Stellaris Dev Diary #211: 3.0.3 Beta Updates

[Critical Ethics]

You still get pirate whack a mole with the trade routes, but people like that i guess lol.

That's what I mean, they got rid of cohesion but kept the pirate whack a mole, what was, as far as I could tell, people's biggest objection to cohesion.

Why doesn't crime increase piracy?

Why doesn't piracy increase crime?

Why do pirates blow up my mines so I have to go kill them straight away instead of just making a pirate base and hanging around beside my mines eating some of the resources and producing crime on nearby planets so I keep putting off dealing with them because I'm busy and next thing I know they've split off into a little sub-empire of raiders and I've no-one to blame but myself?

 

[maxirage]

You still get pirate whack a mole with the trade routes, but people like that i guess lol.

They most certainly not. There is reason why the current meta is to spam collection range on your capital and nowhere else. It's the only way to get rid of piracy.

 

[Kommunist Fried Chicken]

(Also weird for amenities end up with 7 instead of 6).

2.5*3=7.5, I suppose.
But cannot rule out the possibility that it is a localisation bug, in my memory, there is a wrong tooltip in the building production, but I haven't confirm this.

 

[OgMummbles]

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

I find it pretty pointless as well, but it is fun to sit there and nix all the resolutions. Also to boost my technology output, and spawn those lovely endgame guys early.

 

[OgMummbles]

2.5*3=7.5, I suppose.
But cannot rule out the possibility that it is a localisation bug, in my memory, there is a wrong tooltip in the building production, but I haven't confirm this.

You have to take in stability and other boons to production as well, it is probably accurate.

 

[klopkr]

It's already far too easy to deal with Empire Sprawl.

Makes me wonder if administrative buildings were just a per planet building that when fully upgraded and expensive gave you something like 95% of your sprawl from that planet back what that would look like. Getting rid of the idea of ever getting rid of sprawl for expansion but enough that you can reduce it.

 

[snowy801]

They most certainly not. There is reason why the current meta is to spam collection range on your capital and nowhere else. It's the only way to get rid of piracy.

Gateways though

 

[GeorgieBest]

Aww, rest in pepperoni good old "build me to solve your unemployment problems" trade center.

I prefer the trade centre actually be worth building though - this is a nice change.

 

[Valentin Vattista]

I actually preferred the way all those buildings worked in 3.0.1. So, this is how it feels like when Paradox does something you don't enjoy ?

 

[Valentin Vattista]

Excellent changes with the Clerks and the buildings!

As for jobs that need balancing, would you mind taking a look at Nobles? I enjoy the noble civic very much on the conceptual level, but I can't justify myself taking it due to mechanics.

Perhaps some of the civics could also use some rebalancing as the beta continues? Perhaps make Meritocracy weaker by splitting the Specialist +10% bonus into Specialists +5% and Rulers +5%? Perhaps buff Philosopher King by giving it a slight bonus to Influence production? Perhaps stop with the silly 75% Shadow Council cost reduction and make influencing elections free? Or decrease the bonus to 50% but make it apply to Galactic Community favours interactions as well as elections?

It should be at least 2 nobles per estates, for example. And nobles should provide amenities as well, or increase slave production

 

[Mastikator]

I actually preferred the way all those buildings worked in 3.0.1. So, this is how it feels like when Paradox does something you don't enjoy ?

 

[Kamis51]

good job sloder Solomon's solution

 

[CountAccountant]

• [Balance] Buildings that increased basic resource production and added jobs to basic resource producing buildings or districts (Energy Grids, Mineral Purification Plants, etc.) now increase the base production of the relevant jobs by 1 or 2 based on tier instead of their previous modifiers. Machine empires still gain the extra resource district slots as before.

I appreciate this change. I often have a hard time understanding how different percentage bonuses interact (usually additive, but sometimes multiplicative, with some additive percentage bonuses compounding and others not) By midgame I usually have no idea how much any percentage bonus will actually increase production, and that makes meaningful decisions between competing priorities difficult. The new system is much easier for me to visualize and use for making quick decisions.

I've also been impressed by the dev response and open beta changes post-release. I know it isn't fun to work hard on something and then receive such a strong negative reaction from the people you made it for. The open beta changes have gone a long way towards softening the circumstances that led to my own unpleasant first experience with 3.0.

