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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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Kryx said:
I would love to see more planet types, there is already perfect mod for it. Just take it and include in your game. With only 9+1 planet types every planet feels same. Another thing that would be great is making fungoids somehow benefit from colonizing tomb worlds. Muschrooms are not affected by radiation same way as other species and even thrives in places with radiation :)
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Unfortunately, if you do that you immediately have to come up with appropriately-balanced bonuses for all the other phenotypes - and a sizeable chunk of the player base do not want their playstyle to be dictated by their phenotype.
 
runrun said:
It would be a good idea I think to allow the breeding of preconscient species without malus diplomatic except for the xenophiles.
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Even some people who are outright human chauvinists find the thought of breeding chimpanzees for exploitation pretty distasteful.

And that's basically what you're doing if you're exploiting presentients.
 
this is what was done for medical studies there was not so long time. Even if myself I do not find it very clean, I still make a difference between a race that has a place on the galactic scene or only a flourishing civilization and chimpazee
 
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avsbes said:
Terraforming projects to convert gas planets into stars
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If there was enough mass in the gas giant to turn into a star it would usually already have done so. Jupiter for example is approximately 1000 times less massive than the Sun.
You're looking at needing multiple gas giants (even super-Jupiters) to get a useful star out of the far end. And you've got to contain all the gas/plasma whilst you ignite the "new star".

That's far beyond anything that could remotely be considered akin to terraforming.


avsbes said:
And please give us some kind of Star wars centerpoint station - a station that can move whole stars / planets maybe also star systems from afar.
Ofc this would have to be REALLY late game and you couldnt use it on enemy systems fir example because you have not enough telemetrical data or so.
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Moving stars and planets - and especially moving star systems would play havoc with the game. Yes, we already have projects that rebuild systems (ringworlds in particular), but since stars and their locations are part of how the galaxy is structured, and moving them would involve having to remap any distance calculations involving that system (and redraw the hyperlanes), it's probably beyond technical possibilities.

avsbes said:
And we NEED a way to invade other dimensions like the unbidden do. For example it would be an idea that you would have to be psionic ascensioned and the unbidden must have been killed. Then you can research some technologies or get an ap or whatever to invade another universe
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No, we really don't.
Firstly that means that only one ascension can do it. If it a particular end-crisis has happened.
Secondly, what do you get to take to the new galaxy? How built up do you have it be? How long do you want to sit and wait for the game to simulate another galaxy for - or would it just load up a pre-set (or one of a number of pre-set) "advanced" galaxies?

But no. Once you've won, you've won. Start a new game, try something else.
 
You know, I think there are some issues with synths rights in 1.5. But most of all, I believe Full citizen rights for the AI should be available to all empires, not just materialists. Spiritualists have their psi ways, but others will benefit from robotech and synths more, if rights would be granted easily.

I really hope this will be fixed in Adams, because for me it's crucial. I want to have my UNE with free robots as citizens. Let us remember captain Picard's words:

 
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runrun said:
Can crisis occur when the game is won?
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Yes. The only effect of winning the game is that if you're playing on unmodded Ironman, you get the achievement for winning the game.
 
Shaftoe said:
You know, I think there are some issues with synths rights in 1.5. But most of all, I believe Full citizen rights for the AI should be available to all empires, not just materialists.
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A good solution is, only materialists can set full AI rights immediately and the others ethos (except spiritualist) need wait for a event like a reworked AI accord for set the AI rights to full citizenship. This will balance the triggers for the AI rebellion with players dont dodging this every game and will create a narrative way for the acceptance of synths rights for empires like the UNE.
 
Sapa Inca said:
A good solution is, only materialists can set full AI rights immediately and the others ethos (except spiritualist) need wait for a event like a reworked AI accord for set the AI rights to full citizenship. This will balance the triggers for the AI rebellion with players dont dodging this every game and will create a narrative way for the acceptance of synths rights for empires like the UNE.
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No, this can't be decided by an event. Event may be involved, though. I believe, we should consider the possibility of AI sentience and, as such, AI's rights recognition by people of the Empire, i.e. by players themselves. Or do you think the story of CDR Data rights recognition is somehow worse? It's narrative too. Because we're narrators. Not the event pop up protocol.

If I wanna build a state like the United Federation of Planets, then I simply don't need a prolonged political dispute and in-fighting for or against synths rights. I believe, the limitation is fairly lazy on part of Paradox. This won't make spiritualists any more special, however it will practically lock synths from others (non-materialists) for a long time. This isn't right, really.
 
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Diezy said:
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.
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Yes, because the real UN has absolute dominion over the earth.

I imagine it would be more like the real UN, largely a diplomatic venture. Fanatic purifiers and the like wouldn't participate or obey, but more diplomatically inclined civs could get together and collectively decide what to do about galactic problems. Any resolutions passed by the space UN wouldn't be automatic and unavoidable like the World Congress in Civilization. Instead they're more like suggestions that carry a diplomatic penalty for ignoring. At least that's how I see it.
 
For my money, war and diplomacy are two sides of the same coin and should be addressed at the same time. Right now I believe they need a complete overhaul as has been the case in internal politics with banks. Great work so far though guys, keep it up :)
 
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