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Thanks for you interest, guys. I'm just waiting for Le Guin, so what can I tell about possible directions:

I'm just waiting for the full list of all new features and for release. Cuz I've realized, that I have to rebuild everything in my mod
I see two-three directions for now:

1) wiz said, that sectors will be a bit more moddable, so it's a good news, I'm going to cover this scope. And I guess, the shape of clusters will be moddable as well, so I hope it will leave me possibilities to play around shaping empire's territory - to add/remove planets from sectors etc

2) sector's military to rebuild and improve everything I've made for 2.*

3) politics I do really want to make some kind of senate/parliament and all related stuff

and, probably, 4) UI stuff some sector info, statistics etc
 
Hello all.

Besides my trials to predict what could I do after LG2.2, there are already some, say, settled features which I want to improve and bring to new patch. The first big scope is sector gui information screen. So, I want you to give any feedback - what kind of information do you want to see there, or to remove, or change a bit? Any suggestions what it has to contain?

Screenshot_6.png
 
Hello all.

Besides my trials to predict what could I do after LG2.2, there are already some, say, settled features which I want to improve and bring to new patch. The first big scope is sector gui information screen. So, I want you to give any feedback - what kind of information do you want to see there, or to remove, or change a bit? Any suggestions what it has to contain?

Screenshot_6.png

(doubles as things I'd wish to be able to do in this view)

If possible, ethics breakdown?
Starbase power-related info.
I guess leader name/type and resource production is in the in-game view already.
If you are able to limit what type of ship designs/classes they can use, seeing those would be helpful.
And perhaps a checkbox if you can make them patrol their trade routes.
 
Yeah, I was thinking about this possibilities, I hope it can be done with modding.
Considering some ship top tier components are supposed to use "motes" and other expensive stuff, it would be quite valuable to be able to limit what ship designs sectors can produce.
In particular if they are "just" going to patrol their space against pirates.

One way I thought you could possibly limit this, is to only allow sectors to build designs with a certain code word in the name. That's if it's possible in the code.
 
Once More!
MOD REWORK HAS BEEN STARTED

It was a long time since i last wrote something about this mod. It was caused by some lack of available time, but mostly I was just waiting for a new update as I didn’t want to rebuild everything from scratch each time new update is released. Regularly reading dev diaries showed that I was right.

Le Guin update have got Stellaris almost to a new brand game. A lot of new features — reworked economy with new supply chains, planet management without tile system, pop jobs, trade, megacorporations and branch offices, changes to sectors and much, much more stuff have completely changed this game. I don’t want to discuss some issues or advantages of all this new stuff (there’re already a lot of topics on boards), instead of this I’d like to focus on how to adapt and update this mod according to new gameplay.

So, the main goal is to recreate and improve what I’ve made in the last version before LG2.2 release. However, a list of last minor and major changes have a serious impact on mod mechanics and gameplay (like new sector behavior), forcing me to find a new methods and to make a bit more detailed disclosures of some new concepts and approaches:

SECTORS
Well, this seems like a one of the key topics according to hypetrain around it. I can understand the displeasure about sector creation behavior but can’t totally agree with that, as most of the people haven’t studied the modding aspects and possibilities so they don’t see the other side. From my (modding) point of view — this side could be pretty flexible and potentially allows us to significantly improve sectors’ behavior, shape and gameplay.

At first, I’m going to fix the sector shapes making them larger — it’s really simple and requires two rows changing. But along with this I want to define a good logic for sector border mechanics, i.e. how sectors are created, what sector system has to drop in, what is sector maximum size and so on. In other words, I want to make a predictable, but automatic mechanics operating with sector borders — I've found myself approving the ideas to make sectors more like administrative units, based on space topography, accessibility, not heavily defined by player. In combination of other political sides of my mod it really makes sense. But, for sure, I'm going to add some possibilities of manual control like redefining sector size, relocating sector capital or transferring systems between sectors. I don’t know exactly are devs going to give back the possibility to redraw sectors like it was before 2.2, but seems that it’s against their plans, so I want this feature to be minimally implemented in my mod.

The other big thing is Sector GUI, the management screen allowing to see summary of entire sector, divided by specific categories: economics, population, warfare and so on. I have to rework it and align to a new update, though. As now there are a lot of new stuff like jobs, new resources and industries, stability, crime etc which have to be shown there.

Not ready to tell how I’m going to implement sector fleets now, but I hope I find some solutions for it. What I want to say now - I do really want to implement some kind of patrolling mechanics for sector fleets protecting your trade roads within sector space, this seems to be a very helpful feature.

Also, to re-add some minor features like Sector Capitals, sector-wide focuses or edicts, some related stuff with governors and so on.​

FACTIONS
In general, the concept is still the same — each established sector might have it’s own political faction, representing this region on empire’s level. I have to rework a bit existing demands, to rebalance faction attraction and some minor stuff. Later this factions could be a part of Senate concept, but this is for further releases.

Faction will react on some your decisions among own demands, like transferring systems between sector or relocating capitals etc. Also, there will be a similar faction for core sector, but with some specific demands and issues.

I’m thinking about the maleficent faction attracting people from the worlds with some degree of crime. The concept isn’t totally completed, so I’d be very helpful for any suggestions.​

Of course, I have plenty of ideas, new and old, but I’m going to tell about them a bit later. So, stay connected! :)
 
Sectors topography
Hello again!

