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

[Balamut2227]

Any AI improvements, please? At least say them not to trying build anything but defence while under bombardement!

 

[powerofvoid]

I'm not really with you here. Robot factories can't be effective on a world just settled. On the other hand, Robot growth is far too slow on worlds filled with plants and factories. Especially when an automated chain can create a new worker in a few hours, when organics needs years to become productive.

Regarding the latter part: the problem is that everything is based on population growth being linear rather than sinusoidal.

Population growth should start slow, speed up exponentially, then start slowing down as capacity is approached. (If you build it, they will come...)

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.

The reason enforcers are specialists is because their job is to keep the worker and/or slave strata down, so they need to be in a separate stratum from that so that they don't get pissed off along with the workers.

On the other hand, whether soldiers are best described specialists or workers is something that should depend on the civ. If your (Honorbound Warriors) civ uses an elite all-volunteer force and , then specialists is the best fit, but if your (Hegemonic Imperialists) civ just kind of drafts swathes of cheap cannon fodder, then it would be a terrible fit.

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

Please don't do this yet.

• The AI already has no ability to comprehend modded traits (even if they're as simple as "planet_miners_minerals_produces_add = -1", and this would break things even harder. Please fix this problem before giving the AI more control over a player's trait-related stuff.
• The species window gets cluttered up by genemodding enough as it is, and this would just make things worse. Please redesign this window to handle hundreds of subspecies effectively before adding more ways to clutter it up.

These, by the way, are a big part of why I always do bio-ascension and don't do xenocompatibility even though it's a cool idea: genemodding cleans up clutter, at least in the "empire" context, and xenocompatibility has a bug where it creates half-species with no parent who have to be modded separately.

... maybe we can just get a "Mutt" category for xenocompatibility species that lose their parent species or have heritage from at least three different species. That would actually be a pretty cool statement about how "species no longer means anything to us" or something.

 

[ragehavoc]

More performance work needs to be done, I certainly hope you do not think the improvements over the last week were enough because the game still doesnt perform like it did pre-2.2

 

[AlanC9]

I don't care about unemployment. I want to know how many pops belonging to my main race are working as workers so I know if I can move them somewhere else or add a new building so they promote to specialists.

Ah, that's different. You just said "free pops," which isn't quite the same thing as "pops of my main species which are employed in the lowest tier."

Yeah, the interface isn't very good for that. I get the impression that the devs aren't really as into playing Space Nazis as people on this board are.

 

[Madzai]

Well, new planetary screen still isn't a big improvement. For a people who want to extensively use gene-modding, robots, different kind of slavery, different type of citizen rights and have a lot of different species in general, it still require a lot of work. Not to mention that in current planetary screen it almost impossible to deal with Pops with particular ethics.

 

[Metroidkirby]

Population growth should start slow, speed up exponentially, then start slowing down as capacity is approached. (If you build it, they will come...)

Regarding machine empire, I really think that having the hability to create a "robot factory planet" which build only robots and send them everywhere in the empire, could be a good choice. Something like an oecumenopolis alternative, or a special district in oecumenopolis replacing the one for amenities.

 

[Magnificent Genius]

Any thoughts to increase base pop growth for machine empires? It is so slow now I had to soft ban them in my MP so that no one was at a competitive disadvantage. I have a no rules game, so that says a lot.

 

[Arcvalons]

I hope Machine Empire rebalance is on the plans.

 

[Ridixo]

Great news @grekulf , patches and fixes are always welcome. JUst, please, please, before working on "The Next Cool Thing™", fix the already made game. While "The Next Cool Thing™" is cool, a thing and the next one, working on The Current Cool Thing™ is better. So please, don`t let the time to finish post-launch support period came and just drop the bug fixing job. I for one welcome more a patch than a DLC.

