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Stellaris Dev Diary #221 - Balance and Quality of Life Improvements

Hey folks, I’m @Alfray Stryke, a member of the QA team for Stellaris. As part of the Custodians’ work on the 3.1 “Lem” patch, as mentioned in Dev Diary #215, the team has done a balance and Quality of Life pass on various features throughout the game and we’d like to highlight some of the more harder hitting changes. This is not a complete list of all changes, and may contain some not-final numbers. As a reminder, the changes to the Necroids Species Pack were covered in Dev Diary #216, and all of these changes will also be included in the Lem update.

Void Dwellers

We’ve been aware that the implementation of Void Dwellers of having two separate traits, one positive and one negative resulted in behaviour that we weren’t happy with - in particular being able to gene-mod the negative aspects of the trait out of existence. To solve this we’ve made some changes to how the traits work:

  • There is now only a single Void Dweller trait, so it can’t be exploited via genetic modification of your species.
  • The modifiers on the trait itself have changed, previously it gave:
    • +15% Resources from Worker and Specialist jobs & -10% growth speed (for the positive version)
    • -60% growth speed (for the negative version)
  • The new version of the trait is now:
    • +15% Pop Resource Output on Habitats.
    • -15% Pop Resource Output on Non-Artificial Worlds.
    • -10% Growth Speed
    • -30% Happiness on Non-Artificial Worlds.

Void Dweller.png

The new, improved, Void Dweller trait with its modifiers.

What this means is your Void Dwellers pops are most productive and happiest on habitats, have their bonuses removed on ringworlds and have production and happiness penalties if they settle on planets (best to leave those for immigrants or robots!)

Shattered Ring

So before you grab your plasma-pitchforks (yes, plasma-pitchforks are canon now), rebalancing the Shattered Ring origin is something the team has been discussing for a while. We’ve gone through various iterations on decreasing the initial power of the origin, while keeping the player fantasy that it provides in mind and eventually settled on having the progression of the Shattered Ring resemble that of the Remnants origin.

Shattered Ring.png

The Voor Technocracy, showing off the Shattered Ringworld Segment as a homeworld.

The shattered ring itself supports the following district types:
  • City, Hive & Nexus - housing depending on your empire type.
  • Industrial - where valuable consumer goods and alloys can be manufactured.
  • Trade - where clerks turn a tidy profit and artisans run their workshops.
  • Generator (not pictured) - where hive-minds and machine intelligence power their infrastructure. Note that Generator and Trade districts swap depending on the owner of the Shattered Ring, much like Commercial and Generator Segments on a ringworld.
  • Agricultural - where food is grown for those that eat it.
  • Mining - more on that in a moment...

Once all the rubble has been cleared out, there’s space for 25 of these districts.

So you might be wondering, “Are those mining districts on my ringworld? What am I mining?”

Well dear reader, the answer is the ring itself!

Mining District.png

Mining districts, aka tunnels filled with valuable minerals and alloys.

As a civilization that has only known life on the ring prior to achieving spaceflight, the only resources available to you were those that made up the ringworld itself. Luckily ruined ringworlds are massive and can spare some missing broken materials without falling into their local sun.

As such your mining district on the shattered ring replaces the regular miner jobs with scrap miner jobs with a base job output of 2 minerals and 1 alloy per month.

Of course, as was alluded to above, we wanted the progression for the shattered ring to resemble that of the relic world from the Remnants origin. So once you’ve cleared all the debris from the shattered ring and researched the appropriate technology you can repair it into a fully functioning ringworld segment.

Repair Shattered Ring.png

Of course, sometimes a bit of home repair work needs to be done.

Upon completion of this monumental task, the districts on the shattered ring are upgraded into their respective ringworld districts at a 5:1 ratio - so 5 agricultural districts become 1 agricultural segment. Since fixing up the ring means you’ll no longer be clearing out material, the mining districts are removed and the ability to construct research segments is added.

Ecumenopolis QoL Changes

Something we’ve received a lot of feedback on is that when a world is transformed into an Ecumenopolis is the assignment of industrial districts.

Prior to 3.1, all of the industrial districts were assumed to be devoted to alloy production and thus converted into foundry arcologies. No more, in 3.1 industrial districts will convert based off of the planetary designation:

  • With the “Foundry World” designation, industrial districts will convert into foundry arcologies, at a 2:1 ratio
  • With the “Factory World” designation, industrial districts will convert into factory arcologies, at a 2:1 ratio.
  • With any other designation, including the “Industrial World” designation, industrial districts will convert into both foundry and factory arcologies, at a 4:1:1 ratio.

Relic World.png

Earth, a bygone relic of a time long past, ready to be restored anew.

Ecumenopolis.png

Earth, restored anew! Note that the local governing algorithm did not assume all industrial capabilities should be focused on supporting the Custodianship Navy.

Another change we’ve implemented is the Arcology Project ascension perk and decision to restore relic worlds into ecumenopolises is now accessible to Rogue Servitors. In addition, the leisure arcologies that would normally be present have been repurposed for housing bio-trophies in luxurious towering arcologies.

