Stellaris Dev Diary #361 - The Vision

[A2ch0n]

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

I rarely care about pops in general. I never micro them, and even on Grand Admiral i don't see any neccessity to do so. But i like the portraits and the character desing. So pops in general could be removed from my point of view if their abilites and stats are still depicted somewhere and things like multicultural empires should still feel different than mono species ones.

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

I've given up on fleet customisation. Just because i have to do it any new game. If there would be a general game setting where i could save my loadouts, maybe i would care about it. The composition of fleets is another thing that i don't really care. But to be honest, i'm not that great warmonger. I need fleets for the diplo weight and to be respected by other empires. Oh and of course for the crisis. Changes to fleets and how to play them should be suggestest by those of us that really like to play warfare. And thats certainly not me.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

The idea behind the Empire i build and I really like it when Empires are vastly different from each other. And that should include the technologies, the gameplay and the abilities in general. I absolutely don't need to have all options in each game and even more important i like it if others don't have my abilities. Ascension perks and traditions are a perfect example for this but it still doesn't diverge empires strong enough from each other. I would like radical abilities, like forcing an empire diplomatically to stop wars or even prevent them from attacking. I would like espionage operations that are devastating like a open war. And so on.

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

My goals are depending on my empire. But most of the time it's to explore the galaxy, build good relations with as many empires possible, build a federation (mostly containing vassals), become custodian then emperor. And in the end defeat the crisis and bring peace to the galaxy (pax galactica). It's the utopia behind the idea and my favourite way to play stellaris. Ofc there are different goals for megacorp empires and hives. I really would like to be a master manipulator behind the lines, unseen by everyone shaping wars and alliances without fireing a single shot. But that would imply that we finally get the espionage rework i desperately hope for.

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

For megacorp empires i like the idea somewhat. But i be honest i would like to have much more options with trade value (what ressource do i get, etc). And i would like trade routes to other empires with more benefits. A commercial pact is fine yes, but a real trade route from one planet to another where i can select what ressources are brought to my capital would be much more interesting.

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

I have no preference here. I only see a vast advantage for empires that can ignore bad habitability if it's harder to colonize. I like xenophile empires with different species anyway, so colonies are rarely a problem for me.

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

Knights of the toxic god would make an awesome civic! I really like the feudal idea with knights and i suggested a knight based civic a while ago. Over all civics with own story options would be great. Of course it can't be changed after game start.

• 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: Rivalaries. It's so increadible annoying that every empire you meet first want to have a rival. Or at least make a civic/diplo stance or whatever to prevent them rivaling you early on.

Central Focus: Espionage. But it was obvious that i would say that... Bio and psi ascension would be good as well, the new government types for cybernetic and machines are awesome and i would like to see similar treatment for other ascensions. And crime (syndicates). I would really like them to steal resources or Branch offices.

Want to enjoy: Again, Espionage. I really love espionage systems, doing harm from the background, form alliances between two empires or break them. Bring an empire to it's knees without them knowing it's me. Puppeteering a galaxy to my will without going to war. This game has so much possibilities and i suggested so much about espionage in the past. But i'll be honest. Actually i don't feel even heared if it's about this topic. If i get any dev reply to this post, i really wish it's about the espionage part. Please break the silence finally!

 

[rylasasin]

Some examples to comment on could include:

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

Quite important, yet at the same time I'm glad that there's some effort being made in lessening their importance and putting more importance in space-based resources. While I think that pops and jobs should remain important, they shouldn't be the end-all be-all.

I know it's not directly asked here, but I'd like to see more economy-based starbase modules and buildings. Anything to make it so that starbases aren't just all* "anchorage x6, naval logistics, hydroponics bay, and resource storage" outside of bastions and shipyards or super-niche examples.

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

That is a bit of a vague/loaded question. Ultimately I'd have to say 'depends on the changes in question.'
Personally I think that Montu is right: we do need to reduce max fleet capacity in some ways (and an option to adjust max fleet capacity in the game menu.) and make fleets more about quality and loadout over simple quantity. A penalty for doomstacking would also be nice.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

Same as they are now. Civics, government type, and the traits of your starting species.

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

Kinda? Yes? Maybe? It's not really something I actively think about as I play I'll be honest.

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

Now this on the other hand is something I can directly respond to!

First off, trade value deposits need to go the way of the dodo. And Trade Hubs either need to also be removed or given a rework, because no one I know of actually uses those either (there's no reason to use them over anchorages.) It doesn't even make much sense anyway. What, is there some robot clerk floating around on some random asteroid or sitting on a toxic planet spitting out small amounts of trade value?

Then there's the piracy system. It's more annoying than its worth. Combating piracy is annoying. Having to check your trade routes for high risk areas is annoying. Yeah you can put guns and crap on your starbase to reduce piracy (which makes little sense to begin with. Like, how does a medium turret slot on a starbase reduce piracy a system over?!) It's gotten to the point to where I simply turn them all off so trade routes don't spawn pirates.
And yes I've heard the responses. "Oh haha he can't deal with pirates durhur noob lol skill izzue!" No, that's not the problem. I can easily deal with pirates. I just don't want to.

If we must keep space based trade, maybe make something like the Arc Furnace but with trade instead of minerals and alloys?

Planet trade is fine as it is though, more or less. It's just a shame I don't really have a reason to invest into it over other things unless you're going full trade empire.

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

Oh, definitely. Right now, Habitability is near meaningless for two reasons:

1. The repercussions from bad habitability are not severe enough.
2. It's far too easy to get around simply by getting your hands on other pops or pop modding.

In the first point, the penalty for 0% habitability is -50% resource output and pop growth. Which might sound like a lot, but really isn't. Especially in the latter case. It really makes no sense that a pop should be able to not only work but reproduce if they are literally freezing/burning/choking to death. And the real problem gamewise is that it simply encourages 'quantity over quality' wideplay. As it stands, you are better off having 1 good world, 1 mediocre world and 6 bad worlds than 3 gaia worlds simply because more worlds = more pop growth regardless of habitability.
I think at 30 it should bottom out to 0% resource and pop growth. And below 30% they either start trying to migrate away or start declining.
I also think the opposite should happen to Gaia and Ringworlds (especially since, especially after the science slowdown, Ringworlds are more of a win-more item than anything.) Have their max habitability go up to 200% (for 'natural' Gaias like the Holy worlds, Life seeded origin, event-made Gaia worlds, etc.) 150% (for Ringworlds) and 125% (for 'empire-created Gaia worlds like the ones made via Gaia Seeders, World Shaper, etc). It could also be a way to balance Ecus by having it so that Forge and Factory Districts reduce habitability by 5% each and a new district/job called "waste management" which give waste management jobs that give a total of 7-15% habitabilty per district to keep it a balancing game.

As for the 2nd point: It's too easy to get around Habitability via simply aquiring other pops. Wars and Primitive invasions are certainly a problem, but the biggest culprit in my opinion would have to be Migration Treaties. That needs a rework so it's not simply an 'all you can colonize buffet' of races from every empire you have migration treaties with. This means even if the above changes to habitability were implimented, it would mean little anyway.

Instead, I think immigration should be reworked. Make Immigration a 3rd type of pop growth alongside growth and assembly. But instead of simply left-right progress, it's center to right or center to left, and is a mix between pop growth and pop decline. If immigration goes right, that pop is immigrating. If it goes right, the pop is migrating. Migration treaties then would serve to have pops actually migrate from empires you have migration treaties with instead of, again, being an all-you-can-colonize buffet of races to make colonies with.

Also yeah, creating colony ships should take pops, no more free pops. In exchange, lessen or remove the influence cost of abandoning planets we don't want. Especially after a conquest.

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

For the former, I can safely say that there are a lot that would be better served as civics. So many in fact that I say we should bump the number of civics up to 3. Or make a new 'origin-civic' system. I'll list a few of them and my propositions for them.

