Stellaris Dev Diary #325 - 3.10.3 "Pyxis" Released [d2aa] + Further Beta Plans

[Peter Ebbesen]

First, due to how tech is set up, you're not really "making choices." You roll those techs, and then you pick one. You really want mega-engineering, but don't roll it until 2550? Guess no ring worlds, which means less research, which means now you're even slower.

I understand your wider point, but find it amusing that you picked one of the few techs that the player has very, very, high impact on whether gets offered or not; Once you reach the tier 5 techs and have Zero Point Power, Battleships, and Citadels tech, it is extremely likely to be picked so long as your empire is one in which such technology would be expected to develop, which is something that is largely under your own control.

The only factor that isn't, quite, is whether you have a megastructure in your territory already for your scientists to study, since you might very well not acquire one of those seeded at game start through normal peaceful expansion... but given that there's a natural solution to that (conquer one from somebody else), even that is, to a large degree, under your control.

So while I do think you overstate your case in general, since many crucial techs are weighted in favour of empires getting them without having to wait long by either increasing their odds significantly after a certain amount of time has passed or by increasing the odds if the conditions in the empire are such that it would be a natural place for the tech to develop (e.g. the starbase size techs and the hull size techs, to ensure that nobody falls far behind in these), and players further can significantly affect what is being offered by not opening new areas of research (techs marked as opening new research topic) if they are aiming to learn a tech in another area of research in the discipline first, please don't take this as a complete rejection of your argument, because we all know how annoying it can be to wait to be offered a tech we are interested in, and it is natural to wonder just how bad that will be with tech slowed down.

Anyhow, if you don't know how to get mega-engineering quickly, read on.

If you don't satisfy any of the factors that lead to the tech, it is very rare. But its draw weight can be increased by all of these factors, multiplicatively with each other; In the extreme case where you would satisfy all of them, mega-engineering has a weight 11676 times as large as its default weight.

• x1.5 Having a Curator or Hyper Focused scientist on the council
• x(1.5^n), where n is number of starholds or better up to 6 (more than 6 don't further increase the odds), so x11.39 if maxed
• x(1.5^n), where n is number of citadels up to 6 (more than 6 don't further increase the odds), so x11.39 if maxed
• x2 if you own any habitat
• x1.5 if a neighbouring country has mega engineering tech
• x20 if you have a megastructure in your empire already or started as Shattered Ring

tech_mega_engineering = {
	area = engineering
	cost = @tier5cost3
	tier = 5
	category = { voidcraft }
	ai_update_type = all
	prerequisites = { "tech_starbase_5" "tech_battleships" "tech_zero_point_power" }
	weight = @tier5weight3
	is_rare = yes

	feature_flags = {
		megaengineering
	}

	modifier = {
		country_resource_max_add = 20000
	}

	weight_modifier = {
		factor = 0.25
		modifier = {
			factor = 1.5
			OR = {
				has_trait_in_council = { TRAIT = leader_trait_curator }
				has_trait_in_council = { TRAIT = leader_trait_maniacal }
				has_trait_in_council = { TRAIT = leader_trait_maniacal_2 }
				has_trait_in_council = { TRAIT = leader_trait_maniacal_3 }
			}
		}
		inline_script = {
			script = technologies/rare_technologies_weight_modifiers
			TECHNOLOGY = tech_mega_engineering
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 1.5
			count_starbase_sizes = {
				starbase_size = starbase_starhold
				count >= 1
			}
		}

		modifier = {
			factor = 1.5
			count_starbase_sizes = {
				starbase_size = starbase_starhold
				count >= 2
			}
		}

		modifier = {
			factor = 1.5
			count_starbase_sizes = {
				starbase_size = starbase_starhold
				count >= 3
			}
		}

		modifier = {
			factor = 1.5
			count_starbase_sizes = {
				starbase_size = starbase_starhold
				count >= 4
			}
		}

