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Stellaris Dev Diary #69: Beyond Utopia

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary is going to briefly cover our plans for future Stellaris updates, and what you can expect from us going forward.

The Adams Update
With Utopia and Banks now out, the next thing we have planned for you is the 1.6 'Adams' update. This update, named after Douglas Adams, is going to focus completely on bug fixing and quality of life changes, with no major feature additions and no accompanying paid DLC. Work on 1.6 actually started almost immediately after Banks/Utopia went into code freeze, and it already contains hundreds of bug fixes and usability/UI additions and tweaks. A particular focus of Adams has been to work on our backlog of old issues, taking care of many of the smaller issues and annoyances that have been present in the game since release. We've also made time for some of the things that were originally planned for Banks, but had to be cut due to time constraints. While I can't give you an exact release date for Adams yet, I can say that you shouldn't have to wait too long.

Beyond Utopia
Back in Dev Diary #50, I listed a number of priorities for us going forward from Heinlein/Leviathans. A number of these things have since been added to the game, so I'm going to go ahead and list it again to give you an idea of where our focus will lie in future updates, expansions and story packs, with the items that are already completed noted with a strikethrough. The list is NOT in order of priority, and something being crossed out does NOT mean we aren't going to continue to improve on it in future updates, just that we consider it to be at a satisfactory level.

As before, THIS IS NOT AN EXHAUSTIVE OR FINAL LIST, AND NOTHING BELOW IS CERTAIN TO HAPPEN (unless it already did)!
  • Ship appearance that differs for each empire, so no two empires' ships look exactly the same.
  • More potential for empire customization, ability to build competitive 'tall' empires.
  • Global food that can be shared between planets.
  • Ability to construct space habitats and ringworlds.
  • Factions that are proper interest groups with specific likes and dislikes and the potential to be a benefit to an empire instead of just being rebels.
  • Ability to set rights and obligations for particular species in your empire.
  • Deeper Federations that start out as loose alliances and can eventually be turned into single states through diplomatic manuevering.
  • Superweapons and planet killers.
  • More story events and reactive narratives that give a sense of an unfolding story as you play.
  • More interesting mechanics for pre-FTL civilizations.
  • A 'galactic community' with interstellar politics and a 'space UN'.
  • Buildable Dreadnoughts and Titans.
  • Reworking the endgame crises to be more balanced against each other and the size/state of the galaxy.
  • Reworks to war to address the 'doomstacks' issue and make the strategic and tactical layers of warfare more interesting and less micro-intensive.
  • Deeper mechanics and unique portraits for synthetics.

With Utopia and Banks, we decided that rather than divide our focus, it was better to have the update and expansion focus almost exclusively on empire customization and internal politics, and this is the policy we intend to continue with for future expansions. As always, I can't tell you specifically what the next expansion, update or story pack is going to be about, but the above list should at least give you some ideas of where you can expect Stellaris to go in the future.

That's all for today! Next week we'll start going into specifics of the 1.6 'Adams' update so until then, I leave you with this picture of some of the free graphical content coming in Adams:
2017_04_20_1.png
 
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Utopia is very good, however I wish there would be more events with the factions.

Also, in a QoL update, I think it would be time to change the war demands interface, which is horrible. Having to type the beginning of every system you want is not good ergonomy. Instead, let us directly click on the galaxy as when we do when we are adding sectors. To select individual planets, make a dropdown list accessible by right clicking in which we could select the planet we want.

Also, about the new "drain sector" option, I would like it if a full sectors automatically gave its surplus to us until we ourselves are full. The influence costing option would be in case we want to drain them beyond simple taxation before they overflow with energy and minerals.
 
With Utopia and Banks, we decided that rather than divide our focus, it was better to have the update and expansion focus almost exclusively on empire customization and internal politics, and this is the policy we intend to continue with for future expansions. As always, I can't tell you specifically what the next expansion, update or story pack is going to be about, but the above list should at least give you some ideas of where you can expect Stellaris to go in the future.

View attachment 258753

Looking at the list, I'm guessing that means the next two updates will be (in some order) diplomacy-focussed (federations, primitive civilizations, UN) and war-focussed (planet-killers, dreadnoughts, doomstacks). Sounds like good priorities to me!
 
