Stellaris Dev Diary #369 - 4.0 Changes: Part 3

[grommile]

One more consideration: shall all previous saves be unusable because they were using the previous economic rules aka; do I (again) suffer the loss of thousands of hours of my time ultra- microing numerous empires?

Yes, the changes to pops, all by themselves, are enough to invalidate your old saves.

 

[Critical Ethics]

There's a lot of things you could do to revive the old resources, and I would never say no to more planetary features.
(As an aside I'd love more features for habitats, ecumenopolis and machine worlds... I've never liked them being completely blank and identical creations...)

But I would prefer to use the old unique resources to make trade enclaves more interesting as the current deals for gas/crystal/motes are mostly useless to me, and the leaders and council positions completely useless for gestalts. My idea is to keep the idea of trade routes but in a less performance intensive form, add peaceful gameplay for traders and also add some cosmetic trade ships to key systems to make the game feel more active and alive.

I'm personally not a big fan of adding more empire-wide +XX% bonuses. I think there's far too many already and I'd throw the strategic resource edicts right in the trash tomorrow if I could to replace the ship based ones by beefing up t2+ augments and slapping SR-costs on them.

I'd find the named resources far more interesting as special variants of the default strategic resources. Each Teldar crystal deposit being +1 Rare Crystal and +X Engineering is way less powerful than +10% projectile damage, but I find the former far more tangible. Also them being neat but reasonable means you can bring them in from many sources. One trader enclave sells Muutagen Crystals and Satramene Gas (+1 crystal/gas and +X Unity) and you can find them as orbital or planetary deposits. Heck, you can even slap some trade value on them, make your miners help pay for shipping their minerals.

 

[Connacht]

I would like to see a MegaCorp origin where you are a private enterprise thst was allowed by an already kickstarter empire to establish private offworld trading companies, minerary prospectors, colonization screenings, if not pre-terraforming efforts. You will have unique mechanics as you play like the space Indies Company, or like Weyland-Yutani... until you can turn the tables and become the ruler. You can become so rich that you can purchase your originary system (maybe with a bit of corruption), or a mercenary fleet to fight back.

A fun thing to do would be to add offshot MegaCorps that can form after some time if your policies allow them, you can threat them as a particular kind of vassals, but with particular mechanics to extract wealth, and they will bite you back once they become powerful enough. High risks, high gains, high losses.

I would also like a preset human megacorp. And multiple megacorps competing for branch offices.

 

[Darvroth]

Hello everyone!

Today we’re going to take a glance at the Trade and Logistics changes coming in the Stellaris 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update, then check out some new portraits.

Trade and Logistics​

Trade as a Standard Resource​

The Trade system introduced in the Stellaris 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ update was raised as an especially frequent point of confusion for many players. UX issues around disconnected trade stations combined with some quirks of being a modifier based system (like ignoring habitability) made some of it unintuitive. The system had a major impact on performance as well, so while examining Stellaris for optimizations, we decided that we wanted to revamp the system.

In 4.0, Trade will become a standard advanced resource, generally produced in the same way as before, but will follow all of the standard rules around resource-producing jobs. The Trade Routes system has been removed - any produced Trade will be immediately collected like any other normal resource.

View attachment 1250943
We’ve done some cleanup to the top bar while we were in there.​

Logistical Upkeep​

Hello, @Gruntsatwork here, with Eladrin’s UI wizardry done, I shall step in to reveal some of our trade secrets to you.

The majority of your trade upkeep will come from 2 sources in the new system.

First, local planetary deficits will carry a small trade upkeep, a fraction of the missing resources value on the galactic market. This represents the logistical effort required to commandeer freighters to supply a world that is not self-sufficient and therefore requires resources to be transported in from off-world. Mind you, this will occur in addition to normal deficits, if your entire empire is not capable of supplying those needs either.

In short, your planets will either satisfy their own local needs, or require trade to offset the logistics cost.

The second major trade upkeep will come from Fleets. Any fleets currently docked at one of your starbases have no trade upkeep.

Once your fleets start to move they will gain a small Trade Upkeep, representing the logistical efforts required to support them. This small upkeep will increase if your fleets are in hostile territory – that is territory owned by another empire you are at war with, as supplying them becomes so much more dangerous and space insurance coverage is no joke.

