Stellaris Dev Diary #369 - 4.0 Changes: Part 3

[Ikael]

Yup, I was pretty excited when the trade was first described back in the day (though I felt trade and energy should be split out from the start). I enjoyed it for a while, and then grew to loathe it when the novelty wore off and I found myself forced to engage with a dumb fiddly minigame with its own screen Every. Single. Game (and the even worse at launch starbase build screen). That's why I like the new system. The old system was a whole bunch of extra stuff I needed to do that did nothing except make my yellow mana go up faster or slower. It tore my attention from the rest of the game while not really providing any broader gameplay. This new system as described is the opposite - it adds additional gameplay to a bunch of existing systems while not bolting any new weird isolated little minigames to district me from the game.

Aye, that's one of the classic Stellaris mistakes that this trade rework will hopefully correct. We need more interlocked systems, and less self-contained ones.

And now the bad news... manually steering a guy around my empire to end up with the same mechanical effect as just building another clerk building is exactly the kind of weird little side minigame with minimal broader gameplay impact that I'm talking about. I don't want to have to take a break from playing Stellaris to do that, nor do I want to be down the trade value I'd be giving up not to.

In my mind, the bonuses provided by unique resources would be substantial enough not only to spend trade and micro on them but to outright wage wars for them so you can secure their supply. I sorely miss the procedurally generated Dune stories that a trade-focused expansion might bring.

 

[Critical Ethics]

Aye, that's one of the classic Stellaris mistakes that this trade rework will hopefully correct. We need more interlocked systems, and less self-contained ones.


In my mind, the bonuses provided by unique resources would be substantial enough not only to spend trade and micro on them but to outright wage wars for them so you can secure their supply. I sorely miss the procedurally generated Dune stories that a trade-focused expansion might bring.

It's still a solution looking for a problem. It's a distracting little minigame that sits on top of and to the side of the rest of the game and and making the modifiers real good just makes it a mandatory distracting little minigame that sits on top of and to the side of the rest of the game. Which is pretty much inevitable if you take a game with as many moving parts as Stellaris and begin a design conversation with "How could we". Going from the direction of "I want to include this mechanic - how do I make it work?" rarely uh, works, which is the best thing about this trade rework - their willingness to just accept that they don't have anything for trade routes and so they're just being discarded.

The only realistic way anyone is going to come up with a fun, integrated, trade routes mechanic is if at some future date the devs are banging their heads against a couple of existing game needs and as they're hashing out a solution someone realises that the thing they're moving toward could, on reflection, arguably be called trade routes.

 

[Cry_Havok]

I think ideally some sort of modifier to trade Costs to supply systems could be interesting (no extra costs for own or federation territory, slight cost for trade agreement, moderate cost for unclaimed or open territory, impossible through closed territory and isolated sectors need to be self sufficient) could add some interesting considerations and incentive for coherent borders, but definitely agree that the outgoing trade system needed the axe: it is/was opaque, too micro intensive, too overhead heavy, and encouraged weird behaviors because of the piracy nonsense (you didn't want trade collection to the frines because pirates would spawn and blow up infrastructure, and screw up auto orders, so instead it was "build a starbase Highway"). Killing it is the best decision since Ascension tradition trees.

 

[Yordanavila27]

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.

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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 deermooo-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…


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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!

And how would the new type of trade affect the Mercenary Enclaves? Will energy costs be replaced by trade? And why not add,in the option of sharing technology, an option in which you choose the type of ship design that they make from among those that you already have in your ship design? because the automatic construction of AI designs makes it unprofitable to spend that amount of resources to improve Mersenary Enclaves.

 

[Ikael]

It's still a solution looking for a problem. It's a distracting little minigame that sits on top of and to the side of the rest of the game and and making the modifiers real good just makes it a mandatory distracting little minigame that sits on top of and to the side of the rest of the game. Which is pretty much inevitable if you take a game with as many moving parts as Stellaris and begin a design conversation with "How could we". Going from the direction of "I want to include this mechanic - how do I make it work?" rarely uh, works, which is the best thing about this trade rework - their willingness to just accept that they don't have anything for trade routes and so they're just being discarded.

