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Stellaris Dev Diary #50 - The Journey Ahead

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today we'll be talking a bit about where the game stands, where we're going, and what we want to focus on in the future.

Where we stand
As anyone who regularly reads the Stellaris dev diaries should know, the intent for Heinlein changed quite a bit back at the end of the summer. While we had originally planned Heinelin to be an update accompanying a major expansion, we decided instead to scale back the scope of the paid content by making a Story Pack, Leviathans, and focusing most of our resources on the actual free update. Now that Heinlein and Leviathans are out, my conclusion is that this was the right decision on our part. By doing this, we gave ourselves time to iterate on some of our weaker features and add a great deal of UI and quality of life functionality. Heinlein ended up as a *huge* update that we feel moved the game forward in a lot of ways, and judging from the huge amount of positive feedback we have gotten, you guys seem to generally agree with this assessment.

So where *do* we stand? My view is that we now have a very solid base game to build on, and that going forward it's time to scale up our ambitions. To make space even greater, so to speak.

Where we're going
So what's next for Stellaris? I have talked a bit about the planned 'Banks' update, which will be a major update accompanied by a full-sized expansion. This is still the plan, but before we release Banks we have another update, dubbed 'Kennedy', which we aim to release before the end of the year. This will be a small update targeting a few specific key issues, such as precursor event chains and endgame crises, that we did not have time for in Heinlein. After that will be Banks, and while we will not be providing any details about the Banks update or accompanying expansion at this time, I will say that the author name chosen for this update may offer some clues. ;)

What we want
Finally, I just wanted to offer some insight into what we believe are the key areas of the game that we should focus on at this time. We have received, and continue to receive, an amazing amount of good feedback and ideas, and of course we have our own ambitions and ideas for where we want to take Stellaris, but at the moment there are three key areas that we aim to continually target with future updates and content, namely:
  • Fleshing out the mid- and lategame through the addition of more interesting narratives and 'galactic events' akin to Awakened Fallen Empires that shake up the galactic scene.
  • Improving the internal workings of empires, making pops and leaders more interesting, and making empires feel more alive.
  • Expanding on the ethics system, creating more unique playstyles and enhancing roleplaying.

This is of course not the *only* things we aim to focus on, but they are what we consider to be the most important areas going forward right now. Just to give you an idea of what else you can expect in the future, here is a list of some features (in no particular order of priority) that we are looking into adding in the future.

NOTE: THIS IS NOT AN EXHAUSTIVE OR FINAL LIST, AND NOTHING BELOW IS CERTAIN TO HAPPEN!

  • Ship appearance that differs for each empire, so no two empires' ships look exactly the same.
  • More story events and reactive narratives that give a sense of an unfolding story as you play.
  • More potential for empire customization, ability to build competitive 'tall' empires.
  • Deeper Federations that start out as loose alliances and can eventually be turned into single states through diplomatic manuevering.
  • Ability to set rights and obligations for particular species in your empire.
  • Global food that can be shared between planets.
  • Superweapons and planet killers.
  • Ability to construct space habitats and ringworlds.
  • More interesting mechanics for pre-FTL civilizations.
  • Factions that are proper interest groups with specific likes and dislikes and the potential to be a benefit to an empire instead of just being rebels.
  • A 'galactic community' with interstellar politics and a 'space UN'.
  • Buildable Dreadnoughts and Titans.

Again, remember that the above is not a list of promises, that I can't answer any specific questions about future content, and that plans can and will change, but I hope I've at least given you some idea of where Stellaris will be going from here, and that you look forward to the journey ahead of us as much as we do here in the development team.
2016_10_27_1.png


Please note the new time for our Extraterrestrial Thursday livestream! Starting at 16:00CEST over on twitch.tv
 
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You did a stellar job with Heinlein, I've literally played through the night, on a workday... And all this sounds perfect, except...


Why? Whyyy?! Does every 4x have to follow in the footsteps of the first Civ game, which does its best for its time to present gameplay for the early ages of a society when agrarian production and employment are limiting factors? This makes seldom sense fo anything past the 20th century :(

Water, on the other hand...

Why is this a bad thing? Isn't the basis of the trade, if there is something too much to transfer it to the place where there is too little? And earn money? Why would that not be applicable in the future?
 
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You did a stellar job with Heinlein, I've literally played through the night, on a workday... And all this sounds perfect, except...


