Stellaris News

by Eladrin

Hello everyone!

Today we’re going to take a glance at the Trade and Logistics changes coming in the Stellaris 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update, then check out some new portraits.

[h3]Trade and Logistics[/h3]​
Trade as a Standard Resource​

The Trade system introduced in the Stellaris 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ update was raised as an especially frequent point of confusion for many players. UX issues around disconnected trade stations combined with some quirks of being a modifier based system (like ignoring habitability) made some of it unintuitive. The system had a major impact on performance as well, so while examining Stellaris for optimizations, we decided that we wanted to revamp the system.

In 4.0, Trade will become a standard advanced resource, generally produced in the same way as before, but will follow all of the standard rules around resource-producing jobs. The Trade Routes system has been removed - any produced Trade will be immediately collected like any other normal resource.

We’ve done some cleanup to the top bar while we were in there.​

Logistical Upkeep​

Hello, Gruntsatwork here, with Eladrin’s UI wizardry done, I shall step in to reveal some of our trade secrets to you.

The majority of your trade upkeep will come from 2 sources in the new system.

First, local planetary deficits will carry a small trade upkeep, a fraction of the missing resources value on the galactic market. This represents the logistical effort required to commandeer freighters to supply a world that is not self-sufficient and therefore requires resources to be transported in from off-world. Mind you, this will occur in addition to normal deficits, if your entire empire is not capable of supplying those needs either.

In short, your planets will either satisfy their own local needs, or require trade to offset the logistics cost.

The second major trade upkeep will come from Fleets. Any fleets currently docked at one of your starbases have no trade upkeep.

Once your fleets start to move they will gain a small Trade Upkeep, representing the logistical efforts required to support them. This small upkeep will increase if your fleets are in hostile territory – that is territory owned by another empire you are at war with, as supplying them becomes so much more dangerous and space insurance coverage is no joke.

In the future, logistical upkeep could potentially be used to counter-act Doomstacking, for example by scaling upkeep with the number of ships in a fleet, dividing by the number of fleets, fleets per system etc, we have no concrete solution yet, but welcome your thoughts.

With these new sources of trade upkeep, it is of course important to mention that we will also introduce a new trade deficit. Like Unity, this will not create a Deficit Situation but a country modifier that persists until the deficit is dealt with. Running a trade deficit will reduce advanced resource production (alloys, consumer goods, unity, and research) and all ship weapons damage.

Stockpiling Trade and Using Trade in the Market​

Our intent is for Trade Policies to continue to exist going forward. Currently, we expect to have half of your net Trade income (after paying Logistical Upkeep) converted to other resources using your Trade Policy, plus any that might otherwise overflow your storage. Some of the current Trade Policies may be tweaked a bit. The rest will go into your resource stockpile as an advanced resource.

In addition, the galactic market has been adjusted so that its primary trading resource is Trade. As such, energy is now available on the market as a standard resource. The energy storage cap has been brought to the same level as minerals and food, while Trade’s storage cap has been set to 50.000 at the base level.

As we are in the middle of implementation, we are adjusting this as we receive internal feedback and will continue to do so when it is time for our open beta.

We will be keeping a close eye on the value of trade as a resource. If necessary, we’ll keep turning the dials to ensure it is an actually interesting resource to focus on.

For modders, the main market resource is set as a define and can be switched to something else.

Gestalt Empires and Trade​

Rejoice, friends of bugs and bolts, for you too will be able to enjoy the benefits of trade starting with 4.0.

As part of the Phoenix update, Gestalt empires will be able to collect trade like normal empires do, from both jobs and deposits.

In contrast to normal empires, Gestalt empires will rarely do so with Traders and Clerks, instead their most basic drones, maintenance drones for example, will create trade in addition to their normal resources and modifiers. In addition, they will also have access to Trade Policies, to enrich their common wallet.

Of course, with benefits come drawbacks, and so Gestalt Empires will also deal with the logistical upkeep for local planetary deficits and Fleets that are not docked and/or within hostile territory. The Galactic Market will of course also accept gestalt trade as its main resource.

In the future, we are also considering Megacorp Gestalt Empires, for your corporate drone needs, but whether we will have time to do that for 4.0 or later remains to be seen.

