Habitat disable or restriction.

[Everstill]

"we can't help but accept" can also be applied to habitats themselves. By this logic, we can't help but accept that Stellaris will never be able to hold lots of pops without massive lag, and someone out there prefers 100 habitats because they like RP and hate war and like screwing over the war mongering players. I don't find this train of thought convincing.

Yeah, that's why i'm asking for an option to disable it. You want the habitat spam? Go for it. Some people don't like it and want to disable it.

Also I disagree with the premise that we can't help but accept that Stellaris cannot handle lots of pops without lag. Remove jobs and ethics and automatic resettlment and suddenly the lag from lots of pops disappears. And I can certainly think of ways to overhaul the game to get rid of pop jobs and ethics without changing the core gamepl

We have to accept. The team will not change the Pop system in Stellaris, maybe in a future sequel they make it different, but Stellaris was born with POPs and will die with POPs. So instead of fighting a lost battle, it's better to accept and ask for things around it.

 

[RoverStorm]

The team will not change the Pop system in Stellaris, maybe in a future sequel they make it different, but Stellaris was born with POPs and will die with POPs

Stellaris was born with POPS, but it was not born with Jobs, and the pop count of the old days was vastly lower. Habitats themselves are older than jobs by a considerable margin, although yes they are technically "DLC" content and not "base" content. In fact they've already made at least one change directly aimed at reducing lag on a per-pop basis, namely reducing the ethics per pop from an empire-level complexity to a single ethic.

This is my primary disagreement with you. Planet Tiles was a game mechanic as old as Pops, but they suddenly reworked and straight removed them years after release. Stellaris has completely reworked core game mechanics in the past, sometimes to enormous public outcry, to improve the game. I can totally see the team (or a future one, I've lost count of how many teams have worked on Stellaris over the years) could change the Pop system.

I don't think "pops" as some kind of mechanic will ever go away, but I CAN see them changing it so loads of pops don't slow down the game. Maybe jobs and ethics can be abstracted to the planet level, maybe someone will completely rewrite the code for those things, maybe they will decide to change the end game to slowly turn pops into (in game terms) inert objects that don't need processing as automation replaces all the work that pops perform.

We have to accept.

Even if the team is stubborn as a mule, I still don't understand this. If there is a problem, then ask for it to be fixed. And if the people in charge of fixing it won't do so, then go fix it yourself.

NOW that said:

Yeah, that's why i'm asking for an option to disable it. You want the habitat spam? Go for it. Some people don't like it and want to disable it.

No disagreements, totally fine with the option to disable things. I still cannot fathom how "empire size scaled pop growth" is a good idea and have never once changed that setting after testing it.

Sorry, as much as I've dissented on the logic against habitats, I think the more control players have other their game the better. I honestly wish there was a LOT more "galaxy options", honestly. Increasing the maximum traditions, or the minimum, adjusting which ascension paths you can take, turning off planetary ascension "infinite scaling", etc.

 

[mial42]

If you just disable habitats, the majority of tall playstyles die instantly. Ringworlds are too late and too expensive to help a tall player compete in the mid game. Even "wide" playstyles that run out of planets will suffer.

I play almost exclusively with habitats disabled via mod, and tall works fine - you just need vassals or Nihilistic Acquisition.

Personally I'd be all for a habitat toggle in the settings, but it's easy enough to mod that I don't see it as a priority.

 

[HFY]

Just restricting habitats is a bandaid solution, with tons of negative effects. It's only good for people who conquer constantly, and hence are both inconvenienced by habitat spam and also have other uses for influence.

Some conquest-a-holics don't need Claims, so it's not even a proportionate impact.

The team will not change the Pop system in Stellaris

1.x had a different pop system than 2.2 so clearly the pop system can and does change.

Hopefully any future pop system will continue to account for species & templates, but beyond that I think it's reasonable to expect changes & improvements.

 

[Losttruppen]

if you could keep developing the habitats you have, with reasonable costs (instead of "pay 150 influence to build a whole new habitat, with a new queue and new building slots or 50 influence to add 4 more districts with no queue/building slots"), players would have less need to spam habitats, and the AI could remain competitive while also not spamming habitats. If that expansion also partially undid the reduced growth effects I proposed as a solution to #1, so much the better.

Is this not what sort of happens? I play without the 3.0 pop changes(Growth Required and Capacity increases are off) so I could be wrong, but the limited number of districts and pops on a Tier 1 Habitat reduces the bonus from Capacity no? Which is then alleviated by upgrading the Habitat and adding districts and pops. Is it just a marginal change in overall growth?

Tier 3 Habitats with Research specialization receive massive benefits from Ascensions as it increases their Research output % so you can sink more resources into the same one twice more, and then another resource(Unity) to compound that.

Does the AI go crazy with Orbital Rings the same way they do with Habitats and Relays?

 

[currylambchop]

Spam habitats and give them to your vassals. Use the influence from vassals to make more habitats to give to more vassals

That’s not what the AI is doing though. The AI is making suboptimal habitats which is probably hurting it more than it helps, because those alloys could have been used to build more ships.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Is this not what sort of happens? I play without the 3.0 pop changes(Growth Required and Capacity increases are off) so I could be wrong, but the limited number of districts and pops on a Tier 1 Habitat reduces the bonus from Capacity no? Which is then alleviated by upgrading the Habitat and adding districts and pops. Is it just a marginal change in overall growth?

Tier 3 Habitats with Research specialization receive massive benefits from Ascensions as it increases their Research output % so you can sink more resources into the same one twice more, and then another resource(Unity) to compound that.

Does the AI go crazy with Orbital Rings the same way they do with Habitats and Relays?

Habitats get 3.0 growth if you leave them mostly empty, and 100% assembly regardless of overcrowding.

If you try to fill them with 100% working districts (with no habitation, and no Luxury Housing), your growth will drop to near zero. But if you just build a single habitation district and luxury housing (instead of pops) for amenities, you can get 3.0 growth easily. Especially with Domination.

Ex. A research habitat with 7 research districts, 1 habitation district, an upgraded habitat command, a research institute, and 3 luxury housing will give 7*3+1*8+3*4+6=47 housing and 3*3+5*3=24 amenities for 21+2+1 pops, for 4.0 growth. You can squeeze more in if you're willing to use advanced resources and spend pops on entertainers (use building slots for labs/holotheaters, and districts for housing).

(Hopeful I didn't mess up the math in that example, I wasn't able to check in game)

 

[Zetesofos]

I think IF we're going to cap them, you can link them to starbases BUT not have them use the same capacity. Do it like titans and naval cap,.

You get one titan every X naval cap; so then you should get one Habitat every Y starbase cap you have.

But, their mutually exclusive limits AND even small empires don't need to use all their starbases to do so.

And, if you really want to make them tall, make that cap inverse of empire size, so larger empires need more starbase cap to get habitats.

(Then, for added benefit, give Void Dwellers double or something awesome, so they actually feel different).

 

[Zetesofos]

Habitats get 3.0 growth if you leave them mostly empty, and 100% assembly regardless of overcrowding.

If you try to fill them with 100% working districts (with no habitation, and no Luxury Housing), your growth will drop to near zero. But if you just build a single habitation district and luxury housing (instead of pops) for amenities, you can get 3.0 growth easily. Especially with Domination.

Ex. A research habitat with 7 research districts, 1 habitation district, an upgraded habitat command, a research institute, and 3 luxury housing will give 7*3+1*8+3*4+6=47 housing and 3*3+5*3=24 amenities for 21+2+1 pops, for 4.0 growth. You can squeeze more in if you're willing to use advanced resources and spend pops on entertainers (use building slots for labs/holotheaters, and districts for housing).

(Hopeful I didn't mess up the math in that example, I wasn't able to check in game)

Honestly, I think the main issue with stellaris 'meta' as it were right now is there is just no counter to 'more pops = good'.

I can't think of what mechanic or theme it would be, but it would seem like some countering force or some thing that makes MORE pops become a bad thing might be good.

Problem is space is to goddamn big! There's just so much room.