But my man, that was entirely the premise of my post: to speculate if a trade route mechanic could still be implemented without adding tons of pathfinding calculations (I think it can!). The reason behind it is the same reason why it would be nice to have space nomads or more psionic ascensions that do not depend on patrons: because it would be damn cool to do it so.

The only realistic way anyone is going to come up with a fun, integrated, trade routes mechanic is if at some future date the devs are banging their heads against a couple of existing game needs and as they're hashing out a solution someone realises that the thing they're moving toward could, on reflection, arguably be called trade routes.

But that being said, what you wrote here is very true as well. The best course of action would be for new game mechanics to solve old existing problems, rather than risking creating new ones. That way, you would kill two birds with a single stone! That's why things like a possible internal politics rework that slows down snowballing, or having more Cosmogenesis-like stuff that gives you things to do past the mid-game other than waiting for the crisis would be higher on my priority list: they would not only be adding more content for the shake of content, they could also help with some of the game's problems.

 

[Ajacoba]

Technically you don't have to rely on patrons and can just say no to all 5 of them

After all they each come with just as many penalties as they come with buffs - especially the eater of worlds is hardly worth it for anything but the most aggressive of builds, hell, it's not even worth it when fighting the crisis because that's technically not a war

 

[grommile]

But my man, that was entirely the premise of my post: to speculate if a trade route mechanic could still be implemented without adding tons of pathfinding calculations (I think it can!).

A trade route mechanic involves pathfinding calculations, and since this is mostly a "one human, many bots" game, most of those have to be done on sand extract even if you require the human to do theirs on meat.

 

[Ajacoba]

Also anything that doesn't work automatically will by default be a micro management nightmare

Like imagine if we HAD to manually build colony ships and then order them to the right planets, rather than simply telling the game "colonize this planet please"

 

[Casko]

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

...Wait this is a Thing you can do????

 

[Ajacoba]

...Wait this is a Thing you can do????

Yes, each relic gives victory points

And if you have enough intel you can see the breakdown of what other empires are getting their points from

 

[Critical Ethics]

But my man, that was entirely the premise of my post: to speculate if a trade route mechanic could still be implemented without adding tons of pathfinding calculations (I think it can!). The reason behind it is the same reason why it would be nice to have space nomads or more psionic ascensions that do not depend on patrons: because it would be damn cool to do it so.

You can't fit everything cool into one game.

Space Nomads and Psionic Ascenscions are isolated content so it's OK for them to be isolated mechanics. They're opt in. If you were looking to make a very specific civic or origin which required trade routes as part of the flavour then what you're describing could be pretty neat! But as a universal mechanic it would not.

I know I'm harping on about this but "I have a mechanic I want to include, how do I make the game work around it" and a general refusal to kill darlings is why so many games end up being absolute bloated messes. I know that's the entire premise of your post - and the entire premise of my post is that "How can we make trade routes work in the game" is a fundamentally flawed question to base a design discussion around.

 

[Ikael]

A trade route mechanic involves pathfinding calculations, and since this is mostly a "one human, many bots" game, most of those have to be done on sand extract even if you require the human to do theirs on meat.

From what I understand, the problem with the previous trade route system was that it needed to calculate the trade route's paths constantly (or almost constantly, it had to be frequently checked). If you move a merchant fleet manually, however, that would be the equivalent of moving a regular fleet or a single science ship around the map. You can argue about micro, but it would be hardly comparable to the old trade route system (or so I believe).

That being said, I don't know if the game is also having problems with calculating paths for regular fleet movement as well :S

You can't fit everything cool into one game.

Stellaris: "...and I took that personally!"

Space Nomads and Psionic Ascenscions are isolated content so it's OK for them to be isolated mechanics. They're opt in. If you were looking to make a very specific civic or origin which required trade routes as part of the flavour then what you're describing could be pretty neat! But as a universal mechanic it would not.

I think it could be good DLC material if you ask me, or perhaps, a good way to represent the whole "deep space nomadic merchants peddling their wares and earning a living in the galaxy". Not part of the core game, tho.

I know I'm harping on about this but "I have a mechanic I want to include, how do I make the game work around it" and a general refusal to kill darlings is why so many games end up being absolute bloated messes. I know that's the entire premise of your post - and the entire premise of my post is that "How can we make trade routes work in the game" is a fundamentally flawed question to base a design discussion around.

