Stellaris Dev Diary #369 - 4.0 Changes: Part 3

[Imp0815]

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 not. They will have the same usefulness now as... just a big farm that produces food for your machines? Would you build a giant food megastructure just to save 20 pop jobs to convert to alloys, science, or soldiers?

Scrap that they are even less usefull than farms as you can now make ships out of food!

 

[Critical Ethics]

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.

Robots, fleets, starbases, buildings, and megsatructures all have energy upkeep, and remember than robots and buildings will contribute to planetary deficits so local energy plants will indirectly boost your net trade income.

The events flavoured around paying for stuff will presumably switch to trade but there's a lot of events where the text is explicit that you're spending energy to power things rather than just pay for them.

I can see the energy based edicts moving from energy to trade.

I wouldn't be opposed to the mineral costs for buildings and districts and mining stations and such being reduced a bit and adding in some kind of energy "startup costs".

 

[Critical Ethics]

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."


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.

A box of microscopes going from your factory world to your researchers is going to have a lot more packaging and have a much higher risk of breakages than a box full or iron bars, and alloys are carefully calibrated, uh, alloys of various metals that you don't want getting contaminated or exposed to weird temperature differences before you start turning them into robots.

 

[AllYourPopsAreBelongToUs]

I don't really understand the problem with doomstacks tbh.
If you are superior to your opponent you're gonna try to get a "fair" fight because you're gonna win. So you doomstack.
If your opponent is superior to you, doomstacking is a horrible Idea in theory: you need to split your fleets to hyperlane-ambush fleets and snipe enemy ports & production. In practise the AI splits to much enabling your (weak) doomstack to defeat enemy fleets in detail. Thats an AI issue, not a doomstack issue.

Doomstacking is rarely the best option, it's just the easiest and least risky tactic - exactly what you want when your opponent is weaker than you. If done correctly you can abolutly demolish a superior enemy with smart splitting (and sniping) - against both human and AI.

I don't mind more incentives to split, but i dread a HOI-4 Like world, where 10 Divisions are getting wiped by one Division, because the 10 Divisions are stealing each others supply.
Imagine how that might look in stellaris; an enemy 4k fleet arrives, i have 4 2k fleets ~ easy, but If i send 2 2k fleets in, they become 2 1.3k fleets because of supply limitation, so i have to send three, but now they are just 1.1k... *sigh*.
hyperbolic example ofc, but If not done carefully an anti doomstack-logistics system might be very exhausting to play with

 

[Someonejustpass]

I do not like this rework for trade, it basically limit the player by turning trade into debuff. Unless there will be more change regarding trade and clerk, what this change does is forcing clerks in every planet or else withstand the local planetary deficits, which directly lower the output from planet. I think a good game mechanism should reward player if player successfully follow the game mechanism, like current resource, you produce more resource not just to fulfill the need for upkeep, you can build more buildings/districts/ships, you can pay cost for different action, etc., a similar case in current version is food, you can do just a few things with food now but at least there is no local planetary deficits for not having enough food on specific planet. For representing logistical effort required to commandeer freighters to supply a world or fleet, I think empire size and fleet upkeep cost already cover this idea, there is no need to design another mechanism to limit player.
Also for Criminal Syndicates, i will honestly wipe out any Criminal Syndicates in my current game as they are unbearably annoying to me, giving defuff, forcing I have to build law enforcement buildings and wasting my pop, and the most annoying thing is that there is no active way I can counter the infiltration from Criminal Syndicates expect declaring war. I really hope that rather than allowing Criminal Syndicates to establish commercial pacts which is more like a "Instrument of Surrender" in my point of view, there will be a mechanism that allow "victim" to actively counter the infiltration from Criminal Syndicates, it may be costly, it may come with worse consequence, but at least there is another option other than go to war or accepting the fate of being infiltrated.
Therefore i sincerely hope both of the rework mentioned in this diary can be adjust/amend significantly.

