Returning player's suggestions after 2.2.5 (beta)

[Cocco81]

Hi all,

I am a returning player who came back to Stellaris after a long stop. Playing 2.2 was a huge new experience and I can say I generally like that, however I'd also like to give my feedback for improvement. I hope some Dev may read this and think about it.


-- MINOR IMPROVEMENTS --

**GUI**
These may be low effort modifications which would greatly improve playability.
- Setting: disable edge scrolling (I'm using a mod for that but it breaks Ironman, should be in base game)
- Setting: DARK galaxy core (do that for my eyes, please)
- Mapmodes: "no" mapmode (stars only without empire borders), "federations" mapmode (self-explaining), "ranking mapmode" (similar to diplomacy, it colors other empires in green/yellow/orange based on relative power)
- Sector interface: when a sector has a stockpile of "3K", please tell me how much of that is minerals, energy or other
- Sector stockpile: please allow me to give sectors also strategic resources, for later building upgrades
- Terraforming: please move the button below "decisions" and call it "Terraforming". It is more research to find the button than it is to have your empire learn terraforming itself
- Tech tree: it would be nice if the "researched" button showed the tree instead of a list, higlighting the researched techs, flashing available options and shading unknown ones. The tree should be dynamically generated at game start, to be mod-friendly (I know the information for the vanilla tree is in the wiki. Bringing it in game would just be more convenient)

**Game mechanics**
- Planetary/system capitals should give a slight decrease in empire sprawl relevant to that planet/system districts (cumulative), however sprawl should be much more than a nuisance in late game (everyone is telling me to play wide, as increased production will outreach sprawl penalties).
- FTL tech: increasing hyperdrive tech should decrease sprawl from number of systems
- Lack of resources penalty: instead of a huge flat malus if my empire is producing 99 credits and consuming 100 credits (balance: -1), maybe it would be better to scale it: -1/100 = -1% malus, or -2%?. Maybe give a flat happyness penalty due to poor management, but material effects should still be scaled.
- Jobs priority: I found that, take workers stratum, all technician jobs are filled before miners, then farmers, then clerks. Please allow a by-planet reordering and a "balanced" flag so it goes 1 tech, 1 mine, 1 farm, 1 clerk, then again 1 tech... until jobs are filled. I know I can manually shut down part of some jobs, but the process is very micro and it's easy to forget reallowing jobs, later.



-- MEDIUM AND MAJOR MODIFICATIONS --


**Sectors (huge rework)**

Please bring back the old customized sectors interface, with the possibility of:
- defining which star systems are part of a sector (maybe with a soft or hard cap to avoid one-sector huge empires)
- more detailed policies on what is to be done on each planet (mineral/energy/food/alloys... focus, robots allowance etc)
- sector empire tax (how much is the sector keeping until an internal stockpile is filled, and how much is the sector giving to the empire?), possibly with different settings by resource. More on this below.
- sector allowed races (for those with residence rights or less).

Sectors should be continuous, can be released as vassals but at least I get to choose what to give away.
Starbases should still be managed at empire-level (so shipyards may help in fleets reinforcements etc).

Re. sector tax, self management etc. my idea is as follows and also covers empire sprawl.
1. MICRO: sector tax can be set up to 100%, governors only provide passive bonuses and the player manages everything, full sprawl generation. Small resources sector stockpile (useless, can be built up for later) Good for control-maniacs.
2. GUIDELINES: sector tax can be set up to 75%, governors may upgrade existing buildings but are not allowed to build new ones or districts. Sprawl generated at 90%, happyness/stability +5%. Good to remove day-to-day management. Small resources sector stockpile.
3. AUTONOMOUS: sector tax can be set up to 50%, governors manage building and districts with a generic focus and the player cannot interfere. Sprawl generated at 70%, happiness/stability +10%. Good to colonize and forget. Large resources sector stockpile.

Increasing autonomy is free, reducing it costs influence.
Autonomy reduction instantly increases sprawl and reduces happiness, increasing autonomy slowly decreases sprawl and increases happiness (to avoid gamey tactics of pausing, decreasing, giving order, unpausing).

