We could get lab specialisation back, but then we would need a resorting of techs, otherwise engineering just is the preferred one by everyone again.
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Stellaris Dev Diary #192 : Perfectly Balanced, As All Things Should Be...
- Thread starter Eladrin
- Start date
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Great Update, really nice to see you guys paying attention to player feedback
Just a few questions and suggestions. Since we're getting the S Curve like baby booms for pop growth, where does rapid breeders fit in with this. Will it just be a flat rate to pop growth in general, or will it increase change the thresholds/dynamics of how the S curve works?
As someone who is an avid Fan Egalitarian player I'm loving the bonus to Democratic gov types and the general gov types in general. What I do want to get at though is if the Base Egalitarian edict (The one that increases ethic shift chance) Will be getting an overhaul to be more in line with the new resettlement aspect?
Me and my friend came up with some idea such as replacing it with an edict that increases faction influence gain by +15% or something (Faction debates or something) but tying more into the automatic resettlement might be more in line.
Just my two cents of course but please keep up the great work!
Just a few questions and suggestions. Since we're getting the S Curve like baby booms for pop growth, where does rapid breeders fit in with this. Will it just be a flat rate to pop growth in general, or will it increase change the thresholds/dynamics of how the S curve works?
As someone who is an avid Fan Egalitarian player I'm loving the bonus to Democratic gov types and the general gov types in general. What I do want to get at though is if the Base Egalitarian edict (The one that increases ethic shift chance) Will be getting an overhaul to be more in line with the new resettlement aspect?
Me and my friend came up with some idea such as replacing it with an edict that increases faction influence gain by +15% or something (Faction debates or something) but tying more into the automatic resettlement might be more in line.
Just my two cents of course but please keep up the great work!
That would be great! The +2/+2/+2 from Gaia Worlds deposit would be so much useful and feel that it has actual special value under this idea.
Yes! please.
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Making Life Seeded ACTUALLY unique would be nice. Changing the District count to 30 would be an easy way to do that - not a major change, but again - unique. At one time one of the FE had a 30 count homeworld, so it is not unheard of as a concept.
Should also have like x5 chance for Terraforming techs.
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The celestial throne (spiritualist FE) is currently size 30. It makes for a wonderful machine world with all those slots.
With all homeworlds getting +2 size, and the Lifeseeded start really needing some help as it is, going above 25 wouldn't be a bad choice (Remnants is size 22 already, should be going to 24.) If they don't want to change the planet size over 25, throwing it extra district slots, like the expansion finisher or the reward for the subterranean event chain, could work too.
That said, lifeseeded could use other benefits; for example, starting with a few extra pops (it's a fertile paradise after all) or with the new pop system, perhaps their homeworld is exempt from logistics curve slowdown in growth until they hit carry capacity, etc.
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Life seeded could also just get guaranteed Gaia planets. If one planet was made to be a perfect paradise, why not more? Part of the problem is just Gaia planets themselves being fairly underwhelming though, just buffing Gaia planets as a class might do it.
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I think these changes are not really getting at the FUNDAMENTAL ISSUE with population. The goal of these changes seems to be to reduce population by simply reducing the rate at which they grow. But this approach fundamentally fails to address the real issue at play. POPs = Power.
When Stellaris changed over to the new economic system there was a drastic shift in the mentality of the economy which everyone seems to have noticed but no one every truly addresses. The issue of more pops means more power is a direct result of the way the job system functions. The majority of the tech, buildings, and districts bonuses revolve around giving you more jobs which means to get any benefit from that you need more people.
This is a stark contrast to how release version Stellaris and other 4X/GS games tend to function. Where increases focus more on improving the output of existing populations. This is what makes TALL builds possible as various bonuses from Techs, Buildings, Empire Bonuses, and etc can make it so that empires with fewer population can compete with empires that have large populations since the Tall empires's production per pop is higher. Granted not all games do this well but the general attempt to find this balance is there. Stellaris release had a great attempt at this as building upgrades meant the population working that building would produce more. Also being on a grid system the building placement mattered a lot because of adjacent bonuses which if done right could make a huge difference. The AI could not handle proper placement well which is what lead to it being scraped for the current system.
