[Dev Team] 3.0.2 Hot Fix Released (Checksum 91c1)

[Kaoru Sen'nin]

So I was thinking last night about my 40h of game in 3.0.

It's fairly long. I'm on my phone at work so it's a mess. Most idea are probably dumb but here I am.

1/ Pop growth issue
I already talked about it on my first post in this topic.
Basically the Empire Wide Penalty is not liked for several reason :

- Roleplay (some people think it's silly that dudes on some empty planet will stop to reproduce because another rock on the other side of the Galaxy has much people).

- Inconsistency with Economic system. You want to have planet filled for the economic bonus but since the growth is so slow after a while you need to abuse the S-Curve to allegiate the pain. Although in any case people would probably abuse it because more pop is more power (maybe not. It's depends if a specialized planet full of pop is economically more or less better than pumping out pop to half-fill planets). So it totally defeat one of the goal of the change to lessen micromanagement because we still have it.

- Linked to previous point the conquest / abduction style is stronger than ever (granted it was already a winning strat in 2.8). Because getting 200 pops when your own growth is so slow that you need like 30y to get 1 pop naturally is massive.
Also the weird tactic with abusing vassalisation to maximise growth is not something intended.

- Just not satisfying for some people. The fact that it is a mechanical change to fix a technical issue is not helping because a lot of people were just fine even in lategame so they fill punished for no reason (to them).

Suggestions :
It's complex because people will factor those things differently. It's a matter of individual perception. Considering that everyone has different prefered value for the S-Curve and the Empire Wide Penalty I suggested sliders at Galaxy creation so anyone can set the game the way they like it (including disabling said features).
See my first post page 2 for more details.

2/ The Auto-settlement

I played Slavers so I didn't noticed it until I read some people here and I went into thinking. Please keep in mind that I don't playtested this extensively.

The issue is when you see an unemployed the reflex is to build him job. Except he will probably move elsewhere and fill a random job.

"Great I will make a new mining distric... nevermind he went somewhere. I don't know where but my minerals didn't change so he's doing something else"

That means if you want to truly control the production you need to micromanage Open job and pre-build only one planet so people flow to that. If you prebuild more you have no control where they go.
And since you want to specialize planets and the economy is a balance that needs to avance everything together you WILL need to prebuild several places (not necessarily much. Just enough to not have unemployement too long). Which means you have to manually resettle or close jobs.

Don't get me wrong. It's still less micromanagement than 2.8 but It really became an issue in 2.8 only when you have a LOT of planets filled. In 3.0 the micromanagement start sooner.

I think it is somewhat linked to the growth issue but I have trouble telling exactly why. I just feel it so... that's it.

Suggestions :
Here are separates ideas (they are mutually exclusives). I will assume that the pop growth issue is fixed. Not sure they are good, pretty they are terrible and add calculation that would slow the game but if it can eventually help people searching alternatives :

- Make it a planetary decision that makes pop migrate to THIS planet that you want to fill up quickly. Costing influence and food (food is underrated).

- Or the other way. A planetary decision that make people on THIS planet able to go elsewhere (that would hopefully nerf the "Feeder planets strats" if people wants to nerfs it)

- Link resettlement to housing on the planet. Basically if you have no job but the housing is better were you are you stay longer. Or something. So the start to push Capacity to the max but never build a single job so that people are produced at max rate and then move would be less easy (probably still doable though).

- Rework Travel Hub to makes them like Trade Hub that let them "collect" in adjacent system and the more Hub you have the farther it goes. Makes Travel Hub mandatory to auto resettle.
So colony close (in the same sector usually) have free movement but that planet alone way far is on her own until gateway.

- In the same idea than above make it tied to sector so pops move freely in their sector. Travel Hub allow movement to another sector (so just 1 per sector needed). If it can be used like commercial road then piracy would decrease the chance to resettle to another sector (that would also buff piracy which is a total joke).

3/ Intel and Operation

Great system but operations are not really exciting. Expensive for mostly weak effects.

- Extort Favors and Steal Tech are the winners there.

- Gather Intel and Recrut asset are fine.

- Sabotage Starbase is useless. I don't see ANY situation where that would be usefull.

