Stellaris Dev Diary #361 - The Vision

[Gyges Skyeye]

Post 2

Problems with the game Stellaris as I see them:

Early game, the fantasy of Stellaris is great. There are bounds of things to explore and happenstances for you to meld your empire around. This is wonderful and one of the best parts of Stellaris. A core gene in it’s identity.

Yet, as the scope of that story expands as the game progresses, the tools I have to build that story remain the same. All space roads may lead to Romulus, but I’m still stuck constructing them with my stick I got from punching wood at level 1. Give me a jackhammer!

There is no way to enforce my will on this game. Everything I have to do is through a click and a mouse move. It’s a tedious slog. What space emperor am I if I must order each and every peon individually? That was fine when we were a small tribe, scraping by in our first science ship, to explore that neighboring system. But I am not your mom. I don’t need to know each of your names. I am your ruler… let me RULE!



I say, you do, as I command.

If I say “there will be a chamber of elevation built on every continental planet”, a chamber of elevation shall be constructed on every continental planet forthwith.

If I say “every tomb planet shall be designated as a penal colony”, every toxic planet shall be designated as a penal colony. “Except in respect to my first declaration that the cockroach’s home planet shall be a tech world”, in which case it shall be a tech world designation.

If I say “yes, every god damn planet that has unemployment shall receive additional consumer goods and stop asking me this effing question every two weeks”, every planet with an employment problem will be given an extra ipad and told to fudge off.



----

Put mechanically, and in UI terms, we need conditional logic rules and lists and tables to manage and easily arrange them. We should have a higher level of operational control exposed to us as the game goes on. A way to levy instructions to our empire, perhaps even in an almost natural language fashion. (Yall want to get paid for inserting “AI” into the game right?)

--

Rules!



Much of the framework of this update is already in the game engine itself. There are tons of flags, and event triggers in the Stellaris game right now. If we simple expose those to the actual player, it will be a big help.

(These are fictional names since I don’t have time to look up real ones and verify their existence.)

If “planet_class” = “continental” and “inhabited” = “true” and “owned” = “true” then “colony_designation” changed to “mining”. Check_Frequency = “monthly”

^Typing in a rule like this, would solve soooo many problems in the mid to late game. At a time when we are trying to draw the story to a crescendo and a close, it’s inexcusable to have our immersion broken by having to click on 32 colonies and do 600 mouse clicks on a 20 minute pause that we just inherited from defeating the fanatic purifiers who attacked us.

Being able to just type or say a few sentences about how we want to handle the new possessions, either in conditional logic, or natural language, and just being done with it, back to focusing on our roleplay goals, is much more in line with an expected, and desired gameplay experience.

We should also just be able to import rules packs.

So instead of wasting 20 minutes, we might instead spend just 30 seconds to input

If “recently_conquered” = “true” then refer to “conquest_planet_integration_rules”.

Much simpler. 20 minutes of slog, reduced to a sentence and a handwave.

--

But why do all this coding effort from Paradox’s perspective?

A lot of the technical effort put into this kind of rules project can be recycled elsewhere into Stellaris’ core gameplay hooks and expansion packs. We have some of the vaguest notions of these rule sets implemented from the player perspective already. Vassalage policies of light to oppressive come to mind. There are other instances as well. But all of those lose dangling “wide” game design features would be able to be consolidated into the new rules system, simplifying the game engine from Paradox’s and the modders’ perspective.

Pop priority checks? Now part of the rules system.

If “job_opening” = “politician” then award to pop where “founder_species” and “brain_slug_host” = true else award to pop where “mechanical” = true.

Next

If “job_opening” = “livestock” then award to pop where “species_portrait” = “lizard”

Pompous pursists? Now part of the rules system.

“This civic unlocks new diplomatic rules options”

If “incoming diplomatic offer” = “commercial pact” then respond with “decline diplomatic offer” and “satisfying insult”.

Monthly trades? Now part of the rules system.

If “minerals” is greater than “95%” of “mineral max capacity” then sell “minerals” until “minerals” is less than “80%” of “mineral max capacity”.

And so on and so forth.

Yes, the game engine is doing this anyway already. But allowing us, the players, to tell the game engine how to process what is important to us, allows the game engine to satisfy our needs in our story telling.



--

Lastly, this technical investment into a rules system opens up much better possibilities for guiding the AI to have an effective economy and a personality as well.

Modders can create and submit rulesets of the AI, or you could possibly just allow players to automagically submit their active rulesets during play into a central repository. That lets you, Paradox, have the data to start constructing AI that’s going to be successful and mimic human players. And if you update those rulesets as time goes on with what is popular, you will have the AI following the meta as well.

And more competent AI via rules means better supporting actors in the grand stageplay we are set to conduct.

--

That’s also probably the best summation I can give of where stellaris should be heading. The vision for the game is that we need a new rules engine to capably complete the morphing of Stellaris from a “Grand Strategy” game to a “Grand Stageplay”.

They don’t call it space opera for nothing.

 

[Gyges Skyeye]

Post 2: Addendum:

Rules can also hook into the leaders system and the leader agendas.

