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!

 

[Komerade]

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.

Click the return button and your fleet will emergency FTL.

 

[Axe99]

Cheers for the DD Wiz . A fleet manager sounds like a top idea, very much look forward to it. Currently there's a decent amount of 'potential depth' in Stellaris' ship design, but I never had the patience to exploit it with different ship classes of the same hull type, just too fiddly. I do find the ease of switching classes a tad off-putting, but understand the game design boxes that's ticking off (although it does mean ships feel much less 'special', given they can quickly-and-cheaply be turned into any other ship of the same hull type virtually at a whim - so I reckon there'd be benefits from making ships a bit less morphable as well - but there's nothing wrong with the choice you've made imo ).

One thing that could be handy with the model you describe would bee splitting templates in half (not unlike the EU4 or HoI4 'split army in half' option, particularly now that starbases and other changes mean warfare is (imo thankfully ) moving away from the one-doomstack-to-rule-them-all approach. The aim would be to easily turn one fleet into two fleets in the same spot (so one could attack a starbase while another goes off to defend a nearby system, say). Apologies if I missed something and this is well covered off.

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.

Nice Dare you to introduce interstellar logistics .

 

[BrotherArdis]

other fleet mechanics planned for Cherryh that we are not quite ready to talk about yet.

...please tell me you mean supply lines / limited fleet range.

 

[Sapa Inca]

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.

I love the idea of specie-based crew.
This would enable new genetic traits (that affect ships), different specialization of different species and a much necessary buff to multicultural/multispecies empires (that cant use adequately none of the 3 ascension paths).
Currently, in mid and late game, the genetic traits that give production buffs are objectively better than other options (except conservationist trait), the strategical choice of specialize a specie to produce resources or specialize a specie to space combat would be very good and would be relevant in late game.

 

[kpipersburg]

Its Reinforce mech, not supply, because Reinforce is not Supply.

In Stellaris 2.0, Reinforcement units still have to move from base to fleet, and auto ships going to rally point are still move as 1 unit fleet. So, when you want to reinforce your fleet, you have to gather new ships to rally point. To me, its just annoying.

It will be much more interesting if fleets can reinforce themself right there without wait for new ships to come, and player dont have to check, wait, timing, ... their new ships and take care about reinforcements routes.

This is a STRATEGY game. Your comment reflects an utter disregard for thinking or planning.

 

[TheDungen]

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.

Less is more. More limited armies/fleets means everything counts more and you get a bond to each unit.

 

[Sinister2202]

Christmas.

 

[Ovan]

I want to know if having sort of "patrol" fleets is going to be viable at all?

In the current version, if you split fleets up into smaller pieces instead of a doomstack, they get fucked. I know this was already kind of addressed, but I'd love to be able to keep smaller fleets in my sectors as a defense force, while having a large attack force.

Will this be entirely possible now, and will this not hamper the whole fleet manager?

 

[Dradzk]

I heard about the FTL changes and that brought me to the forum initially. I wasn't terribly enthusiastic about the idea of everything using hyperspace lanes. After reading several of these Dev Diaries, I have to say that I am now excited for the changes. Cherryh looks like it may address a good deal of the gripes that I had with Stellaris. Can't wait for the update to finally arrive.

 

[Robotkiller]

What if I want to only build from specific star bases? My current play style is that I upgrade about 5 bases with fleet academy and the engineering expansion with that 5% bonus. I want to continue to min/max my fleet, in other words.

 

[Praetorian44]

One issue that I have with the reinforcement using any available starbase for production, is that this doesn't consider that some starbases may have modules that reduce the cost of ship production, or modules that improve the ship's capabilities. We should have a way to specify that reinforcement only uses certain starbases for production.

 

[Roddo]

Damn, it's looking sexy, all of this.

Also:
"other features we are not yer ready to discuss yet."

YISSSS.

 

[lpiv]

Will we be seeing any changes to the vassal / tributary system in the foreseeable future?