- Arm privater don't do much. Last time I tried it the pirate sat in one system and did nothing for decades until the game end. Also the fact that their fleet power is fixed makes it useless after a while.

- Smear Campaign and Spark diplomacy incidence does... nothing ? I don't know. I tried it on 2 allied AI and they were still best friend after I sparked incident on every sides. But maybe they were just too high.

- Never tried Crisis Beacon.

- If there are other operations I don't recall it. Meaning I tries it and it was useless so I forget about it.

Suggestions :

- Sabotage base disabling the FTL inhibitor would probably be super strong. Too much maybe as it makes chokepoint less strong (well. Until Jump but jump decrease fleet power so there is a downside).

- Sabotage base reducing base power of a % (20 ?). Still usefull especially early war when you can't just swarm easily a base.

- Sabotage a specific Gateway to deactivate it for some times. Can be strategically usefull.

- Break alliance / Federation
Like Spark Incident but dedicated to break defense pact and stuff. No idea how to balance it but would be nice.

- Propaganda
Push an ethic to someone else. Not making them change ethic overnight but if you keep doing it that could adds up. And if they rebel they would prefer you as overlord ?
Maybe also reducing resistance of pop on conquested wolds at some point if you do it enough. Dunno how to do it but it sounds cool.

- Arms privateers
Buff it so they will get stronger as the game goes (maybe based on the economic and science power of the country that arms them). Maybe make them targate starbase if they are strong enough. So it can be a way to weaken just a few Month before invading.

- Counter espionnage
Make THEM see less on YOU.

- Fake report
Makes you looks stronger than you really are for a while (like pathetic would be seen as inferior or something). If they were not actually seeing anything on you it's just wasted.

4/ Galactic Community / Imperium

So I was doing an evil diplomatic run and ... well ... except from preventing progressive law I had nothing to do.
It would be nice if we could go FULL DYSTOPIAN and pass law like :

- Enslaved race
Anyone has to enslaved said race. Empire without slave policy and empire with huge population of this specie will naturally fight it. If it pass anyway they may leave the Community (based on how much said change would mess them up). I mean you can cripple slaver empire so that is just fair.

- Purge race
Same as above but with purge. Unlikely to pass ofc. But if you want to be truly evil... Or just to get ride of those annoying psychic rats.

Probably other things to do. Especially with criminal heritage Flavor stuff. I didn't think much about this one.

Also about the Imperium :

- No vote. I'm the Emperor. We don't need democracy. Whatever I say is DONE. But the more it is unpopular the more Imperial unity is damaged.

- Imperial Fleet should be 400 + Whatever cumulated fleet size the previous federations had before dissolving. Also getting their military bonus if they had one. (No cumulative).
At the moment the Imperial fleet actually WEAKEN the Galaxy.

5/ Misc.

- An icon on the Galactic Community logo that tell me if I'm actually losing or winning on the senate (like a red dot if I am opposing something but the votes are currently favoring it).

- I wanted to use "Hostile action" on first contact but that require a nearby vessel so I had to keep the screen open without taking the option until it became available and I saw it by luck and selected it.
A button "do it when available" would be welcome.

- Sometimes I can't vassalize Someone and since the button isn't even there I can't check why the conditions are not there anymore.

 

[SeraphAscending]

As i read the constructive and non-constructive feedback regarding the pop issue i think you guys should embrace the history of BIG reworks in Stellaris and maybe change it as a whole.
I would like to suggest to try out to remove individual pops all together and convert them to a resource. The Modifiers that pops have based in traits could stay and be applied to the Outputs.
This would remove the entire Lag-Check situation in the endgame and bring a more wider and bigger feel the whole empire management aspect to it.
I see that the RP focus will be lost with that change because there is an argument that it add to immersion if each pop is visible and fills out a specific role on each planet. But i would rather see a much bigger empire that is wide spread and has real sectors with individual cultures and internal struggles to add the RP than have to struggle with individual pops on planets and their individual struggles.

Literally every game mechanic that touches on pops would need to be changed. That would be a ridiculous effort.

Maybe such an abstraction of pops can be done in Stellaris 2 (when that eventually happens), but fundamentally rewriting Stellaris 1 from scratch to make this work is just unreasonable.

