[Dev Team] 2.0.2 Beta Patch updated [8.3.2018][checksum 5b9d]

[ukAlex93]

Don't know if this is being addressed still, but a few of my friends and I are still getting out of sync errors as soon as we hit early mid game. It is always POP or PLANET modifiers that go out of sync, if we continue playing we are essentially playing different games. I've continued playing after I went out of sync and won a war, when we re-launched the game it turns out I had lost half of my empire. Once an out of sync error has appeared, re-hosting the game makes no difference, it will simply do it again a few minutes in. I have re-installed the game, verified etc but the error persists.

 

[sejemaset]

"I deliberately picked a hard start and it was hard".

I picked a hard start in 2.0 that became an impossible start in 2.0.2.

 

[KopiG]

If the Titan cap has been increased to 20, why can I only build 3 still? Anybody knows plz?

 

[Minor Inconvenience]

If the Titan cap has been increased to 20, why can I only build 3 still? Anybody knows plz?

It’s still 1 per 200 naval cap. Do you have 600+ ca yet?

 

[unmeiged]

I was gonna reply that in a claims war, if they don't do anything, they don't get their claims, then realized you were still talking about total surrender. Derp.

Anyway, I agree, if no actual battle has happened (or even if it has happened, but the last one was a year ago, and neither side currently occupies any of the other's territory) war exhaustion shouldn't tick. There is no war happening. The only issue I see is, the defensive side in a war gets a consumer goods cost reduction (I believe, never tested) and that could be abused. So, if WE isn't ticking, that reduction also shouldn't be active.

Agreed fully. Overall, I like the WE system and think it has merit, but there should be something to be exhausted by. (In addition, when I said "lose", I should have said "lose a year of unity and production from -20% happiness before the other side would even accept a status quo")

Furthermore, one thing I noticed was the fact that the enemy and my WE did not climb equally. My attacker was a hive mind, not a normal empire with a militarist ethic. To the best of my knowledge (lots of changes in 2.0 and subsequent patches that I haven't digested yet), hive minds do not get reduced WE and yet theirs was climbing at a slower rate than mine.

Furthermore, in the dev diary where WE was introduced to us, the dev explained that an empire that was fighting for its survival would see smaller WE gains than an empire that was just fighting for a few systems out in the middle of nowhere. Given this was a containment war, it was a war for my civilization's survival, and I saw no evidence that my WE was climbing slower.

 

[Wheem]

I've run into an issue a couple of times lately where I encounter a normal AI Empire's science vessel, then within a month or so have them become visible/contactable on the map, without completing the project (or having them contact me). It's just *poof* there they are, with no messages or alerts of any kind, which is a bit of a downer for the extreme early game since you get "robbed" of the influence gain.

 

[DevilinDupriest]

I'm confused by this change. For the naval max cap, since the engine for this game can only really take advantage of one processor core, wasn't the goal to reduce the number of ships in the game to speed up late game performance? As for the starbases, is there any way to actually approach this max cap of 999? Just curious why it was needed and what it is useful for.

I started a game last night not knowing the beta patch happened or that there was a cap before that. Purifier, civil duty +15%, took grasp of the void for +5 star bases (should have been my clue a patch happened), galactic force projection (both turned out to be largely pointless as we'll see but I wanted ALLLLL the fleet cap). By year 100 I had taken 3/4ths of the 1000 star galaxy, by 175 I had 5k naval cap, 70 starbases, and hadn't filled about 10 completely with anchorages yet. I had energy production to support 8 150 fleet power, and once mega engineering showed up to restore the ruined dyson sphere would probably be able to fill about 3k of my naval capacity with everything unberthed from dock. Also was about to take world builder for my last perk which would have got me another 10% from worlds. Not amazing, but something. (Four of the last 7 surviving empires made a fed at year 50ish, and the other 3 at year 100 heh. Even so, no one ever attacked me over the next 100 years while I decided to finally build up some tech for leader lifespan and planned acension. Fleet cap alone pushed FE's to equiv and everyone else to pathetic)

So, anyway, I agree the mid-late game crawl is real, but it's a specific playstyle, too, and I'm glad they realized that.

 

[DevilinDupriest]

Suggestion:

Similar to how Hyperlane paths have an on/off switch, I think explored Wormhole/Gateways should have a visible path on/off switch. It would make it easier to visualize and remember where each gateway and wormhole leads to and help players plan things out.

I'd like an expansion planner sort of doohicky to find them. Finally research the tech then it's where's waldo all over 1000 star map to explore the wormholes and find out where they go.

 

[Digressor808]

I've run into an issue a couple of times lately where I encounter a normal AI Empire's science vessel, then within a month or so have them become visible/contactable on the map, without completing the project (or having them contact me). It's just *poof* there they are, with no messages or alerts of any kind, which is a bit of a downer for the extreme early game since you get "robbed" of the influence gain.

