Ideas from the void ....

[MichaelJanuary]

So this weekend I reinstalled Polaris Sector, after some years, and caught up with recent patches.

I had originally rated the game as a solid 6/10. With the patches, and having seen what other 4X s have done (Galciv3, Stellaris, etc) over the intervening years, I now feel I might have been a bit harsh with that rating.

The game does suffer from some execution and polish problems being that its by an indie developer, but it does a surprising number of things really well. Thought I'd list some of them here.

1. Research.
Polaris Sector still has by far the best research tree of any space 4x game that I have played in recent years. I rate SMAC as second, though SMAC was a much better polished and atmospheric game. But for sheer innovation and depth, Polaris Sectors tech tree beats everything by a country mile (or.. light year).

2. Economy. In some ways the economy is quite simple, too simple even, but I will list here what I like about it. You have multiple resources, that occur on different types of planet. Frozen planets tend to have more metals, Terran planets have organics, gravitonium and redium, and desert planets may have more plutonium. Some resources are rare, therefore you may find yourself prioritising specific types of planets to get at those resources.

3. Colonization. You basically have three broad types of planets. Those with breathable atmospheres (terran, oceanic, gaia), those that dont have breathable atmosphere and requires atmospheric domes (frozen, desert), and planets with extreme conditions that require specific technologies (seismic, acidic, gas giants). Thus even late in game, as you unlock radiation resistant atmospheric domes, you are still rushing for planets to get those rare resources. Besides different resource distributions, planets also have other properties, like available orbital space, bonus to research, bonus to agriculture, and so on.

3. Orbital construction.
Ships, fighters and battle stations can only be manufactured by orbital shipyards, which in turn require the support of ground side factories. You need 3 factories to support 1 shipyard on an inhabited planet.

4. Fleet Editor (Formation editor).
A nice concept in the game is the fleet formation editor. You use it to design formation templates, which you can save. Each formation template consists of user created roles, with each role having customizable behavior. When you design ships, you specify a role for the ships, and when the ships are merged into fleets, they take up the roles you have saved in the fleet formation.

The tactical battles are really cool.

The game plays in real time, much like Stellaris, but auto pauses on events, and has a tactical battle interface for fleet battles.

The ship designs are really deep, and sensors, ECM, accuracy, range, armor type, shields, limited ammo, destructive fighters, and ship facing is all important. The tactical battles are essentially in 2d though, which is somewhat disappointing.

 

[DanielPrates]

Great post. I have this game and only played a few hours when I bought it. Will give it another go!

 

[SeekingEtermity]

Huh, I'll have to take a look at this. The game I most often find myself comparing to Stellaris is Space Empires V (SE5), which has some of the properties you talk about - a very deep tech tree (though this depends on what mods you run), and a lot more control over ship roll and behavior, and fleet formation, in battle (including the option for full real-time control in single-player, though some people don't use that because it gives human players an advantage over the AI).

SE5 definitely has major downsides. For example, there are only three proper resources (plus research and intel) with only one of them needed in very large quantities, and there are improvements to colonization tech throughout the game but they're very heavily front-loaded such that the only limitation on early expansion is generally how fast you can spam colony ships. It has a pretty good population growth model but the base game doesn't use it very well. It has absolutely nothing on Stellaris when it comes to exploration or ability to develop your empire over the course of the game (though the initial setup is similarly deep, maybe even a bit more varied). It also has degenerate strategies around how to best spam out fleets, what techs to prioritize, etc. Finally, it's a buggy mess in some ways, much worse off than Stellaris, and has some obnoxious UI issues.

On the other hand, SE5 absolutely shines when it comes to strategic depth. Slipping behind enemy lines to deploy stealthy recon platforms is very valuable, as is investing in ship capture technologies to make use of enemy research. The variety of offensive and defensive options blows away Stellaris' limited ability to couter-build enemy designs or surprise enemies with your own. Home defense is a much more pressing consideration than in Stellaris, where systems mostly either just don't matter or will take a long time to fall; assimilating a conquered population takes time, but the conquest itself is very quick and wars can shift with amazing speed. Logistics matter, especially for fleets using a lot of heavy munitions like missiles; killing and/or cutting off logistics freighters can be crippling.

It sounds like a game with Stellaris' exploration and empire development, Polaris Sector's expansion and economy (and maybe tech; depending how it compares), and SE5's ship design and strategic considerations would be an utterly amazing thing... assuming it could be made without the massive bugs and balance issues so common to this genre.

 

[MichaelJanuary]

Some more small things about Polaris Sector that are great.

