Stellaris Dev Diary #139 - 2.2.x post-launch patch

[Phoronus]

The Pops tab is also being cleaned up a little, and you’ll now be able to prioritize one job per strata, which should make it easier to make your workers prioritize farming without having to juggle the priorities of other jobs in the same strata. The ability to “star” a job was actually the original design, but it was changed into an on/off prioritization.

This doesn't seem like a great solution. It allows me to solve one problem (need more food) but not multiple problems (need to reduce mining so that I can increase food and energy). Additionally, it doesn't sound like it will allow me to solve that problem intelligently (need to produce more food, but not necessarily max out farmers, since that would cripple my mineral and energy production). Can we please just get the ability to assign pops? Drag and drop within a strata?

 

[Achiles]

As someone who loves thinking about algorithms, I would suggest a few things. The grand motto should be "More choices on the schemes, but let each scheme automate." It means the main aim should be letting players choose how they want to shape the games, but let the game automatically run through those decisions.

1. Sectors can be automatically generated. But a player should be able to choose which planet is one's sector capital, or to simply exclude from all sectors for a directly controlled planet. There can be a small multiplier to Empire Sprawl if things are put in Sectors, and a bigger multiplier if you choose to directly control certain stars or planets.

3. Pops should really not just promote overnight. You guys, as programmers, don't just open up to become Project Architects just because your company has opened some free jobs there. Please let Pops grow into new Jobs instead of just picking them off from the Worker Stratum and then fill them up.

4. Enforcers should really not be Specialists. Seriously, Soldiers are Workers but Enforcers are Specialists? I think Soldiers get paid much more than Policemen and Firemen. So they have less upkeep due to being in a lower stratum doesn't make sense.

I really support these three points.

1) Let players design macros /build-chains/flow charts for different types of sectors. Then they would pick the one that they want to use for each sector from a drop down menu. If they want they can micro-manage everything and not use any build-chains at all have to use any at all. Also, sectors should impact your sprawl to some degree. Maybe have a policy, "Decentralized vs Centralized". Decentralized requires you to automate some things some things with build-chains and increases ethics drift in the non-core sectors (the ones without your capital). In return the admin cap usage of systems in that sector it reduced. Centralized is no bonuses or penalties, with optional automation via the fore mentioned build-chains. This policy would open up once you colonize your first planet outside of your home cluster.

2) Adding a training time would help a lot with sudden shortages in base job production. It would also give a little extra time for growth to catch up with the new jobs created by the extra building that you could build due to hitting 35 population.

3) Yeah, cops are generally are best categorized as working class, like soldiers. Nothing wrong with being working class. It's just usually a more accurate socio-economic descriptor of that job. Officers would be your middle-class/specialist enforcers and soldiers.

 

[Desolator_X]

We’re planning to release a definitive 2.2.x version at the end of the post-launch support period, before all of us start working on The Next Cool Thing™

Uhm, I'm a bit worried that you're already talking about "the next cool thing" when there are so many gamebreaking issues not fixed yet, let alone balance looked at. I like the changes you've laid out in the dev diary, but I really, *really* hope you're not going to start working on the next expansion for a good while yet and instead spend a lot more time finally ironing out all the issues that have plagued this game. The community has been very vocal about how we didn't like the extreme mess you released with megacorp, and I really hope you keep your word and fix + balance that mess before you even think about moving on to a new expansion

 

[huyderman]

I think giving primary species a bonus to growth selection for your empire's planet (on which they exist) may be a good solution for some of the issues.

Species should perhaps also generally have a bonus on their homeworld, so if you uplift or enlighten a species, they are less likely to get displaced.

 

[ViolentBeetle]

It just seems like having the Tomb World Habitability AND Survivor traits exist is redundant. Why not eliminate Tomb World Habitability all together and have the Survivor trait give 60% habitability on tomb worlds? After races aren't supposed to have evolved on a tomb world, are they? They are supposed to have evolved on one of the nine regular environments over millions of years and then adapted to post-apocalyptic conditions over a much shorter period of time.

All habitable planets need paired habitability trait, the way the game is set. Sure, you can probably re-draw some tomb-adapted species as having survivor and randomized preference. But they are rare and random-based.

Honestly, "Tomb World" doesn't really make sense. Nuking continental, desert, alpine or tundra world shouldn't merge them into the same thing. Maybe in the future conditional habitability modifiers can be added. Like, for example, you could have a continental world with 100% radiation debuff, and a species trait cutting this debuff in half or eliminating it.

 

[droidorat]

Since you guys are talking about bringing in more realism into game - how about the time need to actually physically move pop during the resettlement from one world to another? It should take time - while now it is instantaneous. Same for moving scientist or other leaders around. I would guess it could be a new techno - teleportation or portals allowing this.

 

[Athmet]

@grekulf Thanks for the DD and all the work to improve the current version. Quick question: would it be possible to improve the window regarding the list of your planets ? Currently, the planets are all hidden under their sectors so we need to click on each sector name to expand the list. If i want to sort out by production or else, it will not work since they are stuck on each of their sector.

The idea would be to have the full list of your owned planets and just add the sector name in the description. Maybe adding a drop down list on the very top of the window to chose a particular sector if i want to focus on it.

