Stellaris Dev Diary #364 - Sights Unseen

[Gokki]

I'd love to see Warp drives back, there's a variety of was to go about it:

• One of the crysis factions could use it (very threatening!) but one could be researched off wrecks, and then spied off by other empires.
• An ascension, perhaps tech/enigmatic/archeological related.
• As a gate megastructure with the ability to send fleets off into warp but require normal hyperlane returning voyage.

 

[Cry_Havok]

I know I am super late replying, but I most want a true multi-species start: be it machines and their creators, or just a standard issue fantasy world goes to space.

You used to be able to cludge the latter with syncretic evolution, but after the initial pop rework further nerfing syncretic species that stopped working (there are still consequences of the Syncretic species nerf, mostly related to the Syncretic species winning a slave revolt).

Necrophage don't work either, because no matter how Egalitarian and Pacifist your society all others are at best a half a social class below the primary species. Even if they can be politicians and have full citizenship and the same loving standards they can't be leaders.

I also want to plus one all the pleading for a faction and internal politics rework. This HAS TO include a redo of the spiritualist faction, and psionics, and a religion system. I /hate/ the shroud and the 40k disease it has. Give us Jedi, or Dune, or Robots studying religion like in Freefall. Let me be pantheistic religious society that acknowledges the soul in all things from stones to stars to everything between.

 

[Yuriohs]

Hello again, Stellaris Community!

Last week we looked back at where we’ve been, and today we’re going to look at possible themes I think we might explore in the future. Like the past few dev diaries, this is one where we’re actively soliciting your thoughts.

If you haven’t had a chance to add your bit of feedback to The Vision, you still have a couple of days left - it’s going to stay active until the end of November.

Today is the 3.14.1592 release day, so before we get to the main diary I’ll start with the final release notes.

3.14.1592 Release Notes​

The 3.14.1592 patch addressed the following issues - I’ve bolded new additions (all under Bugfixes) since last week’s diary:

Spoiler: 3.14.1592 “Circinus” Release Notes

Balance​

• Add energy activation cost to Propagandosphere
• Cloaking strength on Camouflage mutations are now consistent throughout sizes
• Give -15% cloning cost and -10% fauna upkeep to Beastmasters civics
• Reduce Space Fauna cloning cost by 10%
• Reduce Space Fauna energy upkeep by 25%
• Remove minor artifacts production from Decentralized Research edict
• Rework Mutated Voidworms fleets content and scaling, aligning them similar to Prethoryn Brood Queen fleets

Bugfix​

• Clone Soldier Ascendants can now cyberize
• Fix to AI machine empires spawning as Despicable Neutrals without The Machine Age
• Necrophages no longer create an endless series of replacement pops when purging on the Synaptic Lathe
• Accelerate juveniles animation speed
• Added Insider Trading and Trade Focus traits to each other's opposites block to stop them appearing together since they almost cancel each other out.
• Added Orbital Ring variants for Beastport/Hatchery/Vivarium descriptions in all supported languages
• Civics added in Grand Archive can now be swapped from the regular to corporate version and vice versa
• Clarified the texts of the Cultivated Worldscaping decision and planet modifier
• Deleting a design now keeps you in current designer type
• Enclaves and Marauders satisfy Xenoist Contact Demand
• Extreme Contortionist DNA now gives rare crystals instead of motes to be more consistent with the event that gives it
• Fix an issue where Cognitive Node should be selected by the Leader Infected event
• Fix blocked Tiyanki Graveyard event chain when capturing them
• Fix Boarding Cables capturing literally anything - thanks for the fun screenshots
• Fix Breeding Status displayed in view that was not always correct
• Fix Fossilized Endoskeleton specimen localization
• Fix Mercenary Enclave Stations unable to build ships
• Fix Cloaked Patternwalker missing string
• Fix scoped localizations for Memorial For Bubbles specimen
• Fixed an unlocalized string showing up when you tried to return starbases at times. Also added linebreaks to the same tooltip.
• Fixed recommended DLC tooltips in multiplayer
• Fixes a bug with too wide portrait on Empire Design Selection View
• FX for ship auras are now displayed
• Improve Cordyceptic Drones fauna damage modifier text in tooltip to make it clearer what it exactly affects
• Life Tree Protectors now don't move away from their system
• Lost colony parents using Sol as their system will no longer spawn two Siriuses if the guaranteed habitable worlds slider is set to 1.
• Mutated Voidworms fleets now don't use naval capacity
• Mutated Voidworms now don't show they can upgrade anymore
• Orbital Assembly Complex holding now correctly boost Beastport and Hatchery on Orbital Ring
• Precursors can no longer be discovered on Astral Scars
• Prevent duplicate specimens from being found in the same empire
• Removed the unused h_dna string
• Stop showing upkeep part of message when leader upkeep is zero in hire leader confirmation dialog
• The Diplomacy Tradition Finisher now properly refers to Officials and not Envoys.
• Voidworms now stop bombarding if the Immunity technology is researched (before crisis)
• Worm-Riddled Gate is now correctly accessible if Voidworms are captured instead of killed