		modifier = {
			factor = 1.5
			count_starbase_sizes = {
				starbase_size = starbase_starhold
				count >= 5
			}
		}

		modifier = {
			factor = 1.5
			count_starbase_sizes = {
				starbase_size = starbase_starhold
				count >= 6
			}
		}

		modifier = {
			factor = 1.5
			count_starbase_sizes = {
				starbase_size = starbase_citadel
				count >= 1
			}
		}

		modifier = {
			factor = 1.5
			count_starbase_sizes = {
				starbase_size = starbase_citadel
				count >= 2
			}
		}

		modifier = {
			factor = 1.5
			count_starbase_sizes = {
				starbase_size = starbase_citadel
				count >= 3
			}
		}

		modifier = {
			factor = 1.5
			count_starbase_sizes = {
				starbase_size = starbase_citadel
				count >= 4
			}
		}

		modifier = {
			factor = 1.5
			count_starbase_sizes = {
				starbase_size = starbase_citadel
				count >= 5
			}
		}

		modifier = {
			factor = 1.5
			count_starbase_sizes = {
				starbase_size = starbase_citadel
				count >= 6
			}
		}

		modifier = {
			factor = 2
			any_owned_planet = {
				is_planet_class = pc_habitat
			}
		}

		modifier = {
			factor = 1.5
			any_neighbor_country = {
				has_technology = tech_mega_engineering
			}
		}

		modifier = {
			factor = 20
			OR = {
				has_any_megastructure_in_empire = yes
				has_origin = origin_shattered_ring
			}
		}
	}

	ai_weight = {
		factor = @best_megastructure_ai_tech_factor

	}
}

 

[WoodenP]

EXCELLENT dev diary! I didn't know if you'd ever have the guts to do this. This will be extremely controversial on the simple grounds that instinctively less power/slower = bad for people on a shallow level, but it's 100% the right direction to go in.

I'm looking forward to the lower ship numbers indirectly reviving the Great-Khan and Fallen/Awakened Empires as meaningful features again for free. And individual ship classes/event rewards have more proportional meaning again. Oh and less click spamming. Oh and less lag!

Back to tech: As someone who was most familiar with the pre 2.2 game, before science became out of control and repeatable techs were correctly positioned around the endgame date as a stopgap mechanism (rather than thought of as a "feature" of their own) I'm really excited. It's kind of crazy for me to realise, but I suppose a bunch of Stellaris players have only ever experienced this tech-spam madness and never known the game to be in it's actually designed-for tech curve!

The repeatable tech phase is just so bad for the general balance and mechanics of almost every other feature (see: any discussion on combat balance ever) so pushing them back is a reward all of it's own.

And steadying the pace of unlocking the other techs is also going to be really fun too.

There was some discussion earlier about Paradox confirming when they think repeatable -should- appear and I think that's definitely something the community should hear. For me I think non-research focused empires should get them at or post the endgame date, and research focused empires 50-75 years or so earlier, but that's just me.

To anyone fearful of this, you have a slider in game at galaxy creator. If you want to continue beating grand admiral campaigns on easy tech mode just turn the slider up. Much of the "conversation" in this thread is purely irrelevant hot-air because players will have control over this setting.

Please paradox, don't be scared off by the inevitable upset about "nerfs". Don't make this toothless.

 

[Starfury]

1.

Ya, the floodgate just opens

2.

Which is a scenario that, I would think, be undesirable to many.

So how to fix 1 & 2? (Sincere question)

New tech cost formula is 500 * (2^tier + 3^tier)

The right part of the formula is taking care of the floodgate opening by making tech costs scale considerably higher.

500 is the number the devs are going to tweak if overall tech speed is too slow.

 

[Vreivai]

New tech cost formula is 500 * (2^tier + 3^tier)

The right part of the formula is taking care of the floodgate opening by making tech costs scale considerably higher.

500 is the number the devs are going to tweak if overall tech speed is too slow.

