Live Space: Planetary Economy

Live Space: Planetary Economy

From a galaxy that fleets pass through to a galaxy that people call home.

Your empire has a vast economy, yet the people who keep it running are not always visible within its star systems. What drives a colony's growth? Who carries its cargo? And who protects it once the regular navy moves on?

Live Space: Planetary Economy connects planetary economies, civilian traffic, and local defense. Alongside passing civilian ships, it adds local income and reinvestment, trade infrastructure, and autonomous defenses, making the development of your colonies visible within their systems.

A growing local economy on every planet

Planets develop through six stages, from frontier outposts to vast economic hubs. Local income, reinvestment, and civilian and military budgets support the expansion of transport capacity, infrastructure, and defense forces.

Look beyond your empire's total stockpiles to see how much each colony has grown, what it is investing in, and how well it can defend itself. Check the planet's economy overview for income, taxes, development, transport, and defense information.

Star systems with visible economic activity

Freighters, passenger ships, research data transports, and civilian convoys travel between systems. Orbital trade ports, customs facilities, factories, and defenses bring increasing activity to developed colonies.

The heart of this mod is the connection between planetary economies, transport, and defense, going beyond the visual presence of civilian traffic. These activities appear in AI empires as well as your own.

Local defense distinct from your regular navy

Colonies establish and expand autonomous forces to protect their surroundings. Smaller forces are identified as patrols, while larger forces are called flotillas, distinguishing them from your regular fleets.

Alongside local patrols and responses to piracy, these forces can be mobilized to support your empire's military operations when needed. Use reserves, defense facilities, and conscription policies to balance the local economy with military readiness.

Policies and investment that shape development

• Guide development with economic, balanced, or military priorities.

• Adjust taxation to balance the empire's share against funds retained for local reinvestment.

• Choose a balance between local reserves and stability through conscription policy.

• Support growth where it is needed through civilian and military investment decisions.

Investment decisions take 180 days to prepare in the planetary construction queue before taking effect. The subsequent five-year cooldown can be tracked through a planetary modifier.

Civilian culture among the stars

58 newly created advertisement images, not found in existing mods, portray everyday galactic life through companies, ships, travel, performances, and public service campaigns. Different shapes and languages bring variety to each system.

Stationary billboards appear according to planetary economic development, with a system-wide limit of five in player empires and three in AI empires. Systems with multiple colonies share the same limit. Advertisements are set to change every 10–20 years. With too many to easily see them all in a single campaign, you can discover new advertisements across repeated playthroughs.

For players who want to…

• See civilian society and economic activity in the system view.

• Experience differences in how colonies develop and defend themselves.

• Watch local communities grow automatically instead of managing every civilian ship by hand.

• Expand both empire management and the sense of everyday life in space.

Version and compatibility

• Tested with Stellaris 4.5.2.

• Korean is supported. Some text may appear in English when using other languages.

• This is not purely a graphics mod. It adds planetary economies, policies, decisions, ships, and events.

• Spawn limits and periodic processing are used, but performance may vary with galaxy size and your mod setup.

• Compatibility with mods that alter the same underlying code or features requires separate checking.

• Compatibility with multiplayer and every possible mod combination is not guaranteed.

Credits

The Stellaris developers have spoken about making star systems feel more alive, and many related technologies have been introduced. Nomads were also added, but these additions remained somewhat removed from the economic activity and regular journeys of civilian ships. Over the years, many modders have created mods to address this gap. I created this mod using inspiration and code references from the mods listed below. If you prefer standalone mods whose features operate independently rather than as an interconnected system, I recommend using the following mods individually or combining them to suit your preferences. Gemini, ChatGPT, and Codex were used in the creation of this mod.

Living Systems for 4.X: Orbital Network Add-On https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3739452421

Living Systems for 4.X https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3687626865

Civilian Economy https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3798308414

Civilian Space https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3765479276

The Living Network https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3564061720

Logistical Convoys https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3724180369

Reporting issues

Please include your game version, your mod list, and the in-game date and circumstances of the issue. Screenshots and the error log from the affected session are helpful when identifying the cause.