First things to mod?

[sresk]

I'm mostly making this thread for myself so I'm not going to go into a huge amount of detail as to why these are the things I plan on modding but as I'm watching through the lets play's from Arumba and quill18 I'm jotting down idea's of the first things I'd like to change about the games numbers and balance. Yes of course I'm going to play vanilla first and no i don't think the game is broken/incomplete/unbalanced. But I do think there is room for improvement.

So here's my list of the first proposed changes I'd love to hear what other people plan on modding for themselves?



Change

+5% reasearch cost per pop (instead of 2%)

+5%-10% research cost per colony as well

Double all edict and traits effects

Add a building to encourage that pop to migrate

Increase chance to gain traits on leaders

Raise max leader level to 10

Change to soft cap + modifier on happiness based on habitability instead of hard cap

Double the rate of increase of science cost per tech level

Choice of 5 leaders instead of 3

Increase spawn rate of science events

24 months to colonize - 6 energy vs 12 months and -8

Federation voting to go to war?

66%-75% vote succeeds on alliances instead of 100%

50% more allowed leaders

6/3 picks on traits vs 4/2

50% cost to edicts

150% increase to influence gain?

Extra diplo techs to add:

Diplo integration speed

Uplift speed

Max embassies

Max rivals

Permanent relation boost

Something to improve planetary defence:

Longer range on bases

More slots on bases

More HP’s on bases

Increase defence of starports as well as bases

Cheaper bases (because you don’t need engines)

Attrition for fleets in bombardment

50% cost for ships in orbit

Decrease cost and time for upgraded by 50%

Add a +5-15% increase as well

Add a flat 5-10 increase as well as the % to give it relevance in the early game and on small planets

AI willingness to go to war increase

Increase to migration desire at max pop

Increase regen rate on hull tissue

 

[solidprice]

Good goals for modding peeps on steam workshop.

Me?

I'll like a OP starting star system mod.
If it's easy enough, I'll even dip my toes into modding and make one myself!

What would it be?

A extra choice for your solar system other than sol or random.
It would have lots of objects in the system so even with bad luck Brian levels of bad luck, you will find at least some resources.

And if possible, one of every type of world so you can have a strong start regardless of political climate/expansion options.

Why?
Sometimes you just want to snowball fast but not use the console/cheat.
Also it's very RNG if you will get a few or a lot of systems/resources for starts.

 

[BrokenSky]

Step 1: get some free time

Step 2: learn to mod stellaris

Step 3: Make mod which
Change collectivism and individualism so that:
* they don't block government types
* individualism gets tolerance of divergent ethics, collectivism gets reduced ethic divergence, but also less divergent ethic tolerence
* add individualist and collectivist governments


Step 4: spend twice as long troubleshooting as learning to mod plus making the mod combined took
(I'm optimistic)

Step 5:
Spend ages trying to balance the whole lot.

 

[Ceryse]

Personally, I intend to start fairly small in terms of modding, but from what I've seen of various streams and Let's Plays I will likely start with;

-- Doubling research costs (may end up quadrupling it, but may just stay at double and then increase the percentage cost increase due to pops).
-- Re-tune FTL speeds to take much longer. Not entirely sure how I'll approach it for wormhole FTL, but I've found that, personally, travel between systems is far too quick (for all FTL types) for my tastes. As a base I'm looking at least quadrupling travel time.
-- Large boosts to defense stations (especially towards late game) to make them more of an issue to take out.
-- Increase max leader level (to make successful leaders more impactful while alive and their loss a bigger deal).
-- Re-tune resource costs and build times for, well, everything. I'll probably start with doubling the cost of everything and start tweaking from there.
-- Various other small changes I'll only really notice when I get my hands on the game.

Essentially, I want to slow the pace of the game down dramatically as that's my personal preference in this genre. I do it to all the 4x games I play (usually marathon settings aren't, well, marathon enough for me). I want a much slower tech build up, so each tech really has a chance to impact the game when gained. From what I've seen of game-play (and I've watched more than 40 hours of game-play, easily) the impact of each tech is fairly minor, especially ship technologies, as you can advance through the tech tree/cards way too fast, even with large population growth (as population growth, done even remotely well will also notably increase the tech resources you gain).

