Stellaris Dev Diary #140 - 2.2.x post-launch patch v2

[Pancakelord]

Two UI changes I'd love to see are filters on the galaxy map for:

1) to toggle on and off planet habitability icons (the red/amber/green ones) which are particularly distracting if you have a lot of unclaimed worlds - e.g. due to it being too much consumer goods upkeep.

2) please can we get a filter for sensor range? E.g. if you have just one planet and a sensor range of 3, all systems and hyperlanes within 3 jumps of your homeworld would be strobing in a neon orange outline, showing you how far your sensors can see.
In a war I often can't tell whether I either:
A) I don't have sensor range over system X (and thus don't know if it has enemy fleets there). Or,
B) I do have sensor range, but there just are no enemy ships present there.

 

[Tech Noir Synth]

I'm all for changing up ascencion perks because you only need 4 core perks+mega engineering right now.

But PLEASE fix the sector system... Having a system like this be non-functional with only 1 band-aid patch (bigger sectors) is simply not acceptable. You guys have been doing a great job fixing most of 2.2 problems but please do not forget about sectors.

Playing Tall feels great now, but playing Wide should not become unbearable micromanagement hell, which it is right now.

Some other quality of life changes we desperately need:

Encourage Growth as permanent planet "decision". Something that you always want to have is not a "decision", its mandatory and should not require you to do tedious clicking in intervals.

Automatic migration decision for EVERYONE, yes also Robots/Synths. With many planets, the micromanagement of having to resettle pops is simply tedious, brainless work.

Both of these issues already have mods to fix them. But no one should be forced to do tedious clicking when there are no decisions involved or rely on mods to fix problems.

 

[ImbaXenoSnipar]

Final post-release patch in two weeks? There are way too many problems with the game right now...

I'm not buying any more DLCs until the performance is fixed. It is still worse compared to 2.1 and on top of that we have the insane stutter still going on...

 

[Pachakamaq]

Looks sweet! Apart from some more bug fixes, looks like the game is mostly in good shape. Just please do something about the performance. Many people I've talked to basically have stopped playing larger than medium maps because the late game becomes nearly unplayably slow otherwise.

In my case, I noticed my game became actually slower when I went from 2.2.4 to 2.2.5. In fact, while the game runs smoothly, the fastest setting is now about as fast as the old normal and this does not change noticeably even on tiny 50-stars maps. This basically means I need something like 10 hours playtime to get through a single century, which even with my nearly 1k hours on Steam is a lot more time than I can stomach.

On the other hand, I've decided since the performance doesn't change between numbers of stars and empires, I can continue playing large maps. Just you know, very slowly.

 

[Serenity84]

Didn't you promise extended support after release? As in more than usual. And now you're talking about the final patch already. This makes no sense. There are so many bugs in fundamental systems (many of them longstanding) that you could release many more patches.

 

[Defiler99]

Can we see a preliminary list of the bugs you're targeting for the "final" release?
It would help us figure out which bugs need fresh reports posted, and which are on the radar.

 

[sillyrobot]

Expansion of the districts' color-coding is a good idea, and I do agree it makes the interface look more polished. Not a very important change IMHO (personally, I never felt put off or misled by the "inconsistencies" of district numbering), but a nice touch.

Really looking forward to improved ship upgrades. This is a straight up upgrade in my book, and couldn't have come too soon.

Overall I'm very excited for Ascension perks rebalance. Technological Ascension is looking really good now with that rare tech modifier. I wish more of the "+X to Y" APs got such unique effects, rather than stacking a greater amount of more common modifiers like One Vision does.

I'd agree, but at least two of the district colours are indistinguishable to me. The two of the left are both off-blue.

It's be really nice if the hue and saturations were different enough that those of us with colour deficiencies could notice easily.

 

[Jorlem]

A vast improvement! Our tech lead, Moah, has been hard at work improving the way ships are upgraded.

Any chance the "Repair Fleet" button is getting some love? Last I checked, if you queued any action for the ship or fleet after the "repair" action, the ship would only tag the station it was meant to repair at, then fly away without actually getting repaired, as the "Repair Fleet" command just tells it it go to the repair location, not to actually stay until the repairs are complete.

 

[Foefaller]

What is the other competitor?

Interstellar Dominion. The cheaper influence cost is pretty much a requirement if you are going wide, especially those early decades when faction influence is low and your keeping Map the Stars up 100% trying to get all the precursor anomalies.

Tech Acendency as-is does beat it out for tall Pacifist empires, but how many times do you play a tall Pacifist empire?

 

[(Accountdeleted)]

Our focus has been on improving and polishing the content we already have, so there won’t be many new features. We’ve been making improvements from everything from AI to UI to balance.

This sounds good. I´m looking forward to it, because i´m optimistic.

...the final post-release patch. We’re aiming to release the patch sometime in late February.

