Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary is going to be a bit of a grab bag, as we're going to talk about features in the 1.5 'Banks' update that weren't quite large enough to get their own dev diary, but are still significant enough that we want to highlight them. All features listed in this dev diary are part of the free Banks update rather than the Utopia expansion. There are of course many other minor features, tweaks and fixes in Banks that did not make the cut for this dev diary but will be covered in the full patch notes once we're closer to release.


Empire-wide Food
Probably one of the most hotly requested features since the release of the game, we've changed food in 1.5 so that it is no longer local to planets. Instead, all food produced by planets goes into a 'global' food stockpile, which is used to feed the entire empire. The maximum size of this stockpile depends on your Food Stockpiling policy, and once your food stockpile is full, any additional food produced is instead converted into faster Pop growth across the empire at a rate relative to the size of the population (so an excess of 5 food/month will produce much more growth in a 10 Pop empire than in a 100 Pop empire). Conversely, if the stockpile runs out and food growth is negative, the empire will suffer starvation, halting all Pop growth and applying increasingly severe happiness penalties for all biological Pops.

Terraforming Candidates
As explained in earlier dev diaries, one of the decisions taken early on when it comes to terraforming in Stellaris is to not have every planet be terraformable. This is both for practical reasons (a Stellaris galaxy can contain thousands upon thousands of planets, and having them all be inhabited would be completely unfeasible from a gameplay perspective) and thematic ones, as we want habitable worlds to feel rare and special. However, this means that one of the great staples of sci-fi - terraforming Mars - isn't possible in Stellaris. To resolve this, we've introduced a new type of anomaly called a 'Terraforming Candidate'. Sometimes when surveying Barren worlds, you will find ones that while they do not support life, could theoretically do so if you possess the right technology. Once you have unlocked the Climate Restoration technology, you will be able to terraform these worlds into habitable planets. Mars will always be a Terraforming Candidate, and you will be able to find randomly generated Terraforming Candidates when exploring the rest of the galaxy.

War Demand Costs
A frequent complaint about the mid and late game in Stellaris is that the warscore costs for taking planets simply do not scale well to the size of lategame wars. You can have a gigantic conflict involving dozens or hundreds of planets that results in only a few planets exchanging hands at the end. To address this, we've rebalanced war demands to still be quite expensive in the early game (when conquering a handful of planets is a significant increase in power) but added numerous ways to reduce the cost as the game progresses in the form of traditions and technologies, allowing for vast swathes of territory to change hands in late-game wars.

Stone Age Primitives
Having Stone Age primitives use a system of modifiers and tile blockers always felt a bit odd, owing to the fact that it is a legacy system designed before pre-sentients and later primitive civilizations were given proper Pops. For 1.5, we've reworked Stone Age civilizations to use the same systems as regular primitives, meaning they have Pops, can be studied and conquered using armies.

Picking Room Backgrounds
Another occasionally requested feature has been the ability to pick your own room background when designing your species, instead of having it automatically generated by your ethics. In 1.5, you will be able to select your room background in the Ruler customization screen. We've also added a new room background in a Hive Mind style.

That's all for today! Next week we'll be talking about the new music and sounds coming in Banks and Utopia, as well as showing off the Music Player that will be included with the free update.

 

[jdrou]

i'm quoting this specific one for no real reason. if you're farm world get's blockaded, just turn all the people on ANOTHER planet into livestock and your fine. they'll be released afterwards and go back to normal duty.

Hopefully if you do something like that the species won't just forgive you for eating them for a few years.

 

[Riftwalker]

Hopefully if you do something like that the species won't just forgive you for eating them for a few years.

I've actually been thinking about this one. What if your species was naturally cannibalistic, like they had no negative connotations with being eaten or eaten sentients. Also I wonder if you're restricted to battle thrall living standards or chattel slavery's living standards...

 

[Zarpaulus]

I've actually been thinking about this one. What if your species was naturally cannibalistic, like they had no negative connotations with being eaten or eaten sentients. Also I wonder if you're restricted to battle thrall living standards or chattel slavery's living standards...

Battle thralls and chattel slavery are types of slavery, completely separate from living standards.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

Battle thralls and chattel slavery are types of slavery, completely separate from living standards.

I guess it depends on the mechanics behind caste system.

My assumption is that caste system uses an internal logic that is applied automatically to miners and farmers to enslave them on an individual basis using the population modifier of 'chattel slavery." Probably happens during the section between months that calculates resource income. In my version this would create a situation where the game automatically enslaves miners and farmers for a bonus but does not imitate the effects of other types of slavery.

Other people have read the dev diary and reached the conclusion that what caste system does is unlock slavery options that apply to your core population in the event that they are located to a tile given bonuses by their version of slavery. In their version, establishing a caste system and selecting livestock, as an example, would turn populations moved to food tiles into livestock.

