Bugs, Complaints and QOL Wishes

[Cristo123]

I've now completed four play-throughs each one ending for a different reason. One because I didn't know the mechanics and had a slow start, one because of a bug, one because I wasn't ready for the end game and it spawned on me and one I've mostly won and am just waiting for everyone else to realize it.

Some of these have existed for a while, I'm just so annoyed at the lack of quality right now that I'm posting everything. Seriously, this is ridiculous.

Here's a list of my perceived bugs, or complaints in order of my memory//confirming them.

EDIT: If any individual one of these needs a bug report some of them have repo steps/screen shots. But I'm not dedicating a day of my time to creating individual bug reports. If bugs weren't so prevalent I would.

Defects:

1. AI issues - All these issues seem to be fixed by reloading the game.
   1. They completely quit doing anything. Vassal's fleets stay in home systems during war, allies sit in some corner system... ect.
   2. AI stops making commercial pacts. (Possibly research and migration) I would see a wave of them queued after the game was reloaded.
   3. (Needs Improvement) AI would wave enemy forces. 40k fleet next door... I'll repeatedly send this 200 fleet over. I watched the same AI send 200 fleets for 20 years attacking the same bugged out unbidden fleet. Or during war my ally would send 1k fleets at the enemy 30k fleet instead of rallying. They tended to prefer attacking over massing with allies.
   4. AI builds unnecessary colony ships. Found one with 10 colony ships just hanging out in its capital. This one has existed since the game was released.
2. Vassals do not help with end game. They do not recognize it as a war. Makes the vassal overlord play-style hard during the crisis.
3. Mutual threat does not go away until all forces and objectives have been destroyed. I had to kill a fanatic purifier to get to the last unbidden fleet. All anchors were destroyed... but that one fleet.
4. As a (Militarist, Fanatic Materialist) (Criminal something, Franchising, Private Prosp) I decided to go full Synth. My new pops would not take ruler jobs. Check pop rights and there didn't seem to be any reason why they wouldn't. I read of something similar with fanatic purifiers purging themselves after certain upgrades.
5. Cannot change Criminal civic. I get it there are a lot of edge cases allowing mid game change, but it's dumb. And this one is likely a works as designed...
6. Resort world cannot be made on Ring worlds. Maybe intended?
7. It's difficult to set up patrols between two points that have gateways. I had to a ton of fleets pollute my side bar because the path through gateways was shorter.
8. Relative Power is a misleading name for who is Federation President, because it only considers economic power. In my play through I had +10% Economic, +120% Fleet, +>10% Tech and was not president until my economic power exceeded +25%
9. This most recent DLC makes the game slow as shit. I'm sure this is known, but I used to play on Large/Huge and only on late game huge get noticeable slowdown. Now I play on Medium and it's barely bearable.
10. Panning the map is jumpy. This seems to be related to hangups at the end of each turn (day). I have to play in 30min sessions because this gives me motion sickness.
11. Crash. I only had one but if I weren't persistent it would have lead to a wasted 5hrs or so. I sent the logs, but I know without reproducible steps it can still be hard to reliably fix crashes (Why no comments with crash logs?) I think it had something to do with researching Climate restoration. My ironman savepoint was always about 10years in the past after the crash would occur. And after about my 6th restart I was like well maybe I'll research something else. Didn't get the crash that time... I wish I had better information, but I really didn't think that was the cause.
12. Megastructure resources don't match between what the megastructure says it provides to whats shown in the summary when you hover over a resource. Example, the mineral one (can't think of the name) says it provides 325 minerals per level. The hover shows a different amount. I didn't take a screenshot and it seems to have corrected in either a restart, or after upgrades.
13. Planets destroyed by the crisis event show up in the expansion planner, but cannot be terraformed.
14. Scientists show as available:
    1. After loading a game it sometimes happens. This has been in the game since launch. I can't remember if you can assign that scientist to multiple positions.
    2. After they are elected Archon in an Oligarchy. These can be assigned to all three research positions. I once had my leader also be all of my researchers and a science ship pilot. He was good.
15. Some event gave me a Warform. There were two defects that followed:
    1. I stopped getting new options for elections. Eventually, all others died and he was the only option. Either several loads fixed this or it just worked itself out.
    2. Once elected Archon, when someone else finally took over, I was able to assign him to fleets and the like. I searched and it seems others knew of this: https://steamcommunity.com/app/281990/discussions/0/1759104257598948395/
16. AI does not seem to patrol for pirates, and when they come they don't remove them. Vassal has a 11k fleet, but won't take care of the pirate 600 fleet
17. Possibly luck of the cards... but I think I had completed all research, but at year 2600 I still couldn't research so that I could use Zro or Living Metal. I also had about 10k of each as a credit sink.
18. If a science vessel dies too fast while exploring the system it died in doesn't show any intel, included that it is hostile.
19. Min/Max price has integer precision... This should be a QOL comment but really it's nearly useless without decimal precision for certain resources.
20. "̶W̶e̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶a̶f̶f̶o̶r̶d̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶l̶e̶a̶s̶t̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶m̶o̶n̶t̶h̶l̶y̶ ̶t̶r̶a̶d̶e̶"̶ ̶-̶ ̶Y̶e̶s̶ ̶w̶e̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶!̶ ̶S̶e̶e̶m̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶h̶a̶p̶p̶e̶n̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶o̶v̶e̶r̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶t̶r̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶h̶i̶g̶h̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶m̶a̶y̶b̶e̶ ̶e̶x̶c̶e̶e̶d̶e̶d̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶m̶o̶n̶t̶h̶l̶y̶ ̶i̶n̶c̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶1̶0̶0̶k̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶e̶a̶c̶h̶ ̶w̶h̶o̶ ̶c̶a̶r̶e̶s̶.̶ ̶I̶t̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶a̶l̶s̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶r̶e̶l̶a̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶i̶n̶/̶m̶a̶x̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶c̶e̶ ̶s̶e̶t̶t̶i̶n̶g̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶m̶i̶s̶l̶e̶a̶d̶i̶n̶g̶.̶ Fixed in newest test version
21. Enigmatic cache event triggered and it offered me something... I declined. and it proceeded to spend the rest of the game idle at my capital.