I feel like this is along the same vein as the diplomacy bug where you get no responses to diplomatic proposals. Which isn't game breaking but it is immersion breaking, and I would like a thank you from the xeno scum when I deign to bestow undeserved gifts upon their miserable empires. I'm sure they are working on it as both of these bugs have been there through all the iterations on the beta that I have played, and they are very much in opposition to the core premise of Stellaris as I understand it as a 4x with the emphasis on explore.

 

[Matt516]

If your planets aren't stronger, and you haven't built more planets, you're not wide, but you're not tall either. You're small and short.

OK, that made me chuckle.

 

[unmeiged]

Unsure if bug, but definitely seems like it. I've been in this war for ~15 years now. Literally nothing has happened: no battles, no conquests, no occupation. I haven't even seen one of the enemy's ships, yet I'm sitting at 100% WE (and suffering the negative Unity/Happiness negatives for it).

This was definitely a bug, but not in the way it initially appeared. I managed to Status Quo out of this war, saved, and went to bed. Resumed the game just now and noticed that with the open borders that comes with a truce, a flood of enemy ships (now neutral) entered my territory followed by troop transports with orders to orbit my planets. They went there, then returned to enemy borders. Something must have bugged out and kept the enemy from moving its fleets to attack me during the war.

 

[terrycloth]

Sure, but it’s clunky and my OCD hates that there is still the box for an admiral, which you now can’t use. I was never bothered the one time I got a queen and couldn’t merger her, because she had a neat permanent admiral and could make her own little fleet. That was pretty cool.

So the dragon and avatar etc. need to be their own admirals too?

 

[Ur-Quan Lord 13]

This was definitely a bug, but not in the way it initially appeared. I managed to Status Quo out of this war, saved, and went to bed. Resumed the game just now and noticed that with the open borders that comes with a truce, a flood of enemy ships (now neutral) entered my territory followed by troop transports with orders to orbit my planets. They went there, then returned to enemy borders. Something must have bugged out and kept the enemy from moving its fleets to attack me during the war.

That would explain why a lot or all of the AI wars I see take decades because after an initial bout of conquering, both sides stop doing anything an wait for WE to tick up.

 

[botlord]

Even without the assist research unity, the first 4 colonies on top of your homeworld are a no-brainer for unity production.

First, they increased unity costs by at most 20% each (less if you went expansion first, and less for sure because getting extra reaources requires extra systems which already add penalty) which means they only have to add, on average, 20% of the unity of your homeworld at most, to be a gain. This is trivial for the first 5 planets, pretty much throughout the game. By the time your capital has unique buildings, you have art monuments, and even if you're a no-diplomacy empire with no art monuments, 20% isn't very much to reach. Even in 1.9, where the penalty was 25% and systems cost nothing, it was still a no-brainer.

After colony 5, the lack of art monument makes things worse, and each additional colony needs to meet a higher limit to be beneficial. However, this is asymptotic as long as there are no huge drops in unity income, so while it eventually stops being beneficial, as long as colony 6 helped, no addtional colony will hurt you, except for that period before it has finished developing. So, all assist research did?

1. Made a developing colony less of a drag, for that period of time, as long as your scientist was high level as the rest.

2. It added a 2nd big drop point other than 5 planets: when you ran out of scientists to do assist research. Thereby, making it more likely that adding the next colony is detrimental rather than beneficial, and more likely that expansion would hurt you forever.

Edit: also, the new version is bad if half your unity came from scientists, but in that case, it was clearly too strong, just like the vassal fleet cap thing accounting for more than half of someone's fleet cap. If less than half came from scientists, well, great news: the new version can add anywhere from 15% to 75% to your unity production, regardless of the size of your empire, depending on phase of the game and how strong your science output is. You know, actually based on your science, rather than just how many high level scientists you own. Which requires zero thought or trade-off.

You definitely bring up some good points I didn't think of, and perhaps I'm mostly biased with how I've been playing the game. I rarely build beyond 3-5 planets regardless as you begin to get into the sector AI which is garbage. Additionally, you can't colonize easily, if at all, when using the Life-seeded civic without robot pops (or filthy xenos). This means there are certain starts that become completely unplayable, because you won't be able to get anywhere close to enough Unity production after your first few traditions. Additionally, if you can't find the Artist Enclave early on you're SOL. The Life-seeded civic is really fun IMO, and is clearly meant for playing with a very small number of planets. It seems weird to me they introduce such a neat civic in 2.0 and then make it significantly less playable in 2.0.2.

