Stellaris Dev Diary #211: 3.0.3 Beta Updates

[InvisibleBison]

It did its job, quite well, punished players for making huge land grabs.

No, it punished players for shaping their countries in ways that the devs found aesthetically displeasing. You could conquer an entire nation without incurring any cohesion hits, and as I recall starbases decreased cohesion penalties so blobbing enough would basically make your cohesion permanently 100%.

 

[OgMummbles]

No, it punished players for shaping their countries in ways that the devs found aesthetically displeasing. You could conquer an entire nation without incurring any cohesion hits, and as I recall starbases decreased cohesion penalties so blobbing enough would basically make your cohesion permanently 100%.

It was for early game land grabs, like building a starbase 30 jumps away so you can cut off someone elses expansion, without actually expanding yourself.

 

[killer260111]

okay just writing my thoughts on this, the industral district changes get me worried, through again, i have to play it to find out, i just hope these updates don't hurt void dwellers too much, least on the job side of it (since now, its gonna be clear that void dwellers won't be able to reach the high pop growth everyone else reaches anymore in the late game, instead being stuck at the base of 3 or so)

but the clerk upgrade is long overdue, hope it does enough to make them worth it ^^

 

[Nebbie Zebbie]

If Empire Sprawl is going to be addressed at all, please consider an easy yet likely very impactful change of increasing base Admin Cap, but pumping up colony Empire Sprawl, so that things are a little more tilted towards smaller empires. My 3.0.3 run had just 2 planets doing admin cap out of like 50, and it was just stupid.

Also, I really must stress that turning off Clerk/Maintenance Drone jobs is unfun (especially the latter, because you need to mess with it more than once per planet), but is still even with these changes correct strategy. It even is further propelled by how having fewer jobs means planets stay at bonus growth better, as I found in my 3.0.3 playthrough the last few days.

In general, players will do the optimal strategy, even if it's not fun, by our nature. Please make the optimal strategy always a fun one.

 

[LWE]

Pop jobs should be player controlled, and ignore whether a pop is better suited to it.

Unfortunately, this would result in a massive micromanagement pile-on, so I don't think this solution is any way desirable.

 

[PedroLuiz]

Conquest needs to be stronger than peaceful play in order to have an engaging game. No one would ever go to war if they could become stronger by sitting around doing nothing proactive.

Peaceful play is boring, that's why players go to war, it's not about being stronger.
But war in stellaris is boring so peaceful play should be interesting

 

[OgMummbles]

Unfortunately, this would result in a massive micromanagement pile-on, so I don't think this solution is any way desirable.

A new pop would fill a vancant job that you have prioritized, zero micro, set it and forget it until you need to change priorities.

There is currently more micro now than there ever was, trying to maximize growth constantly, and having an incredibly weak economy because of it. Spamming districts to increase your limits so they don't affect growth costs tons. and takes forever to do.

Empty jobs, costing you EC, and possibly even exotic resources if you play ring worlds.

 

[majikero]

I like the new clerk decrease and output buff. It moves clerks from "instant off" to "maybe I'll turn it on at some point" level. They still fall behind quickly anyways compared to more productive jobs. Everything else gets tech to be more "efficient" but clerks don't have anything for them. The end result is still me turning off clerk jobs to move people to other places I can stack more energy/minerals/alloys/research.

 

[Fjolsvid]

What a terrible idea. All that would do is encourage colony spam and wide play.

How so?
initial colony is all drain until 10 pops. Then the first colony building comes online and maybe pays for itself. The the second upgrade and eventually the third
The revised numbers are 10/25/50.
All this does is allows some measure of development for colonies after they upgrade, but before that, you're experiencing significant drain and need to allocate some resources.
The big problem we have is that bureaucrats give too much admin cap

 

[Nebbie Zebbie]

How so?
initial colony is all drain until 10 pops. Then the first colony building comes online and maybe pays for itself. The the second upgrade and eventually the third
The revised numbers are 10/25/50.
All this does is allows some measure of development for colonies after they upgrade, but before that, you're experiencing significant drain and need to allocate some resources.
The big problem we have is that bureaucrats give too much admin cap

Don't forget that 10 pops just isn't very much right now. Colony Empire Sprawl is just weak at present.