1. You can save a construction queue as a template.
2. It has a planet list and fleet list that is sortable by any number of attributes. Want to find planets that have lots of plutonium or gravitonium. No problem. You can adjust build queues and planet policies on the list.
3. You can flag planets for colonization on the planet list, and a colony ship will be auto-queued.
4. The fuel mechanic makes it difficult to penetrate deeply, as you need to return to base for fuel (or build a fuel tanker when you develop the tech).
5. There are wormholes, but they are 1 way. And can collapse with your fleet inside.


Tha game takes a long time to build up, and it proceeds slowly. The AI is a bit weak on standard difficulty but that's great for learning.

However, once you get to mid game, it's hard to put down.

The things that are completely missing in Polaris Sector is that you have no 'Leaders', there is no internal politics whatsoever. The interface sometimes is a bit lacking. Tactical Combat is very easy to beat the AI. The AI doesnt use its fleets well at all, so if you establish a good formation and good ship designs you can devastate equivalent AI fleets. Never autoresolve battles unless you have a massive advantage.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

Those are nice features! Stellaris has the Expansion Planner, which is basically your third point, and the "sectors and colonies" view is supposed to be your second point but sucks at it (this is another place where SE5 is much better than Stellaris, including not only a huge number of views and filters and the ability to sort on any column, but also the ability to create your own views). Fuel sounds similar to either MoO2 (where ships had a limited "fuel" range they could go from any of your bases) or to the Supply mechanic in SE (where using engines or firing weapons burns a resource that all ships carry some amount of, and for deep excursions you either need to trade off some of each ship's combat ability for supply storage, resupply in the field, or bring along fast freighters filled to the brim with supplies and optionally munitions that you hope the enemy doesn't kill).

Leaders are a thing in MoO games and in Endless Space games, but not in SE (though SE does have ship and fleet experience, which improves their accuracy and evasion). Internal politics, beyond a very generic "happiness" value that can modify production and potentially lead to rebellions, doesn't seem to be a thing in any of those games; even as limited as Stellaris internal politics are, they're more "there" than perhaps any other sci-fi 4X has.

As for tactical combat... I think there's a reason many of the modern 4X games with real-time combat systems have opted for minimal-if-any player control of the battle, it's just much too easy to out-micro the AI. You say "never autoresolve", but many would say "never use tactical, you might as well be entering cheat codes". Still, I really do wish Stellaris made *some* attempt at giving the player more control. You can tweak things a little by using one admiral vs. another (say Trickster vs. Unyielding), or by using different computers (though, aside from their bonuses, they matter surprisingly little against a mixed-design enemy fleet), but once the battle is joined the only option is Retreat and that's not even available for a while.

 

[Dragatus]

1. Research.
Polaris Sector still has by far the best research tree of any space 4x game that I have played in recent years. I rate SMAC as second, though SMAC was a much better polished and atmospheric game. But for sheer innovation and depth, Polaris Sectors tech tree beats everything by a country mile (or.. light year).

Care to elaborate?

 

[MichaelJanuary]

Care to elaborate?

So the game has hundreds of technologies, ranging from 'Atmospheric Domes' to 'Hyperspace Gates' and everything in between. Each technology provides a specific benefit, like a ship component, weapon, armor, building, or hull type. Not one single tech is a generic '+10% to X'.

The tech tree is huge, and you will rarely see all techs in a single game. It is designed to make you specialise. All the techs are organized or grouped into 'Scientific Fields', which need to be unlocked by researching different combinations of pure sciences (Mathematics, Physics, etc).

The implementation in game is also quite slick, with sliders allowing you to balance which areas to focus on.

 

[blahmaster6k]

Why is it that it seems like every other thread on this forum is people complaining about Stellaris or talking about other games that the OP considers "better?" Can't people just admit they enjoy the game they've spent hundreds of hours in? If you look at other communities like Reddit, you can see that there are actually many Stellaris players that enjoy the game, but looking at this forum you'd think it was a 2/10. It's starting to irritate me how nearly every thread is people absolutely hating on this game, or saying "X game is a better Stellaris because it has Y feature and Stellaris doesn't!" Stellaris is a good game. Sure, it has its flaws, but so many people act like it's just a completely unplayable disaster when that isn't the case. If the devs wanted Stellaris to have Y feature, they would have designed the game that way.