Sanctuary Arcology.png

Pampering will be provided at Floor 314, Room 15 at 9:26 am.


Assorted QoL Changes

As mentioned above, the planetary designation for consumer goods has been renamed to Factory World, because we’ve added an Industrial World designation.

Industrial Designations.png

Multiple planetary designations for your various needs

The new Industrial World designation is ideal for planets where you don’t want to focus the Industrial districts on a single job type, instead providing a minor upkeep discount to both Artisan and Metallurgist jobs.

Industrial World.png

Industrial World Designation

Both Hive Worlds and Machine Worlds have gained an additional bonus to bring them more in line with Gaia Worlds. Hive Worlds now have +1 innate Spawning Drone job and Machine Worlds now have +1 innate Replicator job. The Machine World given by the Resource Consolidation origin starts with a blocker which will need to be cleared to unlock the Replicator job.

Hive World.png
Machine World.png


Subversive Cults (MegaCorps with both Gospel of the Masses and Criminal Syndicate) no longer have access to the Temple of Prosperity. Instead, they can now establish a Subversive Shrine in their branch offices - increasing both Spiritualist ethics attraction and crime on the planet.

Subversive Shrine.png

Subversive Shrine Tooltip.png

Subvert expectations with deals so good they’re criminal!

With that I’ll pass things over to @Gruntsatwork to discuss some of the changes we’ve made to civics!

----

Hello everyone. I am one of Game Designers currently working on Stellaris and on the Custodian Team. While we have been busy with radical changes here and there, new civics and origins, we also wanted to have some more tame but no less important balance changes for our already existing civics, specifically for our outliers and those we felt under- or especially over-utilized.

The following lists all the civics we felt needed a substantial lift up
Regular Empires
  • Beacon of Liberty: Gave +15% produced Unity -> Now ALSO also gives -15% Empire Sprawl from Pops
  • Imperial Cult: Gave +1 Edict cap -> Now gives +2 Edict cap
  • Idealistic Foundation: Gave +5% Happiness -> Now gives +10% Happiness
  • Environmentalist: Gave -10% Consumer Goods Upkeep -> Now gives -20% Consumer Goods Upkeep
  • Parliamentary System: Gave +25% Faction Influence -> Now gives +40% Faction Influence
  • Efficient Bureaucracy: Gave +10% Admin Cap -> Now gives +20% Admin Cap
  • Nationalistic Zeal: Gave -10% War Exhaustion Gain and -10% Claim Cost -> Now gives -20% War Exhaustion Gain and -15% Claim Cost
  • Functional Architecture: Gave -10% Building and District Cost, -10% Building and District Upkeep and +1 Building Slot -> Now gives -15% Building and District Cost, +2 Building Slots, Upkeep reduction removed
Hive-Minds
  • Subspace Ephase: Gave +15% Naval Capacity -> Now gives +20% Ship Speed and ALSO gives +15% Naval Capacity
  • Divided Attention: Gave +10% Admin Cap -> Now gives +20% Admin Cap
Machine Intelligences
  • Constructobot: Gave -10% Building and District Cost, -10% Building and District Upkeep and +1 Building Slot -> Now gives -15% Building and District Cost, +2 Building Slots, Upkeep reduction removed
We hope those changes, while strictly number tweaks, will give those civics a breath of fresh air and increase their appeal to the wider player-base because, “oh, shiny new numbers” is one hell of a drug.

Now sadly, only strengthening the civics we felt undervalued or under-used doesn’t solve all issues, so we also introduced some slight nerfs to the 2(3) biggest offenders in terms of being “must have” civics.
  • Slaver Guilds : Reduced enslaved population from 40% to 35%
  • Indentured Assets: Reduced enslaved population from 40% to 35% (Megacorp civic)
  • Technocracy: Added 1 Consumer Goods upkeep to Scientist Jobs that create unity because of Technocracy

As you can tell, for the slaver guild civics, this change is relatively minor, compared to the Technocracy nerf. The goal here is to make those 3 civics slightly less good. We have no intention of nerfing them into the ground. Our goal here is to move them from “the best pick, every time” to “could be best pick, depending on circumstances”.

We will be following your feedback here and over all other platforms very closely as well as our own telemetry and we will keep adjusting and tweaking the civics as we go on.

As an extra note, we know that there are several other civics that definitely need a pick me up, we will be looking into them as well, but not for the Lem update.

That’s everything from us this week! Thanks for reading and we’ll be back next week diving into more changes in the Lem Update.
 
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Thanks for your reply, by 2 years I meant that you'll have enough minerals after building your first building to clear the blocker if you wish to. I do it after 3 buildings.



