Stellaris Dev Diary #40 - Heinlein Patch (part 1)

[Radiator King Cobra]

To me one of the most pressing issues is technology balance. +10% cost per planet and +1% per pop (or is it 2?) is heavyhanded as admitted in the post-mortem. From my experience so far, larger empires are doomed to be behind technologically but the benefit to minerals and energy is so huge that it's always worth it.
It mostly just annoys me that the best way to maximize technology speed seems to be to not expand and stay static, but this is no fun and also doesn't really seem realistic.
In Civ V, if I expanded massively wide my tech progress would take an early tech hit but once all those cities grew tall it would often be worth it in the long run as my tech would reach late game levels before others, sometimes well before. In some RTS games a tech boom would usually leave you vulnerable early on, which is an interesting trade-off.
These concepts are present in Stellaris to some extent, but to me just aren't prevalent enough to make a real difference. Basically, the way technology works at the moment doesn't seem strategically interesting enough for my liking - maybe I just haven't played this enough yet so if someone can correct me I'd be delighted.

Another completely unrelated thing: I'd like a separate game mode or even a mod for an asymmetric start similar to EU4 etc - make it really immersive and creative, maybe with lots of empires of different sizes and technological developments who reached space at different times etc. There would need to be a diplomacy overhaul with maybe a "greater power, secondary power"-like system similar to Victoria 2 to make sure size-able power differences aren't exploited too much. Probably unfeasible for many different reasons. I just think the prospect of exploring a completely unknown and very threatening galaxy of highly advanced species from the point of view of a race who has just discovered FTL is pretty awesome.

Also as others have said, interesting mid game scripted content - I know this is being worked on just thought I'd mention that I'd like for some of them to really have some impact such that they couldn't be ignored if the player wanted - depending on the size of your empire have a whole colony or appropriate number of ships be lost to something devastating - perhaps have it be avoidable or limited if you make the right decisions.

 

[desiriel]

One cool suggestion I've seen is to make it so higher level admirals can command bigger fleets/fleets with more military power, while low level admirals can only command small fleets. Fleets receive significant combat penalties when they have no commander or an unqualified commander. It would both handily deal with the problem of death-stacks, and add a whole new layer to leaders (Traits like quick xp gain, higher starting level, and long lifespan are now much more valuable.) Plus you're faced with the mutually exclusive strategic decision of choosing between a new younger admirals to train when your current ones grow old, or if your influence would be better spent in other facets of government.

Definitely a good proposal. +1 for me.

 

[Slarkon]

rally points have been in strategy games for 20+ years and you guys only thought of it based on feedback? , and its soooo complicated that it cant be implemented in a tiny patch that users have to wait another 2+ months? lol
or was it discussed during game development and you guys decided against it? if so why? seems strange that noone thought of it during dev?

 

[terrycloth]

One cool suggestion I've seen is to make it so higher level admirals can command bigger fleets/fleets with more military power, while low level admirals can only command small fleets. Fleets receive significant combat penalties when they have no commander or an unqualified commander. It would both handily deal with the problem of death-stacks, and add a whole new layer to leaders (Traits like quick xp gain, higher starting level, and long lifespan are now much more valuable.) Plus you're faced with the mutually exclusive strategic decision of choosing between a new younger admirals to train when your current ones grow old, or if your influence would be better spent in other facets of government.

I think this is a terrible idea -- admirals' levels fluctuate rapidly during war time and so does the size of a fleet that you need to send around. It'd be annoying micro at a time when you really don't want even more micro.

Plus, admirals tend to die at 5 stars and be replaced at 1 star.

The *worst* part of the idea is to penalize fleets without admirals. That forces a limited number of stacks which is the opposite of what people were trying to accomplish with a fleet size limit.

I think it would make more sense to focus less on making large fleets less powerful than small ones (which is kind of silly) and more on making them unwieldy to use, which is already the built-in, natural downside. Something like the system attrition limit -- too many FTL drives in the same place makes everyone's FTL work badly in the vicinity? You could still try to split up the fleet and converge on the target from multiple routes, but that opens things up to having the subcomponents ambushed, at least.

Wormholes already kind of have this except that you can build multiple wormhole generators to get around it. Just remove that capability for them.

 

[Warial]

rally points have been in strategy games for 20+ years and you guys only thought of it based on feedback? , and its soooo complicated that it cant be implemented in a tiny patch that users have to wait another 2+ months? lol
or was it discussed during game development and you guys decided against it? if so why? seems strange that noone thought of it during dev?

Considering that rally points are present in other PDX games I can guess that they simply didn't have enough time to implement it before.

