2.2.3 Balance

[orlykthxbai]

After a few games this is what stood out to me:

• Rare resource upkeep on tier 2 buildings was tedious to deal with. Tier 2 should be common, while tier 3 should be luxury. I don't feel gated in anyway by rare resource upkeep but it's more like "oh i'm negative on motes, let me increase my monthly trades by a few or buy another 100"
• Sectors are a mess, as usual.
• We need some kind of Job Priority system. I'll be running in the negative on credits,minerals, or food and when I check the planet it's nothing but clerks.
• Pop Growth speed outweighs every other stat.
• Synthetics were overnerfed.
• Ecumenopolis is too cheap. 20k minerals is nothing.
• Pirates shouldn't spawn out of thin air. Feels like a complete waste of my life to have to move a fleet across my empire just to kill a tiny pirate fleet.
• Post Apocalyptic is too strong. 60% habitability for every planet type.
• Domination tree is just flat out bad. At least it had a niche use to it before.
• Rare resource production buildings are a waste of a building slot. They need upgrades.

 

[Nox Eterna]

I don't like how utterly irrelevant space-based construction became in 2.2. Sure, planets were always dominating in stellaris, but now they completely overshadow any kind of space station. A single planet based researcher produces 12 science (4 of each), before upgrades and buffs. A single advanced research complex has 8 researches - 96 science. And if you're just starting the game where you haven't even encountered any aliens yet, your own vessels are primitive and you find an astounding anomaly - a whole graveyard of advances alien ships from the previous era...which give you a whopping +3 to engineering, which is outdone by some planet-bound pencil pusher easily. Kinda lame, if you ask me.

 

[Jiav]

I don't like how utterly irrelevant space-based construction became in 2.2. Sure, planets were always dominating in stellaris, but now they completely overshadow any kind of space station. A single planet based researcher produces 12 science (4 of each), before upgrades and buffs. A single advanced research complex has 8 researches - 96 science. And if you're just starting the game where you haven't even encountered any aliens yet, your own vessels are primitive and you find an astounding anomaly - a whole graveyard of advances alien ships from the previous era...which give you a whopping +3 to engineering, which is outdone by some planet-bound pencil pusher easily. Kinda lame, if you ask me.

especially with empire sprawl it never feels rewarding to grap a system which offers you 3 research...

 

[Piotrzeci]

I have a problem with crappy systems. I would like to make my borders look natural, but if a system has only 2 or 3 resources in it, then it just isn't worth taking. How does it stretch my administration so much to have a mining station? It just encourages weird tactic of leaving systems untaken and to be honest doesn't make that much sense.

 

[Belhedler]

The resources in space should have been doubled, except maybe rare resources. Keeping them as they are, even with the new appreciated scaling tech, is still far behind what a colony provides.

Platforms are downright too expensive for their usefulness. They are still overly useless and expensive. AI don't use them either.

The scaling of the number of starbases you can build seems off. I'd say it's below what it was in previous versions and seeing as how important alloy has became this becomes a bit of a balance issue.

Market balance is... well I don't understand how it works. Also why is the highest amount of resources you can buy/sell this overly expensive?

Navy upgrade cost is still punishing. Actually federation fleets are not upgraded and even if it were the case, the cost is just laughable high (4500 alloys for 1,6k fleet)

All my enseign games have been the same so far: up to 2300, all empires were more or less at the same level and it was quite hard to get there. After that, something happens and I'm left ahead quickly without knowing why. It's disturbing knowing that since I know I'm far worst in this version compared to what I did in previous versions.

Diplomacy has became... weird and shaky. It's gotten more interesting for sure and you can do epic such as forming a federation with a fan. xenophobic empire (I currently am part of a federeation with two of these). But they break alliances more often, do things completely unexpected given their trust level, such as declaring rivalry much more often and not in a dertermined way. Rivalry and cross-rivalries has became a headache to deal with. It's easy to become an ennemy of someone you trusted a minute ago because its own ally just decided to rival one of the guy you had a NAP with. Why is cross-rivalry worth 100 which is as much as a direct rivaly??

Influence cost has became too punishing for empires who are interested in a bit of diplomacy and the new influence gained from factions, while being a good idea overall, makes purifiers and other xenophobic warmonger far superior to any diplomatic kingdom.

Xenophilic is close to useless. It lost most of its trust related advantages.

Why do I need to remove all the blockers to get all the district slots even if I don't plan to use the districts of the type that was unlocked by the blocker? This feels strange and somewhat defeat the purpose of designing a colony towards one/two production goals.