Specific rulers imposing weird personality quirks onto your empire for being on the council, or elected as ruler, perhaps with zany and powerful bonuses when those rules are followed? Yes please.

A leader as Warlord who decrees that food and rare crystals can no longer be sold on the galactic market and that all construction ships and starbases must look to automatically harvest the ice asteroids above and before all else? Priceless.

 

[vince904]

I would welcome a Necroids II species pack which gave more than the Necrophage playstyle for the portraits. Haunted space stations would be good. Moving beyond Necroids, rogue megacorporations (Weyland-Yutami), weird space cults, & pirates would all be interesting playstyles.

Finding a use for consumer goods beyond WWII rationing would also be interesting - particularly for megacorps. Having to deal with shareholders (profits/dividends) would also be cool. real world issues like taking over economies (East India Company), unions & rationalisation could all get a look-in.

Reviving sectors could be interesting - I'm thinking moving beyond planetary improvements (buildings/districts) to sector-wide improvements, so that you could continue to engage with empire development without being swamped by micromanagement.

A streamlining of the civics system into laws. It seems weird that biomatter based metallurgy should cost me an entire civic but minerals based doesn't cost me anything.

 

[Onimorphus]

Late for the party (forgot november had 30, not 31 days... XD), but, well, let's hope today sunday still counts as grace period, and try tossing some feedback here \o/

I've been playing since around the Utopia DLC launch, but haven't been able to really explore the more recent content, so some of my remarks may be a bit obsoleted by most recent content...


"How does this match what you think Stellaris is, and where it should go? Would you change any of these vision statements?"
+
"What systems and content are “sacred” to you, which would make Stellaris not Stellaris anymore if we changed them?"

My answer for those 2 is quite entwined, as I would add to the "Every Game is Different" vision statement a mention to the huge amount of empire customization the game gives, when compared to most other games, and that is something I consider a very core aspect of Stellaris. Not only you can play 10 different games with the same empire, but you can also play with 10 different empires and still have a lot of possible starting setups left to explore.
(Personally I consider that freedom of customization so core to the game, that I'd argue the few places where some restrictions are present for what seems a mostly thematic reason, as plantoid/fungoid species restricted origins and civics, should be lifted for player created empires, and kept just for the AI generated ones, keeping the thematic restriction as a 'default', but allowing the player the freedom to deviated from it if wanted)


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

While I have fond memories of the original planet tiles system, the change to the current jobs system was clearly one for the better in the long term (the only real loss for me was making the planets much more 'abstract', in the old tiles system you was seeing the terrain there, with the buildings and pops on it).
That said, the current system seems to be hitting some of it's own limitations, as the pops numbers went way above the original limits (a good thing to show how massive ecumenopolis and ringworlds really are), and the increased granularity of different jobs and pop traits, resulted in the mechanics for managing them either becoming too micro-y, clunky (genemodding beings the one that suffers most from it), of ending up ignored and left to pure automation, and the pops themselves becoming just a undistinguished 'blob' of population filling the jobs slots.
The pop and jobs system, could benefit from changes in adjacent game systems, mostly planetary management in general, but experimentation on it wouldn't be too bad, either you may find a better solution, or some insight on how to improve the current one, anyways the game survived one such change before, it for sure can handle another one if it's for the better. Bringing back some of the 'personality' that the overall pops lost over time, just as was done on the leaders rework, would be great.


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

After the very early game, combat overall always felt as a very 'hands-off' game system, besides ship/fleet design and fleet positioning.
You don't have much input on what goes on when fight breaks out, beyond watching the light show. So while there have been many improvements over the years making fleet composition less homogenous, ship design still fells like a game of 'place most of the best high tech guns/modules you can and ship it' since outside of 'design locked' enemy fleets (leviathans, game crises, fallen empires...), AI empires don't really seems to follow (or have reason to) a consistent design doctrine that the player can then play around countering, and doomstacking being the sort of 'unavoidable' problem from just a fleet combat systems perspective, demanding strong reason to keep fleets apart.
If changes are made, some things that could be interesting to see would be:
- Fleets having some sort of 'tactical combat stances', similar to how individual ships have the computer controlling how they approach combat, that could open up space for using more interesting ship designs and compositions.
- Some form of 'supply line' mechanic, so keeping fleets protecting the 'rear' of an advancing force would be needed, while also opening up the possibility of having to 'raid' planets for supplies in the case of a fleet getting cut out.
- Related to the above, maybe have troop transport and invasions being rolled into fleets, and become an aspect of their designing, so attack fleets that plans on invading planets would need to sacrifice part of its direct space combat capabilities in exchange of troop transportation space and support, there could be ship weapons that are more effective in planetary bombardment, strike craft that's able to also fly down into atmospheres helping landed troops, making use of those middle layers on the ground combat screen, and planets being able to actively fight back and damage unprepared bombarding fleets, with ground and low orbital defenses.


