Bring your empire to life with autonomous civilian traffic that makes the galaxy feel truly alive.

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What it does
Vanilla Stellaris hides unused freighter, tanker, and passenger-liner assets in its files—models and mechanics that were never fully implemented. The Living Network activates those dormant systems, turning abstract trade values into visible convoys, supply runs, and passenger routes across your space.

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• Collector Ships — Move resources from mining stations to starbases using vanilla freighter visuals
  
• Freighter Ships — Create real, visible trade routes between your star systems
  
• Dynamic Scaling — Traffic naturally grows as your empire expands
  
• Performance Optimized — Hard cap of 20 ships by default (configurable in a future in-game UI)
  
• Debug Mode — Optional logging and tools for troubleshooting

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• Auto-starts — No setup required; civilian traffic begins automatically
  
• Lag-safe — Ship hard cap keeps performance smooth, even on large maps
  
• Compatible with Stellaris 4.0.22
  
• Ironman: Yes
  
• Achievements: No (modifies checksum)

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Will this cause lag?
Minimal in testing. The default cap is 20 ships to protect performance. A configuration UI is planned so you can tune traffic to your system.

Do I need to configure anything?
Nope. Install, enable, and traffic starts immediately.

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• Neutral ship category (so they don’t appear as construction ships)
  
• In-game settings menu for ship cap & behaviors
  
• Expanded civilian ship roles (passenger liners, convoys, luxury transports) as performance allows

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Stellaris already had the bones of a living economy—unused freighters, tankers, convoy logic, and passenger-liner hooks. The Living Network wires those pieces together, realizing the galaxy Paradox once envisioned and making civilian life visible at last.

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Notes: Current branch is working; a few visual tweaks remain. A sub-branch will be used to test additional visuals and convoy behaviors.