Stellaris Dev Diary #39 - Back in Action

[Krebsig]

First of all, glad to have you back. Over the past month I have been actively looking through the workshop as well and found quite a few mods that add new aspects to the game while imho not straying too far from the feeling of the vanilla gameplay. I enjoy quite a few of those so I decided to do a short list of mods I think will enhance Stellaris and could be added to the base game either through patches or DLC.


Let’s start with the “simple” things, quality of life improvements:

There are a few small mods that should really make it into the base game imho and could save everyone a bit of hassle while also improving immersion a bit in some cases.


https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=701739734 "Color coded pop status icons": Self-explanatory, really. Just a great help overall.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=693310104 "Planetary Rally Points": Same.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=688576380 "Complete Colors": Everything that increases our options and is easy to implement is a must-have for me. It also solves the problem that sometimes borders aren’t clear enough due to empires with the same primary color bordering each other.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=708752579 "A Fine Selection of Quality Mapmodes, Probably": More mapmodes are always useful for a variety of reasons. I especially like the ethos mapmode.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=725151626 “Plentiful Mapmodes”: Not that plentiful yet, but being able to check which type of FTL travel they use saves a lot of time.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=684509976 “Remove stranded foreign stations”: Another small, self-explanatory thing that helps out immensely. It seems to be an often requested feature as well if we are going by the download numbers.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=701434781 “Hidden Hyperlanes” : I know Rikard mentioned on Twitter that not hiding hyperlanes was a conscious decision on the dev team’s part, but I’d appreciate the option to start a game in a fashion that is similar to this. I’d be overjoyed if this could be some sort of optional setting. Maybe there can be a special technology that reveals hyperlanes outside of your explored space for this optional start alone.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=687226658 "No Clustered Starts": Another possible additional starting option, the less clustered start mixes things up a bit both in SP and MP and I would welcome such an addition.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=682691478 "Cybrxkhan's Assortment of Namelists for Stellaris": I like the existing name lists, but let’s face it: There are not enough of them. Of course, adding namelists from other IPs is not an option but there is really no sound argument against adding some more human namelists to enhance roleplaying (Space China, here I come!) as well as community-created ones. Especially if there are as well crafted as this one, for example:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=703759718 “Name List German Empire”
One of the many nice lists that serve as a good starting point imho.
You may argue that those are compatible anyway, but I’d like to see random AI empires use them regardless. I can understand if this is not high-priority, though.


Moving on, here are some small to middle sized mods which enhance only a single aspect of the game – but this in an imho natural way that feels very in line with vanilla gameplay. I will start with the smaller ones and work my way up:


https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=712991814 "Special Systems": Exploring and the early game are the strong sides of Stellaris atm and this mod enhances both in a great way by providing both interesting, yet dangerous modifiers that affect combat and exploration. The technologies to combat said dangers are also great for immersion imho.


I will expand this post later today, but for now allow me to thank you once again for your continued updates of this game...Nvermind, got too busy this week to expand on it.

I am very interested in the new patch!

 

[Wizzington]

At least the Skybox diary had some pretty screenshots...

I sincerely expected more for the dev diary that was supposed to be about future Stellaris development. A entire month wait for "Hi, we have some plan, ok thx bye cu next week!"...

There wasn't supposed to be a dev diary today because well, everyone here has just returned and there's a lot to do today.

I decided to do one anyway just to let you guys know that things are happening again.

 

[Wizzington]

Well, that's ominous.

Just to be clear, this does not mean we don't have plans beyond Heinlein - we absolutely do. Besides more patches (1.4 will be called 'Banks'), we also have plans for lots of content to expand and build on the game. I just can't talk about it yet.

 

[crysanja]

Prior to release paradox told us alot about the importance of research ships and their ability to open up very nice research opportunities via anomalies/exploration.
I would like to see this actualy present ingame. Whatever you can loot from space creatures so far is useless, or even hurtfull.
I havent seen many or any blueprints from thouse research opportunities, and about 30-40 years in, you are not going to find anomalies anymore.