I'm partially kind of salty because this change has wrecked my main playthrough, and it's messed up a save because they changed the tradition IDs. I only started playing the game in 1.8, so I wasn't familiar with earlier versions but I wasn't expecting them to change the entire Assist Research mechanic in a patch version.

Unless I'm misunderstanding something, I don't see a nerf. Ditching that model means assist research doesn't soak two dedicated technologies any more and the bonus is based on the level of the scientist doing it. But what about Unity? If you are earning a measly 12 Unity a month, a level 2 scientist would give you 14. In 18 months, you would have earned an additional 36 Unity. That means any tech that takes equal to or less than 6 months to research would provide the same amount. Not awesome, but when you consider you can research three at a time, as long as your average research time is equal to or less than 18, you'd be earning the same amount. So, yes, a bit weak at the very start of the game. But, let's say you earn 240 Unity and have 10 level 5 scientists doing research assistance, and that would be a hell of a lot of scientists. Your mean time to break even is a respectable 42 months. And mind you this ignores the bonuses you'd get to research from having 10 doing it, but I think the 300% bonus wouldn't be insignificant, somewhere around 126 months?

In some cases it is weaker but in many cases it's way stronger. Take a more plausible scenario, say one from my last game on a small map, I only had three scientists assisting research. If my base income is 121, suddenly my average time to break even is 90 months. That's enough to equal end game tech and means I'll be walking away with a tidy surplus, and that ignores even a tiny 30% science bonus. If anything it's better, but favors high research empires.

@Ur-Quan Lord 13 says it better below, I didn't even factor in the massive upkeep ten worlds would be to even be able to utilize 10 scientists.

However this has also nerfed the "assisting research" part of Assist Research. They removed improved Assist Research, and while they buffed the base version, it wasn't by much. And I don't really see Assist Research being behind two technologies much of a big deal. Additionally by tying it to completed research, it puts yet another thing that's highly reliant on RNG. If you want Unity you have to go for lower cost tech, which makes the trade off of doing hard research vs. easy research even worse. In addition it once again puts you at the whims of the tech card gods.

@botlord and anyone else interested, just did the math. Assuming level 7 scientists, and ignoring the fact they get a few fewer multipliers than tile based resources:

1. The first 4 colonies (total 5 planets) were worth it, if you had art monuments, even if you ran out of scientists to assist research.
2. No additional planets are worth it, if you've run out of scientists. So, having more planets than scientists, above 5, is explicitly bad.
3. Without art monuments, colony 3 (planet 4) could be worth it, or not, depending on how many systems you need to claim to get to it, without a scientist to assist research. Colony 4 is almost certainly not worth it. So, never have more planets than scientists.
4. With a large number of colonies, depending on balance of habitats to conventional planets, your overall tradition gain speed can drop by maximum 25% (actual max depends on things like ethics and habitable planet density, for most empires it's less) or so by building many many habitats vs having many many planets (or ringworlds). This is true regardless of art monuments or assist research; having those just makes the drop more precipitous.

So, as you can see, assist research never encouraged "expansion for empires playing tall" without a complete misunderstanding of what tall means. An empire with a lot of territory, and a lot of planets, is wide. An empire without a lot of of territory isn't wide, but it's only tall if the planets in that territory are each better developed (which is mostly only true for a short while as they'll catch up in minerals and pop growth, or a little longer if you're ahead in tech which your post implied you shouldn't depend on) or if you've built up your territory by building habitats and ringworlds (which the old faith in science actively discouraged.) If your planets aren't stronger, and you haven't built more planets, you're not wide, but you're not tall either. You're small and short.

So, the old faith in science wasn't good for tall play. It was good for small, short play, by providing an almost completely tradeoff-free ability to make a few planets appear far taller in the specific field of unity production. The new one is better than the old for wide play, and even better for tall play, since actual tall play (with tech and habitats) unlocks techs faster. The goal is for tall or wide to both be viable, nobody said anything about small and short.

Perhaps it's just me, but I rarely have beyond 4-5 planets anyway. I have had ridiculous success with only a handful of planets, so perhaps I'm biased. I've also never gotten that far into the late game. One of my other problems is also that these changes make it unclear where exactly Discovery fits into a playthrough. Previously although Discovery's usefulness waned later on and was best picked at the start, it was extremely good at the start. Now it's pretty unclear when it actually becomes useful, because the anomaly bonuses from the unlock have nearly as bad as a penalty to unity cost as another colony. So while you might spend your first six traditions completing discovery, it pays off dividends in the early game.

