Stellaris Dev Diary #39 - Back in Action

[prithupaul]

Please focus on fleet combat. Its one of the worst and most simplistic elements of the game currently, IMHO, akin to spammy blobby combat in generic clickfest RTS games.

Add formations as originally planned.

May be add fleet structure like vanguard + flanks with their own leaders, like Crusader Kings / March of the Eagles. Allow more complex instructions, formations, stances and strategic decisions for each flank.

A fleet cohesion meter will also be good, so that there is some penalty to constantly adding new ships to fleets like generic RTS.

 

[Agnostik]

There's a ton of things that could be added or improved, but really, the only thing I actually want is the official fix for Xeno Integration. Gimme multispecies ironman campaign!

 

[Defiler99]

Integrate this mod first please: Unofficial Asimov Hotfix

 

[SwordOfJustice]

Welcome back, Wiz, you beautiful human Sphinx! My thrombula vibrates at the thought of another Stellaris patch.

Please make diplomacy great again. It was better before IMO.

 

[jose2534]

Until then, enjoy the August sun

It's winter here... and it's freezing outside. But I'm glad to hear that you are back Wizz, and that you enjoy your vacation

 

[Kozer]

That is factually incorrect. An unupgraded spaceport can only build corvettes. You have to massively upgrade the station to be able to build cruisers or battleships, and you really want to build dedicated shipyards because you won't have enough of the special materials to try to build things everywhere.

Pretty sure I said upgraded. Any anyway look at how it is currently.

You can build level 6 spaceports capable of building the biggest ships over every planet you own if you wanted to. In face I bet most people after 150 years have level 6 ports almost everywhere. Its not hard to get them and not a big deal if you lose on or two.

There should be a separate building called the Naval Dock. It should be expensive so that only your most well protected and developed systems even have it. It starts out as a basic one that you can upgrade as you go. You get to add more slips that get progressively more expensive as you add them depending on the ship type that slip is for.

The biggest yards can build say 2-5 Battleships at a time along with other smaller ships depending on what slips you've built for the thing. That would allow you to build things faster overall and can be balanced out by having the individual ship build times increased.

I have never seen a game that allows you to build more than 1 ship at a time per station/yard/whatever and that is unrealistic.

Taking out a ship yard should hurt. It should be a goal in war. Instead of jumping to every system with a planet at taking out the stations, there should only be 1 or 2 shipyards that need to be targeted. But those things are well defended and deep inside the empires space.

 

[Lys91]

I have never seen a game that allows you to build more than 1 ship at a time per station/yard/whatever and that is unrealistic.

Taking out a ship yard should hurt. It should be a goal in war. Instead of jumping to every system with a planet at taking out the stations, there should only be 1 or 2 shipyards that need to be targeted. But those things are well defended and deep inside the empires space.

That also means the game need proper way for you to defend, and that battle are not an all or nothing thing anymore. They really need to improve on the battle mechanic. Maybe there should be less ships, it should take more time to repair, they should be more valuable assets, but harder to destroy. There should be relatively little loss of capital ship (i.e. ship withdraw from combat after taking a certain amount of damage), but battle should lead to damage that would take time to repair. I mean they need to look at the industry system for HOI4, something similar as the way boat are built, would fit perfectly. I should have to think twice before refitting my BS, because I will have one less on the line etc...

 

[terrycloth]

Pretty sure I said upgraded. Any anyway look at how it is currently.

You can build level 6 spaceports capable of building the biggest ships over every planet you own if you wanted to. In face I bet most people after 150 years have level 6 ports almost everywhere. Its not hard to get them and not a big deal if you lose on or two.

There should be a separate building called the Naval Dock. It should be expensive so that only your most well protected and developed systems even have it. It starts out as a basic one that you can upgrade as you go. You get to add more slips that get progressively more expensive as you add them depending on the ship type that slip is for.

The biggest yards can build say 2-5 Battleships at a time along with other smaller ships depending on what slips you've built for the thing. That would allow you to build things faster overall and can be balanced out by having the individual ship build times increased.

I have never seen a game that allows you to build more than 1 ship at a time per station/yard/whatever and that is unrealistic.

Taking out a ship yard should hurt. It should be a goal in war. Instead of jumping to every system with a planet at taking out the stations, there should only be 1 or 2 shipyards that need to be targeted. But those things are well defended and deep inside the empires space.

Sorry about the unupgraded thing, I read it wrong...

But really... it's already only not a big deal to lose a level 6 spaceport if you're at the stage of the game where minerals aren't a limiting resource anymore. If you want it to be *possible* to build a shipyard during the first 50 years of the game, it's going to be trivial to build as many as you want after 200. You can't limit shipyards just by making them expensive -- level 6 spaceports already cost thousands of minerals!

You could limit them in a few ways... influence income doesn't scale, so you could use that. Or you could add some empire resources that every empire had and that shipyards needed ('skilled engineers' or something). Or, duh -- they could require a leader.

