Duplicate Stellaris - Starbase module empty

[Big Dead One]

Description
Starbase module empty

Game Version
2.6.1

What version do you use?

Steam

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

Do you have mods enabled?
Yes

Please explain your issue is in as much detail as possible.
Note: I'm using cosmetic mods only, which do not modify the checksum, so this most likely is not related to mods.

When I fully upgrade a starbase to a citadel and build offensive modules (hangars, guns or missiles), the weapon slots are not fully filled. I attached a screenshot for illustration.

Steps to reproduce the issue.
1. Build a starbase and upgrade it to a citadel.
2. Start filling the modules with weapons.
3. Now you can see that in the details tab, a lot of weapon slots are empty.

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[Quackytheduck]

This is also happening for me in 2.6.1. It appears that this is due to starbases at citadel level not having enough power from its generator to equip all of its slots.

 

[Flo122]

I just looked at my Starbases and it seems you are correct - it just has not enough power to equip more slots, so it stays half empty those lvl 5 shields are using so much power, after the third weapon (gun or missile) module it won't add any more weapons. I always wondered why starbases behave so weird with upgrading etc...now i know. Still i think this should be changed somehow, because as it is right now it is pretty frustrating to build a good defensive bastion starbase.

 

[hart30]

There was a starbase upgrade fix with 2.6.2

 

[Klarion]

This issue still exists as of 2.6.2

Severely handicapped my stations by upgrading.

I have all DLCs and no mods.

Screen shot below:

 

[Flo122]

I noticed that if i only upgrade one step, then fill the modules first and then upgrade the starbase further, i can reduce the problem. So the citadel upgrade comes last after all modules were completed. This does not completely solve the problem, but at least i get decent starbases.

 

[Klarion]

I've upgraded my citadels in the same way, completely filling their modules before upgrading, and it has resulted in 4 out of 4 citadels having the same under utilized layout.

Updated picture attached now that tech is into the repeatables. I think this is specifically related to not using the hangars. If you compare it to my last picture, I already had a T5 power source but the shields and lasers were only T3. They should have been able to fill in the hangar slots at the time, or not upgrade to the more power intensive shields later. I think it's specifically a bug with citadels not using all of the hangar slots, but otherwise they might be fine.

Edit: The OP had a different layout where they used different weapon modules. Their layout didn't use the last 7 weapon slots and mine doesn't use the last 5, which are all hangars for me. This would indicate that the very first weapon module is being used for me, but the rest are not. I'm not sure how to explain the number being used on the OP's citadel.

 

[Big Dead One]

I think I figured out why the starbase could not fill every weapon slot. Pre-2.6, the starbase's power module would supply 10000 power units, but in 2.6 the highest level power module (zero point module) only supply 3200 power units. Therefore, with that many shield modules, there is no way it can provide enough power for the entire starbase plus all the modules. A fix would be reversing the change to pre-2.6, where a starbase's power module supplied 10000 power units regardless.

 

[Klarion]

I think I figured out why the starbase could not fill every weapon slot. Pre-2.6, the starbase's power module would supply 10000 power units, but in 2.6 the highest level power module (zero point module) only supply 3200 power units. Therefore, with that many shield modules, there is no way it can provide enough power for the entire starbase plus all the modules. A fix would be reversing the change to pre-2.6, where a starbase's power module supplied 10000 power units regardless.

I just added up the power supply of my last picture and it should be using 2985 out of 3200, so it should be able to supply 3 more T3 strike craft. Aside from that, my first picture was using T3 weapons and shields with a T5 power supply, so it should have had an abundance of power for the empty slots it wasn't using. I don't think it's just power, although technically if my top tech design tried to use all of it's slots, it would still fall a bit short.

 

[17blue17]

What Paradox should have done in 00_utilities_reactors.txt is left the @starbase_power at 10000 and then created a separate @juggernaut_power just like they have a separate @colossus_power. However, that would have required several separate utility_component_template items for juggernaut which would not have been that hard to do.

Not sure if there is another issue on top of this or not.

 

[Quackytheduck]

I think I figured out why the starbase could not fill every weapon slot. Pre-2.6, the starbase's power module would supply 10000 power units, but in 2.6 the highest level power module (zero point module) only supply 3200 power units. Therefore, with that many shield modules, there is no way it can provide enough power for the entire starbase plus all the modules. A fix would be reversing the change to pre-2.6, where a starbase's power module supplied 10000 power units regardless.

Yup, like I said earlier in the thread, it's not enough power. I have calculated the power draw and yield, and there's a deficit (or rather, it stops right under 3200, so it can't fill any more slots). Not to mention, the starbase is trying to autofill the last few slots with lower tech variants for me, almost as if it knows it doesn't have enough for the tier 5 weapons, so it fills in whatever else it can with things that fit under the power cap.

I'll be making a minimod editing power supply in starbases shortly to see if this fixes the problem. I'll report back here.

 

[Quackytheduck]

I just added up the power supply of my last picture and it should be using 2985 out of 3200, so it should be able to supply 3 more T3 strike craft. Aside from that, my first picture was using T3 weapons and shields with a T5 power supply, so it should have had an abundance of power for the empty slots it wasn't using. I don't think it's just power, although technically if my top tech design tried to use all of it's slots, it would still fall a bit short.

So, just finished editing, and it looks like Klarion is right (at least on 2.6.2, which is what I'm testing on). I'm getting some weird results. It's definitely NOT just power draw, as my starbases now have 10000 power capacity, and it shows as such in the UI.

However, starbases still won't upgrade right. It's almost like they've forgotten things exist higher in the tech trees, or their auto-upgrade procedure isn't running accurately. I'll post further screenshots and findings shortly after I run a battery of tests.

 

[Quackytheduck]

Okay, so after some testing, I have come to the conclusion that there are two, dovetailing problems. My preliminary thoughts are thus:

1. Power is definitely part of the concern, just logically, as just running the numbers, a max upgraded citadel with all other weapon techs etc. maxed will not have enough power to actually utilize all slots. This is the relatively simple fix.

2. The second problem is more elusive, but it seems that somehow the starbase (of any tier, actually) cannot see weapons and utilities above a certain tier of technology. Found this out by attempting to build a new starbase and upgrade. The highest shield tech it sees is 3 (most things only go to 3, actually), for instance, yet it goes all the way to tier 5 armor.

3. In addition to not seeing upgrades, it also cannot use lower versions of weapons and utilities than are unlocked, except for tier 1 of certain techs. My belief here is that they are marked "obsolete" and are skipped, despite not being able to build the "up-to-date" version. I could be wrong here though.

Below are some of the (several dozen) documentation screenshots showing my testing (all on 2.6.2). If you have any questions or any tests you want to see performed, let me know, as I've likely already done them, and have a screenshot for them.

So the first picture here is a new starbase. As you can see, it has some problems. Especially since by this point I had hyper shields and antimatter missiles:


The next two are the upgrade process not working as intended for physical projectile weapons. I have not yet found a weapon category that reaches the maximum tech level. They tend to stall at tech 3.

This next one is showing the upgrade process properly working on armor (maybe because it's unpowered? I don't know. It's odd that it's exempt from screwing up here.)

This last one is the admittedly anecdotal basis that I'm claiming that the starbases cannot "see" upgrades below a certain point. This picture is the result of building a citadel, with 4 gun modules, and then scrapping and rebuilding all gun modules again. Previously it had tier 3 railguns, and lasers. Not ideal, as I had unlocked tier 4 at least, but still the right category. Upon rebuilding, it appears that it can't "find" railguns anymore. I believe this could be because it can't use tier 4 or 5 for whatever reason is at the heart of this problem, but tier 3 and below is marked "obsolete" and so is skipped. I have a feeling that if I had had further upgraded plasma cannons and the like, we'd be getting blank slots, because NONE of the weapons would be findable.

The weird thing to me here, though, is that my hangars are working just fine in this new game for testing I made, while they were DEFINITELY not working on my previous game. Let me know what you guys think. And if we could get a confirmation from a mod that this has been noted, it would be nice, so I don't have to keep researching and attempting fixes on my own. This is pretty severe, as this effectively neuters starbases (which is bad news for me, as a WW1-France-style Maginot Line space empire), and will likely happen increasingly as people start new games.

 

[Big Dead One]

Have you checked your strategic resource income? According to your screenshots, you have no strategic resources. If I'm not mistaken, the starbase will only upgrade to newer components (>T3) that require strategic resources (motes, crystals, etc) if you have them in store.

 

[Quackytheduck]

Have you checked your strategic resource income? According to your screenshots, you have no strategic resources. If I'm not mistaken, the starbase will only upgrade to newer components (>T3) that require strategic resources (motes, crystals, etc) if you have them in store.

Aw man, you're right. Let me load the save back up and add some and see what happens. Thanks for the heads up.

Edit: Well, just gave myself all the resources, and then upgraded and downgraded a module to see if that would trigger anything, but it just stayed as is. All of these tests were accelerated with instant_research and resource console commands though, so I'm gonna do a long-play actual game to see if my theories hold true.

 

[Klarion]

Great work testing this, Quacky. I will point out that in my game, I did not have any trouble getting the starbases to upgrade to full tech levels once I had them, so it's even more perplexing that the limited tech levels are only a "sometimes" problem. I've reattached the picture that shows mine using the T5 tech.

 

[Quackytheduck]

Great work testing this, Quacky. I will point out that in my game, I did not have any trouble getting the starbases to upgrade to full tech levels once I had them, so it's even more perplexing that the limited tech levels are only a "sometimes" problem. I've reattached the picture that shows mine using the T5 tech.

View attachment 559299

Yeah, an update on my normal campaign game. You're definitely right on that too. I have some Citadels which have most slots filled, but others that have large numbers of slots missing. Invariably, if there's a hanger module, that'll be one of the empty ones. It seems that they're always the first to be "emptied".

I also have some fun partial-upgrades, where almost all the slots are filled, often with high-tech equipment, but then there'll be some down at the bottom that are lower tech. Which blows my "can't see higher techs" theory out of the water.

Both of these can be seen below, with the mix of shield techs and empty slots varying, and neither filling the hangar slot:


Furthermore, more weirdness is that it doesn't upgrade certain non-power-using components, namely T5 armor to T6 (dragonscale) and the "enigmatic" components. Which blows my OTHER theory of insufficient power usage out of the water. Weirdly, this particular error effects starbases below citadel, as seen below with the Star Fortress:


So yeah, friends. I'm quite stumped. The main thing I learned is that I need to not get as invested in the game when I'm playing to debug. I found myself forgetting to document crucial tech completions and starbase upgrades that may have given useful clues, because that dang Mesh'ben Hierarchy is trying to poach potential Federation members from me again. So I guess it's not literally unplayable, huh?

I still think power has something to do with it, as I reverted changes to the power cores to default/vanilla/unmodded Stellaris to ensure baseline status before starting the new test game. I also still think it can't "see" certain techs, like the Enigmatic Decoder/T6 Armor. I'm just uncertain where these two problems diverge. Is it one problem that creates two symptoms? Or two problems that are muddying the diagnosis by being so similar? I'm gonna try more tests and actually use the scientific method this time instead of throwing things at the proverbial wall and seeing what sticks. More reports later.

Of course, none of this would be as much of a problem if they would let us edit starbases manually again like we used to be able to.

 

[Nats1988]

Just bumping for dev. awareness, having the same issues as people above.

Of course, none of this would be as much of a problem if they would let us edit starbases manually again like we used to be able to.

^ this

 

[Quackytheduck]

Anyone who is still having this problem, I highly advise upvoting this thread, as we have a new upvote system in the bug reports forum (click the "^" on the right of the first post). I for one, still am.

Also, note that further research has been done in this thread: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...tting-breaks-on-upgrading-to-citadel.1439523/, namely that using console commands to advance tech will cause slots and power to mess up (not the primary root of this problem, but causes it to become more severe). It'd be nice to merge these threads or otherwise migrate, considering that this is an ancient problem that is still not resolved, across multiple threads with important insights in each thread.

 

[Big Dead One]

I haven't touched Stellaris for a while, apparently this bug still exists in the current version? People have done some excellent testing already, so I just hope that the devs will look into fixing this in the next patch.