2.2.2 game mechanic flaws / exploits

[Dr. Chaos]

What "gamebreaking" mechanics and exploits did you find in the game (2.2.2)? Bugs and unbalances doesnt count!

(Bugs belong to the bug sub-forum and we can always adjust unbalanced things by mods.)

 

[Atreides]

Refineries are a trap. Just buy what you need off the galactic market.
Once I get a bit more useful data I plan to post on this.

 

[SpectralShade]

the market (both internal and galactic).
It's an ingame exploit/flaw to cover up other flaws in the economic model and AI. Keeping it around will only cascade the problems instead of solving anything.

Diplomacy already existed before to trade resources (and still do), so there shouldn't have been a need for the market, unless the "need" was to "create infinite resources from thin air".

 

[artemis667]

Loathe to call this gamebreaking, but it's certainly immersion breaking for me...

1) The issue where food production is so much easier than energy production, seems unnecessary, since it makes upkeep so much harder for machine empires than biological empires, why doesn't every district produce the same qty e.g. 5?
2) Population growth hard-coded to grow only the lowest population species minority on every planet. This is a reason I am reluctant to play any empire that will have multiple species now and entirely immersion breaking.
3) Organic population growth being comparable whether your colony has 5 people on it or 50 billion (numbers abstracted to demonstrate the ridiciulousness).

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

Loathe to call this gamebreaking, but it's certainly immersion breaking for me...

1) The issue where food production is so much easier than energy production, seems unnecessary, since it makes upkeep so much harder for machine empires than biological empires, why doesn't every district produce the same qty e.g. 5?
2) Population growth hard-coded to grow only the lowest population species minority on every planet. This is a reason I am reluctant to play any empire that will have multiple species now and entirely immersion breaking.
3) Organic population growth being comparable whether your colony has 5 people on it or 50 billion (numbers abstracted to demonstrate the ridiciulousness).

Only 3 is an actual flaw here which I agree with which is not restricted to just organic but machines as well since you are restricted to one machine shop per planet for some reason.

1. Organics need both food and Consumer Goods so the cost to upkeep them are quite equal.

2. This is not hard coded, you can change this in the defines files if you wish.

 

[grisamentum]

The immigration calculation stuff is... extremely weird and odd.

You can increase emigration by closing jobs that there aren't enough pops to fill anyway.

For example, on my homeworld, I have 5 open Mining jobs and no pops to fill them. Every Mining job I close will increase emigration to my new colonies.

 

[Dunaedine]

the market (both internal and galactic).
It's an ingame exploit/flaw to cover up other flaws in the economic model and AI. Keeping it around will only cascade the problems instead of solving anything.

Diplomacy already existed before to trade resources (and still do), so there shouldn't have been a need for the market, unless the "need" was to "create infinite resources from thin air".

Market is a good idea to manage trade ressource between nations, diplomacy wasn't really adapted and can be frustrating (having to sometime try many others civilizations for finally nothing can be a waste of time). But I agree there is implementation problem.

 

[Sigma 582]

Loathe to call this gamebreaking, but it's certainly immersion breaking for me...

1) The issue where food production is so much easier than energy production, seems unnecessary, since it makes upkeep so much harder for machine empires than biological empires, why doesn't every district produce the same qty e.g. 5?
2) Population growth hard-coded to grow only the lowest population species minority on every planet. This is a reason I am reluctant to play any empire that will have multiple species now and entirely immersion breaking.
3) Organic population growth being comparable whether your colony has 5 people on it or 50 billion (numbers abstracted to demonstrate the ridiciulousness).

2) can be fixed by a personal mod using info from this very helpful post

 

[AlanC9]

3) Organic population growth being comparable whether your colony has 5 people on it or 50 billion (numbers abstracted to demonstrate the ridiciulousness).

Didn't Stellaris always work like this? Previous versions were actually a bit worse, since more species = more population growth when different types of pops grow independently on separate tiles. Although this wasn't as bad for demographics as what we've got now. I think we notice more now because pops are so much bigger.

As for food production, I think there's a real issue here. It looks to me like maxing food production and trading for energy and rares is the logical strategy. I doubt this was the design intent. (Of course, this might mean that SpectralShade is right, and the market is just an exploit waiting to happen.)

 

[artemis667]

Didn't Stellaris always work like this? Previous versions were actually a bit worse, since more species = more population growth when different types of pops grow independently on separate tiles. Although this wasn't as bad for demographics as what we've got now. I think we notice more now because pops are so much bigger.

It did, to be fair. It just seems like 2.2 is crying out for it to be improved, now that planets with very large populations are legitimately possible things. I'm wary of unintended consequences but the mechanic of overcrowding would be a counterbalance.

 

[Dr. Chaos]

Well they found that purging also broken.

 

[Dracoknight]

I kinda wish for pops to be more likely to emigrate off a planet without housing or work to go to a planet with housing or work, in the current state its a bit of a hassle.

 

[PG908]

Nobody seems to mention how you can literally print money on the galactic market by buying and selling in max quantity: the price jump caused means you profit on the sale despite the market fee, and then immediately resets to to old price to be repeated.

And when you reduce your market fees to as low at 5%, you can print 7k to 12k energy credits with two clicks with infinite repetition (using about 10k to 20k initial investment). It honestly baffles me how this got past any sort of testing.

 

[Livigy]

Ecumonopolis can self sustain with food and probably outperform dedicated food worlds. Nerve stapled/delicious/fertile/argarian pops on an ecumonolpolis can make use of all the excess housing and the enslaved pops have fewer housing/consumer good needs than farmers on a farm world. As you aren't using districts and therefore admin sprawl just taking advantage of your excess housing you are at an advantage over food worlds and the ecumonopolis has that flat 20% production bonus.

Not quite a bug as that is all working as intended..possibly not an exploit either just a decent strategy that requires slavery and bioascention so it is still kinda niche due to the requirements.

 

[Gavagay]

Markets are broken, period. And, I think, they are irreparable. In my games I just pretend they do not exist, this is the only way to play the game normally.

 

[Dr. Chaos]

Markets are broken, period. And, I think, they are irreparable. In my games I just pretend they do not exist, this is the only way to play the game normally.

Well internal market is even immersion breaking, but I can live with the galactic market (using it without the exploit).