Sure no game gets this balance of Tall vs Wide perfect but in the current Stellaris "Balance" discussion I see no mention of this issue even being considered. Instead it's all about lower pop growth, district/building changes to make it easier for AI to function. Sure the performance gains from smaller pops will be nice but it feels more like a bandage rather than getting at the root of the issue. The new system seems a lot like the current system with slower pop growth. I mean I've played lots of mods, including those that added new districts for alloys/CG/etc. And my take away was yeah it's great to have more district options and it should be in base game, but it doesn't really change the game economy's need for pops at all.
In my opinion they should move all base production to districts. Get rid of those research labs and bureaucrat centers as they are the only remaining hold out from the old building system and simply turn them into disctricts as well. After all according to the Devs the AI does poorly at proper building management. Instead buildings should primarily be bonuses. Like the Mineral/Energy/Food hubs that give +10%/+25% based on their upgrade. And with a focus on buildings as specialization I think there should be MORE buildings of that type since we no longer need to building spam tons of Alloy/CG on planets. The upgrade could be split into two separate buildings so instead you have a +10% and +15% building and it's fine if buildings still give jobs they just shouldn't be the primary source of jobs. You should pick the building based on how it improves the planet specialization rather than the job count it gives.
With more building focus can come more content and flavor to the game. Currently a LOT of buildings are one off bonuses which kinda suck. For example the Betharian Power Plant. Sure it gives 10 energy with some tech jobs but let's face it that is nothing mid-late game. How about instead it's a +1 energy per Tech on the planet. This encourages players to specialize the planet and the more Tech jobs they have the bigger the bonus. After all this is a unique building it should feel like it is influencing the planet's economy and not just a one off flat bonus. The same goes for Alien Zoo which could give bonuses to clerk/entertainers as the sell unique merchandise and put on shows with the exotic animals.
Also making stratigic mines actually worth something would be nice. I find strategic resource mines are often so rare they are a nice oddity early on and practically useless late game. Mid-Late game you need so many strategic resources the stuff coming out of the natural mines is like a drop in the bucket. I find I end up with whole worlds making synthisied strategic resources just to feed all my buildings. In keeping with the more productive pops is better than more jobs I think the mines should give a strategic material production amount to miners on the planet. It's like the deposits are mixed in with the minerals they can just refine it now. Perhaps 0.25 of that resource on the planet. This would make planets with strategic resources extremely valuable as they could produce lots of them cheaply. Balance testing would be needed for the exact amount of course.
Another way to combat the Tall vs Wide is with production penalties. There is already a Tech/Culture penalty for being over your Empire sprawl but how about also having increased Crime and upkeep cost for food/CG? After all in the current setup it's far to easy to simply expand fast earlier on and disregard your sprawl. Then once established with some bureaucrats rush to catch up. This is pretty much my strategy every game as my tech may fall behind but my economy more than makes up for it and once empire sprawl is balanced back out I shoot past every other empire in tech because I can afford a ton of scientist.
The only current TALL option is not really TALL it's just compact as it's a bunch of habitats in a few systems, thus same number of "planets" with a ton of people and less space to defend.
The point of all this is they need to make a reason for players to not see pops as the only path to power. Also to add a bit more flavor to the game as I feel the goal of buildings should be the choices of which to build feel like they matter and help define the planet compared to the current need another factory/lab/etc. Where lots more planetary features and unique buildings can help give planet wide bonuses rather than flat one off amounts to encourage specialization. Meanwhile districts are simply where your pops go to work and live.
When Stellaris changed over to the new economic system there was a drastic shift in the mentality of the economy which everyone seems to have noticed but no one every truly addresses. The issue of more pops means more power is a direct result of the way the job system functions. The majority of the tech, buildings, and districts bonuses revolve around giving you more jobs which means to get any benefit from that you need more people.
This is a stark contrast to how release version Stellaris and other 4X/GS games tend to function. Where increases focus more on improving the output of existing populations. This is what makes TALL builds possible as various bonuses from Techs, Buildings, Empire Bonuses, and etc can make it so that empires with fewer population can compete with empires that have large populations since the Tall empires's production per pop is higher. Granted not all games do this well but the general attempt to find this balance is there. Stellaris release had a great attempt at this as building upgrades meant the population working that building would produce more. Also being on a grid system the building placement mattered a lot because of adjacent bonuses which if done right could make a huge difference. The AI could not handle proper placement well which is what lead to it being scraped for the current system.