 

[Calvax]

I think not. They will have the same usefulness now as... just a big farm that produces food for your machines? Would you build a giant food megastructure just to save 20 pop jobs to convert to alloys, science, or soldiers?

Scrap that they are even less usefull than farms as you can now make ships out of food!

Buildings, districts, stations etc are still all going to have energy upkeep so it's going to be more important than food. For all we know fleets might as well since the dev diary doesn't say they'll only have logistics upkeep (though I think it's unlikely it will be both). In any case having a dyson sphere produce most of your empire's energy in the late game sounds cool to me compared to now where it's barely competitive with a trade world.

Also mate I get that there's a lot you don't like about the game, and I even agree with you on a fair amount of things, but I'm not really looking for a convo that's 90% snarc and snipes.

 

[Imp0815]

I don't really understand the problem with doomstacks tbh.
If you are superior to your opponent you're gonna try to get a "fair" fight because you're gonna win. So you doomstack.
If your opponent is superior to you, doomstacking is a horrible Idea in theory: you need to split your fleets to hyperlane-ambush fleets and snipe enemy ports & production. In practise the AI splits to much enabling your (weak) doomstack to defeat enemy fleets in detail. Thats an AI issue, not a doomstack issue.

Doomstacking is rarely the best option, it's just the easiest and least risky tactic - exactly what you want when your opponent is weaker than you. If done correctly you can abolutly demolish a superior enemy with smart splitting (and sniping) - against both human and AI.

I don't mind more incentives to split, but i dread a HOI-4 Like world, where 10 Divisions are getting wiped by one Division, because the 10 Divisions are stealing each others supply.
Imagine how that might look in stellaris; an enemy 4k fleet arrives, i have 4 2k fleets ~ easy, but If i send 2 2k fleets in, they become 2 1.3k fleets because of supply limitation, so i have to send three, but now they are just 1.1k... *sigh*.
hyperbolic example ofc, but If not done carefully an anti doomstack-logistics system might be very exhausting to play with

I’ve talked about this ad nauseam, so I’ll try to keep it short, and you can easily refute my argument.

In short, in HoI4, you can make the stupid decision to stack up 10 divisions, and they eat each other's supplies, losing combat power and die to a vastly smaller foe. In Stellaris, if I don’t stack my 10 fleets, the chance of losing to a vastly smaller foe increases.

So the best strategy to avoid losing is:

1. Never be the one with the vastly smaller fleet. Build and plan EVERYTHING in your power to always stay ahead in the fleet power race, killing off any incentives for asymmetrical or alternative playstyles. Everything snowballs into fleet power one way or another.
2. The game's fundamentals are broken. You will never see any merit in game design or gameplay when the game ultimately dictates that bigger numbers win. It all boils down to point 1.

This is why players, like me, who know how it can be done differently—like in HoI4, where smart tactical decisions and automation allow for depth without sacrificing alternative playstyles or complexity—are rooting for anti-doomstack mechanics and their removal in Stellaris. Doomstacking hampers the game and is just boring.

 

[Imp0815]

Buildings, districts, stations etc are still all going to have energy upkeep so it's going to be more important than food. For all we know fleets might as well since the dev diary doesn't say they'll only have logistics upkeep (though I think it's unlikely it will be both). In any case having a dyson sphere produce most of your empire's energy in the late game sounds cool to me compared to now where it's barely competitive with a trade world.

Also mate I get that there's a lot you don't like about the game, and I even agree with you on a fair amount of things, but I'm not really looking for a convo that's 90% snarc and snipes.

You won’t believe it, but I really enjoy and love the game. I'm still invested in its future and rooting for changes that I think will improve it.

Until then, I want to apologize for my tone in my current state. I don’t think it will be long before I reach the point of apathy—at which point, I won’t bother you anymore anyway.

With that out of the way: If they shift the upkeep of buildings to "Trade," then energy will be even less useful. It had such a big role in the game as a currency, and seeing it replaced will really shake up our approach to it and how we think about it.

