Sector Discussion/Quarantine Thread

[Cagliostro]

Again: sectors are core gameplay. They are not going to simply remove them. There might at some point be a DLC that removes them, but other than that it *is not going to happen*. Seriously, just drop that from your head. It's super-unproductive. They would have to take out tons of stuff relating to how many core worlds you get, and balance it with other techs and perks. On top of that they don't want to. You saying "I HATE YOU BECAUSE YOU DON'T WANT TO" is only going to make them dig in their heels.

If you want to actually help make the game better, stop being like "OMG SECTORS SUCK". Put on your big boy pants and talk about how to actually improve them.

I have suggested multiple times that I think what is really needed is a setting to make a planet a 'frontier world', where you can build stuff on it freely, it doesn't count against your core limit, but gives you less output - and then once you're done with it you can sector it.

There's a thread I made for it ages ago: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/sector-overhaul.1001679/

But seriously, stop nattering on about how sectors are broken and will always be broken. It helps nobody, it makes the devs feel unappreciated, and it adds exactly zero to the game. It also makes it less likely that they will notice actual productive discussions about the topic. Give actual solutions besides 'making everything a core world'.

 

[Tha Pink Guy]

I have asked, over and over, please let us build in sectors while you fix the AI. This isn't a huge ask but it would allow players to fix problems manually.

 

[hironolind]

Currently I can see 4 options the devs can take:
1) Leave as is and just accept a lot of players are either going to be unhappy or look to mod the game if possible.
2) Remove sectors, doing that I expect would open up another can of worms as players complained about excessive micro
3) Rework planetary management (my preferred choice) streamline, simplify or just overhaul and redesign to something that compliments more nuanced sector management. I expect they'll be redesigning several systems as the game ages so this isn't too far fetched.
4) Put more development time into the AI for sector management, plus side to this would likely be an improvement in AI empire performance, but whether the necessary time investment would be worth it I don't know.

I don't think just reworking sector functionality and UI would be feasible without doing either options 3 or 4 as well.

 

[Mrakvampire]

As a temporary solution - why not allow player to manually build on sector worlds, but each building will cost extra... let's say 10 influence?

 

[Slynx]

As a temporary solution - why not allow player to manually build on sector worlds, but each building will cost extra... let's say 10 influence?

because you can already do it for 25 inf if your sector has at least 2 star systems.

 

[Mrakvampire]

because you can already do it for 25 inf if your sector has at least 2 star systems.

It involves a lot of unnecessary micro. Just give an ability to contruct individual buildings that player thinks is vital for 10 inf each. I think that it will be used a lot.

 

[LordMagus]

Planet with 9 population, there seems to be a slight delay with them upgrading their ship shelter. Had to give them an extra 500 minerals until they felt like upgrading.

 

[LordMagus]

Oh you....just casually waste batharian stone.

 

[wastedswan]

1) Separate mineral and energy tax sliders. How many times have you seen a sector struggling for minerals and with a huge stockpile of energy?
2) The ability to withdraw energy and minerals from their stockpiles.
3) The ability to gift sectors constructors. It seems to me that they just have a flag for constructor yes/no but it would be good to be able to toggle it by sacrificing a constructor to them.
4) Manual control of a sector's building queue. Why not?

 

[Annik0r]

after comming back after a while (back because of givig it a new try with Utopia) after i leaved it because of the sector stuff (you know, sitting on 15k energy and minerals and does no build or upgrades) i just figured out that nothing changed.
Again i got alot of sector worlds sitting on tons of ressources that are doing nothing, no upgrading or developing plantes.
there are planets with full population that sits on empty tiles.
no matter what settings or focus i use.

Are the developers of this Game ever readed any of the posts about those sector bugs?
do i realy need to remove a planet from a sector here and then, develop it, and put it back into sector?
if i need to do this, why then there are even sectors?

yes bla bla plans for the futures and some fancy stuff, yep maybe but why not just fix this crap, like check every here and then if a sector got ressources to spend.
its useless to conquer half the galaxy if then you have alot of planets that are keep being played by an bad ai, having vasals is worth more then sectors.

 

[NicoH]

...

Did you try it with 1.5? Now you can see what the sector is planing to build and if they're missing resources for it.
Does it say, it doesn't want to build anything? I never had a sector that refused to built anything.

 

[Annik0r]

Did you try it with 1.5? Now you can see what the sector is planing to build and if they're missing resources for it.
Does it say, it doesn't want to build anything? I never had a sector that refused to built anything.

[sarcasm]
no... i play Utopia with 1.2
[/sarcasm]
yep, they have no plans, sitting on tons of minerals and energy with empty planets.

 

[LordMagus]

Bug reports + screenshots.

 

[Vagrant]

Upon decision that it's better to risk having my voice lost among hundreds of other posts than not voice my opinion at all, I'm here to add my voice to the general chorus of opinions about sectors. While I am very much not fond of the feature as it is now I understand its importance and so, I'd like to share my own take how it could work better without disrupting much, based on a few assumptions of what it was meant to achieve. But before then, what problems I have with it (which will mirror some of what others say, but bear with me):

(apologies for wall of text)

First, I assume that sectors were meant to limit micromanaging for players late game where there's plenty of planets to tend to. Laudable as well as questionable idea given the genre of the game, where micromanaging one's empire is a certain source of fun for some players, but I can understand that not everyone will want to do so, especially once things get a bit hectic. I don't think it should be something one is forced to commit to at the penalty of losing (severely) resources. More customization for players allowing them to choose systems to automate in particular ways, maybe even set up more detailed requirements for a planet and its role in the civilization would be of much more help. It shouldn't be something one's forced to, though.

