Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary marks the start of dev diaries about a major upcoming update that we have named the 'Cherryh' update after science fiction author C.J. Cherryh. This is a major update that will include some very significant reworks to core gameplay systems, reworks that we have been prototyping and testing for some time. Right now, we cannot say anything about the exact nature of the update or anything at all about when it will be released, other than that it's far away. Normally, we wouldn't be doing dev diaries on an update at this stage at all, but there's simply so much to talk about that we have to start early. Cherryh will be a massive update, the largest one we've done to date, and there are many new and changed things to talk about in the coming weeks and months.
Please bear in mind that screenshots are from an early internal build and will contain art and interfaces that are WIP, non-final numbers, hot code and all that business.
Border Rework
We've never been entirely happy with the border system in Stellaris. While it generally works fine from a gameplay perspective, it has some rather quirky elements, such as being able to claim ownership of systems that you have never visited and indeed have no ability to reach and making it hard to tell what the exact border adjustments will be when planets are ceded or outposts are built. For this reason, we have decided to fundamentally rework the Stellaris border system to be based on solar system ownership. Each system will have a single owner, with complete control of the system, and borders are now simply a reflection of system ownership rather than a cause for it to change. In the Cherryh update, who owns a system is almost always based on the owner of the Starbase in said system.
Starbases
A Starbase is a space station orbiting the star of said system. Each system can only have a single Starbase, but this can be anything from a remote Outpost to a massive Citadel with its own 'fleet' of orbiting defense stations. Starbases can be upgraded and specialized in a variety of ways (more details on this below), and is the primary means of determining system ownership. This means that wars are no longer fought for colonies controlling a nebulous blob of border that may not actually include the systems you really want, but rather for the exact systems you are interested in, and their starbases. This change of course would not be possible if we kept the wargoal system that exists in the live version of the game (just imagine the size of that wargoal list...), but more on that in a couple weeks.
As Starbases now determine system ownership, it will no longer be possible to colonize or invade primitives outside your borders in the Cherryh update, but if a system contains a colony and no starbase, it will still count as being inside the borders of the colony's owner. These restrictions are moddable. Since Starbases now cost influence to construct (see below), we have removed the influence cost for colonizing and attacking primitives.
Starbases entirely replace the old system of Frontier Outposts.
Starbase Construction
With borders from colonies gone, empires now start only owning their home system, with a Starbase already constructed around their home star. To expand outside their home system, empires will have to construct Outposts in surveyed systems. An Outpost is a level 'zero' Starbase that has only very basic defenses and cannot support any buildings or modules, but also does not count towards your maximum Starbase Capacity (more on that below). Building an Outpost in a system costs influence, with the cost dependent on how far away the system is and how contigous it is to your empire as a whole, so 'snaking' or building starbases to ring in a certain part of space will be more influence-costly than simply expanding in a natural way. Starbases do not cost any influence upkeep, just an up-front cost when first building one in a system. As this change makes influence far more important in the early game, there will also be significant balance changes to empire influence generation in the Cherryh update.
As an aside note, because we felt it made very little sense to have a home system with a fully built Starbase but no surveyed planet, empire home systems will now start surveyed, with a only slightly randomized amount of resources, and mining/research stations for some of those resources already in place. This should also help make player starts a little less random, ensuring that you are never *completely* without resources in your home system.
Another thing we have been wary about when working on this is making sure that building the Outposts for each system does not simply feel like adding tedium. Right now, between the fact that which systems you choose to spend your limited influence on is an extremely important choice, and various tweaks and interface improvements we are making to ease up the process of developing your systems, we are confident that this will not be the case. We've also made it so that there are no entirely 'empty' systems (systems with no resources at all), as we discovered during playtesting that spending influence to claim such a system felt extremely unrewarding.
Upgrades and Capacity
Each empire will have a Starbase Capacity that represents the number of upgraded Starbases they can support. There are five levels of Starbases:
Outpost: A basic Outpost that exists only to claim a system. Costs no energy maintenance and does not count towards the Starbase Capacity, and cannot support buildings or modules. Outposts will also not show up in the outliner or galaxy map, as they are not meant to be interacted with at all unless it is to upgrade the Outpost to a Starport.