From my point of view, food was always hated—just like consumer goods—as nothing more than a snowball tax to prevent pops from growing too fast and to force some building capacity to be wasted on food production as a sort of pop tax. Now, energy is taking up this role for buildings?

Will this mean people will see it as an annoying building tax to slow down our snowballing? It’s not even just me—this is simply the impression I have from several "food discussions" I’ve seen here and elsewhere.

(This post should have low levels of "snark and snipes" - aw dang it)

 

[Imp0815]

Also for Criminal Syndicates, i will honestly wipe out any Criminal Syndicates in my current game as they are unbearably annoying to me, giving defuff, forcing I have to build law enforcement buildings and wasting my pop, and the most annoying thing is that there is no active way I can counter the infiltration from Criminal Syndicates expect declaring war. I really hope that rather than allowing Criminal Syndicates to establish commercial pacts which is more like a "Instrument of Surrender" in my point of view, there will be a mechanism that allow "victim" to actively counter the infiltration from Criminal Syndicates, it may be costly, it may come with worse consequence, but at least there is another option other than go to war or accepting the fate of being infiltrated.
Therefore i sincerely hope both of the rework mentioned in this diary can be adjust/amend significantly.

I fully understand your standpoint on criminal syndicates. I think they should be reworked into something more focused on working in the shadows rather than blatantly impacting other empires directly.

I imagine planets having a baseline crime stat based on government investments, empire type, and population. Crime and deviation could always be present—something a crime syndicate can "harvest." This means all empires would have some baseline crime on their colonies unless prevented by government actions such as building law enforcement, maintaining a costly living standard, or placing planets under martial law and landing armies.

A crime syndicate could then target planets with higher base crime and open a branch office there because of the crime level, but it should be hidden from the affected empire. The more crime a planet has, the more building slots the syndicate gets. Additionally, a crime syndicate could actively increase crime on planets at the risk of being discovered and having its branch offices removed.

So, as a crime empire, it becomes a balancing act—profiting from existing crime or pushing crime further when it can handle the retaliation. The mechanics would be similar to the current system but much less intrusive to other empires. Crime should feel like a natural occurrence, not something that instantly needs to be stamped out. A colony should still function with crime, even at medium levels, just with slightly reduced efficiency.

The main difference would be how a crime syndicate impacts the game—still allowing for the fantasy and mechanics without instantly being pushed out or antagonized. Maybe crime syndicates shouldn't even be marked as such on the galactic map/diplomacy at first—just displayed as a regular megacorp, only revealing their true motivations later?

 

[Deshiba]

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.

I'm super worried about trade and trade policies. With the interaction looking something like
O base trade
- Upkeep haircut off the top
- 50% of the remainder going to stockpile
O The rest getting converted to resources to trade.

If none of the numbers change, this makes a trade policy less then 50% effective as before.
Seeing as I don't see a path to just double the trade exchange values to compensate I fear this really guts builds that use trade for unity.

There's some hope for bigger more powerful trade later on trough income modifiers actually applying since it's a resource. However that still really hurts early game unity income for pure trade builds.

 

[Critical Ethics]

I don't really understand the problem with doomstacks tbh.
If you are superior to your opponent you're gonna try to get a "fair" fight because you're gonna win. So you doomstack.
If your opponent is superior to you, doomstacking is a horrible Idea in theory: you need to split your fleets to hyperlane-ambush fleets and snipe enemy ports & production. In practise the AI splits to much enabling your (weak) doomstack to defeat enemy fleets in detail. Thats an AI issue, not a doomstack issue.

Doomstacking is rarely the best option, it's just the easiest and least risky tactic - exactly what you want when your opponent is weaker than you. If done correctly you can abolutly demolish a superior enemy with smart splitting (and sniping) - against both human and AI.

