Stellaris Dev Diary #301 - Galactic Paragons is out, what's next?

[Spacenavigator1974]

Hi all!

Galactic Paragons and the first hotfix have been released on all PC platforms, and we're working on a balance and bugfixing patch that we're currently targeting for the end of the month. Please keep on providing your thoughts and feedback.

Based on the feedback you've all provided thus far, we are creating a plan for fixes and improvements. While it's possible that we may release a stability hotfix before the balance patch, it will not include any design changes.

Cooperative Mode and Out of Syncs

The 3.8.2 hotfix took care of a number of out of sync issues, but there are more to hunt down. The programming team is focusing heavily on clearing these up, so every bit of information we can get is helpful.

If you're running into frequent out of sync issues, you can help us out a lot by having the host add these startup parameters to their game:

-randomlog -randomlog_stack=5 -randomlog_frames=3​

Then, if you run into an Out of Sync, please post in the Bug Report forum and give us the Host's OOS logs as well as at least one of the clients that the popup mentioned. (OOS logs can be found in Documents\Paradox Interactive\Stellaris\oos near your save games.) Any details you can provide about what you were doing at the time is also helpful.

This setting has some performance implications (which is why it's not on by default), but if you're running into OOSes reliably, it can really help us track them down.

Tell Us More About the Balance Patch

Here are a few selected notes.

Spoiler: A few of the things planned for 3.8.x

Balance

• Legendary leaders no longer count towards Leader Capacity.
• Admirals that command fleets hired from marauders no longer count towards your Leader Capacity.
• Added the Leader of Opportunity trait, leaders that have this trait do not count towards Leader Capacity while under Level 4.
  • Assigned some event spawned leaders the Leader of Opportunity trait.
• Aptitude Tradition "Champions of the Empire" now gives bonus per Leaders' levels.
  • Effect is now a flat -2 Empire Size per Governor level, and 0.5% Exp per Scientist level and 2 Naval capacity per Admiral/General level.
• Autocannons are no longer valued at three times their intended military power.

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug where ships would sometimes stop following its target when they entered a hyperlane
• Leaders can no longer start the game with traits that produce resources. This should stop machine leaders from keeping a bonsai tree garden as a hobby.

AI

• AI will now wait until it has at least 5 planets and 25 years before choosing a specialization designation for its homeworld

Performance

• Leader view performance optimizations

There will, of course, be more.

Next Week

Our next dev diary will be Thursday, May 25th, when we'll be going over a more complete list of the preliminary patch notes.

See you then!

Could you consider making a DLC with new midgame crises, new end crises, new relics, and new ship types? maybe something nice, graphically speaking for land battles?

 

[Abdulijubjub]

The resolution line is intentionally abusable and fundamentally unfair. Most of them are, to force opponents into difficult positions against their will.

I always assumed the point of that one was to be free if you have an enormous fleet build up anyway, so it's a way for militarists (in action, not in ethic) to impose a tax on non-militarists. +25% upkeep is just +25% upkeep if you're below cap, but if you're above, the +50% naval cap more than cancels it out. So in addition to the sanctions for being below half (which used to be 75% before the bonus), there's a structural incentive to build up. E.g. Make those freeloaders actually contribute to defense.

It's intended to apply sanctions to e.g. the galactic custodian doing their job? Granted, only economic sanctions really matter in the extreme short term (everything else is research/unity/cap which you're already below/GC voting related). But it seems odd that you can get slapped with the "everyone must do their part to defend the galactic community" law for actually defending the galactic community.

It feels like politics when the spiritualist force everyone using robots to suffer because it doesn't affect them, or when the egalitarians punish the slavers, or when militarists force the freeloading pacifists to contribute to defense. It just feels like a failure of the game mechanics or the politicians are goldfish when you get slapped with "why aren't you preparing for war" sanctions as a result of actually fighting.

 

[Kanzhuu]

• Aptitude Tradition "Champions of the Empire" now gives bonus per Leaders' levels.
  • Effect is now a flat -2 Empire Size per Governor level, and 0.5% Exp per Scientist level and 2 Naval capacity per Admiral/General level.

I know the %-modifier was too good, but is a flat -2/level even worth it now? -20 Sprawl is not much at all, is it?

 

[zZander56]

I always assumed the point of that one was to be free if you have an enormous fleet build up anyway. +25% upkeep is just +25% upkeep if you're below cap, but if you're above, the +50% naval cap more than cancels it out. So in addition to the sanctions for being below half (which used to be 75% before the bonus), there's a structural incentive to build up. E.g. Make those freeloaders actually contribute to defense.