TL;DR: Quit being entitled.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

Why is it that it seems like every other thread on this forum is people complaining about Stellaris or talking about other games that the OP considers "better?" Can't people just admit they enjoy the game they've spent hundreds of hours in? If you look at other communities like Reddit, you can see that there are actually many Stellaris players that enjoy the game, but looking at this forum you'd think it was a 2/10. It's starting to irritate me how nearly every thread is people absolutely hating on this game, or saying "X game is a better Stellaris because it has Y feature and Stellaris doesn't!" Stellaris is a good game. Sure, it has its flaws, but so many people act like it's just a completely unplayable disaster when that isn't the case. If the devs wanted Stellaris to have Y feature, they would have designed the game that way.

TL;DR: Quit being entitled.

I'm so sorry if we hurt your precious feelings for this game and its developers by talking about things other games have done that we want to see in Stellaris, or discussing tradeoffs between Stellaris and other games, or considering what elements of some hypothetical space 4X should be copied from Stellaris vs. from other games, or pointing out areas where Stellaris could really use some improvement whether or not it's inspired by other games... This must be truly traumatic for you! You're very brave for staying around such an awful bunch of people who are constantly looking to improve a game that most of us have re-played to the point that we know it inside and out ("hundreds" of hours? Try thousands). I'm sure you must be very popular with the PDX devs, who have clearly communicated to you that they hate player feedback and have never implemented any features that didn't spring fully-formed from their own heads and can't stand criticism of their decisions or comparisons to other games or the insult of people highlighting bugs. I'm sorry the rest of us never got the memo, but at least they've got you to spread the word, right?

Do you actually have anything remotely constructive to add, or useful to either players or devs? Like, nothing wrong with being part of the cheer squad, but we were having a conversation about our hobby of sci-fi 4X games over here.

 

[blahmaster6k]

I'm so sorry if we hurt your precious feelings for this game and its developers by talking about things other games have done that we want to see in Stellaris, or discussing tradeoffs between Stellaris and other games, or considering what elements of some hypothetical space 4X should be copied from Stellaris vs. from other games, or pointing out areas where Stellaris could really use some improvement whether or not it's inspired by other games... This must be truly traumatic for you! You're very brave for staying around such an awful bunch of people who are constantly looking to improve a game that most of us have re-played to the point that we know it inside and out ("hundreds" of hours? Try thousands). I'm sure you must be very popular with the PDX devs, who have clearly communicated to you that they hate player feedback and have never implemented any features that didn't spring fully-formed from their own heads and can't stand criticism of their decisions or comparisons to other games or the insult of people highlighting bugs. I'm sorry the rest of us never got the memo, but at least they've got you to spread the word, right?

Do you actually have anything remotely constructive to add, or useful to either players or devs? Like, nothing wrong with being part of the cheer squad, but we were having a conversation about our hobby of sci-fi 4X games over here.

Why, thank you for taking the time to write out such a well-reasoned and kindly worded response! I especially like how you mischaracterized nearly everything I said while acting as if I'm just trying to stir up trouble, and talking to me like I'm two years old! You seem like someone that I would love to be friends with!

Now that all that glorious sarcasm is out of the way,

I don't have problems with people who are genuinely "looking to improve a game that most of us have re-played to the point that we know it inside and out." Granted, this is the internet, so tone can be hard to gauge sometimes, but I'm seeing a lot less constructive feedback and a lot more complaining that the game isn't exactly how various people prefer it. Paradox is a game studio, of course they want feedback. There's a suggestions sub-forum. There's a bug reports sub-forum. And yet a cursory glance at the main forum is mostly full of people complaining about bugs and suggesting radical changes to the game(so radical that it might as well be a different game if the suggestions were all implemented, or would turn into a copy of a game that already exists somewhere), and very little discussion about other things like strategy, optimization, empire design, etc. that you would normally find on a gaming forum.

If I were a newcomer to Stellaris and I saw this forum, I wouldn't want to stick around for very long and learn how to play the game.

Apparently it is not constructive to make a simple request for people to be less negative. Oh well, my bad. I thought I was being lighthearted and diplomatic with my first comment, but I'm not sorry if my opinion offends you so much that you had to react in such a ridiculously patronizing and childish way.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

The tech tree is huge, and you will rarely see all techs in a single game.

This is something I really, really wish Stellaris had. It's not particularly a problem (IMO) for specific technologies to eventually mature to the point where all you can do is incrementally improve on them - I don't like it when games are like "nope, you've researched zero-point generators so far that you have reached the absolute maximum possible quality of generator and can never design an even-slightly-better one! - but you should only get there once you've really plumbed the depths of that tech area, and there should be tradeoffs for doing so! Tradeoffs like not having as good of tech in other areas! Tradeoffs like being over-specialized in some way that another player can specifically counter! Tradeoffs like having invested so hard in technological development that your empire is overall substantially lacking in other ways!