Personally, I believe my version is right, for a couple of reasons. First, my version creates a better divide between free patch content and expansion content. Secondly, my version is literally what the developer diary said about caste system. But who knows, maybe authoritarian cannibals will be a thing. Maybe authoritarian war thralls will be a thing.

 

[Beagá]

i'm quoting this specific one for no real reason. if you're farm world get's blockaded, just turn all the people on ANOTHER planet into livestock and your fine. they'll be released afterwards and go back to normal duty.

As usual the problem isn´t the human. It´s the AI.

Fine, suppose even the AI does what you said. Then they eat a pop. Then... you relieve the blockade.

One month later you repeat it. On an on until they consume everything and make everyone pissed off.

Blockades MUST be reviewed and the AI MUST prioritize those planets for defense. IMO just like in EU4 you need a certain amount of ships to blockade a port, so should be in Stellaris. So a huge planet would need 30 ships "power" (suppose corvettes give 1, and battleships :4, carriers: 6) for a full blockade.

Just throwing numbers, feel free to propose changes.

 

[Zarpaulus]

I guess it depends on the mechanics behind caste system.

My assumption is that caste system uses an internal logic that is applied automatically to miners and farmers to enslave them on an individual basis using the population modifier of 'chattel slavery." Probably happens during the section between months that calculates resource income. In my version this would create a situation where the game automatically enslaves miners and farmers for a bonus but does not imitate the effects of other types of slavery.

Other people have read the dev diary and reached the conclusion that what caste system does is unlock slavery options that apply to your core population in the event that they are located to a tile given bonuses by their version of slavery. In their version, establishing a caste system and selecting livestock, as an example, would turn populations moved to food tiles into livestock.

Personally, I believe my version is right, for a couple of reasons. First, my version creates a better divide between free patch content and expansion content. Secondly, my version is literally what the developer diary said about caste system. But who knows, maybe authoritarian cannibals will be a thing. Maybe authoritarian war thralls will be a thing.

Livestock slavery of your primary species would be societal suicide, at least until you found another species to mine minerals for you.

Chattel slavery, as presented stat-wise, would be the closest to how an actual caste system would work of all the slavery methods, except possibly battle thralls in regards to a warrior caste (though historically, the warrior caste have been the nobles.)

 

[Riftwalker]

Livestock slavery of your primary species would be societal suicide, at least until you found another species to mine minerals for you.

Chattel slavery, as presented stat-wise, would be the closest to how an actual caste system would work of all the slavery methods, except possibly battle thralls in regards to a warrior caste (though historically, the warrior caste have been the nobles.)

IDK, serfs are definitely what i believe the caste system most closely mirrors. They weren't owned by their lords, and couldn't be sold around willynilly, to do so would be a breach of the Serf-Lord contract, other nobles might intervene if this happened(even if only using it as a case to increase their power base). Serfs had poor conditions sure, but they were still guaranteed protection by their lord, that's why they follow him in the first place. The Caste system could also be an abstraction of debtors and indentured servitude, where one could work off their servitude.

Chattel slavery on the other hand is the whole sale use of a population as a commodity, that is owned by someone and can be controlled willynilly just like furniture you own in a house. Chattel slaves don't have rights or protections, because they aren't people, they're property.

Beyond all that, if your race naturally cannibalizes, I don't think it'll impact your society too much, since their society seems to somehow gotten into space while eating each other.

They could have a caste system like The Indian Caste system with a strong belief that doing your Caste roll is the prime example of a good "blorg", so if you were born to livestock by becoming food well(staying a prime to be eaten creature), your Karma is good. etc. I don't want to get into deep hindu caste beliefs. the basics, if you're born a warrior, but turn out to be a bad warrior but a great cook, the good thing to do, is still be a warrior and sticking with your Jati, your birth caste.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

Serfs had poor conditions sure, but they were still guaranteed protection by their lord, that's why they follow him in the first place. The Caste system could also be an abstraction of debtors and indentured servitude, where one could work off their servitude.

Chattel slavery is the version of slavery in game that involves getting a bonus to both farming and industry. It's the only version of slavery that does both and it is what caste system is described as doing. Caste system is not described as producing a class of people who perform admirably well as soldiers. Caste system is not described as producing a group of average farmers who raise your race's happiness. Caste system is not described as producing a group of your population that produces a flat amount of food, making them worse than late game farms, but an excellent source of early food when used on undeveloped, low tech planets.

You're talking about the abstraction of a caste system and chattel slavery, but you're responding to someone talking about the game mechanics of chattel slavery as it relates to the game mechanics of caste system.

 

[Riftwalker]

Chattel slavery is the version of slavery in game that involves getting a bonus to both farming and industry. It's the only version of slavery that does both and it is what caste system is described as doing. Caste system is not described as producing a class of people who perform admirably well as soldiers. Caste system is not described as producing a group of average farmers who raise your race's happiness. Caste system is not described as producing a group of your population that produces a flat amount of food, making them worse than late game farms, but an excellent source of early food when used on undeveloped, low tech planets.

