What would you want the DLC after Utopia to focus on?

[tapewormlondon]

Warfare needs to be improved.

Replacing losses after big battles turn to a tedious clickfest as you have to build every single ship individually. Having a mechanic like in EUIV for armies where you set a specific number of units per type and letting them produce automatically at the nearest spaceport without orders/only at specific ones for cheaper production (for building up fleets as well as reinforcements) after taking losses. After setting a number of ships in the fleet it should be automatically reinforced until it has full strength again.

Also going down the road Star Trek New Horizons has taken : Less ships overall but each ship being more durable would be a very good improvement.
Everyone loves big space battles but Stellaris in vanilla has a big problem. They don´t look good unfortunately. Vanilla ships line up in an ugly planar multiline formation. If you have 400 ships massed in a single fleet it nearly spans half a solar system. So less ships and aranging them in a more spacy formation not only spaced on the x and z axis but also on the y axis. The Star Trek Total conversion did a great job with this.

Also making defensive stations more useful would be a big improvement atleast in my eyes. They don´t need to put out big amounts of damage but should be much more durable to bind enemy forces like fortresses in euiv.

Also an introduction of a shattered retreat mechanic after a lost battle would be more favourable than total obliteration after one spacebattle between two doomstacks. This would pair well with the less quantity - more durability ships approach.

I agree with all of this. The ships should indeed be able to take more of a whack, losing a ship should be a big deal, not just able to be thrown away. This would lead to being more emotionally invested in each ship too.

I mean at the moment you can rename all your ships....whats the point in renaming a corvette when it will be destroyed in the next battle?

This will also help with late game lag.

 

[Alblaka]

Trade System & Diplomatic additions, with a side of doomstack fixing.

 

[Cat_Fuzz]

Diplomacy is a must for the next DLC. I'd like to see an improved, engrossing federalisation system (internal politics on a federation wide basis) which could include espionage (spying and gaining Intel on megastructure progression and locations, using spies in conjunction with the new 1.5 faction and civics system to alter behaviour/ethics etc)

Warfare less of a priority - make missiles great again and we're good for now.

 

[Puschkin]

More depth to diplomacy, espionage and political intrigue, for interior and exterior politics alike, would be great.

Also I wonder if a scenario of a developed Galaxy would be interesting. Of course this contradicts the "Open world"- and symetrical charcter Stellaris has but maybe this can add some flavour. But it might devide the players too much and many could say that for a asymetrical game one should turn to the broad range of other Paradox strategy games.

 

[Ixal]

Trade and industry/economy, hopefully tied to a more in depth system for planetary development than just ploping down a factory and wait for migration.
That way a empire that stayed small and invested its resources into developing its core worlds should have advantages in some aspects of the game compared to an empire that neglected the development of planets in favor of new colonies.

 

[Razzlie]

reworked warfare, with a fort system

 

[thestefan]

Economy and trade, relevant diplomacy, such as trade pacts, trade embargo and trade coalitions. Also wouldn't mind if you added a few events aswell.

 

[caedussl]

Trade and piracy. Give my fleets something to do when I'm not at war; what sci-if world has the fleets just sitting in dry dock if they're not at war? If trade is implemented as an off-map/2d feature (like EU4 or HOI4), performance might be less of a concern. Piracy can pop up in unclaimed systems (that are on or near a trade route) or on the fringes of an empire (if you have a relatively rich, undefended area). Not like piracy was implemented in EU4 where it just suddenly appears in coasts that aren't patrolled.

 

[TheGrinningMan]

Economy and trade, as so many have said. Not necessarily as detailed as, say, Distant Worlds' system, but at least an abstract trade layer with specific non-essential luxury goods being more than just pops consuming minerals (as is planned for Banks/Utopia).

And with that, an economic ethos axis so people can build the libertarian haven, social democratic utopia, hyper-capitalist nightmare, or communist hellhole they so desire.

 

[Natonorad]

What about AI and sectors? This can become way better, Make AI Great Again!)

Definately more work on Sector control by AI's. Make it more robust and configurable and definately reliable.

 

[Xoatl]

I want space UN for simple purpose of ignoring it, to get additional challenge and drama. Naturally it wouldn't attack you (we have federations for that), but it could pour resources into empires which are defending against you. And lots of other stuff with eventual Espionage DLC.
Also to see myself on galactic news. "Telranni are eating people! Again..."

Space UN should be tied to megastructures and federations. So if you truly are a bad guy just don't join federations (like you're already doing). Also you should be able to build Babylon 5-esque super habitats that are shared by the federation (like fleets are). Giving a much needed to boost to xenophile/pacifist/federation building playthroughs.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

I'd like the next expansion to address a list of requests I'm going to have after this expansion.

 

[Designer15]

i feel that along with a Diplomacy expansion we should also see an expansion to Enclaves. i feel like enclaves should become there own micro civilizations with goals based on their type. Trade enclaves main goal is the acquire more materials and energy and can establish mining colonies in near by systems. they also have there own fleets and troops. Curators like traders have there own special technology and try to capture other rare tech. this is possible because of another idea removing he rare tech cards from the research deck and placing them in the work ether on curtain planets or in Curator enclaves. Artisan enclaves become a nomatic fleet spreading joy to the galaxy along with new ideas, they increase happiness in what ever system they occupy and increase ethics divergence.

 

[Fuu]

If Utopia/Banks is about internal politics, a future expansion should be about external (galactic) politics, or just more politics in general!

In particular, it would be fantastic if leaders and titles had more flavor. For example, the head of government should matter for galactic politics. Leaders should have an ethos like pops do, and should have opinions of other heads of government. If my ally has an election and the new head of government has a different ethos, or even one opposed to mine, I should have to pay attention to that; my alliance may be in jeopardy, or my pops that have that guy's ethos may want to migrate there or overthrow my government. When in power a leader would also passively drag the ethos of their pops in that direction. Perhaps I would even want to spend some of my influence to affect the outcome of a foreign election (a simple mechanic that would be sort of like an espionage system). The same thing should happen for heads of sectors and planets, and that would lead to interesting power dynamics between the head of government and their sector and planet governors. In a democracy, perhaps the leader of a sector would even be elected by the sector itself, and not appointed by the head of government, so those sectors that you fill with pops of a different ethos may eventually elect someone who would give them a chance at independence.

For a grand strategy game in general, more politics would lead to much richer story telling experiences.