 

[Jiav]

dev diary about optimization please... all these changes are, maybe, something to look forward to, but the game still runs terrible towards end game.. sucking much joy out of it

 

[Red Roo]

YES! I've been wanting something like this forever!

 

[SecondSonThan]

Try to get all achievements before update like i do

You sir are a hero we need.

 

[Tilarium]

I'm really liking the sounds of everything in this update so far. It's making the game sound like a completely new game. The only two things I'd like to suggest is changing it so that the outposts/starbases can be build in orbit of planets instead of the stars themselves. I've never liked building any stations (from mining to research to frontier outposts) in orbit of the star. It just look right to me, the stations just look WAY to close to the star to be realistic. The one other being not needing to have an outpost to colonize a system. It makes early colonization seem very tedious. First I need to survey the system. Then I need to send a constructor to the system and wait for the outpost to be build. Then I can send a colony ship to the system and wait for the colony to form.

 

[Lewyrus]

This update can't come soon enough!

 

[Heretic Saint]

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.

Both Stellaris and StarCraft (and indeed, most modern strategy games) also impose limits on military size, specifically because at some point quantity just becomes unwieldy for the player. In Stellaris, this is most evident with the doomstack issue or, on some configurations, stuttering.

I'd say the most memorable space battles in movies are the ones that did not involve hundreds or thousands of warships, but rather the ones that involved dozens. Look at Star Wars or Star Trek for example. As soon as battles become "too big", we might just as well skip the visual representation altogether, because we won't be able to make out any details anyways. By contrast, smaller battles are much more enjoyable to watch, simply because they're not as cluttered.

I'm sure personal preferences/taste play a role here, but my best experiences with space battles in Stellaris were the ones where I used some mod or total conversion that involved smaller militaries. I still remember one engagement in Star Trek New Horizons where a critical late-game encounter between Starfleet and the Cardassians was literally decided by a single Defiant-class escort warping into the ongoing fight and turning a bloody 50/50 battle of attrition involving fleets of only a few dozen vessels each in favor of the Federation.

The game allows individual ships to have names. Let the battles be small enough to actually remember their feats.

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

Both Stellaris and StarCraft (and indeed, most modern strategy games) also impose limits on military size, specifically because at some point quantity just becomes unwieldy for the player. In Stellaris, this is most evident with the doomstack issue or, on some configurations, stuttering.

I'd say the most memorable space battles in movies are the ones that did not involve hundreds or thousands of warships, but rather the ones that involved dozens. Look at Star Wars or Star Trek for example. As soon as battles become "too big", we might just as well skip the visual representation altogether, because we won't be able to make out any details anyways. By contrast, smaller battles are much more enjoyable to watch, simply because they're not as cluttered.

I'm sure personal preferences/taste play a role here, but my best experiences with space battles in Stellaris were the ones where I used some mod or total conversion that involved smaller militaries. I still remember one engagement in Star Trek New Horizons where a critical late-game encounter between Starfleet and the Cardassians was literally decided by a single Defiant-class escort warping into the ongoing fight and turning a bloody 50/50 battle of attrition involving fleets of only a few dozen vessels each in favor of the Federation.

The game allows individual ships to have names. Let the battles be small enough to actually remember their feats.

I don't think we're on the same page.

My point to the original guy was that you'd pretty much be redesigning the whole game if you tried to make it about individual ships. There's no easy way around snowballing without opposing arbitrary limitations.

My point was that, as cool as it would be to have fleets with more personality, one would have to reconcile that unless arbitrarily restricted, it's more effective to build a larger fleet, and by extension, personality for individual ships is lost.

Admittedly, I'm also not really big on focusing on individual units in a grand strategy game of all things, but to each their own. My point was more about gameplay than it was personal preference or roleplaying.

The guy said something about less being more, but when you're playing a game where you get bigger than the other guy or get crushed, more is more, no matter how much personality an individual ship has.