colonized land.

in terms of climate, i absolutely think that industrial activity should have a consequence to the climate of the planet, and i think each planet should have more texture by being given a completely unique resource or ability that none others have.

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

if you cant change it after you select it at the beginning, it should be an origin. you should just have it so that you can pick multiple origins as long as they arent mutually exclusive.

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

i would remove the pop system. it adds little interaction and limits a lot of other fun mechanics because of its resource intensity. you cant fear the massive pop growth of the swarm tide, or feel like you've suddenly manufactured an entire work force in a matter of months.

i would literally never stop playing this game if factions were expanded upon. this alone would add so much roleplay value and dynamism to the game. having to worry about traitorous governors, like CK3, having the political elite make , often unreasonable, demands of you in response to other empires actions. it would also give espionage a new place.

speaking of, espionage is a a system i want to like but doesn't have any real use because it takes up so much time and resources for very little reward. it doesn't cost you much to ignore it because you gain resources way way faster than they can be stolen from you, and its never made a substantial impact in a war, my economic strategy my decision making, or anything.

 

[15JTaylor]

Well, it's November 30th, so I might as well add my opinions here:

I think the most important system to be reworked is the war goal system. I can't tell you how many times I've gone into a war to subjugate someone, and the enemy would surrender except my vassals has claims that i haven't captured. Why do wars have to be winner takes all. I'd love a negotiated peace deal system.

I'd also love if we reworked genetics ascension. Right now, multi species empires are horrible with how genetics is supposed to work. And I'd also love an expansion similar to the recent machine rework.

 

[Fyzz]

Hope I'm not too late to the party, I've been trying to piece together my thoughts on a bunch of these questions.

How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
Individual pops from a game play standpoint can feel more like playing against a system than playing with one. Oftentimes the game will place pops into jobs that don't suit my needs, or won't place pops into jobs that do suit my needs, and there's only a minimal amount of control the player can exert over these situations. On the flip side there doesn't feel like much an individual pop system offers to the game from a roleplay or storytelling perspective as it stands. In fact, it feels quite strange to me that, for example, a xenophile-egalitarian empire incorporating multiple different species invariably ends up segregating them into different jobs based on their innate genetic traits with no meaningful mobility between them. I'm glad to see from later diaries that you're exploring the Victoria 3 style of combined pops because I feel like this would fit the kinds of stories told in Stellaris extremely well.

If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
The core aspects of the fleet system that I love most are the ability to design ships and to then zoom in and see those individual ships actively participating in engagements. I feel they differentiate Stellaris a lot from other GSGs and would be a pretty big loss for the game overall if they were ever entirely cut. That said, I understand how much of a performance impact individually simulated ships can have in large lategame fights so I'd probably be open to some under the hood changes in this area for the sake of optimizing the simulation, like combining handfuls of similar ships into "squadrons" that behave like a single unit in these huge fights with hundreds of ships. As I understand it this is largely how fleets currently operate as a whole when they're not in combat, I think? The nature of customizing ships is another core feature of the game and honestly one I would like to see expanded on. Ship designs can feel like they fall into certain "meta" designs with little variation, and the rock-paper-scissors aspect of many of these designs means that you are discouraged from creating a unique doctrine that would fit how you imagine your empire. One idea I have would be to give ships significantly more auxiliary slots components and have a larger variety of auxiliary components with unique effects, both positive and potentially negative. Similar to how the ship/tank/aircraft designers in Hoi4 work. Some example components I can think of in a system like this: afterburners with a limit of 1 per ship, but higher sublight speed that is even further increased when in combat. Reactor boosters that significantly increase your ships power capacity by a percentage, but also increase its energy upkeep. Something that affects specific weapons, like "EMP Payloads" that remove missiles' shield penetration but give them extra shield damage. Or even something that adds new mechanics to the ship entirely, like a module for corvettes that lets them bypass FTL Inhibitors. Outside of this I think there's plenty of space for adjusting how fleets are used on a larger strategic level. One of the major problems lots of players talk about is the "doomstack" meta, where wars are largely decided by a single battle between two empires' entire fleets very early in the war, then the rest of the war is just the monotonous task of the winner chasing down stragglers and taking planets. Chokepoints often fortified by starbases being the only borders between empires, no real limits on how many ships can be in a fight at the same time, and the only way to turn economic power into a military advantage being spamming more battleships all contribute to this issue. I don't have a lot of ideas on how to solve it, though I've heard supply lines being talked about before, which seems like an interesting direction to explore.

