[MOD] Relativity - a balance and content mod

[Naselus]

Well after testing for quite some time here are a few remarks:


Buildings chains
Many buildings chains are off. You seem to not be able to create some even though you have the technology/resource (I guess it's because many still have inside them but I may be wrong.

Besides, you often end up with a building needing a specific resource that can only be unlocked by another tech that you did not get. (ex: dm_power_plant_1 can be researched before the dark matter resource reveal).

The resource thing we're clearing up in the current tech pass. Buildings, you're probably just not unlocking the higher-tier ones yet; techs are in transition and should work much better once we've implemented the tree method (harder to miss early vital techs because you're always going to be offered about half of them).

Fleet combat
Right now, even though torpedoes have the highest range they are heavily countered by PD (the player is clever) and it's the projectile artillery which is king. I decimated a fallen empire with 10 battleship almost full of kinetic artillery lvl 2 without any real danger. It is usually enough to trump any fleet even corvette spam. (I may have hit bonus from buildings/admiral but it is still a definite advantage)

Always nice to hear multiple opinions of which is best/worst. Need lots of feedback on this aspect because it's hard to get a lot of data on it alone (compared to economy or AI).

Ideal size of empire

Due to the tech cost increase per pop higher than vanilla, expansion is even less cost effective tech wise. Besides as the growth rate is reduced and robot pop do not contribute to research before synth, tall seems to be the ideal strategy. Keeping 25 pop for most of the game allowed me to distance the AI effectively in tech which allowed me to get battleship/long range weapons before everyone and destroy any opposition. The stategy was to expand via frontier outpost and maximize research stations anywhere. I did a pacifist run so could not purge any xenos, but an expansion strategy that would be without fail would be to take planet, build outpost, purge and move on to the next conquest. It involves transforming most of the homeworld into a bank but you can get the better tier quicker thanks to the cost effective tech research.

Interesting hypothesis. We'll see how that pans out as the economy tightens, though. For example, in the current testing build for 0.5, banks use energy, which limits your ability to stack them pretty severely, and mineral output from colony hubs has been nerfed heavily, making a one-world strategy harder to pull off.

 

[Linred]

Buildings, you're probably just not unlocking the higher-tier ones yet

Hm I could not build the Dark Matter Power Plant (dm_power_plant_1) despite having the technologies and having the resource and did a quick fix by deleting

is_listed = no

in the building file allowed me to instantly build it. But as the code is currently written it has no upgrade chain with the higher tiers of Dark Matter Power Plants and I had to resort to deleting the is_listed = no in each entry as you would need the following in the first and subsequent tier (with increasing number tier ofc)

upgrades = {
        dm_power_plant_2
    }

The first tier of building the "is_listed = no" is only necessary for the higher tier, but I guess it got carried by a mass ctrl+c & ctrl+v

 

[Naselus]

ah, see what you mean. Yeah, that's a bug. Good catch, thanks.

 

[Linred]

To continue the discussion about the general balance, it seems that the vanilla superiority of materialist/fanatic materialist is currently even more exacerbated, as robots are ultra efficient in order to develop the necessary pop for the higher building tiers in the colonies. In the last test I talked about I tried the Happy build (+20% tile yield day 1) so I did not bother a lot with robots, but all my previous test games were with robots as they allow a quick expansion.

In vanilla it is already useful as it allows you to have two pops growing at 1.0 (minimum for humans), and with a growth of 0.4 for your original species (they will come far faster than your specie pop) they are doubly so. And as electricity is a strategic resource it's an additional tile they can work on.

And as tech efficiency becomes key in the mid/late game, increased research tile yield have their relative efficiency increased as tech cost goes quicker than vanilla.

Good catch, thanks.

