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Stellaris Dev Diary #33 - The Maiden Voyage

Hi everyone!

Well folks, here we are again, one week later… The development team has mostly weathered the release jitters and nerves are starting to calm down. The ship we worked so hard on for the last three years has been successfully launched and is currently on its maiden voyage. The crew seems mostly happy but some of the inspectors have raised concerns about mid-ship structural issues. As chief architect, I am not entirely surprised, but the reports will allow us to commence upgrades as soon as HMS Stellaris returns from its round-trip to Alpha Centauri. Alright, enough with the metaphor, let’s talk about our future plans for Stellaris!

First off, for those of you who are unfamiliar with our post-release policies, we will release a lot of expansions over the coming years. Each expansion will be accompanied by a major update (for Stellaris, these free updates will be named after famous science fiction authors) containing a whole bunch of completely free upgrades and improvements to the game in addition to regular bug fixes. As long as enough players keep buying paid content for the game, we promise to keep improving the game for everyone, almost like an MMO.

Now, before we begin the expansion cycle in earnest, we will spend the rest of May and June only focusing on bug fixes and free upgrades to the game. We carefully listen to all your feedback, which has already made us alter our priorities a bit. As a veteran designer of our complex historical games, I was anticipating a fair amount of criticism regarding the mid-game in Stellaris compared to that of our historical games, but I was more concerned with the depth of the economy than the relative lack of diplomatic options, for example. I also find much of the feedback on the Sector system interesting; the GUI and AI concerns will receive the highest priority. One area I was not at all surprised to get flak for is the lack of mid-game scripted content, however. We simply took too long getting all the early and late game stuff in, and neglected a whole category of events called “colony events”, which were supposed to be the bread and butter of the mid-game for the Science Ships.

We’ve been digesting and discussing your feedback and how to best go about improving the mid-game to make it more dynamic, both in the short and long run. Let’s start with our short term plans. When the game was released, we had already proceeded to fix a lot of issues. Together with some other pressing issues that have been reported, the plan is to release the 1.1 update - “Clarke” - near the end of May. We will try to cram as much as we can into this update, but the more fundamental stuff will have to wait until the next update (“Asimov”), which is scheduled for the end of June. The “Clarke” patch will mainly be a bug fix and GUI improvement update. Here are some of the highlights:

"CLARKE" HIGHLIGHTS
  • Fixes to the Ethic Divergence and Convergence issues. Currently, Pops tend to get more and more neutral (they lose Ethics, but rarely gain new ones.)
  • The End of Combat Summary. This screen looks bad and also doesn’t tell you what you need to know in order to revise your ship designs, etc.
  • Sector Management GUI: There are many issues with this, and we will try to get most of them fixed.
  • Diplomacy GUI issues. This includes the Diplomatic Pop-Ups when other empires contact you, but also more and better looking Notifications, and more informative tooltips on wars, etc.
  • AI improvements: Notably the Sector AI, but also plenty of other things. This kind of work is never "finished"...
  • Myriads of bug fixes and smaller GUI improvements.
  • Late game crises bugs. There were some nasty bugs in there, blocking certain subplots and various surprising developments.
  • EDIT: Remaining Performance Issues. We know about them; they might even be hotfixed before Clarke.
  • EDIT: Corvettes are too good.

Stellaris_new_Diplo_Notification_Mockup.png

New Diplomatic Notification. This is a mock-up, not an actual screenshot!

Stellaris_End_of_Combat_Mockup.png

New Fleet Combat Summary. This is a mock-up, not an actual screenshot!


After that, we’re moving on to the “Asimov” update, and this is when we can start making some major gameplay improvements to especially the mid-game. As you might have guessed, we plan to add some new diplomatic actions and treaties. Another thing that struck me during our discussions is that the normal lack of access to the space of other empires makes the game feel more constricted than intended. It limits your options since you can’t really interact much with the galaxy beyond the borders of your empire, and you only tend to concern yourself with your direct neighbors. This is bad for your Science Ships too, of course, since they might not be able to finish some of the grander “quests”. Compare the situation with Europa Universalis, where you usually have access to the oceans and can thus reach most of the world, or Crusader Kings, where you can even move through neutral territory with your armies. We also intend to add as much mid-game scripted content as we can. Thus, this is currently the plan for “Asimov”, but it’s not set in stone yet, so please bear with us if something gets pushed or altered:

"ASIMOV" HIGHLIGHTS (NOT SET IN STONE!)
  • Border Access Revision: Borders are now open to your ships by default, although empires can choose to Close their borders for another empire (lowering your relations, of course.)
  • Tributaries: New diplomatic status and corresponding war goals.
  • Joint Declarations of War: You can ask other empires to join you for a temporary alliance in a war against a specific target.
  • Defensive Pacts.
  • Harder to form and maintain proper Alliances.
  • More war goals: Humiliate, Open Borders, Make Tributary, etc.
  • Emancipation Faction. We had to cut this one at the last minute. Needs redesign.
  • Diplomatic Map Mode. Much requested!
  • Diplomatic Incidents: This is a whole class of new scripted events that causes more interaction with the other empires.
Past “Asimov”, I can’t give you any kind of specifics yet, but I am currently leaning towards honing in on the following general areas for the “Heinlein” update (these are not promises!):