Did your calculations take into account the number of planets and the rate of expansion? Because while the numbers might add up with the new version, that doesn't take into account FnS also gets you a steady stream of unity, as opposed to needing to wait for bursts as you complete research, especially considering the changes to FnS also nerf its research boost. Meaning you can complete traditions faster and you don't need to rely on getting lucky with the techs that are drawn. And it also means the payoff for harder techs is a lot worse. For example while getting the Megastructures option randomly is awesome, it still takes a long ass time to research, I've never had it show up with less than 4 years. A lot of the higher tier techs that are extremely good also take a long time to research. As I mentioned earlier, the Life-seeded civic basically requires you to rush droids. But an early droid rush is going to take several years to complete, which means you lose any sort of Unity bonus you'd get from tech at that time. Maybe if they scaled the unity bonus with tech difficulty it could work, but I'm not sure.

I also think mechanically making unity production reliant on research production is a bad move. Prior to the nerf, AR's primary bonus was the unity production, with the research production boost a nice addition, now it's pretty much pointless unless your planet is already producing a ridiculous level of research. And since late game Science Nexuses are already going to be better, it doesn't really make it any more useful. Anyway I got to go.

 

[Popenhauzen]

Currently the ambition unity for building speed seems to be bugged, or the tooltip wrong. Master builders increases speed by 100%, so the 3600 ringworld construction becomes 1800. With the unity ambition it became 1440. that is 25% increase in the already modified speed.

 

[Ur-Quan Lord 13]

Did your calculations take into account the number of planets and the rate of expansion? Because while the numbers might add up with the new version, that doesn't take into account FnS also gets you a steady stream of unity, as opposed to needing to wait for bursts as you complete research, especially considering the changes to FnS also nerf its research boost. Meaning you can complete traditions faster and you don't need to rely on getting lucky with the techs that are drawn. And it also means the payoff for harder techs is a lot worse. For example while getting the Megastructures option randomly is awesome, it still takes a long ass time to research, I've never had it show up with less than 4 years. A lot of the higher tier techs that are extremely good also take a long time to research. As I mentioned earlier, the Life-seeded civic basically requires you to rush droids. But an early droid rush is going to take several years to complete, which means you lose any sort of Unity bonus you'd get from tech at that time. Maybe if they scaled the unity bonus with tech difficulty it could work, but I'm not sure.

I also think mechanically making unity production reliant on research production is a bad move. Prior to the nerf, AR's primary bonus was the unity production, with the research production boost a nice addition, now it's pretty much pointless unless your planet is already producing a ridiculous level of research. And since late game Science Nexuses are already going to be better, it doesn't really make it any more useful. Anyway I got to go.

Oh, science nexus is fantastic if you're explicitly avoiding having more planets. However, due to the way system/planet tech penalties work, building labitats (and especially ringworlds) is almost always beneficial for tech, regardless of how many systems you have or whether you have a science nexus. 2.0 does a good job of rewarding you for developing your territory.

Anyway, my calculations were just whether colonizing another planet was worth it, and when, with the old FnS. The answer was, it penalized expansion past the number of scientists almost entirely regardless of any other factors.

The new system:

• Rewards colonizing planets within your territory which used to be bad for unity
• Rewards building ringworlds within your territory which used to be bad for unity
• Penalizes building labitats within your territory less than the old FnS did, but probably still penalizes it
• Penalizes actually claiming territory even more for unity than before (unity was slightly penalized, and tech heavily penalized but offset by colonizing and developing your worlds, before)

Mostly the new FnS penalizes things which give other benefits, and trade-offs are fun. Labitats improve tech immensely, claiming territory improves resource and energy income, building mines and power plants does the same. The only things that are uniformly good for everything are building ringworlds (requires 2 perks), creating Gaia/machine worlds (requires a perk), and colonizing every world in your borders (just intuitively should be a good idea), i.e. developing your territory. The only uniformly bad choice is not doing those things, i.e. not developing your territory. Seems like exactly how it should be.

 

[Ur-Quan Lord 13]

Currently the ambition unity for building speed seems to be bugged, or the tooltip wrong. Master builders increases speed by 100%, so the 3600 ringworld construction becomes 1800. With the unity ambition it became 1440. that is 25% increase in the already modified speed.

Right. Bonuses and penalties are almost always additive in Stellaris.

100%+100%+50% = 250%
3600 / 2.5=1440

It's not 100%*200%*150%, like you're expecting.

 

[unmeiged]

Should fanatic purifiers still be able to get unity from purging even at high War Exhaustion? I think they should be able to - would fit in with their mode of play. Currently, that's not the case.

 

[heliostellar]

We no longer get research points for exploring? Ugh... not a welcome change!

 

[ShoGuL]

Resource replicators has a bug, pointed out in a different thread.

Quoting:
"Livestock can operate replicators and still provides food in addition to minerals. Not only that, but apparently the hardcoded "don't have building with livestock on it" rule eliminates all energy drain while keeping the mineral production. So all Replicators are a pure +40 minerals/+6 food each. Guessing that the fanatic purifiers' eating/energy eating works too."