Today I'm continuing to talk about the sectors, as it's still the core focus of my mod. Well, I've spend nearly a week raking up with Le Guin stuff related to sectors and finally managed to assemble and test a proper mechanics, fixing at least some basic issues. So, I'm going to talk about sector size, shapes, borders and capitals.

SECTOR TOPOGRAPHY

As I’ve said above, sector creation mechanic is a bit weird, especially in limitations. For now, all sector are created like pancakes having a radius of 2 hyperjumps. The is really annoying and absolutely ineffective, as after a while you’ll just have a huge list of single-planet sectors. And you’ve lost all the control which was in previous versions! I’m going to change it and fix a bit.

Sector Types
After a week of detailed studying of sector modding mechanics, I’ve realized that there is no way to create a flexible allocation logic using only a couple of sectors. That’s why I’ve designed a lot of similar types for internal mod usage. That was done to avoid any intersectioning between them, as the sector now is more like an abstract and dynamic scope and is not always accessible from specific locations. This types are hidden and forming three primary sector groups: the basic Core Sector, Internal and Frontier Sectors. In general, they are mostly the equal, but have different weight to include systems, different radius range (i.e. core sector has a range of 20 starting from the Capital planet while frontier sector has only 10, inner sector is in the middle) and some other minor tweaks. The difference between inner and frontier sector is the distance to core sector. Far sectors are more likely to become frontiers. Later there could be some additional parameters, but for now this is a basic foundation for all other features. For example, there will be some impact on sector factions, depending on the sector’s type. Some demands for core sector won’t be absolutely similar to frontier.

System Allocation
Well, the one of the primary goals was to create a predictable mechanics of sector shapes and borders.

At first, I’ve changed the maximum size of all sector types, from 2 to 20, 15 and 10 accordingly to core, inner and frontier sector with some plans to slightly extend this numbers with some new technologies, civics or traditions in future. This step has immediately improved the sector shape and now gives more reason to their existence. Now you are able to plan where you want to establish a new sector, roughly predict it’s shape and what planets are going to be included within.

At second, I’ve designed a weight-based logic related to systems’ distance to sector capitals. Now systems are gravitating to drop into the sector if they are pretty close to their capitals, and this parameter is slightly decreasing to zero at the end of the borders. So, in other words, if some sectors are touching in the system and this system is on 5 jumps to capital of sector #1 and 6 jumps to capital of sector #2, the system will drop into the first sector, as it is closer and has more weight for including it. Of course, if the capitals are accessible by hyperlanes and there is no other factors. So, understanding this concepts helps you to design the shape of your sectors and make it predictable. In combination of other features like transferring sectors, or increasing the power of entire sector you’ll be able to have almost the full control of your space assets.

Later I’ve came across to a thread, where ts has some similar thoughts about creation mechanics, so I think I’m right with this approach.

Management
The other goal was to give back some management options for player. At first, I’m recreating an option to relocate the Capital of sector. It’s not just a cosmetic feature, the status of sector capital is really crucial, at least for internal hardcoded logic (losing sector capital will lead to reshaping the sector for instance). But along with this I want to bring and additional, political sense to sector capitals. They have to be the central world of entire regions, collecting trade, having some own issues, giving specific bonuses etc. And according to previous section, sometimes you’ll need to redraw the shape of your sector, to shift the capital weight into some other part of it, so it’ll be really helpful.

Sector capital planet now has it’s own type with some bonuses and is shown in outliner.

I want to give back an option to transfer systems between existing sectors. Well, I can’t reproduce absolutely the same what was before Le Guin in GUI and programming aspects, but I’ve found a solution which could replace it. There will be some system-based decisions allowing you to attach systems to opposite sector. Of course, it’s going to cost you a bit of money and influence, as well as for previous feature.

I’m thinking to ban self-emerging sectors for better control. Now sectors create themselves without any player approvement. There has to be a political decision for player to establish a new sector from chosen planet.

Other features
There could be a plenty of features related to sectors. Currently I’m trying to select the very important ones and later their list could be extended. At first I want to implement an administrative capacity bonus from existing sectors, some leader-based impacts on sectors, capital related stuff and, of course, some linkage with sector factions.

I’ve made some pictures to explain sector mechanics, please, take a look:

irm_sector_mechanics_b01.png


irm_sector_mechanics_b02.png

That's all for today. I hope I'm going the right way :D

Merry Christmas, stay connected!
 
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This looks great. I was wondering if it possible to weight an entire nebula to only join one sector? It always kind of bugged me when a nebula is split between sectors.
 
Well, theoretically it could be done, but I'd rather add an option to edit the shape of sector by yourself.
For now I've disabled creation of any new sector without your approval - you have to establish a new sector from the chosen planet using a special decision. Next step is to add an option allowing you to transfer a certain system to opposite sector.

Screenshot_from_2018-12-26_23.25.14.png


Screenshot_from_2018-12-26_23.25.56.png
 
Hi just saw this linked from my ideas thread. This does look like a great way to implement it as a mod, even if some of the ideas I had would need adjustments to the core game logic.

One of the kind of key ideas I had was making capital systems where trade routes happened and trade collection took place, rather than randomly scattering trade hubs across your space. I look forward to seeing if you can implement that kind of thing as a mod too.