They might want to tweak the part in the parentheses. Lowering the 500 base number could result in early game techs coming too fast.

I'd also prefer if they didn't touch tech costs, at least at first, or only change tech costs rather than nerfing researcher output. Doing these compounding nerfs at the same time will make it harder to accurately do the tuning they're likely going to have to do later.

 

[Starfury]

They might want to tweak the part in the parentheses. Lowering the 500 base number could result in early game techs coming too fast.

I'd also prefer if they didn't touch tech costs, at least at first, or only change tech costs rather than nerfing researcher output. Doing these compounding nerfs at the same time will make it harder to accurately do the tuning they're likely going to have to do later.

I guess they'll lower it to 400. This would mean tier 1 would stay the same cost.

Not changing tech costs isn't an option. The current formula is the #1 cause of runaway tech speed.

 

[Ikael]

Another quite interesting DD as usual. And now, some more comments regarding planned research & other Beta changes:

- Breakthrough technologies: AWESOME idea. The game need more rubberbanding, anti snowball mechanisms, and that mod was popular for a reason. Add some kind of non tech related reward for those empires that are first to reach them, and we are golden.

- Changing output into throughput modifiers. Very ingenious idea. It might get a bit tad micro-managey, but if it works, it might be good to apply it to other things as well like resource-increasing techs.

- Reducing research modifiers through the board. Long time coming, but it might need a more dettailed per case basis rebalancing. I personally would have outright suppressed tech bonuses granted by science, while keeping those related to empire identity (civics, APs). Still, good overall.

- Increased tech curve. Holy overreaction, Batman. This will probably need to be reduced. Things like Megastructures or certain ascension related research projects will become much weaker if pushed that much into the late game, too.

- Ship building cost reductions were getting out of hand, so I am glad to see those go. But it will require a lot of rebalancing, since ship building speed is an extremely weak bonus to replace it.

Overall, i think that not all those changes will work, but this is a very necessary experiment that moves towards a right direction.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Back to tech: As someone who was most familiar with the pre 2.2 game, before science became out of control and repeatable techs were correctly positioned around the endgame date as a stopgap mechanism (rather than thought of as a "feature" of their own) I'm really excited. It's kind of crazy for me to realise, but I suppose a bunch of Stellaris players have only ever experienced this tech-spam madness and never known the game to be in it's actually designed-for tech curve!

Repeatable techs were not positioned around the endgame date (2400) pre-2.2 launch, though, arriving much, much, earlier for both competent players and the AI, and it seems unlikely to me that the proposed changes will result in them being positioned for the endgame date in 3.11 either.

Since at least as early as 2.0 they were not positioned as something that would arrive after exhausting the tech tree either, but something that could start arriving when the last tech tier was reached, but with lower chance than non-repeatable techs, such that they often didn't show up in a given tech draw and were only guaranteed to show up in tech draws once you didn't have enough non-repeatables left to fill the number of research options.

For the best idea of design intent regarding the arrival of late game techs previously, or when they will be supposed to arrive in the upcoming tech beta, look to the data files for the breakthrough techs and critical techs such as citadels and battleship, both of which currently specifically have date based catch up mechanics to ensure that nobody who is following the tech curve will fall behind for long.

(It is unclear to me whether this breakthrough gating will completely replace the old date gating of individual key techs or supplement it - we'll find out soon enough when the beta launches.)

FOR instance, the current model for battleships expects the galaxy to start filling up with battleships, a T4 tech, some time after 2250 and not starting much later than 2270, doing its best to ensure nobody gets left behind, and that's nothing new.

This has been the case since at least as 2.0 (Cherryh, February 2018). I checked the earliest Steam rollback (2.1.3) to see if my memories of pre 2.2 gameplay failed me and you were right that tech was very, very, slow then, and found things much as I expected. Since 2.1 was a story pack release, it has in practice been the case since at least 2.0, where the tech system was revamped into 5 tech tiers.