 

[SeraphAscending]

Please remove the massive influence cost for removing the last pop on a planet, I've been playing a hive mind and moving all my pops to ring worlds to downscale my territory, but I have to wait a good while to remove these unwanted planets as a result.

disable all jobs and the last pop will automatically resettle. (Eladrin mentioned that in another thread, i think.)

 

[Ixal]

Roleplay: That pops suddenly stop reproducing is silly, but its equally silly that when you split your population in half and transport one half on another planet that both halves now reproduce twice as fast (at least as long as the first planet still had ample room and resources in the first place)

Economic system: Can be avoided by leaving a few planets unfilled while building up your core planets. But many people are unwilling to do that as they have been trained to blob everywhere and demand that this stays the optimal way to play forever

Abduction: Yes, that is one of the many system that, thanks to later changes, became much more powerful. Other systems were indirectly nerfed into uselessness. Stellaris would need a huge rebalance patch where Devs do nothing than to normalize all mechanics and system to fit together again. But we know that this will not happen thanks to the DLC system and because of all the problems left which need fixing first.

Pop migration: I do not see it as a problem. Don't wait for a unemployed pop to appear to build up the planet more, but do so at 1 or 0 open jobs.
Also, pause the build up from time to time and let your planets even out the pops through migration.
I am against more control over pops as that makes authoritarian nations even more powerful over others, but they are supposed to be just one ethic out of many.

Espionage: Disabling the FTL blocker sounds like a good idea. Counterspionage should exist. Not as something you do on yourself and it affects everyone, but you target a other empire and depending on the mission lower its intel about you or remove one of its assets on you (and the mission should cost more than the acquire missions).
Playing around with ethics sounds also something espionage should do. Too bad ethics are still rather weak and useless to manipulate.

 

[monkeypunch87]

why not change the linear growth system?

instead of reaching the Empire, it affects only the planet.

And as time goes by, there are no more homes, the pops don't even grow on those planets anymore, but the pop growth would be diverted to planets where there is housing, but cut in half or just a third would get there.

We would continue with the nerf for pop growth, the planets would fill up at a faster rate than the current one but with stagnation always ahead.

It wouldn't reduce late game POPs with Habitat Spamming, so it isn't a solution.

 

[monkeypunch87]

I understand everything, crunch, people in CEO, quarantine, but initial release of 3.0 was a dissapointment. As well as nemesis. Lots of bugs and issues, more than usual. Hope it all be fixed within a month.

I wonder, is this irony? The discussion pro and con POPs growth penalty aside, this is probably the smoothest release of a Stellaris DLC ever.

 

[ImaTomato]

The new pop mechanic has destroyed what little enjoyment for Stellaris I had left.Combined with the "new" planet managment,terrible ai and performance problems playing the game feels like a chore.

Scaling up the number of pops and jobs in 2.0 was a mistake but trying to fix it by reducing pop growth is just as bad .They should just reduce the number of pops per planet to a reasonable amount like in 1.9.

 

[Imp0815]

Literally every game mechanic that touches on pops would need to be changed. That would be a ridiculous effort.

Maybe such an abstraction of pops can be done in Stellaris 2 (when that eventually happens), but fundamentally rewriting Stellaris 1 from scratch to make this work is just unreasonable.

The same could be said for the Rework of the whole Planetary system or How stations worked or the Fleet Manager.
So i would say in the light of these changes in the recent years it is not unreasonable to suggest and real rework of the Pop System.

Also the change would not be that great as the Rework of the Planetary system.