What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
My civilizations usually start with an idea of what their core goals and motivations are and what led to that, and this branches into my choices for ethics, civics, traditions, origins, and ascension perks, and those then tie into how I play my empire in-game: how I conduct diplomacy with other empires, how I prioritize the direction of my economy and research, and what tools I'm more inclined to use when faced with challenges.

How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
My goals are usually responses to how the state of the game has played out, and I often decide on them early when I explore the space surrounding my home planet and start encountering other empires. Usually these are informed by what kind of empire I've decided to play - for example as a militarist empire if I'm boxed in I'll be looking to conquer territory from other empires, but as a pacifist I'll look to establish better diplomacy with them and focus on best utilizing the space I have.

How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
Trade is a headache more than anything else. The routes and patrols are finnicky and hard to control. I often forget about it entirely until a pirate station pops up in my borders then I go deal with it and set up a patrol with 10 corvettes I never use or upgrade again. Trade as a whole is just an alternate way of producing the exact same resources you can get from somewhere else, and usually this is a strictly worse way to produce it if you're not a dedicated trade build.

Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
Some aspects of colonization are too easy, some are too hard or unintuitive. I actually like the idea of putting small, rural colonies on low habitability planets just so the planet isn't wasted, which you can *sort of* do in the current game for extra pop growth, but there's not really any reason to have pops actually producing something there when you'd rather resettle everyone except one roboticist or something to your core worlds. Late game, once pop growth starts to happen slower and slower, developing colonies starts becoming even costlier. However, if you find a large planet of any planet class, it's trivially easy to just terraform it to whatever planet class you want, resettle tons of pops there and develop it into a massive specialized world. I'd like to see this gap kind of closed a little bit, where small, self-sufficient rural planets can be useful and relevant no matter their planet class or stage of the game, but large, super-specialized planets force you to be a bit choosier. Also, I feel like there should be some way, either through tech or species traits or something, to offset some or all of the penalites of low habitability. Like my relentless industrialists that don't have any special planet origin would never want to let their planets turn into tomb worlds because the pop output penalty from low habitability outweighs the bonus they get from full steam ahead, so I go cleanup on them even though it makes no sense for them rp wise. On the flipside there is zero benefit to having habitability above 100% so once you've terraformed or gene modded and gotten the boost from tech it's just kind of pointless.

Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
Maybe Overtuned could be a civic that's locked until you get a later tech, but really I think the balance is mostly fine.

If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?
Crime/deviancy, espionage, and factions/politics are all mechanics that feel really lacking right now and I think could benefit from a comprehensive update/expansion that looks to tie them all together. What is considered a crime in one empire might not be in another, and the kinds of crime an empire experiences (as well as that society's actual relationship with it) can vary wildly from one empire to the next. Are the criminals in your empire working independently or are they organized? What is the nature of their organization, do they intend to steal resources for themselves or do they have other goals? Are they working with another government? Are they working with YOUR government? What the heck does crime inside a criminal heritage empire look like? And once you've apprehended your empire's criminals (if you decide to apprehend them), what do you plan to do with them? I think figuring out how to answer these questions in through gameplay can significantly enhance any future work on espionage and factions.

Lastly, I know it's been touched on a lot already, but I think warfare, wargoals, and peace deals are a really significant pain point in a lot of games and would benefit from a lot of examination. Playing around Victoria 3's diplomatic plays system really makes me wish for a similar system.

