Stellaris Dev Diary #369 - 4.0 Changes: Part 3

[Ajacoba]

God, if you guys hate doomstacks so much then just stop using them, spread your fleets out and flank the hell outta your enemies

If you have several fleets against one big one you can just take systems and worlds and every time they catch up to one of your fleets you can just emergency jump out and restart the chase at the nearest starbase

Also since several updates ago all planets that get conquered instantly stop contributing to the economy until they're reclaimed, meaning you can bully your doomstacking opponent real good when you flank them and cut off their supply lines at the very roots

And since you're running around with several fleets rather than one singular doomstack you will capture territory way faster than your enemy will

Which means they either lose by insisting on a doom stack, lose all territory outside their chosen chokepoint or they split up and fight you on your own terms

Just like the Romans with Hannibal, winning by not fighting him

 

[The Founder]

The logistics aspect of the change is a great idea though. The total lack of locality in resources and the resulting ultra-specialized planets has always felt unrealistic, so it's great to see something done about that. Will be great if it makes it so we'll want to have one or two agricultural and energy districts even on our mining worlds and so on. Adding ship upkeep to the equation dilutes the meaning of the trade resource though. At this point it kind of feels like the resource wants to be two different things: Measures of both financial trade and transportation logistics. Not sure about that one.

I think it will affect Ecunemnopolis and Ringworlds the most.
Industrial and Science need lots of imported raw materials.
Trade ones would be affected the least, as they only need the basic upkeep for the working population.

Only tall empires like this game anymore cause it’s literally a tall only playstyle.

This should penalize Tall Empires the most, because they are more dependant on hyper-specialisation and importing basic resources to the planets.
Any planetary deficit carries the cost - even if you satisfy it from space or market resources.

 

[The Founder]

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.

One option to consider is different "Logisitics Weights" for different resources.
Transporting Bulk Minerals should be harder the high quality alloys or consumer goods, even if the transported value is similar. It is just a lot less mass to move.
It might even be a consideration to have "processed" forms of all basic resources, even food.

The game Shadow Empire has a pretty complex system, but some resources travel for free. Mostly those required for the logistics system to work.

 

[Imp0815]

The game still objectively favors wide empires, with the notable exception of Virtual ascension. And even Virtual isn't actually on top (IIRC, a Natural Design Invasive Species hive rush beats its in a head to head, at least in PVP).

But for all other ascensions, wide is still at least slightly favored (though tall is definitely closer now than it has been).

The 9999 cap has been there for a long time, and there's no scenario other than the absurd challenge difficulties (25x crisis) where you actually need it. And it's not hard cap: you can keep building ships beyond it.

If you haven't noticed the hard cap before this patch, that actually means your empire never got wide enough to hit it before... which would imply that you're successfully going wider than ever.

100 planets is doable even in the dark days of Paragons, with its obnoxiously small total leader cap, though I can understand being very annoyed with this.

Oh snap, I did not read all of this discussion, but you are right! The fact that we now need Trade to sustain our fleet is actually an indirect nerf to Tall Empires. Trade production is a completely new necessary building type and resource, so playing tall will no longer be viable as a tech or non-trade empire.

Only if trade costs are so negligible that you can subsidize your fleet by selling resources—but since you can't really sell anything with science (maybe alloys, but that eats into your fleet budget just to have one). Well, this sounds like we're being railroaded even more into specific empire playstyles, and yet another new feature dies on the hill of uncapped fleet deployments.

 

[NoXeno]

It will be either encourage self sufficient worlds or make a "good and bed deficits" meta. How AI make galactic market looks like also will be something because the deficits cost is based on the market. Just don't be another Vic2 global market nonsense.

 

[Panzerslothen]

If energy is no longer used for the market, what uses will it have in 4.0. Just a resource for fleet upkeep and robots ? I feel energy has lost a lot of importance then.

Why would that necessarily be bad, though? It's not like it's going entirely, simply that more of what Energy used to be used for is switching over to Trade. How is this a problem?

And no, it wouldn't be only for Fleet and Robot upkeep. You pay for Building upkeep with Energy as well.

 

[Ajacoba]

Yeah, energy will be just like minerals and food

Something you bleed a little bit of everywhere by default, be it for population upkeep or building upkeep

 

[Abdulijubjub]

One option to consider is different "Logisitics Weights" for different resources.
Transporting Bulk Minerals should be harder the high quality alloys or consumer goods, even if the transported value is similar. It is just a lot less mass to move.
It might even be a consideration to have "processed" forms of all basic resources, even food.

The game Shadow Empire has a pretty complex system, but some resources travel for free. Mostly those required for the logistics system to work.

This is already represented by the relative value of 1 unit of goods.

1 unit of alloy is 4x as value-dense as a unit of the minerals/food that it's made from, and CG is 2x as dense.

 

[Ajacoba]

"But steel is heavier than feathers"

 

[Calvax]

Why would that necessarily be bad, though? It's not like it's going entirely, simply that more of what Energy used to be used for is switching over to Trade. How is this a problem?

And no, it wouldn't be only for Fleet and Robot upkeep. You pay for Building upkeep with Energy as well.