In the future, logistical upkeep could potentially be used to counter-act Doomstacking, for example by scaling upkeep with the number of ships in a fleet, dividing by the number of fleets, fleets per system etc, we have no concrete solution yet, but welcome your thoughts.

With these new sources of trade upkeep, it is of course important to mention that we will also introduce a new trade deficit. Like Unity, this will not create a Deficit Situation but a country modifier that persists until the deficit is dealt with. Running a trade deficit will reduce advanced resource production (alloys, consumer goods, unity, and research) and all ship weapons damage.

Stockpiling Trade and Using Trade in the Market​

Our intent is for Trade Policies to continue to exist going forward. Currently, we expect to have half of your net Trade income (after paying Logistical Upkeep) converted to other resources using your Trade Policy, plus any that might otherwise overflow your storage. Some of the current Trade Policies may be tweaked a bit. The rest will go into your resource stockpile as an advanced resource.

In addition, the galactic market has been adjusted so that its primary trading resource is Trade. As such, energy is now available on the market as a standard resource. The energy storage cap has been brought to the same level as minerals and food, while Trade’s storage cap has been set to 50.000 at the base level.

As we are in the middle of implementation, we are adjusting this as we receive internal feedback and will continue to do so when it is time for our open beta.

We will be keeping a close eye on the value of trade as a resource. If necessary, we’ll keep turning the dials to ensure it is an actually interesting resource to focus on.

For modders, the main market resource is set as a define and can be switched to something else.

On the subject of logistics.​

There should be a number of variables used to calculate fleet trade consumption: 1) Upgrade level (and possibly buildings on) of the supporting starbase, 2) Distance from the starbase, 3) % of the fleet being supported by that starbase relative to the overall size of the empires fleet (this can penalize doom stacks but need not stop them), 4) Is the path from the supporting starbase to the fleet contiguous or has the enemy severed the trade link? If so assign a penalty for the number of turns that condition persists. 5) Introduce a ship "A" module that supplies (fleet logistics / trade module) for that ship for X turns if cut off from supply and / or act as a bonus against the fleet trade calculation, 6) Consider the roll of a dedicated logistics ship that sacrifices combat power to ensure the fleet retains operational and strategic mobility. 7) This is an opportunity to also introduce other logistic ship types such as a tender which can impact armor and hull repair rates outside of combat without having to put those specific modules on each ship to gain the benefit. 8) Consider doing fleet supply calculations (for all types) based on the fleet rather than the individual assigned ships. 9) This could allow for a new fleet policy that prioritizes one or more fleets if an empire lacks sufficient trade to support the entire fleet but still needs one or more fleets to retain combat potential. 10) While perhaps unnecessarily complicating the rock vs paper vs scissors of Stellaris combat mechanics, some weapon types particularly missile and strike craft based fleets will be trade hungry. Perhaps assign a logistic value to the various weapon systems. If done it would be passive, in control of the player and impact planning and play if it is know some weapon systems consume more trade than competing systems which could add flavor to the player research and ship design choices. Additionally, that could open up new technologies that impact the needed trade support of some systems.

​

​

 

[Ajacoba]

There should be a number of variables used to calculate fleet trade consumption: 1) Upgrade level (and possibly buildings on) of the supporting starbase, 2) Distance from the starbase, 3) % of the fleet being supported by that starbase relative to the overall size of the empires fleet (this can penalize doom stacks but need not stop them), 4) Is the path from the supporting starbase to the fleet contiguous or has the enemy severed the trade link? If so assign a penalty for the number of turns that condition persists. 5) Introduce a ship "A" module that supplies (fleet logistics / trade module) for that ship for X turns if cut off from supply and / or act as a bonus against the fleet trade calculation, 6) Consider the roll of a dedicated logistics ship that sacrifices combat power to ensure the fleet retains operational and strategic mobility. 7) This is an opportunity to also introduce other logistic ship types such as a tender which can impact armor and hull repair rates outside of combat without having to put those specific modules on each ship to gain the benefit. 8) Consider doing fleet supply calculations (for all types) based on the fleet rather than the individual assigned ships. 9) This could allow for a new fleet policy that prioritizes one or more fleets if an empire lacks sufficient trade to support the entire fleet but still needs one or more fleets to retain combat potential. 10) While perhaps unnecessarily complicating the rock vs paper vs scissors of Stellaris combat mechanics, some weapon types particularly missile and strike craft based fleets will be trade hungry. Perhaps assign a logistic value to the various weapon systems. If done it would be passive, in control of the player and impact planning and play if it is know some weapon systems consume more trade than competing systems which could add flavor to the player research and ship design choices. Additionally, that could open up new technologies that impact the needed trade support of some systems.

