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

[DeanTheDull]

Halving your miners? What? You're REPLACING the miners by farmers?! There's NO efficiency bonuses to using farmers over miners. It's 18 food for 6 alloys, which is still 3 farmers. Like if you took mining guilds instead, that's 25% more minerals. It also increases the benefit of industrial to 31,25% benefit instead of 25% So collectively you'll have almost a third more minerals per miner as opposed to agrarian farmers. I can't make sense of anything you're saying here. The only other benefit I can think of here is that you can buy a higher cumulative amount of minerals and food through the market, because you're investing less in one given resource. But that effect is mitigated somewhat because food for alloys is 50% more expensive on the market.

The boost you're getting by replacing minerals with food is that you're replacing a stricter economic choke point with a more flexible one with fewer competing demands.

We're talking about alloy rushing right? Ever heard of the landmine empire? Every starbase is 100 alloys before reductions. And upgrading them is dumping an additional 200, and 100 for two modules. That's several corvettes you're flushing down the drain. Starbase modules are horribly inefficient in the early game, before you've got way too many alloys to spare and strong techs to boost them. A starbase with no military modules provide almost no buffer against enemy fleet-rushes at all. This doesn't even take into consideration the fact you have to spend time to build starbases. So your effective cost is going to be even higher than 5 years. Hell, even building a module is half a year...

We're shifting topics as you've changed the comparison and focus, but I'd point out that while the landmine empire model is a model for a rush, it's not the only model and a poor one for a less restrictive early-rush build. The landmine is 100% focused on having a neighbor your can fight before they can build 20 corvettes, but gives up teching and economics to do so. That's not the point of the strategies I'm raising, which focus more on getting to the fleet cap but then having more production to replace corvettes with.


If the framing of an early game rush frustrates because it implies to you a strict first-contact build where you don't expand until conquest, I'll happily consider a different word, but landmine model isn't the only early-game aggression model.

Also you'd need to take the average amount of space minerals. Which are... far more efficient than building random starbases. Even if it's only 2 minerals per month. You don't need an extra job to make those minerals into alloys, whilst mining guids makes it even cheaper.

You're countering your own argument (and spreadsheet) here. You can't get space-based resources if you don't use alloys to expand your empire. If you're using alloys to expand, then you're violating your own rate-of-return objections. If the same total number of miners and farmers are needed as upkeep support, you're not needing extra jobs. And obviously the catalytic converters will also build the mineral satelites in the same system.

The point is- after every equivalent industrial district or alloy foundry built- they will have more minerals to do it with. Whether they have to build a farm district to try and cover that half of the upkeep versus a normal empire having to build a mining district to do the same, they will have more minerals per month to afford either.



Plus, that good old space resource RNG. Not always a reliable alternative to planet districts, which is another reason catalytic converters will be strong- reliability. One reason why starbase hydrophonic bays are more reliable than the nebula refineries, which would have a greater mineral-upkeep efficiency but are RNG dependent on map generation and require a non-military engineer tech.

Another aspect of why food production is preferable as upkeep for alloys is that food production is easier to scale up on planets than minerals. Minerals can really only come from mineral districts, but food can be expanded by building slot on any planet.

They're effectively twice as easy to produce as alloys. They're quick to build, and you've got the 6 mineral deposits which are extra juicy. Unless you're making 999 consumer goods on the side whilst you're alloy rushing. It's going to be wasted. Of course, you can make some extra consumer goods to abuse the market and monthly trades... but that's once again a math question to the actual effect.

The math won't mean anything if you your framing focuses on the wrong thing. Just as rate-of-return is schewed if you factor in costs you're already going to pay, other dynamics and offsets adjust the equation.

If you frame the problem in terms of gaining minerals, for example, miner guilds will always be stronger on the face of it. +1 mineral per pop per job compared to the job without civic. 6 mineral deposits for 12 jobs is +12 minerals over what a non-miner guild could do, as long as you're spending 12 pops in them.

We could make arguments that homeworld efficiency sucks. That the 25% mine colony focus is much better, and that the time it takes the homeworld mines to pay themselves off makes the investment in them a waste. It'd probably be a waste of time.

Or we could look at what the bonus is per pop per job sans civic

Miner guild is +1 mineral per pop for the equivalent non-civic job.

Catalytic is +6 minerals/-9 food per pop for the equivalent, non-civic job.


If we look at a time/mineral cost to get to the +6 mineral benefit, that would be-

To get +6 minerals boost from miner guild civic, we'd need 6 pops working the job, working in mines that cost 900 minerals (300*3) that take 720 days to build (240*3).
It would require 6 pops, and we'd get our +6 at the end of the 720.

To get +6 minerals and mitigate the upkeep of Catalytic with a food profit, we'd need 800 minerals (500 + 300) that take 720 days to build (480 + 240). It would require 3 pops, and we'd get our +6 minerals at day 241.

We'd have a 100 mineral capital cost savings, and have 3 pops to do whatever we wanted.



Framed in this form, one catalytic converter is worth either 6 miner guild miners in bonuses, or adds +3 pops to do whatever...

But the miner guild is still actually producing minerals (30 a month per 6 miners at 5 min/mon), while the catalytic converter is producing alloys (and whose 3 free pops are only worth 12 minerals a month at 4 min/mon).

So is the minerals or the alloys worth more that early on? Well, that depends on what the need for minerals is... and thus comes into the sort of factor that doesn't pop up on spreadsheet analysis, the pop economy. Starting empires are ~30 pops. 3 pops saved is nearly 10% of your economy freed up to be, well, anything.

Including- if the mineral budget can afford it- another catalytic-converter-and-farmer-upkeep combo. Doubling the alloy (and consumer good) output potential vis-a-vis non-catalytic converters.

Etc. etc. etc.

