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[ZeroGravitas]

Edit: While I'm posting here: is it worth coming back to this game yet?  And which DLC is considered "essential"?

I would say so, but if you are unsure then wait for the next sale.
As for DLCs.. I would say Utopia and Synthetic Dawn are probably the most essential ones.

The Plantoids pack adds a new phenotype (a new portrait/city set/spaceships class or whatever you may call it).
So if you enjoy variety, then get it, if you want. But it doesn't add any gameplay mechanics.

Synthetic Dawn, absolutely.

Utopia, probably not. It's twice as expensive as Synthetic Dawn and adds a few "win more" mechanics like Dyson Spheres and Ascension Perks. It does add some unique civics like Mechanists, Hive Minds, and Fanatic Purifiers. But Synthetic Dawn already adds lots of unique civics as well as machine empires, many of which are basically the same thing as those in Utopia (Fanatic Purifier and Determined Exterminators, for example).

[Karnewarrior]

I'm not sure I like the new idea for FTL - I'd have prefered a merger between Warp and Wormhole that operated like Civ's roads. It'd allow for a more fluid galaxy while still creating natural chokepoints if putting warp on warships was a big enough pain.

Still, starports will be nice and Hyperdrive isn't a gamekiller for me. I think I'll overall like this update.

[Aklyon]

Finally. It's so annoying trying to mod out all the FTL options and all the late game ones too.

You know there was literally an ingame option to set restricto-lanes ftl only, right?

[USEC_OFFICER]

That only stops empires from starting with Warp or Wormholes. It doesn't stop FEs or Invaders from using Jump Drives, or other empires reverse engineering them. So restricting everyone to lanes only works for the early and mid game. Late game it's all Jump Drives all day.

[Sirus]

Finally. It's so annoying trying to mod out all the FTL options and all the late game ones too.

You know there was literally an ingame option to set restricto-lanes ftl only, right?

That only works for empires. Crisis fleets and wandering enemies still use warp unless they're modded not to.

[Aklyon]

I'm not really seeing the issue there. Hyperlanes are boring.

[Sirus]

I take it you're not excited about the latest announcements, then?

[Aklyon]

I take it you're not excited about the latest announcements, then?

I'm excited about the eventual modded gateways, and them actually improving stuff. But if I wanted to play as the SotS Terrans I would play as the SotS terrans.

Or maybe the Zuul.

[Cruxador]

I already own Stellaris, I just stopped playing shortly after release and I'm wondering if this is a good time to check it out again.  My original playthrough was a very individualist democracy which was kind of ruined by the fact that ethics drift was glitched to cause pops to be homogeneous (undoing any weakness that playstyle would have had).  Then it crashed infinitely with no solution.

I'd say if you've waited this long, might as well wait longer. This update should be pretty comprehensive and overhaul the game to be a lot better.

So wait for this one, and then the inevitable balance/bugfix patch soon after.

[Ultimuh]

I already own Stellaris, I just stopped playing shortly after release and I'm wondering if this is a good time to check it out again.  My original playthrough was a very individualist democracy which was kind of ruined by the fact that ethics drift was glitched to cause pops to be homogeneous (undoing any weakness that playstyle would have had).  Then it crashed infinitely with no solution.

I'd say if you've waited this long, might as well wait longer. This update should be pretty comprehensive and overhaul the game to be a lot better.

So wait for this one, and then the inevitable balance/bugfix patch soon after.

The FTL changes will be free though.

Are all new forms of FTL free patch content?
Yes. Naturally we're not going to charge for any form of content meant to replace the loss of old FTL types.

[Cruxador]

I already own Stellaris, I just stopped playing shortly after release and I'm wondering if this is a good time to check it out again.  My original playthrough was a very individualist democracy which was kind of ruined by the fact that ethics drift was glitched to cause pops to be homogeneous (undoing any weakness that playstyle would have had).  Then it crashed infinitely with no solution.

I'd say if you've waited this long, might as well wait longer. This update should be pretty comprehensive and overhaul the game to be a lot better.

So wait for this one, and then the inevitable balance/bugfix patch soon after.

The FTL changes will be free though.

Are all new forms of FTL free patch content?
Yes. Naturally we're not going to charge for any form of content meant to replace the loss of old FTL types.

"Will be" is key there. They're not anything yet. They'll launch alongside whatever the next DLC is that we know nothing about yet.

[Culise]

I take it you're not excited about the latest announcements, then?

I'm excited about the eventual modded gateways, and them actually improving stuff. But if I wanted to play as the SotS Terrans I would play as the SotS terrans.

Or maybe the Zuul.

There are no wormholes.  There is only Zuul.

[E. Albright]

...it seems like it's moving away from what made it most attractive from my POV, and towards its weakest elements. The strength of Stellaris is its breadth - it incorporates so many (and so varied) scifi tropes. Its weakness is how shallowly it plays them out.

The border and starbase changes are very weird, gamey, and specific. They feel off, just like e.g. a Devouring Swarm who can't use diplomacy operating according to the same formal War Demands structure everyone else does, or ground warfare necessarily consisting of a long siege followed by a brief and mostly-one-sided invasion. So much of the strength of their design is the diverse space of ideas it explores without committing itself to extremely specific interpretations. These changes are extremely specific interpretations. Yes, in principle this better allows for more depth within the narrowed design space, but like the War Demands system or invasions, the specifics they're settling on seem to be very narrow and extremely rigid ones.

[Descan]

Hell, I feel the opposite about the border/starbase changes. Why would starbases be restricted to colonized planets? Or one at a time per planetary starbase? Having one per system and a capped number of functional starbases to reflect empire logistics is better, to me.

And it makes more sense to me that you can only claim a star system if you have an actual presense in it; Especially with only hyperlanes, what sense is there that an empire can control a star it can't even get to, and get all the resources in it, just because it has a frontier outpost or colony in the right spot?

[E. Albright]

I'd say the whole "you can't invade primitives unless you build an outpost first" part is more than a bit bizarre and gamey, to pick a particular change (as well as general colonizing, to a lesser degree), as is the whole "your ability to maintain full-sized starbases is limited by an arbitrary number rather than your resources" (like influence, but even more rigid) and "you can only build ships at one point in any system, which BTW is nowhere near resources or pop centers". It may work wonderfully - time will tell - but it's adding more arbitrary-but-very-specific systems to the game.

You'll still be able to collect isolated resources if you drop an outpost first, so they're doing nothing about the fundamental oddities of instantaneous, uninterruptible, and suspiciously non-Euclidean logistics.

I do hope they change the Enigmatic Fortress into a Starbase, though.