Pops as individuals get removed.
Each +1 Housing and +1 Jobs get reworked to a Workforce model. +10000 Housing for Workforce - Buildings and Districts now require Workforce to function something like: Requires 10000 Workforce to produce +X Alloys and +X Consumer Goods. If the Requirements are not met it gets a -% Malus.
So planet Economy would be based on a Workforce Pool that gets increased and decreased with available housing and Population growth.
Different species on each planet will also be shown in %.
Ethics in a population will be presented in %.
Stability would function the same based on Population, Ethics and Local modifiers.
Traits will be a Global value. As long as your one species provides the Main population on a Planet the traits of this species will apply there.
Population as a whole will now be in much larger numbers and less abstract and more oriented on realistic numbers. Millions or billion of Pops in a Empire.
Different Control's for Populations based on Government Ethics, Civics, Traits and Policy's. For Example a Fanatic Authoritarian Empire can split its Population into different Groups and assign different "Allowed Work" to them. So they could force specific species to work in specific jobs with a stability and happiness malus. Categories to choose could be the same we already have and work the same. So when modding the Population on a Planet could give us a new species that can be set to work specific jobs. Without much Manuel hassle.
Overpopulation and Resettlement could be solved by just "transferring" workforce instead of individual pops. For Example: A planet has 100000 Population. You click resettle and say i want 10000 Workforce to resettle to a planet. Press done and a Migration process starts.
There will also be a passive resettlement where a % of population will Migrate each month to another planet if its allowed or/and forced.
The Migration/resettlement Process could also get a Modifier how fast it will be done. (Like the % Chance we got now)
Overpopulation and Unemployment could be less intrusive thing and will only be a problem if it gets out of hand. Lets say 30% unemployment will result is worrying modifiers. This would give a fast growing Empire an much more natural feel and unemployment/overpopulation is not a true/false issue.

If we can implement these changes i would like to go further:
I would like to implement a Manpower system that is based on Workforce.
Based on Eithics, Civics, Tech and Policies you would get a % of Workforce as Manpower for your Army, Navy and Stations.
So for a standard Empire a ship would take X Manpower to build and Repair. If you play a different Empire for example a Plant based(Living ships?) or a Empire with AI focus you can reduce or even disable this need(Just like Machines disable Consumer goods AND Food AND Factions AND Ethics or Lithoids disable food). This would give us the ability to play a tall Navy that relies on AI ships and a Fast breeding wide Empire to mass produce ships without investing in tech to decrease Manpower needs.
Its not to deep to be too complicated and not so trivial as of now where this is not reflected in any way in the game.

All in all i think the game would strongly profit form such a change. We would reduce the late game lag from all the Pop calculations and gain much more ways to build on this system to develop the game further and open up new RP possibilities and new gameplay mechanics.

 

[Kaoru Sen'nin]

It wouldn't reduce late game POPs with Habitat Spamming, so it isn't a solution.

Nothing will prevent habitat spamming that makes more pop except :

- Limited habitat numbers (controversial)
- Empire Wide Penalty pop growth (awfull)

Pop is an issue only for a percentage of players. It should be something you can parameterize so people that have no issue with it can play the game without an artificial wall.
Kinda like in a game low graphism is not forced on people. It just something that you chose in option. As everything regarding performance should be.

 

[monkeypunch87]

Nothing will prevent habitat spamming that makes more pop except :

- Limited habitat numbers (controversial)
- Empire Wide Penalty pop growth (awfull)

Pop is an issue only for a percentage of players. It should be something you can parameterize so people that have no issue with it can play the game without an artificial wall.
Kinda like in a game low graphism is not forced on people. It just something that you chose in option. As everything regarding performance should be.

I wouldn't compare it with graphic settings, since they have to balance the game around the amount of available pops. It is not just a performance issue in this regard.

And yeah, if they get rid of the new introduced penalty, they have to limit artificial habitable places like Habitats and Ringworlds, maybe even Ecus, to stop endless growth. And they also need to introduce a catch up mechanic, since the new penalty allows catching up later.

 

[Kaoru Sen'nin]

I wouldn't compare it with graphic settings, since they have to balance the game around the amount of available pops. It is not just a performance issue in this regard.

And yeah, if they get rid of the new introduced penalty, they have to limit artificial habitable places like Habitats and Ringworlds, maybe even Ecus, to stop endless growth. And they also need to introduce a catch up mechanic, since the new penalty allows catching up later.

There is no catch up because once someone start steamrolling the galaxy by conquering pop he will just dominate and take everything LONG before anyone can "catch up" by natural growth. If anything it's even worse than before because you will catch up slower and slower while he will keep conquering and his pop keep growing that way.

Limitating habitat would be an issue that would also promote conquest as the only course of action. When you have all your miner jobs on planet taken and you still need an huge amont of mineral to transform into something else then being able to put as many mineral habitat as you need will help you transitionning to the matter decompressor (which may not be enough by itself).