Sure no game gets this balance of Tall vs Wide perfect but in the current Stellaris "Balance" discussion I see no mention of this issue even being considered. Instead it's all about lower pop growth, district/building changes to make it easier for AI to function. Sure the performance gains from smaller pops will be nice but it feels more like a bandage rather than getting at the root of the issue. The new system seems a lot like the current system with slower pop growth. I mean I've played lots of mods, including those that added new districts for alloys/CG/etc. And my take away was yeah it's great to have more district options and it should be in base game, but it doesn't really change the game economy's need for pops at all.
In my opinion they should move all base production to districts. Get rid of those research labs and bureaucrat centers as they are the only remaining hold out from the old building system and simply turn them into disctricts as well. After all according to the Devs the AI does poorly at proper building management. Instead buildings should primarily be bonuses. Like the Mineral/Energy/Food hubs that give +10%/+25% based on their upgrade. And with a focus on buildings as specialization I think there should be MORE buildings of that type since we no longer need to building spam tons of Alloy/CG on planets. The upgrade could be split into two separate buildings so instead you have a +10% and +15% building and it's fine if buildings still give jobs they just shouldn't be the primary source of jobs. You should pick the building based on how it improves the planet specialization rather than the job count it gives.
With more building focus can come more content and flavor to the game. Currently a LOT of buildings are one off bonuses which kinda suck. For example the Betharian Power Plant. Sure it gives 10 energy with some tech jobs but let's face it that is nothing mid-late game. How about instead it's a +1 energy per Tech on the planet. This encourages players to specialize the planet and the more Tech jobs they have the bigger the bonus. After all this is a unique building it should feel like it is influencing the planet's economy and not just a one off flat bonus. The same goes for Alien Zoo which could give bonuses to clerk/entertainers as the sell unique merchandise and put on shows with the exotic animals.
Also making stratigic mines actually worth something would be nice. I find strategic resource mines are often so rare they are a nice oddity early on and practically useless late game. Mid-Late game you need so many strategic resources the stuff coming out of the natural mines is like a drop in the bucket. I find I end up with whole worlds making synthisied strategic resources just to feed all my buildings. In keeping with the more productive pops is better than more jobs I think the mines should give a strategic material production amount to miners on the planet. It's like the deposits are mixed in with the minerals they can just refine it now. Perhaps 0.25 of that resource on the planet. This would make planets with strategic resources extremely valuable as they could produce lots of them cheaply. Balance testing would be needed for the exact amount of course.
Another way to combat the Tall vs Wide is with production penalties. There is already a Tech/Culture penalty for being over your Empire sprawl but how about also having increased Crime and upkeep cost for food/CG? After all in the current setup it's far to easy to simply expand fast earlier on and disregard your sprawl. Then once established with some bureaucrats rush to catch up. This is pretty much my strategy every game as my tech may fall behind but my economy more than makes up for it and once empire sprawl is balanced back out I shoot past every other empire in tech because I can afford a ton of scientist.
The only current TALL option is not really TALL it's just compact as it's a bunch of habitats in a few systems, thus same number of "planets" with a ton of people and less space to defend.
The point of all this is they need to make a reason for players to not see pops as the only path to power. Also to add a bit more flavor to the game as I feel the goal of buildings should be the choices of which to build feel like they matter and help define the planet compared to the current need another factory/lab/etc. Where lots more planetary features and unique buildings can help give planet wide bonuses rather than flat one off amounts to encourage specialization. Meanwhile districts are simply where your pops go to work and live.
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Here's a question about modding and industry district. How does adding a job to a district work? At the code level, it is written in the modifier of building or just written in the district to check whether there is the building in this planet?
It is very important to the modding, it affects the game performance in multiple mods.
It is very important to the modding, it affects the game performance in multiple mods.