Similarly, buildings, outposts and mining stations are all built far quicker, and cheaply than I would like. The reality that one or two constructor ships is all you really need for the entire game seems.. wrong to me. Increased build-times on stations would increase the efficiency value of multiple constructors, as well as slowing the pace of the game down.

FTL travel speed is another big issue for me; it is way, way too fast. Warp travel is about twice as fast as I'd like hyperlane travel to be, as an example. I'll have to find ways to properly balance things, but the base idea is to slow down travel, make reacting to incoming fleets an actual possibility (instead of having to constantly send fleets in reaction to where enemy fleets are already attacking you). I expect this to be the biggest issue for me in terms of balancing and getting the 'feel' right.

The rest are minor changes to fit in with a slower paced game where each stage of the game takes longer. I could see myself adding a mid-game crisis or two as well, to spice that section of the game up in my slower paced game. Something not as severe as the current end-game crisis types we see (that occur way too early for my taste), but that requires adaptation and effort to deal with and can potentially change the galactic power balance.

I expect I'll play Stellaris much like I do EUIV and other Paradox titles; almost never vanilla, but with my own personal mod to refine the game-play to my personal taste. Which is a big reason I love Paradox games; the moddability is fantastic and worth a purchase for that alone, much less the relatively solid base game-play.

 

[Rorin_yt]

increasing the specie traits, negative and positive

 

[R3V0_76]

Modifying section mechanics - More than 5 planets
Rebuilding Fallen Empires
Ability to adopt different types of travel in late game
Very huge galaxies

 

[Mackus]

Three things come to mind that won't be outrageous cheats (like starting game with tachyon lances and jump drives) that'll take all the fun and challenge out of the game.

Tweak habitability preference... so humans prefer Arid and Tundras over Desert and Arctic. No need to keep it perfectly balanced, just to make a little more sense. Also make it that AI aliens never spawn with Desert or Arctic favourite habitability.

Create new predefined star-system, probably with three habitable moons orbiting same planet, or three habitable planets sharing orbit, all rich in resources. Good for learning the ropes with easier starting conditions, but bonus becomes less prominent later into game as I am getting hang of the things.

Allow player to use fallen empire ship models. Those are pretty cool.

 

[eon47]

Step 1: Rename collectivist and individualist to hierarchical and non-hierarchical.
Step 2: Get back to playing game.

 

[doktorstick]

Fuel, ammunition, tankers and colliers.

All of which probably won't be doable.

 

[sresk]

Personally, I intend to start fairly small in terms of modding, but from what I've seen of various streams and Let's Plays I will likely start with;

-- Doubling research costs (may end up quadrupling it, but may just stay at double and then increase the percentage cost increase due to pops).
-- Re-tune FTL speeds to take much longer. Not entirely sure how I'll approach it for wormhole FTL, but I've found that, personally, travel between systems is far too quick (for all FTL types) for my tastes. As a base I'm looking at least quadrupling travel time.
-- Large boosts to defense stations (especially towards late game) to make them more of an issue to take out.
-- Increase max leader level (to make successful leaders more impactful while alive and their loss a bigger deal).
-- Re-tune resource costs and build times for, well, everything. I'll probably start with doubling the cost of everything and start tweaking from there.
-- Various other small changes I'll only really notice when I get my hands on the game.

Essentially, I want to slow the pace of the game down dramatically as that's my personal preference in this genre. I do it to all the 4x games I play (usually marathon settings aren't, well, marathon enough for me). I want a much slower tech build up, so each tech really has a chance to impact the game when gained. From what I've seen of game-play (and I've watched more than 40 hours of game-play, easily) the impact of each tech is fairly minor, especially ship technologies, as you can advance through the tech tree/cards way too fast, even with large population growth (as population growth, done even remotely well will also notably increase the tech resources you gain).

Similarly, buildings, outposts and mining stations are all built far quicker, and cheaply than I would like. The reality that one or two constructor ships is all you really need for the entire game seems.. wrong to me. Increased build-times on stations would increase the efficiency value of multiple constructors, as well as slowing the pace of the game down.

