Stellaris Dev Diary #366 - Announcing Stellaris 4.0

[XerTheSquirrel]

Excited for the performance improvements, especially when they eventually make their way onto console!

 

[Matthias.]

Really excited for the pop rework. I had my problems with the game, since the artificial pop growth reduction with rising empire population. I might return to the game with this update.

 

[Azar]

I don't entirely disagree. I quickly grew tired of the stellaris card draw system. But given that that's not going anywhere that's part of why I like this - we're getting little a bit of a real tech tree, as a treat.

Speaking of I wonder if federations will also end up as a garaunteed tech rather than being straight given to you.

e: the mechsnic itself is also going to be a combo of shaped and random given that it sounds like the tracks will be fixed across playhroughs but the actions you get credit for will be a weighted random draw. One game might immediately award exploration points for blitzing a bunch of planetary surveys while another may not provide a checkmark for that for years afterwards.

I personally prefer the tech research to function as random, but with weighted possibilities depending on what the empire has researched so far and what their research focus is. If the empire is focusing on cybernetics, it makes sense for tech breakthroughs from that area to be more common than say, genetic manipulation.

 

[GrandEurypterid]

In regards to Trade as a logistical resource- perhaps it could be used for Trade Deals too? One thing that pains me to no end is the bug where if your stockpile (NOT income) falls below your monthly trade deal, the trade deal will automatically be cancelled. Turning it into a system where the trade deal is permanent, but costs trade to run and alter, would be a great way to balance it and remove that problem.

 

[Critical Ethics]

I personally prefer the tech research to function as random, but with weighted possibilities depending on what the empire has researched so far and what their research focus is. If the empire is focusing on cybernetics, it makes sense for tech breakthroughs from that area to be more common than say, genetic manipulation.

This leads to a bootstrapping/positive feedback scenario where it's 2450 and I'm not rolling megastructures because I didn't roll megastructures but I'm rolling lots of gene techs because I rolled lots of gene techs.

 

[passeris]

This leads to a bootstrapping/positive feedback scenario where it's 2450 and I'm not rolling megastructures because I didn't roll megastructures but I'm rolling lots of gene techs because I rolled lots of gene techs.

This would be perfectly fine with more and better gene techs. Different civilisations developing down different paths, rather than every culture going: battleships, ringworlds, synthetic ascension etc.

 

[Critical Ethics]

This would be perfectly fine with more and better gene techs. Different civilisations developing down different paths, rather than every culture going: battleships, ringworlds, synthetic ascension etc.

Certainly... if you get to choose what it is. I want to go all in on gene techs over megastructures because I the player wanted to, not because the RNG decided the entire future of my empire on day 1. Edit: Ending up with a higher than usual number of tech A on a Tech B run is fine, it's the not getting into Tech B in the first place that's the issue.

 

[Thiend]

This would be perfectly fine with more and better gene techs. Different civilisations developing down different paths, rather than every culture going: battleships, ringworlds, synthetic ascension etc.

"You can't pull combat techs to research because you didn't research combat techs earlier" is not going to be a good time for literally anyone.

The focus trees might allow developing down different paths deliberately, rather than the current entirely random model. But just giving you more of what you research means past a certain point you're autoscrewed out of getting anything you don't already have some of, it becomes a system where you MUST spread your research fields constantly so no fields become effectively impossible to get back into.

 

[Azar]

The focus trees might allow developing down different paths deliberately, rather than the current entirely random model. But just giving you more of what you research means past a certain point you're autoscrewed out of getting anything you don't already have some of, it becomes a system where you MUST spread your research fields constantly so no fields become effectively impossible to get back into.

Well as long as it acts as a "deliberate focus" instead of gating some techs behind arbitrary "missions" that have nothing to do with anything.

 

[Thiend]

Well as long as it acts as a "deliberate focus" instead of gating some techs behind arbitrary "missions" that have nothing to do with anything.

It doesn't sound like anything is being gated behind focus trees, but rather like focus trees will be a way to guarantee access to them.

They specified "...give guaranteed research options for critical technologies, reducing your reliance on random pulls from the technology deck for techs like Cruisers, Colonial Centralization, or Mega-Engineering."

Federations are specifically moving out of Diplomacy and into focus trees, which should reduce AI access to it if its even mildly challenging for players to unlock. That might be a little annoying to get or it might not, but it's more than a little annoying to get now so it's a wash if so.