I don't mind more incentives to split, but i dread a HOI-4 Like world, where 10 Divisions are getting wiped by one Division, because the 10 Divisions are stealing each others supply.
Imagine how that might look in stellaris; an enemy 4k fleet arrives, i have 4 2k fleets ~ easy, but If i send 2 2k fleets in, they become 2 1.3k fleets because of supply limitation, so i have to send three, but now they are just 1.1k... *sigh*.
hyperbolic example ofc, but If not done carefully an anti doomstack-logistics system might be very exhausting to play with

All else being equal, damage between two fleets scales quadratically with the ratio of power between the two fleets. If Player A has two fleets of 20 ships and Player B has two fleets of 20 ships and they mash them against each other then they will both lose about the same amount of ships. If Player A has a stack of 40 ships and Player B has two fleets of 20 ships and Player A mashes their 40 ships into the first fleet of 20 ships they will lose pretty much nothing, and now their fleet of 39 ships is free to chase down and annihilate the other 20 ships. Similarly if Player B is using their two sets of 20 ships to attack different star systems the passive defences are going to cause slow attrition of those forces, while just running them as a 40 blob will wipe everything out before it has a chance to fire back.

If you already have a good handle on tactics and guerrilla warfare and whatever great, yes, you can run a back-foot economy war against your opponent while ceding every battle - but if not then you're just going to see all these losses and go "Well that's what I get for trying, back to doomstacks it is".

A lot of mechanics have been introduced to mitigate this over the past decade but "mitigation" is still the word of the day. But making it so the choice is between wandering around with two stacks of 20 losing and replacing real ships vs wandering around with a 40 stack burning through "virtual" ships in the form of trade you could have bought alloys with will encourage more players to try the "smart" tactics. Which it sounds like is what you want so everyone wins!

 

[Critical Ethics]

I'm super worried about trade and trade policies. With the interaction looking something like
O base trade
- Upkeep haircut off the top
- 50% of the remainder going to stockpile
O The rest getting converted to resources to trade.

If none of the numbers change, this makes a trade policy less then 50% effective as before.
Seeing as I don't see a path to just double the trade exchange values to compensate I fear this really guts builds that use trade for unity.

There's some hope for bigger more powerful trade later on trough income modifiers actually applying since it's a resource. However that still really hurts early game unity income for pure trade builds.

I think you may have misunderstood the trade policy description in the OP.

Current system:
O Generate trade
- lose some to piracy
- half of the rest turns into <unity or whatever your trade policy is>
- the rest turns into energy (money)

New system:
O Generate trade
- lose some to upkeep
- half of the rest turns into <unity or whatever your trade policy is>
- the rest goes to your stockpile (money)

How much more or less <unity or whatever your trade policy is> you get will depend entirely on how much less or more is left over after (current trade amounts - piracy) compared to (new trade amounts - upkeep). When the numbers come out it could be lots or it could be very little but it's entirely dependent on what the numbers are.

I hope this makes you less worried!

 

[AllYourPopsAreBelongToUs]

I’ve talked about this ad nauseam, so I’ll try to keep it short, and you can easily refute my argument.

In short, in HoI4, you can make the stupid decision to stack up 10 divisions, and they eat each other's supplies, losing combat power and dying to a vastly smaller foe. In Stellaris, if I don’t stack my 10 fleets, the chance of losing to a vastly smaller foe increases.

So the best strategy to avoid losing is:

1. Never be the one with the vastly smaller fleet. Build and plan EVERYTHING in your power to always stay ahead in the fleet power race, killing off any incentives for asymmetrical or alternative playstyles. Everything snowballs into fleet power one way or another.
2. The game's fundamentals are broken. You will never see any merit in game design or gameplay when the game ultimately dictates that bigger numbers win. It all boils down to point 1.

This is why players, like me, who know how it can be done differently—like in HoI4, where smart tactical decisions and automation allow for depth without sacrificing alternative playstyles or complexity—are rooting for anti-doomstack mechanics and their removal in Stellaris. Doomstacking hampers the game and is just boring.

HoI-4 is a war game, tactics are everything. On the other hand HOI-4 has like 5 economic settings, and 2 buildings. economics are important but not a focus and it won't win you the game by itself.