• Syncretic Evolution: Not only does it not really fit as an origin, it's not even really good.
  • Start with 12 pops of the a second species
  • If both a syncretic and non-syncretic pop is present on the planet, any time a non-syncretic pop is grown or assembled there is 50% chance that a syncretic pop is also created. Same in reverse.
    • Can be disabled via a policy.
  • -30% pop growth.
• Mechanist: Again, while better than SE, I don't think it needs to be an orgin.
  • Same as it currently is.
  • Can edit the robot in question just like Syncretic Evolution. If that's not possible... -100% robot modification cost for 2 months.
• Overtuned
• Subterranian
• Under one Rule
• Riftworld
• Cybernetic Creed

I can't really say the same about the inverse. I think some of the current origins (Void Dweller, Shattered Ring, Gateway, etc) need enough attention on their own to make them truely unique experiences and not simply "use migration treaties/primitive invasions to rush towards being a normal empire with early habitats/shattered ring". But you didn't ask how I think origins could be improved, so I won't go into detail into those.

Suffice it to say that if you were to rework shattered ring (again. This time to make it viable but not silly broken instead of being on either end of the extreme) I think some inspiration could be taken from Gigastructural Engineering's "Esylum" and "Frameworld" origins specifically.

• 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?

For the former: well, as I said, piracy. That's about the closest to a 'zomg I hate this why is this even in the game?!' mechanic I can come up with. Except... well....

The other one I could safely say should be removed is the 'hybrid' system in Xenocompatibilty. Not the ascension perk itself, mind you, that can be simply reworked to be more useful and effective. The Hybrid system however... I'm sure it sounded good on paper to someone somewhere, but there's a reason no one enables it. It's annoying to everyone, it creates lag, it isn't useful.

As for the middle/latter part: espionage as many others have said. Right now it's a big nothingburger that's barely even functional let alone useful. In fact, let's just expand that request to be diplomacy in general. It's very limiting. Especially since removing favors was removed, there's less ways to actually interact with other empires. Either through the trade menu, espionage, vassalage/overlordship, federations, etc.

• First, increase the speed of the Galactic Community by 3x-5x so it's actually important and not just a vehicle to become galactic emperor. Maybe that would make the Politics tradition tree actually important too.
• More alternatives to galactic emperor custom tailored to certain empire types. (The Superstates mod might be a good inspiration)
• Allow us to directly trade 'support proposition' as a trade option to empires as a trade action. This would also extend to federations.
• Make Federations and Vassal blocs less permanent and more tedius to keep up. We should be able to make what happened/happens to the First League and Imperial Feif actually happen in game, not just be a lore thing or scripted event.
  • Make it so recipients have to actually accept Secret Fealties instead of simply being allowed to simply piss them away on empires that have neither the capability nor inclination to fight the overlord.
  • Make it so rebellious vassals can also convince other vassals to join their bid for independence or fealty switch.
  • Give empires that support independence a situation to give the ones they support resources to start their rebellion.
  • Make it so that federations start at 100 cohesion and if they reach 0 they lose a level. If they reach 0 at level 1, they have 5 months to increase cohesion before the federation is forcefully disbanded.
  • More federation types for Gestalts and Egalitarians. Turn Hegemony into a 'mini galactic empire for overlords' and have Egalitarians be the 'anti-hegemony'.
• Allow empires to trade pops. Slaver empires should be allow to trade slaves (but not if they would become slaves.) Empires should be able to trade pops for colonization.
• Operations (espionage and surface) to encourage empires to shift ethics. Especially if they have a migration treaty.
• Make envoys another leader type so they can level up and get perks. As they level up they not only get more skill but increase the effects of the operation.
• Rework of existing espionage operations to make them more effective. No one uses the Spark Diplomatic Incident or Sabatage Starbase operations. The former because why would you use that when you could just use the Smear Campaign that does the same thing but more effectively? The latter because 'oh no a random starbase got one single building destroyed. Oh no! Anyway, I'll just rebuild it in 2 minutes." Make Smear Campaign reduce opinion by less but with everyone while making Diplo Incident do more damage with a single one. Have both have bigger effects on overlords and federations. Make sabatage starbase destroy a whole starbase (or reduce it back down to a star outpost) of your choice rather than simply taking out a random building in a random one.
• More Espionage operations. Destroy Cohesion (federation only). Mend relationships (for getting certain people into a federation or increasing cohesion). Sew Disloyalty (vassals only). Steal resources. Slave Raid/Slave Liberation (The former for slaver/assimilator empires only. The latter for egalitarians, xenophiles, or rogue servitors only.) War Propaganda (increase war exhaustion on someone that's at war.) That sort of thing.
• Rework research cooperatives. So that instead of just gaining a boost on already researched technologies, you get the option of researching a technology if they're researching it. Selecting this increases the research speed for both of you.

Another system that could use vast improvements might come as a bit of a surprise, but here it is: The Main Menu.

• Premade empires should have the forced/disabled/enabled options. Why should only customs have these? Makes no sense that I can't force a premade empire to spawn. yeah I can copy it and enable/force spawn it, but that's kind of a janky workaround. Plus I can't disable them. Maybe I don't want the UNE to spawn at all?
• Ability to sort empires. All those premade and custom empires can be a mess. It'd be nice if you could click and drag them around instead of having to manually edit your user_empire_designs_v3.4.txt file.
• New Game options:
  • Max Naval Capacity (200-9999): For reducing late game ship related lag.
    
    
  • Enable/Disable Federations (enabled/disabled): Determines whether (non-event) federations can be formed or not. If disabled, empires cannot form federations, and common ground/hegemony empires instead spawn as pro uni.
    
    
  • Enable Vassalization (Enabled/Peaceful only/war only/disabled): Determines whether or not empires can vassalize others. 'Peaceful only' disables vassalize wars. 'war only' disables propose/ask to be subjugation. Disables prevents empires from vassalizing.
    
    
  • Enable Crisis Aspirant (Enabled/Player Only/Nemesis only/Cosmogenesis only/Disabled): Determines whether empires can take the Cosmogenesis or Galactic Nemesis perks. Player only means AIs are banned from taking it. Nemesis/Cosmogenesis only means only the Galactic Nemesis/Cosmogenesis versions can be picked by empires, and disabled means no crisis aspirants.
    
    
  • Fallen Empire Power Multiplier (0.2x-10x): Determines the power level of Fallen/Awakened empires. Also effects Dessanu.
    
    
  • Random AI empire ratio(0%-100%): When AI empires are enabled, determines how many of htem are chosen from premades or custom empires, and how many are randomized. Setting it to 100% means all empires that aren't forced spawned will be random empires. Setting it to 0% means only custom/premades will be chosen. Again, useful if you're trying to create an RP scenario or such.
    
    
  • Midgame Crisis Power Multiplier (same as endgame crisis multiplier): Determines the power of Great Khan, Gray Tempest, and other midgame crisises. Works like the normal crisis modifiers. Honestly we have selectors for the endgame crisis, why not one for the midgame crisis?
    
    
  • Enable Khan (Enable/Forced/Disable): Determines whether or not the Great Khan shows up. If set to forced, it will always show up when midgame is reached, or when triggered via an attack on marauder systems.
    
    
  • Enable Gray Tempest (Enabled/Guaranteed/DIsabled): Determines whether or not the Gray Tempest can spawn from the L cluster. If disabled, the Gray Tempest will not spawn, and the L cluster will only spawn the Dessanu, Empty Space, or L drake events. If set to Guaranteed, opening hte L cluster will always spawn the Gray Tempest.
    
    
  • Enabled/Banned origins: More for multiplayer than for single player, but it'd be nice with the new game window rework if there was another tab allowing us to select which origins can or cannot be used. Any AI or Player empire attempting to use a banned origin will result in them being forced into the Prosperous Unification origin instead.