 

[Hyomoto]

Why do I need to remove all the blockers to get all the district slots even if I don't plan to use the districts of the type that was unlocked by the blocker? This feels strange and somewhat defeat the purpose of designing a colony towards one/two production goals.

Because even if you don't use the farmland as farmland, it's still being obstructed for development.

 

[Belhedler]

Because even if you don't use the farmland as farmland, it's still being obstructed for development.

While there are 3 mining districts ready for use that I cannot build due to district cap and this blocker on farmland. That's quite illogical.

 

[ShaTiK]

All my enseign games have been the same so far: up to 2300, all empires were more or less at the same level and it was quite hard to get there. After that, something happens and I'm left ahead quickly without knowing why. It's disturbing knowing that since I know I'm far worst in this version compared to what I did in previous versions.

Vanilla AI is as close to the brain death as one could get without actually being dead. Seriously, the list of the things vanilla AI can't do is really long and depressing. AI mod is our only salvation right now

 

[faljen_isus]

I'm gonna put a radical idea here:

Make planet based resources give jobs/districts available at Starbase to upgrade

Base outposts function same as now, upgrades make Starbases function akin to habitats, each upgrade costs upkeep, but gives new mining / research district upgrades, the current stations on planets would function as mining/research outposts and would be necessary for your new Starbase districts to have output

New system would use the current one as follows: each point of minerals, science etc is viewed as "opportunity" - > 2 minerals mean 2 "mining opportunities", ie 2 mining districts at your Starbase (mining hub maybe?), research centers would be a bit more focused than on planets, as they would give pure sociologist, physicists or engineer jobs

This would translate into system resources being extremely valuable even in late game, as you could make a system with 30 jobs, without using habitats, now remember that planet with 3 soc research now giving 3 sociology research centers, it's worth something now isn't it?

I would be OK with tying this in with the voidborn AP, as it would make sense thematically

 

[PirateJack]

I've had a few ideas about revamping the system view to something more centralised and centring it around the outpost/starbase makes a lot of sense. I'd probably decrease the role of construction ships as well so that they're not manually creating everything; they just build outposts or speed up the exploitation of the system they're in.

 

[evilcat]

I generally can manage all resources. Can even build some research stations. But generally only on one of my core planets to benefit from research center.
Alloys are much better now. Like 50% better.
There could be some tech to improve alloy and civic goods production.
The basic goods production is ok.
The systems without planets are less worthy now, they generally have lower yield to what district have by too much. 2 districts is 16 minerals, but systems rarely have it.
Evolutionary Mastery tech requirments could have weight based on Engineered Evolution so we dotn get gated so hard.
Sectors! Why to change something which is not broken? Leave default sector creation but add option to edit your sectors with some soft cap if player add all planets to one sector.
Pirates! Wack o Pirate. So much micro. Fleet so slow. Managing 5 fleets to patrol my empire not fun. Need option to hunt the pirates auto or techs to increase base piracy resitance.
Suicide fleets. Love to jump inside guardians. Playing with gateways unplayable since my reinforcement will jump inside the kraken mounth.
Way around: all guardians are dormant, and yellow but if we try to attack them or build base they activate and go wild.

 

[krios41]

You mention market twice - have you played with AI mod, where AI actually uses market and overall does stuff?

i have't played with an AI mod, but the AI (at least in my game) makes heavy use of the market, indicated by heavily fluctuating prices.

The point about concentrating (the part with infinitely hilarious image) - yes, that's what I was talking about. You either have a a consumer goods factory, alloy foundry and research lab on every planet - and don't upgrade them. Or you place 8 t3 labs, research institute and assist research science ship and have a nice concentrated place for all your science. Or you place 8 t3 consumer good/alloy production buildings and place a production ministry, plus ensure the planet have very high happiness and stability. This way this planet would have a lot more then 'a minor bonus'

oooor
you know, you concentrate your industry and
i'm going to something super revolutionary:
Do not upgrade the buildings!

 

[Belhedler]

Gone 50 more years farther. I'm adding two things:
- yeah there's definitely not enough rare resources overall. I'd put the double of the current values and make the building produces 2 of the resource, not one. Or, like suggested, T2 is free of rare resource upkeep.
- why has the bonus for specialized colony been reduced to a meager 5% now? It was 15% before right? That's absolutely useless.