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

It depends heavily on what kind of setup I'm going. Stating with certain origins, or some of the locked-in civics does somewhat railroad the path of a game, but even in those, the random events and other empires spawns do affect how a game progress, and so how I'd mold my civilization.
Normally, it's some key mechanical aspect, be it an origin, civic, trait (or some interesting combo of those) that's ends up defining a civilization vibe at the start.
Ascension perks and traditions are a secondary defining aspect, those building up from the initial base laid during setup (and early game events and finds), since many are kinda of a logical progression from that initial base.
(On that, being able to give custom empires a 'default' ascension/traditions setup for the AI to follow could really be interesting for making your own custom empires you want to play against/with)


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

Related to the above, I like making custom empires around some theme, usually having some impactful mechanical feature (origin, civic, trait, or combo of those) as the base for that, so this also tends to dictate some general goal, or at least some 'loose idea' for the run. And since the game currently don't have many obvious "I won" mechanical end games, it leaves the 'end goal' objective part very open unless I decide to go for one of those 'hard coded' win conditions, so I keep myself very open to adaptation depending on what I may find, if it makes thematic sense for that run (ex: getting the cybran precursor chain on a materialist tech focused run, and deciding to restore the ring and put your whole empire in there).


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

The trade system itself, feels like a underdeveloped and too abstracted system, so outside of a very trade focused empire, normally I just do the the basics to collect the trade value near and from colonies, avoiding the random pirates spawning chances, and forget it.
Now the idea of having to care for trade routes, both of internal resources, and for external empire trading and deals, now that could be very interesting if a proper system can be put in place (and could tie in nicely with improvements to piracy, criminals, and rebellions overall)


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

After the early game, colonization becomes a very mindless trivial thing, from all the stacked buffs to habitability and colony development. That is not a bad thing per-se, as having colonization being too hard the whole game would quickly devolve into a chore, and honestly generic late game colonization should be more about quickly 'pre-planning' and setting up the new colony, and dealing with potential external treats to it (hostile empires, pirates, crises), so maybe streamlineing it even more, being able to skip that early colony step were you wait for pops to grow before you can do the first main building upgrade would be helpful.
Now, early colonization could always be more engaging. Making use of the situation system to give/facilitate the research for blockers removal and habitability bonus techs could be interesting (and easy the clutter of low level techs that pop-up every time you colonize some world with new blockers, even in mid/late game), as would be making planets more distinct overall, adding new features and modifiers, maybe having some extra planetary features and modifiers be only detectable with either advanced mid-late game techs, or once the planet colonization begins before that (which circle back to making use of the situations system).
I general I'd say that making just base climate matter more, without some more interesting mechanics associated to the base climates, just for the sake of making early colonization slower/harder don't sounds interesting, I'd find more interesting having more potential planetary features, blockers and modifiers that may be problematic for early colonies, and have those be more dependent on climate if that's the case.


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

Without going into specific ones, I'd say most civics that are locked-in on empire setup would make more sense as origins, on the logic that they both 'can only be picked on game setup' and 'cant be changed latter'. But that leads to the problem of you having only 1 origin pick to chose from, which would make some fun combinations impossible. Meanwhile, some origins that just set 'where or with what you start' look like could easily function alongside other 'not start location related' origins.
This has been something since the introduction of the first origins, some seems to be all about the system and/or planet you start, and other more about the history/intrinsic nature of your civilization. A (not really simple) solution could be splitting the origins into those 2 types, one for "Start Location/Condition" and another for "Species history/biology", and civics would be for the more 'flexible/changeable' aspects of the civilization cultural and technological development, since they can be changed latter (and then relocate the current origins and civics on this 3 categories as needed/possible). And a bonus for that approach would be adding a new slot for customization, as now there are a lot of civics to play around and 2 (latter in-game 3) slots only is quite limiting, specially if you want to pick one of the less impactful civics.


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

Both the trade system, as it is now, and ground combat, as it is now (sadly), I feel could be removed from the game without that of an impact, and would be a mostly positive change. Which is sad, as both are more underdeveloped and misplaced systems, than outright bad ones.


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

Crime, piracy and the whole "underworld" aspect of the game, that's more or less implied, but very underrepresent mechanically in-game. Having a 'shadow economy' run on planets using a system similar to the office branches and holdings, something the player could either repress and fight against, or very volatilely exploit, something that also could tie indirectly with the espionage system.
Along that, reworking trade as actual supply and trade routes that pirates (and morally ambiguous empires) could target for resources (and disrupting enemies), maybe introduce unclaimable 'deep space' starless hyperlane nodes that could be traveled through with more advanced hyperdrives, but would remain as 'wild' areas even in the end game, for pirates fleets to spawn and hide.


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

Genemodding, and modified pops management in general. The 'auto-adjustable' genes that were introduced some time ago are useful, but just having the option to set some 'approved' genemodded templates for each species, and have pops over time auto-mod themselves into the best template for their current job (something that could depend and/or be buffed by having gene-clinics on the planet), would make playing bio-ascension and general pop-modding heavy empires much easier.

 

[Eladrin]

Late for the party (forgot november had 30, not 31 days... XD), but, well, let's hope today sunday still counts as grace period, and try tossing some feedback here \o/

Close enough!

Wow, thank you everyone for pouring yourselves into this epic thread.

While this marks the "official" close of it, I'll probably keep an informal eye on it until I go on winter break.

Thank you all again, this has been amazing.

