[Dev Team] 2.2.4 patch released, and 2.2.5 beta available [checksums 0019 & aab4]

[Tech Noir Synth]

Some feedback on Synthethic Ascencion in 2.2.5 (Below I copy pasted one of my post from another thread)

On the topic of Synthethic Ascencion:

I believe Synthethic Ascencion is now very good.

Here is why:

With an easy to manage "universal robot" type using efficient processors (5% total ressource output) you achieve a 30% bonus output of all ressources.
20% bonus from Synths + 5% total ressource output from your Synth ruler + 5% efficient processors. You can skip the 5% and insert either 10% bonus to all science, or a 15% bonus to energy/minerals/unity.

Biological and Psionic Ascention do not have access to a 30% output for all specialists. The key is that this includes artisans and alloy producers! Having a higher production of consumer goods allows you to to save building slots and as we all know Alloys win wars and thus the game.

Now in addition to that: Synths gain 5% more energy/mineral output from Mineral Purification Plants or Energy Nexus than non-Synth ascended empires. They also get more districts so you can specialize your planets even further. One strength of Hive worlds is not only the 10% flat ressource output, but also the fact that you can build tons of mineral districts. Now ME and Synth ascended empires can achieve something similar with even more districts.

Organic empires had the option to use slaves and a slave governor with 10% slave output trait. Synths get a 5% energy and mining output trait plus the already mentioned bonus on mining/energy building so this evens out.

Overall, Bio ascention with syncretic evolution will likely still produce more basic ressources like minerals and at a drastially decreased pop upkeep and housing requirement but it does not have the specialist efficiency of Synths or Machine empires.

Synths are quite easy to manage, you do save energy credits from not having to terraform and of course you save a ton of time not having to micromanage your pops for traits.
Your rulers won't die as often so your ressource output and research bonuses will continue to increase whereas for other ascencion options output will decrease when rulers die.
You do get to have some better ship computers although I'm not expert on this so I don't know how much impact those have.



I think Synthethic Ascencion is in a really good state right now. ME empires will likely need futher adjustments between Assimilators, Rogue servitors and Determined Exterminators since they are very different from each other. But I like the approach by the devs and in my opinion some of the most important flaws were adressed.

Well done Paradox!

 

[klingonadmiral]

The AI does nothing but build Precinct Houses on their planets.

Who let wokeg write the AI?

 

[Iosue Yu]

The AI is just spamming Precinct houses now.

This is actually very important. At this rate, all CPU get really bad economy within 30 years because all they do is to build 3 Precinct Houses first.

 

[KampfSaU]

I started a new campaign with Determined Exterminators and I like the buffs very much. Before it felt necessary to produce food and bio-reactors in order to get enough energy. Now it's a nice option that one could go for on a farm planet.

What I have noticed is that workers seem to get juggled around between jobs on a daily tick basis, which leads to quite large fluctuations of expected income. This makes it quite hard to decide at times, where to invest next. This is definitely something that should be looked into.

 

[Ridixo]

In my current game i have found a bug with ecumenopolis and the slave processing facility. Just today i realize about this problem but in retrospective i notice that it was there even before the current patch 2.2.5. In my ecumenopolis every-time i build the SPF my planet build it normally, has the normal effect in the slaves, but every first day of the month the building disappears. The planet has a normal slot for another building and again i need to build it again. I have the Policies about slavery set on allowed, i have slaves on the planet and i know the problem is with ecumenopolis because my planet Asche have the SPF already complete when i initiate the transformation into Ecu. When it was finished and my shining new capital is covered in metal i start building districts and demolish some unnecessary buildings, alloys and consumer goods ones. I remember set the SPF to be build, then today when i continue the game, i build it again, and again, the i realize the problem. Has anybody the same problem? Does the Devs know of this bug? Thanks in advance

 

[AlanC9]

Well, that's weird.. I've got a planet with the same species both growing and declining at the same time. Anyone else ever see that?