 

[Everstill]

Stellaris was born with POPS, but it was not born with Jobs, and the pop count of the old days was vastly lower. Habitats themselves are older than jobs by a considerable margin, although yes they are technically "DLC" content and not "base" content. In fact they've already made at least one change directly aimed at reducing lag on a per-pop basis, namely reducing the ethics per pop from an empire-level complexity to a single ethic.

This is my primary disagreement with you. Planet Tiles was a game mechanic as old as Pops, but they suddenly reworked and straight removed them years after release. Stellaris has completely reworked core game mechanics in the past, sometimes to enormous public outcry, to improve the game. I can totally see the team (or a future one, I've lost count of how many teams have worked on Stellaris over the years) could change the Pop system.

I don't think "pops" as some kind of mechanic will ever go away, but I CAN see them changing it so loads of pops don't slow down the game. Maybe jobs and ethics can be abstracted to the planet level, maybe someone will completely rewrite the code for those things, maybe they will decide to change the end game to slowly turn pops into (in game terms) inert objects that don't need processing as automation replaces all the work that pops perform.

I'm just saying what the devs talked about when they made the streamings.

The new job system was supposed to SOLVE the lag that happened in old Stellaris. You can go and watch Wiz showing and talking about it, where he puts 1000 pops in a planet and says it will not lag like how the previous version lagged.

It was of course not solved anything and the lag persist.

And the devs talk about things they will not change, like the POPs and how they will never add options to increase the chance of Events happening. We can accept or simple hold false hope for years and years.

Even if the team is stubborn as a mule, I still don't understand this. If there is a problem, then ask for it to be fixed. And if the people in charge of fixing it won't do so, then go fix it yourself.

Stellaris problems are on fundamental level. We can't fix it ourselves. We need an Stellaris 2 remade from the ground to remove all the problems it have.

No disagreements, totally fine with the option to disable things. I still cannot fathom how "empire size scaled pop growth" is a good idea and have never once changed that setting after testing it.

Sorry, as much as I've dissented on the logic against habitats, I think the more control players have other their game the better. I honestly wish there was a LOT more "galaxy options", honestly. Increasing the maximum traditions, or the minimum, adjusting which ascension paths you can take, turning off planetary ascension "infinite scaling", etc.

I understand the devs not wanting to fill the galaxy generation with hundreds of options, specially related to gameplay like you are asking. At some point not a single player will be playing the same game, as the number of options would arrive in the hundreds.

 

[Everstill]

Honestly, I think the main issue with stellaris 'meta' as it were right now is there is just no counter to 'more pops = good'.

I can't think of what mechanic or theme it would be, but it would seem like some countering force or some thing that makes MORE pops become a bad thing might be good.

Problem is space is to goddamn big! There's just so much room.

More pops becoming a bad thing will only happen when something like the more pops you have the more pops you produce and then you lack space for so many pops and you start to get unemployment and crime everywhere.

But you never lack space in the game so it's very hard to punish "more pops = good". (the never ending space is specially caused by Habitats)

 

[RoverStorm]

I can't think of what mechanic or theme it would be, but it would seem like some countering force or some thing that makes MORE pops become a bad thing might be good.

Lots of pops existing wouldn't be an issue if not for how jobs and ethics work. Basically every time these two things "check of they need to change", it's what causes so much performance issue late game because that is happening times a hundred thousand. And every update adding more jobs only makes it worse.

In theory, a solution is to take a page from the Victoria 3 economy. Instead of T1 building giving 2 jobs, T2 4, and T3 6, have T1 give 2 jobs, T2 1 that operates at double efficiency, and T3 gives no jobs because it operates all on it's own like a fallen empire building, yet still recieves bonuses from "job output" modifiers.

Then as you research these technologies, the purpose of your pops morphs depending on ethics. Maybe many will go hedonist, and stop looking for jobs and will no longer have an ethic (this therebye removes their impact on performance), and automatically join a late-game version of each faction. Spiritualists may keep certain kinds of lower-class jobs and clergy jobs and slowly strengthen them (doesn't reduce performance, but in a galaxy of balanced ethics, one pop-preserving empire a difference will not make). Materialists may upload the brains of excess pops into a special building you construct on each planet that gives stronger bonuses the more pops it "consumes" (thus "killing" pops and removing them from the performance impact).