Stellaris Dev Diary #140 - 2.2.x post-launch patch v2

[Kryndude]

At the time I'm picking my first perk, I'm still alloy-bound rather than influence-bound.

I don't see how unless you're going for greedy early research labs and monuments. Delay them until you've secured your share of space and fleet to protect it. Until then alloy is the only thing you should be focusing on. Science and Unity can come in aplenty later by mass producing them.

 

[Robotkiller]

So sectors are are going to be left in their current state? Disappointing; I don't have time to micromanage 100 planets.

 

[bloodyglasspuppet]

I have to agree with a lot of the posts: "Final post-realease patch" sounds worrying indeed. I get the impression the game (mainly concerning AI and performance) needs several months of optimization and improvement to function properly. But we will see...

 

[monkeypunch87]

We don’t have anything specific to talk about or show, but we thought it would be suitable to let you know we’re still working on the final post-release patch. We’re aiming to release the patch sometime in late February.

Awesome to tell us an estimate. Love it.

Worrying that it will be the final post-release patch already.

 

[Iosue Yu]

The last patch they have given us, has fixed some, but broken more.

Since we can read the scripts, as a programmer, I really feel a lack of confidence in the code quality. A lot of hard-coded things, arbitrary weight numbers, and non-standardised handling of the same function... Sometimes it is also important to realise how much higher standards and testing are required for the development instead of just pushing contents left and right.

 

[CReaper210]

Please do something with egmatic engineering, it feels like a worthless perk at the moment outside of RP.

With out unuqie techs in the late game it feels weak. Games against AI it’s pointless as late game AI lags behind in tech, MP it would have some use but most players will usually not get that far behind for it to be that much of a benifit.

Give it unuqie options, or something else that makes it worth while like blocks senors in to controlled territory, something that makes it appealing

I always thought it a decent idea to combine enigmatic engineering and tech ascendancy into one perk. They're both a bit boring and not super strong on their own and they also both happen to make sense, RP wise, for science focused empires.

 

[Badesumofu]

At the time I'm picking my first perk, I'm still alloy-bound rather than influence-bound.

Really? Hmm, my first few hundred allows all go into science ships but I'm still always finding influence more scarce than alloys. Usually an alloy factory is my first building, btw. Even so - the nature of influence is still that you will find it becomes more scarce than alloys at some (usually early point) and when that point comes you'll want to be able to spam out outposts as fast as possible.

 

[AlanC9]

I don't see how unless you're going for greedy early research labs and monuments. Delay them until you've secured your share of space and fleet to protect it. Until then alloy is the only thing you should be focusing on. Science and Unity can come in aplenty later by mass producing them.

I can't think of a case where I'm actually losing any planets by not bothering with that.. The systems I'm not taking are barely worth the admin cap anyway.

 

[ViolentBeetle]

I don't really understand what's the point in boxes. Numbers vs boxes helped distinguish capped from uncapped, and capped district boxes conveyed useful information, since they were the ones with 3 possible states.

 

[AlanC9]

Really? Hmm, my first few hundred allows all go into science ships but I'm still always finding influence more scarce than alloys. Usually an alloy factory is my first building, btw. Even so - the nature of influence is still that you will find it becomes more scarce than alloys at some (usually early point) and when that point comes you'll want to be able to spam out outposts as fast as possible.

By then I'll have the perk anyway. Unless the RNG's served me up a galaxy so crowded that I'm not going to get much use out of it at all, that is. (That would involve me misjudging the situation when I made the first pick.)

 

[Badesumofu]

Might be worth starting a thread to discuss people's different opening moves and early game approaches at this point. My early game is focused on claiming as much valuable space as I can as quickly as I can.

 

[Duuk]

So, when you guys said "we've budgeted an extended amount of time to fix Stellaris post-2.2"... Less than 100 calendar days, which by my count (and assuming that some of the devs and staff quietly started work on Jan 7 and just didn't communicate until later, and that the patch will not hit until exactly 28 February) means... 51 working days.