You know, you are damn right on that. I am too quite a fan of simple, elegant "distilled" game design (CivRev still owns!). But at the same time, the very nature of Stellaris's business model makes the inclusion of a cool, albeit unnecessary mechanic an almost inevitability at some point.

 

[grommile]

If you move a merchant fleet manually

Then it potentially blunders into hostiles unless micromanaged.

 

[DrFranknfurter]

I liked the >potential< of the trade route mechanics, rather than its actual implementation, which was opaque and finicky.

It would have been dope to have visible trade routes hauling merchandise through the galaxy and creating strategic chokepoints, yes, but it seems that the toll on the game's performance would have been immense.

This brings me to the next question: How could we simulate trade routes with the new system? I think that there might be some ways to do it so without needing constant pathfinding calculations, in the same way, that the game will simulate logistics without those:

Step 1) Implement unique resources. As in, visible resources located on certain parts of the map, that would grant empire-wide bonuses to those empires that gain access to them. Voilá, there you got strategically important locations. You might, of course, conquer those vital parts of the galaxy to exert direct control (albeit if the galaxy generation does its job, they will be on each literal corner of the map, thus making controlling them quite a challenge). Or you might instead...

Step 2) Purchase merchant fleets with trade value and guide them to their location. That is, generate visible merchant ships that you would need to guide through the confines of the galaxy to reach those unique resource locations. Now you have visible trade routes plus something to do during peacetime (I do think that pacifist empires would benefit from this the most).

Step 3) Pay trade value upkeep, enjoy the fruits of trade, and forget about micro. Once you reach a unique resource location with your merchant fleet, the unique resource is yours forever (aka, the "imaginary trade route" has been established and you benefit from the bonuses of the unique resource). There is no need to be constantly micro-ing your merchant fleets. Just pay trade upkeep (to be determined by distance from your capital, like claims), and beware of local wars and occupation of the strategic resource location by genocidal empires, which would greatly increase the maintenance cost of said trade route. Trade routes could be canceled (broken) by the player if you deem their maintenance cost to be too high, but you wouldn't need to be constantly renewing them nor sending merchant fleets as long as you generate enough trade value to keep them going, just one merchant fleet per different resource would be enough for the entire game.

I'm a bit late to your conversation but I will say I miss having Unique named resources, back around v1.2 we had:
Engos vapor,
Garanthium ore,
Lythuric gas,
Muutagan crystals,
Neutronium ore,
Orillium ore,
Pitharan dust,
Riggan spice
Satramene gas,
Teldar crystals,
Terraforming gases,
Terraforming liquids

Each with associated buildings, unique effects and flavour text... that's all been merged into the generic gas/crystal/motes edicts we have now.

1 Exotic Gases edict giving +25% Shield hit points is more powerful than access to
Lythuric gas giving +15% Ship shield health

We have bigger numbers now, but I miss all the little fantasy names, multicolour icons and space geography.

As for merchant ships and routes? I would love to see trade ships, trade routes and to grow a trade network only if it can be done without hurting performance. It seems obvious with hindsight that calculating trade value, suppression, protection, collection, and piracy every single day in every single system was computationally expensive and a terrible idea from a performance perspective. Trade routes in general sound cool, but daily calculations sounds bad.

So, how can we instead just upgrade what we already have a little?

My Suggestion:
1. Trade Enclaves provide unique resources and effects again
2. Trade routes visually connect Trade Enclaves
(adds civilian traffic animations to the local system and adds a trade lane on the map that only updates when an enclave is created or destroyed, and doesn't involve any daily calculations for performance reasons, mostly cosmetic)
3. Players can make new Trader Enclaves in good locations, invest and upgrade them, get access to unique resources and get dividends and events
(Dividends similar to Mercenary Enclaves, but without the spam of 1-ship fleets as that also can't be good for performance. New Enclaves built as a Kilostructure that requires a trade value deposit in space or an upgraded sector capital/trade building around a planet)
4. Add bidding for Trade Enclave resources/contracts (earn higher dividends or keep unique resources for yourself)

The Result:
1. Geography matters more,
2. Minigame to collect unique resources by buying them, building enclaves or capturing enclave systems (fun for pacifists and militarists)
3. Adds some civilian ships but only in a handful of systems, all designed around having a minimal performance impact.

