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Stellaris Dev Diary #40 - Heinlein Patch (part 1)

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. This is the first in a multi-part dev diary about the 'Heinlein' 1.3 patch that we are currently working on. As I mentioned in last week's dev diary, Heinlein will be a patch focusing on addressing community feedback, tentatively planned for release sometime in October. As such, you can expect a large number of interface and quality of life improvement, too many for me me to list here precisely what we have planned. However, we do also have some larger changes planned, and this dev diary is here to give you an overview of what to expect.

Auto-Explore
Exploration is an important part of the Stellaris early game, but towards the mid and late game, it can get annoying to have to manage your science ships while also trying to run a sprawling interstellar empire. We've said previously that we don't want the automation fully automated away, so the compromise we've settled on is to introduce a technology that will appear after your empire grows to a certain size that allows science ships to be automated (it will also grant some other bonuses so to be useful to the AI). Though we know that there are are people who want automation options from the very start, we believe that there is always a cost involved in automating core parts of the game experience. You will of course be able to mod the game to permit you to have it enabled from the start, if you so wish.

Rally Points
One of our most requested features since release has been a better way to manage newly built ships. After discussing the various options (such as a fleet designer) we decided to settle on adding Rally Points for your fleets. In Heinlein, you will be able to mark any planet or star in the galaxy as well as any warfleet owned by you as a rally point. When a new warship is built in your empire, instead of remaining at the planet that built it, it will look first for a fleet marked as a rally point. If it finds such a fleet, it will travel to that fleet and automatically merge with it. If something happens to destroy that fleet while the ship is traveling to it, it will abort and return back to its point of origin. If you have no fleet rally points, the ship will instead use the nearest planet rally point, traveling there and merging with any fleet present around that planet. In addition to changing how newly built ships behave, rally points also alter the 'return' order given to ships - instead of returning to the nearest spaceport, they will return to the nearest spaceport marked as a rally point. If no spaceport is marked as a rally point, they go to whichever one is closest, as before.

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Expansion Planner
Another highly requested feature that will be coming in Heinlein is an expansion planner - an interface where you can see planets that are available to colonize or build resource/observation stations at. It is currently planned to be a tab in your empire screen, where you can filter by what you are looking for and easily see the best candidate planet for whatever it is you are looking to do. More details on this will come in a future DD.

Strategic Resource Rework
An area of the game that we feel didn't really work out as planned is strategic resources. They are at once too rare and too common, too varied and too bland. Most of all, we feel that they are far too fiddly to interact with, requiring you to keep track in your head of which spaceports have which particular modules. As such, we currently have the following changes in mind for strategic resources:
- Split strategic resources into strategic (living metal, lythurgic gas, etc) and local (betharian stone, alien pets, etc) resources. Local resource will only be found on colonizeable planets and will allow you to build a specific building (such as a Betharian Power Plant) only on the tile where they are present.
- Add more types of local resources to colonizeable planets, making certain planets more desirable for that powerful special building you'll be able to build on it.
- Have strategic resources have clearly defined civilian OR military use, instead of each being a mix of both.
- Make their bonuses purely global, either via the construction of unique buildings or simply by providing a passive bonus.
- Require you to have only a single unit of a strategic resource to get its full benefits, so the excess can be traded away (terraforming resources will likely be an exception here).

That's all for today. Next week we'll continue talking about the Heinlein patch, specifically about the big rework coming in it: Fleet combat overhaul and dedicated ship roles. Note that as I said, there will be a *lot* of bug fixes, UI improvements and QoL changes coming in Heinlein, so I will not be able to answer every question about which exact ones will and will not make it, but if you have something you feel should be addressed for Heinlein (and it isn't a major feature addition/overhaul), feel free to mention it here.
 
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Can I just say that I really like the strategic resource rework? It was the thing I was most worried about, becuase I've honestly never like how they were implmented in most 4X games. Too easy to get screwed over by the RNG. This seems like a good middle ground, they're definately helpful to have, but a not finding them isn't crippling.
 