Starport: The first level of upgraded Starbase, available at the start of the game. Supports 2 modules and 1 building.
Starhold: The second level of upgraded Starbase, unlocked through tech. Supports 4 modules and 2 buildings.
Star Fortress: The third level of upgraded Starbase, unlocked through tech. Supports 6 modules and 3 buildings.
Citadel: The final level of upgraded Starbase, unlocked through tech. Supports 6 modules and 4 buildings.
Regardless of the level of the Starbase, so long as it is not an Outpost, it will use 1 Starbase Capacity and will show up on the map and in the outliner. Overall, the design goal is for the vast majority of Starbases to be Outposts that you never have to manage, with a handful of upgraded Starbases that are powerful and critical assets for your empire. Going over your Starbase Capacity will result in sharply increased Starbase energy maintenance costs. Starbase Capacity can be increased through techs, traditions and other such means. You also gain a small amount of Starbase Capacity from the number of Pops in your empire. If you end up over Starbase Capacity for whatever reason, it is possible to downgrade upgraded Starbases back into Outposts. It is also possible to dismantle Starbases entirely and give up control of those systems, so long as they are not in a system with a colonized planet.
Spaceports and Ship Construction
Starbases fully replace Spaceports in the role of system/planet defense and military ship construction. Spaceports still exist, but are no longer separate stations but rather an integrated part of the planet, and can only build civilian ships (Science Ships, Construction Ships and Colony Ships). To build military ships you will need a Starbase with at least one Shipyard module (more on that below). Starbases also replace Spaceports/Planets in that they are now the primary place to repair, upgrade, dock and rally ships, though civilian ships are also able to repair at planets.
Modules and Buildings
All non-Outpost Starbases can support Modules and Buildings. Some of these are available from the start of the game, while others are unlocked by tech. Some modules and buildings are only available in certain systems, for example Trading Hubs can only be constructed in colonized systems.
Modules are the fundamental, external components of the Starbase, and determine its actual role. Module choices include Trading Hubs (for improving the economy of colonized systems), Anchorages (for Naval Capacity), Shipyards (for building ships, duh), and different kinds of defensive modules such as gun turrets and strike craft hangar bays that improve the Starbase's combat ability. There is no restrictions on the number of modules you can have of a certain type, besides the actual restriction on module slots itself. This means, for example, that you can have a Starbase entirely dedicated to Shipyards, capable of building up to 6 ships in parallell. Modules will also change the graphical appearance of the Starbase, so a dedicated Shipyard will look different from a massive defensive-oriented fortress brimming with dozens of gun turrets.
Buildings represent internal structures inside the Starbase proper, and typically work to enhance modules or provide a global buff to the Starbase or system as a whole. Building choices include the Offworld Trading Company that increases the effectiveness of all Trading Hub modules, and the Listening Post that massively improves the Starbase's sensor range. You cannot have multiples of the same building on the same Starbase.
Defenses
One of the fundamental problems with the military stations in the live version of the game is that they simply do not have enough firepower. Even with impressive hit points and shields, a station with at most a dozen or so guns simply cannot match the firepower of a whole fleet. An another issue is the ability to build multiple defense stations in the same system, meaning that no single station can be strong enough to match a fleet, as otherwise a system with several such stations will be effectively invulnerable. For this reason we decided to consolidate all system defenses into the Starbase mechanics, but not into a single station. Starbases come with a basic array of armaments and utilities (gun and missile turrets, shields and armor, etc), with the exact number of weapons based on the level of the Starbase. These are automatically kept up to date with technological advances, so your Starbases won't be fielding red lasers and basic deflectors when facing fleets armed with tachyon lances.
Additionally, Starbases (with the exception of Outposts) have the ability to construct defense platforms to protect them. Constructed defense platforms will form a 'fleet' around the Starbase, supporting it with their own weapons and giving Starbases the firepower needed to engage entire fleets. The amount of defense platforms a Starbase can support may depend on factors such as starbase size and modules/buildings, technology, policies, and so on. The exact details here are still being worked on, but the design intent is that if you invest into them, Starbase defenses will scale against fleets across the whole game rather just being completely outpaced in the late game as military stations and spaceports currently are in the live version.
