Stellaris Dev Diary #361 - The Vision

[Tidakriger]

1) How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
I think that this ultimately causes more issues than benefits. Even at the lowest growth rate possible, the amount of pops in a well sized galaxy takes it's toll on game performance (it's so slow!). I enjoy the current tile/job/building system as is, but end game can still be abysmally slow, so it's not the most important thing to me and if it changes or not (already been through the 2.0 update, I got this!)

2) If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
I personally don't think much can be done in the way of altering fleets to the extent the game feels different, at least if these changes are ultimately positive. Right now I feel like Fleets can be a big mess, especially if you have a lot of them. It would be really nice if there was a way to group fleets together, for example: Fleet Group A consists of Fleets 1, 3, 6, and 7 are on the western side of my empire, while Fleet Group B consists of Fleets 2, 4, and 5 are on the eastern side. Sure in the map view it could be manageable, but in terms of the outliner it can be pretty messy. It gets worse as you have more fleets, and sure I might be talking from a POV of someone who uses a lot of powerful mods, but I think it would be nice if I could make it easier to select that first or second group of fleets at once, outside of having them in one system.

3) How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
I like to play tall and mind to myself more, I have a lot more of an isolationist and build internally kind of playstyle, however this never lasts as when a crisis appears, I usually have to get off my bum and deal with it or else the entire Galaxy will buckle over and it will just be a 1v1 until the Fallen Empires awake, or they are the Fallen Empires doing the crisising. So in the end, games usually always end up with me being the sole protector of the galaxy and I would prefer if the AI was able to stand up on their own, especially without needing cheats to do so.

4) How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
Trade is not important at all to how I play, outside of establishing the Galactic Market I never really deal with it. Well, that and the occasional pirates.

5) Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
The harder planets are to inhabit the more micro is required, which would turn the game more into a micro-management nightmare. I think as-is, colonization is pretty fine.

6) If you could remove one game system, what would it be?
AI Cheating, I feel like the game's difficulty needs to rely on the AI doing the proper things to get stronger and not having cheats to make them appear to be stronger. Too many games have I had hard fought wars to conquer my strong neighbors planets, only for them to be bare bones and full of useless things that shouldn't make them as strong as the player. I think by doing this it opens the path for AI empires to be programmed to be more creative, they could be all "meta" and go hard into alloys and tech, dominating the galaxy with their superiority, but they could be simple "we only want to worship our diety(ies) if Spiritualistic, or "we only care about finding new technology" if materialistic.

7) Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion?
Fleets, as mentioned in the second question, fleets as they are can be quite annoying to micromanage. In addition, I feel like there could be a lot more done with fleets and ships in general to make them more unique, or given more opportunities to become more unique (more weapon types, non-weapon add-ons that replace weapons, more sections, upgradeable sections from tech, customizable science/construction ships, maybe even customizable colonization ships).

8) Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?
Spying is definitely something that fits this. I think the primary issue with spying is that there is no dedicated way to easily look at your current network. Like in Eu4 you can see your spy networks building on the outliner, and in hoi4 you have dedicated systems in place to see what's going on, upgrades, what each spy is doing, what things you can do, etc. But in Stellaris, you place a spy then easily forget about it. Only way you can see what your spy is doing is by either going to the empire(s) you know they are in, or look at your envoys then find the empire(s), then you go to the spy tab. Sure for one or two empires you want to spy on this is great, but you cannot fully utilize being a spy master on the entire galaxy, at least not without a good memory and micro management skills.

 

[GhostDanny]

For the most part a lot of balance passes, rebalance passes and updating systems that have barely been touched since game launch (looking at ground combat)...

Also I would LOVE to be able
To have my Ruined catapult origin, Anglers + Barbaric Despoilers able to start with Catalytic processing.

With a minor add-on saying that Aquatic really shouldn't have +10% basic resources as it just makes your main species gravitate to jobs that prisoners with jobs should be doing.
And thus the cost could go down from a whopping 2 points, as that also severely limits pop design choices.

 

[Zeelilus]

To answer a few of the questions asked,

I would love the downsizing of fleet size, but unlike some people I know I greatly enjoy the customization of the ships themselves and would be greatly disappointed if it was ever thinned down in terms of techs and filling the slots yourself.

In regards to my goals, I either think of an RP idea for an empire and build it to the best the system allows, or I see a civic or origin I find interesting and do the same thing in reverse. I also tend to browse what achievements I still have left to give myself some "side missions" of sorts in each run.

I adore trade in any and every game i've played and I look forward to the trade system in stellaris not being just "energy credits but you have to manage increasingly nightmarish routes".

As far as features to work on, one was always boarding/stealing ships which seem to have been touched on this expansion. I'd love to see a nomadic empire but I can't feasibly think how it'd be done. And lastly ground combat. It's such a huge part of scifi but such a lackluster/annoying part of the game. I'd love for it to be fun and engaging.

 

[ACExtravaganza]

The Following has been reordered based on what I felt was most important.

• Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?
  • Utopian Abundance should remove ruler-specialist-worker priority, as some people want to do menial jobs.
  • Mechanization of labor by unintelligent autimation (like an automated factory or mine) is not implementable, and robots do not fill this niche.
  • Fleet and Ship Design. The fact that I have to manually redesige every fleet and ship as they are created is annoying. I would like the ability to save designs to my computer and load them into other games, similar to saving characters in CK3 or custom nations in EUIV or even custom empires in this game.
  • Science ship autosurveying should flee and then return to their assigned task, having to reasign manually every time is annoying.
    • same with construction ships
  • Fix planet automation, it doesn't work.
  • As science ships have variable automated survey, the same should true of fleets having variable automated fighting. You should be able to auto-hunt different enemy classes, like asteroids, pirates, marauders, empires, crices.
    • if you don't do that, less asteroids in general. They are annoying.

• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
  • More importantly, some origins should be combinable, and locked civics (driven assimilator, planetscapers, ect.) should not be origins, but also should not take up a government civic slot. Perhaps a new culture or history slot could facilitate this, as origins were spun off, a further breaking up into more granular pieces could work. Off the top of my head, you could have government, history, culture, unification, and general for things that don't quite fit elsewhere. Each slot is required one selection, and you have some floating selections that can go between them, and some of course still contradict one another and will not work. But the current hard origins and overly limited civics is not a fun system.

• If you could remove one game system, what would it be?
  • Spritualists should not inherently find robots/organics antethetical to faith. As a theist myself, I think robot people are great and have always hated this dynamic. You can have a prejudice civic on the matter, but that would be best decoupled from spiritualism anyway.
  • Utopian Abundance being limited to egalitarians. While they would go for it sooner, if its the law everyone should gain access to it. Additionally, I can think of many empire typse that would not be democratic nessisarily, but still provide everything to everyone, this is not an option in current stellaris.

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  • Not Important at all. I would prefer a Victoria 3-style pop system, but if thats too intensive on a galactic scale, I would understand something even more abstract. That said, I would still want to get rid of ephemeral pops that spawn whole and share an ethic and work a job.

• Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion?
  • Internal Politics, with an overhaul of factions and pop parties/factions
  • Genetic ascention, it was my favorite and is just bad at this point
  • Hybrid Ascentions, having two paths meet in the middle would make for a fun expansion

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
  • Ethics, civics, and origin at the start. These are the cornerstone of an early civilization, but they are not all it will be. The Ascencion perks and traditions taken, the events encountered, the crisises fought and how they are fought all matter more as the game goes on, and that can even lead to a diagetic change in government and society, which is ultimately a lot of fun.

• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
  • Fleets need a rework, in my oppinion. There is an objecitly best ship with an objectively best build, that detracts from anything fun with combat, and makes it hard for new players until they learn those stratagies, likely not on their own.

• 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 set a broad goal from the outset, and its usually survive all 4 endgame crises with a united galactic community, but not always that. As I get precursors, if they go against what I'm trying to do (a robot empire getting the zroni, an empire planned for virtual getting the baol, other less-frequent corner-cases) I will reset the game to get something aplicable, but will rarely try to go for a specific precursor. Otherwise, I set goals as the game progressess, like prepair for the l-cluster, deal with a rising khan, push a progressive agenda in the GC, fun things that come up like this.

• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  • yes. I turn of gaurenteed habitables frequently and rarely have issues, because there are just so many "close enough" habitables or even primary-type worlds in my immediate space that I don't need to worry about that until I get some new species in my empire for the other worlds. Either remove the habitability system altogeather and admit its easy, or do a major overhaul to make it an interesting part of the gameplay.

• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
  • I barely pay attention to the trade system, and just build starports at junctions of high trade value to collect the trade produced.

 

[Skeletr0nKing]

Answering again with more detail:

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  I think pops could be removed and turned into raw population value numbers of aliens instead of a determined number of pops if performance can be gained.
  Still, I think the spreadsheet pizza slice graphs aesthetics should be minimized, you should be avoided, you should still be able to interact and move your aliens around by clicking their avatars as if pops still existed. Graphs are too impersonal. If I gained 1429 aliens on a given month, I'd rather them be put to work immediately and divided among jobs available to them according to species, strata and not have to wait until enough of the aliens pile up to form another "Pop" unit.

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

I would say I'm pretty open to changes, as long as we can have fleets tossing missiles, lasers and machinegun fire at each other, fighters flying around and things getting blown up to smithereens and have admirals leading them to give some personality.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

I'd have to say "How and why we do things". If I'm using food to make alloys then that makes me different from the empire next to me. Synthetically ascending biopops into machines also makes us different. Becoming the crisis, being void dwellers, or happy fish under the sea. Being angry post apocalyptic survivors that want the galaxy to "Get it" for what was done to them or having a "Cloaking on every ship" fleet policy. Building and living in ringworlds and making gigantic megastructures. So I'd say the most important way to define my civilization is to become different from everyone else.

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

It depends on what I'm doing. One time I wanted to be a peaceful trade empire and was so successful some other empires wanted to become vassals. I accepted, and soon some of them where attacked by evil fanatic purifiers. I had to protect my vassals, so I got rid of those guys and released them to be vassals as well but ended up with parts of their former space with systems close to everyone. Soon more vassals and i refused them turning it all into a federation. Diplomacy went so well soon I was favored by everyone and the mid crisis hit, and some empires got troublesome with helping me fight those, so I took more systems to "Get things done" and ended up being proposed Custodian without me even noticing until the vote was proposed. I accepted and from there it took not too long when I realized I could manipulate everyone into making me emperor which I did against the few opposing empires left. Then the goal became "Be a good emperor", and that's how we destroyed the endgame crisis very quickly.

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

I don't like it. Firstly, trade routes to your capital are not roleplay-appropriate if your capital isn't big on trade. I'd rather we could define trade routes between strong trade planets or between those planets and alien empire trade planets.

• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  Probably. I'm not sure how that can be fixed other than making the techs harder to get?