But as far as techs, they were pretty explicit. Techs aren't being locked behind focus trees, new guaranteed research options are. The default will be exactly the same as live, if you deliberately or incidentally complete some focus tree tasks you'll get them guaranteed.

Also, on that, note that guaranteed options for stuff you don't want still means it can't take up your random options. so even if what you want isn't on them, that might still be helpful.

 

[Inspector2311]

...The number of pre-scripted systems should really be configurable through a slider, with an additional option to force spawn all of them for those of us who enjoy these unique systems...

Good idea. Making something like this adjustable by the players, rather than adjusting it for everyone, like it or not, seems like the better approach.

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

I would be very interested in planets needing Trade to make their economy work, having trade make things function especially on larger planets and potential trade ships go between planets and be pirate/raider/etc. Interceptable ships going from non-military ship and bringing to needed make factories work would be divine. I.E. manufactory planets need food, and 3 food traders need to come each month, if it doesn't have enough logistic handling capability, then people on that planet will starve and get unhappy. In return, it brings minerals to the main planet, which holds them for other planets.

Master of Orion 2 is one previous example of a game with a simple trade logistics system.

In summary:

• Empires could construct a resource called "freighters".
• Freighters did not exist physically on the map; they were entirely abstract.
• Freighters had an upkeep cost and two uses:
  • Transporting food between colonies, occupying 1 freighter per food (this happened automatically).
    • Freighters allowed empires to colonize worlds that lacked (sufficient) food production capacity. In MoO2, all planets except gas giants could be colonized, and unless you had food production bonuses or upkeep reductions, most food-producing climates were not good enough for food production (base production 1, meaning that 1 farmer could only feed itself).
    • Local food shortages meant local starvation and population decline.
    • It was generally a good idea to keep a buffer of unused freighters before conquering new worlds, in case they were not self-sufficient.
  • Resettling pops between colonies, occupying 5 freighters per pop during transit (this required manual action, and the pop would not produce stuff or pay taxes while in transit).
• Blockades (hostile fleet presence in the system) prevented freighters from being used there.
  • Planets could not import or export food.
  • Pops in transit would die if they ran into a blockade.
  • (Blockades also disabled rush-buying local construction projects.)
• A special pirate raid event could make a system suffer from a blockade and slowly eliminate freighters. By keeping ships in the system for a while, the pirate raid event would eventually end (the pirates were not actual ships to fight; they were also abstract).

A difference from Stellaris is that credits was the only resource that could be saved between turns. Food and production only existed during the turn they were produced. Excess food was converted to credits, and colonies could produce "trade goods" that converted production to credits (empires could also tax production on all worlds by a percentage).



A MoO2-similar system for Stellaris could look something like this:

• Trade Value is considered the analogue of freighter fleets.
• Trade Value remains a non-stored resource, as currently and similar to Naval Capacity (i.e. the current production is the current capacity).
  • Trade Value could also be renamed Trade Capacity, emphasising its conceptual similarity to its militaristic counterpart, Naval Capacity.
• Worlds that run local deficits can automatically import resources from the empire's global reserves, at a cost to its global Trade Value.
  • Local deficits, that are not covered by imports, result in negative local consequences.
• Trade Value can be used to buy resources from the galactic market.
  • To the global reserve, that is. Keep in mind that subsequent local imports also cost Trade Value, as per above.
  • Edit: Trade Value can presumably also be gained from selling resources on the galactic market (minus the market tax rate). This can be thought of as a trade-weak empire using export earnings to pay the freighter fleet to move resources internally.
• Unused Trade Value is converted to other resources at the end of the month, similar to how trade policies currently work.

Specialised worlds would then require a sufficient trade fleet (Trade Value) to support.

• A big implication is that trade-oriented empires could specialise their worlds more. This would fit like hand in glove for Corporate governments; they get +50% Empire Size from worlds, but their strength at trading also allows them to specialise those worlds more than other empires.
• Specialised worlds would also be more vulnerable to blockades, piracy and other trade disruptions than self-sufficient worlds that have small or no deficit imports and surplus exports, and therefore would be less vulnerable to trade disruptions.

Resource Silos could get a bigger role in such a new trade system.