The benefits of catalytic are still on my to-do list to calculate. But in the meantime until it's calculated, the actual benefits of not taking mining guilds, seems VERY slim. The fact it takes an extra job to turn minerals/food into alloys in the first place is why scrap miners are so good in the first place. And why it might be hard to finance them alternatively without strong economic boosts.

And I don't disagree that mining guilds is- and remains- strong. It'll even make a strong combo with catalytic, where guaranteed colony one focuses on minerals, guaranteed colony 2 focuses on farm, and the player removes all miner/farm jobs from the homeworld in favor of industrial districts and science labs, as they should. The mineral economy on colony 1 will gradually cover empire needs until space-based resources develop enough, and planet two can build farming buildings when the districts run out and be the only farm world the empire needs for quite some time while having an enviable alloy production capability.

But you'll notice we're far, far away from discussing Hedonism as an early game economic advantage.

 

[Objulen]

On Catalytic Economies. TLDR - For SE's, it's a fun pick that won't be as optimal as Mining Guilds, but you may be able to leverage combos with it and have a fun concept. For Hive Minds, it offers real benefits for their economy and should be seriously considered. It's just godawful for Machine Empires, and I'd never recommend taking over Rock Breakers unless you really want to have a techno-organic ME.

1. Standard Empires - Suboptimal, but fun looking. Just be aware that you'll need to find ways to leverage Food production to really make it shine.
   1. It's 9 food for 3 alloys, instead of 6 minerals for 3 alloys. At the start of the game, this is 1:1 parity, since Farmers are 33% more productive than miners.
   2. Minerals are more efficient for Alloys over time, but only because resource buildings give the same +2 bonus, when fully upgraded, to all resource types.
      • You end up getting 8 food from farmers and 6 minerals from miners. 8:9 is less efficient than 6:6
   3. If you take Mining Guilds, then Catalytic Processing will be a loss. If you're optimizing an SE, and you have to choose between the two, then you're better off with Mining Guilds, on the whole, unless you focus your empire on leveraging food production.
      • At that point, you end up with 8:9 food to alloys vs. 7:6 minerals to alloys.
   4. Catalytic Processing is only good if you're going to focus on bonuses to food production over mineral production - generally, you shouldn't take both. If you're going for Catalytic Processing, which favors moving as much mineral production to orbital mining and other low-pop sources, Master Crafters may be a good combo, as it improves Artisan mineral efficiency and thus reduces your empire's mineral needs.
2. Hive Minds should seriously consider Catalytic Processing
   1. They don't have anything like Mining Guilds, so there's no Civic opportunity cost to compare.
   2. Hive Minds have more jobs, like Synapse Drones and Spawning Drones, that cost food, so they have a more Food-based economy base to build on.
   3. They use minerals directly for Research. Early on, pops bottleneck SEs with Consumer Good production, but as the game progresses Hive Minds tend to end up with more expensive research than SEs
      • For example, without % bonuses, 3 mining drones producing 6 minerals pay for 3 brain drones, while a miner's 6 minerals pay for an Artisan's 8 CGs which pay for 4 researchers - Hive Minds have a 1:1 ratio while SEs have a 1:2 ratio once they get the right buildings. This becomes less favorable for Hive Minds once you add in % bonuses, since the SEs can get % bonuses to both minerals and CGs.
      • Hive Minds can leverage space minerals for research directly, but that requires minimizing other sources of mineral consumption to have a meaningful effect. They don't have a need for Consumer Goods, so they can dump all their space minerals into buildings and research.
3. Catalytic Processing is Terrible for Machine Empires
   • The two MEs that need food for pops, Driven Assimiliators and Rogue Servitors, are banned from taking the Civic. Standard MEs have no economic base that requires Food production at all, so you're adding a third element to your economy that didn't need to exist.
   • Unlike Hive Minds, Machine Empires can take Rock Breakers, which is exactly like Mining Guilds
   • Relevant resource buildings for MEs add energy/mining districts, so there is less of a chance of running into a district shortage. The Agriculture building doesn't do that.
   • Machine Worlds only provide Minerals and/or Energy districts. So you can't use your best world type with this Civic.

 

[oreopirate]

The ringworld origin changes are very disappointing. I'm all for changing the origin to not make it so OP, but this just doesn't make sense.

How would you have nerfed it then, when what made it OP was the very attainability of Research districts from the beginning?

Here are some things I can suggest:
1. Introduce research districts for this origin. If the restored ringworld will have research segments, but the player has already built many labs, then what's the point of getting the research segments anyway.
2. Reduce the restore cost - even without the tech requirement, 10000 alloys would be a massive investment. Or look at Stefan's perfectly balanced mod and do something similar.
3. Give bonus to ringworlds in general for pop growth and job output etc, so that there is some utility for the investment of 10000 alloys ( +15000 alloys for someone building it from scratch)

1) That's what made the origin OP to begin with. Unless you are going to to give the shattered ringworld special districts with only 4-5 jobs a piece, that won't cut it.
2) Even Mid-game that's not that big of an investment. It's just a matter of priority. Mid game, that's 3-4 years of alloy production. Tops. That's not huge.
3)There is already utility. Research districts means more labs, and you can replace those labs with other buildings, like Omega alignment, and the like. Agri districts can feed your entire empire, letting you change your agri worlds to more useful stuff. Generator districts for energy. This not to say that I wouldn't be fine with a pop growth or job output boost to ringworlds. Because if you already them, the AI doesn't matter.

Everything that you have suggested, would just make this origin more OP.

The only "advantage" of a research segment is that it creates significantly more jobs per mineral/gas/build time. It doesn't give any unique bonus to research.
This advantage only holds in the current implementation of the origin when a player can transition a lot of pops to research jobs quickly in the beginning from less useful jobs like clerks. But there is zero advantage of research segments if the player has already spent 80-100 years building the planet with advanced research complexes. So even if the ringworld was restored, there'd be no incentive to build up the segments and destroy the advanced research complexes.

The research segments, provide housing, +20 jobs, and either means you get more researchers, (How is this bad?); or that you can repurpose those reserch complexes into things like the Research Institute, Embassy, Omega Alignment, culture buildings (Because who actually has filled all of their traditions by the time you build a Ringworld?), Nanite Transmuters, Bio reactors, Refineries, Strong holds for soldier jobs and Naval cap, etc. Ringworld housing districts also give way more housing than you can ever actually employ, so that takes up some of your district cap.

I don't intend to sound mean, but this really sounds like you are upset about not being able to tech rush.

 

[DeanTheDull]

On Catalytic Economies. TLDR - For SE's, it's a fun pick that won't be as optimal as Mining Guilds, but you may be able to leverage combos with it and have a fun concept. For Hive Minds, it offers real benefits for their economy and should be seriously considered. It's just godawful for Machine Empires, and I'd never recommend taking over Rock Breakers unless you really want to have a techno-organic ME.

1. Standard Empires - Suboptimal, but fun looking. Just be aware that you'll need to find ways to leverage Food production to really make it shine.
   1. It's 9 food for 3 alloys, instead of 6 minerals for 3 alloys. At the start of the game, this is 1:1 parity, since Farmers are 33% more productive than miners.
   2. Minerals are more efficient for Alloys over time, but only because resource buildings give the same +2 bonus, when fully upgraded, to all resource types.
      • You end up getting 8 food from farmers and 6 minerals from miners. 8:9 is less efficient than 6:6
   3. If you take Mining Guilds, then Catalytic Processing will be a loss. If you're optimizing an SE, and you have to choose between the two, then you're better off with Mining Guilds, on the whole, unless you focus your empire on leveraging food production.
      • At that point, you end up with 8:9 food to alloys vs. 7:6 minerals to alloys.
   4. Catalytic Processing is only good if you're going to focus on bonuses to food production over mineral production - generally, you shouldn't take both. If you're going for Catalytic Processing, which favors moving as much mineral production to orbital mining and other low-pop sources, Master Crafters may be a good combo, as it improves Artisan mineral efficiency and thus reduces your empire's mineral needs.

There's a lot of good points here, and I agree with the point about over-time based on economy bonuses into the mid/late game. I think there's a case for weighing catalytic conversion as an early game vs mid-game civic factoring what you mention.

For one, early game the tech bonuses largely don't apply (hence parity), but raw production increases do- and food production is easier to boost in early-to-mid. Starbases are 10 food+ in their bays, but the same tech unlocks the planet-building hydroponic farms as a building slot. This means that while planetary mineral districts are effecitvely limited by the number of mining districts, farms are limited by farming districts and building slots. While it's not necessarily economical in isolation to build city-districts for hydrophonic bays, it is easier to get a planet full of farmers vis-a-vis a planet full of miners, which is a bit of RNG mitigation. Mix that with means to get new building slots- such as Functional Architecture (and maybe the Adaptive tree if that hasn't changed?), and your early-game district bottlekneck of districts-on-planets is looser for farmers.

Second, if you are going farming, there's a pretty good point to swap over civics that doesn't leave you re-tooling your entire farm infrastructure into mines for tens of thousands of minerals: biological ascension. When you trade civics, you're going to take a huge mineral hit in exchange for a huge food surplus, but you can mitigate the retooling you need to do if you time it to the point you start building lots and lots of cloning labs. Those labs will greatly reduce your alloy/energy burden from robot labs they replace- likely raising your alloy count somewhat to mitigate whatever cut-backs you need for minerals- and put your already-established infrastructure to good use. You'll still need to convert farm worlds to mine worlds, but far less than if you'd gone another ascension route.
(Bio-ascension can also be used to replace farmer-species with delicious nerve-stapled livestock, who I believe now do get farmer/food efficiency bonuses, making them the most efficient resource producer pop in the game.)


Definitely contextual, and I think the Mining Guild bonus vs Catalytic processing doesn't add up on a pop-efficiency point, but good points all around.

Much later game, I've seen different speculation on how mega-structures will factor in- whether the

 

[Ketrai]

You've lost me as soon as you started talking about "gaining" minerals by producing food. You're not gaining anything.

There is no pop benefit to using farming districts compared to mining districts. Each district costs the same. Has the same upkeep. Takes equally long to build. Provides 2 jobs. Where 2 farmers = 4 alloys. And 2 mining guild miners = 5 alloys. These are immediately ready to use. You don't need to spend time building fancy starbases.

As objulen has said before and I've already droned about in the discord. The flat +1 and +2 bonuses makes mineral inherently more efficient at producing alloys than food. If there is an early game benefit, it's not worth it. And you've completely ignored the mathematic that it takes 10 years to refund the space stations. Even then you're still restricted to 5 of them. For a grand total of about 15 alloys per month. Not bad. But you're still paying with the lack of mining guilds which gives a strong late game benefit. That doesn't just extend to alloys. But consumer goods and rare resources as well. I can do another comparison. Would just be as easy as adapting the scrap miner model I have if you really want to see the numbers. Believe me. I've tried to make catalytic work in theory. But it needs some really silly builds to work. You can get some minor benefits with radiotropic and post apocalyptic. You can get some benefits as agrarian idyll. There's merit in tree of life. And then a huge bonus for devouring swarms. But for regular empires, especially alloy rushing? I don't see it being better than mining guilds.

As for hedonism it seems that artificers from masterful crafters are much stronger candidates anyways. You can't do that much meaningful stuff with a 7.2% bonus. It's a drop in the bucket compared to any other strong production bonus.

I'm willing to see what it looks like in practice once lem comes out. But this so far looks more like an RP civic for 90% of all empire types. Can root around in the dirt for ways to make it work. But this is like comparing clerks to technicians and saying they're better just because you can have more of them. (Although clerks are better in the early game with certain bonuses. But w/e. Farming has no unique bonuses that are easily accessible.)

 

[Objulen]

For one, early game the tech bonuses largely don't apply (hence parity), but raw production increases do- and food production is easier to boost in early-to-mid. Starbases are 10 food+ in their bays, but the same tech unlocks the planet-building hydroponic farms as a building slot. This means that while planetary mineral districts are effecitvely limited by the number of mining districts, farms are limited by farming districts and building slots. While it's not necessarily economical in isolation to build city-districts for hydrophonic bays, it is easier to get a planet full of farmers vis-a-vis a planet full of miners, which is a bit of RNG mitigation. Mix that with means to get new building slots- such as Functional Architecture (and maybe the Adaptive tree if that hasn't changed?), and your early-game district bottlekneck of districts-on-planets is looser for farmers.

So, there are a few things to consider when looking at this:

1) You get space minerals without a pop cost. Yes, you can also get some food from stations, but you have to pay to upgrade them and use that 1 building slot specifically for food. While you'll probably want all of your anchorages to eventually have hydroponics bays, you're not going to have much in the way of pop-free food at any point of the game.

2) Hydroponic farms have much more utility - however, you get two jobs per bay at a much higher upkeep cost when you are basically converting city districts over to farming districts. While this is a viable option if you're strapped for Food, it's always better to just find a world with more agricultural districts, depending on the RNG gods. The only real advice here is to not be any kind of apocalyptic if you want agriculture districts.

The flip side of this is Mining Guilds, which gives you a base mineral production of 5:6 for alloys out of the box, plus Habitats are much more efficient for minerals, not food. There's really just no way around it - you have job flexibility planet-side with Catalytic Processing that you don't have with Mining Guilds, but Mining Guilds is going to be more resource effective, and both cost a Civic. The only direct buildable source of Farming jobs for SEs are be Ring worlds.

However, this is also another reason why Master Crafters combos well with Catalytic Processing. Not only are you reducing your reliance on minerals, and thus can float more space minerals, but you also get an extra building slot for every 2 Industrial Districts - free building slots for more farming jobs, if you need them, on Forge and Factory worlds. Catalytic Empires are also going to need to rely on Terraforming, and are better off with Ascension Perks like World Shaper and Mastery of Nature.

Second, if you are going farming, there's a pretty good point to swap over civics that doesn't leave you re-tooling your entire farm infrastructure into mines for tens of thousands of minerals: biological ascension. When you trade civics, you're going to take a huge mineral hit in exchange for a huge food surplus, but you can mitigate the retooling you need to do if you time it to the point you start building lots and lots of cloning labs. Those labs will greatly reduce your alloy/energy burden from robot labs they replace- likely raising your alloy count somewhat to mitigate whatever cut-backs you need for minerals- and put your already-established infrastructure to good use. You'll still need to convert farm worlds to mine worlds, but far less than if you'd gone another ascension route.
(Bio-ascension can also be used to replace farmer-species with delicious nerve-stapled livestock, who I believe now do get farmer/food efficiency bonuses, making them the most efficient resource producer pop in the game.)

This kind of mad-scientist plan sounds good on paper, but it's very impractical.

• There is simply never a good point to switch from Food to Minerals for Alloys. If you're going Catalytic, stay Catalytic. If you want to use Minerals for Alloys, taking Mining Guilds. The only time you'd want to switch is if you end up just screwed out of Farmer jobs for some reason.
• Per the above, you're just better off getting more Food for Cloning Vats if you bio-ascend, and maybe getting rid of your robots on the slave market. If you want to go minerals and bio-ascend, get more food. Per the above, the switch has nothing but downsides.
• So, mad scientist that you are, I can see why you'd wanted to mass produce Soylent Green, but it doesn't make a great deal of sense. Livestock costs the same trait points as Agrarian, and unless you're pops are really unhappy - like a hardcore slaver empire, maybe - Nerve Stapled isn't a great investment either. It's simply better to Agrarian + Robust, or, even better, Agrarian + Fecund, get a 15% boost farmer jobs, and just get more pops out of the deal for an extra trait point.
  
  Livestock really only makes sense if you are just out of districts for farming jobs - the only time you'll really see a situation like that should be if you have a Hive Mind conquering an SE, but by this time you can just assimilate their pops.

Definitely contextual, and I think the Mining Guild bonus vs Catalytic processing doesn't add up on a pop-efficiency point, but good points all around.

The numbers disagree for Alloy production. 7:6 vs. 8:9. 117% efficiency vs. 89% efficiency. Add in space minerals and the Matter Decompressor, and it becomes even more apparent.

Much later game, I've seen different speculation on how mega-structures will factor in- whether the

Megastructures won't change much. FIrst, they're end game, and if you're floating your empire on space minerals with food for alloys, then you aren't going to want to change that just because you got a Matter Decompressor. At worst, it'll end up being an argument against taking Catalytic Processing, but that assumes 0 miner jobs by that stage in the game - Authoritarian slavers are more likely to pull this off, due to the reduced need for CGs, but if you have any miner jobs it'll be useful. The key would be if you can shuffle pops around to A) still keep a moderate mineral surplous for buildings while B) having pop free minerals for all your Artisans to pay for all your researchers.

Hive Minds will always use it - they pay for research with minerals directly.

 

[Violent AI]

How would you have nerfed it then, when what made it OP was the very attainability of Research districts from the beginning?

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.

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.

1) That's what made the origin OP to begin with. Unless you are going to to give the shattered ringworld special districts with only 4-5 jobs a piece, that won't cut it.

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.

2) Even Mid-game that's not that big of an investment. It's just a matter of priority. Mid game, that's 3-4 years of alloy production. Tops. That's not huge.

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.

3)There is already utility. Research districts means more labs, and you can replace those labs with other buildings, like Omega alignment, and the like. Agri districts can feed your entire empire, letting you change your agri worlds to more useful stuff. Generator districts for energy. This not to say that I wouldn't be fine with a pop growth or job output boost to ringworlds. Because if you already them, the AI doesn't matter.

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.

Everything that you have suggested, would just make this origin more OP.


The research segments, provide housing, +20 jobs, and either means you get more researchers, (How is this bad?); or that you can repurpose those reserch complexes into things like the Research Institute, Embassy, Omega Alignment, culture buildings (Because who actually has filled all of their traditions by the time you build a Ringworld?), Nanite Transmuters, Bio reactors, Refineries, Strong holds for soldier jobs and Naval cap, etc. Ringworld housing districts also give way more housing than you can ever actually employ, so that takes up some of your district cap.

I don't intend to sound mean, but this really sounds like you are upset about not being able to tech rush.

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.

As I pointed out in an earlier post, resource consolidation has all district slots open, and can easily spam 1 research lab a year. It also has 33% more pop assembly compared to other origins. And all resources (including research) get 10% output bonus from the planet.

 

[Tamwin5]

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.
View attachment 751951

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.

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.

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.

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.

As I pointed out in an earlier post, resource consolidation has all district slots open, and can easily spam 1 research lab a year. It also has 33% more pop assembly compared to other origins. And all resources (including research) get 10% output bonus from the planet.

iirc, the free assembler on machine worlds (for resource consolidation) is locked behind a blocker, that takes a bunch of alloys to clear. For exactly the reasons you mentioned, about being powerful.

Personally, I think it's a very interesting story that what were once state of the art labs and particle accelerators have been turned into mining tunnels, a primitive civilization just finding their feet ripping out copper wiring to build crude rockets. Yes, the change was made for balance considerations, but that doesn't mean it's somehow ruining the story, just changing it. The only narrative lost here is the power fantasy the origin provided.

 

[Violent AI]

iirc, the free assembler on machine worlds (for resource consolidation) is locked behind a blocker, that takes a bunch of alloys to clear. For exactly the reasons you mentioned, about being powerful.

600 minerals only. If you prioritize it over building buildings, you can remove it by end of year 2.

Personally, I think it's a very interesting story that what were once state of the art labs and particle accelerators have been turned into mining tunnels, a primitive civilization just finding their feet ripping out copper wiring to build crude rockets. Yes, the change was made for balance considerations, but that doesn't mean it's somehow ruining the story, just changing it. The only narrative lost here is the power fantasy the origin provided.

Research segments is what is unique to ringworlds (and habitats) and what sets them apart from all other planets.
So when the new "shattered planet" is only having districts that are available on all other planet types (commercial is clerks + artisans which is equivalent to housing and industrial, exception being the scrap miner), AND restoring it has the exact same prerequisites as restoring another ruined segment, then for all intents and purposes, this is only a "shattered ringworld" in label only, but plays like a regular planet (except worse, because no energy districts for organics and no proper mining districts).

To give an analogy, consider relic worlds today. A relic world is not just a label pasted on a regular planet.
It has special features that make it relevant as a former ecumenopolis and an easier path to restore to an Ecumenopolis (no need of the AP or building up housing/industrial districts).

Now imagine, if instead of this design, a relic world didn't have any of these special features, and to restore to ecumenopolis required you to get the AP AND build up all the housing/industrial districts. Then it would be just a regular planet with the Relic world label on it.
This is what the new "shattered ring planet" design feels like to me.

And of course, you are welcome to feel differently.

 

[Me_]

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.

View attachment 750637
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!)

The more I think about it, the more bundling together Ringworlds and Habitats makes zero sense. In fact, it now makes negative sense and the value keeps dropping.

The ring worlds are enormous, sprawling, with multiple continents and oceans and more surface area than any standard planet.

The description of the trait mentions tiny tunnels and maze-like architecture.

On a ring world???


Why would weaker immune system be less sensitive the the enormous sprawling ecosystems of ring worlds?

Whoever came up with that trait had very weird idea of ringworlds completely detached from their in-game presentation.

The only similarity is the use of large amount of durable material for the ring superstructure. I guess the trait should be renamed to "Metal affinity"or something

 

[Objulen]

Why would weaker immune system be less sensitive the the enormous sprawling ecosystems of ring worlds?

Whoever came up with that trait had very weird idea of ringworlds completely detached from their in-game presentation.

The only similarity is the use of large amount of durable material for the ring superstructure. I guess the trait should be renamed to "Metal affinity"or something

Because it's an entirely artificial planet, with no starting ecology of its own. Every organism can be designed from the ground up.

Personally, I think it makes sense to extend it to Gaia Worlds, due to their perfect habitabiltiy - one would assume their micro flora and fauna have been engineered to create adaptive symbiotic relationships with any host they encounter, or to just not interact with most mega flora/fauna at all.

 

[Magmus]

IIRC, in the colony screen you can click on the colony name to change it.
Or did you mean getting the ability to save the names for the other two habitats in the empire template?

The latter.

 

[Ferrus Animus]

To give an analogy, consider relic worlds today. A relic world is not just a label pasted on a regular planet.
It has special features that make it relevant as a former ecumenopolis and an easier path to restore to an Ecumenopolis (no need of the AP or building up housing/industrial districts).

Now imagine, if instead of this design, a relic world didn't have any of these special features, and to restore to ecumenopolis required you to get the AP AND build up all the housing/industrial districts. Then it would be just a regular planet with the Relic world label on it.
This is what the new "shattered ring planet" design feels like to me.

And of course, you are welcome to feel differently.