Consider the story that Stellaris tells. Those who originally built the ringworld dedicated massive areas to research, among other things. Dedicated areas for research is unique to Ringworlds and Habitats, ordinary planets don't have that. Now there's a civilization that is on a shattered part of this ringworld (half the size based on the size 25 planet in the screenshot). But a "shattered part" of the ringworld should still have the features of a ringworld, right? Maybe they are districts with 2 jobs instead of segments of 10. Which is fine. So we get the commercial, agriculture and all other districts. We also get the feature to mine the ringworld itself for alloys and minerals. The story is consistent so far. But this civilization on this shattered ringworld, half the size of a regular ringworld, doesn't find absolutely any of the massive areas dedicated to research.
Why? Because paradox wants that players should spend 500 + 400 minerals and 28 months for creating two new researcher jobs, and only having to spend 500 minerals and 16 months would be too OP. Meanwhile Resource Consolidation is allowed to do it for 400 minerals and 12 months and paradox does not consider it OP.
That is the only reason why this civilization on this shattered ringworld, which is able to utilize the commercial, agricultural and every other area of the shattered ringworld, is not able to utilize the research areas at all. This is my complain. It would be immersion breaking and counter intuitive for me to build research labs on a shattered ringworld.

If the origin says it is a shattered ringworld, but excludes the things that sets a ringworld apart from all other planets, then it is just a regular planet dressed in the clothing of a ringworld.
And for what? Balance? The origins have never been about balance, but different stories that can be told. Some are very powerful. Some are very difficult. So what if with 2 job research districts, a ringworld origin will be able to tech faster than other origins. At least the story would be consistent! This is not Dota or starcraft that has to be balanced for multiplayer. In Stellaris, a consistent storytelling has trumped "balance" everywhere you look. Organics can sell minor artifacts for 500 energy a piece, but gestalts can't because of story reasons. And some civics can assimilate captured pops to really snowball, while other can't and must purge them. Even Void Dwellers, in the original post, whose pop growth comes to a crawl 2 decades into the game due to the carrying capacity changes, has not been "balanced".



What type of special features would you have preferred to see? Have you looked for any mods that extend the origin or add events?
I completely disagree that origins shouldn't be balanced. Imo they should be both balanced and tell a story. If an origin is overpowered or underpowered it heavily limits diversity in even somewhat competitive multiplayer and even to some degree in singleplayer for some people.
 
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Void Dwellers It is still hard to play. If there are not enough raw materials in the first few systems you are dead... The first habitat is too expensive and consumes too much time. The slower population is not offset by higher production. The opponent (ok if you play with easy ai,but you have to be a masochist on harder difficulty level) colonists 2-3 Planets by the time I pull up a one habitat, and I don't get either the planet bonus or the deposit.(Habitat size 4-8 vs 10-25 planet+feature+planet event and bonus). Too much advantage for the opponent AI not to mention multyplayer.

With not Void Dweller empire i am more efficient since i dont get penality on planet and with Habitability tech + Gene Clinic i have same Habitability on habitat so I really just have to build a Habitat where I need to, and dont need robot or other pop for survive, but if you have to rely on other pops or robots on the planets at least get some bonus for it.

The Void Dwellers weak copy of the Crest of the Stars...

I don't understand why you can't benefit from Extensive Moon System/High Quality Minerals with Habitat??? Though these would be the best to take advantage of with it.

Extra: Why are there no origin traditions? or at least unique technologies for origins?
 
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Void Dwellers It is still hard to play. If there are not enough raw materials in the first few systems you are dead... The first habitat is too expensive and consumes too much time. The slower population is not offset by higher production. The opponent (ok if you play with easy ai,but you have to be a masochist on harder difficulty level) colonists 2-3 Planets by the time I pull up a one habitat, and I don't get either the planet bonus or the deposit.(Habitat size 4-8 vs 10-25 planet+feature+planet event and bonus). Too much advantage for the opponent AI not to mention multyplayer.

With not Void Dweller empire i am more efficient since i dont get penality on planet and with Habitability tech + Gene Clinic i have same Habitability on habitat so I really just have to build a Habitat where I need to, and dont need robot or other pop for survive, but if you have to rely on other pops or robots on the planets at least get some bonus for it.

The Void Dwellers weak copy of the Crest of the Stars...

I don't understand why you can't benefit from Extensive Moon System/High Quality Minerals with Habitat??? Though these would be the best to take advantage of with it.

Extra: Why are there no origin traditions? or at least unique technologies for origins?

Void Dwellers are a harder mode to play. They'll be a bit easier once the new content is released, assuming any standard empire can get Adaptability traditions. If so, then you can have Void Dwellers who use Orbital Surveying (Adaptability will probably need to be your 2nd Tradition after Expansion and its 20% cost reduction to Habitats) and have decent Dimplomacy to keep themselves safe diplomatically, until they can build up enough alloy production that having a sizable fleet doesn't mean crippling economic growth and research.
 
I completely disagree that origins shouldn't be balanced. Imo they should be both balanced and tell a story. If an origin is overpowered or underpowered it heavily limits diversity in even somewhat competitive multiplayer and even to some degree in singleplayer for some people.
I'm not speaking of balanced origins as opinion, but the game design as it is. Of the 20 or so origins the game offers, I'm curious to know how many you find balanced.
 
