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[Rolan7]

Sounds like an...  edge case

[KingofstarrySkies]

invest in spaceco stocks buy low nuke high

[Telgin]

What invisible cargo ship exists in the 2 mineral system on the edge of your empire that's so threatened by 2 hyperlanes instead of 1 that it reduces the research efficiency of your entire empire?

All these justifications make a lot of sense for a system that's not in the game, although the game might better off if it was.

It's all abstraction, but it's probably assumed that it's a matter of government resources being finite.  The government can spend more on system patrol craft and monitoring facilities to watch the extra hyperlanes, or it can spend it on research.  The mechanics don't directly simulate that, since it should probably be represented as a penalty to research and unity instead, but it's kind of an academic difference.

System patrol craft aren't simulated in game, but there is mention of conflict on the edge of empires that falls below the resolution of combat simulated in game.  If you border a marauder empire you can get events related to it, even if you've never actually had any direct combat with them.

I do feel like there's probably a better way to keep large empires from massively out teching smaller neighbors, but this works well enough for me I think.  A system more like CKII (and probably other Paradox games) where technology diffuses through territory naturally would probably be a solution, except it's hard to model that in a game like Stellaris with its discrete technologies.

[Egan_BW]

Techs appear on a random one of your planets, weighted towards planets with more research ability. From there, it spreads to other connected planets, with each planet getting a bar that fills from 0% to 100%. Connected planets adapt tech faster if they're easier to get to and have a lot of research production.
Techs that apply to specific buildings and such only apply to the planets that have the techs, while techs with empire-wide effects are weaker until your entire empire adopts it.

See? Simple! ;P

[Rolan7]

Okay you joke but now I'm imagining those CK2 mechanics.  A core of high-tech fleet-building megacity worlds, supported by mining from frontier worlds - many of which are on the frontier with alien space.

[Il Palazzo]

It's hard to justify it, though, in the age of instant and efficient communication.

[forsaken1111]

There's a mod that sorta does that. It adds in big scientific breakthroughs which give you huge science bonuses but the breakthroughs have a chance to spread to other neighboring empires so while you'll get a good boost at first eventually other empires you're on good terms with will get them, and at some point enemies will figure them out too.

[Criptfeind]

It's all abstraction, but it's probably assumed that it's a matter of government resources being finite.  The government can spend more on system patrol craft and monitoring facilities to watch the extra hyperlanes, or it can spend it on research.  The mechanics don't directly simulate that, since it should probably be represented as a penalty to research and unity instead, but it's kind of an academic difference.

System patrol craft aren't simulated in game, but there is mention of conflict on the edge of empires that falls below the resolution of combat simulated in game.  If you border a marauder empire you can get events related to it, even if you've never actually had any direct combat with them.

I do feel like there's probably a better way to keep large empires from massively out teching smaller neighbors, but this works well enough for me I think.  A system more like CKII (and probably other Paradox games) where technology diffuses through territory naturally would probably be a solution, except it's hard to model that in a game like Stellaris with its discrete technologies.

Although this is a little bit more reasonable then "It's pirates!" or "your non researching edge systems sure have a lot of trouble with research." I think the penalty is way to empire wide to for this to really be reasonable. Maybe something like, take the stations that's currently would decrease empire cohesion, and give them increased upkeep? Fairly large increased empire wide tech costs, and unity costs, and leader costs, it's all way too much to be reasonably simulating small issues with fractious borders. (And once again I think the fact that the quality of the boarders matters less then the quantity gives like to the idea that it's really trying to simulate anything but a mechanical patchjob on a mechanical patchjob)

I don't necessarily think there shouldn't be any penalty, but it's just... It feels like it needs to be a more natural one then they are doing now.

[Cruxador]

I do feel like there's probably a better way to keep large empires from massively out teching smaller neighbors, but this works well enough for me I think.  A system more like CKII (and probably other Paradox games) where technology diffuses through territory naturally would probably be a solution, except it's hard to model that in a game like Stellaris with its discrete technologies.