Sector tax/surplus is transferred to the empire 1:1, while sector shortages are complemented by the empire with a "management" penalty (20% wasted? modified by civics/emperor traits/sector crime). If not a burden on CPU (I'm thingking about you, HoI3 supplies system), transfers may travel on trade routes and be decreased by piracy accordingly (in case of empire compensating shortages, to ensure that the sector receives all its nees, the empire should just send out even more). Of course this won't apply to the "core" sector


**Trade**

- Interdiction: empires should be able to fund piracy in other empires (with credits or outright providing ships), to cripple their economy, and at a risk of being discovered, giving a casus belli from the target and bad relations from other empires.
- System patrol: please allow ships even smaller than corvettes to be built without hyperdrives and without the need of a shipyard module, to act as "system piracy patrols" at a lower cost & maintenance than standard ships, but higher than adding modules to fortresses. These should be near to useless in combat and be balanced to be a valid option (not a no-brainer) in piracy management.
- Galactic market: the galaxy is huge, however I find it weird that market stock is unlimited and market prices only vary based on trade generated by myself. Either all empires in my games are self-sufficient, or some price variation should occur. I should also be able to strangle unbalanced empires by not giving them access to needed resources. I'm not asking for a vic2 world market, however floating prices and actual supply/demand would be nice IMHO (maybe nobody needs my extra minerals, maybe nobody is selling the food I need).



Ok, I'm done with this Wall of Text. Besides my suggestions, which I hope are seen as constructive feedback, all I can say is that this game has evolved A LOT, and for the better, so keep up the good work guys!

 

[beckermt]

-- MINOR IMPROVEMENTS --

**GUI**
These may be low effort modifications which would greatly improve playability.
- Setting: disable edge scrolling (I'm using a mod for that but it breaks Ironman, should be in base game)

Good call.

- Setting: DARK galaxy core (do that for my eyes, please)

There are mods for this that don't break achievements.

- Sector interface: when a sector has a stockpile of "3K", please tell me how much of that is minerals, energy or other

Sectors do not care which resource you give them. They are fungible "resource points." The distinction would be irrelevant.

- Sector stockpile: please allow me to give sectors also strategic resources, for later building upgrades

They don't use them. They are pulled from the empire pool.

- Tech tree: it would be nice if the "researched" button showed the tree instead of a list, higlighting the researched techs, flashing available options and shading unknown ones. The tree should be dynamically generated at game start, to be mod-friendly (I know the information for the vanilla tree is in the wiki. Bringing it in game would just be more convenient)

Ooh nice idea.

- Galactic market: the galaxy is huge, however I find it weird that market stock is unlimited and market prices only vary based on trade generated by myself.

The internal market is only affected by you. The galactic market is affected by all empires.

Either all empires in my games are self-sufficient, or some price variation should occur. I should also be able to strangle unbalanced empires by not giving them access to needed resources.

You CAN do this, but it's hard, because the market also represents non-state actors, so prices will fall always toward normal.

 

[Cocco81]

Sectors do not care which resource you give them. They are fungible "resource points." The distinction would be irrelevant.
(...)
They don't use them. They are pulled from the empire pool.

Wait, do you mean that I could give a sector credits only and they would use those to build things requiring minerals?
re. stategic resources, instead, I'm not speaking about "maintenance", but rather the "upfront upgrade cost". In my latest game a sector had unemployment, plenty of minerals and credits and buildings who could be upgraded, but required rares (which I had in my empire pool). Had to upgrade everything manually.

The internal market is only affected by you. The galactic market is affected by all empires.

The bought/sold numbers in G.M. view only refer to my own trades and I've never seen numbers float. Maybe it's only bad luck (or good luck for the AI, if they don't need the market). It it's already working like this, I'm fine.

 

[Urza1234]

Mapmodes: "no" mapmode (stars only without empire borders), "federations" mapmode (self-explaining), "ranking mapmode" (similar to diplomacy, it colors other empires in green/yellow/orange based on relative power)

plz yes

 

[KingAlamar]

Nice set of suggestions. Don't 100% agree with everything but overall very nice step in the right direction.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

I'm okay with the auto-generated/fixed sectors since that seems a clear first step towards greater depth of internal empire politics. A sector cant have a coherent identity if players are free to alter their composition.

 

[Cocco81]

Nice set of suggestions. Don't 100% agree with everything but overall very nice step in the right direction.

Feel free to elaborate! I'm really curious about others' views or I'd have written in my little secret diary

I'm okay with the auto-generated/fixed sectors since that seems a clear first step towards greater depth of internal empire politics. A sector cant have a coherent identity if players are free to alter their composition.

The biggest issue I have with autosectors is their fragmentation. Regardless of the default jumps setting, sooner or later you'll ebd up with isolated stars. Say therest a colonizable planet in a dead-end 4 jumps away from your capital. It's going to be a one star sector.