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

I wish you could combine some origins with one another. It'd be nice to have doomsday void-dwellers that start without a habitat. Or post-apocalyptic subterranean species. What about imperial fiefdom and mechanist? So many combinations.

• If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?
  Espionage is pretty useless right now except for general intel gathering. As someone said, it does work on pre-ftls. I still think it could be removed and replaced by actions performed by science vessels. The cloaking system I think would be more interesting to explore and expand than the "infiltration" thing.

 

[WindingArc]

Stellaris falls flat when it tries to simulate societies.


Species traits are a mix of genetic characteristics, like strength, and cultural characteristics, like "unruliness." I've always felt these should be separated into genetic traits that species start with and cultural traits that individual pops gain or lose from their social environments.


Ethics attraction is too homogeneous within empires. It's good that pops have ethics attractions based on their jobs, but why don't planets have cultures or ethics attractions like empires do? Local cultural traditions shouldn't implicitly change overnight when planets are conquered or empires shift their ethics.


The galactic community is frustrating to interact with because it's often impotent and unresponsive. Low tier resolutions take just as long to pass unanimously as controversial, higher tier resolutions do. It's difficult to even get a vote on most high tier resolutions because of the large number of resolutions and the length of voting and cooldown periods. Half the reason to become the custodian is just to speed the process of enacting resolutions, not to influence the outcomes of votes.

Ideally there would be a dynamic modifier that decreases voting periods based on the percentage of the community's diplomatic weight currently voting in favor. There should also be shorter voting periods for lower tier resolutions, especially for sanctions and castigations. I've had games in which the galactic community is paralyzed by a rotation of popular castigation resolutions.

 

[Enero]

How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
- Not that much. Current Stellaris economy is extremely primitive (mostly Subsistence Economy). I would like to see more complex system where real macroeconomic measures make sense, like GDP, GDP per capita and so on.

What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
- I find it pretty cosmetic currently. I would like to see more differences between ethoses and political systems (democracy, empire...).

How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
- Trade Routs is a horrible system, I don't find it interesting.

Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
- Yes, I would like it to be more impactful and challenging.

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 absolutely despise Ground Combat.
- I would like to experience living society. Elections and factions are rudimentary and unengaging.

 

[Wintermist]

I think you nailed the vision perfectly.

I'm more of a pacifist player who enjoy building and dealing with politics, and sadly this is where I feel Stellaris is lacking a little bit. Every planet could feel more unique, Planet Diversity mod does a lot on this point. Unique planet modifiers and how to deal with them or options they give you. That is fun.

As for politics it's quite lacking, I would love to be able to threaten others over control of a vassal that wants to join me instead, or a system they managed to grab that belongs to me, we could negotiate a deal. More options basically.

Warfare, I would like armies to actually reflect on your population. Armies big enough to conquer a whole planet would require a serious investment in terms of population and equipment. Right now there's nothing stopping you from recruiting and recruiting. I also wouldn't mind armies to start as soldiers, and then you can train them up to give them skills such as tropical warfare, ice warfare...etc. This makes it it an investment into armies and you would care about them more.

Ships on the other hand wouldn't require this, they don't use the same manpower an army would by a longshot. Ship warfare is droll though, I wouldn't mind seeing the admiral making decisions in battles to make them feel more like a character, someone you root for and remember if they do good, because they pulled off a manouever or something. Similar to your other games. Perhaps similar could also be done for ground warfare. Makes those admirals and generals feel like characters and not spreadsheets.

Another mod that does a lot for me is NSC3, atleast the ships part of it. Starbases may actually have a little bit TOO much for my taste though.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

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

I can't imagine Stellaris without it and I've posted before that this aspect of the game has the most scope for emergent storytelling**cough***internal politics***cough***

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

Don't make fleets too small.

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

At the start I don't, besides picking an origin. I lean into the idea that I don't know how the game will unfold and I don't know how my empire will develop over time. I like the randomness of the tech draws and they influence my gameplay decisions.

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

It's barely noticeable and it just gives my fleets something to do when not at war.

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

These days I turn guaranteeds down to zero. That makes it hard enough for me.

• 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/Planetary development

 

[TheArcran]

It would be a big change, but something I thought of back during the discussions about habitat reworks was moving Stellaris from planet-centric to system-centric. Essentially some sort of change that, rather than tracking pops and such for individual planets, instead treats an entire system as an individual planet. Obviously this would need a lot of refactors to keep up with the level of specialization we can currently have for a planet.

UI-wise, I imagine it is a panel for space resources and establishing habitats, a panel for planets/building slots/etc., a panel for population, a panel for starbase content, and potentially a megastructure/flex tab. This would cut down on the need to move between screens as there'd be a singular 'system manager' tab. Space resources could directly provide jobs, with upgrade options such as habitats to improve them. Planets would probably need less, but more effective building slots, and things like orbital rings could become more direct 'upgrade' type effects that unlock additional slots. Habitability could be expanded to impact the output from jobs provided from a certain planet, as well as the number of building slots said planet can provide.

Obviously it would be a huge rework, but I think it would make the game a bit more playable while also making it feel like your civilization is space age right from the get-go. I feel like a lot of the game is already at the system-level, so removing a bit of granularity at the lower levels would also probably provide some performance boosts and (hopefully) cut down on a ton of micro.

Another, unrelated idea, is for fleet management - making fleets more expensive but more effective but keeping them as a number of ships visually (not mechanically) seems like the quickest fix to cut down on fleet size while still maintaining the current feeling.