 

[DeathSheep]

In my current game i have found a bug with ecumenopolis and the slave processing facility. Just today i realize about this problem but in retrospective i notice that it was there even before the current patch 2.2.5. In my ecumenopolis every-time i build the SPF my planet build it normally, has the normal effect in the slaves, but every first day of the month the building disappears. The planet has a normal slot for another building and again i need to build it again. I have the Policies about slavery set on allowed, i have slaves on the planet and i know the problem is with ecumenopolis because my planet Asche have the SPF already complete when i initiate the transformation into Ecu. When it was finished and my shining new capital is covered in metal i start building districts and demolish some unnecessary buildings, alloys and consumer goods ones. I remember set the SPF to be build, then today when i continue the game, i build it again, and again, the i realize the problem. Has anybody the same problem? Does the Devs know of this bug? Thanks in advance

That sounds suspiciously like the old Ministry of Culture bug where a typo in the code meant that the requirement to build a Ministry of Culture was to have "existing Ministry of Culture = 0"...and the requirement to own a Ministry of Culture was "existing Ministry of Culture < 1", so as soon as you built one, it got deleted at the next tick.

EDIT: Ignore what I said, looking at the actual code in "02_government_buildings.txt" I wonder if the problem might be that an Ecumenopolis can't be a slave colony? Because that's the only destruction trigger in there that might be applicable.

 

[samz812]

Any progress on the clothing bug for modders yet? been waiting for that since 2.2?

 

[Ridixo]

That sounds suspiciously like the old Ministry of Culture bug where a typo in the code meant that the requirement to build a Ministry of Culture was to have "existing Ministry of Culture = 0"...and the requirement to own a Ministry of Culture was "existing Ministry of Culture < 1", so as soon as you built one, it got deleted at the next tick.

EDIT: Ignore what I said, looking at the actual code in "02_government_buildings.txt" I wonder if the problem might be that an Ecumenopolis can't be a slave colony? Because that's the only destruction trigger in there that might be applicable.

Thanks but in fact i have a SPF in a slave colony and it's working without problems, the Ecu is my empire capital and homeworld, and before that it was a tomb world in which the building was working without problems. So i think the real problem is the interaction of Ecu and SPF. Tomorrow i will upload a save game file for the Devs, just in case.

 

[The Founder]

@Jamor:
There is definitely massive overbuilding of Precinct Houses. One AI has the following values:
From Pops: +49
From Governor: -12
From Pop Jobs (3 Precinct houses): -175

That is actually 4 times as much as they could possibly need. Granted they did border a hostile Criminal Syndicate, so maybe those were bought to combat that Crime Increase?

Maybe instead of looking at existing buildings to block more buildings, check if there are any unworked Enforcer Jobs?
I mean if you for some reason do not have enough pops to run all Enforcer jobs, Crime would always stay above the threshold and the AI would just continue building Precinct Houses because it see "no effect".

I think I once saw an AI build a 2nd precinct house instantly after the last one, despite the fact that the first one was already enough. My guess is the check "what to build next?" was done before the pops had entered their jobs and the Planetary Crime was updated.
Both a simple delay of repeat building (via a timed planet flag) or the check for unused jobs could fix that.

 

[Battle00333]

@Jamor:
That is actually 4 times as much as they could possibly need. Granted they did border a hostile Criminal Syndicate, so maybe those were bought to combat that Crime Increase?

This was a bug in .3 or .4, where whenever a syndicate built a branch office, the AI would build 3-4 precints, to drag them off the planet, regardless of their current economy, even without branch offices they did this. maybe its triggered by simply having established contact with a crime syndicate?.
at the very least, it sounds like the bug was re-introduced either as the same or a new iteration, or was never fixed properly

 

[Methone]

This was a bug in .3 or .4, where whenever a syndicate built a branch office, the AI would build 3-4 precints, to drag them off the planet, regardless of their current economy, even without branch offices they did this. maybe its triggered by simply having established contact with a crime syndicate?.
at the very least, it sounds like the bug was re-introduced either as the same or a new iteration, or was never fixed properly

Nope, it's something else. I did a test with all my empires force-spawned - even before anyone's made first contact, they're putting Precinct Districts on their colonies the instant they hit 5 pops.