Why? Whyyy?! Does every 4x have to follow in the footsteps of the first Civ game, which does its best for its time to present gameplay for the early ages of a society when agrarian production and employment are limiting factors? This makes seldom sense fo anything past the 20th century :(

Water, on the other hand...

Haven't played the first Civ, but agri-worlds and the like are a stable in many sci-fi franchises like 40K, Foundation and Star Wars. Seems to fit into Stellaris just as well as psi warriors or fox aliens. Personally, I like the idea if it offers more gameplay options, interested to hear more about it.
 
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One question: Are the new faction mechanics going to be tied into sectors so that they have a positive effect on your empire as well as a penalising one?

This. Would also be cool if leaders could align themselves with one of the factions, based on the type of goverment and their ethos and race.
 
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I really like what you guys want to focus on for Stellaris. You've got my stamp of approval ;)
 
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It was an old game star wars or we could use the Death Star at will...
If Stellaris perment us to build killers worlds, I feel that I will again govern asteroids!
 
[Some thoughts]
Introduction of a Galactic Senate mechanism (built-in for most polities save for dictatorships) might be the way to make both Galactic diplomacy and internal factions more engaging at the same time.

For example, after forming a Federation or expanding to a certain size (say, >= 20 systems), each planet from every faction will own a seat in the Senate, which can be either be appointed by the ruler (i.e. the player) or elected by the citizens (i.e. the AI), or a mixture of both according to a certain porportion, depending on the political system / policy / etc. This will decide whether the Senate will be a rubber stamp or a independent organ of power.
Certain power can be assigned to the Senate, though nothing interesting came to my mind so far......
Senates on the more democratic side of the spectrum must be buffed in some ways (perhaps as something similar to the piety bar for Muslims in EU4? with pros aand cons on both ends), or else everyone is going to choose the rubber stamp way......
 
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Why is this a bad thing? Isn't the basis of the trade, if there is something too much to transfer it to the place where there is too little? And earn money? Why would that not be applicable in the future?
There's a whole thread about this, but trying to keep it short: food production is relatively easy and cheap. Much of the world today lives in post-agrarian societies, and technological advances make employment in agriculture far from numerous, and even today starvation is a question of global food distribution, not production. space travel, on the other hand, takes energy and time - so does space transport. It seems economically pointless to transport basic food (as opposed to luxurious and local delicacies) in interplanetary trade, since if a planet is habitable it'd be assumed that local food production is also possible - and therefore much cheaper and safer. After all, who would set up a colony which could potentially starve out just because a food transport didn't reach it, when food can be produced with little cost or effort locally?

I very much liked the system so far, even would love to see food dropped entirely. And no, I am not against more options for players - it's just that this option seems extremely silly. And as for agri-worlds being sci-fi staples, that's really because sci-fi writers like taking things from humanity's past and giving it a futuristic paint job - both WH40K and SW are closer to a fantasy setting in many ways than to sci-fi, and thus seem to have intergalactic feudalism. Which makes no. Sense.

It's not a major gripe, really. I'm just a bit dissappointed because I liked Stellaris for finally making away with this useless trope copied from other games.
 
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NOTE: THIS IS NOT AN EXHAUSTIVE OR FINAL LIST, AND NOTHING BELOW IS CERTAIN TO HAPPEN!
  • Ship appearance that differs for each empire, so no two empires' ships look exactly the same.
  • More story events and reactive narratives that give a sense of an unfolding story as you play.
  • More potential for empire customization, ability to build competitive 'tall' empires.
  • Deeper Federations that start out as loose alliances and can eventually be turned into single states through diplomatic manuevering.
  • Ability to set rights and obligations for particular species in your empire.
  • Global food that can be shared between planets.
  • Superweapons and planet killers.
  • Ability to construct space habitats and ringworlds.
  • More interesting mechanics for pre-FTL civilizations.
  • Factions that are proper interest groups with specific likes and dislikes and the potential to be a benefit to an empire instead of just being rebels.
  • A 'galactic community' with interstellar politics and a 'space UN'.
  • Buildable Dreadnoughts and Titans.

Yaaaaas that all sounds so good!
 
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I understand that special circumstances have forced you to delay Banks, but I hope you'll remain in contact about at least the surface details with the players of your games
It's not a delay, we'll just be releasing a small update inbetween Heinlein and Banks.

Did you genuinely miss all of the Banks references in this post and take it as a serious question? :p For shame Wiz, for shame!
 