AI​

• AI won't build infinite science ships when trying to build frigates anymore
• Fix AI that was not willing to build Shipyards

Stability​

• Fix a crash when a tooltip references the concept of a tradition that doesn't exist
• Fix crash when Voidworms try to act on empty fleets
• Fix OOS when riftworld station is built
• Fix saves affected by the crash when an AI without a Grand Archive tries to capture a Space Fauna
• Fix Voidworms CTD
• Fixed issue with resolving the user home dir on linux that leads to CTD

Unless critical bugs in need of a hotfix arise, this will be the last planned Stellaris release of 2024. I want to avoid potentially destabilizing the game just before the winter holidays.

Now, on to the main dev diary.

Infinite Frontiers​

Over the past few weeks we’ve looked at the basic vision of Stellaris and discussed how Stellaris has changed over the years.

This week I want to talk about things we potentially might want to explore in the future.

This is not intended to read as a timeline or a list of promises, but an open discussion about things I consider possibilities and why.​

Biological and Psionic Ascension
First things first, I strongly believe that remastering the remaining Ascension Paths is a top priority. The Machine Age dramatically improved Cybernetic and Synthetic Ascensions, and gave machine empires proper ascension choices, but left the others behind. Biological Ascension isn’t in a good state right now mechanically or as an overall experience. Psionic Ascension is better off as it is affected tangentially by most content releases, but is a bit too reliant on random events and luck. Both of these Ascension Paths will be revamped, though since they are very distinct from one another, I intend on having them focused on in two separate releases.

Warfare and War Resolution
At some point in the future, I’d like to see us revisit war and war resolution, and enable more of the scenarios that occur in the “Stellaris Cinematic Universe” of our trailers. When the Gamma Aliens attacked the UNE colony of Europa VII, the Commonwealth of Man did not wait patiently for an invitation to war before summoning the Apocalypse. Humanity was threatened, and they acted. More fluid rules around joining and leaving wars are needed, and betrayal is not supported to my satisfaction. (Secret Fealty exists, but I don’t find it enough in its current state - other mechanics currently prevent them from seizing the chance for freedom at what would be the most opportune moments.)

Biological Ships
While rearing and mutating space fauna was added to Stellaris in the Grand Archive story pack, I feel that it’s not the same fantasy as true bioships. These are vessels that your people grow and fly around in, or that have more symbiotic relationships with their pilots. I think those systems would probably pair nicely alongside Biological Ascension.

Factions and Politics
Governments in Stellaris may hold a grudge against you for centuries for your atrocities but pops and factions are very quick to forgive and forget. There are no revanchist or irredentist factions that make trouble when borders change, nor variety within the factions themselves. I’d also like to see factions have their own tenets and goals and different ways that you can deal with them. There have been a lot of calls for an “internal politics” expansion, but I think that it would really be politics and culture in general, affecting both your empires and those around you.

If we were to do something along those lines, I’d also want to add some variant of factions to Gestalt empires - maybe Instincts for Hives that grow more dominant based on your behavior or Directives that compete for priority in Machine Intelligences. They’d have to feel different from individualistic factions, however. Among individualistic factions, I could see the tenets of an Egalitarian faction from a Shared Burdens empire being very different from the Egalitarian faction in a non-Worker Coop MegaCorp, and these tenets might also be used to define the beliefs of your Spiritualist factions. I’d certainly want to explore spreading my factions into other empires.

Espionage
Espionage is a related system that isn’t satisfying its promise currently, as Mr. Cosmogone reminds me during every design meeting.

It’s difficult to keep track of spy networks, is generally of low impact, and has no real counterplay. But he’s got schemes.

Playable Nomads
Finding different ways of playing the game can be popular - landless adventuring in Crusader Kings III, for example, makes me wonder what we could do with nomadic fleets in Stellaris. The key questions there end up being “why are they nomadic”, and “how do they interact with more standard empires”. Origins could also be opportunities to “table flip” the normal economic or political models of Stellaris.

Pirates and Crime
Space Piracy is a popular fantasy - we touched on it a bit with the Treasure Hunters origin in Grand Archive, but they could mesh well with the Nomads idea mentioned earlier or even a factional political expansion. Crime and Deviancy aren’t terribly engaging systems at the moment either, and might benefit from wider examination.