Thanks again for making this thread and hearing players out on feedback! Much love to the devs for all the hard work you put in!

 

[Hunk Rawanda]

To start I believe early game is great. The discovery is fun. Development and expansion. The midgame has been improved with Astral planes and other story dlc to add midgame crisis and such. The late I generally play all crisis to keep the late game interesting.

How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation? I don't mind the current system. I've heard vic3 could be copied.

If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love? Making it more rts like would be a negative. I would like to see a shift towards hoi4 navy with screening being a heavier focus. Doomstacks of battleships is not good design. Cruisers and destroyers still fail to have good use late game. Frigates aren't bad vs stations but aren't great otherwise. Make veteran status worth more. Fleets without admirals perform worse.

What aspects are most important in defining your civilization? Being able to create different species that are actually different with all their perks and flaws.

How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play? I set a goal at the start. As the space is taken or depending on anomalies and rifts I reasse based on what has happened to my civilization.

How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more? Trade should help branch your empire and others together. I don't won't masses of trade ships flying around as lag would kick in. It does feel odd when compared to generator jobs. Colonizing feels about right. Penalized when starting but over time your empire adapts cities to make your life easier on a new world. Add privateers to disrupt trade. You could make a limit on how many can be employed.

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? I would like to see espionage revamped. Being able to sell sensor data or ship sets to another player. Also consider eu4 siege to planet conquer. I would also like to see biological ascension expanded before psionic only because psionic received a partial upgrade even though it is my favorite of the 3. Biological requires to much micromanagement as is.

Ending of a war needs better resolution then full surrender or status que. Allow people to join a war late or to settle their own surrender rather then just the attacking and defending empire decide.

I've made some comparison to other paradox games and I don't necessarily want a Frankenstein paradox game but other systems work that I believe could be copied to some degree and brought over.

I'm excited to see what comes next. Stellaris was a game I had waited for since the mid 90s and its been everything and more. Continue the great work.

 

[Arduunos]

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

Coming back to this question after playtesting some Empires with this in mind. It would be nice if the Origins that adds secondary pops or other minor features like this (Necrophage, Syncretic Evolution, Mechanists, etc.) could become civics instead to open up the more unique, story-based Origins for use with those species. And maybe lift some restrictions, too. For example: an Under One Rule empire based on Planet of the Apes with secondary Humans.

I also really don't think we have enough trait picks or civic slots right now. I tried to make a classic cyberpunk themed empire, based vaguely on Altered Carbon, and would have loved to combine Criminal Heritage, Augmentation Bazaars, Permanent Employment, and Shareholder Values. On another save, I tried to make an empire themed around the idea of ancient aliens/galactic engineers, and wanted to combine Planetscapers, Storm Devotion, Genesis Guides, and Sovereign Guardianship (at least) to make them feel like my own custom Fallen Empire. Instead I got to pick only one of those 4 because 'Natural Design' ate up my other slot.

The Natural Design thing has become a real frustration for me. Traits are just in this weird space mathematically, and the amount of picks we get don't actually let us pick the flavor traits we want for RP fantasy or challenge (like mixing matching interesting good and bad traits to make a species harder to govern but rewarding if you can). I feel obligated to take the same traits every time just to make the math work out. Natural Design feels like it should be vanilla, and it would be nice to at least have 3-4 starting civic slots to prevent it from taking up that space.

 

[Nero1333]

what I would like to see is a new Ship design overhaul, taking a leaf from HoiIV's system but with decisions on how it's crewed with a manpower system, I'd also like to see a wider variety on Tech, One Empire's Gamma Ray Laser should be different to anothers. Likewise a greater variety of Archeotech with more unique archeotech based on what precursor you find, and to renable the AI to find percursor's as well

 

