Stellaris Dev Diary #363 - A Journey of Exploration

[Teodosio7]

I’d like to move us over to a system more similar to the pop groups used in Victoria 3 - though with a Stellaris spin on things. We’re not likely to go as deep in the simulation as Victoria does, but I think that we can likely split pop groups based on species, ethics, and factions. Some of the granularity we have right now might slip though, so I’m eager to get to doing some prototyping and seeing what the pros and cons are of such a change, as well as what the performance implications would be. The economic implications are huge.

Finally, that would be the end of a nightmare! The one thing I really dislike in this game is the pop micromanagement. Victoria 3's system is way better.

 

[IgnisEternus]

Next Week​

Next week I want to look at some of the things I think we’re still missing. Player fantasies that we either do not support or do not support well enough in Stellaris at this time. Like The Vision dev diary, I’ll be asking for your feedback there too, so think up on this over the next week if you want to help influence where we go next.

I know its not the most popular way to play the game but I have always been in love with Fanatic Pacifism and especially Inward Perfection. The idea of being able to have an incredibly small territory with something like Void Dwellers and focus almost solely on your own empire is something that feels especially compelling to me. Being forced to come out of your shell as an empire to deal with galactic threats (mid and end game crises). It does feel bad sometimes when one of the arguably most effective ways to do it come in the form of Sovereign Guardianship which necessitates Militarist.

Basically seeing a little be more in the way of supporting a kind of non-threatening dense empire would absolutely be something id look for to stop me from running almost a copy and paste of my previous empire everytime because Inward perfection meets the fantasy i enjoy playing but REALLY punishes me for little reward when im using it

 

[Harkinian's Dinner]

I'm very concerned about any fundamental change to the systems in Stellaris, because they have been a disaster that takes months or even years to recover from every time so far.

I was one of the people who protested the 2.2 planet management change at every turn back in the day, and I was vindicated when the game ended up being terrible for at least two years afterwards, until the Custodian initiative salvaged it. Even if the end result today is better than the old tiles system, it was not worth all that wasted time.

The whole game performance optimization thing is really not worth pursuing at such a high priority. Stellaris is an old game now, and the playerbase's hardware is constantly being upgraded. Until this year, I played Stellaris on a 10 year old laptop, and even then endgame performance was fine. I'd guess 99% of players have far better hardware than that.

I wish the devs would focus on improving the areas of the game that are in a more questionable state, like wars and ship behaviour and indeed trade, instead of areas that work perfectly fine and no one actually asked to change.

 

[Foxosaur]

@Troyen don't you play Victoria 3? Tell me about the pop system there!

 

[grommile]

even then endgame performance was fine

A striking thing with Paradox GSG performance is that one player's "fine" is another's "insufferably sluggish" (and conversely, one player's "fine" is another player's "can we have a speed setting between 'speed 4' and 'unthrottled'?")

 

[MetalSaviour]

• Remove minor artifacts production from Decentralized Research edict

This one will sting.
But i guess som things are to good to be true.

 

[Harkinian's Dinner]

A striking thing with Paradox GSG performance is that one player's "fine" is another's "insufferably sluggish" (and conversely, one player's "fine" is another player's "can we have a speed setting between 'speed 4' and 'unthrottled'?")

You're right - there's a big gap in how fast players actually want the game to go, correlating with how much players care about optimizing their play. But even on my 10 year old laptop I usually played most of the game on Slowest. I just don't think it's worth the risk of destroying the game for a second time just for eking out more performance for the very small portion of the playerbase that plays on ancient hardware AND wants the game to move at breakneck speed.

 

[FleetingRain]

Another game implementing Vic3 pops? Absolute cultural victory

 

[grommile]

But even on my 10 year old laptop I usually played most of the game on Slowest.

Speeds 1-4 ("Slowest" to "Faster") are rate-limited; Slowest on your 10yo lappie is (supposed to be) the same speed as Slowest on a brand new gaming desktop, and indeed is slow enough that it pretty much always will be.

Speed 5 ("Fastest") is "as fast as your computer can physically run the game", and there are definitely situations with certain titles where Speed 5 converges with Speed 4 even on shiny modern gaming desktops.

 

[Tseudonym]

My suggestions for trade:

Trade routes connect planets, with the planets in a sector connecting to the sector capital, and sector capitals connecting to the empire capital. Planets need to be connected to the trade network to have access to the empire's resources, otherwise they can only access what they themselves produce, like a simplified version of Victoria 3's market access (and, incidentally, also like your "supply lines" suggestion). Commercial Pacts require a trade route between the empires' capitals, which prevents forming pacts with empires you have no access to. Sometimes, planets can have a Trade Commodity that gives some sort of bonus to all connected planets in the trade network. Commercial Pacts allow other empires to take advantage of part of the Commodity's effect. Trade Commodities can represent a variety of goods, from trade goods (i.e. a mining planet discovers a cache of gemstones that have no industrial value, but are quite pretty) to tangible cultural aspects (i.e. a cultural exchange happens and now the other empire wants to wear your blue jeans and listen to your rock music).

Also, I think pop groups are an excellent idea.