Species Packs
When it comes to species, I could see us examining what kinds of life could arise on molten or frozen worlds, much like we did with Toxoids. Like Toxoids, they’d likely need some restrictions on what they can do with those worlds (as they’re 10x more abundant than normal habitable worlds), but they’d be interesting to explore. Players often ask for gaseous or energy creatures - the first are already represented to an extent by the Dathnak and the latter by the Unbidden. I feel that energy beings may go too far into fantasy “elementals”, so I’d like to stay away from them if possible. Expanding the existing species phenotypes could also potentially be interesting - Plantoids II, for example.

Scenarios
“Scenarios” are another proposal that I’ve seen a number of times over the years - would it be interesting to have scripted game modes with custom rules, and events already in motion?

They could lean hard into already established universes with asymmetric starts. Perhaps the game starts off with communications from a Xenophile empire that tells you, Pre-FTL Earth:

View attachment 1221982
Hacked together example. Not anything real.​

A system like this could allow for challenges or narratives that can be completed in a relatively short play session compared to a standard Stellaris campaign, or could otherwise completely change the pace or nature of the game. It could also be used to craft competitive experiences - at past PDXCons we’ve featured mods like Survival: Necroid Invasion or Ark of Ascension - I could see things like that fitting into the system.

Alternate game modes tend to be fairly binary though - they’re either not used very much, or they’re incredibly popular - not much in between. What kinds of things would you want to see in these sorts of game modes, if anything?

So What Did I Miss?​

This was a bit of a stream of consciousness dev diary, so I’m sure I’ve only scratched the surface of possibilities.

What do you think I missed? Are any of these especially attractive or repellent? Where do you want us to go?

Next Week​

Next week we’ll be reacting to your responses to this one.

The days are getting shorter and the snows are starting here in Stockholm, so I expect I’ll keep this one pinned for the next two weeks.

See you next week!

Purchase Stellaris: Grand Archive alone or with a discount as part of Stellaris: Season 08!​

In regards to the Scenario a few things
- The ability to *Craft* your own map ingame, placing empires in specific locations along with leviathans and other Unique systems
- The ability to *Create* your own enclave similar to an empire you can create
- The ability specify which empire can be advanced instead of a chance
- The ability to make your own Scenario.

Stellaris already is a story telling generator, I think further pushing the boundaries and being able to open things up by essentially having a map editor mode would be interesting, but most likely expensive. However it may help the modding scene as well as it may give more longevity to the game.

 

[diagrapher]

The ability to start as primitives along with the ability (for primitives or early empires) to establish limited colonies on barren worlds, like we’re planning to do with Mars. (This is kind of covered in the scenarios section)

I've thought that having "civilization unifies and thus gets normal civics and flag and so on", "civilization starts wanting to build an outpost and mining stations in its own system", and "civilization gets FTL" be separate events would make sense.

An ability to change the “galaxy age” (separate from start date). This functions kind of like it does in Civilization. In a younger galaxy, there are more massive stars, but less abundant strategic resources. In an older galaxy, there are more red dwarves and black holes, with more strategic resources. There are far ends of the spectrum too, with a galaxy so old that it is almost completely black holes. This would create more roleplay opportunities.

A bit off topic but - galaxies generally start as barred spirals, then lose their bars and become non-barred spirals, then lose their discrete arms and become lenticular or eliptical galaxies (Stellaris's "elliptical" galaxies are shaped more like lenticular galaxies). So if someone wanted to mod this in they could tie it to galaxy shape.

Young galaxies could also have few precursors, few ancient ruins themed anomalies and origins etc. while old galaxies have lots of them.

Less humanoid alien portraits, let’s do some weird stuff. (Kind of covered, but it'd be fun to go weird too)

Yeah.

More ways to customize your government; succession types, power sharing (like a constitutional monarchy), certain leaders pushing for policies to be implemented (like Victoria 3).

Yeah.

 

[BrightRedSquid]

Is a trade rework still on the menu? I loved the idea of using it to emulate logistics. I dream of being able to cut off a planet's supply during a war and deny the enemy access to some resource.

 

[Jekson20level]

I will try to answer without going into details. I really hope that we will look at each topic before you start implementing it.

1) I consider the most important and priority topic to be the processing of the POPs and jobs. All changes before that, I think it is necessary to make taking into account future changes.