[Batadee]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  • I would say its important to me. I enjoy how pops and jobs work on planets, and managing them is something that I wish I had started doing manually much earlier. I think you would need a very compelling new idea before you should touch them again.
• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
  • I would love it. Fleets, and war in general imo, are mostly just there for me. I much prefer the exploration, roleplay, diplomacy, and management aspects of Stellaris over war. I would love if fleets changed completely, and I think stellaris would be better for it.
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
  • Origins, and my own personal ideas for that civilization. I *Adore* the way civilization customization is handled, and honestly, I would love more options, especially ones that might change how I look at certain resources, or things that might add certain restrictions. Currently I do that a lot my choice, but having it applied by the game would be very fun.
• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
  • I almost always have a goal with each civ. A new build, a new theme, a new mechanic to deep dive into, a new roleplay, etc. Its why I play stellaris over any other paradox game, really. Goals are limited to my imagination, basically, and civ creation allows for almost any scifi adjacent idea to be created as a civ.
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
  • I tend to not pay attention to it unless im focusing on trade as an empire. You could remove it and I wouldn't be too upset, but I would love to see it take on more depth.
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  • Honestly, that would be interesting. climate and habitability hardly matter past the early game, it might be interesting to make colonization more of a challenge.
• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
  • I think underground could be moved to a civic, in all honesty. It feels like it supposed to be on a similar point as Void Dwellers, but it doesn't have enough *spice* to be an Origin.
• If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?
  • Remove a system might be ground invasions. I hardly ever engage with it, and its mostly just something I completely forget about until I need them.
  • I would love it if research was the focus of an expansion. Improving the ways you collect science, special buildings, events, a deeper tech tree. Maybe a way to manipulate it, maybe alternate trees for certain origins or empires.
  • Galactic Council, Custodian, and Empire are technically already from an expansion, but taking another pass at that and deepening it further would also be high on my list of expansion ideas. Make becoming Galactic Emporer harder, but more rewarding. I would love some more meat on that system. Maybe reworking empire interaction completely, since it is kinda lacking.
  • I Want to enjoy espionage, but its just not worth it, and its boring. There's nothing I really care about to do there, but it could be so so so cool

 

[Legon Wood]

Would love to have ground combat get updated and improved. Also miss having a variety of strategic resources you could find in the galaxy as you played that gave you benefits for finding them so at bare minimum having more stuff like that in the universe to find would be lovely. I feel like the techs to use dark matter should not have to be stolen for fallen empires as you can be gathering that stuff for a while and eventually your scientists should figure out how to use that stuff. Would be nice to have space combat get touched up with more ship classes that the player can get and some more ways to upgrade your ships so it doesn't just feel like you are swapping out old parts for new ones and are instead actually using new ships as your empire advances.

 

[Harakani]

Very briefly I am pretty happy with Stellaris, especially with the Custodian initiative.