Which is why Remnants is sucha disappaointing origin. While you can press the ecumenopolis button without building all districts and without the AP (restoring broken ringwold segments also skip the AP requirements for building a enw one), it has none of the special features.

 

[Me_]

Because it's an entirely artificial planet, with no starting ecology of its own. Every organism can be designed from the ground up.

Sorry, but that does not hold any ground with the way the artificial world qualifier has been presented so far (i.e. only ring worlds and habitats - not even most of engineered ecologies).

By that logic, every terraformed barren planet should qualify as well.

And what about mech world, that do not have any ecology?

Not to mentioon how stupid exactly would we need to be to believe that an ecosystem the size of multiple earths would a) not deveolop new organisms, b) not end up tainted by unplanned infestation. On habitats, these kind of things can be tightly controlled. On a ringworld, not so much.

 

[DeanTheDull]

The numbers disagree for Alloy production. 7:6 vs. 8:9. 117% efficiency vs. 89% efficiency.

The numbers of the the wrong basis of comparison are wrong whether they disagree or not. The proper basis of comparison of civics that change yields isn't the number of input resources/alloy output, though that's good information to have, it's the margin of the resources of pop per equivalent job the civic replaces.

To bring the civic comparison back to mining guilds, for example, it wouldn't make sense to analyze miner guilds vs another civic by the total output of a miner (5 vs 4, or 6 vs 5), but the marginal output of a miner guild miner vs a non-miner guild miner. At the end of the day, Miner Guild is +1 mineral per miner compared to those who don't get it, and that is the mechanic swap analysis that matters most when comparing civics.

Catalytic converters is +6 minerals/-9 food per alloy worker vs civics that don't have it. To get +6 minerals boost from Miner Guilds as a civic, you'd need, well, 6 workers working mines. That's net five people for the same civic-based benefit, and even if two of them are spent covering the food upkeep cost with a similar dynamic of miners covering, that's still 3 pops left over after matching the civic-based benefit.

The 3 pops saved for the same civics bonus are a resource efficiency that isn't caught in a stand-alone conversion rate calculation. As civics are the mechanic swap, that's kind of important.


Similarly, excel resource conversion rates don't account for how applicable bonuses are in certain parts of the game and how they can be achieved.

To give another example: plenty of early industrializers can get 5 industrial districts relatively early in the first two decades of the game, which for catalytic converters would be a +30 minerals, -45 food margin as a pop-swap. But to get +30 minerals from Miner Guilds you'd need, well, 30 pops employed as miners.

No one has 30 pops to spare as miners at the start of the game, and by the time they do people who do stack that many miners are economically unbalanced and militarily/technologically weak for not having invested pops into industrial economy and specialist economy, and they'd be roled over by someone who did. Hence why the marginal mineral bonus from Miner Guilds usually is usually far less than +30 (which, again, is bottlenecked by having 30 pops in the job), but anyone with 5 alloy workers would get that marginal mineral advantage (and be forced to pay). At which point the upkeep implications also pop up- the ability to convert 50 alloys into 10 food with starbases you alredy have, the RNG of having a good mineral vs food planet and ability to expand food vs mineral production, etc.

But, again, 7:6 vs 8:9 doesn't capture that because mineral/food:alloy ratios don't encompass this real-game limiting factors.

 

[Objulen]

So, let's break this up.

Sorry, but that does not hold any ground with the way the artificial world qualifier has been presented so far (i.e. only ring worlds and habitats - not even most of engineered ecologies).

I never said it did. I only said that I think that Gaia Worlds shouldn't penalize Void Dweller pops because they perfect habitability for everyone. It's a feature of Gaia Worlds, which normally require an Ascension perk to terraform.

By that logic, every terraformed barren planet should qualify as well

Not in the least. Other planet types don't have perfect habitability for everyone. Terraforming a world to your species' preferred still only has a base habitability of 80%, IIRC. Gaia Worlds are "perfect" worlds, which is a special feature of that planet type.

And what about mech world, that do not have any ecology?

They have 0% habitability for all pops except for cybernetic drones of DA's, at least according to the wiki. They aren't designed to have any habitability for organic pops of any type. Cybernetic Nivlac are some of the very few organics that would such a world tolerable, and I don't believe even they would have 100% habitability without other traits, even with techs.

Not to mentioon how stupid exactly would we need to be to believe that an ecosystem the size of multiple earths would a) not deveolop new organisms, b) not end up tainted by unplanned infestation. On habitats, these kind of things can be tightly controlled. On a ringworld, not so much.

Based on what? You're talking about science fiction. The technology to create Gaia Worlds or Ring Worlds is so far beyond what we can do now that it's mind-boggling.

A Ring World's ecology could be tightly controlled. The entire world is crafted scratch, including its ecology, and it obviously doesn't have anything resembling normal gravity. It's day-night cycle would be entirely artificially controlled, since it doesn't rotate. So would any tidal effects. Any magnetosphere would have to artificial, because it doesn't have a liquid iron dynamo at it's non-existent core to generate one. Regulating the ecology at this point would be a different field of science, but no less wondrous and impossible by our current technological standards.

Similarly, Gaia worlds have 100% habitability for everyone, from any planet type. That requires all sorts of adaptive ecology to compensate for heat, humidity, micro fauna/flora, gravitation preferences - also a feature of pure science fiction by our current technological standards.

Conceptually, a Hive World makes more sense, because it converts the entire planet into a part of the Hive Mind, so there is some kind of agency actively adapting the world to any drones on the planet, regardless of their base habitability, like a giant skeleton and skin surrounding working organs spliced onto it from potentially very different animals. However, all of the actors here are driven by the will of the Hive Mind to some degree, so the kind of symbiosis makes sense.

Yet, somehow, Gaia worlds achieve this level of adaptive compatibility without any kind of external agent. Unless there's a technological infrastructure regulating the entire planet - which isn't stated or implied- then the universal compatbility is entirely based on what can only be described as a symphony of pre-programmed biological actors, likely without any agency of their own, specifically designed to accommodate the needs of every alien life form that enters its biosphere, and without modifying the alien life form in any long-lasting way to so. There is nothing about that scenario which wouldn't extend to Void Dwellers as well.

 

[Objulen]

The numbers of the the wrong basis of comparison are wrong whether they disagree or not. The proper basis of comparison of civics that change yields isn't the number of input resources/alloy output, though that's good information to have, it's the margin of the resources of pop per equivalent job the civic replaces.

The 7:6 and 8:9 is the margin of the resources of pop per equivalent job the civic replaces. On a mining world with the upgraded mining building, a pop working a mining job is 113% efficient for providing inputs for alloy production. On a farming world, a pop working a farming job with the upgraded farming building is ~89% efficient.

To bring the civic comparison back to mining guilds, for example, it wouldn't make sense to analyze miner guilds vs another civic by the total output of a miner (5 vs 4, or 6 vs 5), but the marginal output of a miner guild miner vs a non-miner guild miner. At the end of the day, Miner Guild is +1 mineral per miner compared to those who don't get it, and that is the mechanic swap analysis that matters most when comparing civics.

Wrong. It makes perfect sense, because you are paying a Civic slot to have Farm-based alloy production. You are changing the fundamental inputs of the equation from X Minerals -> Y Alloys to Z Food -> Y Alloys. The only Civics for comparison that are directly applicable are ones that affect some part of the original equation with the same cost i.e. a Civic slot. The only civic that specifically and directly impacts X Minerals -> Y Alloys is Mining Guilds.

Catalytic converters is +6 minerals/-9 food per alloy worker vs civics that don't have it. To get +6 minerals boost from Miner Guilds as a civic, you'd need, well, 6 workers working mines. That's net five people for the same civic-based benefit, and even if two of them are spent covering the food upkeep cost with a similar dynamic of miners covering, that's still 3 pops left over after matching the civic-based benefit.

Your basic logic is flawed. Even if we separate the bonus from Mining Guilds, You'd end up with something like this on upgraded worlds:

6 minerals per miner -> 6 minerals per 3 Alloys. Every 6 pops you get a free cycle. So 113% efficiency.
8 food per farmer -> 9 food per 3 Alloys. Every 9th pop is "lost" to pay for the other 8 pops. So ~89% efficiency.

Also, you don't get to just hand wave the farmers from the -9 food. Your output is Alloys, you need to examine the inputs, not random unrelated cargo space.

The 3 pops saved for the same civics bonus are a resource efficiency that isn't caught in a stand-alone conversion rate calculation. As civics are the mechanic swap, that's kind of important.

Saved pops are automatically included in the efficiency ratio, though implied and not stated. A more efficient configuration always uses fewer pops for the same number of jobs.

Similarly, excel resource conversion rates don't account for how applicable bonuses are in certain parts of the game and how they can be achieved.

Most bonuses are the same and cancel out, so base number comparison is all that is needed. For a % bonus to matter, it needs to one that doesn't have an equivalent for the other resource. These are mainly planetary bonuses you can't plan for.

To give another example: plenty of early industrializers can get 5 industrial districts relatively early in the first two decades of the game, which for catalytic converters would be a +30 minerals, -45 food margin as a pop-swap. But to get +30 minerals from Miner Guilds you'd need, well, 30 pops employed as miners.

You're ignoring the cost of the farmers, which really doesn't make sense. The only way this analysis makes sense is if you actually had to wait for 30 miners to get +30 minerals. That's not how it works - you get the bonus minerals to the base production of the miners immediately.

What you need to do is look at the end goal. Alloys.

• First, is the comparison applicable? They both have the same cost, 1 Civic Slot, so yes, no adjustment or conversion is needed.
• For each Alloy job, at the start of the game, before any other bonuses, with Catalytic Processing, you get 6 food per farmer, with a ratio of 9 food -> 3 Alloys. That's 66% pop:job efficiency. 3 farmers pay for 2 Metallurgists.
• For each Alloy job at the start of the game, with Mining Guilds, you get 5 minerals per miner, with a ratio of 6 minerals -> 3 Alloys. that's ~83.33% pop efficiency. That's 6 miners paying for 5 Metallurgist jobs.
  • There will be more fluctuations in the pop efficiency ratio for Miners:Metallurgists, because you can't have fractional jobs, but it will never be worse than Farmers:Metallurgists with Catalytic Processing.

But, again, 7:6 vs 8:9 doesn't capture that because mineral/food:alloy ratios don't encompass this real-game limiting factors.

It absolutely does. What doesn't quite conform to the realities of the game would be having fractional jobs. For example, if you have 4 Metallurgists, you're going to still need 5 miners to pay for them with, 1 mineral left over. That's only 80% pop efficiency, unless you can use that mineral for something else. Luckily, during the early game, you probably can.

This applies to having 2 Metallurgists at the start of the game. You still need 3 Miners, generating 15 minerals and paying 12 for the Alloys. You're getting 66% pop efficiency on that ratio, just like farmers. However, you also get a remainder of 3 minerals you can apply elsewhere, such as buildings and automated space mining, so you still get your money's worth.

 

[HFY]

That's only 80% pop efficiency, unless you can use that mineral for something else. Luckily, during the early game, you probably can.

Mid-game you can use it to buy some Menacing Multi-Role Destroyers.

 

[Tamwin5]

600 minerals only. If you prioritize it over building buildings, you can remove it by end of year 2.

Research segments is what is unique to ringworlds (and habitats) and what sets them apart from all other planets.
So when the new "shattered planet" is only having districts that are available on all other planet types (commercial is clerks + artisans which is equivalent to housing and industrial, exception being the scrap miner), AND restoring it has the exact same prerequisites as restoring another ruined segment, then for all intents and purposes, this is only a "shattered ringworld" in label only, but plays like a regular planet (except worse, because no energy districts for organics and no proper mining districts).