 

[Directaliator]

Feedback on Stellaris Vision:

It should be more political and event-driven.
And it should allow for the empires who had severe setbacks to still have a chance at victory. More viable options for the underdogs.

How?
By:

- Introducing the Emerging.
Emerging would be between one planet and a handful of systems in size. Something between the pre-FTLs and fully fledged Empires. More powerful and dynamic than enclaves.
The Emerging would be factions which would mostly be vassals - but conditional vassals. Mining emporioums, mercenary companies, research corporations, broods causing storms, farming communities.... they would be custom-made vassals who would be useful to plunder, conquer and cooperate with who can also rise in prominence and power and eventually become an empire equal to the standard Stellaris empires.
And they should all have quirks that would have them generate stories and conflicts.
And they should all have unique resources, technologies or other perks as an incentive not to obliterate them and wipe them off the map upon first contact.


- Introducing custom issues into the Galactic Community based on emerging events, event-chains or strategic circumstances.
Examples of issues:

• A large population spanning between several empires want their own sovereign empire. Depending on what the hosting empires do - this can create a war, an anti-terrorist campaign or a bunch of diplomatic events and issues.
• A neutral/demilitarized zone is agree on in war and carefully balanced with all matter of issues (think DS9 and Neutral Zone between Federation and Cardassia)
• Concessions to a defeated empire (humiliation victory) starts a whole bunch of issues and events (WMD patriotic terrorists, etc.)
• An Empire Empire has a succession dispute.
• A rise of a secret society threatens galactic stability and empires can take different stances about it all.

- Introducing nuanced conflicts with a hybrid approach to warfare, diplomacy and espionage.
Espionage is not only without impact, but also completely... indifferent to the nature and content of the target.
And there should be faces and mechanics to diplomacy.
Take Twilight Imperium 3rd edition. They have councils that can assassinate each other, bribe each other, and repel each other. All with their custom modes of providing more influence on political issues.
Diplomatic events would be a wonderful affair. Just wonderful. A good cause to use those leaders. Leaders doing things. Leaders spying, swaying each other or assassinating each other. Go Dune. Dune is awesome. It has ruthless politics, conspiracies.
Why not have conspiracies as a mechanic?
Seriously!
Like projects comparable to Council agendas!
You have an envoy... the envoy starts a conspiracy towards a desired political effect. It goes off in stages. Isn't strictly espionage... and can have strategic effects!


- Introducing soft power.
There are no religions and ideologies influencing empires politically. Especially not those that don't originate from an empire.
There should be "influence" under the "holdings" tab, to signal the sway of a colony.
I mean - it's there in Stellaris Nexus.
There should be some form of soft power that would influence the politics of an empire and make it fall under influence. The influence's effects would be 1) bigger political costs in going to war, 2) factions behave differently and influence domestic and foreign policy, 3) susceptibility to forms of espionage, 4) security danger, 5) stealing of council votes on specific issues.
Influence should be based on worlds, influencing pops.
Influence should be generated through specific jobs, jobs in holdings and be susceptible to investment of money and a position in a Council.
Influence should be somehow generated through Unity. This would give the Unity empires an edge that they're missing.
Influence should be generated through some forms of espionage.
I know there's influence... but really - I'm talking about influence here.
Call it "lobbying power". Call it "sway".


Very welcome unrelated features:
- Ship-boarding.
Alpha Centauri did it and it was awesome. It couldn't hurt, properly done. And it would add a role to transport ships. Also -it's in Stellaris Nexus.
- Planet-to-fleet combat.
Planetside weapons repelling fleets would complement the game beautifully.




To answer the Vision questions:

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

It's ok, but it can be changed for all I care.

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

As long as having a flagship fleet is there and the UI allows inter-system travel with several waypoints - I'm fine with changes. I wonder if Paradox can make the fleets more tactical, somehow. Most if not all battles are decided before starting.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

Civics by far.

• 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 them before the game and adapt by defining how I'm going to reach relevance and how I'll handle the Crisis. They can change as I play, but they usually don't.

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

It's important and I think it should be MORE important.

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

Making colonization more important would be great! If colonization depended on implementing phases, researching the local biomes and making custom equipment and infrastructure - that would be awesome! Especially with worlds that are highly useful!

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

Necrophage should be a civic. Or better - just a species' trait. There would be wonderful civilizations with diverse origins that way!
Civics to Origins..... maybe Citizen Service and Free Haven and Crusader Spirit. I love them -but they have a theme to them that feels underused.

• 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?

Diplomacy with Espionage and politics should be the central focus of an expansion. Most definitely.
I WANT to enjoy politics and espionage but they're too marginal.

 

[ComradeKGB]

To me, Stellaris is and should continue to be a grand strategy game with a roleplay focus, and hopefully future updates continue to make the involvement of roleplay more essential and immersive.

I think that the current planetary and pop systems could be reworked, I have no particular love for them, and they cause performance issues in the later game. However these systems end up being reworked, I think that any optimization is better unless it makes the population of your empire feel distant and not there. I think that a system that divides your population into their ideological and social factions similar to Victoria 3 would be good.