 

[tenchifew]

Love the game, was there since before 1.0, watching developers play the pre release versions was why I created my twitch account.
Played a lot of 4x games, beginning with the very first Civilization, but since Master of Orion 1 preferred playing 4x in space, and played most of them since.
Stellaris is now, in my opinion, the best 4X game I ever played, a position Master of Orion 2 occupied for the longest time. Stellaris being, indeed, a Grand Strategy 4X game with role playing elements only adding to its appeal.

Before I go on to answering the questions, I want to add one point to “The Vision”, a point that, at least for me, stands right alongside the three you mentioned: Moddability. I play single player nearly exclusively, and while Stellaris is on its own merits a great game, it is its moddability that lets me return to it time and time again over the eight years. I want stronger leaders and thus no level cap? There is a mod for this. I want more or different ascension perks? A mod. Megastructures from “Utopia” are not enough? Well, Gigastructures mod has my back. I want a bit of Mass Effect, Star Trek or Star Wars in my Stellaris game? Mods. I think Stellaris’ moddability is incredibly important and has helped the game to thrive enormously.

On to my take of the questions:

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  • Not at all. I must admit that I paused playing for a while after the old “planetary tiles” system went away as I had realized that I would have to relearn planetary management from scratch, but afterwards I found I preferred the new system, so I would be open to a new system yet again.
• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
  • As much as you like. Combat is still, in my opinion, the weakest part of the game. While early game functions ok, late game deteriorates fast. “Doom Stacks” is a must have in higher difficulties (at least for me, please correct me if I am wrong), and seeing hundreds of thousands or millions of fleet power duking it out in a mess is not entertaining for me, especially since my, pretty decent, computer begins to really struggle at this point.
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
  • Ethics, origins and civics, in this order, mostly, although origins are sometimes more important, especially on the more story rich ones like Toxic Knights. I generally would love to have longer and more involved origin stories with more influence on my civilization even in the endgame. I would also love more granularity in ethics, with more ethics to choose from and more points with less “impact” per point to compensate, maybe. As an example, I tried to play inward perfection agrarian paradise, so basically hobbits in space. But I have to take at least one point of xenophobic for this, and now all reactions to events feel less like the hobbits and more like Doom Guy is living in my hobbitton.
  • One major gripe I have are the civics. There are some really powerful ones, some really interesting ones and some really colorful ones. There are not so many that combine all three. Since I am usually role playing my people, I find two civics at the start extremely limiting. The mod that gives everyone, human players and AI’s five civics from the beginning is possibly the first mod I installed, because then I could really make colorful choices and creating races that didn’t feel one dimensional to me. I would love to be able to do the same without mods.
• 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 do it a bit like a role playing campaign. I always think about what origin I want to play, than make my own rough backstory in my head and then create a new race according to it, usually writing the backstory in the corresponding box offered in game, thank you for this!
  • This said, then comes the second tier of decision making as I look around what RNG gave me and decide my further play style depending on where I spawned, my neighbors, precursor rolled etc. One of the most memorable games I had was a “Fear of the Dark” origin game I played. I originally wanted to play “white knights” educating their poor misguided brethren, spawned near fanatical purifiers, where my egalitarian xenophile people went “Ummm… Maybe the xenophobes had a point?” And then came the next alien contact: a devouring swarm. My woobie peacenicks were shattered. I ended this game as fanatic authoritarian xenophobe God Emperor of the galaxy. Hello, Palpatine. I loved this playthrough to bits.
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
  • A love/hate relationship, shifting to more hate over time. I love/loved positioning starbases dedicated to gather trade resources and protecting trade just right… but each new module or starbase size upgrade making it necessary to basically rebuild the whole network to keep it at max efficiency makes this annoying. Add to it that my trade focused playthroughs showed that it is, at least for me, not possible to protect the whole network with just starbases and I have to build fleets and keep their patrolling routes up to date just to keep the pirates away, and it annoys me enough that I did not play a trade focused empire or megacorp in ages.
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  • Absolutely. I would love for habitable planets to be these rare jewels in the void, for each planet to really matter, for each colonization, at least up to the mid game, to be a real effort, a costly decision, not a no brainer. Even relatively small habitability issues should be hard to overcome, while now even planets with 40% habitability are a good idea to colonize due to migration mechanics. I already play with the lowest numbers of habitable planets and it is still too many in my opinion.
• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
  • There should be a none-removable civic allowing spiritualists to build robots and not hate AI in addition to the whole adeptus mechanicus origin, as well as a civic making it a bit easier for the materialists to break into psionics. While I understand that it was a design decision early on, I always hate how my xenophile, pacifist, spiritualist empire of space hippies is going “Peace and Prosperity, everyone! Except for you, disgusting piece of AI trash, you burn!” The same with my extremely rational materialist empire going: “Well, we have just seen this man tear apart main battle tanks with his mind, and have sensor readings of it, but it clearly was a weather balloon reflecting the light of Venus situation, since clearly psionics can’t exist.”
  • Otherwise I am pretty good, although I would love to be able to combine two origins sometimes, like say Life Seeded and Under One Rule, or Here be Dragons and Ocean Paradise, to name just a couple.
• 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?
  • Removing one System: Ground Battles. Either rework it fully or let it die, it suffered enough.
  • Expansion: I would love, love, love, for psionic ascension and biologic ascension each to get an expansion like Machine age for synthetic ascension.
  • Expansion part 2: I always love expansions that add to the lore, like Distant Stars, Archeology one, Grand Archive. Astral threads one felt a little less good, not sure why. This said, while the game now feels a lot better in the mid game than it once did, I still would love more anomalies/archeological sites (re)spawning. That we now can find some after a storm went by feels like a step in the right direction, but I would prefer to see more of that, like developing new sensors allowing to go and rescan systems in the mid game, maybe?
  • Implementation: Ascension perks could be looked at again. A lot of them feel not well balanced right now, looking at you Executive Vigor, Interstellar Dominion and Consecrated Worlds, to name just a few.
  • Implementation part 2: Spy and galactic senate systems. I had only a couple playthroughs where I did something meaningful with the senate, and none where I actually used the spy system to any great effect. This said, it may be on me for not learning the systems well enough?

All in all you are doing a fantastic job, the Custodian Team was an inspired decision, and I think I will continue to play and support Stellaris for years and years, just like I still play Master of Orions 2 now and then.
Thank you!

Edit:
I just saw in multiple posts the idea of changing the Origin into two slots, a Location slot and a History slot.
I absolutely love this idea! This is basically what I meant in my take of “combining” two Origins, I for example barely play Origins like Prosperous Unification or Ocean Paradise because they are so bland, but being able to add, say, Prosperous Unification to Shattered Ring or Ocean Paradise to Here be Dragons would be so wonderful! Some more story heavy Origins could just fill both slots if implementation were difficult otherwise.

 

[Lord Milutin]

First of all thank you for all these years making the game so entertaining and great to play.

Now onto my feedback:

• I would prefer percentage based pops for planets, that way it would significantly reduce the late game lag, and I don't see why individual pops is a thing, it's an outdated system.
• I am all for changing the fleets and war in general. Getting rid of ground combat and merging it with fleets.
• When it comes to trade, I would just get rid of it. It's a system I never use, nor is it implemented in an entertaining way. I feel the same when it comes to factions.
• Overall colonization and habitability is easy. I would prefer more planet types, with their unique problem that needs to be overcome before making it available for colonization.

 

[Cepherion]

I agree with Montu's take on Stellaris' future, with a focus on the following:
- Pop system akin to Vicky 3 (and PC most likely)
- Trade Rework into a kind of Supply System (Stockpiles/"Storage" for Planets!)
- War System rework (I especially like his propsal about removing ground armies and introducing a "siege" system like in EU4)
There should be a fleet rework in there too. Less individual ships, less ships overall.

