Why do galactic resolutions do the opposite of their intended name and harm galactic members?

[GuardianGI]

"Defense" and "War":
Mutual defense tree:
+25% extra ship upkeep for 50 naval upkeep. Who comes up with this? By the time you get this resolution you will have around 1000 naval cap and you need to go over 1250 to incur +25% upkeep. How is this supposed to help me with "war"? The total war CB you get is useless when getting the collosus is quicker and exterminators are usually the only non-galactic community members, but they can always be total war CBed.
Rules of war tree:
-25% naval capacity for +20% edict duration. I'm sorry, what? How is massively gimping your navy supposed to help defend against exterminator AIs, awakened FEs and endgame crisis who ignore galactic community effects?

Unchained knowledge tree:
10% researcher output for 50% more job upkeep??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? The dimensional researcher decision is good, but only because having a zro deficit does nothing so it is highly abusable.

 

[Incompetent]

Resolutions are supposed to have a trade-off so there are good reasons to vote against. Many of them are actually designed mainly to punish the unfavoured playstyles more than boost the favoured one, e.g. Greater Good makes Egalitarians and Rogue Servitors reign supreme by making practically everything else illegal.

I agree though that the actual numbers are all over the place, and it's unintuitive which ones you should really go for. Also, the AI weights are not really aligned with who actually benefits. For example:
- Unchained Knowledge 2 is very strong to overpowered for Gestalts, because it doubles the output of all solar panels, while as you say, the +10% researcher output from Unchained Knowledge 4 probably isn't going to do very much for anyone. (Similar issue with edicts: Capacity Subsidies is strong in general, possibly overpowered for Machine Intelligences, whereas Research Subsidies would only be marginally beneficial even if you had unlimited edict slots.)
- Galactic Commerce 5 is of course "lolol, Merchants go brr", but a less thematically obvious aspect is that it's also a stability boost for stratified slaver empires (because Rulers become super happy), while it scuffs the stability of more egalitarian citizen empires (because everyone else becomes very unhappy, including Specialists). So the relative importance of Rulers in your society should be a significant factor in whether or not you support it.
- The whole Industrial Development line is pretty good for machines (including synths) and Lithoids, more dubious for everyone else, but absolutely none of that is reflected in the AI weights.

 

[Baldrik3505]

There's one on the agenda that would hurt my empire badly if its enacted, I vote against it, and then keep pushing other items ahead of it (by giving them support) so that its a long time before it is voted on. Kind of adds to the fun, IMO.

 

[Unseelie]

Heck, if its 25% cost for 25% more fleet cap, that is cheaper than being 25% over cap. So...there's that.

 

[Incompetent]

Heck, if its 25% cost for 25% more fleet cap, that is cheaper than being 25% over cap. So...there's that.

Sure, if your fleet cap is low enough that it actually gives you 25% more cap. The objection is to a resolution giving a flat amount of capacity (and a small one at that) in return for a percentage maintenance increase. Given that the main benefit of fleet capacity is keeping maintenance cost low, that's a bad trade.

Here I think the problem is not so much galactic resolutions, but with the broader design decision in Stellaris to grant flat or hardcapped amounts of fleet cap, with federation fleet capacity being the worst offender. That sort of flat bonus doesn't work well in Stellaris because of how fast numbers go up in general; at some point in the game, it's just going to get swamped by anchorages and soldiers.