If changes were made to fleets, I would prefer it make them smaller and more dedicated. A fleet or fleets of ships where each ship is important, and potentially memorable enough to dedicate time to naming and repairing them. A fleet rework that shrinks the size and composition of all in-game fleets, including crisis fleets, would do well to reduce lag as well.

The civics are most important to defining my empire, however the authority type is also vital. I think that making changes to the council based on authority might be a nice addition. The internal politics of empires, especially factions, need a change.

During gameplay I try to act according to my civics. When my faction majority changes I change my civics, and therefore my playstyle.

The current trade system needs to change. Preferably, a system could by implemented instead that requires supply lines, where the resources produced by your individual planets need to be delivered to all worlds that require them. This would make piracy or blockades by enemy navies a far more credible threat.

Colonization is absolutely too easy. Habitability should be a greater limiting factor than an increase in upkeep.

I would like the current vassal system to be revisited. When vassalizing existing empires or creating vassals from my sectors, I should have more input on how that vassal is. I think selecting vassal civics, authorities, names, and flag hexes should be added to the game. As an overlord, I should have a greater say on how my vassal looks and acts. I'm especially bothered when a vassal receives a random flag hex that just looks awful, or when I conquer a vassal and their authority, civics, and ethics don't change but are incompatible with my own, forcing me to integrate and release them.

Following the previous point, I think there should be a change to warfare and war conclusion. I think that justifying and fighting wars should have more depth, allies should be able to join or leave wars after the war starts, belligerents should be able to change sides, and peace deals should involve more player input. A system closer to HOI4 or Victoria 3 for both justification and peace conferences should be added. I want to invade my rival for more in depth reasons, and I want a greater deal of input on which star systems I take and what gets released as a vassal.

 

[Azhdarchidae]

Focused feedback on the questions I feel most strongly about:

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

Having terraforming being more like blockers where you need to have a planet to research before finding the specific terraforming technology would be interesting.
Terraforming being a situation rather than something that just is a quick fix could make terraforming harder.

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

Overturned feels like a civic. Civics that can’t be removed could be social origins.
Some origins are how society started and some are about the celestial body you’re on. Splitting along those lines could be beneficial for dividing origins.
Having a split planetary / location and social / species origin would allow for selection of a combination like Relic world + Clone army , galactic doorstep + common ground , or doomsday + fruitful partnership.

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

Alternative empire types and the diplomacy to go along with it.
Being able to play an empire like the curators would be interesting. Possibly an enclave civic that made spreading out to disjoint systems beneficial for mega corps. a tradition that creates benefits from having both a commercial agreement and a different treaty with an empire: you would pick the specialization when selecting the tradition. A knowledge sharing ascension perk that lets you look for anomalies on inhabited worlds and share related information with friendly empires.
The ability to be an artist enclave based on your grand archive structure (why isn’t the grand archive something you upgrade into a mega art installation?) and creating projects for other empires to display.

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

Alternative fleets
Mercenaries:
They very quickly are recontracted by other empires if their fleet is destroyed
They handle their leader in strange ways
They start routing to home even if you refresh their contract
Federation fleet:
Takes more fleet capacity than it gives you in the endgame
Marauders:
not enough scaling, either too strong or too weak for most of the game.

 

[Dr_Macunayme]

I really liked the idea of an "internal politics" DLC. I used many different mods that change factions, elections, and whatnot in every playthrough.

One small but fun feature I really liked was adding a congress/parliament to my empire. Not only did it add a ton of events that affected the game and resources in the forms of bills passing or failing congress, ministers' scandals or summits with other empires, but every few years there would be an event for an election to decide who would control this parliament. It lets me pick between making sure elections are secure, stepping back and letting it run wild, or trying to steal the election.

Whenever I had low happiness during an election, my government would lose their majority, and I would get a prompt to either form a minority government (which gave me negative status effects until the next election) or form a ruling coalition with one of the factions (which would change and lock my policies until the next election). I sided with the farmers faction most of the times, until I decided to start stealing the election lol

 

[Dr_Macunayme]

Close enough!

Wow, thank you everyone for pouring yourselves into this epic thread.

While this marks the "official" close of it, I'll probably keep an informal eye on it until I go on winter break.

Thank you all again, this has been amazing.

I was so busy with finals, I didn't have the chance to write anything earlier so sorry if my reply was a bit too late lol

Anyway, thank you and the rest of the team for making and maintaining such a wonderful game! Y'all earned a break, Happy Holidays

 

[Belonogy]

Please focus on the galactic community (UN) - this is one of the key killer features of the game. It makes players in multiplayer peacefully compete in international politics, and in single-player it is interesting to compete with AI empires

 