One last note on Starbases: For a variety of reasons (among them to avoid something like the tedious rebuilding of Spaceports that happens at the end of wars) Starbases cannot be destroyed through conventional means. They can, however be disabled and even captured by enemies. More on this in a couple weeks.
... whew, this was a long one but that's all for today! Next week we'll continue talking about the Cherryh update, with the topic being Faster than Light travel...
Please bear in mind that screenshots are from an early internal build and will contain art and interfaces that are WIP, non-final numbers, hot code and all that business.
Border Rework
We've never been entirely happy with the border system in Stellaris. While it generally works fine from a gameplay perspective, it has some rather quirky elements, such as being able to claim ownership of systems that you have never visited and indeed have no ability to reach and making it hard to tell what the exact border adjustments will be when planets are ceded or outposts are built. For this reason, we have decided to fundamentally rework the Stellaris border system to be based on solar system ownership. Each system will have a single owner, with complete control of the system, and borders are now simply a reflection of system ownership rather than a cause for it to change. In the Cherryh update, who owns a system is almost always based on the owner of the Starbase in said system.
Starbases
A Starbase is a space station orbiting the star of said system. Each system can only have a single Starbase, but this can be anything from a remote Outpost to a massive Citadel with its own 'fleet' of orbiting defense stations. Starbases can be upgraded and specialized in a variety of ways (more details on this below), and is the primary means of determining system ownership. This means that wars are no longer fought for colonies controlling a nebulous blob of border that may not actually include the systems you really want, but rather for the exact systems you are interested in, and their starbases. This change of course would not be possible if we kept the wargoal system that exists in the live version of the game (just imagine the size of that wargoal list...), but more on that in a couple weeks.
As Starbases now determine system ownership, it will no longer be possible to colonize or invade primitives outside your borders in the Cherryh update, but if a system contains a colony and no starbase, it will still count as being inside the borders of the colony's owner. These restrictions are moddable. Since Starbases now cost influence to construct (see below), we have removed the influence cost for colonizing and attacking primitives.
Starbases entirely replace the old system of Frontier Outposts.
Starbase Construction
With borders from colonies gone, empires now start only owning their home system, with a Starbase already constructed around their home star. To expand outside their home system, empires will have to construct Outposts in surveyed systems. An Outpost is a level 'zero' Starbase that has only very basic defenses and cannot support any buildings or modules, but also does not count towards your maximum Starbase Capacity (more on that below). Building an Outpost in a system costs influence, with the cost dependent on how far away the system is and how contigous it is to your empire as a whole, so 'snaking' or building starbases to ring in a certain part of space will be more influence-costly than simply expanding in a natural way. Starbases do not cost any influence upkeep, just an up-front cost when first building one in a system. As this change makes influence far more important in the early game, there will also be significant balance changes to empire influence generation in the Cherryh update.
As an aside note, because we felt it made very little sense to have a home system with a fully built Starbase but no surveyed planet, empire home systems will now start surveyed, with a only slightly randomized amount of resources, and mining/research stations for some of those resources already in place. This should also help make player starts a little less random, ensuring that you are never *completely* without resources in your home system.
Another thing we have been wary about when working on this is making sure that building the Outposts for each system does not simply feel like adding tedium. Right now, between the fact that which systems you choose to spend your limited influence on is an extremely important choice, and various tweaks and interface improvements we are making to ease up the process of developing your systems, we are confident that this will not be the case. We've also made it so that there are no entirely 'empty' systems (systems with no resources at all), as we discovered during playtesting that spending influence to claim such a system felt extremely unrewarding.
Upgrades and Capacity
Each empire will have a Starbase Capacity that represents the number of upgraded Starbases they can support. There are five levels of Starbases:
Outpost: A basic Outpost that exists only to claim a system. Costs no energy maintenance and does not count towards the Starbase Capacity, and cannot support buildings or modules. Outposts will also not show up in the outliner or galaxy map, as they are not meant to be interacted with at all unless it is to upgrade the Outpost to a Starport.
Starport: The first level of upgraded Starbase, available at the start of the game. Supports 2 modules and 1 building.
Starhold: The second level of upgraded Starbase, unlocked through tech. Supports 4 modules and 2 buildings.
Star Fortress: The third level of upgraded Starbase, unlocked through tech. Supports 6 modules and 3 buildings.