The problem isn't modeling it, just do it like EU4's institutions where each has its own rate of spread, determined by adjacency of systems with the tech, presence of prerequisites, and factors particular to the tech or the category of tech, and then add bonuses to spread from local scientific buildings and jobs. There might be issues of hardware efficiency, but if you only do the check every month and give it its own thread(s), it should be fine. The real problem is presenting all that information to the player.

It's hard to justify it, though, in the age of instant and efficient communication.

That's not necessarily a sound assumption. For one thing, the in-game communication on an interstellar level isn't really faster than communicatino in CK2 or any other Paradox game aside from the difference in the equation resulting from scale. More importantly, technology has already been stated to represent not just technology but the infrastructure and ability to implement it (in Wiz's attempts to defend the concept of empire size penalties to tech) which means that rolling out innovations from a central location is perfectly well in theme. Although it does imply that some measure of industrial or administrative capacity is more important than adjacency.

[Telgin]

The big issue would definitely be presenting it in a sensible way, but there are also complications with things like shipbuilding.  The fleet manager could help to narrow down which starbases are in systems that had the needed technologies to build your ship designs, but it would still be really annoying to manage with the level of technology resolution currently in the game.

A simpler way to handle it might be to have some passive bonus to research fields if neighbors have more researched technologies than you in that field, but balancing that would probably be hard.  You have to already give up on other resources to focus on research, so if your enemies benefited from you researching harder than them, it would have to be a very small benefit for you to not just prefer minerals / alloys.  Not to mention that you can already perform technology catchup by analyzing debris.

[Criptfeind]

Newest news from twitter is that the federation presidency will no longer be a rotating post, but rather the most economically powerful member of the federation is permanently the president and has control over the fleet, and now anyone can reinforce the federation fleet with ships at any time, but they'll use the designs the president makes and automatically be sent to join the federation fleet.

At first I was like "I'm not sure..." until I remembered that the president of a federation has no power or duties outside of commanding the federation fleet. It feels like a bit of a misnomer actually, maybe federation commander would be clearer.  So, actually I quite like the change. Might actually want to play in a federation for once.

[Telgin]

Agreed.  I've been avoiding federations for a long time now since they were more of a handicap than anything, but if the player can plausibly remain in control of the federation fleet (and on anything short of admiral difficulty that won't be hard), then the benefits start to outweigh the problems.

Additionally, it looks like all federation members get economic pacts automatically, which makes sense, and some kind of federation tax will be applied to members.  I'm assuming that's going to be trade value that just evaporates instead of going to the president, but time will tell.

[Loud Whispers]

Is it possible to make space HRE with federations?

[Kanil]

I don't really like it.

Thematically it's silly -- it's not really a "federation" anymore, it's just you and your AI vassals.

Mechanically, it's going to make having a federation even more important/powerful than it already is. Also you're going to have to delete all the non-whatever-monofleet-is-best-in-current-year ships the AI builds.

Of course, there is some solace (but not too much, mind!) to be found in the "it'll be fixed in the Diplomacy DLC"... ah, Stellaris...

[Criptfeind]

Thematically it's silly -- it's not really a "federation" anymore, it's just you and your AI vassals.

The AI will still have all the privileges that they have right now when they are not the president, which is basically all the privileges. All the president does is command the fleet. I think it makes more sense that the command structure and designs of the fleet doesn't flop around every 10 years and instead that whoever is (in theory) the best equip to handle such command gets to direct it until someone more competent takes over. I do agree that it shouldn't be named president, but the president doesn't command the federation.

Mechanically I think it's a sigh of a relief and actually makes the federation useful, since the federation ships won't be under the command of a totally incompetent AI commander that goes and kamikazes into a blackhole or however they manage to get them killed them after you've spent 10 years building the fleet up and then rebuild it as a ton of random useless designs with "artistic" ideas like taking out all the weapons to save power. Which has basically been every experience I've had with the federations so far.

If you do think federations are too strong though, they are getting an actual nerf, in that federation members have to pay a tax. No word yet on how much that tax will be.

And you don't have to delete all the AI ships, if they make ships to join the federation fleet, they have to use the presidents designs.