I just watched the Stellaris design corner and got quite excited by the scope of potential changes Martin and Daniel have in mind, everything from the FTL reworks to thinking about stronger defense platforms that use naval capacity sound like fantastic evolutions for the game. The idea that most intrigued me was the idea of reworking the border system, largely because it seems like such a baked in part of the game that I had never before considered changing it. Now that that box of worms is open, I am going to run away with it:
Suggestion:
Tie dynamic borders into a dynamic internal trade system based on a EU4 inspired light ship- Cargo frigates if you like. These ships would not join a battlefleet but instead be assigned to a sector or your core worlds, and automatically patrol systems and visit planets, mining stations and research platforms. The ships themselves would provide border pressure and maintain your claims on systems. Every time a supply frigate visits a mining station it gains a temporary production boost and your claim/border pressure on the system is strengthened. Borders continuously decay however, so if you do not have enough frigates assigned to a sector, either due to a war or simply reassigning them, overtime your borders would shrink and you could loose control of entire systems. If you have excess frigates, you could add unclaimed systems to a sector, send your ships there, and slowly expand your borders.
Implications:
Rapid expansion would incur an economic cost, as you would have less frequent production boosts to your mining stations (this probably would be a system or sector wide modifier akin to eu4 trade efficiency based on the number of systems, stations, and assigned frigates).
Overextension would suddenly become a viable threat as you would begin to see both a production malus from under supplied research and mining stations, and eventually shrinking borders if your supply frigates simply could not keep up with border decay.
New frigates would likely cost influence, and would use naval capacity, so players would have to balance their military and civilian fleets, and an empire with an expansive supply network may have a strong economy and growing borders, but be vulnerable to a smaller empire that devoted more of its resources to military power.
Empires could compete over border systems by both sending frigates to the same system. Empire policies could govern border conflicts, a militarist empire might allow its frigates to fire at will on foreign supply frigates and attempt to drive them away for a boost in border projection, while a xenophile empire might even use its frigates to supply foreign stations for a relations boost.
Hostile border conflicts would be limited to frigates- pulling your fleet in would require a declaration of war. Frigate vs frigate skirmishes would usually end in loosing side using emergency FTL, actually destroying an alien ship would give a significant relations hit or give a cheap trade conflict war goal to change empire policy or ban an empires frigates from visiting specific systems.
Piracy could integrate well into this system, they would use frigates that apply negative border pressure and production maluses to systems they patrol, along with a hostile stance to player supply frigates. Directly sending your full navy after pirates would cause them to run away until the fleet leaves, but assigning more frigates or giving frigates better weapons and firepower would let you engage and destroy pirates.
Space would be more lively in peacetime- the frigates flying around automatically would be cool to watch- very much in the way of popular mods like ISBS Living Systems or Civilian trade, but there would be real game mechanic teeth behind them. The system should require minimal micromanagement, and Naval capacity limits would prevent ships flying around from causing too much of a performance hit.
Love the game, and looking forward to see wherever part of space Stellaris explores next.
Suggestion:
Tie dynamic borders into a dynamic internal trade system based on a EU4 inspired light ship- Cargo frigates if you like. These ships would not join a battlefleet but instead be assigned to a sector or your core worlds, and automatically patrol systems and visit planets, mining stations and research platforms. The ships themselves would provide border pressure and maintain your claims on systems. Every time a supply frigate visits a mining station it gains a temporary production boost and your claim/border pressure on the system is strengthened. Borders continuously decay however, so if you do not have enough frigates assigned to a sector, either due to a war or simply reassigning them, overtime your borders would shrink and you could loose control of entire systems. If you have excess frigates, you could add unclaimed systems to a sector, send your ships there, and slowly expand your borders.
Implications:
Rapid expansion would incur an economic cost, as you would have less frequent production boosts to your mining stations (this probably would be a system or sector wide modifier akin to eu4 trade efficiency based on the number of systems, stations, and assigned frigates).
Overextension would suddenly become a viable threat as you would begin to see both a production malus from under supplied research and mining stations, and eventually shrinking borders if your supply frigates simply could not keep up with border decay.
New frigates would likely cost influence, and would use naval capacity, so players would have to balance their military and civilian fleets, and an empire with an expansive supply network may have a strong economy and growing borders, but be vulnerable to a smaller empire that devoted more of its resources to military power.
Empires could compete over border systems by both sending frigates to the same system. Empire policies could govern border conflicts, a militarist empire might allow its frigates to fire at will on foreign supply frigates and attempt to drive them away for a boost in border projection, while a xenophile empire might even use its frigates to supply foreign stations for a relations boost.
Hostile border conflicts would be limited to frigates- pulling your fleet in would require a declaration of war. Frigate vs frigate skirmishes would usually end in loosing side using emergency FTL, actually destroying an alien ship would give a significant relations hit or give a cheap trade conflict war goal to change empire policy or ban an empires frigates from visiting specific systems.
Piracy could integrate well into this system, they would use frigates that apply negative border pressure and production maluses to systems they patrol, along with a hostile stance to player supply frigates. Directly sending your full navy after pirates would cause them to run away until the fleet leaves, but assigning more frigates or giving frigates better weapons and firepower would let you engage and destroy pirates.
Space would be more lively in peacetime- the frigates flying around automatically would be cool to watch- very much in the way of popular mods like ISBS Living Systems or Civilian trade, but there would be real game mechanic teeth behind them. The system should require minimal micromanagement, and Naval capacity limits would prevent ships flying around from causing too much of a performance hit.
Love the game, and looking forward to see wherever part of space Stellaris explores next.
Upvote
0