 

[sillyrobot]

It did its job, quite well, punished players for making huge land grabs.

It, like so many other subsystems, was not built to scale with player choices -- a full-hyperlane start was overly punished by it and a minimal hyperlane start could effectively ignore it.

 

[OgMummbles]

Peaceful play is boring, that's why players go to war, it's not about being stronger.
But war in stellaris is boring so peaceful play should be interesting

There does need to be some boons to being peaceful, peaceful play should have flat boosts for the galactic republic clout.

 

[sillyrobot]

There does need to be some boons to being peaceful, peaceful play should have flat boosts for the galactic republic clout.

I thought you wrote boon: I find the council effectively pointless and only engage enough to prevent resolutions I don't like from passing.

 

[Ludaire]

Organic empires have a large potential bonus to growth that's being looked at enough that it's now on a slider. Is there going to be any attention to machine empires and how they can manipulate their growth or are you happy with where they're at right now?

At the moment, machines need to get to 50 pops and then maintain 40 for maximum machine growth on a planet, and everything I've heard and seen indicates that organic empires don't need to grow as large or maintain as high a population on their growth planets.

I know in theory machines have the advantage of not being negatively affected by carrying capacity, but it seems like carrying capacity generally determines how you build your planets, rather than acting as a limitation on growth. It's not that hard to maintain the full bonus (whatever it ends up being) on the vast majority of planets.

 

[Critical Ethics]

Why was it made so easy? Why was empire cohesion removed?

The complaint I heard about empire cohesion is that people found pirate whack a mole unfun. So it's baffling that the response was to remove empire cohesion and then introduce a new mechanic that also generated pirate whack a mole.

I like space pirates as a concept but I wish the space pirates were smarter about their space pirating.

 

[OgMummbles]

Planetary resources are limited to Countering empire sprawl, Consumer goods, and Alloys, with a sprinkling of EC. i haven't needed a planet for minerals in a long time, every planet ends up being replaced by ring worlds asap so i can ignore them for long periods.

Sadly, no longer able to play this way.

 

[OgMummbles]

The complaint I heard about empire cohesion is that people found pirate whack a mole unfun. So it's baffling that the response was to remove empire cohesion and then introduce a new mechanic that also generated pirate whack a mole.

I like space pirates as a concept but I wish they were smarter about their space pirating.

You still get pirate whack a mole with the trade routes, but people like that i guess lol. I currently can't stand playing bio empires simply because of the consumer goods to research and trade routes. Research should cost EC, just like machine empires, maybe Bio empires would compete tech wise if they changed this.

 

[GrandJM]

Please consider clerks producing +1 administrative capacity

I would rather like that clerks produce some kind of galactic credit, which you have to use to buy resources from the market.

 

[CantGetNoSleep]

I'M ENJOYING THE GAME AGAIN WITH THIS UPDATE!!!!

Sorry for the caps, but I'm so happy I want to shout. It provides a totally new/different challenge to the previous game - with colonies under size 10 no longer being nerfed as badly, you ramp up a lot quicker, but resources are more of a challenge than ever. But most importantly, the late game is back. I can now grow pops to 2000+++ with some management, etc. LOVE IT!! Thanks devs.

 

[sterrius]

• [Balance] Reduced the number of Clerk jobs provided by buildings and districts by 40%.
• [Balance] Clerk trade value has been increased to 4. "

Is the Race on the photo using thrift? Because 4 trade value x 3 clerks to me = 12 , not 15. (Also weird for amenities end up with 7 instead of 6).
Would be nice if clerks gave +1 amenitie per clerk (for a total of 9). To make the commercial building somewhat competitive with the holo theater in planets where you don´t need a ton of amenities.



Now my humble opinion.
In games where you increase the cost of Unity and Technology. Something i like because it does slow down the tech rush at least to the mid game and does make ascension perks harder to get.

Im now really thinking in using the clerk jobs i get from residences to boost my unit production.

Using the trade policy to transform half my trade value in Unity i can get 2 units per clerk.
A culture work give me 3 unitys + Society but use a building slot + consumer goods.

And on top of unity still gives me some amenities and energy. Things i can actually use to delay the use of a Holo-Theatre for a few more pops.
Not a priority job by any means, but if energy is not a problem i can see myself using it.