Granted said mineral habitats are limited by the amount of celestial body with mineral that you own but that is still usefull when you end up with few planets and don't want to conquest for whatever reason.

Sure you can also buy on the market but that is less fun.

Thus limiting habitat would require another economic change of some kind in my opinion and I don't really see which one would be satisfying.

 

[monkeypunch87]

There is no catch up because once someone start steamrolling the galaxy by conquering pop he will just dominate and take everything LONG before anyone can "catch up" by natural growth. If anything it's even worse than before because you will catch up slower and slower while he will keep conquering and his pop keep growing that way.

It is "catch up", if the natural growth of your opponent stops earlier, because of a conquest, and you rely on your own natural growth. Or the other way around. It doesn't always have to be a "steamrolling" galaxy.

 

[Scorpio_Shirica]

I think one of the fundamental design problems with this update is that it punishes the player for doing well. Of course players are going to have a negative reaction to that! If you build a big shiny new thing, be it a city world or ring world, you want to feel accomplished and see it used. Now the empire wide pop cap makes you feel punished instead of rewarded for these big investments. The same thing happens when you find a sweet new unexplored planet, the game punishes you for settling it after a certain point. As the game progresses, these punishments in place of what used to be rewards continue to stack up.

In games like civ, these caps can be worked around by building wonders, finding luxuries and there is trade for these. Whole systems compliment the caps put in place so the player doesn't feel arbitrarily punished for doing a good thing, but instead gives the player other goals to accomplish and other rewards working towards their goal.

The current cap system in stellaris is purely arbitrary and only worked around with conquest, nhilisitic acquisition and constantly feels like we are having to cheat the game at it is own ruleset to get use out of mid or late game wonders and new planets.

 

[Ixal]

If only conquest would have downsides in the form of costly internal problems if overdone...

 

[grommile]

If only conquest would have downsides in the form of costly internal problems if overdone...

While there is certainly scope for improvement there, the challenge is to do that without making Post-Apocalyptic (or wormcult) Fanpu the best build

 

[SeraphAscending]

The same could be said for the Rework of the whole Planetary system or How stations worked or the Fleet Manager.
So i would say in the light of these changes in the recent years it is not unreasonable to suggest and real rework of the Pop System.

Also the change would not be that great as the Rework of the Planetary system.

[...]

No. Just no.
This would be a ridiculously bigger change than the planetary system and the current pop rework combined.

You would need to change literally every mechanic that builds on pops. That is almost all of the core structure of the economy as it runs that on pops.
Job Distribution, Ethics, Factions, Pop Growth/Assembly would have to be scrapped in their entirety and built anew from scratch. Every Event that somehow touches Pops needs to be changed. Pop death on bombardment and purge need to be changed...

Just because you can write down a concept that makes sense on first glance - hell, even if it was perfect - does not change that this would be entirely scrapping multiple core mechanics of the under-the-hood calculations.

I am not saying your concept is bad or that the current system is better - my point is that i really do not want such a rework of the game that has to somehow get forced into a game that is designed around an entirely different concept.
If they end up developing Stellaris 2 and end up reevaluating the pop system to work more like your suggestion, i do not mind.
I honestly think it can work, if implemented properly, but since it is a core mechanic of how the game handles things internally, it should not be reworked - alterations (like the 3.0 update) are fine, but taking out a programs heart to transplant a new one is really quite something else.

Edit:
Additionally, the entirety of the game would need to be rebalanced from scratch. Including all the years of added content. How much would you be willing to pay the devs for that ridiculous amount of effort?

 

[Imp0815]

No. Just no.
This would be a ridiculously bigger change than the planetary system and the current pop rework combined.

You would need to change literally every mechanic that builds on pops. That is almost all of the core structure of the economy as it runs that on pops.
Job Distribution, Ethics, Factions, Pop Growth/Assembly would have to be scrapped in their entirety and built anew from scratch. Every Event that somehow touches Pops needs to be changed. Pop death on bombardment and purge need to be changed...

Just because you can write down a concept that makes sense on first glance - hell, even if it was perfect - does not change that this would be entirely scrapping multiple core mechanics of the under-the-hood calculations.