Minor thing but Dyson spheres might end up getting a buff from this. Currently they’ve been power creeped a fair bit with a good trade planet often able to produce more energy than them.

 

[Necromass]

Really like the new portraits they look much more in line with the rest of the species pool than the ones for the cyborg assets which stand out a lot.

Excited to experience how the economic rework freshens up the game, its been a very long time since I cared enough about trade to plan my star base placement for maximum collection and hopefully these changes will encourage more planning than just turning each world into a mono culture of one resource. How will ascending planets handle trade impact at some point the modifiers will outweigh the cost of specialising no?

 

[Gilbert95]

Any considerations for overlords that rely heavily on their vassals for basic resources? Seems like that would eat more logistics capacity.

 

[FiddleSticks96]

It seems like Trade Value will be filling the role of both "Currency" and "Logistics," giving it a bit of an identity crisis. Perhaps a future update should separate these two into their own respective resources. I could see Logistics being something more like a soft capacity, like Naval Capacity, than a resource.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Any considerations for overlords that rely heavily on their vassals for basic resources? Seems like that would eat more logistics capacity.

I like this as a potential curb on the madness that is vassal-swarm economies.

 

[wimvl9000]

It seems like Trade Value will be filling the role of both "Currency" and "Logistics," giving it a bit of an identity crisis. Perhaps a future update should separate these two into their own respective resources. I could see Logistics being something more like a soft capacity, like Naval Capacity, than a resource.

exactly like I mentioned in my post. Stellaris should get a proper currency and logistical system.

 

[Imp0815]

Yeah, energy will be just like minerals and food

Something you bleed a little bit of everywhere by default, be it for population upkeep or building upkeep

Oh boy, what is a Dyson Sphere even good for now? Energy is just upkeep, so why even bother? I bet you could power your whole empire with a single desert planet. It feels like it's becoming the new food—just a lesser version of minerals—not really contributing to fleet power until they slap on a band-aid like "energy-based ships" and say, "See? It’s not useless!"

But this change is bigger than it seems. It highlights how the gameplay loop is heavily built around funneling everything into fleet power. That said, maybe Dyson Spheres aren't completely worthless—they still let you shift more jobs into alloys and science.

 

[AvalancheZ250]

I understand that hyperlane-bound Trade Routes have been abstracted away into a numerical-only "Trade" value, and this is good for performance while maintaining the verisimilitude of economic activity. However, it does make me sad since this removes the possibility for choking and chokepoints aimed at Trade Routes. You could cripple a Trade-based Empire by taking a crucial system in their biggest Trade Route.

While not as important in peacetime, could there potentially be a system where military fleets (during wartime only) are still supplied by hyperlane-bound Trade Routes, which are susceptible to disruption/blockade? Instead of just being a general scaling modifier the deeper you go into enemy territory. This would make logistics a tactical aspect in war, with fleets having effects on the war even outside of direct fleet battles.

 

[SDP101]

I klmust be one of the few people that liked the trade system. This feels like a loss to me. I get system performance was hit hard by it though.

I also dont get the logic in gestalts getting it.

 

[Imp0815]

It seems like Trade Value will be filling the role of both "Currency" and "Logistics," giving it a bit of an identity crisis. Perhaps a future update should separate these two into their own respective resources. I could see Logistics being something more like a soft capacity, like Naval Capacity, than a resource.

I think they should just call it Credits as a currency. It would be far better fitting for a resource generated by traders and would explain why a deployed fleet would eat up credits—since the pay for active-duty soldiers rises and private contractors get paid to ship supplies to them. The same logic applies to colony upkeep; it would represent the costs of importing the resources needed.

That said, it should be called "Logistics" for Gestalts, as they should not have the concept of currency. Maybe even make them more asymmetrical (which I’m always a fan of!) and give them the opportunity to collect currency from other empires through trade and commercial pacts to buy resources off the Galactic Market—while still needing "Logistics" internally and for their fleets. That brings us right back to your argument for keeping them both separate.

Yes, I agree they could be separated for different empire types to create more asymmetric gameplay experiences and economies, which I find fun.
A goal for "normal" empires reaching Utopian living standards could be the abolition of currency internally, using it only as a trade commodity. This would mean planet upkeep is no longer based on credits but just logistics. Could be neat flavor for the Star Trek fantasy.

Megacorps could also interact with these systems diffrently. Ah i like the sound of this. I hope they go a bit more futher with these concepts.

 

[The Founder]

This is already represented by the relative value of 1 unit of goods.

1 unit of alloy is 4x as value-dense as a unit of the minerals/food that it's made from, and CG is 2x as dense.

That is the exact opposite of what I am talking about.

"So you need 4 ships to transport 4 tons of minerals in.
You processed those minerals into 1 ton of Alloys.
Now you need 16 ships to transport the 1 ton of alloys off-world."

Minor thing but Dyson spheres might end up getting a buff from this. Currently they’ve been power creeped a fair bit with a good trade planet often able to produce more energy than them.

I think all space extraction and market purchases will suffer a indirect nerf.
The only way to make use of that income, is to run deficits on planets. But deficits on planets cost your Trade, to simulate transporting stuff to the planet from elsewhere.