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Stellaris Dev Diary #122 - Planetary Rework (part 2 of 4)

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today we're going to continue on the topic that we started on in last week's dev diary: The Planetary Rework coming in the 2.2 'Le Guin' update. As this is a massive topic that affects many areas of the game, we've split it into four parts. Today's part is going to be talking about Pop Jobs, Strata, Housing, Growth and Migration. As before, any screenshots are likely to feature placeholder art, unpolished interfaces and non-final numbers.

Pop Jobs
In the Le Guin update, Jobs is the main way through which resources are produced on planets. Jobs come in two main types, Capped and Uncapped. Capped Jobs are Jobs that are limited by what the planet can offer, for example, you can only have as many Pops working in mining as you have Mining Jobs from Mining Districts. Uncapped Jobs, on the other hand, can always be worked by a Pop that fulfills the requirements, but generally require a specific trait or species right setting. For example, a species that is set as Livestock will work in a special Livestock Job that requires no upkeep, produces food each month and makes the Pop working it require very little Housing (more on that below). Pops will automatically fill empty Jobs that they are capable of holding, and each Job has weights that make them more or less suitable for a specific Pop - an Industrious Pop will be preferred over a non-Industrious one for a job that produces Minerals, for example. Pops that are more suitable for a Job than the current Pop holding the Job may take it from it them, so constructing a bunch of Robot Pops with mining equipment will likely see your organic Miners losing their jobs in short order. The player can set the priority of specific Jobs, ensuring some Jobs are always filled before others, but there is no manual assignment of specific Pops to specific Jobs, as that is one of the more micromanage-y aspects of the old tile system that we wanted to get away from.
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In addition to resource production, there is also a wide variety of Jobs related to administration and tending to the needs of other Pops. For example, Clerks are service industry workers, 'Space Baristas' that produce a small number of luxury goods and increase the Trade Value of the planet as a result of domestic economic activity in your cities, while Enforcers are your police, working to suppress dissent and reduce Crime on the planet (more on that next dev diary). Some Jobs are rarer than others - Crystal Miner Jobs are only possible on planets that have Rare Crystal deposits, and some anomalies add unique planetary features that create Jobs which might only exist on that particular planet. Some Empires, such as Hive Minds and Machine Empires, also have their own special Jobs that are not available to others. Jobs are fully moddable and come with auto-generated modifiers and functions that make them very easy for modders to add to planets.
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Strata and Unemployment
Whether or not a Pop holds a Job, the vast majority of Pops will belong to a Stratum, representing social classes and other broad segments of the population. The exact Strata that exist in an empire depend on the type of Empire you're playing, but for regular (non-Gestalt) empires, the population will usually be divided into the following three categories:
  • Rulers: This stratum represents the government and wealthy elite. Ruler Pops have a much greater impact on Stability (more on this in next dev diary) than the other two classes and require a great deal of Luxury Goods to stay happy.
  • Specialists: This stratum represents the educated population working in more prestigious and highly paid jobs. Specialist Pops typically work with refining resources or performing intellectual tasks, and require more Luxury Goods than workers in order to stay happy.
  • Workers: This stratum represents the vast majority of the working population. They generally work with raw resource production and require fewer Luxury Goods than Rulers and Specialists.
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In addition to these three, there are certain special Strata for Pops that fulfill specific conditions, such as the Slave stratum for enslaved Pops. Slave Pops usually require no or almost no luxuries, but are generally only able to hold Worker-class jobs. Each Job is associated with a specific Stratum (such as Ruler Stratum for Administrators and Nobles), and a Pop that takes that Job will usually be instantly promoted to said Stratum. However, while promotion of Pops to a higher Stratum may be quick and painless, demotion is not. A Pop that becomes unemployed will keep the Stratum of the Job that it used to occupy, and will refuse to take a Job from a lower Stratum, even if there are open Jobs available. Over time, these Pops will demote down to a lower Stratum, but as Unemployment can cause quite a bit of unhappiness, having unemployed upper class Pops can be a serious source of instability for a planet while those Pops are demoting. This effect is more pronounced in a stratified empire, as the lack of social safety nets increases the Happiness penalties for unemployment.
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Housing
One of the major reasons we decided to rework the tile system was the limitations it placed on planetary populations - not just limiting us to an absolute maximum of 25 pops, but also ensuring that planets could never be over- or underpopulated, as the ideal number of Pops on a planet would always be equal to the number of tiles. In the Le Guin update, the hard restriction of one Pop per tile has been replaced with a soft cap known as Housing. Housing is a value on the planet that is primarily provided by Districts, with City Districts giving far more Housing than their resource-focused alternatives. Each Pop requires 1 unit of Housing by default, though the Housing demands of individual Pops can change due to a wide variety of factors such as Traits, Stratum, Job and so on.