You're talking about the abstraction of a caste system and chattel slavery, but you're responding to someone talking about the game mechanics of chattel slavery as it relates to the game mechanics of caste system.

I feel like this is the point where you turn around in the rabbit hole.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

Huh... yeah I suppose you're right.

 

[nathan67003]

[...]a Stellaris galaxy can contain thousands upon thousands of planets, and having them all be inhabited would be completely unfeasible from a gameplay perspective[...]

SPORE did it. With more planets.

 

[Primarch Victus]

Not all planets in Spore were inhabitable.

 

[Wizzington]

It's also about as useful a comparison as the number of goombas in Super Mario 3.

 

[Wartraveler]

Hope you read this.

I tought for a while that there is too many habitable planets terraforming.

Terraforming should be much more expensive and harder.
It should be more expensive for bigger planets and should not be 100%

A Terraformed Planet should get some modifiers.
For example a planet which was changed a whole setting from dry to wet.
Should have heavily reduced food production due to new ecosystem. And it should cost maintenance to keep it wet.

There should be terraforming costs on the Planet. Making it smaller the further its terraformed etc.

Some planets should have Anomaly that they cannot be terraformed at all as their climate for example is from distance to the star and cant be changed.

 

[Primarch Victus]

I don't know the opinion of the developers about this matter, but not everyone likes of micromanagement... so let's keep terraforming the way it is, shall we?

 

[Riftwalker]

my opinion on terraforming is there needs to be more planet types that are uninhabitable until terraformed, but they should be "easy", like only the first tech required and they're just planets without life on them that needs to be seeded(also maybe typed to either cold, wet, or dry/hot). I WANT to terraform but i never really see a point by the time i get it i'm already enslaving multiple races and using them to colonize.

 

[Zarpaulus]

my opinion on terraforming is there needs to be more planet types that are uninhabitable until terraformed, but they should be "easy", like only the first tech required and they're just planets without life on them that needs to be seeded(also maybe typed to either cold, wet, or dry/hot). I WANT to terraform but i never really see a point by the time i get it i'm already enslaving multiple races and using them to colonize.

Maybe if you couldn't determine the planet type when it was made inhabitable it could be an early tech, kind of like this one science ship project I came across in a recent game that turned a barren planet into an arid one (I was playing savannah pref).

Though, realistically, if a planet can already support life it probably already would be. At most, maybe you could introduce more complex life to a planet at the microbial stage.

Also, in my Commonwealth of Man game I researched Terrestrial Sculpting after only enslaving one race, and I purged them so I could turn their pathetic ocean world into a new Earth (in a system that already had two continental planets).

 

[imperium3]

my opinion on terraforming is there needs to be more planet types that are uninhabitable until terraformed, but they should be "easy", like only the first tech required and they're just planets without life on them that needs to be seeded(also maybe typed to either cold, wet, or dry/hot). I WANT to terraform but i never really see a point by the time i get it i'm already enslaving multiple races and using them to colonize.

I don't know, I think the system as it stands is better, because it gives you more options for dealing with planets your species can't live on. You can enslave or incorporate another species, you can terraform it, you can genetically modify some of your species, or you could send robots to live there. Putting a "terraforming lock" on some of those planets would simply make terraforming a must-have tech used by everyone. If there is a problem, it's that one of the options above - bringing in another species - is much easier than the others and available much earlier in the game.

 

[terrycloth]

I don't know, I think the system as it stands is better, because it gives you more options for dealing with planets your species can't live on. You can enslave or incorporate another species, you can terraform it, you can genetically modify some of your species, or you could send robots to live there. Putting a "terraforming lock" on some of those planets would simply make terraforming a must-have tech used by everyone. If there is a problem, it's that one of the options above - bringing in another species - is much easier than the others and available much earlier in the game.

Terraforming is a tech everyone gets offered, so it's not a problem to make it a must-have for part of the game. You'd still have all those options for regular planets, but one of the things that's weaker in the 1.4 version of colonization is the progressive opening of planets since they got rid of all the specific-planet techs. Having a lot of easily terraformable planets that start out uninhabitable (and then a second wave that needs the second tech, and tomb worlds are already there needing the third) would bring some of that back.

If it was much easier to terraform the initially uninhabitable planets to specific climates (like it's currently much easier to terraform arid to desert than arid to continental) then you wouldn't lose the ability to choose between options for colonizing them, aside from the original terraforming.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

Regarding terraforming and the forwarded suggestion to make more planets available that are sub-habitable but terraformable at an early stage. I like the idea behind it but it's already being put in game as an ascension perk. I'm open to the idea of buffing it, if it feels weaker than the other ascension perks, but I like it being a significant choice, one of only a few that you're going to be able to make and one that will define how you play the game and what your empire will be like.