I'm fine with defaude sectors ONLY IF I can edit them, at a price.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Feel free to elaborate! I'm really curious about others' views or I'd have written in my little secret diary



The biggest issue I have with autosectors is their fragmentation. Regardless of the default jumps setting, sooner or later you'll ebd up with isolated stars. Say therest a colonizable planet in a dead-end 4 jumps away from your capital. It's going to be a one star sector.

I'm fine with defaude sectors ONLY IF I can edit them, at a price.

If you can edit them, you can probably exploit them. A few one-planet sectors is an acceptable price to pay IMO.

 

[KingAlamar]

Feel free to elaborate! I'm really curious about others' views or I'd have written in my little secret diary .

I think that empire sprawl should be mostly based on the number of hops away from your capital the planet is. So instead of making tech / unity cost more what should occur is that research / unity further away from the capital should degrade their value at each hop along the way.

I do believe that things like Sector Governors, Research Coordinators, certain buildings or other jobs not mentioned, FTL tech, etc. should all act to reduce "effective sprawl". Gateways & wormholes could also reduce sprawl but you don't have much control of those until late game.

To me all of that is logical and based on your post we're thinking mostly along the same lines. What are your thoughts?

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

Hi all,

I am a returning player who came back to Stellaris after a long stop. Playing 2.2 was a huge new experience and I can say I generally like that, however I'd also like to give my feedback for improvement. I hope some Dev may read this and think about it.


-- MINOR IMPROVEMENTS --

**GUI**
These may be low effort modifications which would greatly improve playability.
- Setting: disable edge scrolling (I'm using a mod for that but it breaks Ironman, should be in base game)

No. Edge scrolling is *really* useful as it means I can play with just the mouse, and otherwise have to use the keyboard to scroll which isn't always practical.

- Setting: DARK galaxy core (do that for my eyes, please)

Sure, as a switchable option, although it would look a bit weird.

- Mapmodes: "no" mapmode (stars only without empire borders), "federations" mapmode (self-explaining), "ranking mapmode" (similar to diplomacy, it colors other empires in green/yellow/orange based on relative power)

OK I suppose, although the federations one is *sort of* there - one of the map modes colours federations and vassal/master relationships the same.

- Sector interface: when a sector has a stockpile of "3K", please tell me how much of that is minerals, energy or other
- Sector stockpile: please allow me to give sectors also strategic resources, for later building upgrades

Tackling these two together - the sectors treat their stockpile as one thing, so you can just feed it energy or minerals depending on which you have an excess of, and it will spend it anyway.
Sectors currently don't use the strategic resources for updates at all - possibly so that they don't take the resources you want to use for other projects, or might be stockpiling for other reasons. After all, these upgrades have a maintenance cost in those strategic resources.

- Terraforming: please move the button below "decisions" and call it "Terraforming". It is more research to find the button than it is to have your empire learn terraforming itself

I suppose? Although it shouldn't need to be that visible a thing considering it's not something you do that often.

- Tech tree: it would be nice if the "researched" button showed the tree instead of a list, higlighting the researched techs, flashing available options and shading unknown ones. The tree should be dynamically generated at game start, to be mod-friendly (I know the information for the vanilla tree is in the wiki. Bringing it in game would just be more convenient)

There's not exactly a tree, more a list by tech level with some techs gated by earlier choices, but it certainly isn't a friendly looking tree in the way you envisage.

**Game mechanics**
- Planetary/system capitals should give a slight decrease in empire sprawl relevant to that planet/system districts (cumulative), however sprawl should be much more than a nuisance in late game (everyone is telling me to play wide, as increased production will outreach sprawl penalties).

Sprawl is meant to be a limitation - but not an absolute one. How it is now is reasonable - and much better than previous versions where the effective sprawl mechanics started from 0 territory owned rather than 30 "points" worth.
I don't quite see what the capitals would do for reducing sprawl either, and you'd have the potential (although unlikely) of a planet producing negative sprawl if it was a flat reduction per level of capital (take a world, don't build districts, but build housing until you get to the number of pops to upgrade the capital...).

- FTL tech: increasing hyperdrive tech should decrease sprawl from number of systems

I'd disagree, and don't see the way this would work. The size of the Empire and amount of population within it are still going to cause the same problems.
We already effectively have super FTL communications in that you can get reports about the other side of the galaxy instantly.