 

[Resistance91]

For me, the role play is what makes stellaris so great, and so, is by far the most important aspect.
I wouldn’t want to see too big changes to pops or fleets. But a more in depth trade system and internal politics could be interesting.
I would also like to see gestalt empires, particularly hive minds, get expanded. I think they suffer too much from not having access to destiny traits. Even if only the nodes had access to them.
Ethics getting more choices would be good to better reflect real world societies. This should also lead to more government types.
Genetic and psychic ascension need to be brought into line with cybernetics and synthetics such as advanced governments etc. A hive mind that can take the psychic path should be possible.
Also, a third become the crisis that is genetically focussed. Perhaps even individualist empires being able to become gestalt hive mind.
There should be a way to establish pre ftl societies such as uplifting pre sapiens or through the genesis guide civics.
And finally, please, please, please, give us the option to select which precursor we get during the game set up menu.
P.s a hivemind fallen empire that is hibernating could be really fun.

 

[zellwarlord]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation? It's ok but planet design, specifically building slots needs to be changed. Building Slots should scale with the planet. Why can I have as many buildings on a size 5 planet as a ring world section?
• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love? Down sizing fleets would be great they have bloated in size over the years. Even better would be bring back the ability to merge unique ships into and out of the fleets.
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization? Unique tech tree lines (doesn't really exist) Good examples of what would be possible, Eager explorers getting better jump tech tiers until real drive and\or mirror universe trading such tech to you, Bioships and bio buildings, aquatic techs, Ice word Tech, desert Tech. Negative effect civics to allow us to take more then 2 at game start. Planetary wonders like the precursor buildings that can change play style, especially around mid game.
• 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 on going while playing, they change as I discover things.
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital? It's not system needs love unique resources need to come back to allow useful trade between empires and add unique strategic advantage\disadvantage.
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more? Habitability and climate should have a building cost increase and or limit max population until certain techs or habitability increases. This would be like us colonizing Mars needing additional infrastructure like domes or tunnels. Toxoids was a missed opportunity to allow for toxic planets to be colonizable by toxoids )detox needs to be buffed or rolled into another perk, spaceborn lithiods that inhabit asteroids?
• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins? Quite a few that should have both options, Cataclysmic birth, Subterranean, Post Apocalyptic, most things that the civilization would have done prior to becoming space faring.
• 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? Only system I'd remove is what ever caused us not to be able to send a science vessel on a blind explore to a certain system that we didn't have hyper lanes uncovered for. Used to be able to send a ship around the galaxy and it would pathfind as it uncovered hyperlanes. NO its just micromanaging to accomplish the same. Central focus of an expansion= Genetics accession and hive mind (move of the events need to be opened up to hive minds. and make us have to collect dna for traits) Psionics and add energy based bio life (can colonize certain gas giants or certain stars) Feature I'd like to enjoy is GALCOM please add a slider for speed or recesses and voting length or tie it into mid game and end game start times.

 

[Dayknight]

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

Kinda unpopular opinion, but I disagree with removal of pops. After I play Frostpunk2, removing population's detail controls feels too number-y. In that game it was on purpose for give player inhumane vibe but if we delete pop and exchane them into numbers we can't really feel like current style where we can say we play X race.
But I do agree current system has legacy system problem that doesn't get updated. Factions, Trait(This thing was mediocore at best even at tile age, after 2.2 it slowly become non-existence), etc. If big rework is coming, I hope this legacy systems get rework long overdued.

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

I think lot of people do agree on this, current fleet system kinda remain same after their release version. Doomstacking.
But I can't think solution around this. Solution that not hard limiting and not too punishing.
That being said though, I think as long as it's not weird or straight up bad(like take all control to ai), people love these changes. Current one is working, but not that good state.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

I think in stellaris what is defining civilization each other is how they can make their origin, civic, trait, ship's background entangle together without saying 'because it's cool' alone.
So many cases in SF games and mods have something that can be describe their existence as 'because it's cool' only. What I really like stellaris is when something is introduced, they followed by something more sence and logic. Holy covernant for example it gives explanation implying on why spiritualist doesn't fight each other because of deus vault or something. This kind of realism is I think most important for defining civilization in stellaris from other games.

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

I think I always play games in some set goals. For example, when I play non-crisis empire, with combination of origin and civic, I can imagine where can they differ from normal gameplay from other empire. But in the end game, almost all empire land on same gameplay, so I can play as long as they are unique.

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

Importance is high, but I really want this system reworked, like really badly.
Endless calcuation on Trade routes and quite meaningless but annoying pirates alone are bad, but also it's kinda energy, but extra steps.
I think with internal market that lot of people quite requested for rework for long time, so What about make trade as market trade quantity resources? Like, if empire has 100 trade in total, they can trade that amount of value. With that tech-burden creating route and annoying pirate can go away, although pirate could get some other way around.

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

YES.
But I also think compare to tile age, blockers are too weak nowdays. Back then, if you don't have blocker clear technologies, lot of new colonies can't make half of their full strength. Some planet has very high blockers it's not actually worth taking unless gaining some clearing techs.
I think rather than some unnesseary complicated system, let's go back and learn from legacy system's pros and cons and create something better on existing system is better for long-term gameplay.

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

I think unremovable civics could get some second pass. Recent dlcs and patches add so many this kind of civic while removable civics are rare to be added.
When I choose 3rd civic, It's kinda bland because these civics are not that changed since the introduction of civics.
I think some could get merged into their respective origin, and some could get removable version of them. E.g. removable Anglers must choose one of 2 new jobs, rather than unremovable Anglers get both.