CURRENT "HEINLEIN" INTENTIONS
  • Sector and Faction Politics: We are working on a design for this. I always wanted to make Factions more closely tied to Sectors, for example...
  • Federation and Alliance Politics: As a player, you need more ways of interacting with the other members, push your will through, and get elected, etc.
  • Giving Directions to Allies and Subject States.
  • Strategic Resource Overhaul: You should need these and search for them far and wide. They should be extremely important.
  • Battleship Class Weapons. Some Battleship front sections will be repurposed for an XL size weapon slot. There are currently four ship sizes but only three sizes to weapons, creating an imbalance. Also, Battleships should have fewer small weapon slots and have to rely on screens of smaller ships.
  • Fleet Combat Mechanics: Formations and/or more complex ship behavior is needed.
  • Mid-game scripted content: Guarded “treasures”, mid-game crises, colony events, etc.
  • Living Solar Systems: Little civilian ships moving around, etc.
Again, remember that we need to be somewhat flexible when things don't work out or when something else takes priority, so please take these later plans with a large grain of salt. As always, we also listen keenly to your feedback, so keep it coming!

Now, I am sure you are full of questions about the details, but hold your horses; it will all be explained in the coming dev diaries!
 
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In a game I played as the Tzynn empire, an alliance declared a war against me with one of their goals being liberating one of my protectorates. For no reason, I kept losing a point every month despite them not being occupied and not being in that war at all! I occupied all of their planets, but I had over -500 ticking warscore for "attacker wargoals" that they've never accomplished. Could you please fix such issues?

That's an identified bug. The ai gets warscore as if he occupied your protectoerate, even though he didn't.
 
Ah okay. Thank you for answering that for me.

How much do DLCs usually cost?

Just want to budget myself that's all.
It depends, Paradox sells two types of content.
What they call expansions which are the big ones which introduce new game mechanics and features that cost like £10 or your regional equivelant. Then there are the minor DLCs like song packs, unit packs, or portrait packs which indifudually cost £1/2 but sometimes come in something called a content pack which would be some of all those three types bundled together for about £5. The content packs usually tie in to a major expansion such as for CK2 they had the Horse Lords expansion with the Horse Lords Content Pack DLC.
The expansions are the more important ones to buy as the smaller ones are all just cosmetics.
 
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Will there be a list of habitable planets in the future? Or a way to see the # of tiles by hovering over a planet on the galaxy map? This would save so much time. ;( I currently just rename stars to the number of tiles of a good planet, so I don't have to keep looking back.

Thanks, love your game as a new 4X player! <3
 
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After 70+ hours, I think my major gripes are:

  • Lack of an event log that is filterable. The situation log is only for active things (and doesn't display things like systems with hostiles, fleets in combat, or other useful things besides quests/research/debris). The research log is off by its lonesome. The game needs some way to keep track of when colonies were established, when leaders were hired/fired/died, when empires declared rivals, or made war, peace, or took systems. When major fleet battles occurred, etc. All with both a search field and a few filter checkboxes so that you could quickly filter down to what you want to see.
  • Lack of a sortable colony / inhabitable planet list. (Uninhabited planets, that could be colonized, should show up in the sector list.)
  • Combat imbalance (corvettes, weapons with 100% accuracy, or 100% bypass of a defense).
  • Defensive stations that are simultaneously both too expensive in upkeep (15 EC/month for a fortress!?!?) and too weak (fortress should have something like 20-30k hull, a bit of base armor, and built in shields of 1-2k strength).
  • Mining/research stations that don't have enough hull points.
  • Space ports that don't upgrade their defenses based on size, nor speed up repairs / construction based on size.
  • Sector AI governor stupidity in building out colonies.
  • Sector governors should become less effective the bigger the sector, maybe you need a 5-star leader to effectively govern 50 planets. So maybe you'd train up a 2-star governor in one of your smaller sectors before promoting them to the big sector.
  • Fleets should become less effective, the bigger they are. Unless led by a good admiral.
  • Border access that is binary - we should be able to grant access to border (uninhabited) systems, but not systems with colonies or military stations, and with the ability to not grant access to our homeworld area if we choose.
 
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Will there be a list of habitable planets in the future? Or a way to see the # of tiles by hovering over a planet on the galaxy map? This would save so much time. ;( I currently just rename stars to the number of tiles of a good planet, so I don't have to keep looking back.

Thanks, love your game as a new 4X player! <3

Yes, information should be a lot easier to access. Not just possible colonizable planets, but also in the Planet list. I should be able to sort by the various outputs i.e., sort planets by energy output, mineral output, physics output, bio output, etc. not just buy total output.

But the idea of renaming the stars to the tile count is a good one! I'm going to try that.
 
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What about colony events? Like the living forest ones? Weren't those cut too? I'd like to have those added again
 
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If you read the dev diary, the missing features will be patched in. That's different from cutting features to make you pay for them. CK2 is kind of a grey area in this regard since, well, you did have to buy DLC to play as Vikings, Indians, Muslims, and so on, but Stellaris seems to be a case of features simply not making it for release more than an evil conspiracy to sell DLCs.