Also:

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

Why? Getting 100% tomb-world habitability and 60% everything else is great and logical. If you species manage to survive and prospere into a planet who has 0% habitability to anything else means that your species can survive almost anywhere else. A desert species know how to handle heat and find water, that's why it can survive in an arid world. Well, a survivor species has survived a nuclear apocalypse and Fallout-like life in an almost death planet. After some time of changes into the species, their culture and physiology, thank you very much background radiation, they have become survivors. A jungle planet can be a deadly trap for another species, think a person who simply goes to live into the middle of the Amazonian Jungle, well for this guys, the survivors, a jungle full of dangerous fauna and flora with a humid tropical weather looks like a nice place to have children compared to their hell-like homeworld. If some people complain about it, well, i accept that maybe it is needed to address the complains. If the Tomb-World habitability is too much OP maybe reduce the secondary habitability from 60% to 40%, that way the player that like having that trait, like me, can conserve it without it being that much OP. I mean, people choose Life-seeded but don't complain "I can't colonize other thing that Gaia Worlds, Paradox change this, #MakeLife-seededGreatAgain". Please have this in mind when you decide what you will make of this. Thanks for all the good job and have a good week

 

[Dr. B]

We will be looking into why some players feel the need to automate more, and how that experience could be improved. I have nothing concrete that I can mention though.

I sincerely hope the computer will be competent in handling planet management on its own, as managing this system with 100 planets seems like a micromanagement nightmare.

Want to play Stellaris: galactic ruler, not Stellaris: galactic bureaucrat.

 

[xani]

Could we have "actual job priority" and "how many jobs of a given type are open" be a different settings?

90%+ of the time when I want to tweak priorities it is to say for example "prioritize filling energy jobs" or "prioritize filling enforcers", not "reduce other jobs in hopes pops will go where I need them after that".

Even just having 2-3 priority levels would be enough, then it would be easy to say "I want enforcers and entertainers filled first, everything else second"

 

[starchitect]

Parallel Ship Upgrades! I tried to fix this myself but largely couldn't since it was in defines. Any chance when you change this you could add a modifier that for 'ships_upgrade_speed_mult' That would be most useful for modding.

...a minor and unrelated modifier Id like to have: 'outpost_influence_distance_mult' (make the premium you pay for starbases further away be modable, again its in defines, but that isn't very useful since you cannot apply it as a modifier).

 

[heliostellar]

For the love of God, please overhaul the job "priority system." It's not a priority system. All it does is shut off and turn on job slots.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Why? Getting 100% tomb-world habitability and 60% everything else is great and logical. If you species manage to survive and prospere into a planet who has 0% habitability to anything else means that your species can survive almost anywhere else. A desert species know how to handle heat and find water, that's why it can survive in an arid world. Well, a survivor species has survived a nuclear apocalypse and Fallout-like life in an almost death planet. After some time of changes into the species, their culture and physiology, thank you very much background radiation, they have become survivors. A jungle planet can be a deadly trap for another species, think a person who simply goes to live into the middle of the Amazonian Jungle, well for this guys, the survivors, a jungle full of dangerous fauna and flora with a humid tropical weather looks like a nice place to have children compared to their hell-like homeworld. If some people complain about it, well, i accept that maybe it is needed to address the complains. If the Tomb-World habitability is too much OP maybe reduce the secondary habitability from 60% to 40%, that way the player that like having that trait, like me, can conserve it without it being that much OP. I mean, people choose Life-seeded but don't complain "I can't colonize other thing that Gaia Worlds, Paradox change this, #MakeLife-seededGreatAgain". Please have this in mind when you decide what you will make of this. Thanks for all the good job and have a good week

Because tomb habitability is super overpowered and Survivor was never meant to give it.

 

[laptor]

Working on pop growth, ship upgrade and planet view, I am very pleased to read about this topics!
Also prioritize on fixing things sounds very well, keep it going, Team!

 

[laptor]

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.

Should not that be done by e.g. the living standards?!

 

[tapewormlondon]

For the love of God, please overhaul the job "priority system." It's not a priority system. All it does is shut off and turn on job slots.

Thats what they are doing with the star system mentioned in this DD, no?

 

[heliostellar]

Thats what they are doing with the star system mentioned in this DD, no?

This appears to be a cosmetic change only.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

This appears to be a cosmetic change only.

Don't see how- the star system doesnt line up with the current one as explained.

 

[Spaceception]

If you have a food deficit for a certain amount of time (Say, a year), could we start seeing pop growth decline on some planets to show a shortage of food? And then if it hits 0, pops can start dying?

Also, the hydroponics farm for starbases should be buffed to fit the new system better, and could even built at least a couple times. 4 food is not a lot when you can now have dozens or hundreds of pops a planet to feed.