 

[wimvl9000]

Hello all,

although I've been playing stellaris since almost day 1 and have 2200 hours in it, I haven't been active on the forums.
With the current request for feedback I would like to give my 2 cents though.
I don't want to make this into a wall of text, and take away your precious time so here it goes:

- Update to current spy system to something more enjoyable. Either add more fun options, make it more usefull in general, or do a complete overhaul.
- Enhance ground warfare. This speaks for itself, make it more interactive and not just a numbers game.
- Do away with the current pop system and make planets feel more alive. I actually liked the top down planet view in previous versions.
- Complete overhaul of trade and logistics. Connecting planets should be more effective than ever.
- Don't add more features that boil down to "press button to add X times Y for Z amount of time". The game now has more than enough of those mechanics.
- War mechanics should be enhanced with more viable options to end/start wars.
- Make colonizing worlds indeed more challenging
- If more expansions come, add more mid and late game events to make it less tedious.

That's it.
Good luck.

 

[Dzikun]

I love all aspects of Stellaris. The 4x the grand strategy and the role-play. But i think some systems are holding the game back from begin bigger and better.

How i set up my goals? I usually just think of a build or a system i want to try out and i play that until i am tired of it. The only real goals i set is if i want to play a crisis. But usually i just go with the flow.

0. Ground combat. I hate conquering plants in stellaris. I LOATH it. Do something with the system. Make it a game.

0.1. Victory. Victory in war in Stellaris is often a chore. I win and i have to manage a whole lot of pops and buildings from the old pop system that brings nothing to the table anymore but CPU hog. I usually can't get rid of shit planets the AI colonized because of the high cost of doing so. Its annoying and don't get me started on integrating vassals....

1. Pops. I am not sure we need this pop system. Its heavy on CPU, and doesn't help with the roleplay that much. Especially for Gestalt machines Just get rid of it and go into raw numbers?

2. I am mostly a Gestalt player so i know i am in a minority and i appreciate you guys doing your best to include something in every expansion and patch for gestalts lately but can we just make old DLC a part of the game now so everyone has access to gestalt or megacorps so you don't feel like your wasting time adding content to them? Its time to just fuse some DLC into the game already.

3. The system for both fleets and ships is just to uninteresting. I think the ship building system and fleets overall need a rework. The whole slot based ship building system is just an annoyance more then anything. Either make it simpler and just let go of the whole slot weapon system and make it more abstract and easier or go all the way into roleplay and detailed ships and make ships or fleets more individualistic and unique but smaller. Let them survive battles, gain experience, scars and unique captains. I would love to fiddle with ships and fleets, get unique weapons for them, feel like they have a story. But i wouldn't mind you just made fleets and ships more abstract and just get rid of the slots all together. I think they don't serve any purpose anymore.

4. The whole trade system can go as far as i care. Usually the only individualistic empires i play are megacorps and the system i find annoying to inadequate. As Gestalt its only annoying when the pirates come to you just because your ally has a trade coming through your space lanes.

5. I think colonization is just fine as it is. All of these types of games are about land grab in the early game usually and the system makes it easy and interesting enough at the start and lets you use the planets resources fast enough.

6. Give the guy doing gigastructure engineering mod a job already.

7. I don't know if anyone else feels that way but the galactic community is an interesting idea but the current implementation makes it annoying to deal with. If you are not going for a specific role playing scenario to become a custodian or something you are better of ignoring it all together. I think the current implementation needs work.

 

[DrTengil]

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

Not important. It could easily be changed into something like percentage of population, or even fraction of manufacturing potential or economic output.

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

Stellaris is an economic game to me; you could make huge changes to fleets before it felt different.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

The origin. And maybe bio/machine.

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

For early game it is about how much area to survey and take. Mid-game is usually economic goals. For late game it is the crisis. Early and mid game goals tend to change.

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

Today the trade system is a nuisance. It could go away completely. It could also be developed into something more meaningful, like logistics where it is used to move materials between your worlds, or internal trade where it is used to create other resources like the market is used today. It could also be developed to become international trade.

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

Habitability is a system that has potential. It could be that different biomes affect different resources differently. E.g. if you have low habitability of tropical worlds it doesn't affect food production at all, but it affects your mining and industrial production far more, while arid worlds don't affect mining and industry, but instead food production and research. Then new technologies could be added that improves the habitability of specific biomes, like the +20% habitability for tomb worlds tech. I think that would be interesting since then low habitability would become useful for something different than pop growth, but require some though in how to make the most of them.

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

There are some origins that could become civics, but it is also fine to leave them as it is. It leaves simple origins for players (particularly beginners) who don't want the fancy origins yet.

• 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 biggest one is the faction system. Like trade it could be removed, but it has potential to become much better. A few origins do things with the factions, indicating that it has a lot of potential. Right now it is just some extra unity in return for some policy changes. It could be expanded to include quest-like elements like the old democratic agendas. E.g. the militarist faction wants you to invest in the fleet; if you hit 5k/15k/50k fleet power, they will offer one weapons tech each time as research options; the materialists want research agreements; for each empire that you form a research agreement with, they will give +5% CGs from jobs for the duration of the agreement. That will also make the ethics more important since they will affect the factions.

 

[SofiaF]

I kind of feel or assume these questions are for Stellaris 2..? because making such huge changes possibly to all systems like pops and fleets etc would change Stellaris as we know it a lot, a LOT a lot and be more work than any even biggest DLC for it has been so far.. so i assume this is sort of ground work for Stellaris 2 so to know what it would be at start already? I mean compared to what current Stellaris is.. so it would be desired by old players who enjoy current one, but also would be something new to try for those who have things in current Stellaris that are or have not been in to their taste and they are the ones on forums/Steam asking "Stellaris 2 when?", you know.. the daily/weekly same topics.. Anyways:

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

+ Not very important, i do like min/maxing planetary productions and specializing them, it gives me actual pleasure when things are "perfect". BUT i know the individual Pop calculations get crazy in endgame causing lag/sluggishness, so we really could use a better system that scales better for endgame also what comes for performance. I do wish there was a system that can min/max/specialize well and not too simplified, Automated for those who want, but min-maxable for us ocd gamers, if that makes sense?

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

+ Hmm.. tough one, i do love HUGE battles with mass of ships beaming lasers and shooting missiles.. it looks pretty. But, downsizing the amount would be good. Corvettes and Fregates could be part of "swarm" (minimal graphics/effects that in reality would be like 1 "fighter fleet" so not much to render, they could be visually just tiny pixels) and have more focus, even in early game around having "Flag Ship", starting at Cruiser size, and having sort of "Convoy" around it, upgrading it, building it's size, having large/huge named Flag Ship at mid-late game with big experience number and massive spinal mounted weapons devastating enemy ships and space stations = so good for RP value also. So going from hundreds of ships, to more like 10-50 ships Convoys of having "Command ship" (your design and size based on research/modules) and then building a convoy/fleet around it and they would move as a unit, launching fighter swarms from carrier (if you had carriers in), maybe even one ship type with space mines, so could build mine fields.. so swarm vs swarm (with not much rendered visually to clutter), but Fleet, sort of convoy vs convoy of tens of ships would be the focus, rather than hundreds of ships, so ships and capitol/flag ships would be valuable, sort of "Legendary Flag Ship Doomfire and their fleet arrived on battle at Terminus.." and then you would be seeing the usual fleet vs fleet action, beams, kinetic guns, missiles, fighter (now including corvettes in that) swarms etc doing the battle as before, smaller in scale, but feeling meaningful still, satisfying to see and focus on the "bigger ships"; but still would know you have "big fleet fight" going on, because there would be the fighter and corvette swarm doing combat, even if not so graphically intense that part, could even just code the system showing random small explosions and signs of of the lesser ships fighting, but not really rendering their details. RP value that way would be immense still.


What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

+ Origin, Civics, My Ruler (most important), my Council and other Leaders, Galactic Paragons was best thing for me that happened to this game, it intensified the RP value SO much, making every run feel more unique. Ruler, Leaders and the Council is the core for Stellaris for me, and the exploration, events, anomalies, diplomacy and wars. As a fan of series like Babylon 5, i do like the "space opera-esque" things and Under One Rule is my favorite Origin, since it feels so personal. Those runs after Paragons launch are STILL my favorite Stellaris gaming moments ever. It was SUCH a good addition to the game, that if would now play without it, the game would feel so downgraded and empty. Leaders with backgrounds gaining important traits while leveling makes it all worthwhile and feels valuable, and FUN.


