So I strongly oppose Paradox putting the priority on balancing the tech boom phenomenon, emphasizing my stance that the basics are the stuff they need to get right, and this is why:
In this video Stefan builds a Dyson site in year 66, using a Driven Assimilator build, but only achieves research of 2000 per month in the 2240s or so. Actually, that absolute number isn't important, so let's skip over it.
What is important is that in order to achieve that, the enabling factors are problems completely unrelated to tech which are designed into the game and are borderline exploits.
The first design issue: For machine empires, research is a secondary resource. The primary resource is energy, the second is research.
For the regular empires, research is a quaternary resource - research production requires energy credits, then food (for pops) and minerals, then consumer goods.
The second design issue: Why is that Stefan can still produce research, which is a secondary resource of energy, despite his energy income being zero and negative?
And why don't the resources become increasingly more negative, such that quickly selling off resources for a brief surplus isn't viable at all? Why doesn't the player go into significant amounts of debt?
The third design issue: The infinite, resources from nowhere, market. The internal market is what makes the build - the galactic market doesn't get founded until the end of the video. This non-conservation of matter, where your production doesn't actually mean anything, has been an issue in Stellaris since the market mechanic was first introduced.
The fourth design issue is that the game design has fallen into a trap of making the game as convoluted as possible, with so many 'poison choices', while also making the gameplay shallow. The issue here is that the AI can't play the game well because the game is designed to be convoluted and not as efficient as it needs to be for the AI to play the game well.
Edit: Ooops I forgot the fifth design issue: Why is it that the strata of machine pops just doesn't matter? Stefan can easily swap his researchers and technicians on-demand, while for a regular empire, this isn't the case.
So the way it should work: It shouldn't be possible to produce a secondary resource (like research) without having enough of the primary resource from which the secondary is derived. That's the whole foundation of the streaming economy that Stellaris has.
If energy is trickling in, then every derived resource, including research should be reduced to a trickle.
An important and powerful resource (like research) should have the same requirements for every empire. It shouldn't require two more steps in the production chain for a regular empire to produce it compared to a gestalt consciousness.
It shouldn't be possible to sustain a deficit economy - resources should accumulate below zero.
The market should reflect actual, tangible resources, which come from somewhere allocated on the map. This is a whole other issue that really deserves its own thread.
.png){kind=avatar}