And it would be a terrible, terrible mistake without a lot of other changes to the game. It's already SOP to fly around smashing all your enemy's spaceports -- only having to hit one or two targets would just make wars extra stupid since there's no real way to defend.

 

[Paranoch]

will the patch on the 4th make old saves unplayable? I am in the middle of a 1000-star insane campaign :s

 

[Apollo1784]

is the optimization of the late game going to be addressed? I cant seem to get any sort of answer from any of the devs.... Listen i bloody love this game it brings me so much joy but the end just drags to a grinding halt and is no longer playable

 

[Kozer]

Sorry about the unupgraded thing, I read it wrong...

But really... it's already only not a big deal to lose a level 6 spaceport if you're at the stage of the game where minerals aren't a limiting resource anymore. If you want it to be *possible* to build a shipyard during the first 50 years of the game, it's going to be trivial to build as many as you want after 200. You can't limit shipyards just by making them expensive -- level 6 spaceports already cost thousands of minerals!

You could limit them in a few ways... influence income doesn't scale, so you could use that. Or you could add some empire resources that every empire had and that shipyards needed ('skilled engineers' or something). Or, duh -- they could require a leader.

And it would be a terrible, terrible mistake without a lot of other changes to the game. It's already SOP to fly around smashing all your enemy's spaceports -- only having to hit one or two targets would just make wars extra stupid since there's no real way to defend.

You can balance it by having it cost influence or even population from the system its in.
As in a fully maxed out shipyard would need say 5 population from the planet below. So those pops are not working any tiles.
And only being able to afford a few of these would give cause to defend them religiously. As it is now I do not care if I lose a space station because I can build a new one within a few years after the war ends.

 

[Dr. B]

You can balance it by having it cost influence or even population from the system its in.
As in a fully maxed out shipyard would need say 5 population from the planet below. So those pops are not working any tiles.
And only being able to afford a few of these would give cause to defend them religiously. As it is now I do not care if I lose a space station because I can build a new one within a few years after the war ends.

You got to consider the AI. While your idea has merit, any player in any war would go directly for the jugular, prepare for and destroy the helpless AI shipyard and win. It seems like too many eggs in one basket.

 

[Wizzington]

is the optimization of the late game going to be addressed? I cant seem to get any sort of answer from any of the devs.... Listen i bloody love this game it brings me so much joy but the end just drags to a grinding halt and is no longer playable

We are continually looking into reported performance issues. If you have a particular save where performance is bad, please go to our tech support forum and make a post with that save, it will help us.

 

[Azhcristokos]

Welcome back guys, hope you all enjoyed your vacation! Ignore the overdramatic people here complaining about the DD as if its brevity is the beginning of the end of humanity and a personal insult designed to strike at the core of their timid hearts. Looking forward to seeing what you guys have in store for us. =)

 

[Lt. Rán Kavik]

Need moar stellaris !

 

[Deantwo]

You can build level 6 spaceports capable of building the biggest ships over every planet you own if you wanted to. In face I bet most people after 150 years have level 6 ports almost everywhere. Its not hard to get them and not a big deal if you lose one or two.

There should be a separate building called the Naval Dock. It should be expensive so that only your most well protected and developed systems even have it. It starts out as a basic one that you can upgrade as you go. You get to add more slips that get progressively more expensive as you add them depending on the ship type that slip is for.

The biggest yards can build say 2-5 Battleships at a time along with other smaller ships depending on what slips you've built for the thing. That would allow you to build things faster overall and can be balanced out by having the individual ship build times increased.

I have never seen a game that allows you to build more than 1 ship at a time per station/yard/whatever and that is unrealistic.

Taking out a ship yard should hurt. It should be a goal in war. Instead of jumping to every system with a planet at taking out the stations, there should only be 1 or 2 shipyards that need to be targeted. But those things are well defended and deep inside the empires space.

You are correct that it is too easy to build spaceports at every planet. But it is hard to make anything "expensive" in a game where resources are infinite.

Most of all I am hoping the strategic resources overhaul will play into this. Say if a level 6 spaceport (or naval dock or whatever) required a strategic resource, it would actually make them worth finding and trading. Could even be made so that high-end spaceship weapons/modules require a strategic resource, only allowing you to build as many at a time as you have strategic resources for.

The same can be applied to other areas, kinda like terraforming requires strategic resources. Generic modification could get a strategic resource requirement per planet.

The current strategic resources are nothing more than little bonuses, akin to luxury resources. Strategic resource have very little strategic value to them them.

 

[Grand Stone]

I on my part don't thing spaceports need to be more expensive. Spaceports are at the moment almost defence less, and killing one is fast. Compare taking a spaceport out with occupying a plannet,... taking out those spaceports is a no brainer. Making them more expensive will not help. It's irritating enough to try to stop a small rampaging fleet. Making a small fleet be able to do even more damage...