Void Dwellers are a harder mode to play. They'll be a bit easier once the new content is released, assuming any standard empire can get Adaptability traditions. If so, then you can have Void Dwellers who use Orbital Surveying (Adaptability will probably need to be your 2nd Tradition after Expansion and its 20% cost reduction to Habitats) and have decent Dimplomacy to keep themselves safe diplomatically, until they can build up enough alloy production that having a sizable fleet doesn't mean crippling economic growth and research.
Ok, I get it, but the Extensive Moon System/High Quality Minerals/Poor Quality Minerals modifiers why dont give bonus for habitat?
And Habitable planet + habitat why dont give farm district? Why i need other species for planet farming?
In the middle game, it doesn't matter what kind of bonus you get from origin, which should be worth a lot anyway, for by the time you get here you need to have a proper industry. And the 15%bonus for job dont give bonus for secondary bonus like gene center habitability modifier or for noble job amenity bonus or duelist naval cap etc.

sorry my bad enlish, the translator... i don't know how much it gives back what i want to say
 
Ok, I get it, but the Extensive Moon System/High Quality Minerals/Poor Quality Minerals modifiers why dont give bonus for habitat?

That's a good question. They probably should - they don't do anything else otherwise.

And Habitable planet + habitat why dont give farm district? Why i need other species for planet farming?

For thematic reasons. Habitats have no natural ecology, so it takes more infrastructure to produce food.

Phototrophic will be a good trait for Void Dwellers.

In the middle game, it doesn't matter what kind of bonus you get from origin, which should be worth a lot anyway, for by the time you get here you need to have a proper industry. And the 15%bonus for job dont give bonus for secondary bonus like gene center habitability modifier or for noble job amenity bonus or duelist naval cap etc.

sorry my bad enlish, the translator... i don't know how much it gives back what i want to say

The 15% bonus is better than you think, but mostly for Alloy/CG production, which don't get many % bonuses. However, it becomes less impactful for base resource production (minerals/energy/food) by mid game. Research bonuses are always nice and double multiplied, so I wouldn't say it's not worthwhile for research either.

The difficulty with balancing Void Dwellers is that you're never really locked into just being a Void Dweller the whole game unless you specifically play it that way - which is kind of the point of the Origin for many players. However, the fact that Xenophile diplomats establish ties with other empires and populate planets with migration treaties means that it's harder balance.

It's almost as if there should be two versions of the Origin - one that will eventually get Xenos to populate planets alongside Orbitals and one that won't.
 
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I completely disagree that origins shouldn't be balanced. Imo they should be both balanced and tell a story. If an origin is overpowered or underpowered it heavily limits diversity in even somewhat competitive multiplayer and even to some degree in singleplayer for some people.

Here's the base conflict: Stellaris is a game that tells stories. It is also a strategy game. With this Shattered Ring rework we see an attempt to balance the origin for the strategy part while completely ruining the story part of it. As a lot of people play it for the story (especially SP given the current state of the AI) and the stories are literally what the game is advertised for both by Paradox and by word of mouth, this is seen as a poor trade by them.

In addition Stellaris is not balanced. Not at all. Unless players employ strategies specifically to mitigate the randomness of the game (like rushing) the biggest factor for the late game power of an empire in every game is the resources near its starting position. The second biggest factor is the amount of space that empire has before it bumps into others. Play any amount of games and this will be true.
For specific strategies the randomness of the tech tree plays also a role, but that is hard to see for other empires.

Stellaris is not balanced. The game spawning 2-3 extra habitable planets near me at the start is better than any origin can do. So making origins boring and standardizing them in the pursuit of balance seems like a fools errand to those of us who like the difference in active gameplay these origins deliver, and makes the game poorer in the stories it tells.
 
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Here's the base conflict: Stellaris is a game that tells stories. It is also a strategy game. With this Shattered Ring rework we see an attempt to balance the origin for the strategy part while completely ruining the story part of it. As a lot of people play it for the story (especially SP given the current state of the AI) and the stories are literally what the game is advertised for both by Paradox and by word of mouth, this is seen as a poor trade by them.

There's nothing about the Shattered Ring changes that ruins the story. It's still a Ring World segment, it's juts broken - which is more realistic for the start - and offers modified starting districts to reflect that.

In addition Stellaris is not balanced. Not at all. Unless players employ strategies specifically to mitigate the randomness of the game (like rushing) the biggest factor for the late game power of an empire in every game is the resources near its starting position. The second biggest factor is the amount of space that empire has before it bumps into others. Play any amount of games and this will be true.
For specific strategies the randomness of the tech tree plays also a role, but that is hard to see for other empires.

Stellaris has some balance, though there is a wide degree of variability and optimized strategies. While some of that inevitable in any game where players have total, build-a-bear control over their species and civilization, it could be streamlined a bit better. However, balance is generally always desirable, unless a challenge is explicitly sought (or explicitly avoided)

Stellaris is not balanced. The game spawning 2-3 extra habitable planets near me at the start is better than any origin can do. So making origins boring and standardizing them in the pursuit of balance seems like a fools errand to those of us who like the difference in active gameplay these origins deliver, and makes the game poorer in the stories it tells.
RNG is never going to be balanced as such. That's more of an argument for a standardized start for players who don't like RNG as a slider in the start game menu.
 