No problem, my pleasure

 

[Linred]

There are also additional bugs regarding building chains like higher tier mining networks

building_mining2_network_1 = {
    base_buildtime = @b1time
  
    cost = {
        minerals = @b1cost
    }
  
    produced_resources = {
        sr_steel2 = 1
        sr_steel = 0.01
    }

    required_resources = {
        sr_plasma = 1
    }  
  
    upgrades = {
        building_mining_network_2
    }  
  
    prerequisites = {
        "tech_basic_industry"
    }
  
    allow = {
        custom_tooltip = {
            text = "requires_building_capital_1"
            planet = {
                OR = {
                    has_building = "building_capital_1"
                    has_building = "building_capital_2"
                    has_building = "building_capital_3"
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

The upgrade is the T1 lvl 2 building instead of the T2 lvl2 building

 

[Naselus]

There are also additional bugs regarding building chains like higher tier mining networks

All building bugs have been corrected for the next release. I was hoping to get that out tonight, but BT have thoughtfully cut off internet access for everyone within a 3-mile radius of my house, so it may be delayed.

 

[Naselus]

A quick update. My Internet will be restored 'within 72 hours'. The mod will be updated then. We've made considerable progress with techs and the AI, and I was hoping to get some feedback sooner rather than later, so I'll update asap.

 

[Naselus]

Updated to 110.0.5.

110.0.5

* Mineral processor can now be built with a shelter.
* T1 mineral processor can now be built with a T1 colony hub
* orbital hhydroponics now produce nutrients again
* orbital solar panels now produce electricity again
* banks now need electricity to operate.
* Second pass of the Tech rework. All categories now have 20 entries. All categories added. Most techs now have placeholder effects.
* Drastically cut mineral output.
* Torpedo accuracy reduced to 60% (from erroniously 100%)
* removed armour penetration from more or less everything aside from Plasma (and alien weapons)
* Fixed loads of bugs.
* Removed research penalty for not having a leader.
* Made compatible with 1.1.0 beta
* Science deposits are now less common

The changelog looks quite short, but the tech revamp has been massive and is still not entirely complete. My internet has been restored and I'm on holiday for the next week or so, so I can really throw some hours at modding this week. And yes, this has been made to work with 1.1.0, along with Domination victory being increased to require 75% of the galaxy.

 

[von Sachsen]

For some reason, I am unable to see (or as far as I can tell, have) laws such as slavery or voting. The Policies screen is blank, empire-wide edicts work though. This is on the new update with beta 1.1.

 

[ShiBDiB]

Any chance to get this on workshop? Just makes it so much easier staying up to date

 

[defendurname]

Played 35 years so far so here are my thoughts.

AI are building refineries so they are getting minerals, which is great!

AI seem to have become slower at colonizing, which is not so great. I guess before the AI expanded because the colony building gave lots of minerals; now, they seem to want to fill up their homeworld full of refineries becuase they feel they dont have enough minerals. As of 35 years in, none of the AI have colonized a planet, though I've only met 3 (stuck in the backwater of the galaxy...)

Research tree seems fine so far. I've not noticed anything glaringly awful.

Electricity is now useful. I actually had to build power stations on my planets.

Pirates at start of the game feel too strong. I'm guessing you haven't touched any vanilla events but when the pirates come they are quite strong since minerals are harder to come by initially. Requires a playstyle change to build up a fleet and kill them before u start colonizing. If doesnt really matter: you can always just choose to lose a station (I've never seen them kill more than 1 station).


All in all looking nice. I'm going to start a new game on hard or very hard difficulty just to see if that helps the AI once I get some more free time.

 

[Naselus]

Any chance to get this on workshop? Just makes it so much easier staying up to date

Eventually. I'm not 'officially' releasing until version 1.0 (current version is 0.5). After that, yes, it'll be on the workshop and added to the master mod list.

 

[Naselus]

Played 35 years so far so here are my thoughts.

AI are building refineries so they are getting minerals, which is great!

AI seem to have become slower at colonizing, which is not so great. I guess before the AI expanded because the colony building gave lots of minerals; now, they seem to want to fill up their homeworld full of refineries becuase they feel they dont have enough minerals. As of 35 years in, none of the AI have colonized a planet, though I've only met 3 (stuck in the backwater of the galaxy...)