• One beautifully simple possibility is that Resource Silos reduce a world's Trade Value cost of importing and exporting resources. This makes sense in real economics, since it means that resources can be delivered to/from the world slowly, cheaply and ahead of time (albeit with a storage cost) rather than quickly and expensively the moment they are needed (but without a storage cost). This also means that Resource Silos should be constructed on worlds that do a lot of exporting or importing, which is precisely where Resource Silos should normally be seen.
• Other options include Resource Silos protecting against negative effects of temporary local shortages for some amount of time (perhaps a year or two, as long as no indiscriminate bombarder ruins them), or the addition of local reserves - but the latter could require a lot of extra calculations and the end goal would still be that worlds keep reserves meant to last some set amount of time. Their capacity to store new export products until a blockade ends could be approximated by instead having the blockade itself keep track of how many exports and imports it has blocked, and then using that information to determine the effects for the empires involved upon the blockade ending. The raiding bombardment stance could also get tweaks related to such a feature.

Piracy mechanics might only need to consider inhabited systems, under a system like this, and could then also be tied more directly to local Crime levels in the system. Piracy could then be represented as an abstract drain on resources; for instance, if pirates intercept half of all freighters, it would take twice as many freighters and imported goods to cover a deficit, and only half the exports would make it to the global reserves. Players would also have several different ways to deal with piracy:

• forceful suppression in space or/and on the ground
• compensating by increasing the size of the freighter fleet / global Trade Value (and, if necessary, also production of the deficit resources)
• making the affected worlds more self-sufficient, swapping workers from surplus export products to deficit import products (reducing imports and exports simultaneously, and thereby also the impact of the pirates on their global Trade Value)

Global Pacifier shielding could, once a blockade feature is in the game, be reworked as the shielded worlds effectively being blockaded worlds that still live on beneath the shields and adapt to the consequences - and the shield possibly being removed at some point in the future.
(A further step would be to essentially turn shielded worlds into a new type of pre-FTL world, with the possibility of building an observation post. This could include Offer Societal Guidance to rehabilitate their population ideologically, Infiltrate Government to make them accept annexation, Passive Observation to study them for research purposes, Aggressive Observation to abuse them because you are an evil warden, or Spread Disinformation to gaslight them into believing there is nobody out there. There could perhaps even be a special set of Observation insights for shielded worlds as they grasp at straws and test radical ideas to escape; creating and entering a micro-singularity, shielded time loops, accidentally turning the world into a black hole, psionics phasing the world into the Shroud, and other things. The Ur-Quan Kzer-Za could approve of an update like this to the Global Pacifier.)


The content topic of this post continues in a post below.


Edit:
some text flow improvements above,
some additions in the Global Pacifier part, and
added the link to the continuation post below on trade routes and new colonies.

 

[passeris]

Certainly... if you get to choose what it is. I want to go all in on gene techs over megastructures because I the player wanted to, not because the RNG decided the entire future of my empire on day 1. Edit: Ending up with a higher than usual number of tech A on a Tech B run is fine, it's the not getting into Tech B in the first place that's the issue.

"You can't pull combat techs to research because you didn't research combat techs earlier" is not going to be a good time for literally anyone.

The focus trees might allow developing down different paths deliberately, rather than the current entirely random model. But just giving you more of what you research means past a certain point you're autoscrewed out of getting anything you don't already have some of, it becomes a system where you MUST spread your research fields constantly so no fields become effectively impossible to get back into.

These are ludicrous (and mutually contradictory) interpretations. You always get to choose the tech you research. And you are always given random picks from all available options. The suggestion is just that related techs become more likely the more you pick them, and neglected techs become less likely the longer you ignore them. This is a perfectly sensible way to let player agency bias the card draws.

What worries me about Focus Trees is that if you 'need' to roll particular techs for your empire 'build', then the random draw system is just getting in the way. It's not taking your society in new directions, it's just slowing you down in the one direction you've already chosen. This sort of player will not be satisfied by this compromise, and the busywork it requires, while the card draw still exists. "I just want to research Cruisers now, why do I have to do all this extra stuff?". There is another current thread with this same complaint: The biggest problem I have with Stellaris

There are players who want an ant farm, and players who want an RTS. Focus Trees are a delicate attempt to strike a balance between them, but I think the system will face too much backlash from the latter, and not really benefit the former.

 

[Thiend]

These are ludicrous (and mutually contradictory) interpretations. You always get to choose the tech you research. And you are always given random picks from all available options.

1. Getting multiple in a row outside the field would weight it towards fields other than what you want. The more times you don't get the desired field, the lower the chance of getting it. This would be bad design.
2. Two people giving different reasons this is a bad idea is not "mutually contradictory." You're trying to call out two sound arguments from unrelated sources for not backing each other up on the other argument. No. Not how this works. Your idea just has more than one critical flaw.