 

[hwoosh]

@Wiz, are you going to add the basic usability feature that was inexplicably missing from the game on the release? I'm talking about message settings.

 

[cKnoor]

Welcome back!

Whens the next Stream?

We're back on Thursday, 15:00 CEST

 

[AKicebear]

Some feedback relevant to the original and current Heinlein plans:

• Factions stability - factions are a complete joke in my experience. They cause limited impact and are trivial to pay off. In my mind every artificial limit in the game should instead be limited by a stronger faction system. Scrap the war score and make anti-war factions, or factious cultures across new planets, an incentive to be more modest in your claimed spoils of war. Scrap the sector limit system, but make it so that rebellious planet or system factions start to proliferate if they aren't allow their own quasi-autonomy within a sector. Control large empires not by tech-retardation, but by highly divided politics due to factions which reduce tax collection (because they will rebel otherwise, not from a random corruption loss) and increase revolts in furthest systems. I think this would also completely fill out the middle and late game, given that is when factions would start to accrue meaningful power. The game becomes a grand balance between pursuing your galactic ambitions and keeping the 'domestic' situation from spiralling out of control. And yes, there should be 'death' spirals due to factions - I want to be at risk of being reduced down to a paltry system or two from a great republic as all factions rebel at once - if I neglect them enough. Can't say enough about how much Stellaris so far under-delivered on factions. Reduce the inevitable resource surplus in the end game by making factions increasingly demand they pay less and less taxes as they itch for independence.
• Colonization tedium - is too cumbersome given the scale of galaxy targeted (hundreds of systems). I should be able to click on a planet and select a list of viable space stations/race/factions from my empire to build a fleet and send them in. Or, use a colonization manager similar to the one in Distant Worlds. The current implementation is a silly click-fest to match the right space station, race, faction, etc with a target planet.
• Space ship spam - I think the beautiful battles mod is a bandaid on a larger problem. Space ships are far too cheap in this game, and thus too expendable. It should be a real struggle to produce any type of ship, and even harder to support them. A fleet of a dozen or so battlecruisers should be a massive investment. I think making each ship more precious would help solve how lame battles look in the late game, but more importantly make me actually care more about ship design and whether I win or lose each engagement. Perhaps it would also help with late game lag - I experience it heavily, but almost exclusively when large fleets start to clash.
• Events - not as critical to me, assuming factions are resolved. Still, it would be great if there was more variety of events. I think there should be a contest for fan submitted events to heavily populate the vanilla game, and that the team should work on making procedural events. I know sometimes procedural can be very bland, but in some cases it works great and creates a great narrative - see RimWorld or (I've read) Dwarf Fortress.
• Optimization - I'm not hopeful this will be fixed, but it nonetheless is a huge disappointment so far. I wish another developer would come along with a polished/charismatic/fun 4X/GS that is also highly optimized to scare everyone else into taking this seriously. What probably needs to happen is from day 1 - determining what the max CPU/GPU usage of the median user is, and then designing the end game complexity around that and working *backwards* towards the 'first turn'. Clearly not what anyone does...

 

[heliostellar]

By Banks, I assume you mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_A._Banks right? You guys should use those who write space Sci-Fi IMO.



And thank you for doing that.

i thought they mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Banks

Actually they're talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Banks_(mountaineer) .

You're all wrong:

http://freshprince.wikia.com/wiki/Carlton_Banks

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Oh, and to add my own constructive heartfelt wish to this thread, since we seem to be using it to reiterate many of the grievances commented on while the development team went on a deserved vacation...

ADD A "HIDE OBSOLETE COMPONENTS" RADIOBUTTON IN THE SHIP DESIGNER ALREADY.

...such that only the highest tier component within each subgroup of tiered components is shown when checked, i.e. shield 4 rather than shield 1...4 if the highest you know is 4, laser 3 if the highest laser you know is 3, and so on and so forth. Some times players want lower tier components (e.g. to squeeze most out of power), but most of the time they just want to choose between the highest tiers available rather than spend extra clicks and time on scrolling through long lists of components they aren't interested in. This is a standard part of tiered component UI design, and leaving it out in Stellaris ship designer is a really weird design choice.