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Here's the base conflict: Stellaris is a game that tells stories. It is also a strategy game. With this Shattered Ring rework we see an attempt to balance the origin for the strategy part while completely ruining the story part of it. As a lot of people play it for the story (especially SP given the current state of the AI) and the stories are literally what the game is advertised for both by Paradox and by word of mouth, this is seen as a poor trade by them.

In addition Stellaris is not balanced. Not at all. Unless players employ strategies specifically to mitigate the randomness of the game (like rushing) the biggest factor for the late game power of an empire in every game is the resources near its starting position. The second biggest factor is the amount of space that empire has before it bumps into others. Play any amount of games and this will be true.
For specific strategies the randomness of the tech tree plays also a role, but that is hard to see for other empires.

Stellaris is not balanced. The game spawning 2-3 extra habitable planets near me at the start is better than any origin can do. So making origins boring and standardizing them in the pursuit of balance seems like a fools errand to those of us who like the difference in active gameplay these origins deliver, and makes the game poorer in the stories it tells.
I think you're mixing up balanced with fair here. What I mean is: Before the game starts each civic/ethic and the like should have the same chance of winning. Once the game starts rng comes into factor.

Lets look at machine empires as an example. They have habilitability on all planets reducing the negative impact of rng on them. However this is a large part of their power budged and should be considered when balancing.

This is exactly the same for many card games, where everyone draws randomly from the same cards, so it has to be perfectly balanced even tho there is a randomness to it, which makes single matches often unfair.


And if you feel that the story part of the origin got ruined than that is a valid complain. However blaming balance for it is not the way to go. Rather try to find a suggestion that balances the origin while keeping the story you want intact and write it out as a suggestion in the forum.
If you want unbalanced things there's mods for that. That is exactly what they are for.
 
IMHO balance is preferable. I have a preference in favor of balanced origins.

But for me distinct playstyle is a necessity. If origins don't feel distinct, then there's no point in having them.

That said, I'm not complaining about the Shattered Ring changes -- yet -- because I haven't played it yet, and don't know if the Lem version is sufficiently distinct-feeling or not.
 
I think you're mixing up balanced with fair here. What I mean is: Before the game starts each civic/ethic and the like should have the same chance of winning. Once the game starts rng comes into factor.
Is that actually your experience in playing Stellaris so far? Fan. Materialist vs Fan. Spiritualist fair? Organics vs Machines both on Ringworld starts fair? Organics vs Machines both on Doomsday starts fair? Scion vs another origin fair? Organics able to sell Minor artifacts for surplus income of tens of thousands of energy credits in the first few decades but Gestalts cannot is fair?
Purifiers/Exterminators can only purge conquered pops while everybody else can utilize conquered pops fair?
Civics that can conquer without claims/influence vs those who cannot fair?
I could go on.
Lets look at machine empires as an example. They have habilitability on all planets reducing the negative impact of rng on them. However this is a large part of their power budged and should be considered when balancing.

This is exactly the same for many card games, where everyone draws randomly from the same cards, so it has to be perfectly balanced even tho there is a randomness to it, which makes single matches often unfair.


And if you feel that the story part of the origin got ruined than that is a valid complain. However blaming balance for it is not the way to go. Rather try to find a suggestion that balances the origin while keeping the story you want intact and write it out as a suggestion in the forum.
If you want unbalanced things there's mods for that. That is exactly what they are for.
 
There are many approaches. One is Stefan's perfectly balanced mod, which is quite good. See image. Notice that each research segments has only 5 jobs, but costs twice as many resources as the segment in vanilla. And you can have only two until you repair it with thousands of alloys.
Personally, my form of balance, and Stefan's are nowhere near the same. I have played with that mod, I find that it knee caps the origin too much.

Another could have been a combination of removing the arcane generator, substituting the minerals + rare resources from tile blockers with very expensive blockers just for the rare resources. You might think that only the research segments made it OP, but the arcane generator giving free resources (extra 15 energy per month) and getting 400 minerals + 100 rare resources for only 500 energy credits played it's part.

I should have been more specific. I used different terms for research segments and research districts, but I meant a 2 job/2 housing research district similar to the industrial district.
I agree, the Arcane generator could be removed. Making one wait 5-40 years into the game to get the research segments is a good thing. In my own games, I don't build the segments until I have the resources for them (Including strategic), because my people would have no way of knowing what the arcane generator generates.
Only one problem with research districts, anything in a district is still over powered compared to a building version, hence why void dwellers is also OP.
How does it make sense that a habitable and partially developed ring segment has the same restore cost and prerequisite as the other 2 shattered segments?
Also, it is a matter of utility. Why would be the utility of spending 10000 alloys on an already functioning planet to get a ringworld? For comparison, restoring a relic world to an ecumenopolis costs 15000 minerals, but not only does it give a much larger planet with bigger districts, it gives +50% pop growth AND 20% resource output. A machine world or hive world give +1 pop assembly job (effectively +33% pop growth) AND 10% resource output and cost only 10000 energy credits.
What does the 4 times more expensive ringworld give you? Nothing except larger districts, but due to pop growth changes, you'd be very lucky if you can even fill half of it.
Does it make sense? No. But neither does FTL, so that just comes to a difference of how far suspension of disbelief should go.
What is the utility? Well, Relic and Ecumenopolis don't make food. A single Ringworld segment with Agri districts can feed a massive chunk of the galaxy. If you are a megacorp, or just focusing on trade value for whatever reason, A ringworld is unparalleled.
As for hives, if you can't/ don't want to build a dyson sphere, the generator segment would be the largest source of energy in the game. Machine world generators give 3 housing and 2 jobs. Ringworld gives +10 housing, +10 tech drone.
You know that they included pop growth settings in the game set up, right? When set correctly, they essentially give you Pre 3.0 growth.