Citadel: The final level of upgraded Starbase, unlocked through tech. Supports 6 modules and 4 buildings.
Regardless of the level of the Starbase, so long as it is not an Outpost, it will use 1 Starbase Capacity and will show up on the map and in the outliner. Overall, the design goal is for the vast majority of Starbases to be Outposts that you never have to manage, with a handful of upgraded Starbases that are powerful and critical assets for your empire. Going over your Starbase Capacity will result in sharply increased Starbase energy maintenance costs. Starbase Capacity can be increased through techs, traditions and other such means. You also gain a small amount of Starbase Capacity from the number of Pops in your empire. If you end up over Starbase Capacity for whatever reason, it is possible to downgrade upgraded Starbases back into Outposts. It is also possible to dismantle Starbases entirely and give up control of those systems, so long as they are not in a system with a colonized planet.
Spaceports and Ship Construction
Starbases fully replace Spaceports in the role of system/planet defense and military ship construction. Spaceports still exist, but are no longer separate stations but rather an integrated part of the planet, and can only build civilian ships (Science Ships, Construction Ships and Colony Ships). To build military ships you will need a Starbase with at least one Shipyard module (more on that below). Starbases also replace Spaceports/Planets in that they are now the primary place to repair, upgrade, dock and rally ships, though civilian ships are also able to repair at planets.
Modules and Buildings
All non-Outpost Starbases can support Modules and Buildings. Some of these are available from the start of the game, while others are unlocked by tech. Some modules and buildings are only available in certain systems, for example Trading Hubs can only be constructed in colonized systems.
Modules are the fundamental, external components of the Starbase, and determine its actual role. Module choices include Trading Hubs (for improving the economy of colonized systems), Anchorages (for Naval Capacity), Shipyards (for building ships, duh), and different kinds of defensive modules such as gun turrets and strike craft hangar bays that improve the Starbase's combat ability. There is no restrictions on the number of modules you can have of a certain type, besides the actual restriction on module slots itself. This means, for example, that you can have a Starbase entirely dedicated to Shipyards, capable of building up to 6 ships in parallell. Modules will also change the graphical appearance of the Starbase, so a dedicated Shipyard will look different from a massive defensive-oriented fortress brimming with dozens of gun turrets.
Buildings represent internal structures inside the Starbase proper, and typically work to enhance modules or provide a global buff to the Starbase or system as a whole. Building choices include the Offworld Trading Company that increases the effectiveness of all Trading Hub modules, and the Listening Post that massively improves the Starbase's sensor range. You cannot have multiples of the same building on the same Starbase.
Defenses
One of the fundamental problems with the military stations in the live version of the game is that they simply do not have enough firepower. Even with impressive hit points and shields, a station with at most a dozen or so guns simply cannot match the firepower of a whole fleet. An another issue is the ability to build multiple defense stations in the same system, meaning that no single station can be strong enough to match a fleet, as otherwise a system with several such stations will be effectively invulnerable. For this reason we decided to consolidate all system defenses into the Starbase mechanics, but not into a single station. Starbases come with a basic array of armaments and utilities (gun and missile turrets, shields and armor, etc), with the exact number of weapons based on the level of the Starbase. These are automatically kept up to date with technological advances, so your Starbases won't be fielding red lasers and basic deflectors when facing fleets armed with tachyon lances.
Additionally, Starbases (with the exception of Outposts) have the ability to construct defense platforms to protect them. Constructed defense platforms will form a 'fleet' around the Starbase, supporting it with their own weapons and giving Starbases the firepower needed to engage entire fleets. The amount of defense platforms a Starbase can support may depend on factors such as starbase size and modules/buildings, technology, policies, and so on. The exact details here are still being worked on, but the design intent is that if you invest into them, Starbase defenses will scale against fleets across the whole game rather just being completely outpaced in the late game as military stations and spaceports currently are in the live version.
One last note on Starbases: For a variety of reasons (among them to avoid something like the tedious rebuilding of Spaceports that happens at the end of wars) Starbases cannot be destroyed through conventional means. They can, however be disabled and even captured by enemies. More on this in a couple weeks.
... whew, this was a long one but that's all for today! Next week we'll continue talking about the Cherryh update, with the topic being Faster than Light travel...