I considered the rollback faster than searching the forum for my own old posts from the early days of Stellaris, which ought to reveal the answer, since I'm bound to have commented on tech back then as well. I really should do it if I wanted to be absolutely sure about Stellaris 1.x. But since you were comparing with pre 2.2, I thought getting 2.0 data sufficient.

They way it is done is that if you satisfy the conditions (tech 4 available, have T3 cruiser tech), it is extremely unlikely before 2250 (x0.1 factor), but after 2250 grows increasingly likely after that up to 2270 (x24 factor), and gets a major factor x10 on top of that if any neighbour has battleships, to ensure that once somebody starts building battleships everybody joins the arms race. Supremacy finisher gives a further x1.25 factor.

Spoiler: 2.0 Battleship tech

tech_battleships = {
	cost = @tier4cost1
	area = engineering
	tier = 4
	category = { voidcraft }	
	prerequisites = { "tech_cruisers" }
	weight = @tier4weight1
		
	## unlock battleships	
	prereqfor_desc = {
		ship = {
			title = "TECH_UNLOCK_BATTLESHIP_CONSTRUCTION_TITLE"
			desc = "TECH_UNLOCK_BATTLESHIP_CONSTRUCTION_DESC"
		}
	}
	
	modifier = {
		country_command_limit_add = 10
	}
	
	weight_modifier = {
		modifier = {
			factor = 0.1
			NOT = { years_passed > 50 }
		}	
		modifier = {
			factor = 10
			any_neighbor_country = {
				has_technology = tech_battleships
			}
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 2
			years_passed > 60
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 3
			years_passed > 65
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 4
			years_passed > 70
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 1.25
			has_tradition = tr_supremacy_adopt
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 1.25
			research_leader = {
				area = engineering
				has_trait = "leader_trait_expertise_voidcraft"
			}
		}
	}
	
	ai_weight = {
		factor = 100 #higher factor due to battleship hull
		modifier = {
			factor = 1.25
			research_leader = {
				area = engineering
				has_trait = "leader_trait_expertise_voidcraft"
			}
		}
	}
}

Likewise, the current model for Citadels make them unlikely before 2270 even if you satisfy the prerequisites (tier 4 available, have T3 fortress tech), increasingly likely between 2270 and 2300, much more likely if anybody else has gotten them, much more likely if you own at least three fortresses, more likely with unyielding, and much more likely if you have the impenetrable borders agenda finisher active. And you know what? The only difference between 2.0 and 3.10 to the Citadel arrival factors is that it used to have a factor for Supremacy rather than Unyielding (which didn't exist), didn't have a factor increasing odds for the agenda finisher (as that didn't exist either), but did have an extra factor increasing odds if your researcher had the voidcraft trait.

Spoiler: 2.0 Citadel tech

tech_starbase_5 = {
	cost = @tier4cost2
	area = engineering
	category = { voidcraft }
	tier = 4
	prerequisites = { "tech_starbase_4" }
	weight = @tier4weight2
	
	# unlocks Citadel
	weight_modifier = {
		modifier = {
			factor = 0.1
			NOT = { years_passed > 70 }
		}	
		modifier = {
			factor = 10
			any_neighbor_country = {
				has_technology = tech_starbase_5
			}
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 2
			years_passed > 90
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 3
			years_passed > 95
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 4
			years_passed > 100
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 5
			count_starbase_sizes = {
				starbase_size = starbase_starfortress
				count >= 3
			}
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 1.25
			has_tradition = tr_supremacy_adopt
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 1.25
			research_leader = {
				area = engineering
				has_trait = "leader_trait_expertise_voidcraft"
			}
		}
	}
	
	prereqfor_desc = {	
		ship = {
			title = "TECH_UNLOCK_CITADEL_CONSTRUCTION_TITLE"
			desc = "TECH_UNLOCK_CITADEL_CONSTRUCTION_DESC"
		}
	}
	
	ai_weight = {
		factor = 100 #higher factor due to starbase upgrade
		modifier = {
			factor = 1.25
			research_leader = {
				area = engineering
				has_trait = "leader_trait_expertise_voidcraft"
			}
		}
	}
}

The current design intent going back at least as far as 2.0, is clearly that T4 warfare is something that starts happening during the second half of the 23rd century, with T5 (requiring 6 T4 techs) starting out late 23rd century for people really pushing research, but usually early 24th century, or even mid- 24th century for laggards. Since repeatables are also T5, that's when we are supposed to start getting them, side-by-side with, but less likely than, the other T5 techs - and that has been the case for at least the past five years and nine months.

So the tech problem with repeatables in current Stellaris compared to the existing design intent is not players researching T5 repeatables during the 24th century after the default mid-game date of 2300, some having started a few years earlier, some perhaps only getting started by the middle of the 24th century; That is desired behaviour.

The problem is that anybody focusing on research is likely to start researching repeatables around mid 23rd century because the tech curve is so very generous these days, and even those who are slow are likely to do so by the early 24th, and that once you get started the out of control research curve accelerates acquisition of repeatable techs after that allowing players to easily gain dozens, or even scores, of levels of repeatables before 2400 in techs they focus on. These days repeatables aren't slow techs that with a lot of investment give a marginal benefit to your empire; they are fast techs that'll allow you to gain huge benefits with just a few decades of investment.

But we are about to see a paradigm shift, and who knows, perhaps the new design intent will be repeatables starting around the endgame date of 2400 rather than 2300, ensuring that the large playing demographic that might not be particularly good at the game, and hence are chronically behind the tech curve, but do find it an enjoyable way to spend time and money, won't get to play with the best endgame toys before their enjoyment of the game is killed by lag.

I wouldn't bet on it, though. Paradox designers are too good to make that mistake.

That's not saying I expect the current intended timing that has been untouched for more than five years to remain untouched, mind you. A major overhaul is a good time to establish a new baseline for when different eras of warfare are supposed to start, and, hence, when repeatables are supposed to start.

But if they keep the current setup of 2300 as default mid-game, 2400 as default late-game, and 2500 as default "for the love of God, just stop playing already, the game engine is groaning at the weight of the galaxy and we officially give you permission to stop playing and start anew" victory date, I will expect the design intent for the start of repeatables to be some time during the 24th century, and certainly no later than 2350, with strong players being able to start a few decades earlier (but nowhere near as early as now), and weak players several decades later, and most crucially, with much slower acquisition of repeatable techs once they start arriving since the base repeatable-tier (T5) tech cost is hugely increased.

But that's just my guess.

Whether I am right or not, We'll know the intent once we see the data files in the beta - and then we'll see how the initially chosen values in the revamp makes it actually play out, and rave about it being too slow or too fast, or just plain weird.

 

[Paspinall]

Strikes me that the holiday beta is, - here's a problem (maybe) lets throw everything at it, im sure that's not going to break tech or ship builds at all .. uh huh

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Strikes me that the holiday beta is, - here's a problem (maybe) lets throw everything at it, im sure that's not going to break tech or ship builds at all .. uh huh

Bad strike. Try instead:

Here's a problem, let's throw everything at it and see what sticks. This WILL break tech and ship builds, but that's both expected and unimportant - we want real life data on how the tech changes play out in practice in the hands of a mix of players to see whether we can go live with them as-is and tweak them after release or they are in need of immediate tweaking (not based on how loud the players scream or suffer due to the changes, but based on their performance), and people who would rather not play Crash Test Dummies during the holiday can just play 3.10.4 rather than the beta.

Generally game developers are both less stupid and more cruel than many players believe.

 

[KNakamura]

Strikes me that the holiday beta is, - here's a problem (maybe) lets throw everything at it, im sure that's not going to break tech or ship builds at all .. uh huh

.. pretty sure they're *expecting* breaks in builds. The point is to break the meta and is a fairly major change.