2) Ascension. This is really important and I think it should be done second. The rework of biological ascension is closely related to the rework of species traits. And the rework of species traits is difficult to consider separately from the rework of planets.
I think it is important that biological traits open up new opportunities for the exploration of other planets. Remove technologies for habitability for all species at once, and adapt species depending on the traits they already have (for example, give the moisture-loving a trait of drought-resistant, this trait does not give a bonus to drought-loving, and gives a weak bonus to species adapted to average humidity). It also seems to me a good idea to link the availability of biological modification of species with a gene clinic on the planet (Y of doctors modifies X population per month). This will add a unique interaction to the building, not just a bonus.
If we do not consider genetic mutations to be inherited, then it is not necessary to divide them into different populations due to mutations, it is enough to specify %. If we consider them to be inherited, then we have to separate them in order to count the population growth with each mutation.

3) Bio-ships are still ships with a crew, but the crew is connected to the ship by a symbiotic relationship (the ship does not have its own will). Such ships cannot reproduce, but they can grow (perhaps special conditions are needed for growth). Perhaps they are combined with biological ascension. Basically, I imagine them as from the trunk of a tree in which new blocks grow, but there may be shells, shells and more fantastic ones.

4) Factions and Politics
A very important point. It should be implemented after the revision of the POPs and jobs system. I want to apply the tactics of ancient Babylon - to settle the population of the conquered world on other planets so that they do not rebel, and to populate the new planet with other species. We need fighters for species superiority, fighters for equality and quotas, fighters for independence, revanchists, supporters of isolationism and supporters of treaties with that power.
Regarding hives and machine intelligence, they should not compete with themselves. But there may be directives that need to be satisfied so that a single mind believes that it is effectively performing tasks.
Spreading our policy beyond the borders of our country, including at the expense of migrants, is very interesting.

5) Diplomacy, federations and vassals
Right now, diplomacy is a little short of treaties that imply new interaction. For example, the "excavation agreement" gives you (in a unilateral or bilateral format) the opportunity to conduct excavations (study planes, explore special projects) on the territory of the target country. She, in turn, also receives all the information about the course of the excavations. This will also allow the player to allow excavations by an ally (without losing content). It is also possible to agree on who will receive artifacts (and other items) from such excavations.
Similarly, an agreement on the extraction of rare resources for which the ally has not yet discovered technology. And after 10 years, transfer the mining stations to his ownership. The agreement on the right to build military bases and others.
All these agreements can be opened as the federation develops. I don't like bonuses for no reason. Why does the Level 5 federation have a damage bonus against crisis? There are no reasons at the level of game mechanics.

6) Espionage
The espionage system should be improved after domestic politics and foreign diplomacy. However, you can start earlier. The presence of open borders, migration agreements, and the species available in both your and the target country should simplify operations and exploration. Espionage can have several directions:
Intelligence: what is already partially there. We want to know: what weapons the enemy has before the attack, where all the fleets are, where the unstable situation is, what technologies are available.
Sabotage: disabling camouflage from the enemy fleet, disabling shields from the space station, damaging the fortress before landing, stealing resources.
Political: support for the faction, support for the rebels, encouragement of agreements beneficial to us.

7) Warfare and War Resolution
Changes in this topic can be carried out in parallel with the rest. It is not necessary to wait for the expansion of diplomacy and the emergence of domestic politics, but it would definitely add opportunities.
We really need the opportunity to call for war and promise something for joining, as well as extensive peace negotiations. I am interested in implementing the concept of a "demilitarized zone", which is often found in fantasy.

8) Trade
It was skipped in this diary. But it is very necessary for the implementation of pirates and infrastructure systems.

9) Pirates and Crime
Crime deserves its large dls and global rework. A network of smugglers allows you to steal resources and technologies through espionage. Pirates appear on planets with high crime. Crime intercepts part of the trade. Disaffected factions increase crime. Criminals form their own factions.

10) Planet rework, colonization and terraforming. I want more immersion in terraforming. Different types of planets should have more significant differences.

11) Species Packs
I wouldn't want new species that would be different from another suitable planet. We already have lithoids, give them the opportunity to use frozen and molten worlds.
Gaseous creatures deserve to be mentioned as Datnaks, that's enough. Energy entities or rather psionic entities can be added. But we will need: ghost worlds, our own way of moving through astral planes, the spread of the psionic field through space, the capture of the mind of organics (partially parasitic existence) and much more.
I am waiting for a parasitic species that needs to spread itself in the body of other species in order to live.
Recycling existing phenotypes for the sake of making them more different is a good idea. Aquatic species have not added the marine districs they occupy unlike land-based species. The toxoids did not add the mechanics of ecological contamination of the planet. The quantity is already enough, we need quality.

12) Playable Nomads
I'm not really interested in nomads in Stellaris. There is no basis for such a game mode. I don't want another extra mechanic to appear. If they are introduced, then with deep elaboration (not like storms). In CK3, the travel system first appeared, and only then the mechanics of adventurers.

