Stellaris Dev Diary #369 - 4.0 Changes: Part 3

[Imp0815]

1) Ongoing trade upkeep per ship is good but any doomstack scaling penalties should only apply in combat. Otherwise you incentivise weird micro where your doomstack is traveling around in multiple blobs but still converging for fights.

As I understand it, currently, it's not in the game to have fleet stacking take up more resources.

In addition, if they were to implement such a thing, they would increase trade upkeep when it happens. So, you could march alone, then combine, have the combined stack eat up your whole trade stockpile, win, and then be left with no trade for another such maneuver.

I think it should be localized fleet supply—so fleets just consume supply in a region around logistic providers, and when too many fleets are in a region around a provider, they start running dry, and then penalties occur (like reduced weapon stats).

I would also suggest dislodging trade and fleet logistics. I would create an additional building that converts logistics into fleet supply, making that the upkeep. And with some sort of limit, so the distribution of supply is somewhat homogenized across all systems to create a more equal and dispersed fleet distribution.

But we will see how this whole thing fares in the Beta.

 

[GnoSIS]

So now I can roleplay a galaxy-brained kid running a lemonade stand.

... that trades with itself, and also runs a galactic market, even after everyone in the galaxy is absorbed into it.

 

[Shadowlyger]

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

This sounds like the exact opposite of a reason to rejoice...

 

[Fzfghfzg]

I think it´s weird to have Trade as a "normal" resource.
If trade is supposed to represent the logitical capacity of your empire, it´s weird that you can "stockpile logistics" for later use and "pay" on the Galactic Market using nothing but "logistics"

I would make it so that Merchants (or equivalent Jobs) give you a flat amount of Trade capacity, wich can be used to move nomal resources around.
like this:

1. Ships/Fleets take up X Trade cap
2. to move 1 unit of [resource] from one Planet to anoter you need 1 Trade cap
3. to buy 1 unit of [resource] from the market/other empires you need 1 Trade cap

 

[Actionratte]

Although this will again be very complex, a criminal MegaCorp could not benefit from crime in its empire. Just like in Star Wars with Jabba the Hutt.

 

[Koopatin]

Of course it is the least important question, buuuuut, well, if you reduce so many performance-heavy calculations… My 2000/5000/10000 galaxies seem possible again.

Would it be very hard for you to allow for the galaxy circumference to be bigger?

Right now, if I were to mod 2000+ stars into a galaxy, we can not mod the galaxy circumference to be twice as big as 1000 and so on. It looks a bit compressed.

 

[Medu Salem]

Burning trade for planet deficits sounds like a significant change to the economic model: depending on the cost of that, it might be more efficient to generate upkeep resources in-place, rather than fully specialize worlds.

I kinda thought the same when I read the Dev Diary.

It will have to be balanced carefully or otherwise it will make me want to make everything self-sufficient where possible even more so than currently just to game around the system.

Because to be honest, in my personal feeling the planet specializations already don't do a whole lot quite often enough already and only make it annoying when you lose a specialized planet during war.

 

[Critical Ethics]

As I understand it, currently, it's not in the game to have fleet stacking take up more resources.

As they said:

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.

So I posted my thoughts.

In addition, if they were to implement such a thing, they would increase trade upkeep when it happens. So, you could march alone, then combine, have the combined stack eat up your whole trade stockpile, win, and then be left with no trade for another such maneuver.

That's.... that's the exact problem I'm describing. If it charges fleets for staying close out of combat then you're encouraged to do weird micro out of combat to minimise your trade consumption. This forces the devs into an impossible balancing scenario. By charging the doomstack tax only during combat you bypass the whole issue while still charging a tax when it matters.

I think it should be localized fleet supply—so fleets just consume supply in a region around logistic providers, and when too many fleets are in a region around a provider, they start running dry, and then penalties occur (like reduced weapon stats).

That would require throwing out literally everything described in the dev diary and starting entirely from scratch.

 

[Archael90]

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.

I had an idea once, and it may be worth to consider.
Trade should NOT be stockpiled, but being monthly potential (to trade). This monthly trade could be used as currency like described in this DD both for maintenance and market, but also made interesting decision making over what to do with it this month. This changes very little, but very much at the same time especially if trade would be used as fleet maintenance resource. Militaristic empires with low trade could not afford to maintain huge fleet, yet they would still have more powerfull fleet that empires focused on trade that could afford much more, but much weaker ships. Stockpiling trade can offset this decisionmaking becuase trade can be made artificially by selling other resources that wormongers could have abundance, and stockpile trade during peacetime to use more fleets during war for faster conquests before trade runs out (which them could realistically does because of stronger ships).

 

[Ilab]

All good. I really hope we can get logistics to fight doom stacking at some point. I also like the local deficit thing the most!

I have a couple questions and sugerences though. Since Individualist empires generate most trade by converting consumer goods I expect Gestalts now using it too, at least for trade.
Or are Gestalts going to trade apples and rocks (minerals)? If so, I suspect we will have (once more) significant unbalance between Gestalts and Individualists, now without them even losing on the fun.

Can we get more details on how (and why) gestalts produce trade from worker jobs, which can be significantly boosted overall in comparison to specialists and with reduced upkeep (specially because specialist trade jobs buildings consume exotic resources for instance, but worker jobs don't)? Will they use CGs?

Overall I think that it makes no sense for Gestalts to have much better trade than individualist empires that need it more and are logically more adept at the concept. Specialist jobs require overall higher upkeep, buildings for trade require strategic resources etc. Simple drones are much cheaper and spammable, and again, see no reason why trade is considered simple in a gestalt instead of complex.

