Stellaris Dev Diary #211: 3.0.3 Beta Updates

[Magnificate]

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?

 

[Cymsdale]

Not turning off every clerk job will still be bad, but it will be slightly less bad now.

 

[Olterin]

Except that this makes clear that the artificial pop limitation is here to stay. If they wanted to get rid of it, they'd have done it.

Introducing a slider is likely the death knell for any meaningful revision of the concept, since now all criticism can simply be waived by pointing out that the system is optional.

From where I stand, this dev diary is strictly bad news for anyone hoping for a different approach to economic balance.

From the dev diary: "We're continuing to make adjustments to the current population growth systems in the game, and are exploring additional changes. Some of these are longer term initiatives, however, so in the meantime we're currently adding a quality of life feature that many people have been asking for."

If I'm not mistaken, this means that more radical solutions than tweaking numbers are being explored, but nowhere near testable. This is good news, not bad! Saves a bit of tedium of tweaking those values via modding ... provided those sliders go far enough, of course.

 

[AlphaAsh]

Except that this makes clear that the artificial pop limitation is here to stay. If they wanted to get rid of it, they'd have done it.

Introducing a slider is likely the death knell for any meaningful revision of the concept, since now all criticism can simply be waived by pointing out that the system is optional.

From where I stand, this dev diary is strictly bad news for anyone hoping for a different approach to economic balance.

No. This is acknowledging the fact that infinite pops kills performance, but that some players will ignore this reality and instead nag about performance improvements that cannot be made.

Now you have control, and those players can finally shut up.

 

[Alech]

I'm very surprised by the empire-pop-slider... What's the lowest setting? 0!?

 

[Ninking]

Looking good, but I feel like the text for the new slider is quite unspecific. Would a factor of 1.0 be the default vanilla value, for example? And would a factor of 0 mean that there's instant growth..?

"Growth Required Scaling: This controls how much growth is required for each pop in the empire. The higher it is, the slower pops will grow"

 

[Tech Noir Synth]

I'm really loving those Clerk changes. Going from 2 to 4 trade value makes them a lot more viable than before. Looking forward to testing them out!

Multiplying 0 with something still stays 0. Clerk viability is exactly 0. Always has been.

This comment made me laugh.

Seriously, how could anyone think Clerks are better now? The devs just buffed starting ressource output for Minerals by 1/4 and Energy/Food ressource output by 1/6. And ontop of that you are getting all your % bonuses. And you will be getting them even earlier since you need less pops for your Capital buildings.

Please, do the math.

 

[Alech]

When will the beta-branch update?

 

[Iosue Yu]

But can we have it that Charismatic Pops don't flock to become Clerks when there are other jobs available?

 

[Cronos988]

If I'm not mistaken, this means that more radical solutions than tweaking numbers are being explored, but nowhere near testable. This is good news, not bad! Saves a bit of tedium of tweaking those values via modding ... provided those sliders go far enough, of course.

"Adjustments" and "additional changes" does not at all sound like they're considering removing any of the new mechanics in favour of an alternative approach.

This is of course a question of your personal assessment of the development team. But it seems clear to me that the more time is spend adjusting the rest of the economy to the new growth (as they continue to do), the less likely any major change gets.

Now you have control, and those players can finally shut up.

Because shutting down discussion is always great for quality.

 

[arosenberger14]

If anything, I'd like to see planetary and empire-wide curves being separate settings on the game start. Being able to turn off completely illogical empire-wide malus and tune up planetary one will be perfect and very desirable solution for a lot of people.

That's... what this update does. You can turn it off by setting the modifier to 0 in the screenshot. And tune the planetary curve.

Also, the "completely illogical empire-wide malus" is already atop a completely illogical growth bonus you get from every new planet you colonize. The whole system is completely illogical, what matters more is how it plays.

What track would that be? More planets and more income?

Fixing how bad clerks are, improving the economic AI, and letting people adjust the empire-wide malus to acount for things like galaxy size, etc...

Baby steps to be sure, but at least in the right direction. At this point though the system needs more than band aids, but I'll take them over nothing.

Except that this makes clear that the artificial pop limitation is here to stay. If they wanted to get rid of it, they'd have done it.

Introducing a slider is likely the death knell for any meaningful revision of the concept, since now all criticism can simply be waived by pointing out that the system is optional.

From where I stand, this dev diary is strictly bad news for anyone hoping for a different approach to economic balance.

From the looks of the screenshot you can set it to 0.

 

[Promethian]

Just to make sure I understand what I am reading.

Logistic Growth Ceiling is the pop threshold when growth points needed per pop starts to increase.
Growth Required Scaling is how much the increase to growth points needed per pop is when going over the previously mentioned Logistic Growth Ceiling.

Correct?

 

[Pornek]

Because shutting down discussion is always great for quality.

Giving in to a demand seems like a good way to shut down discussion.

 

[Saluki.exe]

You can't say that they haven't listened to us and tried to fix the situation. This looks very promising. Great work guys!

 

[iniudan]

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

It still give more job then every others buildings and now they are actually ok at producing consumer good at all species rights level, as even wasteful species clerk under utopian abundance are at least cutting even with the job now.

 

[NHunter_rus]

Just to make sure I understand what I am reading.

Logistic Growth Ceiling is the pop threshold when growth points needed per pop starts to increase.
Growth Required Scaling is how much the increase to growth points needed per pop is when going over the previously mentioned Logistic Growth Ceiling.

Correct?

I *think* logistics growth ceiling is how much being in the middle of the curve can buff (base)growth. And Growth required scaling is how much more growth you need per already existing pop to grow/assemble? a new one

 

[grommile]

Just to make sure I understand what I am reading.

Logistic Growth Ceiling is the pop threshold when growth points needed per pop starts to increase.
Growth Required Scaling is how much the increase to growth points needed per pop is when going over the previously mentioned Logistic Growth Ceiling.

Correct?

Logistic growth ceiling is how big your bonus to pop growth points per month from the per-planet pops vs. capacity calculation is allowed to be.

Growth Required Scaling is how much every pop you own increases the empire-wide modifier to the number of pop growth points needed to spawn a new pop.

 

[InvisibleBison]

Clerk trade value has been increased to 4.

This might be somewhat competitive with other worker jobs early on, especially when you figure in the amenity the clerk produces, but if you want trade to remain viable in the long run you need to add techs that increase its output.

 

[sillyrobot]

Just to make sure I understand what I am reading.

Logistic Growth Ceiling is the pop threshold when growth points needed per pop starts to increase.
Growth Required Scaling is how much the increase to growth points needed per pop is when going over the previously mentioned Logistic Growth Ceiling.

Correct?

Probably not.

Logistic growth refers to the planetary growth changes where if the capacity is high enough and your population is at about half capacity, you get a+3 growth bonus which sort-of falls off as pop rises towards capacity. So the ceiling probably refers to the max bonus.

Growth required scaling refers to the empire-wide malus. It controls how much each pop contributes to the next pop growth threshold.

 

[AlphaAsh]

...Because shutting down discussion is always great for quality.

Nagging for performance improvements that can't be had isn't discussion. It's just nagging.