 

[sillyrobot]

@Jamor:
There is definitely massive overbuilding of Precinct Houses. One AI has the following values:
From Pops: +49
From Governor: -12
From Pop Jobs (3 Precinct houses): -175

That is actually 4 times as much as they could possibly need. Granted they did border a hostile Criminal Syndicate, so maybe those were bought to combat that Crime Increase?

Maybe instead of looking at existing buildings to block more buildings, check if there are any unworked Enforcer Jobs?
I mean if you for some reason do not have enough pops to run all Enforcer jobs, Crime would always stay above the threshold and the AI would just continue building Precinct Houses because it see "no effect".

I think I once saw an AI build a 2nd precinct house instantly after the last one, despite the fact that the first one was already enough. My guess is the check "what to build next?" was done before the pops had entered their jobs and the Planetary Crime was updated.
Both a simple delay of repeat building (via a timed planet flag) or the check for unused jobs could fix that.

The problem is precinct houses are one of the only buildings that the AI is allowed to construct when there are no unemployed pops. Which means as soon as that condition occurs on a colony, the AI will build 3 in quick succession.

 

[FiddleSticks96]

Well, it has crippled the AI on every difficulty. It is hard to build a strong economy with only enforcers. Most of the AI empires I've observed don't even have food, that is, they have 0 food in their storage and are running a massive food deficit.

 

[GeorgeAmbush]

Has the extreme mid- and lategame lag problems been adressed?

 

[Methone]

Has the extreme mid- and lategame lag problems been adressed?

They were in 2.2.4, for me at least. 2.2.5 seems to have brought a new problem with performance - jobs are being constantly recalculated incredibly fast, causing performance issues.

 

[Fallenangel85]

It feels like no developer ever reads these threads.

Purging speeds are still bugged!!!

Tooltip says 300% but 600% is applied.
At least for "Chemical Processing"

And the AI tends to built Presincts like crazy, even on fresh colonies.
This really hampers the AI

 

[Methone]

It feels like no developer ever reads these threads.

Purging speeds are still bugged!!!

Tooltip says 300% but 600% is applied.
At least for "Chemical Processing"

Have you considered that maybe it's a tricky bug that they simply haven't figured out how to fix?

 

[The Founder]

This was a bug in .3 or .4, where whenever a syndicate built a branch office, the AI would build 3-4 precints, to drag them off the planet, regardless of their current economy, even without branch offices they did this. maybe its triggered by simply having established contact with a crime syndicate?.
at the very least, it sounds like the bug was re-introduced either as the same or a new iteration, or was never fixed properly

Nope, it's something else. I did a test with all my empires force-spawned - even before anyone's made first contact, they're putting Precinct Districts on their colonies the instant they hit 5 pops.

The problem is precinct houses are one of the only buildings that the AI is allowed to construct when there are no unemployed pops. Which means as soon as that condition occurs on a colony, the AI will build 3 in quick succession.

Just to be certain we are all on the same page, here is the actuall code for the Precinct House:

building_precinct_house = {
    base_buildtime = 360

    category = government
    
    potential = {
        owner = { is_regular_empire = yes }
        NOT = { has_modifier = slave_colony }
    }
    
    destroy_trigger = {
        NOT = {
            owner = { is_regular_empire = yes }
        }
    }
        
    planet_modifier = {
        job_enforcer_add = 2
    }

    resources = {
        category = planet_buildings
        cost = {
            minerals = 400
        }
        upkeep = {
            energy = 2
        }
    }
    