 

[Defiler99]

Integrate this mod first please: Unofficial Asimov Hotfix

 

[Alexander555]

Good day Stellaris dev. team and Game Director!

I`d like to add some feedback after good playing of Stellaris that might seem really interesting to you and game fans!

Why the only winning condition(s) is war? No matter which ethics you choose in the beginning, no matter if a player wants to win peacefully, no matter that the people of our Human Civilization, including Sweden, Europe and USA is moving to real Peace world over – in Stellaris you should anyway go to war to win???

You are just reflecting the current unstable period of terror acts and conflicts or also see to the future? You are relying on players who love only war or also the ones that sincerely wish to use their strategic abilities to win peacefully? With no need of comparison but just think that in Master of Orion 2, developed 20 years ago, a player could develop empire and really win peacefully without a single war through universe elections and etc.

Together with that making a game you influence the minds of thousands of people, especially young ones, who can unconsciously use you war-style model of behavior in their real feeling of themselves and real life. Ask yourself - do you want to Spread the feelings and ways of conflict or ways of real Peace among people? That matters a lot, what do you feel about that?

Please get me right, of course you are game developer and publisher, making money and following your dev.experience, BUT only if you consider the changing trends in peoples mind and wishes you`ll have future.

Feel in your heart if is it right or not to include real conditions to win peacefully in Stellaris and if it is – implement it! The game is still in development and there are other things demanding attention, but this is I believe the most important!

Thank you!

Alexander

 

[iaokim]

Welcome back devs! Don't let the haters get you down about this being a "wasted" development diary. So many developers and companies don't give a crap about communicating with their player base or taking their suggestions seriously. And what do the Paradox devs do the first day they come back? Update us on the status of the game and the future development of it! It is one of the things I love about the Paradox team because you all actually care about your games and the community that supports them. Keep it up! Some of the things I would like to see in the next patch:

1. Further UI Improvements: The UI has gotten better, but it still needs a lot of work especially when trying to access information on the galaxy or other empires. For example, when I want to trade for a strategic resource, I have to click on every empire one at a time and enter the trade screen to find out if they even have what I want. And when I go back to the empire screen, it automatically scrolls up to the top making me have to scroll back down to my original place. Repeat this 30+ times trying to find the right rare resource and you can see the problem! Another example is late game with the overview on the main screen. As you research the repeat tech to give you more core systems, the planet section on the overview becomes terribly huge so more filters or the ability to select what planets appear would be awesome!

2. Ship Designer. Give us the ability to make larger ships, military stations, and spaceports. A 3 section battleship, which has the same sections as a cruiser is underwhelming. A 4 section battleship would be awesome. Basically 1 front section, 2 mid sections, and a end section. Make the current 3 section battleship a battle cruiser and make the new 4 section battleship the battleship or just call it a dreadnought. Make a new level of military station above fortress and call it a citadel. Right now military stations just don't have enough stopping power. Also reduce military station maintain cost. Right now they just cost too much to maintain for what they do. Overall, more ship options and sections would be awesome. And perhaps the ability to reskin current ship modules, like dark avian ships with green light effects etc.

Oh and some different engine sections for the larger ships like battleship and cruiser would be amazing. Right now some of them look so small compared to the rest of the ship. The engines on a ship that size should be one of the biggest things on the ship!

3. Improve Sector Management. With all the additional influence costs, give us the ability to rearrange sectors at no or at reduced influence cost. Restrict it to only be possible every X years. One thing that stops me from using sectors more often in the late game where I can have most of my systems in my core is the 25% resource reduction from having a max 75% tax rate. Perhaps a tech that increases the max rate further would be a good improvement so we can reduce micro and clutter as sectors are intended to do while reducing the resource penalty from using them because mid/late game every credit counts when you are trying to maintain the fleet!