 

[Tseudonym]

On an unrelated note, I'd also like to see the Nomads be made available with Megacorp. The fact they're disabled is made weird by the fact they were recently updated with a few Grand Archive specimens that are completely unobtainable unless you turn off a DLC.

 

[Nyrael]

The whole game performance optimization thing is really not worth pursuing at such a high priority. Stellaris is an old game now, and the playerbase's hardware is constantly being upgraded. Until this year, I played Stellaris on a 10 year old laptop, and even then endgame performance was fine. I'd guess 99% of players have far better hardware than that.

Performance is still the single most criticized feature by both players and devs. It's definitely not "fine".

 

[Cymsdale]

Trade is almost certainly going to change. Very few of you seemed terribly fond of the current system, and it’s both terribly bad for performance and mechanically difficult to understand for new players. While I like the general idea behind the trade routes, I don’t think they add enough benefit for their costs. We’re likely to revamp it into a proper resource, though I’m also considering ways of also using it to simulate supply lines and local planetary deficits. If we end up pursuing the latter, gestalt empires would need access to trade or at least, something similar. That could potentially open up more opportunities for MegaCorps and diplomatic pacts, and we’ll have to find new ways of using pirates.

Yes yes yes. Do that.

 

[Delterius]

Power Words: Performance Issues. Causes even the most ambivalent player to demand the immediate execution of a game feature.

 

[HFY]

I’d like to move us over to a system more similar to the pop groups used in Victoria 3 - though with a Stellaris spin on things. We’re not likely to go as deep in the simulation as Victoria does, but I think that we can likely split pop groups based on species, ethics, and factions. Some of the granularity we have right now might slip though, so I’m eager to get to doing some prototyping and seeing what the pros and cons are of such a change, as well as what the performance implications would be. The economic implications are huge.

The other direction you could go is to reduce pop count and make jobs more visible, instead of being hidden in a drop-down on a secondary tab.

The relatively new Throughput modifiers already do a lot to replace more pops with better pops -- that could be expanded to give more economic dexterity to a smaller and more visible population count.

==========

One concern for the current push is that a lot of newer players never saw a reasonable colony management screen -- they came in post-2.2 and only saw the mess which hides pops, throws a huge number of pops at every colony, yet still tries to do the pre-2.2 work of emulating individuals (who are almost never visible).

For players who have never had a worthwhile user experience with individual pops, because they came in post-2.2, it's reasonable that they would not value individual pops, and view the whole pop system as a mess (which it is post-2.2).


I'd really like it if one of the betas made pops MORE visible rather than throwing them away entirely, so newer players could see a bit of what they've been missing out on, and then after seeing that they could decide if it's worth keeping from a more informed position.


And maybe it's not worth keeping. Maybe the V3 system is better. But if you've only seen a half-demolished building, it's difficult to make a fair decision about rebuilding it or finishing the demolition.

 

[Calvax]

Awesome stuff. Tacking planets, pops, and jobs sounds like a sensible place to start given how many systems interact with it. I hope the foundation opens up more potential for internal diplomacy and feeling like we have living, dynamic populations!

 

[LystAP]

• Remove minor artifacts production from Decentralized Research edict

Why was this done? It is already difficult under normal circumstances to get minor artifacts for the Archeo-Engineers perk.

 

[ItThatAltersSanity]

Can anyone explain how Victoria 3 pops work differently? I don't have that game.

I'm... worried about the pop changes. Could you explain in more detail what it would (hypothetically) entail? I haven't played Vicky 3 so I don't really have something to compare it to.

Vic 3 pops have these traits which define them:
- culture (race)
- religion
- job
- location

In Stellaris, 50 billion humans living on one planet would be 50 pops (handwave exactly how many there are) while 1 billion on a new colony is 1 pop. Game doesn't care if 30 pops are all doing the exact same job with the exact same faction and ideology, they're all separate pops. Game has to crunch numbers for each separate pop. Performance drain.

I’d like to move us over to a system more similar to the pop groups used in Victoria 3 - though with a Stellaris spin on things. We’re not likely to go as deep in the simulation as Victoria does, but I think that we can likely split pop groups based on species, ethics, and factions.

With a Vic 3 style system, you would have 1 "pop" saying "this represents 30 billion humans doing and thinking one thing". Exactly how it gets chopped up is something even the devs don't know yet but that's the general idea. I'll write my "requirements" as a user in a separate post.

 

[V-Metamorph]

Very good DD, can't wait to submit my own sci-fi tropes.


Just for discussion sake i would like to mention some of the things I felt (in my play groups and playthroughs) didn't work since I started playing but I don't want to rain on the parade (and it sounds kinda depressing lol) since most of those were adressed anyway .

I'll jump right to my conclusion then :

With great changes at the horizon, all the chances, including learning from the past, must be taken to make the transition from our version of the game to the next as smoothly as possible, and I think the best way to do so is to remain coherent as a game.

 

[V-Metamorph]

Power Words: Performance Issues. Causes even the most ambivalent player to demand the immediate execution of a game feature.

What about power word MUGANI??

(I see you "spiritualist" enjoyer)