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For example, a Robot Pop that is not sapient or has not been given Citizen Rights requires far less housing than an ordinary Pop, as the storage and support infrastructure they require occupies significantly less space on the planet than the dedicated housing occupied by your citizens. Housing is not a hard limit, and the housing requirements of Pops can exceed the available Housing if the planet population continues to grow without additional Housing being constructed. This is called Overcrowding, and will result in a variety of negative effects such as reduced growth speed and lowered Happiness/stability, but also increases the Migration Push on the planet (more on that below), so a small amount of Overcrowding may actually be desirable on your heavily populated planets in order to grow your new colonies.
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Growth and Migration
Migration is a concept that's never quite worked out to be as interesting as it should be in Stellaris. While there were a lot of mechanics related to how Pops moved and why, these mechanics were quite opaque, and the wholesale movements of Pops that simply packed up and moved to another world resulted in a mechanic that often felt more like a nuisance to the player than anything, as Pops would leave critical buildings on your core worlds untended to in order to settle down on some newly colonized ball of ice on the other side of your empire. For this reason, when reworking the migration mechanics, we decided that the new system would tie more directly into Pop Growth and make it more clear what benefits you were receiving from migration on a planet.
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Under the new Growth and Migration system, each Planet has five different main variables that determine its demographical direction: Pop Growth, Pop Decline, Immigration Pull, Emigration Push and Pop Assembly. I will go over each of these in turn:
  • Pop Growth: This is the base level of Pop Growth on the planet from natural reproduction and immigration. A Planet will only have a single growing Species at any given time, but is not limited to the Species alreadyliving on the planet - any Species with theoretical access to the planet through migration will be able to start growing on a planet, and when choosing a Species to grow, planets will generally prioritize Species that are under-represented on the planet, meaning for example that an empire with Syncretic Evolution will generally have both its Species growing in turn on any new colonies, instead of being limited to only the Species that they used to colonize the planet. The rights you have assigned to Species will factor into this, so a Species with Full Citizenship will get far higher weight when deciding which Pop to grow next than one that merely has Residence. Habitability is also a major factor.
  • Pop Decline: Pop Decline represents the decline of certain Species on the planet, and usually is a result of shifting demographics or Purging. Overcrowded Planets that have over-represented Species will have those Species begin to decline in numbers and be replaced by newly growing, under-represented Species. This means that planet demographics will change over time, for example having your homeworlds turn more cosmopolitan and multi-species over time as a result of signing Migration Treaties as a Xenophile, or your privileged main species with Full Citizen moving onto conquered planets and replacing the less privileged population already living there as a Xenophobe. Purging a particular species will essentially guarantee that Species' rapid decline, creating massive amounts of Emigration in the form of Refugees if Displacement is used.
  • Immigration and Emigration: Each Planet has an Immigration Pull and Emigration Push value generated by factors such as Housing, Stability, Unemployment and so on. By subtracting Emigration from Immigration, the overall Migration state of the planet is calculated. A planet with more Emigration than Immigration will have faster Pop Decline, but will also 'export' its Emigration value to a general Migration Pool that is distributed among potential immigration targets. Planets with higher Immigration Pull will receive a greater share of this migration, which is converted directly into Pop Growth. Normally, Planets can only send their Emigration to planets in the same empire, but signing Migration Treaties or accepting Refugees will allow you to receive migration from planets outside your borders.
  • Pop Assembly: Pop Assembly represents a planet's capacity for constructing artificial (generally Robotic) Pops and comes from certain Jobs provided by special buildings. Each unit of Pop Assembly provided by Jobs will automatically contribute 1 growth towards the next artificial Pop being built on the planet. A Planet can have both Growing and Assembling Pops, and there is no link between Pop Assembly and Emigration/Immigration asides from the potential for assembled Pops to create overcrowding and unemployment.
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That's all for today! Next week we'll continue with part 3 of the Planetary Rework dev diaries, on the topic of Happiness, Stability and Crime.
 
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Co unemployed pop‘s tend to emigrate?
POPs don't "emigrate". Unemployed POPs contribute to overall emigration value that lower grow speed and increase immigration on other planets. Sure, POP grow can go negative, but POP itself doesn't emigrate. At least as i understand new system.
 