- Lack of resources penalty: instead of a huge flat malus if my empire is producing 99 credits and consuming 100 credits (balance: -1), maybe it would be better to scale it: -1/100 = -1% malus, or -2%?. Maybe give a flat happyness penalty due to poor management, but material effects should still be scaled.
- Jobs priority: I found that, take workers stratum, all technician jobs are filled before miners, then farmers, then clerks. Please allow a by-planet reordering and a "balanced" flag so it goes 1 tech, 1 mine, 1 farm, 1 clerk, then again 1 tech... until jobs are filled. I know I can manually shut down part of some jobs, but the process is very micro and it's easy to forget reallowing jobs, later.

The "balanced" approach you suggest doesn't work since you don't necessarily want jobs filled out in that order - and it makes it harder to fill early energy requirements - and would still require manual intervention. The priorities for workers have just been tweaked, and may be tweaked again with feedback.

-- MEDIUM AND MAJOR MODIFICATIONS --


**Sectors (huge rework)**

Please bring back the old customized sectors interface, with the possibility of:
- defining which star systems are part of a sector (maybe with a soft or hard cap to avoid one-sector huge empires)
- more detailed policies on what is to be done on each planet (mineral/energy/food/alloys... focus, robots allowance etc)
- sector empire tax (how much is the sector keeping until an internal stockpile is filled, and how much is the sector giving to the empire?), possibly with different settings by resource. More on this below.
- sector allowed races (for those with residence rights or less).

They removed a lot of that for a reason (one of which was, as you point out) the single sector empire.
Manually defined sectors were a chore to set up, and I'm glad they're gone in many, many ways, since trying to calculate ahead of time what systems you had to give a sector to make it viable (even more so once it had started building) was a nightmare for me.

Sector tax though, I support entirely. Even if it's only "give sector 10% until it has a stockpile of 1000, take remainder"

Sectors should be continuous, can be released as vassals but at least I get to choose what to give away.
Starbases should still be managed at empire-level (so shipyards may help in fleets reinforcements etc).

Re. sector tax, self management etc. my idea is as follows and also covers empire sprawl.
1. MICRO: sector tax can be set up to 100%, governors only provide passive bonuses and the player manages everything, full sprawl generation. Small resources sector stockpile (useless, can be built up for later) Good for control-maniacs.
2. GUIDELINES: sector tax can be set up to 75%, governors may upgrade existing buildings but are not allowed to build new ones or districts. Sprawl generated at 90%, happyness/stability +5%. Good to remove day-to-day management. Small resources sector stockpile.
3. AUTONOMOUS: sector tax can be set up to 50%, governors manage building and districts with a generic focus and the player cannot interfere. Sprawl generated at 70%, happiness/stability +10%. Good to colonize and forget. Large resources sector stockpile.

Increasing autonomy is free, reducing it costs influence.
Autonomy reduction instantly increases sprawl and reduces happiness, increasing autonomy slowly decreases sprawl and increases happiness (to avoid gamey tactics of pausing, decreasing, giving order, unpausing).

There's little point to a sector ever having more of a stockpile than a couple of thousand resources, so the size of the stockpile is fairly irrelevant, provided it can build up again at a reasonable speed.
Having sprawl calculations change depending on the autonomy level is dangerous, since it allows for an empire that is mostly built up to proceed at around 30% faster technological and with extra happiness and stability over another one that is the same size overall and is less built up - or whose player forgets to change autonomy level.
There is also the problem that the sector AI should *not* be allowed to spend the special resources that you require for other parts of the game - special resources are needed not just for upgrades to buildings (and with an upkeep, so if the building is upgraded that means you effectively lose that resource for generating a stock of it), but for upgrades on vessels and for some empire-wide decisions.
Not allowing the sector AI to build districts or new buildings on two of the levels effectively removes the whole point of having the sector AI, since that's what it is mostly there for - so you'd pretty much have to set all your sectors to autonomous if you want any real benefit to sector AI existing at all with new planets.

Sector tax/surplus is transferred to the empire 1:1, while sector shortages are complemented by the empire with a "management" penalty (20% wasted? modified by civics/emperor traits/sector crime). If not a burden on CPU (I'm thingking about you, HoI3 supplies system), transfers may travel on trade routes and be decreased by piracy accordingly (in case of empire compensating shortages, to ensure that the sector receives all its nees, the empire should just send out even more). Of course this won't apply to the "core" sector


**Trade**

- Interdiction: empires should be able to fund piracy in other empires (with credits or outright providing ships), to cripple their economy, and at a risk of being discovered, giving a casus belli from the target and bad relations from other empires.
- System patrol: please allow ships even smaller than corvettes to be built without hyperdrives and without the need of a shipyard module, to act as "system piracy patrols" at a lower cost & maintenance than standard ships, but higher than adding modules to fortresses. These should be near to useless in combat and be balanced to be a valid option (not a no-brainer) in piracy management.
- Galactic market: the galaxy is huge, however I find it weird that market stock is unlimited and market prices only vary based on trade generated by myself. Either all empires in my games are self-sufficient, or some price variation should occur. I should also be able to strangle unbalanced empires by not giving them access to needed resources. I'm not asking for a vic2 world market, however floating prices and actual supply/demand would be nice IMHO (maybe nobody needs my extra minerals, maybe nobody is selling the food I need).