 

[ashbery76]

I think their called rare resources for a reason.The idea is you not supposed to have higher tier building in 100 planets.Making more resources easier to get makes the system pointless as it no longer becomes a choice ala what happens in the Endless games.

 

[Belhedler]

It's impossible to face end-game crisis as it stands. Even mid game crisis is a no go for most empires. The only empires I've seen pass this ordeal where fanatic purifiers going all in from the start. And the system caps itself though the services and housing upkeep. So I can understand the need for a deterrent for building upgrade but the one choosen is downright inefficient. Try to deal with an awakened empire or end-game crisis with that. I cannot at all. And I used to roll over awakened empires like it was nothing before. So yeah there's a change in balance here. Btw I'm stuck with 2 exotic gas and don't seem to be able to get more, except from market and it's too expensive for my purse.

 

[Atreides]

It's impossible to face end-game crisis as it stands. Even mid game crisis is a no go for most empires. The only empires I've seen pass this ordeal where fanatic purifiers going all in from the start. And the system caps itself though the services and housing upkeep. So I can understand the need for a deterrent for building upgrade but the one choosen is downright inefficient. Try to deal with an awakened empire or end-game crisis with that. I cannot at all. And I used to roll over awakened empires like it was nothing before. So yeah there's a change in balance here. Btw I'm stuck with 2 exotic gas and don't seem to be able to get more, except from market and it's too expensive for my purse.

Use the market.

Build 6-7 alloy plants on one forge world.
Use the excess alloys to pay for the exotic gases that fund your research plants.

You don't have to produce everything, you just have to be efficient enough to buy the things you are not producing.

 

[ShaTiK]

oooor
you know, you concentrate your industry and
i'm going to something super revolutionary:
Do not upgrade the buildings!

Again with incredibly funny images, I see. You are a funny guy, eh.
Okay, do not upgrade buildings. Have 2 work slots per building slot. Have housing districts, some basic resource ones too. I end up with around 5 production buildings for what - 25 population, and that if I don't have gene clinic (I will) and production ministry (I will have). That's some weak sauce concentration sir. 10 metallurgists for 5 building slots is very little. Even 1 t3 foundry+synthetic mote generator is better in terms of space efficiency. And space on the developed planets is quite valuable. A bit less so when you have +10 planets, but still

 

[Slynx]

- yeah there's definitely not enough rare resources overall. I'd put the double of the current values and make the building produces 2 of the resource, not one. Or, like suggested, T2 is free of rare resource upkeep.

worse then that with very rare resources(living metal and etc>) there is nothing to spend them on. 1 living metal will give you almost infinite 50%duration(as long as you don't forget to click the button in time). dark matter and zro - same story. and the worst part that you'll eventually will go into the cap(unless you sell them)

I think their called rare resources for a reason.The idea is you not supposed to have higher tier building in 100 planets

well.. for each t2 building you can build 1 generator (crystal\mote\gas farm). or you can even buy them from market\enclaves\other empires.
my ecumenopolis right now has 20-23 megaplexes (for their 11 jobs)… and other planets has at least 4-6 t2 buildings (same reason - jobs). and it's hardly a problem.

trade makes consumer goods irrelevant for me.
ecumenopolis obsoletes alloy foundries .
habitats(science) obsoletes research labs (and I build institutes on them too).
and crime is irrelevant also (never seen any bad enough events to care) so I can skip psi corps and precinct houses.

which leaves me with plenty of slots for farms, rare resource generators and megaplexes

 

[Belhedler]

Use the market.

Build 6-7 alloy plants on one forge world.
Use the excess alloys to pay for the exotic gases that fund your research plants.

You don't have to produce everything, you just have to be efficient enough to buy the things you are not producing.

I get the idea. Given I produce 4 alloys per job, and that I currently can sell alloy at 7 ec per unit, I'd need roughly 4 alloy plants to power 4 T3 research labs. But the price gonna change after that. How high will the difference between my alloy selling price and exotic gas buying price go exactly? What to prefer: monthly trade or instant trade?

 

[krios41]

Again with incredibly funny images, I see. You are a funny guy, eh.

i try at least, don't always succeed.

Okay, do not upgrade buildings. Have 2 work slots per building slot. Have housing districts, some basic resource ones too. I end up with around 5 production buildings for what - 25 population, and that if I don't have gene clinic (I will) and production ministry (I will have). That's some weak sauce concentration sir.

Ofcourse it is some weaksauce concentration, but its more concentration than spreading those same buidlings out over different planets.
My point literaly is just this 'you don't have too'