-What I want, is give me a reason to invade a planet?
-Give me ways to catch a fleet.
-Improve the defensive values of spaceports/planets/systems (I don't know exactly what weapons they use, but anything but the longest range is useless for a stationary target)
-do something to reduce the effectiveness of 'one big massiv fleet'

This thread explains the problem with the combat system, and how it could be improved

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...y-2cents-on-improvement.959822/#post-21646178


I agree that strategic resources could be exanded upon.
But I have a question, the abilities on some of the spaceports, are they only valid for ship in the spesific spaceport or for your entire fleet?

 

[Deantwo]

I agree that strategic resources could be exanded upon.
But I have a question, the abilities on some of the spaceports, are they only valid for ship in the spesific spaceport or for your entire fleet?

As far as I have been told, the "spaceship bonuses" detailed on the tooltip of spaceport modules only affect spaceships constructed at that spaceport. The tooltip could be a lot more clear on this point.

 

[WhiteWeasel]

Going to post the text just to make sure it isn't missed, terraforming could really get some help.

"When your own official wiki says it isn't worth it compared to gene modding, you should reevaluate the mechanic. http://www.stellariswiki.com/Terraforming

1) Speed. The first issue of terraforming is that it is very slow, (10 years per tier) While I'm not sure about straight up lowering the time needed, I suggest it can be reduced via repeatable techs, that shave a year off. Another is getting a speed bonus when terraforming a planet to your main species preference as they'd be most familiar with that planet type. The third is planet size should affect terraforming, so the drawback of having a small population capacity can be offset be being easier to manipulate.

2) Species benefits. I get why a planet of the same preference type will have 80% habitability since that planet isn't optimized for your species. But when you are already re shaping the biosphere to be habitable for your species is the first place, I don't get why can't you tailor it to be perfectly suitable for your kind. Planets that are terra formed to your home species preference should have 100% habitability for them.

2b) speaking of tailoring, I kinda miss from endless space that terraforming can be used for more than colonization purposes. I'd like to see the option for terraforming to add/remove modifiers like gene points for planets. For example adding a negative effects like hazardous weather to make that planet an energy hub. Another thing that could be experimented with is tailoring it against other species like having a special project to modify the atmospheric hallucinogens modifier to make the planets atmosphere an addictive drug to anyone that isn't the home benefactor species making them more vulnerable to slavery without the happiness penalties or things like adding pathogens into the ecosystem that your species has immunity to while others do not making it much less habitable of other species, maybe even giving your ground forces an edge in invasions.

3) Special projects/society. When terraforming a planet, it should have the opportunity to offer players to get some society research out of the deal by having a scientist study the ramifications of changing a whole ecosystem. Having a scientist study it can give a small bonus to society output like +3, but when being studied there would be a chance for a special event to pop up like certain ethos having a reaction to that you are destroying the planets former ecosystem for your own benefits or despite what you are doing to the planet, the original life is adapting rapidly leading you to believe genetics are more flexible than expected giving you a research opportunity to see if your own kind has that same hidden potential and get another gene point (one time only). Or finding out about a hidden property of the planet like there being pockets of gas deep in the surface that can are natural stimulants for organic life giving you the option to add the atmospheric hallucinogen/aphrodisiac modifier (for free compared to the 'gene points for planets' bit) to the planet, or finding a gold mine that adds 6 minerals to one of the planets tiles, etc... Stuff like that to give the mundane process of terraforming some flavor opportunities.

4) Please add terraforming stations to the ledger so we can keep track of them and see their progress. They are easy to forget about, and considering their huge time investment, starting late can be a real pain to a player if they want to go the terraforming route."

Addendum: Sure, changing yourselves to go anywhere is more sound from a sci-fi perspective than changing anywhere to suit yourselves, but the reasoning behind my suggestion is that both gene modding in adaptive and terraforming more or less achieve the same goal of making your species have more worlds they can live on. However one is considerably easier and cheaper for doing the same task, making the other inferior in comparison. My ideas for terraforming are meant to act as a viable alternative and contrast to the gene modding approach. Gene modding is changing yourselves to be more adaptable and is the economically easier approach, but the downside is you little control on the enviroments you inhabit, and thus you got to play with the cards you are dealt with. While on the other hand terraforming is expensive and time consuming, but you get far greater control over the benefits you reap. I'd love to see these contrasting inhabitation philosophies in game as well as acknowledged by ethos and traits like adaptive/non adaptive and migratory/sedentary affecting what approach your empire is inclined (*research weight cough cough*) to take living amongst other stars.

 

[Deantwo]

Going to post the text just to make sure it isn't missed, terraforming could really get some help.

...

You posted a link to the thread earlier in this thread, no need to spam your idea futher.
I even posted in the thread and you haven't replied.
See: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...39-back-in-action.960628/page-2#post-21651141