they already said there's several factors to the upkeep cost
also it's a bit early to make suggestions for improvement when we don't even know how the hell it actually works in practice

 

[Akkadian]

Once your fleets start to move they will gain a small Trade Upkeep, representing the logistical efforts required to support them. This small upkeep will increase if your fleets are in hostile territory – that is territory owned by another empire you are at war with, as supplying them becomes so much more dangerous and space insurance coverage is no joke.

This is an interesting concept and a a fantastic opportunity to create meaningful logistics gameplay as follows:

• fleets could have a trade upkeep, but they should have a separate ''logistics upkeep" resource
• fleet logistics upkeep must increase exponentially the further away the fleet is from friendly territory (signifying the longer and more complex logistics chains)
• fleet logistics upkeep must increase exponentially the larger the fleet is.
• replace fleet capacity with logistics capacity. have each fleet assigned to a logistics base (a base can support multiple fleets).
• introduce starbase module (or new starbase type) "fleet logistics station" which provides a ''logistics capacity" value. This capacity is consumed by both distance and fleet size, creating a strategic choice. e.g, logistics capacity = 100, it can either support a fleet requiring 100 logistics for 1 system further, or a fleet requiring 10 logistics for 10 systems (in fact less, depending on exponentiality in points 1 & 2)
• This works regardless if it's a friendly and hostile system (this creates logistics bases mechanic and strategic logistics planning)
• Planets could have buildings that increase logistics capacity for starbase in their system (it's logical and adds strategic depth to logistics planning)
• fleets at less than 100% armor/hull should have significantly increased alloy upkeep (signifying the materials needed to repair the fleet)
• fleet logistics lines should be visible on the map, highlighting a link between the fleet and the starbase it's linked to
• fleet logistics lines must be protected, just like in real life! if an enemy can manage to interrupt the logistics line of a fleet, the fleet starts suffering penalties and losing shields, armor, damage output every X days until they regain control over those lines, then gradually start to gain those back

I have so many design concepts and ideas, perhaps I should be a game designer at Paradox

 

[Ajacoba]

Just remember that any fleet logistics mechanic has to be forgiving enough that you can fight the crisis forces at the literal opposite end of the galaxy - or when you're using your quantum catapult for strategic moves beyond anyone's comprehension, OR when you're using jump drives to jump to a place that's "nearby" but in reality like 20 jumps away according to actual hyperlanes

If the fleet logistics turn into something silly like the eater of worlds with its +200% upkeep while not at war then at best the AI will be crippled and at worst players will become unable to go to war without going broke way ahead of war exhaustion filling up

Also if it's constantly tracking an actual distance to your territory wouldn't that just turn into another lag source from all the hypothetical path finding? War is already one of the main reasons for lag, every time an empire starts a crisis total war or a regular crisis gets declared the focus of the community my game slows down trying to keep track of every single empire deciding to move all their fleets simultaneously

 

[grommile]

• fleet logistics upkeep must increase exponentially the further away the fleet is from friendly territory (signifying the longer and more complex logistics chains)

The part of your logistics upkeep that should (logically) be exponential is not the supply cost of the fleet itself, but the supply cost of the fleet supply tenders that haul the supplies out to your fleet.

Which is hopefully quite small compared to the supply cost of the fleet, just like the supply cost of hauling fuel to forward military bases is quite small compared to the supply cost of the armoured vehicles you're supplying with fuel.

• fleet logistics upkeep must increase exponentially the larger the fleet is.

Maaaaybe linearithmic (N log N)... but honestly, making it anything other than pure linear in fleet size causes all sorts of weirdness.