Hey there @Wiz

I guess you missed my tweet, but,

the "city background" when you are viewing the pops, districts etc does change a bit when the planet starts to grow, which is cool, but it'd also be nice if it changed based on current construction level or layout, population, technology, or even structural or planetary damage, and same with habitats. I think it would definitely add tons to immersion, specially now that we are getting these new changes with LeGuin. :)

Thanks in advance!
 
Can we turn Blorg into Livestock?
 
I know you answered this already, Wiz, but I would like to know further information regarding overcrowding and means to prevent pop growth.

1. Can you enable population controls to trigger automatically on planets that reach their housing cap?
2. Do said population controls still cause unhappiness for biological pops? (hey, not my fault you filled the planet to the brim and I literally can't house any more of you)
 
I like the new system but I can already say that manual movement of pops will be introduced before 2.5 rolls in. The reason is quite simple, in many cases you need some resource NOW, not when the AI management system moves pops, not when a new pop grows, you need it RIGHT NOW. In this case, we will end up with situations when you build a new building on a specialized world and the AI pop management (because it is AI management, there is no reason to call it otherwise) will move the pops you don't want.

For example, they will move miners into the new science job while you wanted entertainers. Unity isn't a crucial thing, but minerals are. The AI management system won't care though, with all pops being equal (early game, no game moding) it will promote pops from lower strata. Or move one of the administrators. Or do any other thing you didn't want it to do. Sure, you could scrap unity building and rebuild it later, but that adds costs and micromanagement.

Or you need farmers, so some of the miners moved in while you have an excess of trade goods production and one of those guys would be a better choice to fill the new farm.

In other words - it won't work. Not with the AI having control over anything. Just look at how AI managed pops in sectors, now mandatory in the entire empire.
I think that the system revealed in dev diary is a far better system because this make your empire and pops fell alive (what is crucial in a grand strategy games with pops), reward more long term economy management and open ground for good a interesting internal politic management system in the future, this is in my opinion better than the player be a supreme god that control everything in the life of pops.
In situations in that you need a determined resource "RIGHT NOW", we have not reveled yet button named "decisions" in planets, I believe that in this button you can pay influence, energy or food to push your planet faster in a determined direction, so, if you urgently need some resource this button will help in this problem.
 
thats an inaccurate representation of what you are doing now. Whereas previously you basically just went along with the flow by building energy on energy, minerals on minerals, the occasional multiplier building etc. now the computer does all of the tedium. Theres very little fun to be had in clicking stuff, clicking for the sake of clicking is stupid. You still manage your planets, except now you manage them in ways that a)are more meaningful and easier to manage b)are far decision based than circumstance based. This is especially true for the 90% of players who don't actively have the time or energy to micromanage 400 pops on 20 worlds making sure they all have the correct civics for their task, are on the right tile, constantly pausing to upgrade the 40 buildings that need upgrading. See where I am going with this? instead of this you now have 20 manageable units, where you give direction and let the AI take care of implementation.

Ah ? i found this feeling perfectly representative of what my games are, though.
Looking the in game calendar while my ressources up (totally ok with that). When i start to have in early game a good amount of ressources it's time to loose 25% with sectors and looking my calendar until i come back to what i had (One of the first aberrations from this game). Then i wait for influence to claim (purifiers i like you, a less boring game with you) and after that i'm waiting for.. .etc...
Ok, i had to click a lot but this is what stopped me to not sleeping on my keyboard in fact. Without this, what we have to do in Steallaris actually? i mean, for real. Not a lot... (clicking on a defensive pact for diplomacy and clicking on war , only if the game want i do it with his ridiculous casus belli, "sorry you are too far, come back later, you can look at your calendar"). No, sorry.

I understand your last point with your 400 pops on 20 world to manage. (Perhaps they should look at RTS instead of 4X, like i should back to play some others old 4X because it seems i don't like "grand" strategy games too. At least the paradox ones, i know it for the future now)
But, what the computer choose to migrate, grow or populate by itself will be an advantage for me, like a player ? If the Stellaris IA was good i could be ok, but excuse me when i look how they act with sectors, fleets, etc, all over the game, i doubt they will perform good even after the update.
Now, i will have to wait the IA do choices i don't care and i perhaps wouldn't do like him.
But we will have to wait the update is released to know if it's fun or not. Until this moment, i don't like what i read, nothing to add more.
 
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When it comes down to overcrowding, you either make more homes, or cut down on the people.

