Irreversible cataclysmic economy collapse

[Rippars]

Hi,

I have been playing Stellaris 2.2.2 multiplayer over christmas. In the last session, right before 2300, I started with a solid economy, only slightly negative in consumer goods production which I had to fill up from the market now and then. I had recently vassalized a small AI empire and was now at 16 colonies. So my economy was doing ok with tons of resources in store, but maybe needed some tweaks to be more efficient.

Then I upgraded one of my buildings (a fortress) and didn't realize it required rare gases resources in upkeep (which I didn't have). I got a message that my specialists would now be at -25% efficiency since I didn't generate that resource. I thought it was only for that building? Or is it for all buildings? In any case, shortly afterwards, I started going red in more resources. I tried to figure out what was happening and patching up but suddenly I was out of both energy, minerals, food and consumer goods. I was trying to sell alloys and living metal to get the other resources but it didn't work. Now I am at 0 in all resources and with negative production in all resources (exept living metal...) and my planets all have unrest and are starting to rebel.

I loaded up the latest save in solo mode to do some experimenting to see if there was any way to stop it, disbanding my fleet, disbanding starbases etc. Seems impossible to fix, I can't do anything. A sad end for an epic empire! Anyone else had similar experiences?

 

[Badesumofu]

That penalty when you lack a strategic resource is for ALL specialists which is indeed likely to destroy your economy. You should downgrade buildings to get back in the black ASAP otherwise you enter a doomspiral.

Hmm, maybe that is why the AI doesn't ever upgrade buildings.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

(1) Disable/downgrade the buildings that consumes rare resources
(2) Save up Living Metal
(3) Sell Living Metal until you have enough cash to buy the smallest batch of Food and Minerals available on the market

That should reset your modifiers for one month and allow your economy to recover.

 

[Aed]

This is surely a design oversight? There is no way that a lack of resources for a specific job on a single planet should suddenly tank productivity for all jobs across all planets.

 

[Rippars]

Wow, it actually is for all specialists!? That surely explains it. Unfortunately the "ASAP"-part is not possible... Were in the midst of multiplayer mayhem when it happened.

Thanks for the tips! It will take me a while to get to a decent amount of living metal, will see how many planets rebell before I saved enough.

And I agree, looks like a bug to me. Especially since the UI doesn't really advertise to me the negative rare resource flow. The risk of -25% production loss across the empire seems too high for what the upgraded buildings give. Even if I had a steady production of the required rare resources, I can imagine the micro it would take to disable all upgraded buildings in case I loose the systems with the rare resources...

 

[Badesumofu]

And I agree, looks like a bug to me. Especially since the UI doesn't really advertise to me the negative rare resource flow. The risk of -25% production loss across the empire seems too high for what the upgraded buildings give. Even if I had a steady production of the required rare resources, I can imagine the micro it would take to disable all upgraded buildings in case I loose the systems with the rare resources...

There is no 'risk' involved, though. Don't upgrade a building you don't have the resources to afford and keep an eye on stockpiles so you can downgrade buildings if needed. Disabling the jobs won't fix it either, you have to downgrade the building. The building is what consumes the rare resources, not the job.

It's not a bug. If you have a shortage, then it's an empire-wide shortage which has an empire-wide effect. Keep in mind that we've gone from an RTS economy prior to 2.1 to a full GSG economy in 2.2. For the new system to have teeth it needs to be possible to fail.

I'm loving the new update because it makes playing a (mostly) peaceful builder fun and engaging.

 

[Rippars]

Yeah, I also definitely like the update! It can be a bit harsh though, some more guidance as to what is actually going on behind the hood would be great.

 

[Mikhail_Mengsk]

Upgrading buildings is usually a bad idea unless you have no alternative whatsoever and/or a large supply of strategic resources.

Anyway, when i go in red for one resource i buy a small amount on the market and the modifier goes away instantly, or so it seemed. Was yours a bug?

 

[Dreagon]

There is no 'risk' involved, though. Don't upgrade a building you don't have the resources to afford and keep an eye on stockpiles so you can downgrade buildings if needed. Disabling the jobs won't fix it either, you have to downgrade the building. The building is what consumes the rare resources, not the job.

It's not a bug. If you have a shortage, then it's an empire-wide shortage which has an empire-wide effect. Keep in mind that we've gone from an RTS economy prior to 2.1 to a full GSG economy in 2.2. For the new system to have teeth it needs to be possible to fail.

I'm loving the new update because it makes playing a (mostly) peaceful builder fun and engaging.

Sure, it's an empire-wide shortage. But it should only apply to the buildings that rely on that resource. There is no reason why the other jobs should be affected if they don't actually use the resource.

 

[Aleriez]

What I try to do, is to build the upgraded buildings and the refineries on the same planet to make sure that I have it covered if I lose a system though war or other means.

 

[Wolfgang I]

Upgrading buildings is usually a bad idea unless you have no alternative whatsoever and/or a large supply of strategic resources.

Anyway, when i go in red for one resource i buy a small amount on the market and the modifier goes away instantly, or so it seemed. Was yours a bug?

The shortage mechanic is rather broken. I think you only need to buy one of everything at the start of the month to keep things running. Afaik you could produce thousands of alloys by just buying 1 mineral when a month starts.

 

[Aed]

It's not a bug. If you have a shortage, then it's an empire-wide shortage which has an empire-wide effect. Keep in mind that we've gone from an RTS economy prior to 2.1 to a full GSG economy in 2.2. For the new system to have teeth it needs to be possible to fail..

A shortage in resources to required keep a fortress running should not cause your alloy production to crash. Nor should it even cause your lower tier buildings of the same type to get hit either really, they don't need that resource to function. It's kind of like if a country had a nuclear reactor, and a shortage of uranium caused not only all the normal power plants to stop working, but every other industry in the country as well.