• fleets at less than 100% armor/hull should have significantly increased alloy upkeep (signifying the materials needed to repair the fleet)

Field repair is only a thing in the first place if you have the technology to make it happen. By default, ships only repair armour/hull when they are docked at a suitable facility.

Now, having repairs cost alloys? I am absolutely here for that.

• fleet logistics lines should be visible on the map, highlighting a link between the fleet and the starbase it's linked to

The whole reason for abolishing Trade Routes in the first place is to get away from heavy pathfinding load.

• fleet logistics lines must be protected, just like in real life! if an enemy can manage to interrupt the logistics line of a fleet,

If a player who is not running on Max Hyperlanes actually has meaningful exposure on this score, they probably picked a fight they had no business picking... or they're fighting the Crisis.

I have so many design concepts and ideas, perhaps I should be a game designer at Paradox

Ideas are free. Even good ideas are cheap.

 

[Halfedead_Harry]

Just remember that any fleet logistics mechanic has to be forgiving enough that you can fight the crisis forces at the literal opposite end of the galaxy

Sounds like a reason to buff crisis related galactic focuses to provide supply to all GalCom members until crisis is over. Same with "War in Heaven" focus.

 

[Jamaican Castle]

Also if it's constantly tracking an actual distance to your territory wouldn't that just turn into another lag source from all the hypothetical path finding?

Number of jumps to friendly territory should be fairly easy to cache, it will only really change when your borders do. It wouldn't be nothing but it also shouldn't be a recurring issue like trade is. (Trade needs to know every month whether it can be collected, which is a bigger performance hit.)

making it anything other than pure linear in fleet size causes all sorts of weirdness.

In particular, scaling based on fleet size encourages you to divide your fleets into tiny chunks that follow each other around, which is probably not a great experience for anybody.

 

[Ilab]

I have a question about this. I have been planning to ask it for a while, but have been busy.

First, let me say that I like the idea of logistics a lot.

I have an issue, either I do not understand it, or something is wrong.

We had logistics before in a different way (for ships I mean). Naval cap. Increased by soldiers. It seemed obvious to me that naval cap was this capability the empire had to employ their military to supply ships with crew, ammo and other supplies.

I think that trade SHOULD be involved in planet logistics, BUT for ships, it should be soldiers. The change would mean that it is more concise (it makes no sense for civilian ships/traders to be supplying ammo to my fleets in hostile territory for instance, but it does so for military convoys for instance)

This shouldn't affect much in terms of development. It would just (I know it is not 'just', but I am trying to say that the system doesn't need to be implemented for this, but just applied here to) be applying a similar treatment to soldiers. Soldiers are a bad job, you only want them on choke points that might need to delay fleets or when you are way above naval cap, as then they become better than technicians for example. But they do very little, a technician is generally better as it not only allows for a more general resource but is not sitting useless when not needed too.

If traders produced 'civilian' or planet logistics, it makes sense. While soldiers produce 'fleet' logistics. Giving them a better use, and even making them needed. I have ran empires with 0 soldiers jobs, just getting fleet cap from traits, anchorages and other means. Which feels wrong. I mean, who are the crews of the ships, who brings them supplies? My leader on his personal yacht?

You get my drift. I think this would be better. while also allowing NON TRADE empires that are warlike to be competitive at war. With the current proposal, trade empires would have a military logistic capability unfitting of them. At the same time, a warrior nation might have awful planet logistics, but awesome military ones.

EDIT: to clarify something that can be misunderstood. One thing is the 'delivery' and another the production. In all cases the nations need to produce the 'ammo' and 'train' the replacement crews sent to the front. BUT like in real life, those who deliver it, are the military, not civilians (Remember that I am only talking about fleet logistics, planets should continue with civilian infrastructure). So, just as for civilian trade someone needs to produce that and traders 'kinda' move it around and profit. For military logistics, you produce those, and soldiers move them around. Keep in mind that before now, trade WAS NOT the goods. But rather a representation of trade volume. Which is why you needed consumer goods. Traders 'sold' those consumer goods, generating profits. This stays the same in all described scenarios.

 

[Bitula]

The Trade Routes system has been removed

You mean the full trade layout where you can see and manage routes? The collection system with starbases and trade nodes? The pirates, the trade protection mechanics, the piracy suppression on ships? All this gone? How is this a feature? It sounds rather like a removal of a complete dimension of game mechanics. But I hope I just misunderstand something.