• 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?

Well, almost all legacy system should get second pass. Like I said earlier, factions, traits, interstellar developments, trade, etc.
Some legacy system like trait is really long overdue at this point. I mean, even back in tile days trait is considered mediocore and people asked for something unique.
I want to enjoy but current implementation doesn't work is I think Cosmic Storm ofc. Things like Ground Combat at least works, this is not.
I like the idea behind space weathers and weaponize these things. But current iteration is so much about randomly emerging storm that almost harms you randomly and randomly gone for later bad modifiers, and also they comes at unnessery already information bloated times like early-mid games.
I think Cosmic Storm begins at non effect but skyboxes, but as galaxy develops civilizations find its potentials and make them having effects, even make them nexus storm. Inspired from Winter from Endless Legend, they start with some minor effects but when times passes it became severe.
Nexus storms and psionic storms are I think it has potential, like some mad scientists find out they can go further more or some mad psionists find out they can influence them for their bidding.

 

[ImmortalDestroyer]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  • I've been here since the 1.0 release back when there were no leviathans or fallen empires and planets were tile Tetris with only a couple of adjacency bonus buildings (that weren't strong enough to bother usually) and I've had some enjoyment with the pops system since it was added but I'd be fine with it being changed, if it looked something like Victoria I would probably buy a few copies to send out to friends next holiday.
• 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 we aren't back to naked corvette rushing I'm fine with that. Personally I would like to see transports be able to do boarding actions if they were paired with a fleet. I would say my limit would be if it got turned into Vic3 or Hoi's war systems.
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
  • Government types. Standard empires, Megacorps, and Hiveminds add a lot of flavor to the game and change how each nation can be played and I hope to see more of those in the future.
• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
  • A static unmoving goal isn't a good game plan, especially on GA or Multiplayer but I do tend to be a completionist so more things to collect are always fine by me as long as they are fun and engaging to collect and the rewards are worth the extra work. A midgame crisis/leviathan slider would be nice though.
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
  • The majority of my playtime since megacorp has been as a megacorp so I like it but I wish there were better ways to protect it before you can build gateways. Or just a general change to piracy. I would like to see a galactic international trade system though.
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  • My go to empire is a machine megacorp, and before that it was lithoids. The reason is because its just more of a hassle to colonize different kinds of worlds than it is to genemod/robomod or terraform, which is the weakest of those options since it takes a long time and has a bit of a later tech requirement.
• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
  • I would be interested in a origin based around starting in the shroud and leaving into real space like the formless maybe a unique starting systems and some alternative starting techs/traits, maybe chased by another shroud faction (not as strong as the crisis factions) and discovering how the galaxy will react to your arrival.
• If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?
  • The lack of meaningful asymmetric starting options. In the old updates the multiple choices for starting weapons and ftl types was a major selling point that made it unlike its competitors. Now each start feels very similar and the initial steps feel almost like a science, like where you spawn geographically doesn't matter until you meet your first neighbor. Wormhole generation made it feel impactful if your home was in a cluster of stars or in the edge of a spiral where They also made it feel like you were making active meaningful choices in exploring the galaxy and how the logistics of your empire were going to look like where hyperlanes might say yes or no to your expansion and there isn't anything you have to say on the matter until the very end game. So I'd want an expansion based around how different empires broke into stellar travel and the different options that would come with it.

 

[Venatos]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
• im not married to it, as long as i can see my people grow and adjust their output to optimize my economy, im fine. that said, im currently playing a engineered evolution empire and having to change nearly every pop to the correct planet-type is a hassle, espezially since it seems that they keep growing or resettling to/on planets with the wrong planet-type? anyways, if you can do it better, feel free to do so, i cant think of a better way without loosing the uniqueness of species and optimized pops.
• 
  
• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
• well, if you ask me, the fleetcap has to go, it makes no sense, it just makes the fleets harder to coordinate for no gain whatsoever. all i need is my mainfleet and the ability to easily split of smaller fleets for spezific tasks when needed(UI: shipdesign-name, number of ships -> move number to new fleet = new fleet strength) there was a mod that like trippled shiphealth,etc. to this day the most amazing stellaris battles i had were with this mod because it gave battles character and a chance for reinforcements to arrive.
• 
  
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
• Theme and Flavour... although i have no idea what that means
• 
  
• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
• my runs are predetermined from speziescreation. as an example: if i want to play democratic federation builders but start surrounded with asshats, i just wasted 5 hours on a run where i can not fullfill my vision and the run ends. the vision usually doesnt change midrun.
• 
  
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
• feel free to remove it, as far as i can tell it never did anything other than "Oh, the worlds i conquered 10 hours ago never connected to my tradesystem?"
• 
  
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
• i think the current system works well tbh. the negatives of low habitability are pretty severe and make it unfeasable to colonize these planets while not putting fake restrictions on the player. there is no reason for a spacefaring spezies to be unable to put down a habitat wherever, they have already mastered the most severe climate aka vacuum.
• 
  
• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
• no idea, probably... maybe just put them all together in a pot and refilter them into planetary, spezies and story picks?
• 
  
• 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 internal Tradesystem and fleetcap, seriously, do it today and noone will miss em.
• War, Diplomacy and inter-empire-trade could all use some love. and speaking of love, for the love of god tell me the monthly influence cost when making diplomatic trade/research/etc. agreements!