So presumably you'd want more city districts for more housing. Build more ecumanopoli, and gene mod your population to be more social so they're happy with living in closer proximity.

Or perhaps population growth could slow based on non-coercive measures. Looking around our modern world, we have plenty of societies that have stagnant population growth, even though they want positive growth.
 
I am completely amazed how tgis turned out, but there is one detail I don't like. The fact that only one species per planet can grow. Is there a specific reasoning behind this decision, since it would be way more accurate if all species could grow/decline a the same time
 
I am completely amazed how tgis turned out, but there is one detail I don't like. The fact that only one species per planet can grow. Is there a specific reasoning behind this decision, since it would be way more accurate if all species could grow/decline a the same time
It's probably to save make things less complex for the cpu and the player. Remember that a single planet can have hundreds of pops now so individual pops will grow at a much faster rate than currently, so if the weighting is properly balanced it won't be that much of a difference.
 
The more I think about it, the less sense that only one species can grow at a time is. It's a workaround to satisfy the idea that planets can only have a single growth rate, that has to be split by species. But it makes no sense that only one species can grow at a time, or that adding a species splits the existing growth rate.

Each species should really have it's own growth rate, based on how many pops of that species are present (more pops means faster growth), with overcrowding, food, migration and strata as modifiers.

This is a case where abstraction leads to better, clearer gameplay and interfaces. Realism is not the goal here.
 
Or perhaps population growth could slow based on non-coercive measures. Looking around our modern world, we have plenty of societies that have stagnant population growth, even though they want positive growth.

So a "nice" method of discouraging having children.

Perhaps that could be a use for Chemical Bliss, everyone's too drugged up and enjoying their blorg body pill- er, enjoying life to increase the population.
 
This new system looks incredible, can't wait to know more regarding the brand new effects of happiness and stability!

But I have one question left: If a pop "downgrades" its strata, it will be unemployed for some time and cause instability. Ok, that's logical.

But if a pop "upgrades" its strata, will it be an automatic process? As in, I get specialists right after I plop a building with their job slots? I certainly hope that this is not the case. I mean, it is only logical that regular miners needs time to "upgrade" into metallurgists. Not that they will need to be unemployed during that transition, but it would be great to factor "human development" as well as infrastructure building.

Also, I am quite intrigued about "planet unique" jobs. Bring on Holy Planets inhabited by lonely Oracles!
 
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Immigration and Emigration: Each Planet has an Immigration Pull and Emigration Push value generated by factors such as Housing, Stability, Unemployment and so on. By subtracting Emigration from Immigration, the overall Migration state of the planet is calculated. A planet with more Emigration than Immigration will have faster Pop Decline, but will also 'export' its Emigration value to a general Migration Pool that is distributed among potential immigration targets. Planets with higher Immigration Pull will receive a greater share of this migration, which is converted directly into Pop Growth. Normally, Planets can only send their Emigration to planets in the same empire, but signing Migration Treaties or accepting Refugees will allow you to receive migration from planets outside your borders.

The migration system is really a whole lot less complex than some of you guys seem to think it is, at least in terms of how you interact with it. The gist of it is:
- Planets with free housing, high stability and/or free jobs get immigrants
- Planets with overcrowding, low stability and/or unemployment get emigrants
- Which species will grow on your planet, and how your species demographics change over time, depend on your species rights and diplomatic treaties

There's a lot going on under the hood, but how you relate to it is mostly whether you want to focus on growth through immigration or not.

With the rework, will there be any distinction on the receiving end between willing emigrants and refugees? Might refugees, for example, choose destinations based on proximity rather than available housing/jobs (and potentially exacerbating existing housing/employment issues)? Will incoming refugees create an additional economic cost to reflect that they're typically arriving without the personal resources willing emigrants would bring with them?

And if there is some short-term cost (economic and/or social) to accepting refugees to offset their obvious long-term economic benefits, can you throttle the volume of refugees accepted (possibly upsetting your xenophile faction) or is it still a simple binary on/off?

I'm guessing the answer to these questions is probably "no" all around at the moment, but I'm hoping at least they might spark some ideas :)
 
I see no Chemical Bliss living standard the screenshots shown. Will it still be available or is it removed?

That living standard isn't unlocked until you get the tech for it. It is quite likely that the specific save the screenshots were drawn from simply haven't researched it yet.
 
No No and No. This is in so many Ways wrong. we can love Blorgs we can make Friendship but we never ever eat Blorgs.

Yeah mushrooms taste terrible. On the other hand, assimilation seems like a great idea...