 

[Trutty]

I think this is a terrible idea -- admirals' levels fluctuate rapidly during war time and so does the size of a fleet that you need to send around. It'd be annoying micro at a time when you really don't want even more micro.

I will admit that this system would definitely need some tweaking to keep this from turning into micro-hell. At this point we know basically nothing about how they're going to be rebalancing fleets, so maybe this idea will work great or maybe it will be terrible. (I'm mostly just sort of spit-balling here).

Plus, admirals tend to die at 5 stars and be replaced at 1 star.

Some way would be needed to more passively level up admirals. Maybe some sort of "Military Exercises" mode that increases maintenance costs but slowly gives the commanding admiral experience. Regardless, you would have to more strategically pick admirals so that you have someone who isn't a new recruit already waiting in the wings before your level five kicks the bucket (naturally this would make leader traits like quick xp gain, higher starting level, and long lifespan much more valuable than they currently are.) As you previously mentioned this would probably need to be tinkered with so as not to be ridiculously micro-intensive.

 

[Duke of Nukem]

I will admit that this system would definitely need some tweaking to keep this from turning into micro-hell. At this point we know basically nothing about how they're going to be rebalancing fleets, so maybe this idea will work great or maybe it will be terrible. (I'm mostly just sort of spit-balling here).



Some way would be needed to more passively level up admirals. Maybe some sort of "Military Exercises" mode that increases maintenance costs but slowly gives the commanding admiral experience. Regardless, you would have to more strategically pick admirals so that you have someone who isn't a new recruit already waiting in the wings before your level five kicks the bucket (naturally this would make leader traits like quick xp gain, higher starting level, and long lifespan much more valuable than they currently are.) As you previously mentioned this would probably need to be tinkered with so as not to be ridiculously micro-intensive.

Regarding the micromanagement of admirals, there should be a better leader organizer with more functionality to influence what type of leaders you get in your pool and also some basic mechanics to say for instance "prefer recruiting high level admirals then apply them to fleets in need of a leader". Such a system could estimate the year of death of current leaders and the projected leadership cost to replace them and allow options to auto-recruit when needed. You get another stat page to help plan influence expenditures and track trends as well. Something like this could streamline leader management, which is going to have to be adressed eventually.

This is more of a large change than what is within the scope of Heinlein though.

 

[Chipchat2]

How about an end date to give some closure but with the option to keep playing? So that the game doesn't drag on forever.

 

[Duke of Nukem]

Another feature I forgot to mention in previous posts, new galaxy types.

Specifically merging galaxies. There's a lot of material to work with in a merging galaxy scenario. First off is intergalactic warfare which doesn't currently exist unless you count the preth. The merging sections could be the sole hyperlane/warp access points to travel from one cluster to the other. The overlapping areas will naturally become hot zones for colonization due to the increased star density, so both galaxies will rush the middle making for good defensive and offensive play. The map type should be fairly simple to set up by itself.

This could also be an event that happens in MP as an end game crisis if two separate games trigger the "end of game" variable near the same time, viola instant intergalactic showdown. (Of ultimate destiny) There could be a checkbox at game start to allow mergers to be possible as end-game crises. I guess on a related side note, having the option to enable/disable/encourage the appearance of individual crises would be a nice feature too. Maybe I want to guarantee the unbidden by 2300, or ensure the AI doesn't spawn them.

 

[stumason]

rally points have been in strategy games for 20+ years and you guys only thought of it based on feedback? , and its soooo complicated that it cant be implemented in a tiny patch that users have to wait another 2+ months? lol
or was it discussed during game development and you guys decided against it? if so why? seems strange that noone thought of it during dev?

In the meantime, there is an excellent Mod that does the trick - I've been using it happily for a couple of months

 

[lpslucasps]

One question: are the most annoying issues of the sector AI going to be resolved through hotfix, or are we going to have to wait until october? Things like slavery, the sector AI removing special tiles of tomb worlds, the obsession of governors with food (really. dear governor, this planet already has 30 food, I don't need more farms!) and many other things.

I can't find a single person that is satisfied with the sector AI. Please, make it a priority.

 

[The Grumpy Buddha]

It mostly just annoys me that the best way to maximize technology speed seems to be to not expand and stay static, but this is no fun and also doesn't really seem realistic.

Luckily, it is NOT the best way, not even close. The research Malus is pretty small relative to the benefit you get from Labs, and it's almost never a bad idea to settle a world of size 16+ if you have the opportunity.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...e-ish-to-research-malus.957157/#post-21576515

 

[ShadyShadow]

If you make me sector off my betharian power plants Ima be hella mad

 

[Morwys]

You had me at 'auto-explore'.