As far as system patrols go, they'd have to be cheaper than around 70-80 alloys per ship (a stripped down corvette), which provides 10 piracy suppression if parked in a system, or on patrol. Any cheaper than this and they become a no-brainer compared to using corvettes; any more and they'll never be used, in favour of corvettes. At a similar cost (around 7 alloys per point of suppression), you build the corvettes because in an emergency, or once the threat of piracy is dealt with, you can upgrade them to a combat class of corvette and move them into the regular navy.
To an extent these are *sort of* there in the background as the base piracy suppression of a system anyway. Alternatively you can see these with *limited* hyperdrive range as being what is carried in hangar bays on bastion starbases.

Patrols also become *largely* irrelevant once you've got decent bastions lining your trade routes (or if you just build any upgraded station in particularly high trade-route systems).

Ok, I'm done with this Wall of Text. Besides my suggestions, which I hope are seen as constructive feedback, all I can say is that this game has evolved A LOT, and for the better, so keep up the good work guys!

 

[beckermt]

Wait, do you mean that I could give a sector credits only and they would use those to build things requiring minerals?

Yes.

re. stategic resources, instead, I'm not speaking about "maintenance", but rather the "upfront upgrade cost". In my latest game a sector had unemployment, plenty of minerals and credits and buildings who could be upgraded, but required rares (which I had in my empire pool). Had to upgrade everything manually.

Mmm yes, I think this is intended, as another poster pointed out. Although, with a huge empire, that sounds super annoying.

The bought/sold numbers in G.M. view only refer to my own trades and I've never seen numbers float. Maybe it's only bad luck (or good luck for the AI, if they don't need the market). It it's already working like this, I'm fine.

It only shows your trades, but the prices are affected by other actors. If you let time pass and watch the market prices will fluctuate.

 

[Cocco81]

If you can edit them, you can probably exploit them. A few one-planet sectors is an acceptable price to pay IMO.

As long as small sectors have a "non self-sufficient" light penalty and huge sector have a "sprawling sector" large penalty, I fail to see the exploits... sure you CAN have XXL sectors, but at a price. but that should be up to the player to decide, not hard-coded.

I think that empire sprawl should be mostly based on the number of hops away from your capital the planet is. So instead of making tech / unity cost more what should occur is that research / unity further away from the capital should degrade their value at each hop along the way.

I do believe that things like Sector Governors, Research Coordinators, certain buildings or other jobs not mentioned, FTL tech, etc. should all act to reduce "effective sprawl". Gateways & wormholes could also reduce sprawl but you don't have much control of those until late game.

To me all of that is logical and based on your post we're thinking mostly along the same lines. What are your thoughts?

This view is good as well. It depends on how you see sprawl, either:

• sprawl means you rush around (phisicallly, or shifting your attention) trying to run your empire, but doing too much gives you less in return overall; or
• sprawl means you focus on your surroundings, who run at full capacity, but the outer rim is more like a frontier with very low efficiency

Both views are fine, plus your view would give a meaning to moving the capital. On the downside, later int he game you could build gateways everywhere and get rid of sprawl altogether (everything would be "at most one or two jumps away").

But yes, the general idea is there, and I'm sure that if the devs are willing to consider it, they'll manage something.

No. Edge scrolling is *really* useful as it means I can play with just the mouse, and otherwise have to use the keyboard to scroll which isn't always practical.

Maybe I didn't explain myself, but by saying "setting" i meant a toggle option. I know very well that somebody uses that... I would as well, if the F-keys menus (contats, sitLog etc.) weren't on a tight strip on the side.

OK I suppose, although the federations one is *sort of* there - one of the map modes colours federations and vassal/master relationships the same.

If you mean the diplomatic mapmode, it only tells you relations for the active empire. I means a "federations view" with large coloured patches showing ALL federations at once. Maybe a golden border for presidents, although that's not so relevant.