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

+ I play to win the game, be it by killing everyone, or by winning with points at Victory Date.. i play for RP, but also i like to win on the side, at least 90% of the time. Crisis Path and now that can turn into "Fallen Empire" (or Awakening, sort of with Cosmogenesis, it's OP and feels everytime wants to pick it lol) it feels good to be the "ruling Empire of the galaxy", everyone else can either bend the knee or get destroyed. Balanced, as it should be. ^^


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

+ Not important at all for me, the routes with pirates are more like annoyance than anything fun or needed. It could be removed and i would not care at all, good riddance.


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


+ Yes. And should matter more. More feeling of despair when some other empire takes perfect planet from you (or what you considered as your territory, but they got there first sadly), and you got some bad options, planet envy needs to be even a bigger issue, to make you start early wars.. for those sweet sweet planets they took that rightfully belongs to YOU.



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 Factions system and sort of inner politics & intrigue could be made more fun and interesting system, definitely needs a rework for something fun and meaningful.. yes, from RP perspective in a "space opera" way again, having events and happenings in style of Under One Rule origin events, that makes you make choices that affect then things in future.. that origin feels awesome to play because you for once feel there are actual rivalry inside your empire that can lead to a possible rebellion, so there is actual sense of urgency and desire to crush them, off with their heads, damn peasants should know better! Those leads to memorable and enjoyable playthroughs for me.. and meanwhile dealing with inner political issues, same time handling galactic wars, leviathans, crisis.. as said, space opera tier feeling, with you being the Empress/Emperor leading your people to glory with all that happening same time, it feels rewarding.

+ So yeah, better factions/inner politics (diplomacy with AI empires could be improved also, damn i wish they would have actual ChatGPT 3000 tier AI controlling them, that would send actual typed threats to you etc, would be so funny, and if they made some actual gamer moves occasionally, like if AI empire would send Colossus to wipe my capitol planet as 1st thing instantly after their war declaration if it was unprotected.. i'd literally be frustrated, but also impressed in actual "Well played good sir" (to AI..), that is something i wanna feel someday, so i don't mind having more AI on the game, that would improve the enemies (and allies) feel more immersive and "life-like", giving playthroughs that you would never forget, with surprises. Now can always know what to expect, sort of knows beforehand what AI will do, so it has become too easy to beat. But nothing but love for the game. Always can improve a great product! <3

 

[Lykayla]

Stellaris is a wonderful game, one that has a few quirks to be improved upon, but a great game regardless. I have been playing this game nearly since it released, have bought every DLC and even though some of them we're less than what was expected, they we're still inline with what I would call "stellaris."

That being said, Stellaris is a great game because it has never deviated from certain core aspects and has maintained a unique distance from other Paradox games. (That's not to say the other game's aren't great, they're just not for me)
I like Stellaris' simplicity when it comes to combat, trade, ground warfare, and lack of logistics systems it has. I have seen some people claim they WANT logistics systems like the other games, but the lack of such a system is part of what keep Stellaris simple and fun. In my opinion, logistics systems ruins games and that's the exact reason I no longer play HOI4.

Let's get on to some of the proposed questions:
"How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?"
- For me, I started playing in the tile system. This system was simple and fun, kept pop lag down, and made sense, 1 pop for 1 tile, for 1 planet size. The job system is good too, the micromanagement required isn't too taxing, but I dislike how badly pop growth slows down in the mid-game onward. This system ends up in a state where it's more effective to "farm" pops from semi-vassal empires in order to keep growth as fast as it should be. Anyone planning to go super wide will find that even with every pop-growth modifier in the game, they cannot ever hope to produce enough pops to fill the required jobs to compete with empire sprawl. I understand the slider exists to edit the pop growth values, but to return the growth rate to where it was in previous versions leads to the game progressing so slowly it cannot be played. I believe the entire job system was a failure when compared to the tile system but only due to the existence of empire sprawl. The reworking of empire sprawl or removal entirely would make the wide play style once again viable, maybe tall empires could get some kind of tall centric civic that makes them in balance.

"If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?"
- You guys probably couldn't make too many edits here. I think fleet combat is great as it is. It's simple, pretty easy to understand, and is fun to watch. I'm unsure of what kind of changes you guys would be considering, but I think fleet combat is fine where it is.

"What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?"
- Power and one's will to use that power for galactic domination. The ascension path we choose, the ethics we follow, and the way we go about our business. I like being able to look back and tell a story of what my people are, what they did to become that, and the highs / lows of the journey. This has become more difficult with technology progress slowing down as much as it has. If you're like me and refuse to play anything besides a standard biological empire (no hiveminds and no robots) and you avoid ultra meta builds, I end up in a state where I am effectively punished for playing the game and winning against other empires, as the extra empire sprawl makes the extra land almost not even a gain. This makes mega structures not something I get to really use until the extremely late game and sometimes not at all.

"How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?"
- My normal goal in a solo game is galactic conquest, sometimes I can end the game before the endgame crisis ever arrives, sometimes I am unable to conquer more than half the galaxy by time the end game crisis shows and I am not prepared to deal with it at all. It depends on the build. My goals only really change in multiplayer, where sometimes it is to revive my friend's civ after they get wiped out, or to create a hegemony with them all with martial duels to determine who leads. Sometimes my origin will entirely set my goal.

"How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?"
- I think the trade system sucks. It's not fun gameplay and does not create anything but annoyance with piracy. Not sure about anyone else, but I have never set any fleets on patrol to watch the trade routes ever. That part of the game just isn't something I'm very interested in as logistics systems tend to ruin gameplay for me. The new supply system made me entirely stop playing HOI4 and I do not want to see such a thing in Stellaris. I think a trade empire can be fun as some of my other friends really enjoy the current system, but it's a system I try to ignore.

"Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?"
- It certainly is for robot empires, habitability doesn't tend to affect things too much. I think the penalty is fair if you choose to live on a planet that cannot support you, changing this system pigeon hole's gameplay though. If you play a slaver, a necrophage, or a xenophobe in anyway and your ruler population can't live on the planet due to changing the system, the only viable way to play will swap to being non-xenophobe. I think the system is fine as it currently is.

Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
- I feel as if the overtuned origin could just be rolled into a civic similar to how natural design is. Being an origin makes it a bit cumbersome to use effectively as it gives a lackluster bonus from the start of the game, the traits are cool, but should probably just be a civic.

"If you could remove one game system, what would it be?"
- Empire sprawl. I feel like it punishes you for playing the game. A larger empire has a larger population of people, and a larger amount of opportunity to have brilliant minds to make breakthroughs in science. I shouldn't get punished so bad for winning. I understand the purpose is for balancing, but it shouldn't be as harsh as it is.

"Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion?"
- Genetic and psionic ascension rework. Just like the machine age was for cybernetics and synthetics.

"Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?"
- Megastructures are something I desperately want to enjoy and revel in, but they have too many barriers to entry. I want to build galactic wonders but never have a chance to. By time I ever can, the game is already so far won there isn't any point in doing so. They require too much of a combination of research, ascension perks, and time to build. Master builders and galactic wonders should be combined into one ascension perk, the base time to construct megastructures should be reduced, and they should just be made available earlier in the game so you can actually use them.
- Genetic ascension. It is the only ascension path I like going, but it is so incredibly weak there is no point in going for it. Tons of extra work for a very poor benefit by contrast to every other ascension. Maybe if genetics had the ability to gene-mod leaders outside if being tied to individual population? The traits could be subpar, but the leaders could be excellent? That way it still feels unique without being the next OP ascension.
- Having traits locked behind portrait choice. I want the ability to be able to play my preferred arthropoid or lizard portrait and still play with the lithoid trait. I understand there is probably a mod to fix this, but why have that barrier to begin with?
- Empire sprawl. I dislike how badly this system punishes you for winning. I understand there has to be checks and balances so someone doesnt snowball too early, but they shouldn't be this severe.
- The vassal system. The divided attention debuff just doesn't work thematically for me. If the ascension perk shared destiny went back to removing the penalty all together, this would be better?
- Too many ascension perks that are duds or too weak to bother with. The ascension perks related to terraforming should all be rolled into one ascension perk. No body even bothers to take detox or world shapers anyway, why not combine them to increase attraction? Same goes for enigmatic engineers and archaeo engineers, imperial prerogative and executive vigor, and a few others. Combine some to make them actually a reasonable pick, and add more that aren't duds.
- Self modified pops being a permanent debuff is a dumb change. It used to be that once you completed your genetic ascension you could just remodify them away and force them back into the fold but now you're just stuck with a portion of your population that you can't touch, can't modify, and that you can't prevent from breeding so they just sit there and breed crappy leaders with their bad genetics you can't change. Why?
- Barbaric despoilers should get some kind of combat bonus. They're there to raid and be constantly at war, so why do they have 0 extra traits and 0 extra combat potential? For a civic that youre permanently stuck with, it should do a little bit more for you.
- Tech weights on penal colonies, resort worlds, and thrall worlds are too low. I have played many a game without ever even seeing the technologies even show up, theyre not rare techs anymore, (at least thrall worlds arent) so why do they still have such an incredibly low tech weight?
- Brainslugs are something I have always found to be quite nifty, but I don't get the opportunity to enjoy them much these days with the new DLCs. Would love the ability to steal brainslugs and other genetic traits that other people have gotten for themselves if going genetic ascension.

 

[rylasasin]

• 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?

Adding onto my previous post, a rework to tradition trees. Some of them just suck, some of them are too OP. Some are married to bad systems, and some of them could really be merged. Also we could use a new tradition slot and a couple more ascention perk slots since we've gotten so many. And as Lord Mutilin said, some ascension perks could use a rework.

Aptitude and Statecraft could be merged into a single tree.

Adaptivity can be merged into expansion, prosperity, etc.

Subterfuge and Politics (especially the latter) are bad, but they're married to systems that need improvement so they could be good if their respective systems are reworked.

All ascension paths should take up their own tradition tree slot completely independent from the others.

But most of all, one concept I'd like to see introduced is branching end paths for traditions. Or instead of an end path, you get a set of policies that you can switch every 10 or 20 years. These would take the concept presented by the tradition in question. These paths/policies heavily buff one aspect of the tradition while debuffing others (or simply not improving them in any way).

Some examples:

For Discovery, the "Policy of Exploration", "Policy of Discovery", and "Policy of Peer Review". The former concentrates on surveys and digsites, increasing the speed and output from both and giving you the chance to 'rescan' your existing systems for things you might have missed. The middle increases research speed and science output from jobs and research stations (especially the latter,) and increases the effects of science buildings and megastructures.

For Domination, the "Policy of Reduction", the "Policy of Efficiency", and the "Policy of Control". The former reduces worker/slave upkeep and increases output at the cost of happiness/stability, the middle reduces empire size in all aspects (the bonus is applied to all causes of empire sprawl not just a flat bonus) at the cost of resources from jobs. And the Latter increases stability on all worlds, gives soldiers and enforcers crime and happiness reduction while reducing rebellion situation speed, all at the cost of empire happiness.

For Expansion: the "Policy of Colonialism", "Policy of Upward Expansion", and "Policy of the Void". The former increases colonization, build speed, and habitability floor on non-artificial worlds (including ecus) at the cost of increasing habitat and ringworld cost and buildtime. The middle increases build speed, districts and building slots, and pop growth inside your home sector at the cost of debuffing these things outside it. The latter buffs artificial worlds (ecu, ringworld, and habitats) while debuffing 'natural' worlds and gives you a decision to abandon natrual worlds free of charge.

For Prosperity: the "Policy of Automation", "Policy of Merit", and "Policy of Imperialism". The former decreases jobs provided by basic resource districts in exchange for the district itself producing a job's worth of the resource (and is affected by 'resources from X Jobs' modifiers) and a huge boost to mining outposts, at the cost of pop growth/assembly and no ecu pop growth bonus. The middle increases specialist output and decreases ecu build time and cost at the cost of more specialist upkeep. The latter increases resources from taxes from vassals and resources from slaves, at the cost of non-research resources from jobs and happiness of slaves and vassals.

For Supremacy: "Policy of Flexability" and "Policy of Kinetics/Explosives/Energy". The former gives a small bonus per different type of weapon used at the cost of debuffs for using only one weapon type. The others give buffs to that particular weapon type and individual buffs to certain weapons of that type (IE: POKinetics gives +50% range to autocannons, +10% armor pen to Kinetic Artillery, etc), Gives ship bonuses relating to that type (more speed for explosives, more power and shields for energy, more armor and hull for kinetics) while heavily debuffing other weapons the same way.

For Diplomacy: "Policy of Federation", "Policy of Lordship", "Policy of Submission", and "Policy of Neutrality". The former boosts Federations and cohesion in ways, with both general bonuses and bonuses for each type of federation. Effects are increased if you're president. However, you cannot vassalize other empires nor become Galactic Emperor. "Policy of Lordship" boosts loyalty from subjects, increases subject specialization bonuses, decreases integration time and cost, and reduces cost of subject negotiations. But you can't join feds nor request subjugation. "Policy of Submission" allows you to 'dominate from below'. You can't join feds nor become custodian/emperorer. It increases opinion from overlord, reduces cost of negotiation, and allows you to have 3 secret fealties instead of just 1, but gives your overlord a minor boost in specialization effects and gives them a free holding. The last one bars you from joining feds or being an overlord or (willingly) becoming a subject, increases the cost of defense treaties and increases war exaustion, and disallows you from being emperor (but not custodian), but gives bonuses to improving relationships, embassies, and research/commercial pacts while also allowing you to leave a non-defensive war you were forced into via credits while also doubling the length of peace treaties.

For Mercantile: "Policy of Protectionism", "Policy of Franchising", "Policy of Consumerism." The former increases trade from jobs and buildings, at the cost of income from trade agreements and an increased cost of opening branch offies. Policy of Franchising converts all branch office credits into trade value, decreases the cost of branch offices, and increased jobs provided by branch offices, all at the cost of trade value from jobs. The Latter increases income from trade agreements and increases effects and jobs of branch offices on your planets.

For Unyeilding: "Policy of the Maginot", "Policy of Defense in Depth", "Policy of the Pakt". The former buffs starbases and defense platforms in both power and capacity, unlocking new types, unlocking a new 'maginot battery' scaling starbase building that adds a lot of weapon slots at the cost of loading the starbase with a bomb that goes off 10 days after the starbase falls, permanently destroying it and anything else in the system. All at the cost of naval capacity and ship build speed. The Middle increases ship build speed and power but only in your own borders, and you gain an increase in ship build speed during a defensive war, as well as a new stronghold building that instead of producing normal defense armies, produces the defense army equivalent of your strongest assault army type. This comes at the cost of increased upkeep and debuffed damage and speed to ships outside your borders and increased war exaustion during an offensive war. The latter increases the effects of Bulwarks (either as a subject or an overlord) or Martial Alliances, and gives a small bonus for every defense pact, at the cost of a stability hit if you don't have any defense releated diplo agreements.

For Excellence: Aptitude and Statecraft could be merged into one tradition called 'excellence' that buffs the council on one half and leaders on the other, leaving its seperate concepts as ending policies: "Policy of Statecraft", and "Policy of Aptitude." The former increases council speed, exp gain, and strategist/Advisor/Statistician effects and perks, at the cost of debuffs to other leaders. The latter does the opposite: Debuffing the councilers and agenda effects and speed while buffing non-councellor leaders (moreso if they are in a position that corresponds to their area of expertise,) and lowering specialization choice to level 3 instead of 4.