My other assumption (somewhat based on certain diary entries as well) is that the whole feature was meant to limit how expansive (player) civilizations will be. Instead like how it is in most games where building more means inevitably having it better, in Stellaris developers wanted players to choose their core worlds carefully. Thus limited benefits of "sectored" worlds and penalties should they not be put under AI control as well as technological and societal push to allow control over more.

I think that bit could be managed, much, much better than it is. A lot of that issue would be managed by changing a stiff number of "you can have this many of core worlds before you get severely penalized" to progressing malus (many players call "negative bonus") with each new world over certain number, modifying received resources, credits and, especially, government ethic adherence stats by multiplying it by value on a curve (for example, 0.98) dependant on the power of one's governal oversight and getting more severe results the more worlds one inhabits. Doesn't seem much different in practice and it'd serve similar function while being more fluid and natural than a hard limit.

Current core world number and technologies increasing said number could be without overtly much effort changed into that "bureaucratic oversight" affecting such values in a way that could allow one to settle more worlds without suffering sudden penalties and having those penalties progress less sharply than current flat "got two planets over limit - 20% of energy!". At the same time, one with strong government could get slight bonus to production, symbolizing effective and efficient oversight of management and resource distribution the less worlds below certain number some civilization has.

A limit that could be expanded with traditions, technologies and ascension perks as well as events. Or even fluctuate depending on politics, faction impact, happiness ("our government is being completely restructured and will be slightly less efficient for a few months"). If one's really ambitious, probably certain "required oversight" stats could be attributed to each colony, making worlds full of important, sophisticated facilities slightly more demanding than some little farming planets. It would mesh with the game far better.

I am here on part of many players who hate this feature (arguably, majority should certain internet communities be taken into account) as it looks like sudden, harsh punishment for one's achievements. A "no, you have enough worlds, no more fun allowed, part of the game will play itself for you now, want it or not - observe as AI makes a mess". I suspect it's this impression that makes for huge part of outrage about sectors.

 

[LordMagus]

Problems with sector AI, a full year after release date:
-They're sitting on massive stockpiles of resources, and not building anything.
-They're refusing to build batharian power plants, instead opting to build regular power plants
-They're upgrading a mineral processing plant before making sure that all pops are actually EMPLOYED
-It says they're planning to construct something, but they're simply not allocating the minerals towards it

TL;DR: It's still broken, a year after release date.
I kinda have to play with infinite core planets, just because the sector AI makes me want to
throw my computer out the window.

 

[The Grinning Viking]

Yeah, I played the latest version and (thankfully) the multitude of bonuses that amount to "sectors are less painful" let me get a bit further into the game before hitting the unejoyable sector slog. It's still just as bad, it just takes longer to run into it.

What I learned:
Sectors are still only negative, rather than providing a positive that would get players to use them. (Auto upgrading buildings you place, allowing you to plan buildings and letting the AI build them when it had the resources avaliable, running a simple simulated numbers check when the AI is deciding to place a new pop or build a building and going with the one that produces the highest positive number, letting you withdraw resources from the sector when you want or cover their deficits, having sectors pay minor influence costs if you assign them a skilled governor.)

The micro is so much less painful than sectors that players will gladly give up advantages to reduce the effect of sectors.

Painful influence draining micro added by sectors. Remove, place buildings manually, re-add.

Sectors could add a lot to the game, but do not do so in their current state.

Sectors do not reduce micro in any meaningful way, they simply replace it with more annoying micro that makes the player feel like they are fighting an interface rather than building an empire.

If the excellent Developers ever read this, consider this: Every other perk gives some sort of useful advantage, while those focused on expansion and sectors only eliminate an imposed disadvantage while adding no interesting story events or gameplay challenges. They are only painful additional micro in their current state. Complete rehaul or ditch, seriously, this deserves at least as much attention and care as you obviously put into the latest expansion. This is clearly, by the amount of complaints alone, the most disliked element of the game.

 

[Qoff]

Still think the best way is:

Sectors are a big part of the game and since the game release people aren't satisfied with how they works, that's because the AI can't handle them very well.

Sectors are important because micromanagement is important in this game (like all Paradox games), once you get many planets you can't micromanage all of them, so Sectors are a way to automatize this management and let the player do other things, otherwise all we would do is to handle planets and there wouldn't be anything else.

So what is my solution to the inhability to the AI to handle sectors? Simple, let us macromanage it, but, how would that work?

For that to work we should be able to give orders to the sectors in a mass scale, I can think in several kinds of orders for that to work, for example:

- Build X building in all tiles of X Resource
- Build X building in a tile of X Resource
- Build X building in a tile of no resources
- Level all stations to X
- ETC

Those are only a few examples, but if we were able to give those mass orders we would be able to make the sectors a good addition to the game.

 

[Loopi]

Hello folks,

I played a game and found a wonderful 25 pop planet which I gave to a sector. I pumped money into it and watched. it had some beautiful tiles and many empty ones.
At 5 pops or something the sector ai planted a +3unity building onto an +3 mineralstile, which was one of the best tiles on the planet.
Guys..., guys! This is madness!

Cheers

 

[GC13]

So what is the deal with sectors and slave processing facilities? I've noticed that they absolutely hate this building. If they are allowed to redevelop (and they basically have to be if you want to get rid of the labs from a big conquest), they will remove any slave processing facility you put down before handing it over to them. Thankfully the AI seems to usually wait until the facility is no longer needed to curb unrest, but it doesn't seem to care if it's a planet filled with battle thralls or not.

 

[Mad Indian]

I have asked, over and over, please let us build in sectors while you fix the AI. This isn't a huge ask but it would allow players to fix problems manually.

How is this opinion not standard yet

Paradox can even charge what they will charge for a full priced DLC for it and it still will be worth it.

They can even have added cost for improving buildings in sectors to make sectors have a managerial meaning