Tackling these two together - the sectors treat their stockpile as one thing, so you can just feed it energy or minerals depending on which you have an excess of, and it will spend it anyway.
Sectors currently don't use the strategic resources for updates at all - possibly so that they don't take the resources you want to use for other projects, or might be stockpiling for other reasons. After all, these upgrades have a maintenance cost in those strategic resources.

Although with the new market mechanics resources shortage doesn't seem to be an issue anymore, I find it gamey to give X to do things that would require Y. As for the strategic resources, the way they work noow make general "delegation" to sector governor useless: in the first phases you can't afford the slightest waste of resources, therefore you manually manage each planet. In latest phases S.R. are required, the governor doesn't have access to any, therefore you have to manually manage each planet. In the end, what are the sectors seful for?

There's not exactly a tree, more a list by tech level with some techs gated by earlier choices, but it certainly isn't a friendly looking tree in the way you envisage.

Actually, it's very friendly instead
https://turanar.github.io/stellaris-tech-tree/vanilla/

Having sprawl calculations change depending on the autonomy level is dangerous, since it allows for an empire that is mostly built up to proceed at around 30% faster technological and with extra happiness and stability over another one that is the same size overall and is less built up - or whose player forgets to change autonomy level.
There is also the problem that the sector AI should *not* be allowed to spend the special resources that you require for other parts of the game - special resources are needed not just for upgrades to buildings (and with an upkeep, so if the building is upgraded that means you effectively lose that resource for generating a stock of it), but for upgrades on vessels and for some empire-wide decisions.
Not allowing the sector AI to build districts or new buildings on two of the levels effectively removes the whole point of having the sector AI, since that's what it is mostly there for - so you'd pretty much have to set all your sectors to autonomous if you want any real benefit to sector AI existing at all with new planets.

Faster research/stability: true, it would impair the player more than the AI. This is something I did not consider.
Player forgets to change autonomy: it's the same when you forget to upgrade your ships --> learn to remember
Strategic resources: AI should not be allowed by default, but could be allowed by the player with lump sums/monthly budget.

As far as system patrols go, (... cut ...)

What you say seems legitimate to me, it would be hard to balance between no brainers one way or the other.
Then what I'd ask for would be this, instead:
Allow me to remove ships from galaxy view and send them in patrol duty. Still visible in the fleet manager but not in the outliner or the main map (when you have 5x "4-corvette patrols" things get cluttered fast). Fleet manager wouls also be able to call those ships back in service if the need arises.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

As long as small sectors have a "non self-sufficient" light penalty and huge sector have a "sprawling sector" large penalty, I fail to see the exploits... sure you CAN have XXL sectors, but at a price. but that should be up to the player to decide, not hard-coded.

So what are the limits on "too small" and "too big"? Is it total systems? Colonised systems? Planets?
Whatever that limit is, people will complain it's wrong, and it'll be something that requires endless rebalancing.
Alternatively, there will be found to be an optimum way to do it, and people will have to do it that way or be suboptimal (and that *really* grinds some people's gears on here...)

This view is good as well. It depends on how you see sprawl, either:

• sprawl means you rush around (phisicallly, or shifting your attention) trying to run your empire, but doing too much gives you less in return overall; or
• sprawl means you focus on your surroundings, who run at full capacity, but the outer rim is more like a frontier with very low efficiency

Both views are fine, plus your view would give a meaning to moving the capital. On the downside, later int he game you could build gateways everywhere and get rid of sprawl altogether (everything would be "at most one or two jumps away").

But yes, the general idea is there, and I'm sure that if the devs are willing to consider it, they'll manage something.



Maybe I didn't explain myself, but by saying "setting" i meant a toggle option. I know very well that somebody uses that... I would as well, if the F-keys menus (contats, sitLog etc.) weren't on a tight strip on the side.

Fair enough. I still think it would be endlessly annoying to not have the feature when virtually every other game in Grand Strategy or 4X has this sort of scrolling, and it's a setting that would be wasted dev time when there are more urgent issues.

But perhaps it's one for later.

If you mean the diplomatic mapmode, it only tells you relations for the active empire. I means a "federations view" with large coloured patches showing ALL federations at once. Maybe a golden border for presidents, although that's not so relevant.

No, I mean the one that is *specifically* for colouring federations and master/vassal groups the same.
It's the third one, "unions mapmode" and looks a bit like a venn diagram with a plus in the intersection.

