Stellaris - [2.8.1] [bc0f] Anything that buffs both worker and slave output are double counting slaves

[Jman5]

Description
Stellaris [2.8.1] [bc0f] Anything that buffs both worker and slave output are double counting slaves.

Game Version
2.8.1

What version do you use?
Steam

What expansions do you have installed?
Synthetic Dawn, Utopia, Leviathans Story Pack, Apocalypse, Megacorp, Distant Stars, Ancient Relics, Lithoids, Federations

Do you have mods enabled?
No

Please explain your issue is in as much detail as possible.
Anything that is described as increasing output of both Worker and Slaves are double buffing slaves even when working specialist jobs. This includes:

1. Extended Shifts Edict: Supposed to provide 10% job output to workers and slaves, but gives +20% to slaves. Conveniently, it does not double count the happiness penalty...

2. Workplace Motivator Tradtion: Supposed to provide 5% job output to workers and slaves, but gives +10% slaves.

This also means that slaves working specialist jobs receive any buff to worker job output.

Steps to reproduce the issue.

1. Play game with Slaver Guild
2. Hover over a working slave's resource output and note the "Empire" modifier.
3. Select either Extended Shifts edict or Workplace Motivator Tradition and then look at "Empire" modifier again. (waiting a month or reloading does not fix this)

 

[hart30]

Slaves can be worker and slave at the same time, as slaves also can be specialists. So as stated by some QA this works as intended, overpowered and out of balance, but still intended.

 

[Jman5]

Slaves can be worker and slave at the same time, as slaves also can be specialists. So as stated by some QA this works as intended, overpowered and out of balance, but still intended.

I would be interested in reading his response because the bonuses you get by double-counting makes them hugely more productive in specialist jobs compared to free pops. Then you add in the cost savings from upkeep and like you said it's overpowered.

 

[The Founder]

I would be interested in reading his response because the bonuses you get by double-counting makes them hugely more productive in specialist jobs compared to free pops. Then you add in the cost savings from upkeep and like you said it's overpowered.

If your slaves can be in Specialist Jobs, they got political power and higher upkeep as well. So it should pretty much balance out.

 

[Jman5]

If your slaves can be in Specialist Jobs, they got political power and higher upkeep as well. So it should pretty much balance out.

Slaves consumer good upkeep is based on living standard not job. So for Stratified Economy, they have 0 CG upkeep regardless if they're working on alloys or minerals. Political power for slaves is also independent of job.

It doesn't even come close to balancing out. In this game I'm looking at now the slave in the alloy foundry is getting +120% job output while the free-pops in the same job is only getting +75%. This is with Meritocracy and Pursuit of Profit that only helps the free man. If I kept going with this I could get the 120% even higher by pursing +worker output modifiers. Then you have to factor in the lower upkeep on slaves (reduced amenities/housing, and zero consumer goods).

It's all heavily imbalanced no matter how hard I try to boost free-pops with things like Egalitarian and Utopian living standard. This is partly because of this double-counting issue I brought up above. If you could knock 15% off, you start getting things a little closer to what an unleashed free-pop could do. Another thing that should happen is fixing the Amenity paradox where reduced amenities slaves get actually improves their happiness, production, and crime.

To be perfectly honest though, slaves job output modifiers should be completely divorced from worker job output modifiers. They are supposed to be two separate things and yet they're sorta considered both workers and slaves in terms of bonuses they received which leads to a best of both worlds scenario. Slavery's strength should lie more in other areas that I highlighted in the link above.

 

[The Founder]

In this game I'm looking at now the slave in the alloy foundry is getting +120% job output while the free-pops in the same job is only getting +75%.

I need to know exactly where you got that figure from.
Because Indetured servitude does not give the +10% from Chattel Slavery.
You can maybe get +15% from Workspace Motivation and another +5% from a Slave Processing Plant.

But +45% mor? Did you include 5 levels of repeatables to get that figure? Because once we are in the repeatables, the early game where such a difference realy mattered is long gone.

 

[Jman5]

I need to know exactly where you got that figure from.
Because Indetured servitude does not give the +10% from Chattel Slavery.
You can maybe get +15% from Workspace Motivation and another +5% from a Slave Processing Plant.

But +45% mor? Did you include 5 levels of repeatables to get that figure? Because once we are in the repeatables, the early game where such a difference realy mattered is long gone.