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  • not that much
    I think planets get unwieldy in large numbers. I would like a high level gateway tech that ties planets together into a Sector that can then be treated like a single (megastructure like) planet with a size based on the sum of connected planets in the sector. This should obviously be expensive.
• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
  • quite a bit, I do like the fact you can create designs from a thematic point of view, but feel a bit like we get pushed into particular builds,
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
  • I like there are multi dimensions: Ethics, Givernment, Origins and civics. Species doesn't seem that relevant. Home world doesn't seem that relevant unless it is an Origin one.
• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
  • I'm usually testing out some crazy idea. The goals is to test if I can do it and how well it works. Often I will set myself a limitation (like no travel before y50)
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
  • Not. In theory I like Trade but I just simplify it away as much as possible. I do occasionally use Patrol and Pirates to farm XP for an important admiral.
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  • This is difficult: for hard science scifi it is too easy, but the game needs to let you expand. Hab classes means multi species is easy, but then the species keep migrating into hell-like planets. Maybe more hab modifiers, with native species being immune to those? As planets develop planet class should be less important, but no-one should want to put in the effort to develop a planet that is low hab due to cost. Possibly there should be more diverse classes (e.g. this is a Desert [Hellhole] with a base hab of 5% for your race). It would be easy enough to add grav as a class a long with terrain,
• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
  • Related: I think there are Origins that should just be Homeworld. I think post-apoc, life-seed, shattered-ring, void-dweller etc should maybe just be Homeworld rather than Origin. Model in on Ocean Paradise, Aquatic, and Ocean Homeworld. You might have just evolved on a tomb-world, you might be Radiotrophic, you might have an Origin about growing up in the shattered remnant of your race's Hubris.
• 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?
  • Science. I work in this area and there is research and development, and the current system drives me crazy by not representing either.
    I like the unpredictability of the card draw system and I liked the beta system of tech level trialled recently. The fact the only option in the beta was to research general tech level meant my scientists were doing nothing for decades, which was boring, I would like a situation for each science that ticks up by research generated, and maybe down for size. Anomaly science would either give science towards a tech OR to general tech level. The situation could generate some interesting events as it goes; tradeoffs (forever forsake a tech for a boost), ethical dilemmas, bonus tech draws, espionage possibilities, leader changes, breakthroughs in other tech fields, new anomalies or archaeology sites, one-off prototypes (like build a single tier 3 building at tier 2), or even the ability to ignore a pre-req. This would give another dimension for for civs to be more customisable, with Policy Civic and even Ethics (presumably Authoritarian tending towards particular over general research) impacts on research. I think this would lead to a more story-like path of scientific research. Importantly the tech level situation chains should continue even when there are no new technologies, as that explains what the FEs are presumably doing. I would generated the situations randomly, but if save-scumming is an issue they could be generated in their entirety at day 1.
    This would also give a reason for Espionage and Diplomacy to interact with tech better.
    Further, the draw card system annoys me in two ways
    (A)\when I know I had a scientist who suggested researching Starholds last time, but now I not only have to wait for it to come up again, and it is guaranteed not to come up in the next round. I envision my leader going "wait, what happened to that thing we nearly did last time? The guy quit and became an accountant? Find him and hire him back!"
    (B) There are ways of locking in a research option, but then the list just becomes a long unsorted list of techs, and I have waited decades for something not realizing a pre-req tier 1 tech is buried deep in my twenty-deep guaranteed options. I have also literally researched a low-tier tech just to get it out of the damn list.
    I really think a tech tree (one that is generated dynamically as the game progresses like the card draw system) would be good. This means there is still the option to sift looking for a good option, or just take the best decision as they come up.

 

[metatoaster]

I've stopped playing Stellaris a while ago.

This is due to:
- the UI being damn tedious to use
- expansion and early war having annoying mechanics
- planets being pretty boring to develop, differing only by size, habitability and amount of each district type - and re-specializing being a pain.
- the Space UN coming too early, killing the spirit of exploration, and being unrealistic and boring
- mid-game crises always giving me trouble despite easily crushing my neighbors, and emptying out the galaxy of interesting stuff. Plus their repetitiveness.
- major story chains such as the various precursors get very predictable after only a few games
- any narrative dying out around mid-game (Star Trek but the plot ends when you establish borders with the Klingons)
- technology already starting to be a lot less interesting around mid-game
- no save migration between versions combined with long games giving little incentive to finish games instead of trying out new changes
- the above being aggravated by the huge effort required for installing mods to try and fix the game, diagnosing conflicts, just to throw it all away on every new version

Maybe some changes could bring me back:

UI

- Stop centering the planet tied to the event BEHIND the event dialogue when zooming on it, when the player is trying to get some locational context for an event. Shove the event dialog out of the way so the screen rectangle you use to center the planet in is NOT COVERED. And zoom on the location on the galaxy map, not the local map. Seeing a nice picture of the planet doesn't help us take decisions, but the location of the planet in the galaxy is almost always needed to make a decision.
The status quo is: read event, zoom on location, switch to galaxy map, shove dialog out of the way to actually see something. This should become one step instead of four.