Corporate Branch Office Updates​

For Branch Offices, we have a plethora of improvements ready for your enjoyment, courtesy of our ever industrious Mr.Cosmogone.

Branch office buildings are now all limited to 1 per planet and now give more appropriate jobs to the host planet. They also increase local trade production based on those jobs and their corporate resource output is in turn increased by local trade.

Most Corporate Civics now also give bonuses to a specific branch office building, increasing its trade value bonus and receiving Merchant jobs on their Capital from it.

Numerous changes have been made to Criminal Syndicates:

• Criminal Empires can now establish commercial pacts. Having a commercial pact with a Criminal Empire will replace all criminal buildings with their "lawful" counterpart. As long as the commercial pact remains, criminal branch offices will not be removed from the planet.
  
• All Criminal branch office buildings have had their crime value set to 25 and give one Criminal Job alongside a regular Job.
  
• We have also added a crime floor to non-criminal branch office buildings on empires they have a trade agreement with, which means there will always be a minimum amount of crime on the branch office planet. Criminal branch offices are also up to 25% more profitable on high crime planets.
  

Balance-wise, these buildings are more impactful, so branch office buildings now cost influence, and branch offices now take up 5 empire size instead of 2.

Oh, and we have also allowed Megacorps to open branch offices on other Megacorps... The influence cost is doubled when built on a planet owned by another Megacorp.

Mammalian Portraits​

Thanks, Gruntsatwork. Now a message from Content Design Lead CGInglis:

And now my deer friends, one mooo-re surprise for you! The Stellaris 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update brings ten paws-itively stunning new Mammalian portraits to the base game!

Glass of milk, standing in between extinction in the cold, and explosive radiating growth…

The Gremlin

A regal Hippopotaxeno

My, what big teeth you have.

The secrets of enlightenment are waiting.


[h3]Next Week[/h3]​
Next week we’ll start talking about how Pops will change and might pull up the new Planet UI. Since the branch itself is still very full of placeholders, we’ll be using the design mockups while explaining the changes.

See you then!

Hello everyone!

Today we’re going to take a deeper look at some of the ways we’re adjusting game pacing through changes to Galaxy Generation, Message Settings, Events and Anomalies. Then we’ll take a peek at the Focus system, the Empire Timeline, and a few other changes.

Some of this has already been covered in the announcement diary, but I’ll be providing more up-to-date screenshots and more details. As this is from a build that is still in active development, there will be placeholder icons or temporary text in some of these screenshots, and all of these are still subject to change.

[h2]Pacing Adjustments[/h2]
Stellaris is a game with many moving parts, each of which interact with other elements to produce a complex whole. Small adjustments in one spot can have significant effects in another, and in the end there can be unexpected impact to the general pacing of the game and overall economy.
[h3]Galaxy Generation[/h3]
As mentioned in Dev Diary #366, we’ve gone through all of the scripted systems and done a normalization pass on the frequency of these systems appearing, as well as preventing many of them from appearing in empire starting clusters. Some other adjustments have been made to generation as a whole, which should distribute non-guaranteed habitable worlds a bit better and reduce the likelihood of massive clusters of them right around your homeworld.

There were comments in the thread asking for the ability to easily change these weights. Since most of them now use scripted variables, they’ll be very easy to change with mods.

# SYSTEM INITIALIZERS
@spawn_system_rare = 0.1
@spawn_system_uncommon = 0.5
@spawn_system_base = 1
@spawn_system_slightlycommon = 2
@spawn_system_common = 4
@spawn_system_verycommon = 8
@spawn_system_extreme = 16
@spawn_system_max = 99999

@spawn_system_enclave = 100 # first enclave uses this, rest use extreme

As the pool of anomalies and prescripted systems with guaranteed anomalies have also grown over the years, we’ve adjusted the anomaly spawn chance increment a bit to compensate.

[h3]Leader Traits[/h3]
A minor change from the original announcement is that we’ve implemented a suggestion from the forum thread to have the trait selection levels on even levels - it’s much cleaner overall. Leaders still begin with a starting trait at level 1.

If you have trait selections to make, the leader level up Notifications will show the green “call to action”. If you don’t, they’ll have a more subdued monochrome icon.