Hope you see what I mean.

 

[DrFranknfurter]

Great to see UI improvements and all the rest.

Minor UI issue (I've posted lots and lots of other ones elsewhere) - can we have rare resources expanded at the top? or to change what's displayed there? I was sure it was planned at one point but currently it's annoying to see how much crystal income you have for example.
Also some indication when ANY resource is running out (like we have for consumer goods and energy) so you aren't taken by surprise.

I'm not sure I'm a fan of the suggested UI to be honest... I like the features (job priority, restoring disabled jobs etc.) and that's wonderful... but I think needing a scroll bar to show 4 items and it looking like a spreadsheet is a bit sad and an example of how poorly things are presented and how much space is wasted all over. Please try the Tiny outliner mods to see how much more efficiently you could present the same data (the outliner in this example). And maybe... well... keep trying. Do a few mock-ups and see what buttons people actually press and what information they're looking for. Good luck with it anyway.

 

[sylmerria]

@grekulf, speaking of pop growing,

if rogue servitor can have a solution when they capture a planet with organic pops for avoid the +300% of bio trophies which kills your economy.

 

[permeakra]

Also Gestalt-Empires: They should know, which exact drone is needed where.

TBH, I think bioascension finisher and Synthetic age should make pops gradually shift traits to fit better to their job.

 

[jusuff]

Uhm, I'm a bit worried that you're already talking about "the next cool thing" when there are so many gamebreaking issues not fixed yet, let alone balance looked at.

But he wrote explicitly that BEFORE they start working on "the next cool thing" they want to improve 2.2.x ... So what's your point?

 

[George_L]

Since the game still stutters when i scroll on the map unpaused i think performance should be first priority

 

[Ciderglove]

Uhm, I'm a bit worried that you're already talking about "the next cool thing" when there are so many gamebreaking issues not fixed yet, let alone balance looked at. I like the changes you've laid out in the dev diary, but I really, *really* hope you're not going to start working on the next expansion for a good while yet and instead spend a lot more time finally ironing out all the issues that have plagued this game. The community has been very vocal about how we didn't like the extreme mess you released with megacorp, and I really hope you keep your word and fix + balance that mess before you even think about moving on to a new expansion

My feelings exactly. The devs have hardly begun to scratch the surface of the issues with 2.2. Behind the bugs and the poor performance, there are a vast number of AI, mechanical and gameplay problems which leave the game a shadow of what it could be.

As someone else said, a fully fixed and polished 2.2 would be the best Stellaris we have yet seen. But it will take much more work to get there.

 

[grandad1982]

Cool, ui and qol improvements are always very welcome, keep them coming.

I'll just echo some others here though and ask about if you have any plans to rebalance machine empires (or if you even think they need balancing). Also any plans to make pops swap jobs for ones they are better suited too more often?

I see you mentioned sectors as well. If you want to keep the auto generated system then I really suggest you make the number of jumps more than it is currently, maybe 4 or 5 imo. Also they must have at least 1 planet and if they lose it then the sector should go away. In addition allow us to set a tax rate for them so they can stockpile resources to build without us having constantly give them stuff, alloys, minerals and energy will do it.

 

[Desolator_X]

But he wrote explicitly that BEFORE they start working on "the next cool thing" they want to improve 2.2.x ... So what's your point?

The fact that they mention it at all means they're thinking about it, even though the game needs absolutely massive improvements and work done on it. I'm afraid they'll run the current 2.2.4 beta and then call it a day as far as bug fixing etc goes, instead of damn well working on it until the game has been fixed enough to have a solid working base that won't completely break with the next rushed expansion (like it did with megacorp...)

 

[kaboomz]

awesome

 

[Minuro]

Is there a plan for pop to emigrate on their own? Having many overpopulated planets can be a nightmare.

 

[Strangedane]

The Pops tab is also being cleaned up a little, and you’ll now be able to prioritize one job per strata, which should make it easier to make your workers prioritize farming without having to juggle the priorities of other jobs in the same strata. The ability to “star” a job was actually the original design, but it was changed into an on/off prioritization.

Unless other things drastically changed, this effectively does nothing.
Prioritizing one job per strata sounds nice until we realize that we're still going to have to manually close jobs to control the pops that aren't on prioritized jobs.
Prioritize whatever and then micro the other pops into the right jobs PRECISELY as we did before.

Give us a real damn priority system please.

 

[Maeltne]

Yes, I want these habitability-trait bugs fixed. Post-Apocalyptic should not change your original habitability trait, but rather supplement it.

A quick note here; completing ascension projects (i.e. step 1 of synth ascension) while having a tomb world home world also changed the original habitability trait.

 

[rubert]

One of the most important UIs in the game is getting a bit of an overhaul. We’ve been joined recently by our new UX/UI designer, Doyle, and he’s been very busy taking a look at the planet view.

Looks lot better. Increasing window size helps a lot and there is lots of space in Stellaris UI. While space is pretty it is not really relevant when I am trying to look at my size 25 city planet.

Hopefully future patches also adjust Resettlement, Colonization and Recruit Army screens as they are very hard to use (bordering on useless) in empire with high amount of species. At very least each window should have option to sort by habitability or army damage depending on the function: