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

[Jorlem]

* Fixed workers abandoning the mines to displace specialists, leading to basic resource starvation and a lot of unemployed high strata pops later in the game. No social mobility for you!

Does this also include robots/droids, or just biological pops? I've been avoiding researching the droids tech in my games, as it has resulted in my mining/farming robots all moving to specialist jobs and kicking those specialists out of their jobs.

Speaking of robots, is there a way to ensure that robots will go to the jobs I want? If I have two types of robomodded robots, one with boosted mining output, and the other with boosted farming output, how can I ensure that they will go to the correct jobs? This was easy in pre-2.2, as I could just shift them to the correct tile, but I have trouble with it now.

 

[Ridixo]

You can expect exactly that. Every time we update the beta patch, we make a tweaked version of the old beta in to the new live version.

Thanks, i was start worrying for a eternal and necessary beta branch patch. Since i could have your momentary attention, who is on charge of the Spanish translation? There are some... well not bugs but un-updated info. The "Great Game" tradition still reads about gaining extra unity for having rivals. Domination unlocking, still says that unlock vassals and the influence and stability symbols in the complete domination and harmony trees are interchanged. If someone can please, check out this and polish the translation. Thanks in advance

 

[Wirsing]

@Jamor

I just booted up an old game (I think one started back in 2.2.3), with the new patch active, and attempted to terraform planets, finishing them instantly with the console command "finish_terraform" to test if the fix worked. I'm STILL losing districts upon Gaia terraforming.

Just to double check - do I need a fresh campaign for the terraforming fixes to apply [i.e., its not working as it was started under an older version], or is it that perhaps Gaia terraforming is still not working correctly at the present time?

EDIT: If its relevant, the original old game used mods, and I had mods on when I did the new test. I'll turn those off and check again.

Have you tried it with the new beta patch?

* Fixed some Planetary Features (and thus Districts) not surviving the terraforming process to Gaia planet class, because what's a paradise planet if you can't strip mine it and turn it in to a honeycombed shell?!

 

[Kurieg]

Just loaded up the 2.2.5 patch and played a bit as a devouring swarm. I noticed a bug on my homeworld - every single day that passed the AI was shuffling many pops between different jobs. It caused the resource outputs to fluctuate wildly and was quite annoying. To me it looked like the AI got stuck in some kind of loop trying to boost one resource, moving pops to do so, then moving them back to compensate the new deficit but I couldn't pin it down exactly as it was a lot of wild pop shuffling. Can't imagine this bug is good for performance either. No AI mods installed.

I confirm this behavior. I believe the AI was oscillating between a Maintenance job and a Tech job. I think it got stuck between the extra amenities boosting other outputs and the tech job boosting energy output. I made it stop by nixing a maintenance job.

 

[Drinko]

A̶I̶ ̶d̶u̶m̶m̶y̶ ̶b̶u̶i̶l̶d̶i̶n̶g̶?̶
A̶l̶s̶o̶ ̶"̶M̶a̶c̶h̶i̶n̶e̶ ̶E̶m̶p̶i̶r̶e̶ ̶T̶e̶c̶h̶ ̶D̶r̶o̶n̶e̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶w̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶d̶u̶c̶e̶ ̶6̶ ̶e̶n̶e̶r̶g̶y̶ ̶(̶u̶p̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶4̶)̶ ̶b̶a̶s̶e̶"̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶a̶c̶c̶u̶r̶a̶t̶e̶.̶

My mistake I was using a mod

 

[The Exile]

AI dummy building?

Yeah, I've got that too. I assumed it was from a mod I'm running but I've turned off all building-related mods and I'm still seeing it.

 

[Mímisbrunnr]

@Wirsing, @Jamor

Testing....

Loaded old game (started initially in 2.2.3 or 2.2.4, but now loaded with 2.2.5 (aab4). All my mods turned off.

Playing as UNE.

Gaia-terraform Earth ---> works correctly (district counts preserved)

Gaia-terraform planet ("Dawn") [3 Gen, 8 Mining, 4 Farming] --> Okay, now it works correctly this time [maybe the mods had an effect]

Testing more to make sure that it isn't coincidental

Gaia-terrafrom planet ("S'Prekeel"). [11 Generator, 2 Mining, 14 Agriculture] --> Okay, the district count actually preserves this time.

HOWEVER..... there IS A BUG HERE. A different one though [and one infinitely more minor than before]. The types of terrain switch over and I don't lose districts, but they get the wrong images/icons representing them, retaining the old one [example, "Black Soil" retaining the Fungal-type agriculture image that it had pre-terraform].



Testing Planet "Krash". Okay, Gaia-forming is working in district counts, but is giving the wrong images. Here on Krash I get "Lush Jungle" with the image of "Great River".



SUMMARY:

My earlier reported bugs seem to be an artifact of the mods I was using. Gaia-forming is FIXED WITH RESPECT TO DISTRICT COUNTS in the base game now. Sorry for the false-alarm due to my mods interfering. Gaia-forming is still bugged in a different but in a relatively harmless manner excepting aesthetics - incorrect terrain images. Sorry for any confusion.

 

[Todie]

[...]

[2.2.5]

###################
# AI
###################
* AI now budgets the full total available resources into categories

[...]

as a humble prospective AI-modder int he shadow of Glavius, i wouldnt mind some form of elaboration on the AI change-noes - especially this one. Should i take this to mean that fraction = { ... } is a more consistent / reliable input in ai_budgets now as opposed to before? (in modding we rpredominantly used static_min instead)

* AI will no longer start scrapping buildings immediately once it decides it doesn't need more of them, it will just stop building new ones for a while

in mod-speak this means we have a new line in 00_defines NAI = {}

BUILDING_DEMOLISH_THRESHOLD = -1   # At AI weight less than or equal to this, demolish building or district
BUILDING_BUILD_THRESHOLD = 1       # Ait AI weight greater than or equal to this, the AI will consider building it.

... whereas previously we only had = BUILDING_DEMOLISH_THRESHOLD = 0

perhaps this plugs a hole concerning district weights; previously setting weight = 0 would not consistently stop AI from bulding districts if it had budget for it.

Otherwise, from what i understand, this doesnt exactly change anything from a practical moddding POV compared to what we did before. its at best sparringly usefull to set a building weight to -1 because there is no compartmentalization below the planet-level; if some conditions trigger my -1 weight for founderies on a planet, that will tell the AI to destroy ALL founderies there. at once.

... for construction, we can augument the weights-system using budgeting-categories, but for demolishing its not the same (becasue it doesnt have a cost to demolish)


..... For the unmodded AI i can see the above + the two-per-planet limit being a significant imporvment in consistency.

 

[The Founder]

Speaking of robots, is there a way to ensure that robots will go to the jobs I want? If I have two types of robomodded robots, one with boosted mining output, and the other with boosted farming output, how can I ensure that they will go to the correct jobs? This was easy in pre-2.2, as I could just shift them to the correct tile, but I have trouble with it now.

The job weights already do that:

weight = {
    weight = @worker_job_weight
    modifier = {
        factor = 1.5
        OR = {
            has_trait = trait_robot_harvesters
            has_trait = trait_agrarian
        }
    }
    modifier = {
        factor = 1.1
        owner = { has_valid_civic = civic_agrarian_idyll }
    }
    modifier = {
        factor = 10
        is_enslaved = yes
        can_take_servant_job = no
    }   
    modifier = {
        factor = 2
        OR = {   
            is_non_sapient_robot = yes
            is_shackled_robot = yes
        }
        can_take_servant_job = no
        owner = { has_technology = tech_droid_workers }
    }   
    modifier = {
        factor = 10
        OR = {   
            is_non_sapient_robot = yes
            is_shackled_robot = yes
        }
        can_take_servant_job = no
        owner = { NOT = { has_technology = tech_droid_workers } }
    }
    modifier = {
        factor = 0.25
        can_take_servant_job = yes
    }   
    modifier = {
        factor = 2
        has_trait = trait_syncretic_proles
    }   
    modifier = {
        factor = 1.2
        has_trait = trait_very_strong
    }
    modifier = {
        factor = 1.1
        has_trait = trait_strong
    }   
    modifier = {
        factor = 0.9
        has_trait = trait_weak
    }           
}

 

[Mímisbrunnr]

Yeah, I've got that too. I assumed it was from a mod I'm running but I've turned off all building-related mods and I'm still seeing it.

Glavius AI creates an AI dummy building to stop AI players from upgrading buildings they don't have pops to work and killing their economies by promoting workers into specialist positions without having the economy to support this.