 

[goldennick94]

In response to the latest dev diary: The Vision, I've compiled a list of my perspectives on various parts of Stellaris that I'd hope will help the devs on their work on Stellaris.

Pops and Jobs:

I personally really like the system as it is currently. However, I think (particularly with newer players) that the system can be incredibly complicated to understand. Not all resources are equal and sometimes it’s not clear that things like Amenities are of the utmost importance to have. (For example, low amenities cause low happiness. This results in lower production and lower stability. This leads to lower amenities production which means it snowballs into even lower numbers. This eventually can result in revolts which can quickly destroy an empire. I think a lot of players aren’t clear on this kind of effect that happens from amenities and get shocked that their entire economy and game seems to be failing out of nowhere.) I think stronger UI/UX info on negative amenities production would help a lot of players.

Fleets, Ships and Combat:

For ships/fleets, I think Stellaris’s most unique aspect in comparison to other games is the ship sections. While it does put a *lot* of design restrictions, I also think the ability to put together different looking ships that are aesthetically consistent is really cool. (Personally I wish Titans could get more ship sections, but I understand it puts a ton of pressure on the art team to increase the scope of assets like that).

Ideally, I would like to see more systems in place to promote choice in ship sections. I suggested giving sections their own stats modifiers but apparently it’s a UI/UX nightmare to design around.

Personally, keeping the ship sections is one of my sacred systems in Stellaris that should not be removed.

I’m also probably one of the few people that enjoy armies. Personally, I would like if we could bring back the tile system for army battles so it looks like armies are taking over districts and buildings in a more realistic way. An army designer where you could pick their weapons and armor would be cool too. However, I understand army mechanics is fairly low priority and divisive so I’m not expecting much on this front.

Defining Civilizations:

In regards to defining civilizations, I spend an absurd amount of time in empire creation. I love the species and leader bios you can write. Personally, I would like if we could have an empire “origin” bio that could overwrite the origin blurb at game start. (Sometimes I pick origins for certain starts but the way they’re written isn’t quite aligned with what I imagine. For example, I made an empire that’s a bunch of ancient robots that catalog old technologies and starts as a Remnants empire).

Setting goals:

Generally, I start the game with a set of goals in mind that I try to achieve by the end of the game but I keep it flexible enough to change when the game throws surprises at me. I really enjoy the organic nature of the game and I think it’s one of Stellaris’s strong points.

Trade System:

My current opinion of the trade system is it’s okay. I think it suffers from age and is a little disconnected from mechanics that would make sense. For example, the trade system doesn’t interact with hyper relays in any meaningful way. Also, I think it would be neat if jump drives/subspace drives could have an effect on the trade system. Another thing I really wish was a thing was allowing trade networks interact with empire borders. Personally, I think it would be really cool if border systems could let you build a starbase building “customs office” that lets you get the effects of commercial pacts as they are currently in the game. In return, commercial pacts instead give additional bonuses or increased returns from those borders. I think the piracy system is a neat concept (although a bit annoying in its current implementation tbh). I think part of the problem is that the original solution was to have corvettes reduce piracy by going through those systems. The issue is that the UI/UX doesn’t let you chart manual paths to optimize piracy removal so it feels incredibly hard to work with. It might make more sense instead of setting a path is to have something automated like construction and science ships where fleets can prioritize high piracy systems and automate reducing them.

Colonization:

I think colonization is fine in its current iteration. While it could probably be improved, it’s not a glaring issue in my opinion. In regards to habitability and planet climate, I think it could be improved in an approach similar to the Aquatics species pack. I think giving planet climates their own unique aspects and introducing different ways of playing based on their conditions would be ideal. For example, I think it would be cool if empires that start on Cold Planets (e.g Tundra and Arctic) could get some benefits to ice asteroids and other ice mining/survival mechanics.


Origins into Civics and vice versa:

This one’s a difficult topic because I love the different combinations of origins and civics that are possible in it’s present form. I think my biggest issue with the system currently is that it doesn’t leverage empires being able to redefine themselves during the game as much as it could. I think there are an overabundance of civics that can’t be changed after game start which causes conflicts with being able to have flexibility changing empire types mid-game. I think it would be interesting if a lot of those were changed into origins and focused more strongly on. For example, I think Natural Design in its current iteration would be more interesting as an Origin.

Instead of removing most of them in civic form, I think it would be more interesting if we could have more civics that open up during the game. For example, having Galactic Curators available after completing the Archivism tradition tree. Alternatively, the Dark Consortium essentially locks you starting with Dark Matter, and you should be able to pick it during the game if you high enough tech.

Implementations and Current State of Game Systems:

Galaxy Creation Presets:

I wish we could save presets for galaxy creation. (Personally I like to turn down the tradition/tech costs and lower mid/end-game years for faster games). It would be helpful to set up games faster and not accidentally miss a setting.

Research Bloat:

Currently I think one of the larger issues of the game is research bloat. I think the tech tree card system is a fundamental part of Stellaris’s identity and should not be removed. However, I think there needs to be an adjustment on it. Right now, I think the issue is less that there are too many techs in the game but instead there are too many techs that are irrelevant to the empire that you’re playing now that clog up the potential options that wouldn’t be irrelevant if it was a different empire.

I think base (or essential) technologies should be part of the tree. I’m not sure what exactly would constitute these “base” technologies but I assume stuff like extra civic slot, ship sizes, starbase sizes, and exploration tech is stuff that would be considered “essential” for every empire to have. The optional stuff should be something that the player should be able to make a conscientious decision to focus on. For example, Storm techs when you want to focus on storms (or you care about a specific aspect like repulsion/prevention and not attraction), space fauna techs when you want to domesticate space fauna, cloaking, archaeotechs, etc.