Although with the new market mechanics resources shortage doesn't seem to be an issue anymore, I find it gamey to give X to do things that would require Y. As for the strategic resources, the way they work noow make general "delegation" to sector governor useless: in the first phases you can't afford the slightest waste of resources, therefore you manually manage each planet. In latest phases S.R. are required, the governor doesn't have access to any, therefore you have to manually manage each planet. In the end, what are the sectors seful for?

I just give sectors a couple of thousand resources and check back every few years to top them up. Specific upgrades of buildings I do on a case by case base because however it's done I still only have a limited number of deposits of special resources, and I want to keep some (different numbers depending on playthrough and goals) for ship building and upgrades, or even trading away for cash. If my sectors were to have access to them and build with them it would be easy for me to end up with zero overall income - or even a deficit - in at least one vital resource. Generally it's not a strain to go to a few specific planets (often in the core sector anyway so they're deep in the heart of the empire and less likely to be lost) and build upgraded versions of buildings there, usually in groups.

Sectors build the general crap I can't be bothered to queue up and do a decent job at making sure I've got housing and jobs for almost everyone. Rarely I need to step in and fix boneheaded mistakes where the AI has made a choice because it can't know what my plans are, and my plan is, on the face of it, illogical. It also generally does a competent job of making sure I've got functional resource income whilst I'm busy elsewhere (perhaps with a war, so I'll give the sectors an extra few thousand minerals/energy whilst I'm busy - and stuff still gets built at a basic level).

Actually, it's very friendly instead
https://turanar.github.io/stellaris-tech-tree/vanilla/

It's neatened up a lot then.
It used to be horrible to work with.

But... one problem is that trees like that imply you can immediately research the children of the tech you've just researched, rather than being limited by tech draw as is the case with Stellaris. I'd also be concerned with an information overload if it's trying to do all those things.

Again, perhaps an idea for later on?

Faster research/stability: true, it would impair the player more than the AI. This is something I did not consider.
Player forgets to change autonomy: it's the same when you forget to upgrade your ships --> learn to remember
Strategic resources: AI should not be allowed by default, but could be allowed by the player with lump sums/monthly budget.

The issue with changing the autonomy level is that (at a glance) you don't realise that the strongest is actually the one with the least control, since you're getting such a huge boost to your empire (around 1/3 again as large for the same penalties, +10% stability, both huge boosts) for doing so. For a new player this then becomes a trap where in trying to learn their way around how to build things and play "as intended" they're nerfing themselves compared to a player who knows how to use this.

Autonomous would *require* giving the sector AI special resources, since the player "cannot interfere" in building on the sector planets - and there'd be no way to control what it decided to upgrade or correct it short of bringing the sector back into a lower state of autonomy (and thus punishing the player for the AI not doing what the player wants by putting an influence tax on the AI trying to be helpful and building the wrong thing. Otherwise autonomous settings would mean you couldn't have any upgrades in an area affected by it.

Also, would the autonomy level be by empire or by sector? If it's by sector how do you work out the sprawl in a way that is both accessible to the player and *simple* for the game? This is probably where it's most gameable, since you can build up a sector to full development and then set it to autonomous to get any relevant boosts with no real downside, since everything is built and the AI can't make any mistakes.

What you say seems legitimate to me, it would be hard to balance between no brainers one way or the other.
Then what I'd ask for would be this, instead:
Allow me to remove ships from galaxy view and send them in patrol duty. Still visible in the fleet manager but not in the outliner or the main map (when you have 5x "4-corvette patrols" things get cluttered fast). Fleet manager wouls also be able to call those ships back in service if the need arises.

Being able to at least move patrol fleets into a separate section of the outliner would be good. I wouldn't go so far as to remove them from the outliner, because sometimes you need to get them quickly, and it'd be a (probably bug ridden to start with) issue to add it to the fleet manager to be able to pull things off of patrol. There's also the risk of "losing" the fleets and having fleet cap taken up by ships you've got no simple and intuitive way to recall - since going to fleet manager (more of a build tool) isn't an intuitive way around - after all, you issue patrol orders from the fleet, not the fleet manager.

 

[Cocco81]

It's neatened up a lot then.
It used to be horrible to work with.

But... one problem is that trees like that imply you can immediately research the children of the tech you've just researched, rather than being limited by tech draw as is the case with Stellaris. I'd also be concerned with an information overload if it's trying to do all those things.

Again, perhaps an idea for later on?