Most of all, I appreciate the option to further soften or disable the most controversial new mechanic without rolling back to a previous version or resorting to mods. That gives me the tools I need to explore all of the positive aspects of 3.0 and experiment with the new mechanics, with the comfort of knowing I can turn those mechanics off entirely if they end up being too much for me to accept.

 

[Shoobs]

To answer a handful of questions that have been asked:

• Patch notes for the bug fixes the latest beta will include should come out alongside when the beta updates.
• The update to the beta will come Soon™, but I can't say when!
• Logistic Growth Ceiling = How much extra growth you gain from the population of the planet. (Currently capped at +3 in the open beta.)
• Growth Required Scaling = How much the growth (or assembly) increases by per Pop you have in your empire. (Currently 0.25x in the open beta.)

The fact that primitives don't work for me and the update is *soon* annoys me immensely. I don't care about anything else than to get primitives to not screw over ai surveying along with my own.

 

[Valentin Vattista]

I get the need to reduce jobs, but why remove the ability to specialize planets using the tier 2 resource buildings? I loved that they essentially doubled the basic resource job. It felt like I was truly exploiting the planet, squeezing in more farms or digging deeper mines. Incremental changes to production numbers just feels... lackluster. Not exciting.

Also, something that has always confused me: why has food been removed completely from pop growth? Maybe I am dumb and am missing something, but having excess stores of food seems to be pointless nowadays, since we still don't have the planatery decision to dump that food into a planet to boost growth there. All food seems to be good for is selling in bulk for less and less energy. Food just feels useless beyond ensuring you are producing a positive net result for population maintenance. I get the feeling logistical pop growth is supposed to represent, in some form, the limits of being able to feed and support a population, but the immersion falls apart every time I have reached max food storage and dump all of it into the market without any noticeable effects. Just... weird.

I agree so much, it is actually impossible for me to agree more.

 

[Valentin Vattista]

Anything on balancing, min-maxing or adding to the current espionage system besides the latest beta build? Espionage was a key feature in the last DLC and it feels more like a niche system which has very low to none impact. Your thoughts on the current system would be very interesting.

It should go faster and have more impact. The station sabotage in particular should at least downgrade the station in question due to how long it takes.

 

[Haroom]

I understand that people who are capable of playing through an entire campaign in half a week have too many jobs in their game but I actually enjoy micromanagement, and in my experience there are, if anything, too few jobs. In the lategame I am more often than not bottlenecked by the available amount of rare resources (refinery jobs = building slots) in my empire. Shortages of technician and miner jobs (through inavailability of sufficient districts to power the empire's massive economy) can also occur after beating the endgame crisis. This has also been the case on 3.0.1, and i'm pretty sure that it would have/will become the case in my ongoing 3.0.3 playthrough, which I have as of yet been unable to provide feedback about, because i am actually taking the time for proper strategic execution.

I would like the mechanics of automatic resettlement to actually be explained, and perhaps for it to receive sliders like those introduced for the growth mechanics, if the devs intend for me to rely on this mechanic in order to balance my empire's economy in an optimal fashion. Until then i'll have to move all my people manually, and lose a civic slot for the privlege.

I would also very much appreciate if I could generate enough rare resources to power my advanced buildings and megastructure districts without having to devote just about every single building slot i have to this pursuit.

Lastly, while I'm venting, it would be great if Clone Vats could cease to be locked behind biological ascension, so that psionically ascended empires are no longer denied the opportunity to participate in the pop assembly bonanza.

 

[Pornek]

I actually preferred the way all those buildings worked in 3.0.1. So, this is how it feels like when Paradox does something you don't enjoy ?

The trick is to assume that every change by the devs is a new challenge which you have to solve.

 

[Echo Candor One]

So don't put it there in your playthroughs!

You can put all kinds of broken setups into galaxy gen. 25x crisis + 5x tech cost + .25x habitables + minimum midgame+endgame dates is infinitely more broken than 0x empire-wide penalty, but the game is quite happy to let you do it.

Well, now I want to see if this is playable / winnable.

 

[mial42]

The trick is to assume that every change by the devs is a new challenge which you have to solve.

That's how I view it. Every change is something to solve via modding.