Expansion

- Either get rid of the chokepoint-style map, or fix the impossibility of securing a chokepoint without playing whack-a-mole with the AI blobbing behind it.
- Let us destroy enemy starbases before first contact is establish with their race, and let us otherwise be more hostile when in a cold war or "no diplomatic relations" status.
- Allow us to blockage and isolate colonies.
- A planet should have an obvious specialization it's good for. Maybe two or three so you have to make a difficult decision, but please move away from planets differing only by a few points of % of habitability plus a minor difference in size and in the number of districts.
- Space UN a.k.a. Galactic Community should come rather late to avoid revealing every race in the game and ruining the spirit of exploration. Instead, multiple "regional UNs"

Crises
- Find ways to shake things up without throwing massive armies at the player every single game. Galaxy-wide or regional crises or challenges that don't involve ship combat would really be welcome.

Management
- let us queue builds in advance as long as the prerequisite is in the queue as well (instead of requiring the prerequisite to be already built)
- remove buildings tied to special deposits, or let us see at a glance which planets don't have the special mine yet, without having to periodically cycle through every planet to see if you can build one now.

Storytelling
- Add a lot more storytelling variety to early game, since that's the part people replay the most. Shape the variety like a funnel or pyramid. In particular, Precursor stories would need some variation and we need a lot more low-level anomalies.
- Have some stories that can involve you and your AI neighbors and have significant impacts, instead of reserving storytelling almost exclusively for exploration. Currently we basically just have the occasional "eloping scandal" or some refugees arriving, and those are superficial.
Basically you want story scripts that can hook in and influcence multiple races if the conditions are right, and use them to create a space opera. Example: suddenly, a small separatist faction of a nearby empire disappears into thin air and you are blamed. (Concrete in-game effect: Some of their planets near to your territory actually rebel and their population vanishes.) You get a Situation to resolve, with some investigations that happen a bit like archeological digs and perhaps a bit of espionage required.
- Try to aim for the race interaction in Star Control 2 or to a lesser extent Master of Orion. Right now, the various races feel generic.

Science
- Make late-game tech less generic and don't just label everything "Ancient" and call it a day.

Saves
- Implement the tech and put the effort needed to upgrade saves between version. It's about time Paradox games support this.


Comments on The Vision

Starting stuck between a Devouring Swarm and a Fallen Empire will be extremely boring. The first will force you to go full-military, and the second doesn't wanna talk to you. I don't really get why you set this as an example of good Stellaris gameplay.
The Replicators were interesting in Stargate SG-1 because they threatened likeable friendly alien races and characters and shook up the power balance of the galaxy, forcing old enemies to temporarily ally. And also because they gained sentience and felt betrayed. This should be your model of interesting storytelling.

Misc comments

Gaia planets that are somehow adapted to every form of life are dumb.


Cheers.

 

[Gyges Skyeye]

Post 1

Stellaris Now vs Stellaris Then

I’ve played Stellaris since it’s inception. It’s been many “things”, well ways of simulating things really, over that time. This has been fine, and felt like I’ve played numerous different grand strategy video games, all sharing the title “Stellaris”. Over the course of that transition, one pure expression of space colonization fantasy that got lost, was having different versions of FTL travel. A FTL method I could call my own.

I understand the mechanical balance reasons why hyperlanes got leaned into so hard in the streamlining of early stellaris gameplay. But I really have to say, some of my fondest moments playing this game were as a pacifist empire with that growing radius of control and movement. I felt I had a lot more actionability and agency on those peaceful playstyles to passively-forcibly sprawl myself out forward. With the grid based funneling of hyperlanes, a lot of that has been lost. When you can’t flow like water, well you better purge the xenos.

It would be nice to see some pathway towards these multiple FTL engines return. Even if it’s as simplified as having hyperlane network A, B, & C, with each keyed to a different engine type and empires starting on random ones. The asymmetry of that initial multi FTL system was really wonderful.

Then, iterating on this; The base game, or expansion to shape and cultivate the hyperlanes/ FTL paths in the early to midgame, much more so than high barriers of entry to access gateways.