Stellaris Dev Diary #237 - Reworking Unity, Part One

[syneti]

A thing I definitely don't like is the edict fund... so convoluted, gamey and clunky. It's "ugly", design-wise, obscure. I can't imagine being a new player, to be honest.

I've done some calculations in my head already (autistic brain) and it looks good so far but playing beta will help maybe ease how you feel i'll be testing and helping I.

 

[oreopirate]

so, to make unity more relevant, you just replaced other resources with it, as a costs?

why do we have to pay for leaders with unity instead of energy (current currency), how is that makes sense? or why do we need unity to build megastructures?

maybe replace research points with unity then? i'm sure it will make it even more relevant

i even got an idea for new civic, its like catalitic processing, but instead it will convert unity into alloys

So instead of giving a mechanic a fair shot, by either playing with it, or waiting for more information as we have barely any, your solution is this post?
This is like, finding a species' scientific name, and having no other information on it, before saying that it is stupid and we should let it go extinct.

We have a lot research working on the same problem world wide. however this lead to disagreements in findings when spread out. A closer knit society in research would have access to the same sources easier which would lead to less disagreements.

An example in real life which springs to mind I do apologise in advance this is only an example I feel most will know. And this would translate to the importance of a closer knit research group yielding better research finds.

Deltacron - Due to research groups all spread over the world most disagree with the findings of the Cypriot research group. Yet research groups closer to this source all see the same findings the further you go from the source these research groups don't agree and call it a laboratory cross contamination

See, the problem with closer knit groups, they all tend to think alike. It's why diversity is so valued in the sciences.
In the instance of Deltacron, other labs have run it, and determined it's most likely cross contamination. Viral recombination as not been observed in COVID yet, and this would be the first instance of it. In addition, what prompted this conclusion was how the "recombined variant" appeared. It was all delta except for one bit of definitively omicron. Viral recombination usually does not work like that. In addition the delta sequences are not from one delta lineage, but multiple. Meaning that there would have been multiple recombination events within delta.
As for why they find it in and around Cypriot, all the labs around there could get their disinfectant from the same source, and just got a defective batch. Improper cleaning (common every), a lax lab culture, etc. All are more likely than Deltacron, but it's possible that deltacron is real.

Beyond that, the big example I have is from my own career field. In the late 1800's and early 1900's they struggled to find ways to manage population numbers. Well, with the creation of the Fisheries and Wildlife department, along with Natural Resource management in the 30's, they had to bring in financial people to manage forests and hunting for the maximum sustainable yield. Those guys realized that a lot of financial equations could be adapted very effienciently for population management. So literally, they use finance equations, all over the globe, to determine how many fish can be harvested, how deer, wolves, bears, etc can be hunted each season, how to best restore endangered populations, etc.

 

[syneti]

So instead of giving a mechanic a fair shot, by either playing with it, or waiting for more information as we have barely any, your solution is this post?
This is like, finding a species' scientific name, and having no other information on it, before saying that it is stupid and we should let it go extinct.


See, the problem with closer knit groups, they all tend to think alike. It's why diversity is so valued in the sciences.
In the instance of Deltacron, other labs have run it, and determined it's most likely cross contamination. Viral recombination as not been observed in COVID yet, and this would be the first instance of it. In addition, what prompted this conclusion was how the "recombined variant" appeared. It was all delta except for one bit of definitively omicron. Viral recombination usually does not work like that. In addition the delta sequences are not from one delta lineage, but multiple. Meaning that there would have been multiple recombination events within delta.
As for why they find it in and around Cypriot, all the labs around there could get their disinfectant from the same source, and just got a defective batch. Improper cleaning (common every), a lax lab culture, etc. All are more likely than Deltacron, but it's possible that deltacron is real.