 

[glee8e]

* Energy grids/nexus' are more expensive, but give an additional 5% bonus and add 2/4 Max Generator Districts to their planet. This also applies to Synth empires
* Mineral purification plants/hubs are more expensive, but give an additional 5% bonus and add 2/4 Max Mining Districts to their planet. This also applies to Synth empires

I guess you mean this bonus is machine/synth empire exclusive, from the context, but your wording sounds like it is universal and apply to every country. You'd probably want to change it to something like

* For machine empires, energy grids/nexus' are more expensive, but give an additional 5% bonus and add 2/4 Max Generator Districts to their planet. This also applies to Synth empires
* For machine empires, mineral purification plants/hubs are more expensive, but give an additional 5% bonus and add 2/4 Max Mining Districts to their planet. This also applies to Synth empires

EDIT: Just peeked at the building files, and it is indeed that way, so...

 

[Mímisbrunnr]

Yeah, I thought it was for regular empire too from the original wording. But then I checked and found that it wasn't.


What happens, by the way, if you build the machine nexus buildings and then destroy them? Does the code make sure to delete the district slots, or could you abuse this to create unlimited district slots of your desired type? How does the addition of districts here function, in other words?

 

[Drinko]

M̶a̶c̶h̶i̶n̶e̶ ̶E̶m̶p̶i̶r̶e̶ ̶F̶a̶b̶r̶i̶c̶a̶t̶o̶r̶s̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶d̶u̶c̶e̶ ̶4̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶o̶y̶s̶ ̶(̶u̶p̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶3̶)̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶8̶ ̶m̶i̶n̶e̶r̶a̶l̶s̶ ̶(̶u̶p̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶6̶)̶.̶ ̶N̶o̶t̶ ̶a̶c̶c̶u̶r̶a̶t̶e̶.̶

My mistake was using a mod

 

[Mímisbrunnr]

"AI empires will generally not build more than 2 buildings of the same type per planet"


With respect, I think that this may weaken the AI in some cases unless there are exceptions that you haven't mentioned within the "generally" part.

While this has a very valid purpose for some types of buildings (like Precint House), it hurts things like Tech World where you are incentivized to stack a large number of research labs together on one planet to leverage the bonus from the Research Institute.

Might I suggest that you exempt certain buildings like labs on research worlds from this restriction if you haven't done so already?

 

[glee8e]

Machine Empire Fabricators produce 4 alloys (up from 3) at the cost of 8 minerals (up from 6). Not accurate.
View attachment 448758

You must be on the wrong branch, or you are using some outdated AI mods. Considering when 2.2.5 is released, it's fair to say all AI mods are outdated ATM.

 

[Sifer2]

Changes to fundamental systems like pop growth or sector generation are certainly not off the table, but they take more time than balance tweaks, and we didn't want to hold this batch of fixes back longer than necessary. There's a fair number of things competing for our attention, but we'll see what we can do going forward.

Considering one of the big goals of the 2.2 overhaul was supposed to be to reduce tedious micromanagement not increase it I hope overhauling sectors is a priority. The game just isn't enjoyable to play as a wide empire currently. It's made more annoying since sectors were not broken, and worked perfectly fine as they were before the update. Simply shrinking their stockpile down to a few thousand resource max probably would have been fine to balance them into the new economy. But maybe you have plans for them going forward so I guess we wait an see.

 

[RoverStorm]

Will Hive Minds get any tweaks, or would you consider them in a good spot already?

 

[Neocv]

Machine Empire Fabricators produce 4 alloys (up from 3) at the cost of 8 minerals (up from 6). Not accurate.
View attachment 448758

I saw this too.

Just disable the Glavius AI mod, and then things will be as they should.

 

[glee8e]

Yeah, I thought it was for regular empire too from the original wording. But then I checked and found that it wasn't.


What happens, by the way, if you build the machine nexus buildings and then destroy them? Does the code make sure to delete the district slots, or could you abuse this to create unlimited district slots of your desired type? How does the addition of districts here function, in other words?

Didn't tried, but I guess it would be similiar to what happened back when gaia terraforming destorying deposits, because they are effectively the same change in the states.

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Lots of strike craft fixes, cool. They will finally be as OP as before, though =/

* Fixed broken targeting for strike craft that caused them to meander out to the edges of the system rather than engage enemy fleets

This does include corvettes doing the same stuiff, right? Riiiight? (one can only hope)