It's intended to apply sanctions to e.g. the galactic custodian doing their job? Granted, only economic sanctions really matter in the extreme short term (everything else is research/unity/cap which you're already below/GC voting related). But it seems odd that you can get slapped with the "everyone must do their part to defend the galactic community" law for actually defending the galactic community.

It feels like politics when the spiritualist force everyone using robots to suffer because it doesn't affect them, or when the egalitarians punish the slavers, or when militarists force the freeloading pacifists to contribute to defense. It just feels like a failure of the game mechanics or the politicians are goldfish when you get slapped with "why aren't you preparing for war" sanctions as a result of actually fighting.

One of the things that really slows down the GC for me is that sanctions are a separate thing that needs to be passed. Regular resolutions already take an incredible amount of time to get through. Sanctions should either have their own method of passing, or be automatically passed based on the highest tier resolution passed in each respective category IMHO.

 

[Calvax]

One of the things that really slows down the GC for me is that sanctions are a separate thing that needs to be passed. Regular resolutions already take an incredible amount of time to get through. Sanctions should either have their own method of passing, or be automatically passed based on the highest tier resolution passed in each respective category IMHO.

I've not really thought about the sanctions beyond noticing that sometimes it takes ages for them to pass. I wonder if they should be reworked into the revolutions. I.e. the more military resolutions that are passed the higher the military sanction.

 

[Kanzhuu]

I've not really thought about the sanctions beyond noticing that sometimes it takes ages for them to pass. I wonder if they should be reworked into the revolutions. I.e. the more military resolutions that are passed the higher the military sanction.

I like them the way they are, as I can pass resolutions for their benefit and pile on sanctions as I please IF I please. This way I can create a hollow institution that serves my will, everything else would lead to a way too functional political system and yes, I know, Stellaris has magic and stuff, but my suspension of disbelief can only handle so much.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

The resolution line is intentionally abusable and fundamentally unfair. Most of them are, to force opponents into difficult positions against their will.

Instantly? In most cases, players can see it being voted on *years* in advance, and see which way the votes are going, though you do have a point about losing a fleet and suddenly dropping below limits.

The only way a breach can catch players by surprise is if they are simply ignoring the votes and what's going in in the political realm, or if you lose your fleet in a surprise battle rather than one you were prepping for.

Sure, the application is instant, but the process before it applies usually is like flares going off in the voting chamber, so players paying attention should a good idea it's coming well in advance and can adjust to minimize the damage or start playing hardball politics to shoot it down.

The only time it catches me off-guard (sort of) is when the vote is nearly evenly split, and there are 2-3 holdouts who haven't voted yet. More often, it doesn't sneak up on us so much as stomp down the hallway bellowing while wearing cement boots.

I feel like neither of you read what the actual complaint was about? It was quite clear; please go back and read it again (or the multiple times since that it's been restated in various ways).

@Eladrin The problem is not that the resolution can be used punitively, or "abused" against your enemies. Nobody said that! That was obviously not the relevant complaint! The complaint was about being sanctioned because you used over half your navy in one or more battles at the same time instead of running away from any fight you aren't 100% sure you can win / only committing a tiny portion of your forces.

@kwheeler The problem isn't that the resolution passes too quickly or sneakly. Nobody said that either! The problem happens after - possibly well after - it passes, when later (a year later or two centuries later, it doesn't matter) you momentarily become in breach of galactic law because of the natural concequences of war, and there's no grace period even though your shipyards are already churning out reinforcements to bring you back to the 130% or so of your ostensible naval cap that you were at before.

Copying Vicky3's tooltips was cool, but have you (PDX) considered copying their grace period mechanics? Like how when you drop below the prestige minimum for your power level, you don't instantly downgrade? It's not hard to design. Stellaris has the technology to do this! Timed events are easy, and they show up in the UI (admittedly they all show up in one place, which is unhelpful if there's e.g. some salvage which of course there is because you just fought somebody) so you should pop a visible event too, but after that it could just go be another timed event in your situation log.

---

You could even make it a capital-S Situation if you want, rather than just a time-delayed event the way so many other things are.