FTL travel speed is another big issue for me; it is way, way too fast. Warp travel is about twice as fast as I'd like hyperlane travel to be, as an example. I'll have to find ways to properly balance things, but the base idea is to slow down travel, make reacting to incoming fleets an actual possibility (instead of having to constantly send fleets in reaction to where enemy fleets are already attacking you). I expect this to be the biggest issue for me in terms of balancing and getting the 'feel' right.

The rest are minor changes to fit in with a slower paced game where each stage of the game takes longer. I could see myself adding a mid-game crisis or two as well, to spice that section of the game up in my slower paced game. Something not as severe as the current end-game crisis types we see (that occur way too early for my taste), but that requires adaptation and effort to deal with and can potentially change the galactic power balance.

I expect I'll play Stellaris much like I do EUIV and other Paradox titles; almost never vanilla, but with my own personal mod to refine the game-play to my personal taste. Which is a big reason I love Paradox games; the moddability is fantastic and worth a purchase for that alone, much less the relatively solid base game-play.

Sounds like you and I are aiming for about the same things

I hadn't thought of slowing down travel speed that's a nice idea. Likely what I'll do is decrease the starting FTL by half or a third but have the tech scale better so late game speed is meaningful

 

[Cruxador]

Whole lot of ideas without any real justification or reasoning. Don't you think this kind of detailed change is better off decided on after actually experiencing stuff?

As for me, I'm considering adding a fourth ethos point, which would greatly increase the amount of possible ethos combinations and (to me) would allow a more fulfilling engagement with the ethos system. But I still think I'm going to play pure vanilla the first couple times.

 

[Number 7]

Catgirl race highest priority for modders. A universe without catgirls is dark and bleak

 

[Ceryse]

Whole lot of ideas without any real justification or reasoning. Don't you think this kind of detailed change is better off decided on after actually experiencing stuff?

I'd agree that's a valid point, however, a lot of what I intend to mod doesn't require first-hand experience to know whether or not I want to change it. Watching various streams (each played in varying styles and game speeds) is a very good way to see how the game's pace works, and personally I find the pace far faster than I would enjoy; so why play in a style I won't enjoy as much when I don't have to? That's the beauty of modding a single player game.

 

[ZenthWolf]

1) Hide AI personalities from displaying. I want part of the adventure to be that I have to figure that out.

2) And I think I won't succeed, change liberation. I should choose one POP on the planet to form the government OR pay influence to enforce my ethics. This seems ambitious, especially if I want AI to do this intelligently (I might be OK that they get the current method for free, but ultimately I want them to "choose").

 

[RoboticManiac]

Slave rebellions reimplemented. I hope someone with more experience than my self would venture to add mega structures or large orbitals, however.

 

[sresk]

I'd agree that's a valid point, however, a lot of what I intend to mod doesn't require first-hand experience to know whether or not I want to change it. Watching various streams (each played in varying styles and game speeds) is a very good way to see how the game's pace works, and personally I find the pace far faster than I would enjoy; so why play in a style I won't enjoy as much when I don't have to? That's the beauty of modding a single player game.

Exactly I've played enough 4x games to know my personal tastes. My whole point in making this thread was not to be a critique on paradox or whether the vanilla game is "right" or "wrong" rather it was to start a discussion in hopes of finding other ideas I'll want to incorporate into my own personal mod.

 

[sresk]

Slave rebellions reimplemented. I hope someone with more experience than my self would venture to add mega structures or large orbitals, however.

Agreed something I want to look at

 

[shimiku]

im making a eve online cross over with star map and system planets true to eve online so far i got 8035 systems might remove all system that are not part of K space then we are down on 5432 systems
and if its do able make all empire space in eve part of a fallen empires with the right names so you play around in low and null

and then i might split it up in section like amarr,caldarian,gallente,minmatar and low+null system just to reduce the number of system but that will be when i get time and when the other part is working

 

[balmung60]

Either halve or remove pop penalty on technology.
Likely increase core worlds or restore direct democracy to +4.
More trait points to pay with (what's the point of being super adaptable if I have to a bunch of sedentary weaklings who reproduce only once a blue moon?)

 

[crowdemon]

I wonder if Stellaris will have more mods than CK2 and EU4 combine.