Stellaris Dev Diary #174 - Federations is out, now what?

[VerdantSF]

Can we please get Federation fleets to use the graphical cultures of their creators, rather than defaulting to the leader? It's just so off that in the DLC named Federations that the fleet comprising the ships from many allies no longer presents this visually like before.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

... they weren't? I don't remember it that way.

Robots Robots Everywhere only really became a thing with unlimited planet capacity and single-POP growth. There were Other Options before 2.2 that could reach similar economic utility, and being able to make full use of robots had opportunity costs that meant you didn't always want to do it.

Synth Ascension was still POWERFUL, sure, and people were doing it before Utopia even by finding ways to get rid of their founder species and only building synths. But it was also harder to make full use of and could still be meaningfully competed against.

 

[King of Zoot]

I thin AI personalities should have a progressive vs conservative spectrum that modifies their likelihood to support new laws in federation and the GC beyond their ethics or economy.

 

[Kahldris]

What about a content dlc focused on fallen and AE empires! Make them great again! Give emnsomething dont have thats awesome and never give it to us ... no matter how much we whine!

 

[SeekingEtermity]

A whole bunch of QoL changes that I'd dearly love to see:

• SWAP leaders, rather than just moving one and booting the other (ending up with one unemployed leader and one empty position wherever they came from). This is just aggravating, especially if you aren't paused and your science ship instantly forgets all its orders because you wanted its Scientist for a research job.
• Move unemployed pops to the TOP of the resettlement screen. It's a pain in the butt to scroll to the bottom constantly.
• For pop-modding, allow mass-selection by PLANET, rather than only by Species. Sometimes you want everybody on a planet to be a particular template.
• On the Species screen, PLEASE allow us to collapse sub-species!
• Show research speeds for a given tech BEFORE you select them! At the very least, let us see what techs will be boosted by a research agreement. It's so annoying needing to manually cycle through every tech card in your list to see which ones you can get a bonus on.
• Don't STOP all research progress in an area just because you opened the picker! Nothing else works that way. Imagine if your shipyards halted their construction whenever you were looking at a list of ships to buy?
• Show planet DESIGNATIONS on the Resettlement and Pop Modding screens. I've taken to appending tags explaining what a planet is for to the planet name, because even with 0.25x habitable worlds, there's just too many planets to remember which ones want what kind of pops.
• Show pop HABITABILITY on the Resettlement screen. It's frustrating needing to keep track of which pop types like which planet types, and which ones have modifiers to their habitability in general, and so on. This gets especially bad with non-genocidal conquests and/or cross-breeding.
  
• Please make Encourage Growth and Distribute Luxury Goods into TOGGLED effects that modify upkeep of the relevant resources, rather than timed effects with up-front costs. Bonus: this makes their costs scale sensibly, rather than the current silly stepwise function for CGs and flat price for food whether it's a 2-pop new colony or a 200-pop ecu.
• Give us an "anti-favorite" option that actually REDUCES PRIORITY for a job, as opposed to simply closing slots. A counterpart to the "Mark as Favorite" option, so we can manage jobs with less fiddling and without actually closing jobs and then needing to re-open them to avoid unemployment.
• You gave us the (much-appreciated) ability to demote pops freely within a year of them promoting, but we can't tell who is demotable. Making that more apparent (and having them be the first to leave a job when a slot is closed, rather than needing to close all of the slots and wait to see who demotes) would be wonderful.
• Relatedly, since actually fixing the bugs where you get unemployed Specialists or Rulers due to weird events like "I upgraded my capital" is apparently hard, put in place a CHECK where, if any Specialist or Ruler pop is unemployed AND there's any other same-species pop at that stratum or above who can instantly demote, instantly demote them and put the unemployed pop in their place. So much more convenient than closing dozens of jobs, waiting for demotion, and then opening them again.
• Let us see the relative BENEFITS and COSTS of diplomatic actions when proposed by the AI! It's so annoying needing to do the dance of "Oh, you want a Research/Commerce deal with me? Let me go propose one to you so I can see whether that's a good idea...".
• ARMY MANAGER as a counterpart to the Fleet Manager.
• Don't make Armies immediately embark when created! Embarking is a free action, landing isn't. In particular, DO NOT make armies auto-embark if the system's starbase is hostile! You just end up making target practice for it, and because the transports get combat-locked you can't even land again or run away!
• Fix combat lock for transports! If they have orders, they should carry them out. If they don't have orders, they should either land or flee. Just running around like headless chickens is the WORST option.
• Just give us the ability to enact CRIME LORD deal at any time (or fix it, but this is a post about QoL, not about fixing cheese) so that you don't have to do silly stuff (like firing your Enforcers, unassigning your Governor, and bulk-firing your Workers to make them good and mad) to hit the threshold for the decision.
• Spread out Monthly Deals in the Market over the WHOLE MONTH (or something like that) so that we don't have to play the World's Worst Rhythm Game if we want to sell more than 100 food in a month for full price.
• Let us TYPE numbers! So, SO many places where it makes just so much more sense to enter a number rather than clicking little up/down buttons while holding modifier keys, or trying to place a one-time "monthly" order (that you cancel after the first of the next month) for 20 minerals so you can start that building ASAP without wasting a bunch of money on the other 80.