By the time you get Mega Engineering to restore it, you'd already be between 1-2k research per month and the planet would already be filled with advanced research complexes. You'd spend 10k alloys to restore it, just to get another research district with 10 jobs that takes 40-50 years to fill due to the pop growth rate? It is important to have this context - 10 jobs after 80-100 years would take 40-50 years to fill, unless you are doing silly pop resettlement shenanigans. I would have a different view if pop growth didn't slow down based on total pops in empire.
Again, they added those settings in the set up and you can tweak them to remove the abritary Empire pop thing (Personally, I would it on a planetary scale, and the total empire thing sucks, but with the scaler in, I'm happy).

At the end of the day, the origins are not just about balance, but also tell a story. ME doomsday with crazy bonuses to everything except research and unity for 40 years is not balanced. Resource consolidation with +1 pop assembly jobs (effectively +33% pop growth in comparison to any other start) AND all building slots open is not balanced. Scion is not balanced. Galactic doorstep is not balanced. Doomsday for organics is not balanced.
What grates me about the new shattered ring changes is the faux story. You are now on a shattered subsection of a ringworld. All the segments of a ringworld will now have a 2 job district equivalent, which will upgrade to segments once you restore the shattered ring. Except research districts. The shattered ring that your empire resides on has usable remains of all other district types except the research one. Not because it fits the narrative or tells a story. But because devs want to artificially slow down research, and that means build a city district first and then build a lab for double the time and mineral cost.
Alright...
1) This a paradox game, meaning that 90% of the story is player headcannon. Same with CKIII.
2) When they first came out with the origins, they even said that they were storytelling devices, and were not supposed to be balanced.
3) This is a faux story? If you have been on a ringworld long enough to evolve a ringworld preference, and the ringworld has been without maintenance for several million years. You think it will still be in good shape?
4) Research districts are OP. This is a fact. Adding Research Districts to a shattered ring would essentially make this a stronger void dweller start. Becoming weaker than VD by mid-game
 
I think you're mixing up balanced with fair here. What I mean is: Before the game starts each civic/ethic and the like should have the same chance of winning. Once the game starts rng comes into factor.
As someone else has said that assumption is wrong already.

But also I didn't call it balance. I called it an attempt at balance.
There's different kinds of balances, and even if we go into the part where everythign is smilar on all levels, there's symetric balance and asymetric balance.

Stellaris is a game that be it hyperdrives, weapon choices, origins often tries the asymetric approach, and that's a big part of the draw. Yet asymetric balance is harder than symetric. Shattered Ring for one is asymetrically unbalanced. As is Scion, as is Doomsday, as is Necrophage.

This design makes the Shattered Ring origin much more symetric. Instead of an actual Ringworld, with a hard limit on jobs until you manage to get the necessary strategic resources incoming (if we forgo the market), that has troubles fueling expansion and military early on, we now have a "Ringworld" that behaves like a planet in pretty much every aspect. You build housing, industrial, mining and farming districts as normal, but your energy district is now a trade district (which means similarly or less efficient until you take the mercantile tradition) and you get some bonus minerals and alloys on the mining one. Also in the alte game you get a slight dicount on a ringworld.

This is more symetric, probably still not balanced but plays much more like all the other origins. I find that highly undesirable.
And given the bad balance the AI has always had, the factor of the RNG outscaling every origin so far, I find it a rather bad trade to make an origin blander and more boring to "rebalance" it (dev diary word choice).
 
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Is that actually your experience in playing Stellaris so far? Fan. Materialist vs Fan. Spiritualist fair? Organics vs Machines both on Ringworld starts fair? Organics vs Machines both on Doomsday starts fair? Scion vs another origin fair? Organics able to sell Minor artifacts for surplus income of tens of thousands of energy credits in the first few decades but Gestalts cannot is fair?
Purifiers/Exterminators can only purge conquered pops while everybody else can utilize conquered pops fair?
Civics that can conquer without claims/influence vs those who cannot fair?
I could go on.
I never said that stellaris is balanced well yet. This also isn't stopping me from saying that it probably should be. It is also why I used the word "should" in my initial statement.

As someone else has said that assumption is wrong already.

But also I didn't call it balance. I called it an attempt at balance.
There's different kinds of balances, and even if we go into the part where everythign is smilar on all levels, there's symetric balance and asymetric balance.

Stellaris is a game that be it hyperdrives, weapon choices, origins often tries the asymetric approach, and that's a big part of the draw. Yet asymetric balance is harder than symetric. Shattered Ring for one is asymetrically unbalanced. As is Scion, as is Doomsday, as is Necrophage.