In Stellaris, the only things like that are the ascension perks (and the techs they unlock), and debatably the techs from space creatures and event chains and whatnot. The limit on ascension perks is arbitrary - it's capped at 8 not because you'll never generate enough unity to get a 9th, but because they decided that you can only have 8 - and you'll fill all 8 in every game. The mutually exclusive ascension paths are similarly arbitrary - there's no reason you couldn't have Erudite brains capable of Psychic communication and assisted with Cybernetic implants if you spent the time to research all of that - and indeed the game does let you combine many of the benefits but only if you get the pops from other empires, rather than working it out yourselves. The game even expressly has technologies that human players can never learn; we can never build FE battlecruisers or fortress platforms, or repeatably construct FE buildings, no matter how many of them we analyze and how long we research.

Traditions were sort of supposed to have this mechanic, where you'd unlock the ones you wanted and customize your empire around them, but they're so cheap you'll get them all without even trying, and they don't even have that dramatic of an effect on gameplay anyhow! Some perks do (though not all!) but there's hardly any decisions behind them; *maybe* which path to take, and beyond that it's mostly whether to push your path or Arcology Project, if you're lucky enough to have both unlocked tech-wise at a point early enough in the game that you haven't completed one or the other yet.

 

[MichaelJanuary]

As for tactical combat... I think there's a reason many of the modern 4X games with real-time combat systems have opted for minimal-if-any player control of the battle, it's just much too easy to out-micro the AI. You say "never autoresolve", but many would say "never use tactical, you might as well be entering cheat codes".

This is true. And make no mistake, Polaris sector AI is very dumb. It's rather a blunt hammer.

@blahmaster6k I did not mean to slag off Stellaris by pointing out things that another developer got right. Stellaris is still a way deeper and more complex game than Polaris Sector. PS has some fundamental flaws as well, like very linear and repetitive gameplay. Vast areas of the game that remain completely unchanged throughout the game, despite technology. For e.g. there is no terraforming. You never research better a better mineral refinery. There is zero internal politics, government, ethics, etc.

But for all that, it's frustrating that in many areas Stellaris completely missed the boat. Especially when it comes to simple things like interactive lists, message histories, build templates, map overlays, which have been staple in 4X games of this type for decades.

 

[MichaelJanuary]

There is another aspect of Polaris Sector which is vastly different from Stellaris, and much better in my opinion, and this is the way system ownership is handled during combat. System ownership is determined by colonization. To claim a system, you colonize it, or invade the existing colony.

If your fleet occupies a system, you have the OPTION to destroy orbital infrastructure before moving your fleet on, which will take a long time to rebuild. However, in general, you want to capture Orbital Infrastructure intact rather than destroying it, or leaving it to the enemy.

If you move your fleet on without invading the planets, the enemy will just rebuild defenses. This means having to assault the system again. Even if you leave an occupying force, you cant repair or refuel your ships (without fleet tenders, which come much later in the game). And assaulting a star system WILL leave your fleet damaged. Each star system is usually defended by several battle stations, hundreds of fighters and bombers, and probably a defending fleet too.

This means you cannot just wade through their entire empire with your fleet capturing all the outposts and gaining instant access to shipyards (repairs, refueling, etc), while leaving stranded and helpless planets in your wake that you can invade at your leisure.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

Stellaris also used to have system ownership be based on colonies. Many other space strategy games still do, too. There variations, from "the system is merely a chunk of map and you can't actually own one except in the sense of controlling all access to it" to "once anybody establishes a colony in a system, nobody else can even try" (the latter pattern is more common), and some in-betweens (e.g. SE5 lets you make diplomatic agreements around sharing or not-sharing systems, which can reach the latter case, but by default it's the former case).

I'm not actually 100% sure why Stellaris switched to the current system. There were some clear problems with the old system, where colonies exerted influence that affected your borders on the galaxy map, and it wasn't always clear what a smallish change in your colonies would mean for your borders. However, it seems odd to look at that system, decide it's totally unfixable, and throw out every single element of it. The move to hyperlanes-only plus adding galactic "terrain" in the form of neutron star systems, etc. meant they wanted to be able to build fortifications at choke points and so on, but they didn't have to totally re-work everything about system ownership to achieve that goal.

 

[Bezborg]

Stellaris also used to have system ownership be based on colonies. Many other space strategy games still do, too. There variations, from "the system is merely a chunk of map and you can't actually own one except in the sense of controlling all access to it" to "once anybody establishes a colony in a system, nobody else can even try" (the latter pattern is more common), and some in-betweens (e.g. SE5 lets you make diplomatic agreements around sharing or not-sharing systems, which can reach the latter case, but by default it's the former case).

