Stellaris Dev Diary #147 - An update on Sectors & Designations

[methegrate]

It's kind of funny to see Stellaris drift back towards the original design of automated management to avoid tedious micromanagement. But, I hate to say it this way, it will probably make the end game feel worse.

Let me clarify, the end game is not presently awesome and tedious planet development is not a solution. While the micromanagement isn't fun or awesome, it is basically "the thing to do" as you finish whatever drawn out agenda is left. Thus, while I welcome a reduction of tedium in casual play, I also think that will make the end game even more stale.

The artifacts are cool, but they sound like another early-to-mid game task, and this reduction in endgame tedium will remove what little content the late game has to offer. It really needs to be looked at in coming patches, pointless conquering is about the only thing to do in the late game besides micromanage planets.

I think a lot of this comes from the focus on events. The story in a game like Stellaris should be driven by mechanics, but the development has seemed to really lock in on specific quests and storylines driven by exploration and pop-ups. In other posts I've compared it to if Civilization tried to build half its gameplay around the little huts you find in the early game. It wouldn't leave much left after those huts were all explored, and the same thing happens here.

Stellaris has always suffered from the well-documented lack of a middle game precisely because it focuses on exploration and pop-up events like the Worm, the precursors and now archeology. But those aren't mechanics. They're click-throughs. They're a slide show. They end once you've explored all the nearby stars, and even if they don't... so what? This is content, not gameplay. They make for good early exploration but once you've seen a given event, it's done. Once you've played through the early game of Stellaris a few times there are no surprises left. You just click through the same boxes over and over again.

So, I agree. Development has focused so much on those events that there isn't much to actually do once they've been all clicked away. Managing planets fills that role of gameplay actions right now, but it isn't really gameplay. It's just routine optimization. I want Planet X to be a forge world, and I know the build queue to make it that way. Once that's been automated away, there's not going to be much to actually do other than watch numbers grow and occasionally declare war.

 

[Shirasik]

Normal empires and megacorps should be able to employ most of their population in this manner. Gestalts have more problems - for them it seems to be around 5-15 while non gestalts will naturally have around ~30 similar jobs on a developed planet even without additional buildings.

And your guessed analogues are?

 

[Zoolimar]

And your guessed analogues are?

Why would I need to guess? There are jobs for gestalts that have appropriate descriptions - coordinators and synapse drones.

 

[MichaelJanuary]

So, I agree. Development has focused so much on those events that there isn't much to actually do once they've been all clicked away. Managing planets fills that role of gameplay actions right now, but it isn't really gameplay. It's just routine optimization. I want Planet X to be a forge world, and I know the build queue to make it that way. Once that's been automated away, there's not going to be much to actually do other than watch numbers grow and occasionally declare war.

I too agree.

Early game: exploration, events, essential econ-micro
Mid-Game: diplomacy, not quite essential econ-micro, war, tech
Late-game: war, with some complications (crises, jump drives, gateways), painful econ-micro

At the moment, the econ micro extends into the late game, and the automation changes will hopefully reduce that. The new archeology events might add a bit across the board, but mostly in the mid-game as I understand it.

I pretty much largely ignore the faction politics in the game, and do the bare minimum diplomacy. Mostly because it doesn't affect my gameplay style that much (I play mostly at Captainlevel, and rarely attempt grand admiral).

What I would like to see is that Empire Management (not econ micro) becomes a bigger factor as the game progresses. What do I mean by this? I don't really know. Perhaps a combination of having to deal with corruption, piracy, deviant sectors, extended trade and supply routes. What form the exact mechanics of these will be are up for discussion I guess.

 

[Shirasik]

Why would I need to guess? There are jobs for gestalts that have appropriate descriptions - coordinators and synapse drones.

Those are mere analogues to Culture Workers, Managers and Priests. Try again.

 

[Pale Blue]

I just watched the Ancient Relics announcement and the auto-develope feature looks good. What will this mean for the planet outlier? It would be helpful if only planets are pinned there that are set to manual development.

 

[Swiftdrake]

Is there any way we can make planetary edicts auto renew - example - if I have chosen to spend 2000 food for increased population growth for 10-11 years, is there any reason why it can't subtract another 2000 food (if available) to renew once it's completed?

 

[MichaelJanuary]

I've always wondered why these aren't implemented as 'planetary scale policies' .....
100 food per month for 25% growth until cancelled (or food runs out)
20 CG per month for increased immigration pull until cancelled.

 

[methegrate]

I've always wondered why these aren't implemented as 'planetary scale policies' .....
100 food per month for 25% growth until cancelled (or food runs out)
20 CG per month for increased immigration pull until cancelled.

They have those too. For I think 1,000 food (someone correct me) you can set an individual planet growth spurt.

 

[MichaelJanuary]

They have those too. For I think 1,000 food (someone correct me) you can set an individual planet growth spurt.

Sorry, maybe I wasnt clear ... some planetary decisions are activated and last a specific period, like a few years, while others are active until disabled.

I think I would have preferred them all to be of the type that is active until disabled, and rather pay a monthly fee than a single activation fee.

 

[ragehavoc]

They have those too. For I think 1,000 food (someone correct me) you can set an individual planet growth spurt.

what he means is a permanent one, where you just activate it and it removes a monthly count from a resource, the one that is in game is pretty much not even worth it once you have a few planets because of how much mirco it involves.

 

[methegrate]

what he means is a permanent one, where you just activate it and it removes a monthly count from a resource, the one that is in game is pretty much not even worth it once you have a few planets because of how much mirco it involves.

Agree to disagree there. I don’t think having to interact with individual planets is micromanagement. The tedious part is when you’re just making the same decisions over and over again, essentially just manually running a bunch of build queues. But the planetary edicts, I think, are a terrific addition.