Wait wait... the tree would only be a visual improvement. It shows you at a glance where you are, the complete tree and your active options, but I'm really fine with the "card system" as it is. No rush T5 techs skipping other branches, no full choice. It would help, though, to let you know the path to that T5 tech, or to make you aware if you skipped (by bad luck or poor choices) an early tech (in one of my games I had a minerals shortage, then only halfway in galaxy age I was offered the first +20% miners output tech, so I understood it was not my empire to be imbalanced, but rather my research path sub-par.

On the plus side of this automatically generated tree, if a mod redraws the tech tree by adding/deleting/overhauling, you have a ready feedback on where you are and where you want to go.

 

[Typee]

Feel free to elaborate! I'm really curious about others' views or I'd have written in my little secret diary



The biggest issue I have with autosectors is their fragmentation. Regardless of the default jumps setting, sooner or later you'll ebd up with isolated stars. Say therest a colonizable planet in a dead-end 4 jumps away from your capital. It's going to be a one star sector.

I'm fine with defaude sectors ONLY IF I can edit them, at a price.

Sectors system should be out of your control, but a ton more sophisticated than what we have now.
If only because wars will leave UNGODLY sector gore in their wake.
I think a way to work it would be to have sectors generate their own intra-empire influence. That influence would spread along hyperlanes, and be countered by other sectors influence. The more populated the sectors/planets, the more influence they generate. And when a planet get overrun by a sector's influence, it gets absorbed in it.

That way that one lone planet a bit too far from a big sector will eventually be integrated in it.
It would also make sparsely populated areas with few small planets have bigger sectors, since the influence would spread far and fast. On the contrary, sectors in densely populated areas would remain geographically small due to the influence of other strong sectors.
One planet in a sector could also overcome to current capital if it generates enough influence.

As a player, you could spend some of your influence to speed up or throttle the influence gain of a sector to try and tailor it according to your wishes.
The bigger your empire, the more sectors should merge together, to keep your number of sectors somewhat constant.

Something like that would really open the way for interesting internal politics and factionalism.

 

[Cocco81]

Typee,

that would actually salvage and refit the "original" empire border mechanics (do you remember Stellaris 1.0, where outposts were NOT in every system, but were used to project borders...), but applied to sectors. It's an option as well, if it is not too CPU-intensive: manual generation is 0-burden, "hyperlane jump count" is medium burden, calculating push & pull for every single sector based on ever-changing parameters would be a truckload of calculations, possibly, but I'm no software engineer, so who knows? Take this just as a warning.

 

[Typee]

I don't think it would be that bad, it's the kind of calculation you can do once a month/year anyway.
But yes, I was thinking of the original mechanics, or of mechanics like Civ IV cultural influence, Endless Space 2's influence, and so on. The goal being to have reasonable and believable borders.

Manual generation can work, but it's not easy to find incentives for the player to not make "gamey" sectors.

 

[Cocco81]

Manual generation can work, but it's not easy to find incentives for the player to not make "gamey" sectors.

Actually it could be easier than it seems.
This is just an example, numbers should not be taken strictly. Just get the idea. Penalties are applied sector-wide to any/all of production, research, happiness, ground troops morale.

SIZE-WISE:
Up to 10 stars no penalty, then it's a 5% penalty per additional star.
Up to 4 colonies no penalty, then it's a 10% penalty per colony. Habitats count as half colony.

SHAPE-WISE option 1:
For any star farther than 2 jumps from sector capital: -10% penalty
For any colony or habitat farther than 2 jumps: -15% penalty

SHAPE-WISE option 2:
Get sector area, A.
Calculate the perimeter P of an elliptical shape of same area A and larger axis = 1.5x smaller axis.
Add up actual sector perimeter, with factors:

• each length bordering another sector/core sector: x0.5
• each length bordering a vassal, a protectorate, a federated member: x0.75
• each length bordering void space or a non-aggression pact signatory: x1
• each length bordering another empire: x1.5

If the result is larger than P, you get an additional penalty on top of the size penalty.
Want to do a banana-shaped sector? Do that, and accept penalties. A strip? even worse. A round one? Good boy. No hard limits, but growing disincentives.

-----

On a side note, besides the credits saved in governors payroll, now that hard limits on number of leaders have been removed what would be the "gamey" part of having irregular shaped or huge sectors?
Plus, if one wants to make an odd-shaped sector, why not letting them do that? It's not like it's being enforced on anyone. The original purpose of my proposal was to make sectors helpful in managing too many colonies...

 

[Typee]

what would be the "gamey" part of having irregular shaped or huge sectors?

Because ideally sectors are meant to become much more than what they are now, an aspect of internal politics with sector factions and so on.