 

[GatClancy]

Curious, I'm new to Stellaris, when small patch updates come out like 2.6.3, will we be able to continue old multiplayer saves to finally get past the out of sync issues? Or would we have to start over?

 

[Pyerre]

First of all, great update!

I think in patch 2.6.2 “Greater than ourselves” edict does not work. Maybe it would be smarter for AI sake to make it like planet decision instead edict. I guess its easier for AI to monitor 4-5 planets then 40-50?

Things I like to see in future:

-Making Envoys Leaders with ability to recall them

-admiral for juggernaut, they deserve it

-different icon for science ship in outliner when performing assist research

-text “orbital bombardment” instead “no orders” when in orbit of enemy planet

-(I know its long shot but…) new gigantic carrier hull by research not by redesign current ships

- (even longer shot ) ground battles rework with army customisation, tanks, airports with strike crafts on planet for defence etc , I believe ground combat is the weakest part of the game

-in war screen, new tab with some kind of “check list” of all systems and planets under claims from all federation members

-colonising habitat should be much quicker then planet maybe even instant or 30-60 days, because if I invested to make him, I suppose it should already have all necessary buildings, installations and stuff for my people to just move in

Take your time guys, and take care!

 

[lokyddt]

Are multiplayer games with players having their game in different languages more subject to desync? My friends and me kinda have this feeling, so we all switched to be in the same languages, but it's somewhat frustrating when you're not used to...

Suggestions :
- Being able to customize more your empire at the creation. For example more colours and background shapes for the flag, or adding a custom made name-list without having to add a mod.
- In the setting of the game, having general pre-made settings. For example "Quick game" -> 400 stars, 7 AI empire, research x0.5, midgame 2250, endgame 2325, etc.
- Still in settings, change more precisely some parameters. For random number of AI, saying "between 10 and 13" instead of a huge to random number. Or for research speed, it would be nice to have a 0.1 precision instead of 0.25.

Concerning the Senate :
- I feel that the bonus added to the weight eco/mil/etc. is too big with each resolution. It make the strong stronger, so it's very hard to catch-up when you have a poor early game. I would divide it by 2 (so 10% instead of 20% for the first tier, then 210 instead of 40, etc.).
- The counterpart to that often seems negligible. On 4 game, the Senate is rarely divided enough to make a resolution fail.
- There should be a base flat-value for the diplo weight, so small empire are less useless. Or/and something that impact you negatively if your own empire is divided (unhappy factions, crime/stability on planets...)

 

[Make Victoria 3]

Galactic Doorstep needs more than literally just a Gateway.

It does get more (including one archeological site +250 free alloys and the regenerative hull tech from space alians attacking you and 45% progress for gateway activation (potentially i dont know the odds for that event but thats a possible result with a dead scientist)).

 

[Sial92]

Here are some suggestions to improve the overall experience:

1) Possibility to switch between two leaders (avoid a lot of deselect/select/reselect);

2) Add a table which summarize all the resources and megastructures discover (and later megastructures build): help identify interesting systems and untapped resources (in our own space);

3) Add information in the Log Menu about advancement when building or repairing a megastructure;

4) Improve the way we recruit an army: when there are a lot of species on a planet, it’s a nightmare;

5) Idem when selecting a species for colonization;

6) Improve the species menu

 

[Teja83]

@klc123 @James Fire

What tells me that the system is not were it should be is when ethic support should shrink.
For example as an authoritarian empire with 18% egalitarians. Their support coming only because of "contact with egalitarian empires" and "active faction".
Predicated support 4% (because I suppress it), it never got down in 50 years, same with spiritualist (me being materialist).

This leads me to one of two conclusions:
Pops swing too slow, or/and there is a problem with the behavior of factions to break a barrier around 10% support downwards.