Beyond that, the big example I have is from my own career field. In the late 1800's and early 1900's they struggled to find ways to manage population numbers. Well, with the creation of the Fisheries and Wildlife department, along with Natural Resource management in the 30's, they had to bring in financial people to manage forests and hunting for the maximum sustainable yield. Those guys realized that a lot of financial equations could be adapted very effienciently for population management. So literally, they use finance equations, all over the globe, to determine how many fish can be harvested, how deer, wolves, bears, etc can be hunted each season, how to best restore endangered populations, etc.

Even close knit groups will disagree due to large numbers. the example really was to point out closer knit groups have access to the same research projects. whilst the groups maybe working on different aspects.


Edit
Another example lesser wide known research topic. Autism
Different groups working on different aspect, each group yields different findings leading to disagreement after disagreement. and 100 years after its discovery they are no closer to finding a cause. Or publicise the health complications associated with it due to the distance and replication issue, which you described , something I was familiar with and wanted to point out closer knit labs benefit much better than being spread out.

I also have a care background along with programming and scientist, I only used Deltacron as an example for the topic of the post I replied too. As it would of been more widely known than autism as an example.

So this said a spread out research community would lead to different findings and increase the speed of research not decrease.

 

[Rostyk.96]

So instead of giving a mechanic a fair shot, by either playing with it, or waiting for more information as we have barely any, your solution is this post?
This is like, finding a species' scientific name, and having no other information on it, before saying that it is stupid and we should let it go extinct.

replacing other resources to increase value of unity instead of improving on already existing unity mechanics, adding meaningful new ones or rebalancing other aspects of the game like tech growth

this diary gave enough information to see solution build on crutches

 

[diagrapher]

So- my impression is that previously unity was the "cultural influence" resource while influence was the "political influence" resource. It sounds like now unity will be the "cultural and political influence" resource- so what will influence be, flavor wise?

 

[Shaeliss]

So- my impression is that previously unity was the "cultural influence" resource while influence was the "political influence" resource. It sounds like now unity will be the "cultural and political influence" resource- so what will influence be, flavor wise?

Internal versus external politics?

That's what it's starting to look like anyways.

 

[M@ni@c]

I like what's mentioned in this dev diary, but it is unfortunate the basic reason why Unity is weak, is not mentioned:
The benefits traditions provide are boring (as in, few increase strategic diversity) and not powerful enough.

 

[Grenartia]

I still say there should be an Empire Development mechanic, where you're rewarded (or penalized) based on what percentage of your owned systems have been developed (and by how much).


That way, wide empires that do nothing but blob get penalized heavily, but not wide empires that develop well. So Empire McEmpireface with 500 systems that are nothing more than outposts gets massive penalties, but JoeShmotopia with 100 systems with a bunch of mining and research stations in every system, and a bunch of colonies and sectors, gets rewarded, and someone doing a One Planet Challenge still has a viable game.

 

[Weyird]

Wow; I'm so excited for this. I'm sure there will be some... issues... though - what jumps to mind is how willing I will be to spend Unity as a resource when I actually want to be saving unity so I can gain traditions and Ascension perks. I don't know if that interaction between incentives will be fun. But it's exciting and new and I can't wait to play it.

 

[Kapitalisti]

Not gonna lie, I'm gonna miss my bureaucracy arcology worlds. But these changes look like huge improvements so can't wait to try them out.

 

[Eladrin]

Small niche UI comment: Part of why being over admin cap feels bad is the UI presents it as bad. It's red, and everywhere else in the UI red = bad. If going over admin cap is expected then high sprawl should be a neutral yellow or blue or similar. If anything being under your admin cap should be red because you haven't picked up all your "free" systems, which is bad, while being over just means you've got a lot of stuff, which is good.

Empire Sprawl will be displayed in a neutral manner in the UI.

This does sound very interesting. So somehow unity is going to turn into repeatable techs like 5% mineral output bonus, Energy weapon attack speed, naval capacity?

No, they'll get a different system to improve their empire. We'll talk about it in next week's diary.