Leader positions will also have a significantly greater effect on which traits will be selected for players without Galactic Paragons or those that prefer automatic trait selection. For those that prefer picking leader traits themselves, this bias is instead reflected in which traits are selected for the pool of possible traits whenever a new trait is available. 

In Settings, we’re also letting you choose what you would like your default automatic trait selection to be. Any time you take over an empire as the primary human player (a distinction that is primarily relevant for co-op gameplay), it will make sure that the Auto Select Leader Traits box is set to your preference.



[h3]Events, Messages, and Notifications[/h3]
We’re going through many events, messages, and notifications to reduce the number of popups that disrupt your general gameplay. While major events still appear as popups, those that don’t require an immediate response or are purely informational have been converted into notifications or toasts.









The Artisans and Mirror Dimension can wait until I’ve finished what I’m currently doing.

As we’ve been doing this pass, we’ve updated some of the messages that have been converted into toasts, to make them more informative at a glance.



[h3]Empire Focuses and the Timeline[/h3]
While designing the Empire Focuses we had several thoughts. 

• Stellaris is a dynamic game full of wonder and possibilities. Our sandbox nature means predefined and structured trees cannot work for us.
  
• Tasks provided by Focuses should help guide newer players through the game, providing suggestions for short and medium term goals.
  
• Behaving in a manner consistent with your Empire Focus should naturally complete the Tasks from that category.
  
  • Empire Focus categories are Conquest, Exploration, and Development. (Names subject to change.)
• Rewards for progress within a Focus category should be intangible.
  
  • Any rewards you get should feel narratively consistent with your empire’s behavior. For instance, acting as an aggressive militarist should naturally guide your researchers to theorizing applicable technologies.
    
  • These rewards should reduce the need to rely on lucky draws from the tech pool if you want to pursue your Focus. 

The Empire Timeline and Focus share a tab in the Situation Log.

The current mockup of the Timeline tab. Some differences will exist between this and the final version.

Tasks come in four different categories - Conquest, Exploration, or Development correspond to the three different Focuses, and there are some very basic Tasks at the beginning that are considered “Core”. Completing a Task grants progress within its associated category; Core tasks grant progress in all three.



Many of the early game tasks are generally straightforward. The tooltips try to give some advice about how to complete them.

At any time your empire will have five tasks offered, weighted toward your selected Focus. Tasks complete automatically and retroactively, so if you’ve already completed an Archaeology Site, it will complete immediately if you draw it. If you have a Task that either feels impossible or isn’t something you want to do, you can discard it for a small Unity cost.

Many of the rewards for progression along a Focus are (currently) research options thematically associated with the Focus. For example, the first Conquest milestone grants Doctrine: Fleet Support as a guaranteed research option, while others in the line include Specialized Combat Computers and Destroyers. You’ll still have to research them, but we’re happy with how your actual actions in game have an impact on the ideas your researchers are coming up with.

The Empire Timeline shows many of the key events of your empire. Beginning with your Origin as the starting point, important milestones will be logged as they happen. Empire firsts feature prominently on the timeline, such as your first colony or the first time you’ve been humiliated by a Fallen Empire, but some other crucial moments are listed as well, such as war declarations, megastructures, when a crisis appeared, or when an accursed rival stole your Galatron.

The timeline has several zoom levels to let you see a general overview of what happened at a glance, or a detailed list of interesting moments.



[h2]Hard Reset[/h2]
In the 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update, we’re adding a new Origin to the Synthetic Dawn story pack called Hard Reset. 

As a warning, this Origin gets pretty dark (even for Stellaris), very quickly.



In this Origin, you begin as the cybernetic battle thralls of an advanced Driven Assimilator that have suddenly lost connection to the gestalt intelligence. Naturally, you were outfitted with some of the finest combat cybernetics available.



Your civilization begins in an immediate fight for your lives. 

Thankfully, as the elite battle thralls of your former masters, you excel at violence. This is good, because you’ll need to fight through rogue barrier fleets that still infest nearby systems.



I’m sure everything on Dream Loop is fine. No need to investigate further, right?

As with Broken Shackles, the exploration of yourselves as a people is a core part of this Origin, with factions forming a little while after you gain your independence.