This design makes the Shattered Ring origin much more symetric. Instead of an actual Ringworld, with a hard limit on jobs until you manage to get the necessary strategic resources incoming (if we forgo the market), that has troubles fueling expansion and military early on, we now have a "Ringworld" that behaves like a planet in pretty much every aspect. You build housing, industrial, mining and farming districts as normal, but your energy district is now a trade district (which means similarly or less efficient until you take the mercantile tradition) and you get some bonus minerals and alloys on the mining one. Also in the alte game you get a slight dicount on a ringworld.

This is more symetric, probably still not balanced but plays much more like all the other origins. I find that highly undesirable.
And given the bad balance the AI has always had, the factor of the RNG outscaling every origin so far, I find it a rather bad trade to make an origin blander and more boring to "rebalance" it (dev diary word choice).
The other person never said anything about that my assumption that stellaris should be balanced is wrong in their reply to my text. They said it is currently not balanced. But it is implied by their post I replied to, to begin with that they don't think it should be balanced.

Also I never even said anything about symmetric vs asymetric balance. Actually I am much bigger fan of asymmetric balance and know it is harder.

I also never said I agree with the way the origin was balanced. My post you replied to was just to say that I think that balancing origins is somewhat important.
 
Personally, my form of balance, and Stefan's are nowhere near the same. I have played with that mod, I find that it knee caps the origin too much.
Fair enough. We all have our own preferences, but I think the mod did it better than what we have in the current version of stellaris.
I agree, the Arcane generator could be removed. Making one wait 5-40 years into the game to get the research segments is a good thing. In my own games, I don't build the segments until I have the resources for them (Including strategic), because my people would have no way of knowing what the arcane generator generates.
Only one problem with research districts, anything in a district is still over powered compared to a building version, hence why void dwellers is also OP.

Does it make sense? No. But neither does FTL, so that just comes to a difference of how far suspension of disbelief should go.
What is the utility? Well, Relic and Ecumenopolis don't make food. A single Ringworld segment with Agri districts can feed a massive chunk of the galaxy. If you are a megacorp, or just focusing on trade value for whatever reason, A ringworld is unparalleled.
As for hives, if you can't/ don't want to build a dyson sphere, the generator segment would be the largest source of energy in the game. Machine world generators give 3 housing and 2 jobs. Ringworld gives +10 housing, +10 tech drone.
Regarding the districts, I have a completely different viewpoint. The ringworld districts are large and a lot of them, that's it. Nothing more.
They only give an advantage with the origin, because every origin starts with 7-8 pops in low value jobs, and a ringworld allows to put them in research jobs by the 2nd year, in comparison to most other origins which would take 8 years. Origins with all building slots open, like resource consolidation, would only take 4 years. Once all pops are in the preferred jobs, then there's no advantage of the ringworld districts anymore. I can easily build a housing district and a research lab in the time it takes to grow the next pop. It appears easier in the origin because nobody accounts for the arcane generator and the extra 20 minerals (5 miners pops equivalent) from deposits that the origin gets.

Besides the origin, a ringworld offers zero benefit over another planet on which your species gets 100% habitability.
Let me put it this way, if you colonize a ringworld and a size 20 planet (with 100% habitability) at the same time, then over the next few decades, your pops on both planets would grow the same, and your pops will produce the same. Except the ringworld districts will have a higher upkeep due to rare resources.

Just because I can build a ringworld district with 10 jobs doesn't mean that there'll be pops growing faster to fill it.
You know that they included pop growth settings in the game set up, right? When set correctly, they essentially give you Pre 3.0 growth.
I'm aware of it. But as you know, doing that will bring my game to a crawl 2 centuries in, so I have to stick to default settings.
Again, they added those settings in the set up and you can tweak them to remove the abritary Empire pop thing (Personally, I would it on a planetary scale, and the total empire thing sucks, but with the scaler in, I'm happy).


Alright...
1) This a paradox game, meaning that 90% of the story is player headcannon. Same with CKIII.
In one sense, yes. But Origins have been for story telling, as you allude in your next point. On the shoulder of giants is just literally that, a story being told. And lot of game choices are based on story telling rather than game balance. Voidborne / Habitats can't unlock all building slots unless you specifically take the civics and all traditions and AP for it. Because the devs want habitats to feel cramped. That's storytelling not balance. Regular empires can sell minor artifacts to private collectors for 500 energy a piece, but gestalts cannot, because gestalts don't have the concept of collecting artifacts as hobby etc.
2) When they first came out with the origins, they even said that they were storytelling devices, and were not supposed to be balanced.
Agree. And can be seen today in so many origins.
3) This is a faux story? If you have been on a ringworld long enough to evolve a ringworld preference, and the ringworld has been without maintenance for several million years. You think it will still be in good shape?
I don't mind it being in bad shape, or even shattered. Just why is everything usable except the research parts?
4) Research districts are OP. This is a fact. Adding Research Districts to a shattered ring would essentially make this a stronger void dweller start. Becoming weaker than VD by mid-game
On their own, they are not. They only allow a faster transition to research jobs at game start, compared to other origins. That gives an advantage, but to state that the research district is OP implies that the district is OP at all points of time in the game. Once all your pops are doing their intended job and you have 2 years to build before your next pop grows, then research district only saves some minerals and time compared to research lab. And as I've mentioned before, an origin with all slots open will be at par with research districts (I don't mean the 10 job research segment).
Regarding the proposed origin, one option could be to have blockers from, say, 6th district onwards, requiring gases. It would still be faster than most origins, but if a civilization finds itself on a shattered remains of planet with massive dedicated areas towards research, then it is a part of the story that they can tech faster. It's no different from a ME Doomsday getting +30% to alloy, mineral and energy output in the beginning, and effectively +100% output from year 30 onwards.
 