4. Improve Sector Appearance. Sectors can look horrid at times in contrast to an otherwise very beautiful game. You can have very jagged and sharp unnatural sector borders in contrast to the smooth empire borders. The white overlay also looks bad over the empire colors. Changing the sector appearance to better harmonize with the empire borders would be awesome. At the very least give us the ability to filter the borders on or off. If off the sector borders would be removed but leave the sector name centralized over the sector so you know generally where the sector is and what it contains. You would still be able to see the exact borders in the menu where you can adjust sectors or create new ones.

5. Relocate Capital. Make it cost influence/credits/minerals and remove capital only tiered buildings from the original capital and restrict it however to make it balanced. A galactic civilization should be able to move their capital when it grows in size, new species are incorporated into the civilization, or another that grows higher in wealth or prominence surpasses the original capital. For example, you start on some backwater world on the outer rim with little resources and only one cognizable planet. 300 years later your empire has expanded and incorporated many new species and planets with systems having multiple planets larger and with more resources than your pathetic little starter world and yet it remains the undisputed capital? Before I started using a mod, I would let empires conquer my original capital so I could forcibly change it to a better system!

6. More flavor events especially in the mid to late game.

There are many other improvements or additions I would like as others have mentioned in this thread and others, but these are the main ones for me.

I only bother nitpick on some of these small issues because I know Paradox devs love what they do and truly care about this game. Keep it up Paradox!

 

[mwyeoh]

Back in action!

You know its a good job when you look forward to going back after a vacation!

 

[Voldurak78]

Can we expect an August release of Heinlein? I am waiting for the patch to restart playing Stellaris.

 

[GizahNL]

Are all the things originally planned for 1.3 still gonna make it? TBH i've been waiting for 1.3 to even start playing again as the game in its current state started to feel more and more bland.

 

[Arizal]

Space ship spam - I think the beautiful battles mod is a bandaid on a larger problem. Space ships are far too cheap in this game, and thus too expendable. It should be a real struggle to produce any type of ship, and even harder to support them. A fleet of a dozen or so battlecruisers should be a massive investment. I think making each ship more precious would help solve how lame battles look in the late game, but more importantly make me actually care more about ship design and whether I win or lose each engagement. Perhaps it would also help with late game lag - I experience it heavily, but almost exclusively when large fleets start to clash.

I agree with almost every other things you are saying - living factions would indeed be wonderful - but I cannot follow you on that point, because making ships more expensive would make it impossible to rebuild a fleet after a lost battle. My most intense moment yet in Stellaris was with two friends in a multiplayer game in which we were attacked in the beginning of the game by an overwhelming empire next door. If what you propose had been here, I wouldn't have been able to use all my (limited) might in order to rebuild my fleet (three times) for us to force out a white peace from the attacker. We would simply have been wiped out at his second attack.

I believe a whole planet, later on an empire with multiple planets and spaceports, should be able to build a fleet relatively quickly, and I think the current balance is good in that regard. In my opinion, we lack more meaningful way to defend ourselves later on.

 

[Tim_Ward]

1.4 will be called 'Banks')

This is the correct name.

 

[Tim_Ward]

yep. and this is not dev diary. it is some kind of twitter message saying expect dev diary on next monday. this kinda of thing happen with stellaris all the time saying big words and making big promises but actual delivery is tiny and disappointing. Would it hurt just post a topic "Sorry guys no dev diary this week, expect one next monday", no, but then people will complain that skipping dev diaries become normal. So then lets call it dev diary when in fact it is not. Pure imitation of work. Probably spent half of the day discussing how to call next patch "Banks" or "Malls" and making compilation of fixes from player mods to release with this blant DLC. No one got time to write what actually to expect though.

The next dev diary is about the Heinlein patch. It doesn't take a genius to work out that they can't do that before they've decided what's going to be in it, which you can't do on the first day back after everyone's been on holiday.

 

[ashbery76]

The first month back should be fixing the zillion bugs you left the game in..It's a buggy mess atm.