 

[jursamaj]

Regarding the expansion planner: the ability to write notes for star systems would be wonderful. As it is, I have to keep a text file handy to write notes in.

 

[jursamaj]

Another feature I forgot to mention in previous posts, new galaxy types.

Specifically merging galaxies. There's a lot of material to work with in a merging galaxy scenario. First off is intergalactic warfare which doesn't currently exist unless you count the preth. The merging sections could be the sole hyperlane/warp access points to travel from one cluster to the other. The overlapping areas will naturally become hot zones for colonization due to the increased star density, so both galaxies will rush the middle making for good defensive and offensive play. The map type should be fairly simple to set up by itself.

This could also be an event that happens in MP as an end game crisis if two separate games trigger the "end of game" variable near the same time, viola instant intergalactic showdown. (Of ultimate destiny) There could be a checkbox at game start to allow mergers to be possible as end-game crises. I guess on a related side note, having the option to enable/disable/encourage the appearance of individual crises would be a nice feature too. Maybe I want to guarantee the unbidden by 2300, or ensure the AI doesn't spawn them.

That's kind of silly. Galactic mergers take place of *millions* of years. They aren't a sudden event.

 

[mangalore]

I will admit that this system would definitely need some tweaking to keep this from turning into micro-hell. At this point we know basically nothing about how they're going to be rebalancing fleets, so maybe this idea will work great or maybe it will be terrible. (I'm mostly just sort of spit-balling here).



Some way would be needed to more passively level up admirals. Maybe some sort of "Military Exercises" mode that increases maintenance costs but slowly gives the commanding admiral experience. Regardless, you would have to more strategically pick admirals so that you have someone who isn't a new recruit already waiting in the wings before your level five kicks the bucket (naturally this would make leader traits like quick xp gain, higher starting level, and long lifespan much more valuable than they currently are.) As you previously mentioned this would probably need to be tinkered with so as not to be ridiculously micro-intensive.

While such ideas would be cool imo it all fails because of how influence as a resource works. It's already overused for vastly different purposes and has a very limited way to affect its availability aka it has all kinds of effects on how something like a leader pool would work.

 

[Wally isnt spai]

That's kind of silly. Galactic mergers take place of *millions* of years. They aren't a sudden event.

Indeed. We are currently in a galactic merger in our own galaxy. It's not relevant to anything we do or anything in our future.

Worrying about a cataclysmic galactic merger is like being afraid of the apocalypse caused by continental drift.

 

[LlewellynX]

I'm a little surprised at your choice of automating exploration. Perhaps this isn't possible, but it seems you have a neat mechanism in the game which could be used to create an interesting way to assign your explorers an area of space to explore — Sectors. Would it not be possible to use the exact same method of assigning areas to explore as is currently used to assign planets to sectors? Then you could place a limit on how many systems can be explored before being reassigned to a technology which could increase over time. For example a mid game science ship with typical tech for that point in the game may be able to survey 10 (or whatever) system autonomously before having to return to base or be re-supplyed. Kind of like Star Trek's five year mission. You have lots of cool concepts in the game, but you don't seem to be thinking of what other possibilities exist to use current methodology for new purposes.

I really like the addition of rally points. After a while it gets tiring trying to link up the right ships to the right fleet.

 

[KittyFluff_FuzzTum]

Hi @Wiz - just wanted to mention a couple of small things that I would hope are on the radar for Heinlein:

• Anomaly discovery: it seems that the ability to uncover anomalies (and thus event chains) is damaged by trading star charts with other empires. I can understand why this is ... as once you have star charts an area is then "discovered" and there is no chance for you to uncover anomalies. But it's harmful to have one of your diplomatic trade options negatively affect one of the most fun aspects of the game. Can we have some kind of multi-tier state for exploration in game? So for example a science ship would both "explore" and "investigate" a system, but trading start charts would only "explore" those systems... leaving them open for investigation at a later date. Maybe scanning an already "explored" system purely for anomalies would have a slight speed benefit too.

It also seems that if another empire has already surveyed a system and found an anomaly, it's impossible for another empire to find an anomaly when they survey that system (unless it's a planet-modifying anomaly such as those that add extra resources). Each empire should have a chance to discover anomalies in systems they haven't surveyed yet even if another empire has already found one -- we can pretend they 'missed' that anomaly if it's a story issue. Mid-game anomaly discovery dropping off a cliff is really annoying. I feel compelled to rush science ships out towards other empire's space each game before exploring my own just so I can get the anomalies in their space before they do.