Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary is about new interface functionalities for navies in the 2.0 'Cherryh' update that we collectively call the Fleet Manager. Please note that the interfaces shown in this dev diary are early WIP versions that have not yet seen an artist's touch, and will look very different in the finished product, meaning that feedback on their look/layout is pointless at this stage. Thank you!

Fleet Manager
The fleet manager is a new interface accessible from the top bar, that as the name implies, allows you to overview and manage your navies. The fleet manager lists all fleets in your empire, filtering away small splinters that are in the process of being merged into another fleet. Each fleet has something we call a Fleet Template, which is a stored configuration of what that fleet *should* look like. Fleet Templates keep track of not just ship sizes (such as corvette or cruiser) but also of individual designs, so a Fleet Template might be set up to contain 10 Torpedo and 5 Interceptor-class corvettes alongside a mix of Picket and Gunboat style Destroyers, for example. Templates can be edited directly through the Fleet Manager without needing to build ships, by for example deciding to add another 5 Interceptor-class corvettes to the above listed fleet. Templates can be created directly without making a fleet first, and then reinforced to create the actual fleet. We are also planning to add template duplication and copy/paste functionality in order to be able to quickly set up a new fleet or make your fleets conform to a desired standard.

Whenever a fleet is missing ships that are listed in its Template, the option exists to Reinforce that fleet, which can be done either from the Fleet Manager or directly from the fleet view itself. Issuing a reinforce command will start production of as many missing ships as you can afford at your current amount of minerals, which will be automatically distributed among appropriately placed shipyards and sent to join and merge with the fleet once finished. In addition to the ability to reinforce fleets individually, there is also a Reinforce All button, which will attempt to reinforce missing ships in all fleets up to the amount you can afford with your current level of minerals, and can be used to fully replenish your navy in a single click if you have enough resources on hand. The Fleet Manager also offers the option to Retrofit ship designs. Let's take the example of the mixed Interceptor and Torpedo-class fleet above, where you have 10 Torpedo and 10 Interceptor-class ships. If you decide that you no longer need the Interceptors, you can use Retrofit to easily switch one class to another, selectively upgrading the Interceptor-class ships into Torpedo-class ships.

Home Bases
Also being introduced along with the Fleet Manager is the concept of Home Bases. Each fleet will be able to have a Home Base set, with any friendly upgraded Starbase being valid as a Home Base. This is where the fleet will return when the Return Home order is issued, gets slight priority for actions such as reinforcing (though the focus is on distributing production sensibly rather than always using the home base), and is intended to tie into other fleet mechanics planned for Cherryh that we are not quite ready to talk about yet.

That's all for today! Next week we'll be continuing to talk about Cherryh, on the topic of armies. See you then!

 

[Harle]

Yes! I've been wanting this for ages. This is a huge quality of life improvement and gives fleets much more character.

Question though:

Will the fleet manager remember reinforcement orders that are already in process? Like, if I have a fleet that is down 6 ships, and I hit reinforce, and my stations start building 6 ships, will the fleet manager consider that fleet at maximum? If I hit the reinforce button again will it queue up 6 more ships? Or will it not let me reinforce?

I could see me losing track of which fleets are in the process of being reinforced, if I have a number of similar fleets during a war that sporadically need reinforcing.

 

[gi_ty]

Oh dear the wait for this update is destroying my soul . I have been using tons of mods for the first time in an attempt to ease the pain, but 2.0 is shaping up to be a real game changer (ha ha) and mods just cant cover it.

 

[ComradeKroo]

Yes! I've been wanting this for ages. This is a huge quality of life improvement and gives fleets much more character.

Question though:

Will the fleet manager remember reinforcement orders that are already in process? Like, if I have a fleet that is down 6 ships, and I hit reinforce, and my stations start building 6 ships, will the fleet manager consider that fleet at maximum? If I hit the reinforce button again will it queue up 6 more ships? Or will it not let me reinforce?

I could see me losing track of which fleets are in the process of being reinforced, if I have a number of similar fleets during a war that sporadically need reinforcing.

I think its like EU4.
Fleets = Armies.
Starbases = Provinces.
And Homebase acts like Homeport for flotilas in HOI4.

 

[Heretic Saint]

Will we be able to designate which starbases reinforce in the event that some of them have modules that improve ships?

Ooh, good thinking. I'm not sure if the smaller amount of starbases in 2.0 will still allow us to heavily specialize our different shipyards, but I know that in recent iterations of the game, I had a tendency to set up things like a shipyard specifically meant to build frigates and destroyers, and another for cruisers and battleships.

It would be neat if the interface on the shipyard would allow you to restrict it to certain size classes for reinforcement, or at least if the game would take modules into account when prioritizing starbase selection for reinforcements.

I just simply do not understand from where, how, and why all of a sudden this anti-click culture has been springing up all around this forum. It used to just be about army managment, now it seems clicking on anything at all for anything is undesirable.
It's just one click, might be every 10 seconds if you end up using dozens of small fleets, but its still just one click all the same..

I can't speak for everyone, but whilst I do not think this addition is the greatest thing since sliced bread (or the most important change to Stellaris, as some players claim), I do appreciate how it will make naval organization easier. To me, it's not so much about the clicks per se, but I invest a ridiculous amount of detail into setting up my fleets. Where other players just mass-queue a bunch of autodesign ships, I customize heavily and spend minutes thinking about cool names, and what sort of ratio this new class should have in my military. All of this adds to my empire's identity, the "fluff", and as such the enjoyment of the game -- but it does make it somewhat tedious to replace casualties just because the fleet has once again lost three corvettes of Type A and another five of Tybe B, oh and I need to build another destroyer because it won't be a full squadron if it isn't 12.