Stellaris is a 4x Game, you spend like 80% of the game on different areas of economics, of course economics are waay more important than tactics and tactics alone won't win you the game. That's something that should remain imo, could be weakend a bit, but at it's core (and thats in common with every other 4x game out there) the bigger economy should win the war. Thats not a Lack of Game Design it is part of the Game Design.

 

[NilsFabian]

Very interesting, but I do have some qualms with the logistics upkeep for planets with deficits?
For now I rely on heavily specialised planets, Forge Worlds, university an bread basket worlds. Up till now everything was fine as long as the empire as a whole didn't run a deficit. With this new mechanic, this kind of specilization seems counter intuitive. Is there any exchange or are specialized planets somehow nerfed now.

 

[Red Earth]

Good stuff. Due to playing other games where there are transport concerns, I do instinctively think "if X is produced here I might as well process it into Y here too" but I remind myself that that's not necessary.

I also favor anything that makes megacorps feel more like a business that does provide benefits to where it operates.

 

[Imp0815]

HoI-4 is a war game, tactics are everything. On the other hand HOI-4 has like 5 economic settings, and 2 buildings. economics are important but not a focus and it won't win you the game by itself.

Stellaris is a 4x Game, you spend like 80% of the game on different areas of economics, of course economics are waay more important than tactics and tactics alone won't win you the game. That's something that should remain imo, could be weakend a bit, but at it's core (and thats in common with every other 4x game out there) the bigger economy should win the war. Thats not a Lack of Game Design it is part of the Game Design.

We could debate endlessly about what HoI is or isn’t, how much its economy matters, or what a 4X game should be.

But at the core of it, if 80% of Stellaris is economy, only to fuel a combat system that lacks depth, then it feels like a missed opportunity rather than a natural design choice.

It’s disappointing to have a seemingly expansive economic system, only for it to fall short when it comes to delivering a satisfying payoff. You invest time into carefully managing resources, optimizing your economy, and growing a powerful empire—yet when war comes, it often boils down to stacking fleets and watching them collide rather than engaging in meaningful strategic decision-making.

It’s like spending hours baking a wedding cake, only to throw it away before anyone gets to enjoy it. The effort is there, but the final step—the moment where all that investment should matter—feels underwhelming.

A well-built economy should reward good management with meaningful strategic options in warfare—whether through logistics, supply lines, or fleet positioning—rather than just raw numbers deciding the outcome. If Stellaris leaned into this aspect, it could make both economy and warfare feel much more engaging and rewarding.

 

[Calvax]

You won’t believe it, but I really enjoy and love the game. I'm still invested in its future and rooting for changes that I think will improve it.

Until then, I want to apologize for my tone in my current state. I don’t think it will be long before I reach the point of apathy—at which point, I won’t bother you anymore anyway.

Nah I know it comes from a place of liking the game and wanting it to be better. If you didn't like it you wouldn't be here. And no need to apologise; it's just friday, end of a long week and I'm a bit burnt on the sky is falling posts popping up (not specifically you).

With that out of the way: If they shift the upkeep of buildings to "Trade," then energy will be even less useful. It had such a big role in the game as a currency, and seeing it replaced will really shake up our approach to it and how we think about it.

I don't think they are going to shift building upkeep to trade is my point. Buildings, districts, stations, etc are all going to need energy.

From my point of view, food was always hated—just like consumer goods—as nothing more than a snowball tax to prevent pops from growing too fast and to force some building capacity to be wasted on food production as a sort of pop tax. Now, energy is taking up this role for buildings?

I don't think food is hated by any significant number of people, consumer goods neither. I do agree that food could have more uses, I wouldn't particularly mind if consumer goods required a mix of food and minerals to represent using organic products for purposes outside of nutrition.

Will this mean people will see it as an annoying building tax to slow down our snowballing? It’s not even just me—this is simply the impression I have from several "food discussions" I’ve seen here and elsewhere.