Mmmmh, like others have said, your capacity to field a large fleet make sense in offering capacity to project on international politics, aka influence.
And, it might not be clear, but I did understand that you get a fixe amount of influence per month, which is then reduced if your fleet doesn't match your empire size.

This is an accurate interpretation of how Power Projection will work.

 

[TempestM]

This is an accurate interpretation of how Power Projection will work.

So it will use only fleet size as a measurement, not fleet strength?

 

[Fulgrymm]

So it will use only fleet size as a measurement, not fleet strength?

LOL If true, it'll bring naked corvettes back into the meta.

 

[TheRevanchist25]

I feel like Feudal Society would be better served by providing access to either a unique Federation similar to a Hegemony that allows a special casus belli to expand the Federation, or at least a special type of vassal that provides alloys and fleet capacity

The problem is, due to Paradox not fully thinking their ideas through to completion before they implement, Hegemon is already 2 different systems. Hegamon itself, and Hegemon Lite, aka The Galactic Empire. The Empire should have been Hegemon on Steroids, instead it's worse in almost every possible way. In theory I agree with your premise, but Paradox has clearly shown their not capable or willing to implement this idea properly. Instead perhaps Feudal should basically let you customize what types of Vassals of you have. Basically give Feudal nations the ability to something similar to this mod...

Steam Workshop::Vassals Expanded and Reworked - FunEFork

steamcommunity.com

 

[Maaloc]

I really don't get the general excitement here. Two major points.

1. You identify the problem ("tall empires suck") and you decide to fix this by crippling wide empires. Call it what you want but making admin cap fixed is essentially screwing wide empires over. And that's really puzzling since the game encourages you to play wide (personally, my problem with tall empires is that they miss out on too much: mid-game crises, excavations, leviathans, etc).

2. We've already had all that. This was the game setup a few years ago when we had:
- wide empires not being able to research stuff;
- technocrats sitting on one planet and discovering ring worlds by 2300;
- devouring swarms that flew corvettes until late-game.
Why? Why would you bring this back?

I really think that both game styles should be viable but not at the cost of making them both equally shitty.

 

[MK1980]

i can understand why some players are concerned that the admin cap removal might nerf wide playstyle to the ground, but i think you're overestimating the effect of those penalties.

when the game was released, we already had tech penalties for expanding beyond the homeworld (later on also unity penalites, but unity wasn't even a thing at release). i recently browsed through some old screenshots and one of them had a research screen displaying a tech cost penalty of something like 3000% in a late game empire. that empire was still leading in tech, far ahead of all of the remaining smaller civs.

removing the admin capacity system will not totally flip around the dynamics of the game and make wide empires terrible. it will basically just slow down the overall tech pace. which is a good thing in my estimation. the game felt a lot more epic back then when the late game tech pace was closer to the early game tech pace we have now and didn't accelerate to a frantic 1 tech per year (or even faster) from midgame onwards.

 

[Zentay]

I agree that leader trait cycling did not feel right. If I remember right, way back in older versions of Stellaris leader hiring costs scaled with empire size. This proved unpopular and was disabled. This in turn resulted in "leader trait cycling".

Making leader hiring costs matter again after the early game is only part of the solution. The other part is to fix the issue of many leaders traits being bad, or even useless in certain circumstances:

1. Exploration related traits become useless once there is no more exploring to do. The game should not offer us scientists with useless traits. Maybe scientists doing exploration should have a high chance to gain an exploration related trait on level up, and hirable scientists should never have exploration related traits. Or give us a policy to permit or prohibit exploration related traits on scientists for hire.

2. The lifespan-enhancing and experience-enhancing traits are very weak as first trait. My feeling is that it's not worth it to hire a scientist with these two traits and hope that they later gain a useful trait. These traits should not appear on recruitable scientists but be something that can be gained on level up. The cost reduction trait is also questionable but who knows how the changes will affect it.

