I have 99 job slots but filled ain't one

[Secret Master]

POP growth isn't too slow. You just have to manage it correctly.

All planets, all the time, should be spamming POPs. If you can build robots, add that to your growth. If a planet is full and cannot employ any more POPs, slap an edict on it increasing growth anyway and ship the excess POPs to new planets. If you can't resettle POPs yourself, let migration boost POP growth.

I'm deadly serious. All planets should be managed so that they are growing more POPs. Even if half your planets are full and can't use more POPs, the other half of your empire needs the growth.

 

[Evangeline]

By researching clone vats, I've solved my "free slot I shouldn't use" problem. They do not require any employees, fill a slot, and increase pop growth, so that the problem also doesn't re-occur. And by improving my robots, I get rid of the unemployed workers because it allows them to become specialists when I don't need more workers.

By the way, does anyone vassalize their sectors and if so, what benefits do you get from it? (I love micromanaging planets, so the mere reduction of micromanaging would not be enough incentive for me.)

 

[eagletrekkie]

Aren't you being punished for making a bad plan there? If you're running out of stuff, whose fault is that?

Depends on the circumstances. If it is in fact my fault for mismanaging, sure. If it's due to something else sucking resources, ie, a war or stellarite devourer, then no, I'm actively being punished for planning ahead.

 

[Flame13223]

POP growth isn't too slow. You just have to manage it correctly.

All planets, all the time, should be spamming POPs. If you can build robots, add that to your growth. If a planet is full and cannot employ any more POPs, slap an edict on it increasing growth anyway and ship the excess POPs to new planets. If you can't resettle POPs yourself, let migration boost POP growth.

I'm deadly serious. All planets should be managed so that they are growing more POPs. Even if half your planets are full and can't use more POPs, the other half of your empire needs the growth.

Mate I have been spamming the food 25% pop growth on every planet since the game started, I had 10.67 pop growth at some points in the game and its still not quick enough. If the pop growth was brought more in line with building speed then it wouldn't be this noticeable.

The thing is the buildings are now locked away behind slots so every time you unlock a slot the gamer in me is screaming to use it. Its a new skill point or talent or something you HAVE to use it is what my gaming senses tell me. But that's not the case anymore, I have 4+ slots on some planets that are unused because using them is actively detrimental to me. I still keep 5-10 jobs unfilled so that I don't get unemployment if I am busy with something and not checking the planets as often. I do play on fastest so that might also be an issue.

 

[Secret Master]

Mate I have been spamming the food 25% pop growth on every planet since the game started, I had 10.67 pop growth at some points in the game and its still not quick enough. If the pop growth was brought more in line with building speed then it wouldn't be this noticeable.

I hate to be picky, but even today, we can build factories and housing faster than we can grow new people to consume them all. I don't imagine that would change.

If you think adding a building is detrimental, then don't do it. Maybe the game should have a way to change notifiers about planets, but there's nothing wrong with POP growth or build speed.

 

[Evangeline]

Mate I have been spamming the food 25% pop growth on every planet since the game started, I had 10.67 pop growth at some points in the game and its still not quick enough. If the pop growth was brought more in line with building speed then it wouldn't be this noticeable.

The thing is the buildings are now locked away behind slots so every time you unlock a slot the gamer in me is screaming to use it. Its a new skill point or talent or something you HAVE to use it is what my gaming senses tell me. But that's not the case anymore, I have 4+ slots on some planets that are unused because using them is actively detrimental to me. I still keep 5-10 jobs unfilled so that I don't get unemployment if I am busy with something and not checking the planets as often. I do play on fastest so that might also be an issue.

This sounds to me as if you're upgrading your buildings too much (or possibly building too many districts). An upgraded building employs much more people, and that robs you of the work force you could be using on other buildings. If empty slots bother you, just focus on filling them first before you start upgrading when the planet is full. It's a wide versus tall balance, just like you also balance number of districts with the number of buildings.

 

[yerm]

Most of these issues will be hopefully ironed out by an improved job priority system. In the meantime, if you find yourself frequently annoyed because nobody wants to work the mines and fields, I highly recommend slavery.

 

[AlanC9]

Depends on the circumstances. If it is in fact my fault for mismanaging, sure. If it's due to something else sucking resources, ie, a war or stellarite devourer, then no, I'm actively being punished for planning ahead.

Isn't being able to cope with an unexpected war part of a non-idiotic plan?

 

[Delthor]

I literally cannot build buildings on my planet and have to wait because if I don't then all my workers go work the specialist jobs immediately

Choosing whether or not to build buildings is now a real choice that requires thought. That it 100% as designed. You shouldn't fill every single slot with a building providing 5-10 specialist jobs as soon as the building opens up. Think about it and have some discipline. Ask whether you need more specialists on that planet at the moment first. This is much more nuanced than the old "plop down a building on every tile and let pops fill in whenever" approach the old system had.

The more pops you have the more growth you should have and secondly colony ships should cost a pop at least to build as right now one of the easiest ways to increase growth is to settle EVERYTHING.

More pops meaning more growth causes major issues with overpopulation once you get later into the game and your populations start to hit the max housing you can supply. I understand that you're at the stage where you want as many more pops as you can get, but trust me; the problem will eventually reverse, and you'll be scrambling to figure out how to house and employ all the pops that are growing.

Since colony ships aren't built on planets anymore, it would be more complex to choose which planet to take the pops from. That's solvable. However, another issue is that you can use this system to freely purge pops by putting them in colony ships and then destroying the colony ship somehow.

 

[Flame13223]

5-10 specialist jobs as soon as the building opens up.

They only give 1-2 unless you upgrade them which you obviously wouldn't do yet.

More pops meaning more growth causes major issues with overpopulation once you get later into the game and your populations start to hit the max housing you can supply.

Not if they emigrate to other planets or you get actually good ways to slow it down if you wish to do so. Think of current developed countries, the population growth numerically is still pretty big but percentagewise its been going down steadily for the past 30-50 years. You could have an automatic effect where lack of housing/unemployment causes negative pop growth modifiers to occur automatically while also increasing emigration greatly. Also could use tools like resettling to combat it and egalitarians could gain tools to use resettling in a more limited and expensive ways. I'd call it "incentives" whereas the government gives you benefits if you move to another planet. Thus pops would leave the planet but you could only use it a certain number of times per planet or you'd increase the price or put a timer on it so that the pops dont immediately leave but instead leave in 1-3 years maybe have perks/traidtions/techs that increase that timer for them, etc...

There's a lot of ways to work around it that would be great.

Oh fun fact btw, Egalitarians in 2.2.1 can use resettling even though the policy is on prohibitted, and it does not cause any negative penalties with the Egalitarian faction. Its a bug most likely but personally I am campaigning for it to remain an option for Egalitarians as late game can be a hassle without resettlement as an option.

 

[Delthor]

They only give 1-2 unless you upgrade them which you obviously wouldn't do yet.

Yes, and if your economy can't absorb the loss of 1-2 worker pops quite easily while those pops regrow, it's quite the fragile flower.

You could have an automatic effect where lack of housing/unemployment causes negative pop growth modifiers to occur automatically while also increasing emigration greatly.

Yeah, they could do this. However, I think it would be too snowbally and make picking early growth traits even more powerful.

I'm not saying that it's impossible to manage overpopulation. I'm just saying that managing your population level is a consistent problem throughout the game, with growth first, resettlement and emmigration later, and if you are tallish, empire-wide overcrowding super late. I think this flow of the game is pretty strong.

Also, brand new colonies do get a major growth penalty, so there is some elements that cause early growth to be slower than other growth. Overcrowding also slows down growth, if I remember right, though it might only affect emmigration push.

 

[Flame13223]

Yes, and if your economy can't absorb the loss of 1-2 worker pops quite easily while those pops regrow, it's quite the fragile flower.

Multiplies by 20 because I have 20 planets and then again multiplied by 3 because I generally have 3 slots that are going to waste normally...

Yeah, they could do this. However, I think it would be too snowbally and make picking early growth traits even more powerful.

If everyone gets the bonus then its not snowbally. Snowballing would mean that one person gets a lot of advantage quickly and others get left behind. But that clearly wouldn't be the case.

Also, brand new colonies do get a major growth penalty, so there is some elements that cause early growth to be slower than other growth. Overcrowding also slows down growth, if I remember right, though it might only affect emmigration push.

True and yeah I do like that colonies start a bit slower, and you do get an emigration push on all your other planets that reduce their growth too. If you colonize 2 planets at the start then your one starting planet will get -2 growth probably which would essentially halt it completely. So there is some penalty for trying to widen your empire too fast however it is counterbalanced by the fact that 3 planets with 3 different pop growths means you get 3 times as many pops as someone stuck on a single planet. So yeah I really like that and I just want more of THAT level of strategy and planning.

 

[Evangeline]

I've never had 3 unused slots on *any* planet and I'm in the late game now. Could it be that you're building too many districts? Otherwise I just can't explain what's happening there. Screenshots might be helpful for figuring out what's going on.

 

[Delthor]

Multiplies by 20 because I have 20 planets and then again multiplied by 3 because I generally have 3 slots that are going to waste normally...

Well, when you multiply any decision by 20, it can become bad. One bit of advice someone gave in another thread that I really like is "plan; don't react." I think that's at the heart of a lot of struggles with 2.2. It requires planning and discipline in order to succeed. You also need to maintain some stockpiles of certain resources so you can dip into the negative without it being a mini crisis.

If everyone gets the bonus then its not snowbally. Snowballing would mean that one person gets a lot of advantage quickly and others get left behind. But that clearly wouldn't be the case.

No, everyone getting the bonus doesn't matter. If you grow faster with more pops, people who prioritize growth will grow faster. And then they'll be ahead on population, so they'll grow even faster than others. And so on. The stronger you get, the faster you become stronger is the definition of snowballing.

 

[AlanC9]

Oh fun fact btw, Egalitarians in 2.2.1 can use resettling even though the policy is on prohibitted, and it does not cause any negative penalties with the Egalitarian faction.

I'm getting the penalty.

 

[Wolfgang I]

Right now it seems like allowing xeno migration and refugees is the way to go if you want to max pop growth once you start contacting other empires.
Even an inward perfection empire seems to get a boost to pop growth from immigration if you stack nomadic and corvee system(I guess that would work with purifiers too) .

Planets full of lots of different suboptimal species might be the way to go if you are min/maxing in SP.

 

[Flame13223]

I'm getting the penalty.

You have to keep it on prohibitted and use it while its prohibited. Setting it to prohibitted doesn't actually grey the option out for me.

 

[AlanC9]

I'm doing that. Prohibited or not, I get the penalty.

 

[Sigma 582]

It's not that difficult. There's two icons for planets in the outliner, one for a spare building slot, and another for unemployed pops. If both of these are active, that planet can support another specialist building. If only the unemployed icon is active, it needs another district. In some cases you might want another district before more specialists, but that is the basics of it.

There's 3rd one for overcrowding.
But trying to be a good ruler, I tend to plan ahead as I don't want my new pop to sit there homeless and unemployed for 480 days while a building for them is upgrading. To achieve that I have to check all my planets every now and then to see if it's time to order new construction. Also, having some spare jobs and housing increases immigration pull which helps to leech population from other empires if you have migration treaties.

Would be nice if those icon appeared as soon as number of pops reached number of available jobs, not exceeded it. It's trickier for housing as pops can use non-integer amount of it, and you'll rarely be exactly at housing cap - mostly it's just below or slightly above. I guess "show housing icon if the currently growing pop will cause overcrowding" would be ideal.

Guess I'll post it to suggestions forum.

By the way, does anyone vassalize their sectors and if so, what benefits do you get from it? (I love micromanaging planets, so the mere reduction of micromanaging would not be enough incentive for me.)

Actually, you can allow sector AI to build its stuff automatically. But who can trust that silly machine, right?

The thing I don't understand is why we get that "free slot" feeling now. When we had tiles everything that wasn't covered by a blocker was a free slot, but nobody freaked out about that.

It takes time to open a slot now, so getting one is a big deal. We quickly learn to be eager to open slots, so when we get one we feel urge to do something with it.

If you can't help this "gotta fill all slots" urge, but you don't need that many specialist jobs, you might want to plop special resource refineries in those spare slots. You'll consume 10 minerals as income (watch out for that!), but will generate much desired resource and only lose 1 worker per slot.