I´m curious. I mean 2.2 was released at the end of last year. Now - some months and patches later the AI can´t handle the basic stuff so that there´s nothing left to play with except for some scripted events. By some noob on GA difficulty without scaling. I´m really curious about that patch. Should be some kind of magic. Perhaps. Let´s think about the unimaginable case that there is a tiny oversight - or some small bug/balance issue - like it feels that there is no AI present after 100 years in game - so in that case - perhaps - add in another final patch. Or take a week more to playtest it - or have a new beta version first. At the moment the game doesn´t feel that there is just one patch missing. But surprise me. I would like to be wrong. Nonetheless: thanks for working on the game.​

 

[PirateJack]

What is the other competitor?

Interstellar Dominion. The -20% to influence costs for expansion means expanding quicker and being able to afford edicts more often. These, combined with the claim cost reduction, mean you actually get a larger boost from taking it than from tech ascendancy.

Even as a second pick it falls short compared to Imperial Prerogative as the +30 Admin Cap reduces tech costs to a point where it's more effective to take that than get the research speed boost.

 

[sillyrobot]

Nah. Technological Ascendancy needed it because the only other competitor for first pick is objectively better than it in every way. Making TA give a bonus that isn't just a number buff makes out a viable choice for people wanting to rush psionics or megastructures without having to take Master Builders.

THe buff offered is almost comepletely pointless in that or any other scenario. A 50% boost to rare weightings is unlikely to drop more than a one from the number of expected shuffles to see a particular card and likely won't even be as significant as that!

 

[Foefaller]

Also, I assume/hope that the "final" post-release patch is not 2.2.5? Because I'm going to be doing a bug report later today for the beta about how my AI ally in a war "he" started is not attacking because he's too busy using all of his fleets patrolling for pirates.

...and another about how a neighboring auto-gen Life Seeded empire spawned with a homeworld with everything a life seeded start should have... except is wasn't a Gaia World...

...and a second auto-gen empire having the Corporate Authority civic even though I own Megacorp...

 

[VerKer]

we’re still working on the final post-release patch

Hmmm really - thats what i call self confident! Are you guys sure, you can adress all the remaining flaws with only one more patch? Looking back at the past 2 years of this franchise i somehow doubt that. There still seems a lot of effort to be done, before one can consider the current stellaris version "done". Thus, I am with all the others in this thread who said they wont buy additional content until the major issues of this one have been fixed (havent bought megacorp until now, either). /unsure

We’re aiming to release the patch sometime in late February

Thank you, that kind of announcement is exactly what a lot of us have been missing in the past. Its a lot better than all the speculations and guessing, even if you dont make it by a week or two. No deadline, but a rough estimate for everyones orientation /thumbsup

Cleaner display of districts! This arcology now display its districts with boxes, and in different colors!

Wohooo... PDX starts to add COLORS to their UI... guys, must be christmas already or something... Now lets take the chance and point them to some awesome mods that are around, like "colored icons" and "colored map icons", "colored progress bars" and "expanded (180) colors" and the like, because this is what the game UI should have looked like in the first place. Less color around the window frames, more colors to distinguish things inside. /bigthumbsup

 

[George_L]

Planet production/planet deficit should be vertical not horizontal.

 

[Astax]

Amazing work. Please buff all the perks!

 

[Sifer2]

Nice but until I see something in the notes about reverting sectors somewhat to make them once again cut down on the late game micromanagement hell for wide empires I don't consider the game post 2.2 to be playable. Add all the DLC you want but if I can't play lategame without needing to pause, and click to build 30+ buildings every few minutes it's just does not matter. For now it's just play other games while waiting on the savior patch.

 

[MetalGearDaner]

Reading that the next patch will be the last one that focuses on bugfixes and performance improvements scares me A LOT. I just hope it will be a massive patch because if not, the game will still be broken and/or unenjoyable. I cannot talk about a patch that hasn't been released yet, but Paradox please, be aware that this game needs a lot of work and effort to be fixed and most players prefer stability over new features that may break the game even more... Do not repeat the same mistake.

 

[GonDragon]

Reading that the next patch will be the last one that focuses on bugfixes and performance improvements scares me A LOT. I just hope it will be a massive patch because if not, the game will still be broken and/or unenjoyable. I cannot talk about a patch that hasn't been released yet, but Paradox please, be aware that this game needs a lot of work and effort to be fixed and most players prefer stability over new features that may break the game even more... Do not repeat the same mistake.

This is not the next patch, this is the last patch. That's why it says 2.2.x and not 2.2.6... at least I hope that. I think that we are going to receive one more "bug fixes" patch tomorrow, or the next week, and in two weeks this patch is going to kick in.

P.D.: Nobody is going to say anything about the Ecumenopolis with a fixed amount of non-city districts?

 

[timtheboost]

Please reintegrate a little number to the build queue, at which place the building is in the queue. The same for army recruitment.