That's not a great look for an expansion that still doesn't work where key game systems simply do not function even remotely uniformly and have not been fully worked through systemically to conform to the new game meta.

I keep peaking in to see if a new patch has dropped that solves the game. Still on pause.

I'm not mad, I'm not. I'm still going to buy the More Mammals Pack that should really be the next DLC, which apparently needs to happen to fund the 2.3 patch. I'm just disappointed by how completely tone deaf this team is to just how badly you're screwing up the PR on this debacle.

Every time you get the tiniest bit of goodwill built up and you start to work yourselves out of the hole, you drop a comment like, "final patch in two weeks after we promised extended support! We know nothing works yet but LOL can't spend any more time before we announce the next DLC!" Then BAM, you're right back to square one in the PR mud.

 

[M@ni@c]

My two cents, in my playstyle early game it is also alloys that is my bottleneck, not influence, and I have never considered the influence reduction a must-have. Of course, it's a good thing there's disagreement here. It means there isn't one obvious first pick. I still would have preferred they boosted other ascension perks that everyone agrees AREN'T first pick. For instance Enigmatic Engineering as people mentioned here.

 

[Kuronan]

Would you consider changing the building tiles to gray? I had to get a mod just for that and let me tell you... It looks a lot less intrusive.

 

[208]

Please do something with egmatic engineering, it feels like a worthless perk at the moment outside of RP.

With out unuqie techs in the late game it feels weak. Games against AI it’s pointless as late game AI lags behind in tech, MP it would have some use but most players will usually not get that far behind for it to be that much of a benifit.

Give it unuqie options, or something else that makes it worth while like blocks senors in to controlled territory, something that makes it appealing

How about, makes your ships un-scannable? Still mostly an MP bonus, but a much better one, useful even relatively early on and with equivalent tech.

 

[FiddleSticks96]

How about, makes your ships un-scannable? Still mostly an MP bonus, but a much better one, useful even relatively early on and with equivalent tech.

I've been secretly hoping for this since 2.0.

 

[Uvenam]

I think the main focus should be on performance.

At about the same time in game years, I had two different games. One with the tiles (before 2.2) and one with. ~2300 or sometime I believe. The one with tiles, I had an empire of 1,000 Pops. Resources were abundant, fleets were massive, the AI fought wars and didn't topple over, and the game ran smoothly. The one without tiles I had 450 pops, resources were scarce, fleets were pitiful, AI was a pushover and rarely fought each other, and the game chunked.

I am all for UI changes and Ascendancy bonuses/changes, but there is little point in changing these if the game is ridiculously slow and if the AI won't use those bonuses.

 

[Harlot]

So sectors are are going to be left in their current state? Disappointing; I don't have time to micromanage 100 planets.

The dev team addressed this before. Sectors aren't a simple tweak, so while they'll possibly get another look, it's something that needs more time to be done. Just because a feature isn't introduced/changed, doesn't mean it's not going to be.

 

[King Reek]

I own all of the expansions. Unless this next "final" post-launch patch is the largest I've ever seen and fixes a TON of performance/bugs, MegaCorp will likely be the last expansion I buy from Paradox (I own CK2, HoI3/4, EU4, and multiple DLC of each of those). 2.2 was officially stated to be better performance than 2.1, and I believed that. Gave the benefit of the doubt immediately following release because it was a very large patch and things break.

In 2.1, I would almost purely play on 1,000-star galaxies with minimal issues. Now (2.2.5), I can barely even play on 600-star galaxies in the late-game. 1,000-star are completely out of the question.

If this next final patch doesn't bring performance at least back to 2.1 levels (or better, seeing as that is what the official stance was on the patch), then I will not be buying any more DLC from Paradox. Period. Yes, the performance in 2.2.5 is much better than 2.2.1, but it is still FAR from being remotely acceptable.

 

[RudytheDominator]

It’s simple. Fix the AI, Fix the performance issues, Fix sectors. I would love to see the next DLC, but until these three issues are dealt with, I’m not happy at all.