 

[Critical Ethics]

These are ludicrous (and mutually contradictory) interpretations. You always get to choose the tech you research. And you are always given random picks from all available options. The suggestion is just that related techs become more likely the more you pick them, and neglected techs become less likely the longer you ignore them. This is a perfectly sensible way to let player agency bias the card draws.

They're not mutually contradictory, he and I were both saying the same thing. Because of how the card draw works it's very possible for the thing you want most to not show up for some time. If every round where you don't get to select something from the tech group you want further reduces the odds of drawing cards from the tech group you want, that's a textbook positive feedback loop. Every time armour doesn't show up you don't get to select armour, which increases the odds of rolling the thing you chose from the list of options, which reduces the odds of rolling armour next time.

That's just how math works.

 

[Shimohi]

will there be finally proper ui scaling?

 

[passeris]

They're not mutually contradictory, he and I were both saying the same thing. Because of how the card draw works it's very possible for the thing you want most to not show up for some time. If every round where you don't get to select something from the tech group you want further reduces the odds of drawing cards from the tech group you want, that's a textbook positive feedback loop. Every time armour doesn't show up you don't get to select armour, which increases the odds of rolling the thing you chose from the list of options, which reduces the odds of rolling armour next time.

That's just how math works.

@Thiend 's argument was originally that choosing a given tech would lock you out of others (ie. no chance). Yours was that randomly drawing others would lock you out of the one you want (no agency). You've now both agreed on a concern (the latter). But in theory this can happen with the current system: you just get unlucky and can't draw the T1 tech you want for 200 years, against astronomical odds.

Weighting doesn't create this problem, because the possibility is always there, and weighting can be adjusted besides. No matter how 'light' the weighting is (even zero), you would always be able to make this complaint when probability is involved. Either you are misunderstanding, or are fundamentally opposed to, a probabilistic system. I think it is the latter, which is why I'm concerned that players won't tolerate Focus Trees as a compromise when what they really want is to be rid of the card-based system.

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

A continuation of my previous post:


However, MoO2 had no hyperlanes and paths to consider. It was possible to travel directly to any system (within range) which meant that blockades could be handled on a simple single-system basis, without breaking immersion. Whether enemies were present in nearby systems did not matter. The ability of a Stellaris world to still trade, despite clearly being cut off, would be bad for immersion.

• One option could be to also include some sort of simplified trade routes, where worlds would need to be in range of a trading station starbase with intact trade connections with the capitol part of the empire.
  • These simplified trade routes could be fixed (until border changes break them) and be a strictly binary affair that only determine whether a trading station is connected to the global reserves or not.
  • As long as the trading station remains operational and linked via other operational trading stations, and the trade routes are not intercepted by any hostile force, unblockaded worlds within range of that trading station would have access to the empire's global reserves.
  • (I.e. these trade routes would normally not change in any way, and would not track trade flow or piracy or trade protection or anything like that. As described above, a strictly binary affair.)
• Another option: worlds within trading range of a trading station with a Resource Silo could be considered to have access to the global reserves, regardless of physical access to the rest of the empire.
  • This could be explained as the galactic market being used as an intermediary between the two regions (for instance, selling 1 Mineral in one region and buying 1 Mineral in another for a net cost of 0, with good lawyers getting you a market tax/fee of 0).
  • Here, "trading station" is defined as a starbase with a Resource Silo, and "trading range" as the current trade collection range.
    • A fully equipped trading station would have 6 Trade Hubs (+6 range), a Hyperlane Registrar (+1 range), a Resource Silo (for enabling access to the empire's global reserves), and an Offworld Trading Company (+2 Trade Value per Trade Hub). Edit: for good measure, we can also throw in the relatively unique Trader Proxy Office (-5% Market fee).
    • Transit Hubs could be thrown in as well, if we want to connect pop resettlement to the trade logistics system. Transit Hubs would do for pops what (starbase) Resource Silos do for resources (even if some despotic slavers may object to this dichotomy of their assets).
  • An implication is that if the trading station is disabled, every colony that depends on it loses access to the empire's global reserves and must manage on their own. It would be possible to cut trade for a colony by attacking its "trade route" rather than blockading the colony itself, even if this model is only a minimalistic approximation of a "real" trade route system.
  • This model should be much easier to code than the first option, and have a minimalistic CPU burden. There would be no need to check for the integrity of any connections beyond the first starbase. When checking whether a colony can access the global reserves, it would be enough to check 1) that the colony is not being blockaded directly, 2) that its connected trading stations are not all disabled, and perhaps also 3) that there is a safe path between the colony and at least one of its trading stations (this could also use the type of simple static trade route described in the first trade route option, to minimize the pathing checks the CPU needs to deal with).
  • Barbaric Despoilers and Letters of Marque approve of trade being channeled via giant Resource Silos in space.
• There may be other, better solutions that I have not thought of yet.