Another reason why I use "leader trait cycling" is because it's a way to increase research speed. It doesn't make a large difference but I feel bad missing out on extra research due not having a scientist with the right expertise assigned to research. Then I feel bad about all the micromanagement that this creates. So it's time this is changed. The current effect of the various "expertise in field" traits is to increase research speed and affect the draw chance of relevant techs. This could be changed to the following: +1 tech offered from the relevant field of expertise (the game generates tech options as normally, and then generates an extra choice of tech from the field of expertise). Then scientists are merely a way to influence research direction rather than a way to optimize research speed directly.

 

[jaredstanko]

why cant the player base grasp that going over the admin cap isn't a bad thing? this line of thinking caused the devs to implement the current underwhelming iteration of bureaucrats and we all know how well loved that change was(see: this dev diary)

think about it like this. one tall empire had one science world that makes 100 science, and no admin cap penalty. one wide empire has 2 science worlds that produce 180 science and has a 30% cost increase from sprawl. the wide empire is not nerfed, the wide empire produces ~50% more science than the tall empire! the reason the sprawl is there from a design standpoint is so that the wide empire does not gain 100 science from conquering the small empire, but rather would lose total science output due to the confluence of unhappiness on the conquered world combined with the added empire sprawl. in the long term however, as the wide empire integrates its new subjects, its potential for science would be even stronger than before, even with the sprawl penalty. how is that not straightforward enough?

a small sprawl penalty rewards civic planning and limits snowballing without making wide empires worse than small empires. without some sort of admin cap every addition to your empire is an immediate boon, with no limits to when the growth is appropriate or how long it will take to see an ROI. even a world where 90% of its output goes out the window due to the fury of its populace would still be giving you that last 10%, without empire sprawl there is no representation of the diplomatic, economic, bureaucratic maneuvering that your empire has to do for this angry local populace.

in the past those penalties were represented by a proportion of jobs having to go toward mitigating sprawl (bureaucrats)

now those penalties will have to overcome by a percentage of jobs producing extra science, or whatever, to make up for the penalty. its the same thing either way. i just don't understand how people could be engrossed in this game, thematically, and not understand this.

 

[Wirsing]

I really don't get the general excitement here. Two major points.

1. You identify the problem ("tall empires suck") and you decide to fix this by crippling wide empires. Call it what you want but making admin cap fixed is essentially screwing wide empires over. And that's really puzzling since the game encourages you to play wide (personally, my problem with tall empires is that they miss out on too much: mid-game crises, excavations, leviathans, etc).

2. We've already had all that. This was the game setup a few years ago when we had:
- wide empires not being able to research stuff;
- technocrats sitting on one planet and discovering ring worlds by 2300;
- devouring swarms that flew corvettes until late-game.
Why? Why would you bring this back?

I really think that both game styles should be viable but not at the cost of making them both equally shitty.

Because the new Admin Cap system broke Stellaris' quite a lot, to the point that the basic settings are a drag to play without tech mods.

And the community has been screaming for a long time for more assymmetry in the game. Admin cap and tech as it currently is make every empire feel and play the same. And as I read the diary, wide play will still be power and easily keep up.

 

[TheRevanchist25]

I really don't get the general excitement here. Two major points.

1. You identify the problem ("tall empires suck") and you decide to fix this by crippling wide empires. Call it what you want but making admin cap fixed is essentially screwing wide empires over. And that's really puzzling since the game encourages you to play wide (personally, my problem with tall empires is that they miss out on too much: mid-game crises, excavations, leviathans, etc).

2. We've already had all that. This was the game setup a few years ago when we had:
- wide empires not being able to research stuff;
- technocrats sitting on one planet and discovering ring worlds by 2300;
- devouring swarms that flew corvettes until late-game.
Why? Why would you bring this back?

I really think that both game styles should be viable but not at the cost of making them both equally shitty.

I feel you man, I don't understand what people are finding so great about this tbh. This just feels like the devs shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic. Their not really fixing problems, just shifting the problems around to other things that the devs care less about for whatever arbitrary reason.