Too Many Systems Competing For Player's Attention:

Another aspect I feel is being exacerbated by the recent DLC releases is this feeling that each new thing is “required”. I feel exploring Astral Planes feels “required”. I feel Grand Archives are pushed to be “required”. Storm negation techs are very pushed to be “required” by endgame with how frequent storms are. I liked The Machine Age because if you weren’t choosing to go Cybernetics or Synthetics, you didn’t feel forced to persue the DLC content outside of the kilostructures. My biggest issue with this is that it increases the demand for micro-management of empires. I think it would be nice if there was a more of a player decision to be able to make a conscientious effort to focus on things that mattered the most to your empire. I also think this will help ease some of the pressure felt by players that feel overwhelmed by the game.

Lack of Strongly Defined Tech Culture:

I think the previous point ties perfectly into something that I wish the game had which I define as “tech culture”. Tech culture is what I define as the technologies that define the advantages and philosophies of your empire. If you look at other sci-fi themed RTS and strategy games, this is what helps give the playable factions in those games their unique advantages and lends to the stories that involve them. For example, taking Starcraft as an example:

Terrans focus on armor and their advantage is mobility and flexibility in unit compositions. They have mobility and a lot of their buildings are equipped with engines which lets them avoid things like natural disasters.

Zerg utilize their environmental effect of creep to give themselves buffs and visibility. They have many essential units that can detect cloaked units and feature natural regeneration at the cost of lower hitpoints which make them well suited to guerrilla tactics. They can rapidly spread out and have a lot of biological aspects.

Protoss are expensive but have regenerating shields, many ranged options, some incredibly strong units and the most cloaking options. They have very few ways of regenerating their HP but the shields give them an extra buffer that makes them tanky and capable of taking on larger forces. Because their population is limited, they resort to robotic proxies and extensions to help fill out their numbers.

I think if there was an expansion I’d like to see, I’d love to see one focused on filling out the tech culture aspects of the empires. For example, I’d like to see empires that focus on better armor going against empires that focus on better shields. I think it’s a perfect marriage of mechanics and potential for story-telling/roleplaying.

Factions Feel Limited:

I think factions could also be expanded on. I liked what Cybernetic Creed did with their factions and would love to see more of that. I think the current factions are too generic. I think we could have some more ethical approaches. I think this concept was lightly touched upon with Galactic Paragons with Renowned Paragons and the Advisor voices. For example, with the Pacifist ethics, you could have a faction focused on Diplomacy and a faction focused on Law, Order and Justice (Stability). I think the Militarist one could be split between the “Warrior type” faction currently in the game and the “Disciplined Military type” that exists as a VO option.

Let's Have More AI Personalities:

As a companion to more factions, I think more AI personalities would help keep the game more fresh in single-player games. I think there's a lot more potential with the new mechanics, origins and civics to make more AI personalities.

More Trade Options Between Player Empires:

I would also like to see more trade options. Particularly, I think it opens up more possibilities with multiplayer that makes it more fun to play. I kind of like if there were more options that NPC empires wouldn’t allow because it’s unfair but allowed between human players to negotiate on a deeper level than would be possible with AI. I personally miss not being able to trade for favors anymore, because I previously would use those in exchange for “care packages” for resources between human players and they were declined a couple of times despite desperately needing the resources because they did not want me having more diplomatic power in the Galactic Community.

Espionage Does Not Feel Very Interactive or Rewarding To Play As Either the Aggressor or Defender:

I've covered this in some of my suggestion posts but I think Espionage's biggest issue is that it doesn't feel very interactive or rewarding to play. Many of the options don't feel rewarding. Personally, I think it would be cool if we could emulate things like spy movies or stuff like Star Trek Federation vs Romulan espionage antics.

Let Us Choose/Cycle Through Main Menu Backgrounds:

I'm personally a fan of a lot of the older backgrounds, and I think it would be cool if we could choose which background/starting music track when the main menu is opened as a nice little feature.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Threads merged

 

[Dr Billal]

I only have a thousand hours of Stellaris, but I have been playing it since it came out, and all in all, I think the game is in its currently best shape ever since it came out. I also have some thousand hours in other pdx games, so I tend to compare them quite a lot. With that in mind, I will yap a reasonable amount here, so I can make my case heard:​