At one point Wiz, you mentioned implementing cosmetic civilian ships to give the galaxy more life. It's small, but definitely one of the additions I'm most excited for. Is that still on the agenda, either in the short or long term?
 
I hope that end game crises will be reworked/rebalanced.
In particular AI rebellion still feels broken.

And I hope in future that more crises will be added. I like variety ^___^
 
Oooh, I would actually like it if sectors had a wider range of autonomy. Make them always have a governor, though depending on your government you may have influence (potentially total) over the appointment. Make it so that a sector can embrace a faction, and the governor plots to kill your heir, while your overlord FE revokes...

...um, yeah, I would also like a bit more personal politics :D but that's not for the next update, I guess.
 
Yes, I have played the game. 50 planets with an estimated average population of 16 require about 800 minerals each month as consumer goods (assuming normal living standard, no other modifiers), half of it caused by the addtional scaling with planet number.

That requires about 1/10 of the 16-tile planets to produce minerals. That's without considering nearby mining stations and such. Let's say you build 3 mining centers only on each planet and each produces only 10 minerals. You are producing 1500 minerals per month at that point (again, excluding mining stations). Add in, say, mining stations producing 10 minerals per month near each planet. You are now producing 2000 minerals/month. You have a massive fleet, so subtract the upkeep there -- probably somewhere around 200 minerals per month just to be generous. Subtract the 800 minerals (assuming normal living standards, no robots/droids). You are producing 1000 minerals per month at that point. A cruiser costing 500 or so minerals takes what, 60 days to produce? I can be constantly churning out 4 cruisers per month.

And that is with 3/16 tiles being used. I still have 13 tiles left on each planet. 2 for food. 11 remaining. And that's with a bunch of crappy 16-tile worlds. And with a massive empire of 50 planets at which point you've already won the game anyway.

If you seriously think there isn't an absolute overload of resources then you're not playing the game very well.
 
Would be great to have option to have AI truly expansive and not sitting idle on stockpile of minerals&influence enough to colonise nearby without actually colonising. And not attacking their neibours whom they don't like with superiour fleet.
For those who likes competitive AI :)
 
  • Reworks to war to address the 'doomstacks' issue and make the strategic and tactical layers of warfare more interesting and less micro-intensive.

I hope that also means a rework of Stellaris current defensive mechanics.
 
Utopia is very good, however I wish there would be more events with the factions.

Also, in a QoL update, I think it would be time to change the war demands interface, which is horrible. Having to type the beginning of every system you want is not good ergonomy. Instead, let us directly click on the galaxy as when we do when we are adding sectors. To select individual planets, make a dropdown list accessible by right clicking in which we could select the planet we want.

Also, about the new "drain sector" option, I would like it if a full sectors automatically gave its surplus to us until we ourselves are full. The influence costing option would be in case we want to drain them beyond simple taxation before they overflow with energy and minerals.
I just wish the factions got more dangerious more quickly. a faction on 30% hapiness should revolt eventually no matter what.
as it is right now the smallest factions will basically never revolt - at all. Not even try, just sit there and be unhappy.
 
Space UN sounds rather goofy, with the game already having Federations. How would that Space UN come to be, how would it enforce its authority?

Imo it'd ruin that wild west lawless borderlands feel, that the galaxy has no ultimate authority unless Federation/Domination/Vassalize Everything Victories happen.

Deeper Federation mechanics sounds great, though.
I feel like federations should act like the space UN, being able to set rules and regulations for its constituents and associated nations. If you're not a part of the federation, and not a federation associate, you don't need to listen to them.
 
  • Buildable Dreadnoughts and Titans.
  • Reworking the endgame crises to be more balanced against each other and the size/state of the galaxy.
  • Reworks to war to address the 'doomstacks' issue and make the strategic and tactical layers of warfare more interesting and less micro-intensive.
  • Deeper mechanics and unique portraits for synthetics.
<3 <3 <3
 
Stellaris galaxy still seems remarkably lifeless and the economy is still rather bland. Would love to be able to SEE commerce between planets and develop semi-complex economies, maybe not on the level of Vicky, but Vicky would be a good inspiration.
I know alot of people want improvements to combat and destructible planets primarily. Myself i rather see improvements to trade and diplomacy. Not that i dont want combat improvements as well just that a more living galaxy would add more replayability to the game rather than to just play it one more time to test the new combat.