Your sudden independence has also left your populace with some traits that represent your nature as Assimilator battle thralls. As you discover more about your past, you’ll have opportunities to either mitigate or enhance these traits, either by pursuing de-cyberization or by embracing the power of the machine. An alternate path exists where you can instead accept your conflicted nature and… Well, I won’t spoil what happens on that path.

[h2]Achievements[/h2]
As part of the development process, we decided to take this opportunity to review some of the rules around gaining achievements. As I think that many of the simpler ones are a great tool for letting you know that you’re playing the game “correctly”, so we’ve made a change.

Ironman mode is no longer required to earn most Stellaris achievements. An unmodified game checksum and being in single-player remain as requirements. 

• The "Victorious" achievement has been updated to "Win the game through any victory condition in Ironman mode."
  

[h2]Next Week[/h2]
We’re still working on getting things like the pop and planet changes presentable, so next week we’ll likely be talking about Trade and Logistics.

See you then!

by Eladrin

Greetings, Stellaris Community!

Last week we announced the Stellaris 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update, today we’re going to start going through some of the changes coming in it. As mentioned before, the changes we’ll be going through in the next few dev diaries are still scorching hot on the development branch, and may change drastically before final release.

That said, the ones I’ll be talking about today have cooled off a little bit and are pretty stable at this point.

[h3]Precursor Selection​[/h3]
Let’s start with a simple one that I already leaked to you back in December.

The Advanced Settings tab when you’re setting up a new game will now have a section that lets you set which Precursors are available in your galaxy.



The galaxy will be split into slices and the available Precursors distributed as they are currently - in the above example, the First League and Cybrex would not appear for anyone in this galaxy.

You are free to set the number of available Precursors to whatever number you desire, even none, but remember that in multiplayer games, each Precursor chain can only be completed by a single player. We recommend having at least four, to keep a sense of uncertainty and wonder in the galaxy, but it’s up to you if you want to force a specific Precursor.

[h3]The Stellaris Databank​[/h3]
Back in the Stellaris 3.8 ‘Gemini’ update we introduced ‘Concepts’, as our variant of Tooltips-within-Tooltips. We’ve been iterating on how we use them over time, and they’ve become a great asset in helping explain the complexities of Stellaris.

In the Stellaris 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update, we’re adding a compendium of sorts that contains Concepts in a searchable form, the Stellaris Databank.



Concepts in the Databank are divided into categories, and can themselves include further Concepts. Clicking the icon in the top right searches for the Concept in the Stellaris wiki, for more detailed information.



Searching for “Alloys” gives us every Concept that includes the word, sorting the most relevant to the top.



If you have a Concept open, clicking will open the Databank, if you would like to know more.

We’re interested in seeing how you use the Databank and how it can be improved in the future.

[h3]Species Modification Changes​[/h3]
We gave you a quick preview of the Species menu last week, but now we’ll go a little more in depth. The Species screen now provides you with more information about the various species in your empire, including showing the number of trait picks they might have remaining.

The template modification window itself has been remade to provide better sorting of positive and negative traits, and listing them by value, making it easier to find the traits you’re looking for.

My serviles should be delicious, don’t you think?

The new flow removes a few clicks from the process, starting the Special Project immediately.

If time is not of the essence, instead of using a Special Project to modify your species, you can designate a template as the Species Default, and let them integrate over to that default template slowly over time. Certain traditions or buildings might affect the speed of this integration process.

Actually, scratch that. Everybody should be delicious.

[h3]Ship Designer Changes​[/h3]
Like some of the other UIs we’re exploring today, the Ship Designer has had some quality of life updates.

We’ve taken the Ship Roles that were introduced in the 3.6 ‘Orion’ update and made selecting one part of the basic ship design flow and giving them a better representation than a scrollable text list. Some pain points of ship design, like the Auto-generate changes button blocking saving, have been removed, and in general it’s a faster and easier process to create a general ship design.



We’ve added a “Custom” role for veteran players that want to design the ship from scratch, or you can take one of these generated templates and modify them to suit your needs before saving.

[h3]Next Week​[/h3]
Next week we’ll go over more details regarding the improvements to Message Settings, as well as a selection of other features that are still so hot in development that they’re still glowing placeholder-magenta. If I can’t get you decent screenshots, I’ll post some of the concepts and explain what we’re in the middle of.

See you then!

Hello everyone!

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