 

[Tahazzar1]

New Game Start settings + pre-ftl/sapient & fallen empires

One that bugs me a lot is that on say on a tiny galaxy map (200 stars) I can only have 6 AI empires. I would like my games to be high density and intensity where expanding your territory would often mean requiring to take territory from others. As such, I've modded the game so as to allow me t have on a tiny map have 20 AI empires (as well as 3 marauders and 3 fallen ones). I haven't had trouble with that but I'm annoyed that because of this achievements are disabled. This to me really doesn't seem like the sort of stuff that I should have to mod the game to begin with. As an example. in the original Masters of Orion games the max amounts were around 70 stars with 6-8 AI empires - to which 200 stars with 20 empires would scale well and might have been what I subconsciously was aiming for. Here I don't care what the amounts would be for the huge maps - as far as I'm concerned they could stay the same they are currently at around 30 or whatever - since I that sort of games to become too lumbering, cumbersome, and with lot of micromanagement overhead even with all the automate options.

In general, the game setup options could use some work. Since I want all the AI empires to be ones I have made, I avoid using origins such as Hegemon and Common Ground since they spawn random empires. I would understand that spawning if there were no applicable AI civs to use, but since I have defined them all, I don't get why extra ones are made for these. I would have expected it try to pick from the existing force-spawnable ones and only create new ones when no applicable spawnable empire was found. This is for advanced empire spawning origins as well.

I would like there to be an actual spawn pool of my own AI empires from which the game would pick ones to spawn at random. I would also love there to be different pools for Fallen Empire and pre-flt/pre-sapient designs from which the game could be attempted to forced to picked on if it was of say an applicable Fallen Empire type that would needed to be spawned. All of this could be wrapped into some DLC that focused on all those elements. For example one, that could enable you to have empires start at pre-ftl (even pre-sapient?) stage of their history before entering space.

Gaseous species notes and ideas

Also, yes, I think gaseous playable species would be really cool. I don't think the Dathnak are going to satisfy anyone seeing them - rather they are just teasing you with the thought of it. Regardless, before I was even aware of the Dathnak I had thought of the idea and had the specific idea of them having the gas giant preference. The way I saw them overall however was the species would have contained themselves into some sort of suits or other containers which would allow them to operate (heavy) machinery.

The thing is that I was thinking perhaps it could be a DLC focused on the fact that there would be more to do with gas giants, perhaps to make them survivable on outside of habitats. The gaseous species could be more of a gimmick one that would be for a "hard start". For example, they could have a lot of pop theoretically, but could only get proper "workforce" by constructing the suits to contain those pops, being essentially like pseudo-robotic/cybernetic?

Speaking of Masters of Orion, it had a gravity values for planets with species having low-mid- or high tolerance. You could research planetary gravity generators to off-set any penalties. Higher gravity systems would be richer in minerals. As a real world example, "it rains diamonds" on Nepture, which is partially because of high gravity. These type of worlds could be special worlds that would require specific tech to be unlockable. On this front, a 'gaseous' species could have a higher tolerance for gravitational changes (a high cost trait) but have a bunch of other unwieldy characteristics. It would also follow that they might have a higher tolerance for gravity changes if they have to have their actual pops producing resources be in special suits made for them. The gravity angle is yet another thing for a potential DLC.

More drawback traits

One thing that I always find desiring is more negatively harmful traits. Some stuff with -3 and -4 modifiers. Even just more -2 traits would be something. IMO negatives can be as fun as the positive traits and could have some cool unique effects on them. For example, initially I had through that "Vat-Grown" would have been one of these types of traits you could pick from the start of the game as a harsh drawback. There also isn't any start-up trait that would lower your research speed.

Going back bit to the gravity idea, "low-gravity tolerance (only)" could be a severe drawback for a species where all "normal" worlds would be difficult for them to live in without special suits of planetary gravity manipulator/generators where they would have to live/start in somewhat special 'low-gravity' world (which might be poor in mineral quality).

 

[Mister X-X]

Give the ambassadors a specialization in espionage!!!!! There should be more Spies and Anti-Spies, Sabotage planet uprising! for 5 - 10 years, Killings of the Leader, Destruction of Buildings and others. High Empires must specialize in espionage! WIDE EMPIRES!! there will be more pool leaders!!!! Add a source of spying on Hide Planet Stations! Hidden Empire! Hidden first contact!!!!!!

 

[Deluxe Linux Nexus]

I agree with most of the diary ideas and would be happy to see them implemented. However, I think that many of these are more nice-to-haves than features the game needs right now.