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Is it possible to have the camera zoom in on the fleet when you click the in-combat icon at the top of the screen?

I keep forgetting to do that and I end up watching one box with numbers approach another box with numbers.

I am missing a lot of the beautiful artwork this way..

The galaxy map and system map should revert to close camera for a lot of events, if possible, I think.
 
Wiz said:
Expansion Planner
Another highly requested feature that will be coming in Heinlein is an expansion planner - an interface where you can see planets that are available to colonize or build resource/observation stations at. It is currently planned to be a tab in your empire screen, where you can filter by what you are looking for and easily see the best candidate planet for whatever it is you are looking to do. More details on this will come in a future DD.
Click to expand...

Why not the situation log? That seems like a much more appropriate place than the Empire screen.
 
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How about tweaking something in the precursor chain events quest lines so that they can be completed. A great many ppl on this forum including myself complain about not being able to complete a single one.
After a time you simpley cant find any more precursor artifacts.
I for one would like a solution/workaround/something to be able to more consistantly complete them
 
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  • It will be really great if player could add spaceport's modules in Empire's menu (not clicking every planet). Now game in Empire's menu show all modules, but ability to adding them will make game easier.
  • Please, fix a bug with Federation Fleet's engines (when not every member of Federation can move own fleet [1] [2]).
 
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While I have not ever been able to complete the Cybrex chain, in my current game I saw the system "Cybrex Alpha" pop up in the Yapathi Dominion. So clearly, the AI can complete these quests on their own (since my precursor quest in the game was the Vultaum one - stuck at 2/6 with majority of systems surveyed). 1st step, declare war to humiliate and force open borders. I am now researching Living Metal. Next step, conquest and start using Living Metal.
 
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I finished one of the predecessor event chains but when I got to the planet it just said somebody had already looted it.
 
Wiz said:
Local resource will only be found on colonizeable planets and will allow you to build a specific building (such as a Betharian Power Plant) only on the tile where they are present.
Click to expand...
Will you also change it, so that sectors actually build those by themselves? Because otherwise local resources would be almost useless.
 
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Wiz said:
- Require you to have only a single unit of a strategic resource to get its full benefits, so the excess can be traded away (terraforming resources will likely be an exception here).
Click to expand...

...does this not kind of defeat the point of them a little? Like, you said wanted SRs to become these vital things which we'll fight over... and yet at the same time you design it so that we only need 1 of each. Seems a bit of a mixed message.
 
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Did they ever fix the alliance/influence bug?
 
Not to sound ungrateful here, but I have had Stellaris shelved for a long time, really since the initial plans for Heinlein were announced and I decided the game would be a much better experience after the improvements to factions and sector politics were implemented. Reading that these changes have been delayed or scaled back, I just want to chime in with AKIcebear, Mezmorki and others who've expressed disappointment. I'll be interested to see what the incremental changes are when they are discussed in future DD's, but it sounds like they are very modest and I am afraid it won't be enough to lure me back.
 
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It feels like there will be less decision making regarding strategic resources in the coming patch. These changes might make the resource system simpler than what it is now. I would rather welcome more complexity in this area. I have been playing with "Stellaris: AlphaMod" by AlphaAsh for some time, and felt much more engaged with the mod's resource overhaul.

I hope that there will be interesting and often difficult decisions to make with the new resource system.
 
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When you change up sectors, make it so that you cannot have one big sector. Right now having more than one huge sector isn't worth it because it just forces you to require more governors where you can have all of the benefits with just one governor for one sector. Change it to where sector size can increase via tech or governor level and restrict the number of planets you can have per sector so sectors actually feel like regional sectors without forcing you to play inefficiently.

Also, 4 section ships would be awesome as dlc or part of a future expansion. Right now a 3 section battleship with the same number of sections as a cruiser is just underwhelming. Buffing fortresses or making another tier and lowering their maintenance cost would go a long way to making them more useful for defense late game.
 