 

[icedKakashi]

Hello everyone!

Today we’re going to take a glance at the Trade and Logistics changes coming in the Stellaris 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update, then check out some new portraits.

Trade and Logistics​

Trade as a Standard Resource​

The Trade system introduced in the Stellaris 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ update was raised as an especially frequent point of confusion for many players. UX issues around disconnected trade stations combined with some quirks of being a modifier based system (like ignoring habitability) made some of it unintuitive. The system had a major impact on performance as well, so while examining Stellaris for optimizations, we decided that we wanted to revamp the system.

In 4.0, Trade will become a standard advanced resource, generally produced in the same way as before, but will follow all of the standard rules around resource-producing jobs. The Trade Routes system has been removed - any produced Trade will be immediately collected like any other normal resource.

View attachment 1250943
We’ve done some cleanup to the top bar while we were in there.​

Logistical Upkeep​

Hello, @Gruntsatwork here, with Eladrin’s UI wizardry done, I shall step in to reveal some of our trade secrets to you.

The majority of your trade upkeep will come from 2 sources in the new system.

First, local planetary deficits will carry a small trade upkeep, a fraction of the missing resources value on the galactic market. This represents the logistical effort required to commandeer freighters to supply a world that is not self-sufficient and therefore requires resources to be transported in from off-world. Mind you, this will occur in addition to normal deficits, if your entire empire is not capable of supplying those needs either.

In short, your planets will either satisfy their own local needs, or require trade to offset the logistics cost.

The second major trade upkeep will come from Fleets. Any fleets currently docked at one of your starbases have no trade upkeep.

Once your fleets start to move they will gain a small Trade Upkeep, representing the logistical efforts required to support them. This small upkeep will increase if your fleets are in hostile territory – that is territory owned by another empire you are at war with, as supplying them becomes so much more dangerous and space insurance coverage is no joke.

In the future, logistical upkeep could potentially be used to counter-act Doomstacking, for example by scaling upkeep with the number of ships in a fleet, dividing by the number of fleets, fleets per system etc, we have no concrete solution yet, but welcome your thoughts.

With these new sources of trade upkeep, it is of course important to mention that we will also introduce a new trade deficit. Like Unity, this will not create a Deficit Situation but a country modifier that persists until the deficit is dealt with. Running a trade deficit will reduce advanced resource production (alloys, consumer goods, unity, and research) and all ship weapons damage.

Stockpiling Trade and Using Trade in the Market​

Our intent is for Trade Policies to continue to exist going forward. Currently, we expect to have half of your net Trade income (after paying Logistical Upkeep) converted to other resources using your Trade Policy, plus any that might otherwise overflow your storage. Some of the current Trade Policies may be tweaked a bit. The rest will go into your resource stockpile as an advanced resource.

In addition, the galactic market has been adjusted so that its primary trading resource is Trade. As such, energy is now available on the market as a standard resource. The energy storage cap has been brought to the same level as minerals and food, while Trade’s storage cap has been set to 50.000 at the base level.

As we are in the middle of implementation, we are adjusting this as we receive internal feedback and will continue to do so when it is time for our open beta.

We will be keeping a close eye on the value of trade as a resource. If necessary, we’ll keep turning the dials to ensure it is an actually interesting resource to focus on.

For modders, the main market resource is set as a define and can be switched to something else.

Gestalt Empires and Trade​

Rejoice, friends of bugs and bolts, for you too will be able to enjoy the benefits of trade starting with 4.0.

As part of the Phoenix update, Gestalt empires will be able to collect trade like normal empires do, from both jobs and deposits.

In contrast to normal empires, Gestalt empires will rarely do so with Traders and Clerks, instead their most basic drones, maintenance drones for example, will create trade in addition to their normal resources and modifiers. In addition, they will also have access to Trade Policies, to enrich their common wallet.

Of course, with benefits come drawbacks, and so Gestalt Empires will also deal with the logistical upkeep for local planetary deficits and Fleets that are not docked and/or within hostile territory. The Galactic Market will of course also accept gestalt trade as its main resource.