What I personally miss in Stellaris is options for subterfuge, extortion, lies, manipulation and betrayal. In other words, more complex interactions with AIs and other players. This game could really use more focus on interacting with others rather than just focusing on your own borders. Sometimes even with other people it feels as if everyone is playing their own game. For example, it is quite the big leap to declare full war on the friend you finally convinced to play the game with you. What if you could mess with them in more subtle ways? I would like to provide a few ideas to elaborate on this. Some of these might have been a better fit for the previous feedback dev diary, but could be framed both ways, so forgive me if this actually belongs there.
Disclaimer: I have not played many other games similar to Stellaris, so I might unknowingly touch upon ideas from other games.

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Additional interactions
Right now, we have few options to get what we want in the game. If you want a system, you must either declare a full war for it or trade for it if the other party is a player. What if we didn't have to actually declare war to get what we want? What if the mere threat of war is enough to get the other party to comply? It would also be interesting to be able to demand resources, relics or other artifacts from other nations similar to how one does in Civ 6, so that we can fight for other reasons than territory.

If you want to weaken another empire, you must either declare war or mess with espionage. What if you are a particularly scheming empire and manipulate(using espionage or diplomacy), threaten(with war) or bribe some third empire to do the job for you(with an influence cost of course)?

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Interaction willingness
Just like with empire visibility before intel mechanics, we have very clear and stable visibility on where we stand with other empires. We know who has high and low opinion, and this is pretty much the only determining factor for whether the AI will accept or reject offers other than some temporary delay imposed by trust. AI will never betray you or distrust your intentions and you have no real way of suddenly betraying or weakening your allies, and if you break your defensive argreement and do attack after 10 years, the rest of the galaxy will not care.

To support more complex interactions, I propose a value to supplement (or replace) trust to give more nuance to interactions between empires: credibility.

An empire with high credibility is desirable for trade deals, defensive pacts and more, because they keep their word and are reliable.
A duplicitous empire with low credibility is known for breaking trade deals, not helping or betraying their allies or in general untrustworthy. Others are unwilling to make deals with them, even if they generally like them(have high opinion) otherwise.
Credibility should be contagious, meaning that if you betray your closest ally, other empires should also see you as less credible. That being said, opinion could also have some spread to it, but that is another matter.

Credibility would be hard to earn. If a timed trade deal goes as agreed, you gain a little credibility with the other party dependent on the value of the deal. If you guarantee independence of a small empire and help them in their time of need, your credibility goes up with most empires.
If you choose to abandon them, your credibility with them and other empires goes down. Same with threats, as suggested earlier. Credibility is not attached to opinion, and you can have high credibility even with your enemies.

Example: Let us say you are a barbaric despoiler and threaten your neighbour(may have low opinion of you) with a raid unless they pay up.
If they agree to your terms and you refrain from raiding them for say 10 years, you gain credibility with them.
If you raid them anyway, they learn that following your demands is pointless, and you lose a lot of credibility.
Similarily, if they say no and you don't raid them afterwards, you also lose credibility. Your threats are empty after all.
In this scenario you would gain credibility if they say no and you do indeed raid them. Now they know that you mean business, and are more willing to agree next time.
Note that in such a case, distance to the target should reduce the credibility for this interaction. Being far away and making military threats is less credible than being up close doing the same.

Using a value like credibility would allow us to remove some of these hard and artificial 10-year truces, by imposing a big credibility penalty to attacking allies(despite defensive pacts or federations) or breaking cease-fires. The time period for when such a penalty could apply could still be 10 years, with the penalty imposed being lower if the betrayal happens later in the time period. This way we could have more fluidity in these interactions, and potentially make the AI a bit more unpredictable.

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Combination of credibility and additional interactions
Now imagine a situation when you want to weaken own your ally for a future evil plan, but want to keep your credibility intact for now. How about making a third party to do it for you? Then no one will ever know you are behind it. Unless someone talks. That could be a option for the third empire. Perhaps this would nicely tie in with espionage. If your ally has been spying on you and has very high intel, they may just find out about your treacherous ways.

Something like this would also allow you to mess with that friend from before, instead of crushing them outright and ending the game right then and there. Maybe they will even find a way to beat you by doing the same thing to you?

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Extra: War levels
Right now we either are at war, or we are not. Just like in real life, there is room for nuance. I agree with the dev diary that war participation should be more flexible. However, I would suggest going further. What if we remove the binary value of "wars" and instead have a fluid concept of conflict?

If we are best friends, we have a low or negative conflict level where we don't attack each other and everything is great.
At neutral conflict level we may for instance have closed borders, where our enemies may even fire upon our ships if they enter their space if they are strict.
When we approach a medium conflict level, small skirmishes may occur in neutral space or upon border breaches. The parties have poor relations and on high alert, being generally quick to respond with force against the other party.
If the conflict escalates further with full scale invasions across the borders, we would have a high conflict level, basically what we call a "war" today.

