Stellaris released its newest DLC, Synthetic Dawn, just a few weeks ago, but the hard-working team at Paradox Development Studio is already taking a crack at the next major update. It’s still a long ways off, but it’s going to be called the Cherryh Update—in honor of science fiction writer C.J. Cherryh, author of The Morgaine Stories. According to Stellaris game director Wiz, who posted the first dev diary on the update, Cherryh will be “a massive update, the largest one we’ve done to date” and will include “some very significant reworks to core gameplay systems.” So it’s going to be a big one, one that’s been wanted for a long time, and we’ve just gotten our first preview.

Stellaris Cherryh Update Will Change The Core Game

The Cherryh Update will bring far-reaching changes to Stellaris, many of which we likely won’t hear about for weeks or even months. But we know about the first big change, which applies to both borders and Starbases. Both are being reworked entirely. Borders previously emanated from your colonized planets and Frontier Outposts slowly over time, based on a variety of factors, to encompass planets both near and far from your inhabited systems. Now, Frontier Outposts are gone altogether, and borders work entirely differently.

Starting with the Cherryh Update, borders will no longer naturally extend beyond your own colonized systems. To claim other systems, you’ll need to build an Outpost, which has a modest one-time influence cost. So this means you’ll be building a lot of outposts, and using a lot more influence. Paradox promises they’ve optimized the system to avoid tedium and provided more influence sources in the early game.

The other big change announced so far involves Starbases—major new structures that orbit stars and replace three current Stellaris staples: Starports, frontier stations and military bases. The Starbase rolls all three into one—and although they can be captured, they also can’t be destroyed under normal circumstances, which saves the tedium of rebuilding.

Starbases are much more robust than any of the previous structures. They consist of both modules and structures. Modules determine the basic function of the Starbase—whether it’s a shipyard, a defensive station, an economic hub, or some combination of functions. You can make a Starbase armed with up to six modules in any combination of parts. Each module itself has multiple buildings associated with it, which are similar to (and sometimes the same as) the modules Starports can have now. Paradox intends for Starbases to be very powerful structures, unlike the currently useless military bases; a fully upgraded one, souped up with its own defense platforms, should be able to take on an enemy fleet all on its own.

These are big changes for Stellaris, and it sounds like even bigger ones lay ahead as we learn more about the Cherryh Update.