 

[VoodooDog]

why are sectors still in anyways?
disable them, thank you.

 

[lineararc]

Sounds great. One question: it looks like we are seeing some archaeology icons. We already have so many icons with starbases, megastructures, wormholes, gateways, and L-gates, it can already be difficult to find wormholes or whatever you might be looking for. Is there any chance you could color code them for clarity? I realize there is a mod for that, but it doesn't seem like an unreasonable vanilla request, especially with archaeology giving us more symbols to visually scan.

Should we also make use of more outliners for makers (as opposed to icons)? I mean, the current outliner only differentiates between normal inhabited systems, occupied inhabited systems and capital systems. Now an outliner requires something to be there already (like a planet or starbase) but this digging seems to be available anywhere so...outliners on name tags maybe? Like putting an icon (without the hexagon border and white background) in the middle. Even with icons only, we can make it non-linear (because they are hexagonal)

 

[Janx14]

Agree to disagree there. I don’t think having to interact with individual planets is micromanagement. The tedious part is when you’re just making the same decisions over and over again, essentially just manually running a bunch of build queues. But the planetary edicts, I think, are a terrific addition.

You can not call it micro, thats fine, but your issue is effectively the same regardless of what one chooses to call it.

You call it tedius, he calls it micro.

But what he's proposing is making it so instead of 1000 food every X years, its a small monthly amount making it easier to snap on and off as need be. Still on the planet level just without needing an extra button for 'auto renew'.

There's a mod that does this currently, and its great.

 

[Siven80]

Looks and sounds great!

But i would still like to have control of which systems go into the sector like we used to have.

 

[Oscot]

Let me clarify, the end game is not presently awesome and tedious planet development is not a solution. While the micromanagement isn't fun or awesome, it is basically "the thing to do" as you finish whatever drawn out agenda is left. Thus, while I welcome a reduction of tedium in casual play, I also think that will make the end game even more stale.

Counterargument: the endgame is my favourite part because
A) You actually have the resources to do stuff now. No more sitting around for 10 years waiting for your alloy cache to fill up so you can build one corvette; now you churn out Empire-smashing fleets from your 6-shipyard citadel for breakfast
B) You actually have the mobility to do stuff now. No more sitting around for 10 years waiting for your single doomstack to cross from one side of the empire to the other; you've got 5x 210-pip fleets and you sail them through Terminal Egress whenever you like

Sure, you don't get cool anomalies any more, but, y'know, watching paint dry is watching paint dry even if you get tossed an occasional science popup.

Furthermore, it is strange to me that someone would argue in favour of explicitly tedious busy-work micro. I mean, even if what you said was true and the micro was the only thing to do in the endgame... that's not a positive of the micro, it's a negative of the endgame.

...I got to the end of this post and realised it's not much about sectors, so let me append A)
"I like the look of these changes, player-defined planetary build order templates are exactly what my playstyle requires."
and also B)
"Not really sure what sectors are supposed to DO in an iteration of the game where automation is (correctly and necessarily) planet-localised, my suggestion for the future is (as it has been for the last 3 years) to make them less of a UI-admin-automation feature and more of a gameplay-oh-crap-the-Sagittarius-Sector-just-launched-an-authoritarian-uprising-civil-war" feature"

 

[methegrate]

...I got to the end of this post and realised it's not much about sectors, so let me append A)
"I like the look of these changes, player-defined planetary build order templates are exactly what my playstyle requires."
and also B)
"Not really sure what sectors are supposed to DO in an iteration of the game where automation is (correctly and necessarily) planet-localised, my suggestion for the future is (as it has been for the last 3 years) to make them less of a UI-admin-automation feature and more of a gameplay-oh-crap-the-Sagittarius-Sector-just-launched-an-authoritarian-uprising-civil-war" feature"

This is the part that confuses me the most. We keep getting updates on how sectors will be drawn going forward, but the devs aren't giving any sense of why. Before we have any more updates about how sectors will be assigned, there should be an update clarifying what their role in the game will be.

I would love it if sectors were a vital part of running your empire and economy. Factions should coalesce around sectors, as was originally designed, and that should have both political and economic consequences. Your materialist sector should be a scientific powerhouse while the egalitarian sector has the most productive artisans and forges in the empire. The hippie aliens who move to your empire should gravitate toward one place, leading it to become a breadbasket and a target of xenophobes.

Governors should be mandatory, much more interesting and a big deal in how your sector develops. Sectors should have priorities and perhaps even make demands. Revolution and civil war should just be a tip of the iceberg in how they interact with your empire.

All of that would be awesome. But as-is? It's basically flavor art and should probably be written off as a failed experiment and scrapped.

 

[universal_kalle]

This is the part that confuses me the most. We keep getting updates on how sectors will be drawn going forward, but the devs aren't giving any sense of why. Before we have any more updates about how sectors will be assigned, there should be an update clarifying what their role in the game will be.

...

All of that would be awesome. But as-is? It's basically flavor art and should probably be written off as a failed experiment and scrapped.

I completely agree. I don’t see a point in keeping sectors around as-is.
@grekulf what are the design goals of sectors? What mechanic do they serve? If you can explain that it would be tremendously easier to provide feedback

With automation being set at a planet level, which is great, the main reason for sectors are gone. Unless they have some secret purpose that haven’t been revealed yet.
I can only see sectors doing two things with the proposed new system; managing governors and being a template for creating vassals. Add in the ability to nudge systems and the new sectors would handle the second part decently.
But the question remains. What’s the point? Both of these things could be achieved in easier ways for both the players to use and for the developers to implement.

I would love for sectors to become an actual mechanic! See my post in the mega discussion for a basic outline of what I’d do with them.