But, no runaway tech is a problem. I'm not particularly good at Stellaris and I can get into repeatables in the early 2300s.

 

[NotAYakk]

I mean, my problem might be too good of a PC? I haven't had bad late game lag since the pop soft cap was added.

I have kept on dialing up how soon the endgame comes in order to avoid winning the game before the final crisis, because I found that snowball phase boring. But I hit endgames with 2000 pops and 10k+ science and all unity ambitions and 1000s of alloys/month. Without bad lag.

In all of these games, there is about a decade when I go from T2 equipped ships to T5 ships, and where fleet power per fleet goes from 1-5k to 10s or even 100s of k.

There is this entire phase of the game that sort of happens in the length of a ship upgrade cycle.

 

[Millbot]

Yeah, early betas are where you as a developer push things right up to the breaking point. If you absolutely break things or it does bugger all, than that's a sign that the changes probably should be done. You should expect some things to break and that's not a bad thing. There are t on of moving parts i this game: traditions, relics, edicts, policies, techs, origins, civics, APs, agendas, species traits, leader traits, empire modifiers from various events and a number of other things. It's safe to say that either something will absolutely break or allow players to do something really unexpected and dumb, often that likely does end up being some obscure thing that shows up in 1% or less of games.

The other thing is, it's a game, if they get something workable for most of what they want. They are stuck not being able to tweak other things to make the rest of the stuff work. The numbers for sliders, aren't set in stone, they can adjust those to give people a better means of getting what they desire. Same deal for base tech costs at the fault settings, they don't have to keep T1 techs at the same cost as they have now. If the change makes all the later tiers show up when the devs want them, but make the T1 techs take longer than they should. Then the devs can reduce the cost of T1 techs. Same deal if the changes result in another tier showing up later or earlier than they want it. They can just change the costs.

Probably the most important thing in a beta is figuring out the mechanics and making sure things don't break by about the middle of it. Those are are the two hardest things to nail down; especially, if you have a month to do it. The actual numbers, are much easier to handle. You can move those up or down without worrying about introducing bugs and likely not upsetting some mechanic aspects (after all, some mechanics do rely on numbers being more or less stable for testing purposes). Sure it isn't ideal to be adjusting numbers after you go live, but that is something players can more easily adjust to than what we're seeing now with the current game.

 

[Masked Ermine]

I think the current patch is still about as stable as a toddler on stilts. Just got kicked twice from a game at about the same time, each time. So....yeah...the basic requirement to publishing a game is that the game is at least basically stable...this is still unacceptable.

 

[Vreivai]

I think what they should do is limit the changes to nerfing or removing a lot of the things that enable snowballing tech. Removing the three stacking +20% researcher output techs, for example, is probably a good move, as is nerfing research speed increases. Perhaps also remove or nerf other universal modifiers that impact researcher output, such as limiting the +10/20/30% job output modifier from capital buildings to not impact researchers.

Or what I'd do, because I'd like to see repeatables remain a major factor in the game, would be to move a lot of these things that enable snowballing to the end of the tech tree. I think Ring worlds, for example, wouldn't need to be touched, since they're already essentially at the end of the tech tree. Might still not be enough, but I think that'd be a good starting place. In my experience, doing compounding nerfs like this is a bad idea, because developers have difficulty accurately gauging just how impactful the changes will be.

One other thing I'd add to this that I thought of: there's also the option of tuning empire size penalties. Increasing the penalty to increase research costs could go a long way toward reducing the tech snowball, as the empire size penalties to tech are quite weak right now. If they do that, they should also remove destiny traits that reduce empire size effect. Those are already too powerful for how much RNG is involved in getting them.