In the future, we are also considering Megacorp Gestalt Empires, for your corporate drone needs, but whether we will have time to do that for 4.0 or later remains to be seen.

Corporate Branch Office Updates​

For Branch Offices, we have a plethora of improvements ready for your enjoyment, courtesy of our ever industrious Mr.Cosmogone.

Branch office buildings are now all limited to 1 per planet and now give more appropriate jobs to the host planet. They also increase local trade production based on those jobs and their corporate resource output is in turn increased by local trade.

Most Corporate Civics now also give bonuses to a specific branch office building, increasing its trade value bonus and receiving Merchant jobs on their Capital from it.

Numerous changes have been made to Criminal Syndicates:

• Criminal Empires can now establish commercial pacts. Having a commercial pact with a Criminal Empire will replace all criminal buildings with their "lawful" counterpart. As long as the commercial pact remains, criminal branch offices will not be removed from the planet.
• All Criminal branch office buildings have had their crime value set to 25 and give one Criminal Job alongside a regular Job.
• We have also added a crime floor to non-criminal branch office buildings on empires they have a trade agreement with, which means there will always be a minimum amount of crime on the branch office planet. Criminal branch offices are also up to 25% more profitable on high crime planets.

Balance-wise, these buildings are more impactful, so branch office buildings now cost influence, and branch offices now take up 5 empire size instead of 2.

Oh, and we have also allowed Megacorps to open branch offices on other Megacorps... The influence cost is doubled when built on a planet owned by another Megacorp.

Mammalian Portraits​

Thanks, Gruntsatwork. Now a message from Content Design Lead @CGInglis :

And now my deer friends, one mooo-re surprise for you! The Stellaris 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update brings ten paws-itively stunning new Mammalian portraits to the base game!

View attachment 1250944
Glass of milk, standing in between extinction in the cold, and explosive radiating growth…


View attachment 1250945
View attachment 1250946
View attachment 1250947
View attachment 1250948​

Next Week​

Next week we’ll start talking about how Pops will change and might pull up the new Planet UI. Since the branch itself is still very full of placeholders, we’ll be using the design mockups while explaining the changes.

See you then!

Tell me! What’s Americas real life fleets trade upkeep since they’re so far away from America and that clearly means they can’t support it right? Oh wait, they don’t actually have any because it’s not real? So a country with only 50 states can support their fleets being far away but the space empire with 100s of planets can’t? Lmfao. Sounds about Stellaris

 

[-Marauder-]

Every time you invade the capital you have a fixed chance to steal their relics

It increases if you have the despoiler civic and use their special casus belli

You just need to use espionage to get enough insights so you can check the victory screen for who even has relics in the first place

A tiny chance, a "Steal Relic" war goal was once asked about if there was any interest, at the time there was and supposedly it was coming. Then we never heard about it again.

 

[-Marauder-]

Tell me! What’s Americas real life fleets trade upkeep since they’re so far away from America and that clearly means they can’t support it right? Oh wait, they don’t actually have any because it’s not real? So a country with only 50 states can support their fleets being far away but the space empire with 100s of planets can’t? Lmfao. Sounds about Stellaris

You could write an endless well thought out post about this, Eldarin won't care nor change his plans. He doesn't like the game as it was when he took over and has worked tirelessly ever since to pretty much turn it into something else entirely. Including bringing back old mechanics that were discarded for a reason, to the applause of a small group of very active forum users, many of whom weren't even around back then.

 

[methegrate]

Re: fleets, would it be possible to add a system for cutting off fleets from support? Basically, if they do not have a clear path back to the nearest home starbase, their trade upkeep goes through the roof to represent the logistical challenges of supplying ships across a hostile blockade. Since fleets already have their pathing tracked for reinforcements, could that same system be used to keep track of their logistics and supply?

I think one of the issues that has always allowed/supported/encouraged doomstacking is how you can easily just send one fleet rampaging through enemy territory. There's no limit on how far a single stack of ships can go, especially if you can capture a starbase for repairs, and so no particular need for multiple fleets.

Doomstacking might be less effective if there was pushback on that. This might help, since you would need to move more methodically and secure the territory behind you, otherwise smaller and more nimble fleets could simply cut you off and leave you vulnerable.