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Long Dead Fingers said:
Not to sound ungrateful here, but I have had Stellaris shelved for a long time, really since the initial plans for Heinlein were announced and I decided the game would be a much better experience after the improvements to factions and sector politics were implemented. Reading that these changes have been delayed or scaled back, I just want to chime in with AKIcebear, Mezmorki and others who've expressed disappointment. I'll be interested to see what the incremental changes are when they are discussed in future DD's, but it sounds like they are very modest and I am afraid it won't be enough to lure me back.
Click to expand...

It's worth noting that with an 'October' release date, there could potentially be three months worth of work going into this patch, two at the bare minimum. Clearly, they have substantial plans.

As for the re-prioritisation from what was mentioned in the post release dev-diary, the things they mentioned that they were planning for Heinlein... well, while they were worthy things in-and-of themselves none of them seemed to get to the core of the issues with Stellaris so I'm not really overly concerned about their postponement.

I'm a little surprised to see a combat reworking being a major part of the patch, though. I mean, the game needs it but there are other things it needs more. It's still fun flying around blasting things with your fleets, if a little simplistic - though it's worth noting that there's plenty of depth to be found in ship designs once you get past the stunning OPness of lances - and remember that lances are a late game weapon.

It seems it would be better to focus first on the parts of the game that are boring, i.e. peace-time gameplay and planet management.

Syvesez said:
It feels like there will be less decision making regarding strategic resources in the coming patch. These changes might make the resource system simpler than what it is now. I would rather welcome more complexity in this area. I have been playing with "Stellaris: AlphaMod" by AlphaAsh for some time, and felt much more engaged with the mod's resource overhaul.

I hope that there will be interesting and often difficult decisions to make with the new resource system.
Click to expand...

I liked AlphaMod but I found keeping track of all the strategic resources you had at your disposal a bit overwhelming.

On the one had, that's an interface issue with Stellaris - it doesn't give you a screen keep track of strategic resources, just a tooltip. On the other, it's kind of unfair to criticize Stellaris for not having an interface designed to deal with what someone was going to do with a mod.
 
Don't know if anyone said anything about this or if Paradox have made any statement, but I would really love it if you guys could make it so that planets and stuff moves around in their seperate solarsystems. It all just feel too static at the moment. Like every space-game I've played have had static solarsystems and it always makes me feel out of it. Brakes the immersion.

Also don't know if this have been said, but I think it is weird that I can talk to every alien without some kind of translator tech.

Also think you guys should make a spaceship DLC, there need to be more different spaceships so that not every alien in the universe uses the same. It sort of makes everything look a bit dull and boring when aliens who have never met before uses the same spaceship design. There also need to be civil-spaceship added I think, like think of "airplanes" transporting people here and there for vacations or visiting relatives, be private-spaceship or commercial. Just think it would add a nice touch the game.

Also think that I (the player) should be able to have more control over my economy and budget. Like what if I want to spend less on my fleets and more on my colonise or something. Also should exist more laws to dicide over. Overall needs more government decision options.

Also love the plant DLC. :)
 
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What about something to make strategic resource management with sectors actually work? Like giving the player the power to allocate such resources at will.
The Sector AI can't handle the missing resource (betharian power plants) if the player fiddles with the systems, they just leave the building there doing nothing until you waste influence to do something about it. With some kind of resources they are actually of global availability, like terraforming resources, a sector has no monopoly over it.
Just let us allocate the resources to a sector so the AI can take note and decide what to do with what it has.

Also, there are not that many things to use energy. I only had shortfalls of energy later in the game when my fleet was so large it drained energy when away from port. And after fiddling here and there I managed to hit the cap with not even a very high monthly income with my fleet out of port.
 
Will there be any changes to allow science ships to explore in the early game without being guaranteed to die as soon as they find a planet with a hostile fleet, instead of just leaving the system like they did pre-1.2?
 
Having local resources limited to the world they were found on would be an excellent opportunity to add in some rudimentary intra-empire trade.

*smiles and nods encouragingly*
 
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I sincerely hope that the differing species will be made more different. Just doubling all trait effects (and rebalancing them a little) will be the simplest way to do it, since I would find it unlikely that Paradox will have the dev time to do anything more indepth for 1.3.
 
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