The Colonist job, the Reassembled Ship Shelter building, and the Colony designation may all need to be tweaked. New colonies could lack the capacity to trade for their upkeep needs, especially if access to the empire's global reserves was to require a trade route (and could not be taken for granted). Therefore, and also because it seems flavourfully appropriate, new colonies should be able to be sufficiently self-sufficient to develop without external funding of their upkeep.

• The basic production of the new colony should be sufficient to reach one district of each type without running an upkeep deficit at any step in-between. This requires fodder and Consumer Goods for pop upkeep before those districts have been built, Energy for building/district upkeep before an energy district has been built, and that the colony also needs to afford getting a mining district before getting the industrial district.
• The Reassembled Ship Shelter could be changed to producing Energy, rather than consuming it. This could be explained as the reactor of the colony ship being used to supply the initial needs of the colony. (For gestalt empires, perhaps the easiest solution is to make them also get it as their starting planetary capital building.)
• The Colony designation could reduce pop upkeep. This could be explained with lower expectations and a frontier spirit. (This would make it a bad idea to switch a colony to a specialised designation without the ability to support it via trade.)
• The Colonist job could be changed to produce enough fodder (Food or Minerals) and Consumer Goods to support a few other pops.
• Some protections for AI and new or careless players could be necessary:
  • If a colony lacks trade access to the global reserves, it could be blocked from constructing any district or building when it cannot afford the added upkeep. This means that isolated new colonies could essentially be locked into building fodder and energy districts first, followed by a mining district and finally an industrial district (or similar buildings). This could also apply to upgrading the planetary capital, taking into account the effects of the colony-specific bonuses that would go away.
• The exact values would depend on the goals we wanted to achieve. Should a colony be viable for Wasteful pops living with Utopian Abundance on a 0% Habitability Tomb World without trade support, or should the values be set with a 60% Habitability world of averages in mind? Which Stability and Habitability levels should be assumed when determining what the early colony bonuses need to be? And so on, and so forth.
• Habitats and other special worlds would also need to be carefully considered.

 

[Edorath]

Fissile Cores is the species unique mutation for the Crystalline Entity Space Fauna ships. It makes it so that when the ship is killed it splits into two smaller ships. It is not modded content. It comes with the Grand Archive DLC. To my way of thinking I got sold an unfinished product due to this bug. That is why I am unhappy about it. An entire chunk of the event chain is missing in the code. I've filed a bug report but I will make noise about this until I am banned, the game dies, or it gets fixed.

i got fissile cores on release so i don't know what the hell you're talking about

 

[Ikael]

What worries me about Focus Trees is that if you 'need' to roll particular techs for your empire 'build', then the random draw system is just getting in the way. It's not taking your society in new directions, it's just slowing you down in the one direction you've already chosen. This sort of player will not be satisfied by this compromise, and the busywork it requires, while the card draw still exists. "I just want to research Cruisers now, why do I have to do all this extra stuff?". There is another current thread with this same complaint: The biggest problem I have with Stellaris

I think that the thread you linked also touches on a different topic other than tech RNG that I would love to see it tackled on this brave new pop rework: please end with the supremacy of alloys + research.

Yes, other economic paths are possible in the current system, but most of them are also quite suboptimal and self-crippling compared to alloyscience. And yes, a big part of that problem lies in the fact that, in the end, everything reverts back into creating a bigger doomstack; with very few options to invest in your own development. Especially if you don't have all of the DLC and thus, have no kilostructures, planetary rings, and the like.

Master of Orion 2 is one previous example of a game with a simple trade logistics system.

I(...)

A MoO2-similar system for Stellaris could look something like this:

[SNIP]

Hah, I had exactly the same system in mind (minus all the Pacifier and edge cases shenanigans). I would be OK with it, but I am still a bit saddened about the impossibility of having "real", visible trade routes in the map between systems (instead of the facsimile invisible pseudo-trade routes that the old system offered). The gods of performance should be appeased over my space silk route fantasies, I guess.