 

[Kvesir]

I think removing trade routes is a downgrade to gameplay. Sure, you didn't have to do much to set up a trade route, and it was inherently inefficient, but it actually did impose requirements on your empire: to make use of the trade value generated by your planets/stations you had to ensure that a route to your capital could exist and to defend it with stations or patrol fleets. Removing these restrictions removes some of the strategy from the game.

Besides, the trade routes system tied trade to what it actually supposed to represent: commercial activity across space. If trade is a resource that is produced and accumulated like minerals, what does it actually mean? How do you accumulate "logistics"? What does it mean for one of your planet to produce all of the "logistics" in your empire? In the trade routes system the meaning was clear: that this planet has more traders passing through it.

Ideally I would not want the trade routes system removed, I would want it to be tweaked and improved. I would want the trade routes to form automatically between planets, and across borders as well. I would want the player interaction with this system to not be clicking it once and forgetting about it but rather building up infastructure in stations and planets that improve the trade routes - and infastructure should be the primary source of trade value as a resource (with jobs just amplifying their value), representing the flow of goods that are bought and sold (with your empire getting income from this commerce as a tax) and also giving meaning to the usage of trade as a "logistics currency".

If the reason trade routes are being removed is that the pathfinding is way too performance heavy, then at least we should appreciate that trade and logistics require infastructure to facilitate space travel (in routes which we are now completely obscuring). So at least replace the trade routes system with a new system that requires us to build infastructure - determine whether or not a planet is "connected" based on the space travel range (similar to trade collection range) produced by stations or buildings, and if it isn't then the trade produced in it gets a big penalty...

Also, if gestalt empires also use trade, it definitely should not be called "trade" for them, but rather "logistics" or something.

 

[Adams1324]

Hello everyone!

Today we’re going to take a glance at the Trade and Logistics changes coming in the Stellaris 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update, then check out some new portraits.

Trade and Logistics​

Trade as a Standard Resource​

The Trade system introduced in the Stellaris 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ update was raised as an especially frequent point of confusion for many players. UX issues around disconnected trade stations combined with some quirks of being a modifier based system (like ignoring habitability) made some of it unintuitive. The system had a major impact on performance as well, so while examining Stellaris for optimizations, we decided that we wanted to revamp the system.

In 4.0, Trade will become a standard advanced resource, generally produced in the same way as before, but will follow all of the standard rules around resource-producing jobs. The Trade Routes system has been removed - any produced Trade will be immediately collected like any other normal resource.

View attachment 1250943
We’ve done some cleanup to the top bar while we were in there.​

Logistical Upkeep​

Hello, @Gruntsatwork here, with Eladrin’s UI wizardry done, I shall step in to reveal some of our trade secrets to you.

The majority of your trade upkeep will come from 2 sources in the new system.

First, local planetary deficits will carry a small trade upkeep, a fraction of the missing resources value on the galactic market. This represents the logistical effort required to commandeer freighters to supply a world that is not self-sufficient and therefore requires resources to be transported in from off-world. Mind you, this will occur in addition to normal deficits, if your entire empire is not capable of supplying those needs either.

In short, your planets will either satisfy their own local needs, or require trade to offset the logistics cost.

The second major trade upkeep will come from Fleets. Any fleets currently docked at one of your starbases have no trade upkeep.

Once your fleets start to move they will gain a small Trade Upkeep, representing the logistical efforts required to support them. This small upkeep will increase if your fleets are in hostile territory – that is territory owned by another empire you are at war with, as supplying them becomes so much more dangerous and space insurance coverage is no joke.

In the future, logistical upkeep could potentially be used to counter-act Doomstacking, for example by scaling upkeep with the number of ships in a fleet, dividing by the number of fleets, fleets per system etc, we have no concrete solution yet, but welcome your thoughts.

With these new sources of trade upkeep, it is of course important to mention that we will also introduce a new trade deficit. Like Unity, this will not create a Deficit Situation but a country modifier that persists until the deficit is dealt with. Running a trade deficit will reduce advanced resource production (alloys, consumer goods, unity, and research) and all ship weapons damage.