For Subterfuge: "Policy of Security" and "Policy of Infiltration". The former increases enemy espinage effect difficulty, increases enemy espionage failure event chances and you gain intelligence on any empire that fails an espionage mission, while leaving you with two less envoys (though leaving you with at least 1). The latter effects of successful espionage mission effects, mission speed, infiltration speed, and reduces influence cost, at the cost of enemy espionage being more likely to succeed.


Can't really think of anything else for any others.

 

[Maethendias]

"For over eight years, Stellaris has remained the ultimate exploration-focused space-fantasy strategy sandbox, allowing players to discover the wonders of the galaxy."
no... like, WHAT
exploration was is and always WILL BE stellaris weakest parts... and im getting tired of the devs fundamentally not realizing that narrative storytelling is inherently irrelevant in the context of a game all about emergent gameplay... like... bruh

"Every story, trope, or player fantasy in science fiction is within our domain."
it... it CLEARLY isnt when every storypack that comes along tells A PRE DEFINED STORY, this is exactly what i mean

"Stellaris is a 4X Grand Strategy game with Roleplaying elements that continues to evolve and redefine itself."
tileset 2.0 was 2018... and to this day they still have to deal with the unfinished and newly introduced issues that appeared thanks to its "evolution"

"Over time, Stellaris has evolved and grown to meet the desires of the player base."
im not even gonna say anything to that


"We desire for players to experience a sense of novelty every time they start a game of Stellaris."
BACK AROUND WE GO... this fundamentally doesnt work when every single "story", event and anomaly is told 50 times before... again... narrative storytelling in an emergent game doesnt work, which is ironically, despite what you might say, the biggest issue in early game, you know, the START of a stellaris game in the first place...

"We’re going to slow things down a little bit to let things stabilize. I’ve hinted a couple of times (and said outright last week) that we have the Custodian team working on some big things"
the custodian team doesnt get enough credit OR spotlight, the work that team does is so much more important than ANY of the new releases in the last 3 years have been, i say that without hyperbole

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

planetary simulation is irrelevant when planetary management is irrelevant. When all you do is copy paste buildings districts and such without regard for what that planet IS, the pops mean as much as the planet they inhabit. Tileset 2.0 once again a massive mistake. Yes its easier and quicker to set up planets, but for the wrong reasons. Planetary management is STILL a fire and forget thing. Which is the last thing you want it to be in a 4x about ... managing an intersetllar empire OR have importance on the people living on your planets.

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

take some design inspirations, and with design i mean game mechanics not graphics or nonsense like that, from sins of a solar empire. Fleets and warfare as a whole lacks BOTH strategic AND tactical context, as it is right now warfare is EXCLUSIVELY an economic part of the game. Bigger number wins.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

ethos and gestalts specifically ACTUALLY PLAYING diffrently from others, instead of "oh you have this modifier" or "oh you DONT have this feature"... instead of fundamentally changing how that ethos ACTUALLY interacts with the game itself. (which to this day is the reason why paradox is unable to actually balance machines and gestalts)

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

the goal is roleplay

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

irrelevant. Bigger number is better, no thoughts required, just make more number. Nuance is needed as with all management systems in the game, or you ARENT actually managing anything.

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

Colonization isnt the problem, its planet management, and THAT is too easy

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

does it genuinly matter at this point? 90% of origins and civics are quite forgettable and barely impact the player aside from "x modifier more or less" or "get x feature earlier than you should" instead of introducing a new feature or changing how the player again, plays the game organically. (clones are a good example of this)

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

all of them. none of the features, especially dlc go as far as they SHOULD and always end up completly stale or irrelevant all for the sake of "balance"
there is not a single feature in stellaris that is good on its own without needing more.
STILL... to this day the biggest issue is performance
an issue that should have been adressed half a decade ago, but HASNT.
ironically it has been made worse with things like the fleet manager utterly nuking game performance with ai pathfinding... oh well


i am well aware that this is a problem with paradox as a WHOLE and their design as a whole, but that doesnt change the fact that this is a problem

 

[Phob0s]

Hello, guys. First fo all, i appologize for some grammatical/orthographic faults. I'm not really fluent in english.
Keep doing guys. This game is so fun.


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

I really like the current job system. We can have a wide variety of jobs (and I love that for roleplay, I'm addicted to micro-management of planets). I only have two issues with the current feature: first, a planet behaves like a city in other 4X. While we should have several cities on a planet (example: Naboo in SW: several extremely different cities). Second, it's the serious lack of planets diversity. Even if with the additions of the last years it starts to make some planets really unique. I really liked the types of planets in Endless Space 2.

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

For me, the game is no longer as focused on fleets as before. And that is a good thing. At the beginning of the game, you were forced to play only militarily otherwise you could not stand out from the other nations. Now, you can play on the economy, diplomacy, federations, population, sciences to achieve your goals. So if you want to completely change the fleet system (like in the last expansion which changes the way to play them enormously), I am interested especially if it allows to improve the performances and to no longer have these gigantic clusters of ships.

> What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

Many people would say the origin. But I would say more that it is a combination of the civics and a little of the origin. You can have a very common origin but be unique with just the civics. But it's especially the idea that you want to do that allows you to make your nation unique. Ascension paths make the difference too (but i take often the same at the start)

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

I have a clear idea of what I want to do when I'm done choosing/creating my nation. But they can change depending on my starting situation and the state of the galaxy. It's quite fun to improvise when the starting situation isn't what you thought you would have.

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

I love the trade route system. If you release an expansion on trade between colonies and nations, I'll end up unemployed. Well, i see some bugs or inconsistencies on the trade routes, especially after building hyper-relays. And when i have some portalsn these feature disappear completly. But it's pretty fun to manage in the early and mid-game.

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

Yes, they should. Plus if it can slow the game to have more things to do in mid-game or late, I'm in. There should also be internal conflicts in the empire (a colony that is 2 years away from the central power should want to be independent)

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

You could make any origin a less important/powerful civic. And a civic could be an origin by taking a more important part for the nation (by adding scenario/quests/story). Example: if "fanatic purifier" (not sure if the civics is named like that in english) becomes an origin, we could have a story about your specie who had bad experience with their first alien encounter, and see the arrival of a prophet/great general (like: Attila, mister H., Pope Urban II with the first crusade).

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

trade offers through another empire's diplomacy. I don't use it at all except in multiplayer with my friends and with mirror empires.

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

Galactic trade: With a rare/unique commodity system. More advanced trade route creations between colonies and allied empires. Creation of large trading companies on colonies. Real securing of trade routes against pirates and enemy empires. Create supply routes between new colonies or those lacking resources. Specific industrialization of an important star system.

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

I would say espionage and orbital colonies. Both are fun but we quickly get around these features because there is low diversity in what they do. The land invasions are a bit weak too but i'm not asking the game to do that properly for the moment (it is really an anecdotal feature).

That's all for me ^^
Have a nice day.

 

[Uhlume]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  Not particularly, it's a big improvement over the initial system, but streamlining it further would be an option.
• 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 can still watch the pretty ships to pew pew I think I'll be fine, the customisation is a part I quite enjoy though/
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
  The bonuses from the chosen civics and the origin to define the starting story. Though "prosperous unification" is still great as a neutral start.
• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
  I generally start out with a vague idea what my empire is going to be like, and then further refine that idea depending on my starting area. Do I find something exciting early? Then focus more on exploiting that than I otherwise would.
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
  It is a fun concept, but can cause issues late game in multiplayer, so something that addresses that would be nice.
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  No I think it's pretty good right now, sure you can settle very sub-optimal worlds, but I generally don't do it because of the penalties involved.
• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
  I'm not really sure... the balance feels pretty okay honestly.
• If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?
  If you drop espionage from the game I doubt anyone would notice. Right now there is no real way to make it feel strong or even effective. It's basically superfluous, which is a shame, because who hasn't dreamed of playing something like the Romulans or Cardassians with their incredible espionage potential.
  Infiltrating nations and dismantling them from the inside. But that's almost like playing an entirely different game from the rest of Stellaris, so I don't know if it's even possible to do something that deep.