    prerequisites = {
        "tech_planetary_government"
    }
    
    triggered_desc = {
        text = job_enforcer_effect_desc
    }
    
    show_tech_unlock_if = {
        is_regular_empire = yes
    }
    
    upgrades = {
        building_hall_judgment
    }
    
    ai_weight = {
        weight = 1

        modifier = {
            factor = 10
            planet_crime > 10
            planet_crime < 25
        }

        modifier = {
            factor = 15
            planet_crime > 25
            planet_crime < 50
        }

        modifier = {
            factor = 20
            planet_crime > 50
        }

        modifier = {
            factor = 0
            OR = {
                num_buildings = { type = building_precinct_house value > 2 }
                AND = {
                    num_buildings = { type = building_hall_judgment value > 0 }
                    num_buildings = { type = building_precinct_house value >= 1 }
                }
                num_buildings = { type = building_hall_judgment value > 1 }   
            }
        }
    }
}

And as a comparision, the code for the Alloy Factory:

building_foundry_1 = {
    base_buildtime = 360

    category = manufacturing
    
    potential = {
        NOT = { has_modifier = resort_colony }
        NOT = { has_modifier = slave_colony }
    }

    triggered_planet_modifier = {
        potential = {
            exists = owner
            owner = { is_hive_empire = yes }
        }
        modifier = {
            job_alloy_drone_add = 2
        }
    }
    
    triggered_planet_modifier = {
        potential = {
            exists = owner
            owner = { is_machine_empire = yes }
        }
        modifier = {
            job_fabricator_add = 2
        }
    }
    
    triggered_planet_modifier = {
        potential = {
            exists = owner
            owner = { is_regular_empire = yes }
        }
        modifier = {
            job_foundry_add = 2
        }
    }
    
    resources = {
        category = planet_buildings
        cost = {
            minerals = 400
        }
        upkeep = {
            energy = 4
        }
    }
    
    upgrades = {
        building_foundry_2
    }

    prerequisites = {
        tech_basic_industry
    }   
    
    triggered_desc = {
        trigger = {
            exists = owner
            owner = { is_regular_empire = yes }
        }
        text = job_foundry_effect_desc
    }
    
    triggered_desc = {
        trigger = {
            exists = owner
            owner = { is_hive_empire = yes }
        }
        text = job_alloy_drone_effect_desc
    }
    
    triggered_desc = {
        trigger = {
            exists = owner
            owner = { is_machine_empire = yes }
        }
        text = job_fabricator_effect_desc
    }
    
    ai_weight = {
        weight = 1
        modifier =
        {
            factor = 6
            owner = {
                has_monthly_income = {
                    resource = alloys
                    value < 15
                }
            }
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = 0
            OR = {
                AND = {
                    is_capital  = no
                    OR = {
                        num_buildings = { type = building_foundry_1 value >= 2 }
                        num_buildings = { type = building_foundry_2 value >= 1 }
                        num_buildings = { type = building_foundry_3 value >= 1 }
                    }
                }
                AND = {
                    is_capital  = yes
                    OR = {
                        num_buildings = { type = building_foundry_1 value >= 3 }
                        num_buildings = { type = building_foundry_2 value >= 1 }
                        num_buildings = { type = building_foundry_3 value >= 1 }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = 0
            count_owned_pops = {
                limit = {
                    OR = {
                        is_unemployed = yes
                        has_job = servant
                    }
                }
                count < 1
            }
        }
    }

    ai_resource_production = {
        alloys = 1
        trigger = {
            always = yes
        }
    }
}

As sillyrobot said, this is one of the few buildings the AI is allowed to build if there is no unemployment.

 

[Methone]

Just to be certain we are all on the same page, here is the actual code for the Precinct House:

Hmm, why is the code for Precinct house's weightings not using <50 and >=50? I get that landing on EXACTLY 50 Crime or such would be prohibitively rare, but with this, whenever that does happen, the Precinct Houses will have the minimum weight.