To give an analogy, consider relic worlds today. A relic world is not just a label pasted on a regular planet.
It has special features that make it relevant as a former ecumenopolis and an easier path to restore to an Ecumenopolis (no need of the AP or building up housing/industrial districts).
View attachment 751981

Now imagine, if instead of this design, a relic world didn't have any of these special features, and to restore to ecumenopolis required you to get the AP AND build up all the housing/industrial districts. Then it would be just a regular planet with the Relic world label on it.
This is what the new "shattered ring planet" design feels like to me.

And of course, you are welcome to feel differently.

Ah, hadn't realized it was quite that cheap. Still, that 2-3 years is a significant delay, especially considering that you are delaying extra research and alloys during that time. More realistically those other buildings get built first, and the replicator cleared closer to year 5, year 10 tops.

I think you take a very power centric view about flavor and mechanics. If you were to ask me what the biggest difference between a normal planet and a ringworld, I would say the fact that segments are 5 times the size of normal districts. If you asked me what the strongest aspect of a ring world was, then I'd say the science segment.

You simultaneously complain about the lack of uniqueness, yet also about both of the unique districts being added. "plays like a regular planet (except worse, because no energy districts for organics and no proper mining districts)."

Paring the shattered ring down to be fewer jobs per district was a good move for an origin. At the start of the game, the difference between one segment and two is massive, and a lot of the OPnes came from exploiting that. But even playing normally, if you had a deficit of 10 food you'd need to build a whole new segment giving 10 farmers, far in excess of what's required. Stefan's dealt with this by adding some blockers which reduced the number of jobs per district, but changing planet type (and thus district type) works too. You also don't run into the issue of having to give the planet rare resources in order to build anything.

I'm interested if you think just taking every segment down to 2 jobs per would remove what sets ringworlds apart. You do end up losing the merchant job from commercial segments, but that's because you can't really give 0.4 of a merchant, and merchants are far too strong of a job to be giving out for free. Just clerks is horrible though, so giving an artisan seems like a reasonable compromise to make the district possibly worth building. Personally I'm fine with this move, but if you aren't then your problem is with the district shrinking, NOT the science loss (or rather not just the science loss).

Now, from this point you are trading a non-unique district (habitats have research districts) for a completely unique one (scrap miners). This is adding distinctiveness. Doing the "arithmetic" for lost/gained distinctiveness, you come out even: Lose the merchant, gain scrap miner. I'd make the argument that you gain, considering that scrap miners are fully unique, while you can still get merchants from other sources. Of course, what actually matters is the "feel" of the civic, which differs significantly from person to person and is a much more arbitrary, emotional judgement.

In regards to relic worlds, I actually do have a complaint, although it's a bit tangential. Origin Relic worlds have no special features. And I don't mean the super fancy stuff like central spire or reactor pits (although they don't have those either). I mean they have features like "Ore veined cliffs" and "green hills". I do agree that removing everything that makes relic worlds special would cause them to lose a lot of their charm. But I care far more about specialty and uniqueness than the actual power given by those things.

 

[Violent AI]

Ah, hadn't realized it was quite that cheap. Still, that 2-3 years is a significant delay, especially considering that you are delaying extra research and alloys during that time. More realistically those other buildings get built first, and the replicator cleared closer to year 5, year 10 tops.

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.

I think you take a very power centric view about flavor and mechanics. If you were to ask me what the biggest difference between a normal planet and a ringworld, I would say the fact that segments are 5 times the size of normal districts. If you asked me what the strongest aspect of a ring world was, then I'd say the science segment.

You simultaneously complain about the lack of uniqueness, yet also about both of the unique districts being added. "plays like a regular planet (except worse, because no energy districts for organics and no proper mining districts)."

Paring the shattered ring down to be fewer jobs per district was a good move for an origin. At the start of the game, the difference between one segment and two is massive, and a lot of the OPnes came from exploiting that. But even playing normally, if you had a deficit of 10 food you'd need to build a whole new segment giving 10 farmers, far in excess of what's required. Stefan's dealt with this by adding some blockers which reduced the number of jobs per district, but changing planet type (and thus district type) works too. You also don't run into the issue of having to give the planet rare resources in order to build anything.

I'm interested if you think just taking every segment down to 2 jobs per would remove what sets ringworlds apart. You do end up losing the merchant job from commercial segments, but that's because you can't really give 0.4 of a merchant, and merchants are far too strong of a job to be giving out for free. Just clerks is horrible though, so giving an artisan seems like a reasonable compromise to make the district possibly worth building. Personally I'm fine with this move, but if you aren't then your problem is with the district shrinking, NOT the science loss (or rather not just the science loss).

Now, from this point you are trading a non-unique district (habitats have research districts) for a completely unique one (scrap miners). This is adding distinctiveness. Doing the "arithmetic" for lost/gained distinctiveness, you come out even: Lose the merchant, gain scrap miner. I'd make the argument that you gain, considering that scrap miners are fully unique, while you can still get merchants from other sources. Of course, what actually matters is the "feel" of the civic, which differs significantly from person to person and is a much more arbitrary, emotional judgement.

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".

In regards to relic worlds, I actually do have a complaint, although it's a bit tangential. Origin Relic worlds have no special features. And I don't mean the super fancy stuff like central spire or reactor pits (although they don't have those either). I mean they have features like "Ore veined cliffs" and "green hills". I do agree that removing everything that makes relic worlds special would cause them to lose a lot of their charm. But I care far more about specialty and uniqueness than the actual power given by those things.

What type of special features would you have preferred to see? Have you looked for any mods that extend the origin or add events?