[whosdriving]

hello
i bought the game at launch
and have bought most of the dlc until federations
but i have played less and less every update mostly because of two major changes

the first was the removal of the multiple types of ftl, the only one remaining being the one i turned off completely in galaxy creation, prior to it becoming the only option
the main reason that i dislike hyperlanes so much is i feel it undermines the the whole idea of a strategy game in space, ie that space is so HUGE, if i wanted to fight over mountain passes or narrow waterways i would play a game that takes place on a planet. turning space from 3d (or 4d if you want to include gravity wells) to 2d already makes the game feel less like a game about a space empire and more like a game about a naval empire

the other change the has all but removed my interest in this game is the removal of the ability to manually define sectors, as the min reason i made them was to spin them off into vassal states, though i think this was sort of re added

as far as things to add

slowing the expansion of the player and ai into new systems, again space is BIG, it is weird that a few hundred years after the player develops ftl the whole galaxy is claimed by an empire, it undermines the feeling of the vastness of space, especially considering how few stars are in even a huge galaxy

if the above option is implemented some way to perform archaeology outside of your boarders

if you wanted an easy way change things up a bit in cor fleets, making gravity wells, planets stars ect, effect sub light speed that might be neat

ultimately the best parts of the game remain the anomalys and archaeology

combat is still pretty meh,
in my opinion part of it is because you have so many ships that you don't care when one is destroyed its just a number

also the way ships are unlocked feels sort of weird, it would bake more sense if you had access to several different ship classes from the beginning, and instead of allowing new ship types, research could instead unlock new sections
early game battleship would only be able to mount one or two large weapons while a late game one would be able to mount six

to mention espionage, the only version of this i have ever found fun was in civ 4, the ability to spend money on better intel, or shift production from military units to spy that you could use both in peace, to hinder your rivals, or in war to support your troops. lacked engaging counter play but it was mostly fun

 

[dessssss]

I hope Stellaris can introduce a game mode where players take on the roles of kings, prime ministers, presidents, etc., to command their nations, rather than playing as a god or deity of civilization. This means that in this mode, players should be given more restrictions, such as delayed access to the galaxy map and fleet positions, while also offering more detailed gameplay mechanics. For example, corruption, political conflicts, love, and political marriages could be included. In short, instead of the current god-like perspective, I hope there could be a mode that allows players to experience the game from a 'human' perspective. For instance, after implementing a policy of genocide, the game system could not only apply some negative buffs but also display some malicious curses from the populace. Of course, different political systems could have varying mechanics; for example, leaders of democratic systems might be more aware of the needs of their citizens, while dictators might be more detached. In a gestalt consciousness, there might be no concept of citizen needs. I understand that this type of gameplay conflicts with the current RTS-like game mode, but a deeper role-playing experience could make the game more engaging. Every time I watch the grand scenes in the promotional videos, I feel a deep admiration for this magnificent world. However, the overly strategic perspective makes the game lack immersion. Perhaps this issue is not something that Stellaris needs to address, or even something that the Stellaris series needs to address. However, I hope that a more immersive game experience could provide some food for thought for your team.

 

[Ossy]

I want there to be some changes towards gaia worlds. Gaia world trait for hive minds and machine intelligence are great because they can make use of every single aspect of the planets and model it however they want or need. Pops, jobs, and housing, I would love for there to be a change. It would be fantastic because right now, it just doesn't mesh well. I have planets with billions of housing and no jobs... I can't build any more jobs even if I wanted to... Administrative buildings should help me reduce empire sprawl effects. These are the three main things which bug me.

edit: Completely forgot that I also want a rework for the genetic and psionic tree. Genetic just doesn't seem useful because pops don't actually matter in this game other than being resource producers. The latest creation of immortality in machines means nothing to me because pops don't go up or down realistically an it doesn't actually have any hold on the game. Traits in effect are meaningless

 

[Question]

I dont know if im late to the party but i hope someone reads this :

My main issue with Stellaris development is how bug reports keep getting lost in the bug report forum. I understand PDX has limited resources and such, but my experience with reporting bugs for more than 3 years in the Stellaris bug report forum is that most of them, i would say at least 75% or more, are not addressed in any way, not tagged in whatever bug database PDX uses, and i have to try and catch a dev on Discord to inform them of the bug.

I have taken multiple breaks from the game, and it is very disheartening to come back more than 6 months later to see that not only are the bugs i reported still in the game, but PDX appears to be completely unaware of the bug despite multiple bug reports about it in the bug report forum.

Here's a classic example : https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...he-borders-agenda-reported-years-ago.1469587/, for many years shipclass_military_station_build_cost_mult did not work at all (so the Secure the Borders agenda did nothing) and it was reported as far back as 2018 by others. I reported it again in 2021 and IIRC, it ended up being fixed after the agenda rework...and i think that was some time in 2023 or 2024.

For a more up to date example, there's this bug where all hull/armor regen values are 1/100th their listed value, and im pretty sure its still not fixed. It was reported back in March 2024.

I am not blaming PDX or the devs, but i want to suggest that a better system or process be implemented to track bugs because the bug report forum just isn't working as well as it should. I have a better success rate of getting a bug fixed by talking to devs on Discord (which requires me to watch the Stellaris channel like a hawk during PDX's working hours) or posting about it on the Stellaris subreddit before the start of PDX's working hours and hoping it gets enough upvotes to catch a dev's eye.

That really, really, shouldn't be the case if there is a good system or process for reporting bugs. It's kind of like working at a company where nothing gets done unless you can catch a manager at the watercooler and pitch an idea to them directly (again, not criticising PDX).