Stockpiling Trade and Using Trade in the Market​

Our intent is for Trade Policies to continue to exist going forward. Currently, we expect to have half of your net Trade income (after paying Logistical Upkeep) converted to other resources using your Trade Policy, plus any that might otherwise overflow your storage. Some of the current Trade Policies may be tweaked a bit. The rest will go into your resource stockpile as an advanced resource.

In addition, the galactic market has been adjusted so that its primary trading resource is Trade. As such, energy is now available on the market as a standard resource. The energy storage cap has been brought to the same level as minerals and food, while Trade’s storage cap has been set to 50.000 at the base level.

As we are in the middle of implementation, we are adjusting this as we receive internal feedback and will continue to do so when it is time for our open beta.

We will be keeping a close eye on the value of trade as a resource. If necessary, we’ll keep turning the dials to ensure it is an actually interesting resource to focus on.

For modders, the main market resource is set as a define and can be switched to something else.

Gestalt Empires and Trade​

Rejoice, friends of bugs and bolts, for you too will be able to enjoy the benefits of trade starting with 4.0.

As part of the Phoenix update, Gestalt empires will be able to collect trade like normal empires do, from both jobs and deposits.

In contrast to normal empires, Gestalt empires will rarely do so with Traders and Clerks, instead their most basic drones, maintenance drones for example, will create trade in addition to their normal resources and modifiers. In addition, they will also have access to Trade Policies, to enrich their common wallet.

Of course, with benefits come drawbacks, and so Gestalt Empires will also deal with the logistical upkeep for local planetary deficits and Fleets that are not docked and/or within hostile territory. The Galactic Market will of course also accept gestalt trade as its main resource.

In the future, we are also considering Megacorp Gestalt Empires, for your corporate drone needs, but whether we will have time to do that for 4.0 or later remains to be seen.

Corporate Branch Office Updates​

For Branch Offices, we have a plethora of improvements ready for your enjoyment, courtesy of our ever industrious Mr.Cosmogone.

Branch office buildings are now all limited to 1 per planet and now give more appropriate jobs to the host planet. They also increase local trade production based on those jobs and their corporate resource output is in turn increased by local trade.

Most Corporate Civics now also give bonuses to a specific branch office building, increasing its trade value bonus and receiving Merchant jobs on their Capital from it.

Numerous changes have been made to Criminal Syndicates:

• Criminal Empires can now establish commercial pacts. Having a commercial pact with a Criminal Empire will replace all criminal buildings with their "lawful" counterpart. As long as the commercial pact remains, criminal branch offices will not be removed from the planet.
• All Criminal branch office buildings have had their crime value set to 25 and give one Criminal Job alongside a regular Job.
• We have also added a crime floor to non-criminal branch office buildings on empires they have a trade agreement with, which means there will always be a minimum amount of crime on the branch office planet. Criminal branch offices are also up to 25% more profitable on high crime planets.

Balance-wise, these buildings are more impactful, so branch office buildings now cost influence, and branch offices now take up 5 empire size instead of 2.

Oh, and we have also allowed Megacorps to open branch offices on other Megacorps... The influence cost is doubled when built on a planet owned by another Megacorp.

Mammalian Portraits​

Thanks, Gruntsatwork. Now a message from Content Design Lead @CGInglis :

And now my deer friends, one mooo-re surprise for you! The Stellaris 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update brings ten paws-itively stunning new Mammalian portraits to the base game!

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Glass of milk, standing in between extinction in the cold, and explosive radiating growth…


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Next Week​

Next week we’ll start talking about how Pops will change and might pull up the new Planet UI. Since the branch itself is still very full of placeholders, we’ll be using the design mockups while explaining the changes.

See you then!

My major concern to fleet logistics is that it will become something that will only restrict the player. That logistics will be either so small for the AI or that the AI will just ignore that to continue doom stacking while players just suffer. The AI already stacks every last fleet they have in one group. It will need adjustments so that it stops doing that.

 

[-Marauder-]

My major concern to fleet logistics is that it will become something that will only restrict the player. That logistics will be either so small for the AI or that the AI will just ignore that to continue doom stacking while players just suffer. The AI already stacks every last fleet they have in one group. It will need adjustments so that it stops doing that.

I don't think Eladrin really cares, because he keeps adding mechanics like this to the game which usually add little and make much worse ever since he took over the game has been on a continuous decline in that regard.