 

[Critical Ethics]

I'm a bit late to your conversation but I will say I miss having Unique named resources, back around v1.2 we had:
Engos vapor,
Garanthium ore,
Lythuric gas,
Muutagan crystals,
Neutronium ore,
Orillium ore,
Pitharan dust,
Riggan spice
Satramene gas,
Teldar crystals,

I don't hate your idea (but it still eats cpu time updating the trade route to see if anything has broken or blocked it e: Oh wait you said cosmetic... eh, I don't really see the point then). That said, now that mining is merged with strategic resource extraction it could be neat to bring these back as planetary deposits that give gas/crystals/motes to different workers alongside research/trade/output efficiency.

 

[DrFranknfurter]

Now that mining is merged with strategic resource extraction it could be neat to bring these back as planetary deposits that give gas/crystals/motes to different workers alongside research/trade/output efficiency.

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.

 

[Ikael]

Then it potentially blunders into hostiles unless micromanaged.

True that, but I personally wouldn't mind that extra bit of micromanagement. Then again, I am more of a micro than a macro player (as long as it is meaningful and non-repetitive micro, that is).

I'm a bit late to your conversation but I will say I miss having Unique named resources, back around v1.2 we had *SNIP*

I miss that too. A part of the idea behind unique resources and fake trade routes was inspired by the old resource system. I certainly wouldn't mind having unique resources back, or some kind of system like the trading enclaves like those you describe.

I mean, the more differentiation between systems (including system "value"), the better. I really do hope that the upcoming planetary / pop rework would bring more planet differentiation at least.

 

[QuantamChameleon]

I had avoided unwanted trade management by playing gestalt empires. Looks like this will only work now if I use an expired version of the game, quite unfortunate.
I noticed that in this Dev. Diary #369 there was no mention of pirates. I'm curious as that's been another great reason to play gestalts. Is there a new way pirates are generated? Will gestalts now share in this joy killer?
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?

 

[Masked Ermine]

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.

I disagree I think Stellaris is also a war game but it's a war game that has extra steps. Just look at everything in Stellaris the end game all of it is military based. There's no negotiation with the crises there's limited if any negotiation with the fallen empires the only diplomacy you can have with the great Khan is subjugation with the hope that maybe someday someone will rise up and overthrow them how do they overthrow them militarily. The fact that pacifist is considered unplayable because you can't war belies this. There are almost no sufficient strategies in the game that counteract guy with big fleet haha.

 

[DrFranknfurter]

True that, but I personally wouldn't mind that extra bit of micromanagement. Then again, I am more of a micro than a macro player (as long as it is meaningful and non-repetitive micro, that is).

I miss that too. A part of the idea behind unique resources and fake trade routes was inspired by the old resource system. I certainly wouldn't mind having unique resources back, or some kind of system like the trading enclaves like those you describe.

I mean, the more differentiation between systems (including system "value"), the better. I really do hope that the upcoming planetary / pop rework would bring more planet differentiation at least.

I play on normal speed with lots of pausing, so I don't mind a bit of micro either. And I'm glad I'm not the only one that remembers the old days of Stellaris.

I have no idea what the changes to the pop system will do. It's a bit of a mystery at the moment to me. I'm reserving comment until we get a dev diary on the topic.

... but I do wonder if it would allow for more cosmetic differences between empires, like an empire with far more children, sick and elderly or one where there are 10x as many individuals that each do 1/10 the work, or vice versa. Cosmetic differences shown by simple numbers next to a pop category that could help represent how alien species are from each other, their distinct biology, reproductive strategies, politics and ethics.

I had avoided unwanted trade management by playing gestalt empires. Looks like this will only work now if I use an expired version of the game, quite unfortunate.
I noticed that in this Dev. Diary #369 there was no mention of pirates. I'm curious as that's been another great reason to play gestalts. Is there a new way pirates are generated? Will gestalts now share in this joy killer?
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?

I don't know what will happen to piracy... I suspect it may indeed come for Gestalts too.

On Reddit, in the Dev Diary post:
"If trade routes are gone, will pirates no longer spawn?"
[–]PDX_Iggy (Content Designer) 350 points 5 days ago
"Well the current internal build has them spawning all the time and scaling crazy high haha. We will of course make it behave differently before the beta."

Sounds like Piracy is still a work in progress that isn't set in stone yet.