Stellaris Dev Diary #211: 3.0.3 Beta Updates

[gamerk2]

Thanks!

PS: FIRST TIME? Now that's astonishing...

Most of us play only with mods; base Stellaris has a laundry list of problems and oversights. I don't think I ever played without mods aside from launch day and when 3.0.1 hit.

 

[Ferrus Animus]

Most of us play only with mods; base Stellaris has a laundry list of problems and oversights. I don't think I ever played without mods aside from launch day and when 3.0.1 hit.

I usually play one game pure vanilla after each big expansion.

Mods make it much much more interesting,

 

[Larva]

Most of us play only with mods; base Stellaris has a laundry list of problems and oversights. I don't think I ever played without mods aside from launch day and when 3.0.1 hit.

I can hardly believe that 'most' part, but that depends on who we define 'us'. I for one never played with mods - and don't feel like I'll ever will (aside maaaaaaybe from pure cosmetics, which I don't even count as mods)

 

[makapse]

I can hardly believe that 'most' part, but that depends on who we define 'us'. I for one never played with mods - and don't feel like I'll ever will (aside maaaaaaybe from pure cosmetics, which I don't even count as mods)

You will start playing with mods when you notice you can easily beat grand admiral because the AI cant handle its eco game and self suicides.

 

[Tirion1987]

A few notes:

Federations endlessly vote to switch free migration on/off
Federation Fleet Construction law "President Only" does not work, members still keep constructing their crappy destroyers for it
GDF fleet construction reaching Titan cap has broken UI tooltip
Planet desingation icons are glitched when set manually
Forge World and Hive World Foundry initial bonuses are identical but only Forge World gets additional bonuses from galactic laws
There is no Forge Ringworld desingation for Hive Minds

 

[tremor3258]

I've also seen a Federation constantly swapping free migration - and the AI all vote to turn it off to preserve cohesion and then immediately opened migratory treaties with each other.

Then they vote to turn it on once they can, and then go back to step one off cooldown.

 

[HavariggaHorde]

• [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.
• [Balance] Manufacturing focus buildings (factories and foundries) no longer prevent the other from being built on non-Ecumenopolis planets, and no longer add jobs to Industrial Districts. They instead increase the base production of alloy or consumer goods producing jobs by 1 or 2, with a corresponding increase in upkeep.
• Balancing the number of jobs and their output will be an ongoing task, expect future updates to have additional changes.

These all seem like positive incremental changes. Sounds good!

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

These changes seem OK, but I'm not sure if they'll go far enough to really save Clerks in the court of public opinion/meta. I don't know what would, of course - and I think working on them is certainly better than not working on them - but I guess it remains to be seen.

On the subject of "logistic growth", I surely can't be the only person who don't really understands what that means and how it works. Pop growth I think we all get, but what's logistic growth when it's at home?
At any rate I'm a fan of sliders!

I'm not sure if this has been answered already, so please ignore if that's the case. "Logistic growth" means growth according to a logistic curve rather than a linear one. I won't dive into the mathematics, but this it boils down to this:

The result is slower pop growth at the start, then faster, then slowing down again. The ceiling is the number where the curve flattens at the top, in this example image the value 1. The growth required scaling probably affects how far the logistic function is 'squeezed' to the left (increasing growth at the start, but also slowing down sooner) or expanded towards the right.

As you can imagine looking at these graphs, the linear function can just keep increasing as time (the x-axis) goes on. With the logistic function, there is a limit on the maximum value (1 in this picture, but in Stellaris it would be a much larger value for the number of pops in your planet/empire). The advantage is that it is not just a hard cap, where your pop growth goes from its normal rate to 0 at once, but the growth decreases more gradually.

 

[Airvh]

For the Devs:

Thank you for all the changes you make to the game. The whole game is totally different from the original and knowing there are big changes that happen from time to time makes me want to play another game just to see how I do.

 

[Colonizor48]

A few notes:

Federations endlessly vote to switch free migration on/off
Federation Fleet Construction law "President Only" does not work, members still keep constructing their crappy destroyers for it
GDF fleet construction reaching Titan cap has broken UI tooltip
Planet desingation icons are glitched when set manually
Forge World and Hive World Foundry initial bonuses are identical but only Forge World gets additional bonuses from galactic laws
There is no Forge Ringworld desingation for Hive Minds

bruh

 

[Darkhawk]

Regarding the 2 new pop growth sliders in the beta, is '1.5x' and '0.25x' the default values the developers think it should be, or are these the 'old' default values? Because I've run with two pop growth focused empires in the beta now, using those values, and I actually managed to cram MORE pops out than usual. Might be other things have changed under the hood or in my strategies, that would be cool, but I suspect 1.5x and 0.25x correlate to the old defaults? And if so, what 'should' these values be set to, to get in line with the finished release/the dev vision?