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Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today we'll be talking a bit about where the game stands, where we're going, and what we want to focus on in the future.

Where we stand
As anyone who regularly reads the Stellaris dev diaries should know, the intent for Heinlein changed quite a bit back at the end of the summer. While we had originally planned Heinelin to be an update accompanying a major expansion, we decided instead to scale back the scope of the paid content by making a Story Pack, Leviathans, and focusing most of our resources on the actual free update. Now that Heinlein and Leviathans are out, my conclusion is that this was the right decision on our part. By doing this, we gave ourselves time to iterate on some of our weaker features and add a great deal of UI and quality of life functionality. Heinlein ended up as a *huge* update that we feel moved the game forward in a lot of ways, and judging from the huge amount of positive feedback we have gotten, you guys seem to generally agree with this assessment.

So where *do* we stand? My view is that we now have a very solid base game to build on, and that going forward it's time to scale up our ambitions. To make space even greater, so to speak.

Where we're going
So what's next for Stellaris? I have talked a bit about the planned 'Banks' update, which will be a major update accompanied by a full-sized expansion. This is still the plan, but before we release Banks we have another update, dubbed 'Kennedy', which we aim to release before the end of the year. This will be a small update targeting a few specific key issues, such as precursor event chains and endgame crises, that we did not have time for in Heinlein. After that will be Banks, and while we will not be providing any details about the Banks update or accompanying expansion at this time, I will say that the author name chosen for this update may offer some clues. ;)

What we want
Finally, I just wanted to offer some insight into what we believe are the key areas of the game that we should focus on at this time. We have received, and continue to receive, an amazing amount of good feedback and ideas, and of course we have our own ambitions and ideas for where we want to take Stellaris, but at the moment there are three key areas that we aim to continually target with future updates and content, namely:
  • Fleshing out the mid- and lategame through the addition of more interesting narratives and 'galactic events' akin to Awakened Fallen Empires that shake up the galactic scene.
  • Improving the internal workings of empires, making pops and leaders more interesting, and making empires feel more alive.
  • Expanding on the ethics system, creating more unique playstyles and enhancing roleplaying.

This is of course not the *only* things we aim to focus on, but they are what we consider to be the most important areas going forward right now. Just to give you an idea of what else you can expect in the future, here is a list of some features (in no particular order of priority) that we are looking into adding in the future.

NOTE: THIS IS NOT AN EXHAUSTIVE OR FINAL LIST, AND NOTHING BELOW IS CERTAIN TO HAPPEN!

  • Ship appearance that differs for each empire, so no two empires' ships look exactly the same.
  • More story events and reactive narratives that give a sense of an unfolding story as you play.
  • More potential for empire customization, ability to build competitive 'tall' empires.
  • Deeper Federations that start out as loose alliances and can eventually be turned into single states through diplomatic manuevering.
  • Ability to set rights and obligations for particular species in your empire.
  • Global food that can be shared between planets.
  • Superweapons and planet killers.
  • Ability to construct space habitats and ringworlds.
  • More interesting mechanics for pre-FTL civilizations.
  • Factions that are proper interest groups with specific likes and dislikes and the potential to be a benefit to an empire instead of just being rebels.
  • A 'galactic community' with interstellar politics and a 'space UN'.
  • Buildable Dreadnoughts and Titans.

Again, remember that the above is not a list of promises, that I can't answer any specific questions about future content, and that plans can and will change, but I hope I've at least given you some idea of where Stellaris will be going from here, and that you look forward to the journey ahead of us as much as we do here in the development team.
View attachment 214868

Please note the new time for our Extraterrestrial Thursday livestream! Starting at 16:00CEST over on twitch.tv

So your saying that's that's an exhaustive list and it's all certain to happen. Glad you made the list of promises! ;)
 
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Good to hear but after being very disappointed with the last patch and the DLC I am a bit skeptical you can actually pull any of it off .
Stellaris is still a very boring game and just does not seem to work or know what it wants to be. I try to RP as much as possible to have any fun, but there is just nothing there.
I really think you should hold off on all DLC and Expansions till the core game is fixed. I am not a massive fan of "we know the mid game is boring so spend £10 to improve it".
Super ships and Weapons sound fun but when combat is so dull and unfun what is the point. Get the core game working and fun then go crazy with the DLC and expansions.
 
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  • Global food that can be shared between planets.
YES PLEASE. Allow me to build a gigantic urbanized world of bureaucracy :cool:
 
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