Also:
I believe that CG can (and should) be normalize among all empires. It initially seemed to refer to things like toasters, chairs and other commodities. But it is obvious that it us much more, essentially any other good that is used for other thins.
For instance researchers use CGs for research. This are things like vials and other stuff they need to experiment etc. Instead Gestalts use rocks and energy (don't know how much actual knowledge can be obtained from a rock after a while studying it), maybe finally they can use GC for them too? They would still need less as their pops don't need it, but for jobs it is logical.

Something I am curious about too is about the 'fraction of market price' part. Having it tied to the market price is logical and opens possibilities. Have you considered potential fractions that you can share? Also, will it apply to every single local deficit or some stuff only?

Also, with trade routes gone (sadly) will some changes will be made to simulate piracy or is it removed completely? Maybe have piracy on systems near planets that produce high value or something? It helped leveling admirals and ships. What will happen to buildings that 'collected' trade for instance? Will they be removed or reworked somehow?

Also, I fear that adding Merchants to mega corps could be a bit too much, I suppose it is a typo and it is instead traders, as merchant are ruler class and very very powerful, for an empire type that is already very strong.

I also think that with the changes coming it is a good idea to review things like clerks, now that trade buildings give traders and not merchants, clerk fall too short too soon, causing most people to just close the job. Proper balance on them would be better, maybe the Mercantile traditions changes the clerk to another trader or they get better benefits, but something should be done about it.

Since branches are receiving changes, I believe it would be good is another pass is made on overlord holdings. It makes no sense that a mega corporation can open one building per planet but Overlords (the literal bosses of the subject) can only open 4 in the entire empire. Maybe change it so that holdings are either increased empire wide from 4 to a bigger number, or they can also add 1 per planet or something. Several propositions for this exists already. Some even proposed having some still limited to 4 or whatever number (the best ones) but be more lenient with minor ones so that they become a bit more affordable. With just 4 holdings there are many that never get used just cuz they are bad in comparison to others.

 

[Tonplan]

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.

I love this change! It will add so much depth and realism to strategy.

Historically, armies would break up into small bands to avoid high logistics by raiding or commissioning local supplies over a wider area, before regrouping right before a battle. When large armies stayed together, they would suffer from lack of food or water to sustain everyone which would lead to disease and starvation. It became the practice for armies to use supply lines but they were often slow and vulnerable. Napoleon developed his corps system (breaking up a large army into smaller independent units that can quickly converge on an enemy) to avoid slow supply lines. This allowed him to beat larger and slower armies.

I can't wait to see how this gets implemented in Stellaris!

 

[MichaelMakesGames]

You previously mentioned that trade value / logistics / local deficits might impact sieges (and storage depots might help). Any update on that?

 

[Sarawen]

we need somethings better than maintenance drones, maintenance drones is the worst things in stellaris.

 

[ruzen]

No one will believe me but i have to say or i will go crazy. This trade system anf inland politics thing i did write many pages but didnt post because of the last dlc And this is exactly how i imagined it.

politics was useless because there wasnt any locallyty. Planets could get instant services. Fullfilng their needs. So therefor trade as a resource could be much better but i dont need to continue and so on...

Now lets see if you guys plan to use this trade usage calculation to give resources and jobs more weight to calculate political str.

 

[fourteenfour]

with regards to trade cost of fleets. Is this in addition to current energy/alloy costs? Can we work towards only having one type of maintenance cost? It would make understanding the true costs of our navies much easier.

I am not liking the idea of making larger fleets cost more but I am more in favor of making exceeding naval cap much more costly. The reason is naval cap should represent how much your empire can handle efficiently and fleet capacity represents the size of a fleet you can operate efficiently. So it would be very odd to penalize using your fleet size to maximum allowable number.

As for increased trade cost while frolicking around in your enemies space this will give an outsized advantage to total war empires who immediately claim territory.

 

[Losttruppen]

What was it about the Trade Routes that caused the performance issues?

The Trade Value calculations and constant changes? The Piracy level vs suppression? Redrawing them when they get blocked or a new Colony appears? Wormholes, Gatesways, or L-Gates?

I'm curious if now that most of that is gone if we couldn't actually keep the Route system in place without all the number crunching being involved, as a binary yes/no connection for access to goods produced upstream? Perhaps involve Sectors to reduce distances. Do Planets have local stores now or just production and a Trade upkeep in the red?

I'm sad to see this connection between the Resource, War, and Galaxy Map systems being removed. Will the Logistics upkeep take into account distance on the Map at all or just friendly vs hostile territory?

 

[Seaghauwn]

I like the idea of a megacorp rogue servitor

 

[fourteenfour]

we need somethings better than maintenance drones, maintenance drones is the worst things in stellaris.

they are better than clerks. I would not mind seeing both eliminated and only have worker jobs produce natural resources and leave trade/etc to specialist.

it there were a better way to represent the needs to the population I would suggest just removing amenities - which we do have... give gestalt consumer goods and drop amenities from everyone and just represent the needs of the populace through consumer goods and various stratas change the needs.

As in, I want a system I don't feel requires me to micro manage

 

[ruzen]

Also, I think a base high bonus for logistics is banal design.

Fleet patrolling to nullify piracy is bad for performance too.

Bring them together.

Just like in HOI4(suppression riots), let us allocate fleets manually to protect from piracy and give an increased trade max cap with no actual units. But of course, they would be using fleet space.

two birds, one stone...

Economic policies should add the multiplier too

 

[Ilab]

One question, will the trade upkeep on local production (the part about a fraction of the value of the galactic market) affect prices? If it simulates getting stuff from there it should, it would be very interesting and make that other nations can benefit from this, even if just a bit.