UI Only Stuff: (In new test branch patch notes)

1. F̶e̶d̶e̶r̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶w̶i̶n̶d̶o̶w̶ ̶v̶a̶l̶u̶e̶s̶ ̶w̶r̶a̶p̶ ̶@̶ ̶5̶+̶ ̶d̶i̶g̶i̶t̶s̶.̶ ̶W̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶w̶r̶a̶p̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶o̶v̶e̶r̶l̶a̶p̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶s̶i̶d̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶o̶x̶.̶ ̶L̶i̶k̶e̶l̶y̶ ̶d̶i̶f̶f̶e̶r̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶b̶a̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶s̶c̶a̶l̶i̶n̶g̶,̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶o̶l̶u̶t̶i̶o̶n̶,̶.̶.̶e̶t̶c̶.̶ ̶
2. "̶A̶d̶d̶ ̶N̶e̶w̶ ̶M̶o̶n̶t̶h̶l̶y̶ ̶T̶r̶a̶d̶e̶"̶ ̶w̶i̶n̶d̶o̶w̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶o̶v̶e̶r̶l̶a̶p̶ ̶b̶e̶t̶w̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶o̶u̶r̶c̶e̶ ̶i̶c̶o̶n̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶"̶A̶m̶o̶u̶n̶t̶"̶ ̶b̶o̶x̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶+̶/̶-̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶t̶o̶n̶s̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶L̶i̶v̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶M̶e̶t̶a̶l̶s̶/̶Z̶r̶o̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶d̶d̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶l̶i̶s̶t̶.̶

QOL Requests:

1. Sell resource if above 'X' option. Better Sell if above 'X' quantity AND above 'X' value.
2. The slots caravan thing... at least give me an animation so I feel like I'm being productive when doing useless stuff... I don't actually care about this one, but would be a neat thing.
3. Wish the world eater messages would say how many pops it ate. Not that it really matters.

That's all I could think of after my last play. I know there are more that I can't remember as most of these came from my last game. Overall, this has been the most disappointing release yet. It's compounded by AI issues that have existed since the game launched. I always hate spending hours having this great conflict with an AI and feel like I'm starting to overcome them when I find a massive fleet sitting in some corner doing nothing... I didn't earn my win, they just decided life wasn't worth living.

A note to leadership:
These issues are almost never the fault of developers, but usually management or leadership pushing out features over defect fixes or addressing tech debt (which may lead to more defects). If Paradox decides they want some contract QA feel free to reach out. I have a team that would be more than happy to give your large releases a pass through. Or we can lead quality focused events that we've used on mobile apps to dedicate a short period of time to fixing a large number of defects. But ultimately QA doesn't mean anything if you're not willing to spend the time to fix issues that arise or address tech debt.

An app I once worked on as QA release against QA's suggestion and this is some feedback we received during in person interviews that has stuck with me: "I'd rather rip my arms off and beat myself to death than to deal with another one of these subscriptions." Likewise, I'd rather rip my arms off and beat myself to death than have another game be ended by a game breaking defect. (Or made so frustrating I no longer want to play)

 

[MAHak]

I'll just attach my QoL request here.
Left-clicking (or something similar) on a science ship's 'assist research' option should have the science ship move to the planet with the largest science output! No one want's to go through a list of their planets to find the optimal choice.