It's a quality-of-life refinement that will make it a lot less time-consuming to create and maintain flotillas that look exactly the way I want them to.

Can we have, like the new sistem role naming (Mining sistem, homeworld sistem, etc), a ship role displayer, like "interceptor" "torpedo" "Artillery" ships, in the ship stats menu? This way I can keep the awesome names of the ships and not put "Torpedo-Class ship" "Hangar-Class Ship"

If it helps, you could try the following:

Add a registry code to the class name, e.g. "DDE Sentry" to denote a point defense destroyer, or "FFG Ravager" for a torpedo corvette. The topic recently came up on reddit; you can find a list of codes in this post if you do not want to make up your own or read naval articles on the web. Aside from making the ship's role immediately evident, usage of such codes might also increase immersion!

Tweak class nomenclature to better represent a ship's purpose. You have full control over your navy's naming conventions, so you could rely on association to explain their role without any additional categories in the game. Example: "Aegis" is Latin for shield; great name for a point defense destroyer! "Phalanx" was a Greek formation of spearmen, could be nice for a bunch of corvettes that will always be deployed in groups? If the corvettes use torpedoes, something like "Archer" or "Longbow" might be more suited. And so on.

Arguably method 2 is less reliable than 1, but both are viable approaches, depending on whether you prefer memorizing naval codes or playing the association game.

 

[Spenny91]

man, hearts of iron 4 and stellaris are both coming out with gargantuan updates that have honestly made me moist... which to play first...?

 

[Tale]

man, hearts of iron 4 and stellaris are both coming out with gargantuan updates that have honestly made me moist... which to play first...?

The one that lets you eat your defeated foes.

 

[ClockBasher]

That's all for today! Next week we'll be continuing to talk about Cherryh, on the topic of armies. See you then!

This update is going to be the greatest thing that will happen for this game. I cannot wait.

 

[hadaev]

Whats about always reinforce checkbox?

 

[GremlinZD]

The one that lets you eat your defeated foes.

So play as France?

 

[Ari54x]

Looks good! I hope we can pop it down by clicking on the fleet power indicator the same way we can pop down the research dialogue by clicking the science indicators.

 

[LordInquisitor16]

What happens if you change fleet templates/compositions in such a way that you have spare/obsolete ships?

Say, you just researched destroyers, and you want to swap half the corvettes in your fleets for destroyers. Would the surplus corvettes go into a 'storage pool' from which the hulls would be used when you build new fleets requiring corvettes, or existing fleets request reinforcements? Would they automatically retrofit if that was necessary?

Is it possible to designate a 'fleet' where reserve ships are kept, to rapidly reinforce combat fleets that suffer casualties? Would it also be possible to distinguish between truly mothballed ships (low upkeep, but would always require a retrofit before re-entering service) and combat-ready reserves?

Would certainly be cool if they did

 

[Ambereyed]

Fleet manager and frontier outposts rework are my two most favourite changes so far.

 

[TheDungen]

I would rather have seen a shift towards using fewer ships than you making have more ships more convenient because that means the meta (not quite the word I am looking for but it will do) will turn towards having more ships and you will optimize the AI to play like that and... ah well whatever I am more and more feeling stellaris is no longer a game for me. In fact every time you update the AI of one of your games I end up enjoying it less.

 

[Summin Cool]

I've been wanting and asking for this for far too long, glad to see it's finally making it's way into the game.

 

[gourley4p]

Daddy like.

 

[Badesumofu]

The amount of content that Stellaris is getting as part of the free updates is brilliant. Makes ongoing development easier since you aren't stuck with key features like Estates and Development stuck behind a paywall. Ultimately this makes for a better game for everyone and it makes me want to buy all the expansions as well.

Speaking of - with so much in the free update I can't wait to see what the actual expansion will feature.

 

[Arkona]

I am ready to become a groupie to Wiz. Like for life!

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

I would rather have seen a shift towards using fewer ships than you making have more ships more convenient because that means the meta (not quite the word I am looking for but it will do) will turn towards having more ships and you will optimize the AI to play like that and... ah well whatever I am more and more feeling stellaris is no longer a game for me. In fact every time you update the AI of one of your games I end up enjoying it less.

More is better in almost every strategy game.

I don't remember the last time I played a game where the answer to "What happens if I have two instead of one?" was "Something bad will happen." The sole exception is situations where you are given the choice of improving what you already have or building another, but even then, building another usually leads to snowballing: see tall versus wide.

In Stellaris, improving existing ships is tied to technology, and making the game more technology-focused would, by extension, make it more RNG-focused. You draw cards from a tech deck in Stellaris, so making the game too reliant on weapons tech would basically turn into "How long is it going to take until I draw the 'win' card?"

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but Stellaris has always been about quantity, and more broadly, most strategy games are. Even the protoss would prefer two of a unit to just one of it.

 

[pcavalcanti]

NEWS REPORTS: With the implementation of the breakthrough 'fleet manager', the United Nations was forced to fire all of its ship-role-remembering officers. Now we let an computer do that as well.

In other news, 2.0 once again is spoiling us. The Army dev diary next week however??

Does this mean?

GROUND WARFARE REWORK????

If it's that what it means then 2.0 will only be released by August next year...

 

[WilliamJamesJ]

Will there be a solution to being stuck in enemy territory after a war and not being able to get out in a war because there are no nearby wormhole stations. I have lost several fleets this way.