The initial idea to use districts as the foundation for improving our early game pacing came to me originally about two months ago, and once that happened, a lot of things simply clicked into place. I knew the overhaul needs to be a layer rather than a fundamental part of the economy, something to give the players more flexibility and choices. Since I feel districts are a bit of a lame duck in vanilla Stellaris right now, neither here nor there, it seems like the right decision.
Now is the time I need to repeat that everything you could possibly see here is still temporary and subject to change. This warning tends to be forgotten when developers discuss upcoming changes chuckle I know the right attitude is to remember that anyone who comments and criticizes your work clearly cares about the game/project you have created… but it’s not always easy.
So, with that in mind, what exactly are we going to do with districts, and how is that going to be connected to any game pacing or economic overhaul?
The first thing is to clearly separate buildings from districts in a way that makes sense to everyone. I’ve said before I am unhappy with how districts are, in essence, mini-buildings that function thematically and mechanically the same.
Going forward, that is going to change. The most succinct description of the change is this – buildings are about production, districts are about specialization.
Buildings will continue to function very much as they do now. Gaining more pops will unlock new building slots. Constructing buildings will provide new jobs for your people. Buildings will have multiple levels and could be upgraded. Higher level upgrades may be dependent on access to a high-level capital building. Buildings will cost minerals and time to construct, and energy to maintain.
However, under the new regime, buildings will ONLY provide jobs and produce resources. No building will provide bonuses anymore. That means no energy grids that give a bonus to energy, no energy shields that protect your planet or manufacturing offices that boosts alloys and consumer goods. Mind you, a few event or species-specific buildings may buckle this trend a bit, but this is the gist of it.
Since districts will now focus on specialization (and I’ll cover what that means in the next blog post), their responsibility for basic resource production will switch to buildings. This means that mines, farms and power plants will now be standard buildings you build and will require a building slot.
As part of the overhaul, you can also expect to see more flexibility in the construction of buildings. Fewer buildings will be restricted to requiring a specific capital level or will be limited by how many you can build on your planet – yes, this specifically means you can build as many farms as you want on your planets (at least, assuming it’s a planet that supports agriculture). Your building slots will also unlock rather quickly and without needing a huge number of pops, and you will have slightly more slots than you do now – both to offer variety and to compensate for having to ‘waste slots’ on constructing mines, farms and power plants.
This means the core experience of STNH and vanilla Stellaris will not change. The absolute majority of our existing buildings and jobs will continue to be in the game and function exactly as they do now, with a few fewer restrictions. Pacing will accelerate a bit since players will be able to construct more buildings – you will unlock a new building slot every 2 pops, for a maximum of 27 slots at 54 pops, compared to now, where players unlock the 21 slots at pop 60. The overall output of your economy, will stay roughly the same and will continue to be dictated by your pops and available jobs.
This also means you can always catch up or brute force your way up the Navy ladder, spamming the construction of mines or alloy factories. The choices will come up to how you will specialize your planets and build them up – and that will be the job for the new districts.
I saw hope, in the stars. It was stronger than fear. And I went towards it. – Saru