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Today's the penalty rules is useless, pop provide sprawl, and pop can rise the cap too(and this part is important for the hole cap), it can't limit the growth of pops(maybe it isn't designed to reach this). And the penalty grows liner instead of quadratic. In a word, the new Empire Sprawl is just nerf our economy and increase the cost to keep pop(consume goods) indiscriminately
What does it run? A planet gets +60% produce and upkeep bonus when it has a lv3 capital building? And can it be closed? You know, the raise of upkeep not means good thing in every situation, and if I ban some jobs, it may cause unemployment and spend me more consume goods to make them satisfied.
For a player: nothing.
From a development pov: the rulebook of a strategy game should be consistent within it's lore. Having people f*ck less the bigger your empire because potato in your rulebook is bad design.
It makes no sense that a colony grows faster by being independent than by being supported by the infastructure that an established galactic empire provides. It makes no sense that to increase pop growth you should grant independence/vassalage to your colonies for a few years and reconquer/annex them later.
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Concerning the whole "more growth needed the more pops your empire already owns" ... I've been thinking about it, and one possible, if still tenuous, lore explanation could be that as your empire grows bigger, the actual number of people in a single pop also goes up. This has a number of problems (and current inconsistencies with mechanics) with it, I'm well-aware. But at least it's "an" explanation, game balance aside.
By the way, to resolve a question that came up when I was discussing with another user - regarding buildings like Gene Clinics, Holo Theatres, Admin Parks, and Halls of Judgement that currently cap out at 5 jobs: do they now cap out at 4 jobs to fit into the 2/4/6 sequence that you're using for jobs like researchers from research labs and their upgrades? Or are they unchanged? Or have they changed differently?
What about Commercial Megaplexes, which used to support more jobs than the 2/5/8 model that's becoming the 2/4/6 model?
What about Commercial Megaplexes, which used to support more jobs than the 2/5/8 model that's becoming the 2/4/6 model?
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I like this, increasing the size to 27 or adding some subterranean features would work well.
You could even reduce the size slightly from 25 to 24, and then add the subterranean features increasing district capacity by +3 or even +6 if you wanted to bump it up to 30.
You can easily do this by text editing the empire's home planet in user_empire_designs.txt to Gaia, it works exactly like this. I've used it to make the neighboring planets of Determined Exterminators spawn as Tomb Worlds.
You could decrease the number of POPs even further if you give the respective building ITSELF positive production-modifiers.
The main-problem with habitats is still the spamming. Try to find something else ( like to put habitats under the starbase-cap ) instead of just delays ( like higher influence-costs ).
Chances, chances, chances ...
Implement 2 new screens ( emigration and immigration ) in the colony-view and let the resettlement ( migration ) work like the growth of POPs: At the value of 100 a POP will resettle. How many points gets added per month ( till 100 is reached ) is "just" the tricky part.
Same as above.
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When it's ready™
Only the devs will know. A release around christmas time would make sense, however I'd prefer a more complete update with a later release date.
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Hopefully pop growth will be veeeery slow in their habitats to balance them abit more. Right now I agree with you, they have given the most crazy OP origin even more crazy OP stuff to help them snowball even more crazy then they already do.
Yes. Megacorps was released too soon, and there were a lot of bugs.
Federations got much more time, and it was one of the best releases I ever have seen!
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Theory-time: The reason Envoys are so bare bones isn't because Paradox wanted to minimize micromanagement, but because they're going to be used in the espionage update and they didn't want to tip their hat too early.
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Wow.. a text wall , to forget that pops are power. you can't do nothing about it, pops are a form of power. the idea that someone can be powerfull with a state of 10 pops against someone with 100 pops is pathetic.
you can still use tech to overshadown pops numbers ( even now) and with those new tech it will be even more significant.
pops are one of the powers. and you can't do nothing about it .
pops , tech , fleet power . all are chained to each other , but separate .
edit: and tall is just about rushing habitats and megastructure , to have more space for pops .
the concept of "tall" is to use space efficently . and i realy don't want to start a war of " tall vs wide" , in stellaris you want to have both .
the balance of stellaris is that someone with a small space , is faster to use it efficently , someone with a big space is slower at using it efficently. if you are more small , you want tech, if you are more wide you want pops . in both cases, pops \ tech will increase your fleet power .
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STOP! COOKIE TIME