 

[SzalonyNiemiec]

I think dividing all fleet capacity/command limit numbers by 5 or 10 would keep most of the depth of the current fleet system, while easing performance and visual clutter, as well as making us care more about individual ships. This would also make additions like hero-ships more meaningful.

 

[Jekson20level]

Continue
3) What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

• When defining my civilization, the main setting for me is biological (mechanical) properties. I often play through one species. And I would like to study the technologies that my species needs. For example, "gills" - and my land-based species has increased the number of districs in wet worlds. Or subcutaneous stimulants for my reptiles to keep them warm in cold worlds. And here we need fractions of those who are ready for mutations / implants and those who are against.
• The second aspect is ethics and civic models. Ethics can be developed along with the development of factions. But I don't have an exact idea. Of course, I like the policy from Victoria 3, but I do not know if it is possible to introduce it here. I divide civics for myself into special and basic ones. Special ones provide new types of activities, new rules. Basic civics are those that just give a bonus to something. I need both, sometimes I want to feel the basics of the game, and then see the difference.

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

• My usual goal is to take a leading position in the galaxy. It could be a military hegemony, or the hegemony of my federation. All the other factions are too weak to even come together to defeat me. I add a method to this goal, depending on the ethics. I never reform civics, although sometimes it would be more profitable. The gradual addition of new goals (like becoming a crisis) is welcome, but I don't see any interesting options yet.

 

[Maethendias]

I think dividing all fleet capacity/command limit numbers by 5 or 10 would keep most of the depth of the current fleet system, while easing performance and visual clutter, as well as making us care more about individual ships. This would also make additions like hero-ships more meaningful.

forcing the ai to have more fleets is literally the last thing you should to to combat performance issues... since pathfinding IS the reason why performance is so bad lategame... because theres TOO MANY fleets already in the galaxy
also making fleets smaller isnt gonna change the fact that ur gonna run around in doomstacks since... numbers is the only thing that matters in warfare
all its gonna do is make it more annoying to manage your doomstacks
we need a fundamental rework of how warfare works

 

[V-Metamorph]

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

I think population should be a statistic.
Pops could still exist, but it would have a population value.
Population growth should be more "real" depending on a "birth/death" ratio and population fertility of the empire.

Currently, with some exceptions, to increase your population growth, you need to colonize more people, because population growth is mostly per world and not per population.

We should be able to rely heavily on cloning (and assembly for robots) to grow our population.
Obviously, clones, especially at the beginning, could have disadvantages that are reduced with new technologies/traditions and especially with genetic ascension.

Obviously having a large population would have its advantages, more pop = more resources consumed (ideally, we would also have to review the crime system), housing...

Populations do not directly occupy jobs, but generate a "labor force".

The labor force generated obviously depends on the number of the population, but also on its efficiency.
A smaller population could produce as much, or even more, labor force than a larger population.

The efficiency of pops would depend on its basic traits. If the labor force is separated by jobs, efficiency can be separated by jobs. For example, with the trait "Intelligent", a pop will have a greater efficiency for scientist jobs.

Also, efficiency could be increased by technologies, traditions... But also by certain buildings that would increase the consumption of certain resources.

For example, improving research laboratories would not consume exotic gas.
But we could modify Research Institute to make it unique per planet which would increase the consumption of exotic gas according to the number of scientific jobs and which would increase the efficiency of pops for scientific jobs, thus being able to fill as many researcher jobs with less population.

Virtual ascension could be the extreme case of a small population, but with very high efficiency.

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

Personally I think the combat system should be a simulation, removing the ground combat and turning the worlds into sort of starbases for combat.
Space combat revamp : "simulated fight"


Complement : Doomstack Mitigation Discussion -- hard cap vs. soft cap

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

The most important aspect that is missing is culture.
Pops can be mixed and integrated without any problem, even pops coming from a Fanatic Purifiers empire.
Ultimately, the pops don't really have an identity, you just have to accumulate as many pops as possible.

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

A big problem for me, are there goals in Stellaris? For me, the games always come back to the same thing.
There are not really different ways to play. We are not in a "Civilization" with different paths to victory.

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

With a real "logistics" network, it could be relevant, but here, it's just boring.
Currently, resources are "teleported" throughout the empire without the possibility of having isolated worlds.

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

I would like to have a very significant change to really have different planets.
New habitability system


We could even add more extreme classes and allow the colonization of lava worlds...
Obviously, this also requires a redesign of the population, otherwise, it just becomes easy to colonize everything to take advantage of the additional population growth.

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

Origins: societal, "planetary" and diplomatic


Other example :


Without completely revising the original system, I think that a civic should be something that can be modified.
A permanent civic should not exist, I find that it limits too much
Afterwards, it is certain that it is too easy and instantaneous to change civic.

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

If I had to remove one thing, it would be the creation of "League of Non-Aligned Powers", it can completely destroy the geopolitics of the galaxy during and after the War in Heaven. Especially since it duplicates with Galactic community


The other most important thing would be to remove as many arbitrary limits as possible.
And also to give the impression of gigantism.
For example, megastructures are actually pretty unimpressive and pretty easy to make as long as you have an average economy and not too much warfare. You can easily mass build them.

Abstract logistics system for spatial structures and spatial developments


Even the planets end up being unimpressive, unless you go to Ecumenopolis. The Gaia planets don't really have any flavor and are too easy to get.
Planets could have several levels of development.

Complement to the logistics system, but could exist without it.

We can imagine other levels: spatial (planet with a ring), virtual, psionic...

Have you played Stellaris Nexus/5X or Twilight imperium (boardgame) ? In case you didn't maybe you should take a look.

 

[Scaurus1]

How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
As someone who likes to collect a lot of planets what bothers me most is the need to always first fill up a series of standard jobs before the planet designation and special resources start to matter. Especially in the later game when Popgrowth slows to a crwl many worlds will not really contribute anything meaningful since it takes forever to get them to the useful phase. I know i can disable jobs and micromanage but that can get really tedious

If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
Go ahead. I would welcome it if the fleets connect more into origins or the type of empire I play. Currently everyone has access to the same things and certain good fleet compositions are basically valid for everyone. I would welcome some variety same as for instance not all species traits are available for all species/origins.

What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
The specific strengths and weaknesses from a certain combination of traits, origin and civics. I often choose them to fit a theme and not necessarily because they are the strongest available.

How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
I start off with a certain idea in mind but tend to drift into playing large because I like to collect and beat the AI to claim certain systems etc. The goals also change depending on the neighbours and the availability of space for peaceful expansion.

How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
I mostly ignore it and later on build gateways at the most important collecting places to avoid having to deal with pirates.

Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
Absolutely. I really enjoy the difference between each playthrough. I would like that the types of planet one happens to find in the neighbourhood really matters beyond the early game. In my opinion it is way to easy to terraform every planet into everything else with no drawbacks.

Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
I would like to have more options for necrophages like voidborn necrophages. Also a raider/space pirates themed origin would be nice at some point

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?
Probably not removing but seriously reworking: Ground combat
Central Focus for expansion: Planet types and their influence from early to late game. Make what you discover initially actually matter. And also: Colonizing any planet no matter how inhospitable should not always be the go to option. Some more diversity would also be nice
Want to enjoy: Having a very diversified empire with lots of different species. So far that often seemed to be more of a disadvantage.

 

[Aëron Dúrr]

As it has been said in many previous comments, please overwork and expand the factions and internal politics systems, similar to Victoria 3. Make factions form interest groups which react and change according to the political events and developments inside and outside your empire and which then push for reforms and laws. Make them be a source of potential unrest, protests, rebellions and even civil wars and/or independence movements. That way it would make empires less stagnant and more alive.