Title: Situation: Impending Violation of Galactic Resolution
Description: Due to <violated condition>, our empire is currently non-compliant with <resolution>. If we don't come into compliance soon, we will be subject to the following list of sanctions: <list of sanctions> and our relationship with the rest of the Galactic Community may be impacted negatively.
Progress: Starts at 0, max at 120, initially increases by 5 per month (two year limit).
Approach 1: "Returning to compliance". Default choice, no special effect.
Approach 2: "Plead hardship and request more time". Costs 1.5 influence/month, but reduces progress rate to 2/month (five-year limit if you do this from the start).
Approach 3: "We don't need them anyhow". Same as "Returning to compliance" except that when the situation expires, you automatically leave the community.
Progress event 1: Happens at 1/3 (40) progress. "Returning to compliance" now reduces Diplomatic Weight by 10%. "Plead hardship and request more time" now costs 2.5 influence/month and reduces Diplomatic Weight by 20%. "We don't need them anyhow" now reduces Diplomatic Weight by 50%, reduces relations with other Community members by 20, and prevents assigning Envoys to the Community (recalls any that are present).
Progress event 2: Happens at 2/3% (80) progress. Locks you in to your current approach for the rest of the situation.
Progress event 3: Happens at full (120) progress. Situation ends. If "Returning to compliance" or "Plead hardship and request more time", the normal "In breach of galactic law" event occurs. If "We don't need them anyhow", immediately leave the Galactic Community without needing to pay the usual Influence cost, but with the usual cooldown for rejoining (20 years) and penalty for leaving (-30 relations with members until rejoining) and -1/3 Influence generation for those 20 years (as if Humiliated).
Situation ends immediately: If at the end of any month, you are in compliance with all passed galactic laws (meaning you can end the situation without reaching its conclusion by repealing a law or coming into compliance, even if you were using the "We don't need them anyhow" approach).

Basically, this provides players more warning of what's to come, an opportunity to come into compliance (grace period), some player agency to fix things faster or slower, and the option to leave the community as a pariah state rather than tanking the sanctions or needing to save up enough influence to say "Screw you all" to their faces (but also, facing penalties in the interim).

 

[SeekingEtermity]

Check how that scripted trigger works again:

country_uses_food = {
    if = {
        limit = {
            # Check if we have an uninitialized economy, then return true to be safe because we don't know
            resource_expenses_compare = {
                resource = food
                value = 0
            }
            resource_expenses_compare = {
                resource = minerals
                value = 0
            }
            resource_expenses_compare = {
                resource = energy
                value = 0
            }
        }
    }
    else = {
        resource_expenses_compare = {
            resource = food
            value > 0
        }
    }
}

This explicitly will not work for your starting leaders, because it checks if you use food by checking if you paid any food upkeep last month. If your empire hasn't existed long enough to have paid any upkeep yet, it won't help you.

Huh. I remember a trigger - forget if it was that name or something similar - that checked something more like any empire pop being organic and non-purge living standard. Technically that would return yes for radiotrophs living on a tomb world when this one wouldn't, but I'm not even sure that's wrong, you can't realistically have everybody live on tomb worlds forever.

 

[SirBlackAxe]

Huh. I remember a trigger - forget if it was that name or something similar - that checked something more like any empire pop being organic and non-purge living standard. Technically that would return yes for radiotrophs living on a tomb world when this one wouldn't, but I'm not even sure that's wrong, you can't realistically have everybody live on tomb worlds forever.

Yeah, this replaced that, likely for futureproofing reasons and dealing with an expanding list of cases and exceptions where empires would and wouldn't need food. Zombies, Voidlings, a half-dozen photo/radiotrophic trait variants, catalytic technicians, space critter event ships with food upkeep, conquering a Manufactorium planet that was originally owned by a catalytic empire so the special jobs have food upkeep, etc.

 

[kwheeler]

I feel like neither of you read what the actual complaint was about? It was quite clear; please go back and read it again (or the multiple times since that it's been restated in various ways).

@kwheeler The problem isn't that the resolution passes too quickly or sneakly. Nobody said that either! The problem happens after - possibly well after - it passes, when later (a year later or two centuries later, it doesn't matter) you momentarily become in breach of galactic law because of the natural concequences of war, and there's no grace period even though your shipyards are already churning out reinforcements to bring you back to the 130% or so of your ostensible naval cap that you were at before.

---

Fair enough.

 

[Strangedane]

I don't know where you got that idea.

Yeah, I see. The 0 empire size build became a negative empire size build and now fills all traditions in 2210.
How could I ever have been so wrong.

Very snarky reaction when you then go and make the problem worse.
I told you it was gonna be a silly ride.