What I will try out in my current game is, what happens if I stack all the egalitarians on one planet and make a sector out of it, which I then vassallize.
Would be interesting if that knocks the faction out in my empire. (permanent)

 

[caffrn]

I couldn’t disagree more with your bolded statement. Automation has time and time again been the fastest way to improve economic output historically. It is an ideological decision; yes, one that values capital and resource production over labour rights and tradition. Not using robots is an ideological choice that runs directly contrary to economic growth. It would be nice for Stellaris to have such a robust internal politics system that such choices become valid gameplay paths, but to relegate robotics to a purely ideological realm would be absurd.

We are talking about individual Robot Pops which replacing organic pops in jobs. That is not the same as industrial automatization.

This is still a game and a choice between getting a super-strong eco by using robots with no downsides or using no robots and get rekt by empires who do - is no choice. There is a reason why Driven Assimilators start with 50% organic pop growth. But sure, pop growth around 8(5 organic + 3 robots) per month on any planet is super fun and balanced in 2235.

 

[Moah]

@klc123 @James Fire

What tells me that the system is not were it should be is when ethic support should shrink.
For example as an authoritarian empire with 18% egalitarians. Their support coming only because of "contact with egalitarian empires" and "active faction".
Predicated support 4% (because I suppress it), it never got down in 50 years, same with spiritualist (me being materialist).

This leads me to one of two conclusions:
Pops swing too slow, or/and there is a problem with the behavior of factions to break a barrier around 10% support downwards.

What I will try out in my current game is, what happens if I stack all the egalitarians on one planet and make a sector out of it, which I then vassallize.
Would be interesting if that knocks the faction out in my empire. (permanent)

We found another bug, and the fix will be released in the next patch.

 

[Pyzayt]

This is still a game and a choice between getting a super-strong eco by using robots with no downsides or using no robots and get rekt by empires who do - is no choice.

Fanatic spiritualist here who never uses robots: I've literally never struggled to murder a machine empire, or machine-using empire that wasn't Determined Exterminator myself. Unless you're specifically referring to multiplayer, which you didn't actually specify, I find your point moot.

 

[BrokenSky]

A couple of galactic law options I'd like to see would be having law paths which make AI citizenship, then sentient AI forbidden, then AI workers at all illegal, as well as some law chain which promotes authoritarian. Mostly because it seems kinda weird to me that Egalitarian Materialists can force their ideology on everyone as galactic law but Authoritarian Spiritualists can't?

 

[caffrn]

Fanatic spiritualist here who never uses robots: I've literally never struggled to murder a machine empire, or machine-using empire that wasn't Determined Exterminator myself. Unless you're specifically referring to multiplayer, which you didn't actually specify, I find your point moot.

Multiplayer of course. I never finished in a singleplayer game cause I got bored by any AI on Grand Admiral being pathetic by no later than 2320. To be honest the fun part for me in singleplayer is just to test around for multiplayer. I am not that kind of person who need to stomp any pathetic AI empire and conquer the galaxy.

 

[justian17]

Good morning!

I'm in humble agreement with the other folks who've requested that there be a "spiritualist/anti-robot" tree in the Galactic Community. Additionally, I'd request more power over Vassals as it relates to the GC. The Overlord should certainly have the power to decide which way the Vassal votes on any given issue (or they should simply fold the "voting power" of the vassal into their own votes directly. Should the overlord decide the leave the GC, they should have the power to force their Vassal to do the same. Currently in a game where my own vassal hates me for leaving the GC and while that kind of makes sense, there ought to be a mechanism for dealing with that which doesn't involve sending my one diplomat over to improve relations with my own vassal.

 

[Amorenkaire]

Any thought to balance passes over the Origin? While some are fun challenges (Doomsday), quite a few feel like having to take a penalty to engage in fun event lines with no real benefit (Doorstep is quite a notable one).

 

[NilsFabian]

Probably an intervention decision?
The galactic UN declares war against a non member?
Ban of certain forms of government or civics

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

I would want some diplomatic actions for Federations to guarantee the Independence of other empires. They should be able to protect other empires they think needs protected.

I also want more diplomatic actions around federation deals in general would be really nice.

There should be a bit more dealings within federations that just laws... perhaps you should also be able to use laws to have common policies.

I also would like if other empires can deal with the federations as an entity in more ways... say research agreements, commercial pacts etc...

You also should be able to enact agreements within federations for a bit less influence, at least once federations become rather centralised. Right now centralisation does not feel like centralisation... the more centralised a federation get the less freedom of action members should have in terms of diplomatic dealings with other empires. A federation with max centralisation should almost be like one empire.

Some diplomatic actions between two federations would also be nice.