Again, I can enjoy EU and CK just fine without buying DLCs. To each their own, I guess.
I don't want to open the DLC debate once again, but Paradox have basically 2 different way when it comes to DLC. On one hand you have CK2's DLC which are mostly flavor (besides the retinue from legacy of rome), like adding new playable factions and whatnot, which is good. On the other hand, you have EU4, where some DLC are basically must have, and I'm sorry, but that's lame.

In EU4, the number of buildings you can build in a province was "nerfed" to be limited by something they call development (which is linked to many other stuff). Raising dev is only possible if you own a DLC. You can't change province occupation in a war, which is a MAJOR issue, unless you pay for a DLC. Same goes for vassals, you can't do pretty much anything with them, unless you pay for a DLC, and then you have another small piece of QoL vassal interaction stuff in another DLC.
And that's only the major stuff. Tons of minor QoL features are in the DLC, like the ability to automatically transport infantry across water, without having to micromanage the whole thing. Or several QoL features to diplomacy, mostly to answer what players have ask for (the fact that you can say which provinces are of interest to you, so your ally in the war will give them to you, instead of giving you some piece of nowhere you don't care).

Just ask on any EU4 forums what are the must have DLC, and the answer will be Art of War and Common sense. Guaranteed.


So yeah, I'm on the fence. If it's flavor DLC, then I'm all for it. If it's EU4 "must have" DLC full of QoL asked by the player, I'm not going to enjoy that.
 
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doomdark please fix the pathing for ships in combat, they dont close distance and sit there not firing later on in the game, it completely ruins the late game, here is an example screenshot of ships, these ships havent moved in several in game months http://i.imgur.com/uiM4fs8.png
I'm guessing you have the ones in front with the attack AI module, and the ones in back with the defensive one? The game doesn't seem to know how to deal with fleets that have a mixture of the two, and has the defensive ones just hang back and not move.
 
I'm guessing you have the ones in front with the attack AI module, and the ones in back with the defensive one? The game doesn't seem to know how to deal with fleets that have a mixture of the two, and has the defensive ones just hang back and not move.

they all have the defensive ones, but i have seen this problem even with all attack or neither. i have never mixed them.

the worst was one time, i was attacking the unbidden, and i couldent retreat, so i had to build an entire second fleet just to attack a fortress, horrible experience.

this above all others is what kills the game for me
 
Looking forward to how the game will develop and anticipate many years of enjoyment from it.


However, you should consider making a separate option for civilian access (science ship, construction ship and eventually trade), military access and colony ships. While the first category would not have to be that restricted, and most neutral powers should allow their presence in their territory, I don't think an empire would like to have armies inside its territory. For one, those armies could be used to submit the states neighboring it and surround the empire itself. Allowing military access should stay discriminated to civilian ships.

And colonies... It is fine if someone wants to survey my planets, but for them to take advantage of the civilian access to ship civilians all the way over my territories to colonize outside my borders wouldn't do.

Agreed, in relation to border access.
 
Can't wait. I love this game. You guys have really done a fantastic job despite some flaws and it's good to see you're addressing the issues. I really like the idea of "living solar systems."
Anything to make the game more interactive and feel more real.
 
You should be ashamed releasing in current state (could not resist say this though i dont really think game would win anything if it were delayed)

You haven't played a Paradox game before then.
 
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I don't want to open the DLC debate once again, but Paradox have basically 2 different way when it comes to DLC. On one hand you have CK2's DLC which are mostly flavor (besides the retinue from legacy of rome), like adding new playable factions and whatnot, which is good. On the other hand, you have EU4, where some DLC are basically must have, and I'm sorry, but that's lame.

In EU4, the number of buildings you can build in a province was "nerfed" to be limited by something they call development (which is linked to many other stuff). Raising dev is only possible if you own a DLC. You can't change province occupation in a war, which is a MAJOR issue, unless you pay for a DLC. Same goes for vassals, you can't do pretty much anything with them, unless you pay for a DLC, and then you have another small piece of QoL vassal interaction stuff in another DLC.
And that's only the major stuff. Tons of minor QoL features are in the DLC, like the ability to automatically transport infantry across water, without having to micromanage the whole thing. Or several QoL features to diplomacy, mostly to answer what players have ask for (the fact that you can say which provinces are of interest to you, so your ally in the war will give them to you, instead of giving you some piece of nowhere you don't care).

Just ask on any EU4 forums what are the must have DLC, and the answer will be Art of War and Common sense. Guaranteed.


So yeah, I'm on the fence. If it's flavor DLC, then I'm all for it. If it's EU4 "must have" DLC full of QoL asked by the player, I'm not going to enjoy that.

Couldn't put it better myself
 
I am upset as are many other about the mid game Lag. My game is now unplayable and I will be moving on to Total War game if this is not fixed soon. So very sad that the game cannot be played past mid point!
 
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I've seen AI with seemingly no understanding of how to invade a planet, either not invading it all at, causing a permanent state of war, or using only one army at a time, over and over. That's close to game-breaking in some cases and I hope it gets fixed.
 
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