That's why we're having a beta I guess. So we can test and see if the changes are fun. I think thinking of energy as some sort of building tax isn't going to be common. It's a strategy game and one that invites you to get immersed so having to manage energy as a resource, even if a lot of its importance is diverted to logistics, isn't going to make it an unfun detriment.

Very interesting, but I do have some qualms with the logistics upkeep for planets with deficits?
For now I rely on heavily specialised planets, Forge Worlds, university an bread basket worlds. Up till now everything was fine as long as the empire as a whole didn't run a deficit. With this new mechanic, this kind of specilization seems counter intuitive. Is there any exchange or are specialized planets somehow nerfed now.

I've seen a few concerns about this but unless the numbers are way overtuned I don't see it as being a problem. Being specialised should still be more productive than trying to make a bunch of self sustaining planets.

 

[Beauty Nova]

Well, RIP virtuality trade builds and the like. Massive nerfs to things like the fleet cap corp building too.

Maybe that's a good thing.

 

[Critical Ethics]

I've seen a few concerns about this but unless the numbers are way overtuned I don't see it as being a problem. Being specialised should still be more productive than trying to make a bunch of self sustaining planets.

Yeah, I assume what's going to happen is that the trade numbers will be balanced around an empire with a lot of self-sufficient planets having a bit more leeway than now to buy stuff off the market and a hyper-specialised empire will have a bit less than now. I think the biggest impact will be on AI empires. Specialising is all about planning ahead, and it's hard to teach that to the AI. Meanwhile the market is very useful for panic buying when something unexpected comes up. So the more generalised planets the AI tends to build will naturally result in higher amounts of spare trade, which they can then use to panic buy their way out of "unexpected" death spirals that a human player would find trivial to see coming.

 

[lordvagrant]

Oh my god I would kill and/or die if this was implemented right! I think that if logistics are going to be a factor it might be simpler to set up a maximum logistical capacity on a given system after which the trade upkeep exponentially increases (like fleet limit!). This way if players want to have doomstacks they will either have to:
- Fight on a system they have a high level starbase in with some sort of logistics related building (ideally a top building so they can have several rather than a bottom building which would limit them to just one)
- Fight on a system they at least control even if they don't have a starbase with logistics buildings, giving them a bonus to logistics capacity because of owned territory which will help but they will still need a lot of logistics capacity and/or trade to spare as without the starbase buildings a full doomstack will still be very costly
- Have an insane combo of logistics capacity bonuses AND a lot of trade capacity if they're fighting on enemy territory as they will have no owned territory logistics bonus let alone starbase logistics buildings

This is even better when you consider that defensive doomstacks might become viable, especially if each important system has an starbase with multiple logistics modules, while offensive doomstacks will be extremely difficult and expensive. It is possible the system could be made so that defensive doomstacks are only possible in a maxed out logistics starbase, possibly requiring orbital rings with similar modules or planetary logistical buildings or something, while owned territory gives a significant bonus but good luck having more than 50% of your fleet in there. Or perhaps even less if you're a very wide empire with a lot of ships. This could change the meta so that massive empires have "stacks" instead of "doomstacks' kinda like in eu4 which would add micro but fully resolve the doomstacking problem. A tamer approach is to be generous with logistics capacity, making logistic modules on starbases be reserved for specific strategies and allowing for full offensive doomstacks at a hefty but non-prohibitive cost. Personally I'd go for something in between to keep the system balanced.

Logistic Modules on a starbase could have a range value (like trade modules currently do) giving you a logistics projection range from that starbase, meaning that you get standard costs within range while under the starbase's logistic capacity value. Beyond that range (deep into enemy territory) is where the escalating costs hit.
Or two types of module - logistic range (using the current trade module graphic) and logistic capacity (using the current anchorage graphic).
This could mean changing the current anchorage module, which would make much more sense - currently it is just build a bunch of these in systems where no ship ever goes to magically create naval capacity
This gives a strategic choice - do I build a defensive (guns) starbase on the border system, or an offensive (logistics) starbase.
Hmm, the Border Friction relations effect could be impacted by starbase modules such as these.