Research tree seems fine so far. I've not noticed anything glaringly awful.

Electricity is now useful. I actually had to build power stations on my planets.

Pirates at start of the game feel too strong. I'm guessing you haven't touched any vanilla events but when the pirates come they are quite strong since minerals are harder to come by initially. Requires a playstyle change to build up a fleet and kill them before u start colonizing. If doesnt really matter: you can always just choose to lose a station (I've never seen them kill more than 1 station).


All in all looking nice. I'm going to start a new game on hard or very hard difficulty just to see if that helps the AI once I get some more free time.

Yeah, something that Paradox have changed for 1.1 seems to have slowed the AI's colonization down in the mod - I probably need to tweak some of the new values a bit. But it's building up pretty well now at least.

There's a few bugs an things that need addressing (will look into the policies thing in particular) and will try to put out another release tonight so you guys can play over the weekend.

 

[Naselus]

For some reason, I am unable to see (or as far as I can tell, have) laws such as slavery or voting. The Policies screen is blank, empire-wide edicts work though. This is on the new update with beta 1.1.

Can't replicate :/ All policies show up for me. You using a custom race? If so, please outline the traits etc.

 

[defendurname]

For some reason, I am unable to see (or as far as I can tell, have) laws such as slavery or voting. The Policies screen is blank, empire-wide edicts work though. This is on the new update with beta 1.1.

Might have something to do with the UI scaling. Have you used it? Mine's is fine but I haven't touched that option from the beta patch.

 

[Linred]

After a quick game session:

Orbital hydroponics lvl 1 is giving direct planet food and not nutrients but the subsequent level give nutrients, do not know if intended.

I concur on the expansion rate of the AI.

Minor: negative traits as substance abuser and other are becoming tedious as a majority of your character become drug addicts (and there is no spice in this universe)

 

[von Sachsen]

I just got around to re-installing Stellaris and the mod, that seems to have done the trick for the policies issue. Something must have gone wonky on install.

 

[Naselus]

Orbital hydroponics lvl 1 is giving direct planet food and not nutrients but the subsequent level give nutrients, do not know if intended.

Sigh, that one keeps creeping back in. Fixed (for like the 4th time).

I concur on the expansion rate of the AI.

Have made some adjustments for AI early-game psending priorities.

Minor: negative traits as substance abuser and other are becoming tedious as a majority of your character become drug addicts (and there is no spice in this universe)

Will be adjusting this next week, with dozens of extra traits and tying them to specific character levels. If a character gets past like level 3, he is unlikely to become a druggy (but may get other negatives). It won't be ready for the next release though.

 

[slipbeneath]

Hey, great update Naselus. Looking much better this time.

Only about 30 years in, but so far:

* Maniacal and Spark of Genius appeared far too commonly on scientists for this time
* Engineering labs don't have upkeep
* The Hazardous Weather planet trait causes a credit boost (instead of energy)
* Am I supposed to be getting multiple orbital hydroponic techs at once on the tech screen? Seems like they're crowding out the other techs which would be far more useful
* Like others have said, the AI is looking handicapped with regards to growth.
* Am I supposed to be only limited to one type of planet edict for all of my planets? For instance, reeducation campaigns are only allowed to be run on one planet at a time.

I like that banks cost energy now. I think it would be even better if every building required some amount of energy. It'd make sense in the context as well - space-faring civilizations should require massive amounts of energy to operate all of that technology. And instead of the arbitrary 1 energy per building, maybe differentiate depending on the building. For instance, a hydroponic farm shouldn't require as much energy as a bank or a physics lab. The other power sources can stay in there, but energy should become something that you just can't get enough of (in my opinion). Of course with all of the potential balancing, this would be reserved for the future.

 

[Naselus]

Next release will be tonight. I'm excited to say that we've incorporated CaptainX3's Carriers and More mod, adding in battlecruisers, carriers and Dreadnaughts.