In some cases, something turned out not to be a bug but a feature...but no feedback was provided, so i had no way of knowing about this. Just recently, i had to ask another modder to help me check with a dev whether something was a bug, because nothing seemed to be happening with a bug report i made. To be honest, i still have no idea whether nothing happened with the bug report because it got lost in the shuffle, or someone saw it but decided it wasnt a bug and just didnt reply in the thread saying it wasn't a bug.

Please, please, improve the bug reporting process somehow. If you are not sure what can be done about it, why not make a thread asking for suggestions? I'm sure the community would be able to come up with some ideas. But players really shouldn't need to try and catch a dev on Discord or Reddit to let them know there's a bug because the bug report they made more than 6 months ago has gotten lost in the shuffle and they don't know what else they should (or can) do next.

I will summarize the issues with the bug report forum currently :

• Many bug reports seem to get lost in the shuffle and do not get entered into PDX's internal bug database.
• Often, there is no feedback on whether a bug has been logged when it is noticed and logged by someone. Players therefore, have no idea whether PDX knows of the bug.
• If something turns out not to be a bug but a feature, it is rarely marked as such, so players have no idea that it is a feature and they should stop hoping it gets fixed.
• If a bug report gets lost in the forum, nobody seems to know what the next step in the process should be other than to try and get the attention of a dev on Discord/Reddit or working through unofficial contacts (because some modders/content creators were given permission to message the devs directly)

 

[derbius]

I would happily sacrifice the "galactic council" mechanic - I can't really figure out what it is for or how it works - it seems like I'm squabbling over the timing of broad buffs and debuffs rather than contributing to big decisions (except for things like the formation and location of the galactic trading planet). I think diplomacy needs a major rework to bring it close to the capabilities of other Paradox games of similar scope:

Things you still can't do:

• Ask another player (at least another AI player) to trade one or more systems for money or other goods (is it still the case that, "The AI will always refuse to trade away their own systems")
• Ask another race/player/entity to declare war on a third party even if they hate them? (Unless you are already at war with the target or an alliance with the person you want to invite into a war). "It would be awfully convenient if you would declare war on these guys and I will make it worth your while" is a perfectly normal bit of diplomacy! Doesn't work too well if the empires were friends but not too difficult to arrange if the guy you are asking hates them anyway.
• Ask an individual player or players not to trade a particular goods type with a target (or asking them not to trade with another player completely)
• Ask an ally in a war to attack a particular system or set of systems at a particular time. Ask an ally to claim a specific system or set of systems, or ask them not to claim a specific system.
• Fabricate evidence of a plan to attack you (or use espionage/mind control/whatever to make another player actually attack you) to provide a casus belli.
• Ask a player to let you do archaeology or other "you must control the system to do this" functions within their empire (I wanted to play peace-loving scientists but couldn't get access to study the L-gate in a neighbour's system so I have been struggling to get the neighbour to attack me)

 

[Morty Jhones]

I would love to see brocken Internal markets and blockaides to mater more. I f I can't get food to system cuss theres a enermy system or fleet in the way it should cause problems, regardless of if there theres a settlment in system of not.

ways to prevent Doonstacking, Some sort of Fleet Logistics so stacking multiple fleets in a system costs you more as the empire needs to requsition more support equipment.

 

[cecla]

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

Kind of new to the game, really enjoying it. I did a trade-focused, mutual-aid megacorp runthrough recently, the goal was to try to build an economy with zero technicians/miners/farmers (because it seemed like an interesting concept to try) while exploring economic mechanics that I hadn't played with before. It was really fun having an economy that was massively different from the normal mode, a couple of things:
* It seemed like it would be cool if there were more ways to do this, i.e., economy is structured radically differently from standard. For example, maybe my empire focuses on food production and relies on exporting it to the rest of the galaxy for other resources and influence.
* Stellaris has this weird property where trade/commerce/economics is abstracted in a number of ways that seem to represent different takes on the same thing

To elaborate on the second point:
* Your empire's economy is a system of resource inputs and outputs, minerals mined on one side of the galaxy can be processed into alloys on the other side with no worry for transportation or logistics
* Meanwhile, "trade" exists as a resource and has to be transported back to your capital along trade routes which are prone to piracy
* Trade is turned into resources according to a discrete set of rigid policies (idea: could they be mixed in combination? For example, could I use 50% mutual aid and 50% trade federation if I've unlocked these?), but the correspondence between this and "trade" in a conventional sense is a little murky
* The galactic market allows you to trade resources you have a lot of for resources you have less of and need more, but you're punished for using it so it's not viable to build an empire's economic strategy around this, it's for emergencies only
* Trade deals can be negotiated with neighboring empires, but similar to the galactic market the terms are unfavorable so you can't build a strategy around it, again for emergencies only
* Commercial pacts exist and for megacorps enable building holdings, but for non-megacorps do little except (I think) build trust with the AI, since the resources gained are almost never worth the influence. An exception might be if your empire is super trade-focused, in which case the commercial pact does provide non-trivial resources, but only to the other empire
* Megacorps can build holdings on other planets which provide benefits to the megacorp and host. This is interesting because it's a non-zero sum economic interaction and can be used as a substantial source of income and creates interesting dependencies in the diplomatic space--if 50% of my income is coming from holdings in an empire I can't declare war on them without collapsing my economy--but it also seems limited in that (unless I'm missing something, have only tried one run this way) the only resource that scales is energy credits via commercial centers, I can't build holdings on an ag world and get a substantial amount of food, for example.
* Not exactly the same, but vassal (and variant) agreements exist that allow the overlord to provide/take resources from the subsidiary, I haven't explored this fully to see how far it goes (ex: can I get a scholarium and prospectorium and then focus my entire economy on industry?) but for the purposes of this list the relevant thing is that this mechanic is orthogonal to the ones listed above