Slave Modifiers:
Empire: (80%)
- Authoritarian: 5%
- Slaver Guild: 10%
- Technology: 25%
- Extended Shifts: 20% (because of double counting)
- Workplace Motivators: 10% (again double counting)
- Forged Subsidies: 10%
Governor: (12%)
- Level 1: 2%
- Trait: 10%
Prosperous Unification: (10%)
Stability: (13.8%)
Building: (5%)

Total: 120.8%

Free Pop:
Empire: (50%)
- Meritocracy: 10%
- Pursuit of Profit: 5%
- Technology: 25%
- Forged Subsidies: 10%
Governor: (2%)
Prosperous Unification: (10%)
Stability: (13.8%)

Total: 75.8%

Same Tech/Traditions, but going full egalitarian with utopian got me to about +90% on the free pop but that is well short of what the slave was putting out. And I want to emphasize that I could get that 120% even higher with some of the +worker output modifiers I hadn't picked up. Had I rerolled until I got the slave optimization agenda it would have been 130%! The same can't really be said to the same extent for free pop specialists.

Again, I want to emphasize, slaves are getting better job output ON TOP OF reduced upkeep. It's crazy. Stopping the double counting would be a start, but really the output ought to be lower than what a free pop can output because upkeep reductions also work in slave's favor.

 

[The Founder]

- Extended Shifts: 20% (because of double counting)
- Workplace Motivators: 10% (again double counting)

Wait, you are claiming that Slave Bonus apply twice to all Specialist Slaves?

Not that Slaves on the Worker Stratum get the Bonuses from Slaves and the bonus from Workers?

 

[Jman5]

Wait, you are claiming that Slave Bonus apply twice to all Specialist Slaves?

Not that Slaves on the Worker Stratum get the Bonuses from Slaves and the bonus from Workers?

Both are true.

A slave is classified as a slave and a worker regardless of what job it is working. Extended Shifts edict grants +10% slave output and +10% worker output. So the slave gets 20% as a specialist or worker, the free worker only gets 10%, and free specialist gets nothing. Annoyingly though, the slave does not get double the unhappiness. So it's just all upsides.

That is also why Authoritarian and traits like Very Strong, which increase worker output, will increase the job output of a slave in a specialist job. Since there are just way more worker + slave output modifiers in the game compared to specialist output modifiers, slaves vastly out-perform free pop specialists in the same job even when you try to boost the free pop.

It's dumb. Fixing the double counting is the least they could do.

 

[The Founder]

A slave is classified as a slave and a worker regardless of what job it is working. Extended Shifts edict grants +10% slave output and +10% worker output. So the slave gets 20% as a specialist or worker, the free worker only gets 10%, and free specialist gets nothing.

How it should be:
The Slave Worker gets 20%
The Slave Specialsit gets 10%
The Free Worker gets 10%
The Free Specialist gets 0%.

If those figures you gave are true and not based on modding shenanigans, that one value would actually be a bug. The other 3 values are exactly as they should be.

 

[The Founder]

I can not confirm your numbers, at all. Particulary not that Specialist Slaves get twice their bonus!

Indentured Servitude Right
Fanatic Authoritarian
Workplace Motivation adn Extendend Shifts

Empire bonuses listed for:
Slave Worker: +85%
Slave Specialist: +15%
Free Worker: +70%
Free Specialist: difficulty determining values. Other Modifiers are getting in teh way.

I would say the bulk of that difference is general Production boosting stuff. You know, like all those "+20% from Miners" Bonuses?
Please make a proper test without those bonuses in the way.

 

[The Founder]

There are simply too many factors in the "Empire" Modifier to get a clean measurement of what the effect is:
- All those "+10/20% for specific Job" technologies
- Civilian, Militarized, Extraction or Manufacturing Economy Policy
- any of the Subsidy type Edicts
- the Government bonuses to workers*
- the Government bonsues to slaves*
*Of wich both might apply to any given pop.

And unfortunately, Empire -> Democraphics does not list the total bonus - never mind how it is put together.
The comming Economy rework will make a bit clearer, with some things being changed from a percentile Modifier to a "Shift Worker from A to B".

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

I would be interested in reading his response

Here you go.

As for being overpowered: ironically, Stellaris is more balanced now, after Federations introduced a number of OP things to rival Assimilators META. Of course, this does little for playstyles that have long been rendered obsolete in favour of 'new and shiny', but FOTM (or powercreep, if you prefer) - is still a balancing mechanism, in a way.

 

[Jman5]

I can not confirm your numbers, at all. Particulary not that Specialist Slaves get twice their bonus!

Indentured Servitude Right
Fanatic Authoritarian
Workplace Motivation adn Extendend Shifts

Empire bonuses listed for:
Slave Worker: +85%
Slave Specialist: +15%
Free Worker: +70%
Free Specialist: difficulty determining values. Other Modifiers are getting in teh way.

I would say the bulk of that difference is general Production boosting stuff. You know, like all those "+20% from Miners" Bonuses?
Please make a proper test without those bonuses in the way.

I broke down exactly how I got the numbers and I'm confident in its veracity. Just because you can't parse it out on your own doesn't mean I'm wrong or that it's unknowable.

Dude just leave this up to QA to deal with. This is a bug report, not a debate.