I'm not actually 100% sure why Stellaris switched to the current system. There were some clear problems with the old system, where colonies exerted influence that affected your borders on the galaxy map, and it wasn't always clear what a smallish change in your colonies would mean for your borders. However, it seems odd to look at that system, decide it's totally unfixable, and throw out every single element of it. The move to hyperlanes-only plus adding galactic "terrain" in the form of neutron star systems, etc. meant they wanted to be able to build fortifications at choke points and so on, but they didn't have to totally re-work everything about system ownership to achieve that goal.

And tbh, the whole “galactic terrain” thing didn’t produce anything terribly interesting and valuable in terms of gameplay. Just another thing the dumb AI can’t use to any advantage whatsoever.
Not even the game mechanics use galactic terrain, starbases still have shields in neutron systems, or use shield-busting weapons.

a half-baked idea, both in concept and execution. Bring back good old Stellaris

 

[Chilango2]

So the game has hundreds of technologies, ranging from 'Atmospheric Domes' to 'Hyperspace Gates' and everything in between. Each technology provides a specific benefit, like a ship component, weapon, armor, building, or hull type. Not one single tech is a generic '+10% to X'.

The tech tree is huge, and you will rarely see all techs in a single game. It is designed to make you specialise. All the techs are organized or grouped into 'Scientific Fields', which need to be unlocked by researching different combinations of pure sciences (Mathematics, Physics, etc).

The implementation in game is also quite slick, with sliders allowing you to balance which areas to focus on.

I'm not sure expanding the tech tree would be all that great, tbh. Firstly, an expanded tech tree represent an increased challenge to the AI since there are more choices for it to make. This is worth considering when you mention that the AI in Polaris sector is worse than Stellaris.

I actually think most of the benefit your pushing for here, specialization, could be achieved within the tech tree we have by simply making the rock papers scissors of the current weapons a bit more interesting and meaningful. I mean, on paper you have the fact that lasers are better against enemies with one defensive setup and mass drivers vs another, but the fact is that outside of fallen empires and the crisis, AI ships tend to evenly mix shields and armor and it all pretty much evens out and so you're best off having a mixed load out.

On a fundamental level the weapon choices in the game don't feel very interesting and don't seem to play all that different, to the point that it feels somewhat like a waste of time to custom design ships until the mid or late game. If you fixed that and made weapons choices interesting throughout the game with powerful trade offs then which tech path you choose weapon wise as the game progressed would matter more.

Along the same lines giving each class of ship a more distinct identity and role throughout the game would be great.

Corvettes and battleships are pretty good as it is, but destroyers and cruisers need more well defined roles. I think a *few* additional techs that represent mutually exclusive naval doctrine choices might help here, and these techs would either give a flat bonus to the ship in question to make it more effective or provide access to technology that unlocks that role. Corvettes already get this basically because there are existing things that boost their ability to dodge, and the XL mounts help further define battleships, cruisers and destroyers need something similar to make them more interesting and make fleet composition a more meaningful choice.

 

[MichaelJanuary]

I'm not sure expanding the tech tree would be all that great, tbh. Firstly, an expanded tech tree represent an increased challenge to the AI since there are more choices for it to make. This is worth considering when you mention that the AI in Polaris sector is worse than Stellaris.

Did I mention that Polaris Sector has 10 playable races each with a unique tech tree (pseudo randomised probably). Each species has unique fields of study, and the fields of study or technologies that are common are organised differently within the tech tree.

Not only does this give a degree of asymmetry, but each time you play a different species you have an entirely different tech tree to contend with.

The AI manages the strategic game, economy and tech fine, but the tactical combat engine is a bit weak.

 

[MichaelJanuary]

Corvettes and battleships are pretty good as it is, but destroyers and cruisers need more well defined roles.

In general agree with your sentiments. Especially this one. There needs to be significant defining features that separate what a battleship is from what a corvette or frigate is.

The relationship in Stellaris is too linear. A battleship is just a bigger corvette with bigger guns. This could really be done so much better. Ideas for a different thread though.

 

[Dragatus]

The AI in Stellaris can be taught the relative importance of each tech that pops up, it just requires work. If you fiddle with the ai_weight you can even tell it to value techs differently based on which other technologies it has or to pursue different techs based on ethics, civics, and which technologies other empires have.

 

[Oculument]

TL;DR: Quit being entitled.

I found this to a good post. Informative about a game I did not know about. There was a distinct absence of any whining or an entitled tone, so you are just looking for a fight there Mr. forum policeman. Relaying info about other games in the same genre for reasonable comparison is absolutely on topic for this forum.