Broadly, I'm wondering if there's a different way to think about how trade/commerce/resources work that would open up interesting alternative avenues of play where economies could be organized differently and possibly interdependently with those of other empires, which would in turn impact the relationships between those empires. The game mechanics already reward economic specialization, so interdependence would provide economic advantages, but at the cost of constraining diplomacy with other empires and possibly make one vulnerable to trade sanctions. A side effect of this is that it would further differentiate the experience of playing a liberal/egalitarian/democratic style empire from a closed/totalitarian empire which I think would deepen variety/role-play.

As far as trade routes/piracy go, I understand why some players find it annoying, IMHO I think the mechanic isn't terrible and adds some interesting dynamics to the game, but can be a little wonky. For example, if you're a trade-specialized empire with planets producing 500+ trade, if they're on a trade route there's no practical way to deal with the piracy, this means that you make your capital station a trade collection station and only place trade worlds in the trade collection range (until you get gateways). This might not be the worse thing ever, but since if a planet is within collection range of multiple starbases there's no way for the player to control which starbase collects the trade, it then also means that you have to avoid placing starbases near trade planets, which is possible but seems to suggest that the system could be improved.

The main thought I would have on trade routes/piracy, though, is in line with the rest of this comment in that it's not clear why they exist for a special "trade" resource, but not for other more trade-like things, like moving minerals to a forge world for processing, or inter-empire trade deals, or resources that come from holdings. I wonder instead if the current system of trade/trade policies would be better replaced by making other trade and commerce-like mechanics in the game more robust in a ways that open up interesting economic playstyles that in turn may or may not lead to their own trade routes that could be subject to piracy (or naval blockade?).

 

[EustaceCS]

OK, let's assume that I gave up on providing feedback on immersion breaking problems.

Can we at least get "no mods or no achievements or go home" policy lifted?

Crusader Kings III did so in 2023, Imperator: Rome in 2024.

Revising of what does alter checksum and what doesn't is acceptable too.
Having achievements disabled for just adding few extra species portraits to existing (!!!) species (or mere empire emblems even) is unreasonable.

 

[Ecocitizen]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  • I would love to see the pop system simplified. Perhaps rework the class system with certain needs, happiness, etc. Also would like to see a more realistic population count on planets. E.g. Capital Planet having billions of citizens on board. If a war were to occur and either of your core worlds or outer colonies were to be occupied or destroyed, it would significantly affect variables such as influence, happiness, war exhaustion, production.
  • Would like to see more emphasis on "livening up" the galaxy. E.g. Trade ships going between planets, trade ports, starbases, other empires. Would also like to see civilian/colonial transit ships going to and from core populated worlds and newer colonies.

• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
  • I would like to see better or full control of fleets in battle. Let us be able to fall back to the adjacent star systems or be able to retreat to a system with a stronghold starbase rather than being destroyed and retreating (missing in action for years).
  • Also would like to see starbases buffed and let us customize the weapon loadout, especially when there are environmental factors that would alter weapon efficiency.
  • Please fix the bug or allow fleets to be re-ordered much like the planet re-ordering system.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
  • Customization of the political and ethos system.
  • Ship design
  • Traditions

• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
  • They change often depending on the situation. But I mainly focus on building up a strong economy and defense.

• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
  • (See above.) I would like to see the trade system expanded and redesigned to allow:
    • during times of war, if a mineral producing planet is blockaded, it would then affect industry on your more developed planets with alloys/consumer goods. Same for agricultural worlds. if a star system is being blockaded and those trade/cargo ships can't get through, then it should create a food deficit on planets that rely on them.
    • Would like to see actual trade/cargo ships going to and from colonies, other empires, starports, trade ports in the game.
    • Would be nice if when they are destroyed by pirates, space fauna, other empires, it would impact your resource and credits. This would be an incentive to patrol or protect trade routes.
    • Would be cool to see some sort of taxation system.
      • If a war erupts and one needs quick cash/resources, there should be an option to raise taxation to pay for the war effort, however there should be consequences such as unhappiness, revolt (depending on the severity), new factions, etc.

• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  • I like it is the way now. Perhaps require certain technologies to be researched before you can even colonize worlds that are naturally low habitability for your species.

• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
  • I like it the way it is

• If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?
  • Internal politics, please expand on this
  • I want to enjoy fleet combat more. As mentioned above, would like more or total control of fleets during combat.
  • Please fix the desync issues that plague multiplayer games. It is not fun when you get so far with friends and then the game has endless desyncs when you load the game.