1. How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
   I LOVE pops, I want TRILLIONS (fix the end game lag please) of pops. However, I feel like the current pop system is a bit crude, and it could use some Victorian style, or perhaps even some Caesar touch. I would love to see the many pops broken down into different cultures/religions and big empires having several religions and cultural traits besides just different races with slightly different bonuses.
   In the Stellaris of my dreams, a big empire with some dozen stars and many planets, should have internal struggles that actually matter, cause being totally honest, the faction system might as well not exist. It would be very interesting to see a specific event changing the ethics, culture, and religion of a specific planet, and if that planet is let’s say your capital – or a massive populated planet – it starts an event chain for a massive civil war, or maybe some change in government depending on your population rights…
   In short, I would just love to see the chaos and the internal political struggles to grow and intensify as the empires expand, instead of it being a big snowball effect of collecting the most green % numbers per pop.
   ​
2. If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
   I beg you to please change the way fleets work. I hate the fact you have a bazillion fleets at the end of the game lagging everything, and then you fight one massive battle, and have to rebuild it all, then wait years for it to get somewhere again.
   I would love to see a more dynamic fleet system, with maybe less ships, but with each being more significant, and maybe even some new ones. I don’t think one should be able to easily build 5 titans and an infinite number of battleships as it is right now.
   My dream is a fleet system that makes big ships more significant and unique, while also delivering an interesting galactic warfare that is not just based on building as many ships as possible stacked with A weapon and B defense then dropping it on top of your enemy.
   ​
3. What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
   I mostly focus on Role Play, but I also think that just having an interesting challenging sandbox is important. To define my civilization I try to stick to the ethics, government type, and pops traits. I also use the traditions (that work essentially the same way the idea EU4 idea groups do) to follow up with the role play, so a pacifist civ would focus on Diplomacy for example.
   I think that if you could add more significance to the pops in general, it could really enhance the way the civilization work, by adding a new level of depth to the equation. I also think that having some new ethics, traits, and traditions would really be great. But more than that, it would be interesting if these things aligned with each other. What I mean by that, if having some give and takes, or special buffs/nerfs/interactions based on your combination of traits, ethics, trads, and government type.
   ​
4. 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 my goals as the campaign progress, but usually I have an initial objective in mind. It doesn’t need to be a very detailed objective, something simple like “oh this campaign I want to be extremely rich very fast” or “Let’s role play as X”. As the game goes on, I start adding more to the initial thoughts, and if something interesting happens, like for example I happen to be one of the few pacifists/belligerents of the galaxy, I then start taking a more proactive approach in that direction.
   ​
5. How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
   Please change the trade system, it is a worst version of the Victoria system, and now we even have Project Caesar presenting a new innovative trade and economy system you guys could get inspiration from.
   I would love to see a more integrated economy that is different from produce 1 or 2 things, buy the rest from the void market + sign trade deals to get some more energy. Please make it a more integrated system, make it so you can disrupt trade, and that it creates real problems.
   My dream (I understand this could be extremely cursed to do) would be a system in which you could starve an entire Ecumenopolis by blocking the trade route that feeds that world. I would love to see the empires actually trading with each other, and having maybe some special factions inside your empire (maybe make the current factions like the EU4 states…) that could provide some early trade and bonuses, but then as the game goes on and get larger, you are forced to trade with other empires, or heavily focus on a centralized planned economy and national industry.
   ​
6. Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
   I think colonization is too easy and simplistic. I would love to see a system where growing colonies is hard, and not just build assembly building and let it there.
   I think you could have more hardships for each kind of planet, as well as more planet types. It would be interesting to have a harder early game regarding colonization, with lack of resources to sustain the colony, hardships with different planet types, new rare planets, local fauna and flora.
   This could get slightly easier as the game goes on with the increase in tech and industrial/trade capacity.
   ​
7. Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
   I like the way they work right now, but I think one could influence the other more. I think that every origin should come with a choice between something like 1 or 3 civics that are related to that origin. That way you could create a better sense of why the things work the way they do in that civilization.
   I would also love to see some update for the initial origins, because some of them are just straight up worse than the new ones. Like, start with 2 extra pops and that’s it? Like seriously? Please take a look at the old ones, and make them more interesting, give them new event chains and dilemmas, this could be a small story pack for example.
   ​
8. 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: planetary warfare as it is easily the worst feature in the game. It is not interactive, it doesn’t really have anything special to it, and all you can do it throw lots of big numbers against the other lots o big numbers. Wow very cool pdx thanks!
   Jokes aside, it would be very cool if you hade siege phases, different approaches to planetary warfare, new bombardment possibilities, use of mass destruction weapons in sieges (c’mon I can launch particle/nuclear torpedos but can’t disintegrate some big cities?), and siege events!
   
   Expension: I would easily buy an expansion that focused on: 1. Warfare (both fleets and armies); 2. Pops (culture, religion, traits, traditions, government type, rights of the people, more policies, more uses for influence); 3. Trade (expand the galactic integration in trade, resources, productivity).
   I really want to see an update, or a big change to these systems, they are okayshi the way they are, but they are starting to really lag behind the rest of the PDX games systems.
   I would love to see war becoming more dynamic and strategic, with new types of ships, armies, defenses, new sieges and planetary invasions, new ship modules, less ships but with more impact, make it interesting to fight big wars and not just a burden.
   The same for pops, make them matter more, make them rebel more, make them different, and make these differences important. Oh yeah, the people in planet number 246535 now are more liberal? They are marrying the local cat girls? Who cares! Make me care, make me think about the effects and consequences of leading a galactic empire.
   And for the love of god, just do something about Trade, please, it is just a worse version than Vics. I know the games are different, I know the AI is dumb, I know there are limits, but please do something to make it more integrated with the rest of the game. Make it so you can ignore it by focusing on an extremely strong national industry, or plundering everyone, but also make it so you can have bonuses and interesting interactions by engaging in intergalactic trade.
   
   Doesn’t quite work: Any of the above. Besides them I would also like to mention that some ascension perks could be more meaningful to the game, and ascension paths should have more o them. More what? No clue, but something else, make it a big deal when I decide to suddenly make my entire population robots.​

 

[Inny]

I don't care much about pops or trade, as I focus on exploration and resource hunting. If I were to vote on a system to remove OR to fully flesh out, that would be the factions. They are just faceless annoyances that can be ignored instead of political powers demanding to be heard.

 

[Procyon19]

I like to play as a life seeded inward perfectionist empire and later switch my ethics with the chosen one event.
I would like this stagegy to be available in future iteration of the game