 

[Corpus Festerheart]

I also think that proposed research reduction efforts are NOT ENOUGH. Research should be nerfed harder and one separate rules\settings option for new games should be added, research factor - scaling, if possible.
Because everyone who played one of the best strategy games ever made - Alpha Centauri knows that it was tech stagnation that allowed. forced, players to use diplomacy when before they would ignore it. And researching Needlejet 10 turns before your opponent\competitor would be like having a longbow during 100 years war.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

One other thing I'd add to this that I thought of: there's also the option of tuning empire size penalties. Increasing the penalty to increase research costs could go a long way toward reducing the tech snowball, as the empire size penalties to tech are quite weak right now. If they do that, they should also remove destiny traits that reduce empire size effect. Those are already too powerful for how much RNG is involved in getting them.

Increasing Empire Size Effect penalties would probably not have that effect, as I explained earlier in the thread in this post

Rather than reducing the tech snowball significantly for everybody, you'd be disproportionally slowing down the rate of tech gain for the players that are least in need of being slowed down in the first place.

 

[lune_16]

I'm glad to see research finally being tweaked, along with separating tech and unity sliders. The nerfs seem a bit drastic and I worry they don't solve the issue of early research being too slow while late game research is ridiculously fast, but we'll see how it plays out in practice.

Has adding back different science lab upgrades based on physics/society/engineering been considered? Those specialized labs were removed a while ago and replaced by the generic science lab, but I think going back to them could help stem some of the research speed issues and increase player choice for growing their empire. If you have buildings that give paltry science in two fields while giving above average science in one, it's another way to help distinguish your empire from others -- being really good with society techs but lagging behind on physics (or just putting an even spread of them down but hey, more options are always nice). It might also make tech rushing feel better in that you specifically put effort into planning out what science labs to make or what to specialize, and you're getting rewarded for it, rather than...just plopping down as many science buildings you can and making the research number go up for everything.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

I also think that proposed research reduction efforts are NOT ENOUGH. Research should be nerfed harder and one separate rules\settings option for new games should be added, research factor - scaling, if possible.
Because everyone who played one of the best strategy games ever made - Alpha Centauri knows that it was tech stagnation that allowed. forced, players to use diplomacy when before they would ignore it. And researching Needlejet 10 turns before your opponent\competitor would be like having a longbow during 100 years war.

A few comments:

1. The game already has a research factor scaling and has had it for years - the tech/tradition setting at game start. So your proposal would seem to be introducing something that already exists. As Eldrin informed us earlier in the thread, it is being split into separate tech and tradition sliders for this upcoming test branch so players can more easily focus on the parts they want to slow down or speed up; So congratulations, your wish is granted!
2. Players in Stellaris ignoring diplomacy have only themselves to blame for either a) Playing one of the Genocidal civics, or b) Performing worse than they would if they engaged with it
3. Diplomacy, with or without the tradition group, is very strong in Stellaris, and the higher the difficulty setting you play on, the more valuable it is
4. That's why the Diplomacy tradition group, that many players playing on the lower difficulty settings find weak, is by many playing on the higher difficulties considered one of the strongest tradition groups as it provides a lot of early-game power at a low cost even if you only pick up the Opener+Federations early and take the rest of the traditions much later, allowing you to easier diplomatically neutralize potential enemies and make them friends as well as run more simultaneous first contacts for influence

 

[Sarawen]

I'm glad this is a beta version. I think The Technology curve shouldn't be purely about the level of technology. The end time should also be included in it. Tech sliders are about making the universe more consistent with your imagination, not about making changes less painful, and the default settings are too torture for most computers.

Others, well done, I like them -
Please don’t forget about other positions that can produce research points.

 

[Cartographics]

I don't know how much chance this has of getting significant attention way down here, but here goes:

Try replacing % discounts across the board with "efficiency rating" wherein +10% efficiency rating means that you get 100% output for (100/110) = 0.909x the cost, and ramping up the efficiency rating even to e.g. +90% would only mean (100/190) = 0.526x the cost (48% reduction with huge diminishing returns).