 

[Moonspring]

The old values in 3.0.2 are '2x' and '0.5x'.
'1.5x' and '0.25x' are new values.

Getting more Pops is intended. Max Pop growth is reduced by 25%, but the growth curve is reduced by 50%.

 

[Tisifoni12]

If it's about population why's it called 'Logistic Growth Ceiling' and 'Growth Required Scaling' ? Je ne comprends pas it is so labelled ?

 

[malakhglitch]

If it's about population why's it called 'Logistic Growth Ceiling' and 'Growth Required Scaling' ? Je ne comprends pas it is so labelled ?

It's called the logistic growth ceiling because it caps the logistic function, or s-shaped growth. Growth required is a game mechanic whose base value is 100, which is then scaled by the value of growth required scaling.

 

[Tisifoni12]

It's called the logistic growth ceiling because it caps the logistic function, or s-shaped growth. Growth required is a game mechanic whose base value is 100, which is then scaled by the value of growth required scaling.

Uh ! ?

So swipe right to increase population growth and left to reduce, or vice versa ?

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Uh ! ?

So swipe right to increase population growth and left to reduce, or vice versa ?

Here's what I posted on reddit earlier this morning:

Logistic Growth Ceiling: The maximum amount of growth a colony gains for the population being in the "sweet spot" of the carrying capacity. At 1x there is no bonus growth from the population (so a maximum growth of +3.00), at 1.5x (default) the bonus growth caps at +1.50 (so a maximum growth of +4.50), at 2x the bonus growth caps at +3.00 (so a maximum growth of +6.00).

Growth Required Scaling: The amount the the pop growth (or pop assembly) required to create a new pop increases by for every pop in your empire. Prior to 3.0, this was 0x and each pop required 100 growth/assembly. The default is 0.25x, so each pop will increase the growth/assembly required by 0.25. At the maximum (of 1x), each pop will increase the growth/assembly required by 1.

 

[Tisifoni12]

@Alfray Stryke
Very helpful. I will have to cut and paste that and keep it.

 

[Phantom9]

Hi, everyone
i have a problem with the Stellaris New Horizons Mod. It suddenly start crashing at start up. I played it 3 days ago and today it just crashed. I went to the crash file and it is filled with a lot of faults. I will try to send the crash rapport. Maybe someone can help.
Thank you.

 

[der.mo]

Hi, so first as always thanks to you for the awesome game and the interaction with the players!

In regard to your ongoing efforts to further boost the Game performance i would like to give you another 2 ideas to balance the resource output for games with reduced pop growth.

Couldn't you just add a modifier which boosts pop output based on how many pops there are in the Empire ? I mean if you would adjust the growth slider to add 1 required growth per Pop in the empire couldn't you also add 1% more output to every pop (and maybe 2% for pops living on Ringworlds, Habitats and Ecumenopoli) this would mean that if the pops need double the time to grow as you reach 100 pops they will also have double the output. This would help to reduce the awfull feeling of stagnation in the mid to lategame if you enable the growth scaling.

Also this could be made adjustable as the grwoth scaling itself (or just linked to said scaling) maybe adding no bonus at all as 0, 1% per pop as default and up to 3 or 4% per pop. Also this bonus should only apply to the main species to nerf xenophile and slaver builds a little.

Also maybe "automated" districts/ buildings which produce resources without pops (just as the fallen Empires buildings) for Habitats, Ringworlds and maybe Ecumenopoli would be an option since they would benefit all playstyles and significantly reduce the number of pops needed. This would also create a star-trek-esk feeling of unlimeted automated resource production. So maybe in the future Ringworlds and habitats could just have "colonist" or "inhabitant" jobs adding stability, unity and maybe science while the automated districts provide minerals, energy, alloys, consumer goods and food...

I hope you will read and consider this since the stagnation feels even more awfull as the lategame Lag... But otherwhise i really enjoy the game with its almost endless possibilities.

Thank you and best regards
der.mo98

 

[Bankipriel]

I can hardly believe that 'most' part, but that depends on who we define 'us'. I for one never played with mods - and don't feel like I'll ever will (aside maaaaaaybe from pure cosmetics, which I don't even count as mods)

The #1 current & up-to-date subscribed mod on Steam has 362, 435 subscribers. I use 40+ mods, but do *not* use that #1 mod, so I imagine there are probably at *least* 400k mod users on steam . . . or I guess 362k if you want to be as conservative as possible. Plus all the non-steam users that go through Nexus, which IMHO is probably not a small number.

I have no idea how many individuals play Stellaris, but it seems like somewhere probably well north of 1/2 million people play with mods.

Most? Maybe not, but it's definitely a *lot* of people.

 

[Ferrus Animus]

The #1 current & up-to-date subscribed mod on Steam has 362, 435 subscribers.

And it is an UI overhaul mod, the third most subscribed one is also an UI overhaul mod with 353,471 subscribers, probably not overlapping much.