Attrition could instead be a slowly building soft penalty. Like an increase in ship upkeep and more over time, as the empire is involved in more and more conflict and attrition grows. An empire with high attrition would be easier to force into a cease-fire to reduce the conflict level. Then attrition could decrease slowly if we avoid more active conflict with others for a while.

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Extra: Less obvious AI-acceptance
What if we needed higher intel to know for sure if another empire will accept our trade deals and other offers? If our intel is low or medium, we may only have general and inaccurate indicators of what they are willing to accept, for example categories like (very) unlikely, 50/50 or (very) likely to accept deal. I find it a bit strange that we hardly know these xenos yet we know exactly what kind of deal they would want. It should not obscure too much, but just enough that you may want to add on a few extra minerals to make sure they like the deal.

 

[Praetor Metroo]

In regards to the Scenario a few things
- The ability to *Craft* your own map ingame, placing empires in specific locations along with leviathans and other Unique systems
- The ability to *Create* your own enclave similar to an empire you can create
- The ability specify which empire can be advanced instead of a chance
- The ability to make your own Scenario.

Stellaris already is a story telling generator, I think further pushing the boundaries and being able to open things up by essentially having a map editor mode would be interesting, but most likely expensive. However it may help the modding scene as well as it may give more longevity to the game.

That would be really cool!

 

[DreadSpark]

One thing that I feel is missing, albeit relatively small in the grand scheme, is the ability to play Driven Assimilators as an organic but cybernetic race, truer to the Borg Collective than having a Machine Race as its starting point.

 

[Stellaris-Micah]

We're experimenting with a prototype right now. We'll have more information once we have something worth showing.

That is great news, one thing I hope comes with a rework is improved performance, especially in the late game.

 

[grommile]

And don't get me started on the lack of a "generic" Ascension Path.

I struggle to imagine what a "generic" Ascension Path would even look like.

 

[Divine3vil15]

I would love to see an overhaul of the army system and invasions. I like that you can slow things down and watch ship combat, I think it would be really cool to do the same with ground invasions.
Or, to have the invasions be interactive, having to make decisions that could slow down or speed up the invasion.
I just feel that the ground troops have been heavily neglected and are in dire need of a makeover

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

I struggle to imagine what a "generic" Ascension Path would even look like.

Kind of like the opposite of picking an Ascension Path?
Like... a Descension Path?

(More seriously, the civic Natural Design is one step in such a direction.)

 

[Jekson20level]

One thing I didn't see mentioned that I'd love to see worked on is fleet sizes. Fleet sizes end up absolutely ridiculous by late game, with thousands of battleships & attendant lag. I would love to see fleet sizes decreased by a flat x7 or x8, so that a galaxy beating endgame fleet is hundreds of battleships, not thousands. This would also make individual ships more important & memorable, making ship names & veterancy levels relevant features in the game. Implementation is a thing of developers & not players, but I honestly wouldn't mind if it was just "Every ship in the game is 8x the previous required naval cap & cost, then 8x larger base health & damage to stay balanced against non-naval cap enemies like crises". With pops & fleet sizes reined in I think we could see some really serious improvements to late game performance.

In the last game, I had about 100 battleships. My fleet capacity was just over 1000. I played until the year 2700, I have already studied repeat technologies (close to the 10th). There was absolutely nothing to do on the map. I was just waiting for the fallen empire to attack me, because I am a pacifist. Perhaps this is a problem for a 1000-star map (I have 400).

 

[Knightshade]

I've been wanting an overhaul to ground warfare to make it feel more involving and less like big numbers go BRRRRR. Something like the dig site event chains so players can feel like they have a more direct role, with generals and armies affecting success rates and choices players can pick

 

[Nyrael]

I'd love to see Warp drives back, there's a variety of was to go about it:

• One of the crysis factions could use it (very threatening!) but one could be researched off wrecks, and then spied off by other empires.
• An ascension, perhaps tech/enigmatic/archeological related.
• As a gate megastructure with the ability to send fleets off into warp but require normal hyperlane returning voyage.

But how would you solve the original issues that caused their removal? Because they (and artificial wormholes) were removed for several very good reasons.

 

[fourteenfour]

Can we have an update on whether or not you will provide native apple silicon support?

 

[FiddleSticks96]

Biological and Psionic Ascension
I very much agree with you that this needs to be a top priority. Machine empires haven't been able to snowball this hard since they were first introduced with a +50% bonus to mining station output. Neither bio or psionic ascension can compare to synthetic/cybernetic ascension in terms of mechanics or in power. Bio ascension in particular is painful to use. I am excited to see what the creative minds at paradox have cooked up for next year.