I am not saying your concept is bad or that the current system is better - my point is that i really do not want such a rework of the game that has to somehow get forced into a game that is designed around an entirely different concept.
If they end up developing Stellaris 2 and end up reevaluating the pop system to work more like your suggestion, i do not mind.
I honestly think it can work, if implemented properly, but since it is a core mechanic of how the game handles things internally, it should not be reworked - alterations (like the 3.0 update) are fine, but taking out a programs heart to transplant a new one is really quite something else.

Edit:
Additionally, the entirety of the game would need to be rebalanced from scratch. Including all the years of added content. How much would you be willing to pay the devs for that ridiculous amount of effort?

You know in Version 1.0 the Planet System was little windows down on left hand side where a planet had a grid and on each tile a pop was placed to work that tile and you could build one building per tile.
To rework such a system to the now much bigger and more complex system we have now, was a much more intrusive and bigger rework than to rework a part and connect all its events and modifier to a global level and to introduce a new local resource instead of individual abstract pops.(One thing that struck me was that you said my suggestion would be "such an abstraction of pops" which implies that you think that a planet has 50 People living on it and 2 people work in a whole industrial district is less abstraction)

I think you restrain yourself to a concept of "set in stone" that should not apply to Stellaris because of the history of such big reworks that benefited the game. You must free yourself from the idea that this is a "normal" studio or game that gets developed, is done and only to be expanded on. Reworks are a big part of the success and identity of Stellaris and as of now it is time again to think about one.

To answer your question i would pay 20€ for this.
I would not buy Stellaris 2 for 40€ if this was the only thing that changed.

So if we can both agree to meet on this level -
I already suggested some changes and how they would work if we change form a "1 Pop" to a "Workforce and Population as a Resource"-system.
In which part of my suggestion do you see the most problems?
What are Systems that do not work and why?
What could be a good compromise to introduce a less abstract and better performing Population system?

 

[windsong]

The pop growth issue is still a pain in the ass.

Also, the Operation should be buffed.

I suggest that sabotage base can destroy a non-updated base. Thus player can occupy the system without a war. If the base is updated, it will disabling the FTL inhibitor temporary.

Instead of armed private, I think that we should have an operation to support some unhappy factors in the target empire. We can empower those factors to change the empire's ethic indirectly. If the target empire refuse, we can turn the factors into rebellion.

Also, there should be some operation to let us assassin/kidnap the leaders or steal pop.

There are abundant potential to make the operation fun and useful.

 

[Kaoru Sen'nin]

It is "catch up", if the natural growth of your opponent stops earlier, because of a conquest, and you rely on your own natural growth. Or the other way around. It doesn't always have to be a "steamrolling" galaxy.

He will have more space so you won't catch up because he will grow multiple pops and still be quicker.

But in any case the universe itself will die before you reach that point where it could eventually matters anyway because it is basically a snail race.

 

[Kaoru Sen'nin]

I think one of the fundamental design problems with this update is that it punishes the player for doing well. Of course players are going to have a negative reaction to that! If you build a big shiny new thing, be it a city world or ring world, you want to feel accomplished and see it used. Now the empire wide pop cap makes you feel punished instead of rewarded for these big investments. The same thing happens when you find a sweet new unexplored planet, the game punishes you for settling it after a certain point. As the game progresses, these punishments in place of what used to be rewards continue to stack up.

In games like civ, these caps can be worked around by building wonders, finding luxuries and there is trade for these. Whole systems compliment the caps put in place so the player doesn't feel arbitrarily punished for doing a good thing, but instead gives the player other goals to accomplish and other rewards working towards their goal.

The current cap system in stellaris is purely arbitrary and only worked around with conquest, nhilisitic acquisition and constantly feels like we are having to cheat the game at it is own ruleset to get use out of mid or late game wonders and new planets.

Well said.
It's not even a mechanism. There is nothing to play with. It's just an obstacle put there to hurt everyone trying to be "too good" and create a little lag in endgame.
In other games you can accept obstacle because then when you overcome it you feel rewarded. But that ? You can't beat it so there is no way to feel satisfaction. Unless you sink into abusive strategy like the vassal one.