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The new Industrial World designation is ideal for planets where you don’t want to focus the Industrial districts on a single job type, instead providing a minor upkeep discount to both Artisan and Metallurgist jobs.

View attachment 750645
Industrial World Designation

Ah so it's a new trap option to punish people for using automatic colony designations, like Refinery World, Fortress World, and Rural World* (after the galactic community passes Five Year Plans).

Once you have two industrial district focused worlds, making one a Forge World and one a Factory World will give you double the upkeep reduction per pop that having two Industrial Worlds will. Either Industrial Worlds should give the same -20% upkeep to both artisans and metallurgists so that the only difference between the three designations is what selection of jobs industrial districts provide, or the designation should have a weight modifier of 0 in coloney_types so that it's never automatically chosen.
 
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I never said that stellaris is balanced well yet. This also isn't stopping me from saying that it probably should be. It is also why I used the word "should" in my initial statement.
I didn't imply that you said it is balanced. I asked whether it has been your experience so far that the game is balanced. Because I am surprised it is your expectation or wish that Stellaris "should" be balanced/fair the same as the card game you described. Because anybody who's played the game for a decent amount of time recognizes that it is not intended to be "balanced" or "fair" for a multiplayer experience. It is designed primarily for single player experience, not competitive multiplayer.
Do you not realize that Doomsday, Lost Colony, On the shoulder of giants, etc are different origins for different stories a player can create. Some of them have scripted event chains. They are created primarily for the story and not for balancing against other origins. If the game really intended for all origins to be equally fair, then we'd have maybe two or three origins in all.
If you follow the dev diaries, cohesive story telling/lore has often trumped balance. To give you an example, Void dwellers were hardest hit with the pop and building slot changes. Yet the devs said that living in habitats should feel cramped and so they can only get building slots from civics or traditions. You see, what was balanced wasn't even the consideration. The lore, habitats should feel cramped, determined the design. And you'll find this ubiquitously in the game.


The other person never said anything about that my assumption that stellaris should be balanced is wrong in their reply to my text. They said it is currently not balanced. But it is implied by their post I replied to, to begin with that they don't think it should be balanced.

Also I never even said anything about symmetric vs asymetric balance. Actually I am much bigger fan of asymmetric balance and know it is harder.

I also never said I agree with the way the origin was balanced. My post you replied to was just to say that I think that balancing origins is somewhat important.
 
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I didn't imply that you said it is balanced. I asked whether it has been your experience so far that the game is balanced. Because I am surprised it is your expectation or wish that Stellaris "should" be balanced/fair the same as the card game you described. Because anybody who's played the game for a decent amount of time recognizes that it is not intended to be "balanced" or "fair" for a multiplayer experience. It is designed primarily for single player experience, not competitive multiplayer.
Do you not realize that Doomsday, Lost Colony, On the shoulder of giants, etc are different origins for different stories a player can create. Some of them have scripted event chains. They are created primarily for the story and not for balancing against other origins. If the game really intended for all origins to be equally fair, then we'd have maybe two or three origins in all.
If you follow the dev diaries, cohesive story telling/lore has often trumped balance. To give you an example, Void dwellers were hardest hit with the pop and building slot changes. Yet the devs said that living in habitats should feel cramped and so they can only get building slots from civics or traditions. You see, what was balanced wasn't even the consideration. The lore, habitats should feel cramped, determined the design. And you'll find this ubiquitously in the game.
I get what you mean, and no I don't think it's balanced atm. Even tho it's a long road with a goal that we might never reach I still think balance is something that should be strived for.

From what I read in your first post I got the impression you're saying that one shouldn't try to balance the game and just stick to story 100% of the time, correct me here if I am wrong on that. I think it shoud be compromise, but yeah story should be a big part of that too.


And for what? Balance? The origins have never been about balance, but different stories that can be told. Some are very powerful. Some are very difficult. So what if with 2 job research districts, a ringworld origin will be able to tech faster than other origins. At least the story would be consistent! This is not Dota or starcraft that has to be balanced for multiplayer. In Stellaris, a consistent storytelling has trumped "balance" everywhere you look.

I think I got that impression mostly from that part, "This is not Dota or starcraft that has to be balanced for multiplayer.", to be exact.

I just disagree with that statement. I think it should be balanced for multiplayer, since there's a decently sized amount of people that play the game that way. Additionally balance also adds to singleplayer. I know some people that always play the same cuase those things are better. They feel limited by the balance.
 
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