The new system is great, it just needs some of its idiosyncrasies ironed out.

 

[Badesumofu]

It's kind of like if a country had a nuclear reactor, and a shortage of uranium caused not only all the normal power plants to stop working, but every other industry in the country as well.

Well - a country that substantially relied on nuclear power would probably suffer nation-wide problems across all industries if they suddenly found themselves short of fuel for the power plants.

The way I look at it in game - you're using those gasses, crystals, and motes for a variety of things and if you can't supply your economy with them then it creates a cascade of problems that affects all industries. You solve the problem by determining which consumers of those key resources are the least important and shut them down to secure the supply to the rest.

It is a harsh penalty, but what I said before - you can reliably avoid it with good planning and by paying attention to what you're building. RIsk implies that it could just happen by chance or circumstances outside your control. Although losing planets or systems might happen out of your control, you still retain the ability to downgrade buildings to avoid the penalty. What I do totally agree with is that the game needs to explain all this better and in particular explain exactly what will happen if you find yourself with a shortage.

Upgrading buildings is usually a bad idea unless you have no alternative whatsoever and/or a large supply of strategic resources.

In any kind of developed empire you're quite quickly going to reach a point where you have planets that can't further develop without upgrading buildings. At that point you should upgrade buildings. You can see how important it is by the simple fact that not being able to upgrade buildings leaves the AI completely crippled by the mid-game.

 

[sillyrobot]

Well - a country that substantially relied on nuclear power would probably suffer nation-wide problems across all industries if they suddenly found themselves short of fuel for the power plants.

The way I look at it in game - you're using those gasses, crystals, and motes for a variety of things and if you can't supply your economy with them then it creates a cascade of problems that affects all industries. You solve the problem by determining which consumers of those key resources are the least important and shut them down to secure the supply to the rest.

It is a harsh penalty, but what I said before - you can reliably avoid it with good planning and by paying attention to what you're building. RIsk implies that it could just happen by chance or circumstances outside your control. Although losing planets or systems might happen out of your control, you still retain the ability to downgrade buildings to avoid the penalty. What I do totally agree with is that the game needs to explain all this better and in particular explain exactly what will happen if you find yourself with a shortage.



In any kind of developed empire you're quite quickly going to reach a point where you have planets that can't further develop without upgrading buildings. At that point you should upgrade buildings. You can see how important it is by the simple fact that not being able to upgrade buildings leaves the AI completely crippled by the mid-game.

Except that when I ran into the problem, I wasn't using a single rare resource other than the first research building I upgraded. Failing to supply that single building not only affected is production of research, but also crippled my consumer good and alloy production across my multi-system empire. Cascade failures take care of themselves; if I don't have enough minerals, alloy production falters, but research is unaffected. This global effect isn't that. This is... stupid.

 

[Aed]

Well - a country that substantially relied on nuclear power would probably suffer nation-wide problems across all industries if they suddenly found themselves short of fuel for the power plants.

The way I look at it in game - you're using those gasses, crystals, and motes for a variety of things and if you can't supply your economy with them then it creates a cascade of problems that affects all industries. You solve the problem by determining which consumers of those key resources are the least important and shut them down to secure the supply to the rest.

It is a harsh penalty, but what I said before - you can reliably avoid it with good planning and by paying attention to what you're building. RIsk implies that it could just happen by chance or circumstances outside your control. Although losing planets or systems might happen out of your control, you still retain the ability to downgrade buildings to avoid the penalty. What I do totally agree with is that the game needs to explain all this better and in particular explain exactly what will happen if you find yourself with a shortage.

Sure if they substantially relied on it they would, but this situation is more akin to there being only one nuclear power station. I'd understand a shortage causing that power plant to stop working, and that might set you into the red if you were already at nearly capacity. But it really shouldn't hit power plants that don't rely on uranium as well.

I guess power is a bad analogy as so much depends on it, a better one would be a country running out of plutonium for making nukes, sure they stop being able to build nukes and their army becomes less effective as there is a direct link, but why would a farm or toy factory start struggling from that?

Don't get me wrong, i love the fact the economics system is more brutal, but stuff like this kind of kills the immersion a bit as it's so counter intuitive.

 

[AlanC9]

How does a 25% penalty to specialists tank food, mineral, and energy production? Is the penalty being applied everywhere by mistake?

Note that buildings can be deactivated, not downgraded, which is how I'd deal with a temporary shortage.

 

[Nakkivene]

How does a 25% penalty to specialists tank food, mineral, and energy production? Is the penalty being applied everywhere by mistake?

Probably by tanking consumer goods first.

 

[Mikhail_Mengsk]

In any kind of developed empire you're quite quickly going to reach a point where you have planets that can't further develop without upgrading buildings. At that point you should upgrade buildings. You can see how important it is by the simple fact that not being able to upgrade buildings leaves the AI completely crippled by the mid-game.

That was the "no alternative whatsoever" i mentioned.

But i never experienced those massive nationwide collapse, is it because Glavius mod modifies it?

 

[AlanC9]

Ah, right. So the cascade problem comes from letting CG run out. Yeah, that can be a problem if you don't get to the market fast.

 

[Mastikator]

This is surely a design oversight? There is no way that a lack of resources for a specific job on a single planet should suddenly tank productivity for all jobs across all planets.

Agreed. TBH it should just temporarily disable/downgrade that many buildings that need it (making those jobs unworkable and pops unemployed). If there's enough gas for 90 jobs and you have 100 jobs using gas it should be 10 unemployed and 90 working normally, not -25% production and 0 unemployed.