Warfare and War Resolution

I think this should probably be priority number two after revamping bio/psionic ascension. This has already been discussed to death elsewhere, so I won't say much here. Suffice to say, it has problems.

Biological Ships
I would love to see bioships in Stellaris. An entire civic that changes your infrastructure from minerals/alloys to food would be fun, though would need to be properly balanced since food is so easy to produce in vast quantities. While I don't think bio ascension should be a requirement to use bioships (again, it should be a civic that can't be removed), having a bioship civic could certainly open up alternative traditions in the bio ascension tree that makes them better in some way.

Factions and Politics

The forum seems pretty divided on this one (disclaimer: I'm on the side in favor of "internal politics."). Utopia, Federations, Nemesis, and Overlord have all brought the galaxy's external diplomacy to life but there is nothing to interact with within your own empire except your economy. It would be nice if we had more ways to interact with and influence our own empire. Factions with their own values and objectives is one such possible way to make that happen. I think it would be even better if you could influence the values and objectives of those factions over time (no political party is a monolith). The Situations system would be a perfect way to introduce movements that your factions are getting up to (good or bad, but probably both). There are countless ways you could influence the outcome of such a situation (changing policies, meeting economic quotas, declaring a rival, colonizing a planet, spending influence, etc...) with any number of rewards you could come up with (temporary positive/negative empire/colony modifiers, resources, ships that were "donated to the cause," etc...). Gestalts having their own, similar, system would also be very welcome.

Espionage

Espionage is currently a toothless and mostly pointless system, with only a couple options that are worth the time and effort (steal technology and consume star if you beat the stellarite devourer). It is a difficult system to balance and easy to make either completely worthless (like it is now) or completely broken and annoying to have used against you. I think the best espionage system I've ever seen was in Endless Space 2, though it was difficult to master. It had good hacking and counter-hacking options. A good espionage system is both worth using and can be reasonably defended against.

Also, I hate that encryption/decryption is capped at a +/- 4 bonus/penalty. If I have 10 Encryption and two enemy empires with 6 and 2 Decryption respectively, why do they both receive the same -4 penalty? Having a huge Encryption should make it very very difficult (but not impossible) to perform espionage actions against you.

Playable Nomads
This sounds like it would be a fun origin to play with. I think that empire creation options that change the way you play the game in some aspect are some of the best options in the game in terms of fun and replayability. Just spitballing what a nomadic empire might look like, the "colony" side of things could be tied to "Arkship" type megastructures that can move from system to system. If they are moved into an unclaimed system, you gain control of the system in the same way you would if you built an outpost. You could move your arkships into territory controlled by another empire so long as you had a special diplomatic treaty with them. If they revoke that treaty, your arkships aren't forced out, but they would gain a special wargoal against you. These are just ideas off the top of my head, but the possibilities are endless.

Pirates and Crime

I can't remember the last time crime/deviancy caused any kind of problem for me even without really building crime reduction jobs. It is so easy to suppress with so little effort and so toothless when you somehow manage to not suppress it that I forget it exists half the time. It makes playing criminal megacorps unfun and unrewarding. Space piracy is also something I almost never see even when I do nothing about it and when a system does end up with a piracy issue, building a few defense platforms solves the problem (protip: you can build up to 3 defense platforms on unupgraded outputs, more if you have bonuses to defense platform numbers).

I don't know what a good piracy/crime system would look like, but I do know that the current system isn't good. Piracy would probably have to be overhauled with Trade Value. Also, the wargoal for Barbaric Despoilers sucks (a few hundred minerals is nothing).

Species Packs
This conversation is part of the larger conversation of making species more varied and unique. More special species traits for each species type is an easy solution. I firmly believe that overhauling the current pop system into a more abstracted, less resource intensive one would be very good for the long term health of Stellaris. I know that that isn't what this topic is about, but drastic changes to how pops work would necessarily affect how species traits work. As much as I would like to see more special species traits, maybe hold off on that for a bit if you have plans on overhauling pops.

A DLC that requires another DLC is a terrible idea, but I don't think that's why you were suggesting. You have already shown that you can make DLCs with similar elements to existing ones without making a dependency on them. The Machine Age is a good example.

Scenarios
A cool idea in theory, but I can already see such a system having a mixed reception. It's not that the concept itself is a bad idea, but with so many other, bigger objectives on the table, I can't see any reason to make a campaign system in the short-term future. With that said, if you were to make such a system, I would highly recommend making it easy for modders (and maybe those of us who think programming is a mysterious and arcane magic) to make their own custom scenarios.