Stellaris Dev Diary #158 - Federation rework

[Akamia]

This, I've stacked up minus hundreds, because they just keep asking over and over again. As a result, I no longer join non pacifist federations. If it isn't fixed, I don't see much point in buying this DLC.

Honestly, I've just stopped joining federations altogether, at least in single-player. I've become more of a hegemonic player over time; I never knew how much of a control freak I was until I had to deal with the asinine AI one time too many.

I know vassals are kinda useless, but I tend to play on Ensign difficulty, so their lack of bonuses is irrelevant when the other AI empires don't get them either.

There are some very serious issues with how federations work in single-player (and to a far lesser extent, multiplayer; having human players with functioning brains alleviates/negates most of the actual single-player issues) right now, so I hope they're fixed with the rework. I want to be a team player again.

 

[DaStormDragon]

For all those chaps with AI concerns - I agree that the AI is crap, but could you wait until the expansion comes out before judging it? And about the bugs, the only major vanilla bug I've had was the caravaneer bug, and I've had few others despite running a huge mishmash of mods.

 

[Methone]

For all those chaps with AI concerns - I agree that the AI is crap, but could you wait until the expansion comes out before judging it?

Didn't we hear a similar thing before 2.2? And then the AI couldn't even upgrade buildings?!

 

[DaStormDragon]

Didn't we hear a similar thing before 2.2? And then the AI couldn't even upgrade buildings?!

Probably, but things could change. Maybe. There's a nonzero chance, at least.

 

[Methone]

Probably, but things could change. Maybe. There's a nonzero chance, at least.

Same for winning the lottery, but you don't see me buying a ticket.

 

[Shark7]

For all those chaps with AI concerns - I agree that the AI is crap, but could you wait until the expansion comes out before judging it? And about the bugs, the only major vanilla bug I've had was the caravaneer bug, and I've had few others despite running a huge mishmash of mods.

I'm not worried so much about bugs, the devs are pretty good about dealing with them. It's the whole federation push I'm not going to be on board with. It simply isn't my play style. I prefer the whole "evil empire conquers the entire galaxy" play style, so making friends is not my forte.

The main thing is that I do not want to feel forced into making federations. I may do something temporarily as a means to an end (the enemy of my enemy is useful), but not a permanent 'only way to win' scenario. I will reserve judgement until after it releases and I've had a chance to play with it some first though as I could be easily reading too much into it.

 

[Realism42]

For all those chaps with AI concerns - I agree that the AI is crap, but could you wait until the expansion comes out before judging it? And about the bugs, the only major vanilla bug I've had was the caravaneer bug, and I've had few others despite running a huge mishmash of mods.

I have been waiting since 2018-2-22, that’s the release of 2.0 Apocalypse. It is an awful long time and they had several DLCs in between that just made things worse and didn’t fix a whole lot.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

I'm not worried so much about bugs, the devs are pretty good about dealing with them.

Let's see...

• Rulers still generate without a pre_ruler_class in most games, causing them to vanish as soon as they lose re-election. That one's been there since at least 2.1.
• The worm-in-waiting still gives non-militarists the Intelligent trait rather than the Resilient trait. Not that I want them to fix this, Resilient is 100% garbage and it should add Strong or even Very Strong instead / as well, but still. Been there since at least 2.2.
• The tooltip for Fanatic Purifiers still says it reduces ship cost by 25%, when it's actually only 15% and has been so since at least 2.2.
• Still possible for Unity to overflow (in a normal-settings, achievement-enabled game) wiping out your stockpile rather than just capping itself at the maximum value. Possibly possible for other resources to do the same. Less bad than the overflows used to be but they didn't even fix overflows properly when they said "we're fixing it", they just made it go to 0 instead of negative.
• Upgrades costs more resources than it says, even after the upgrade is complete. Been there since at least 2.3, maybe longer.
• Fleets sometimes fail to enter combat mode when attacked, and will just wander around getting their asses shot off without shooting back. Been in the game since at least 2.1, the devs say they're aware of it but don't know how to fix it.
• Plenty of text bugs (including @Duuk's favorite), some of which have been there literally since release but would be easy to fix.
• Pulsating Stars event chain doesn't actually happen, been that way since at least 2.3.
• Amenities traits for hive minds are totally broken (maintenance drones don't have different weights for charismatic/repugnant and haven't since 2.2, and - at least since 2.5, not sure about before - both charismatic and repugnant provide bonuses from hive maintenance drones).
• The exploit where you can Experimental FTL from anywhere to the isolated system, and from the isolated system to anywhere, in only one day each, making access to that system plus Speculative Hyperlane Breaching a free ticket anywhere in two days. Been this way since they changed how Experimental FTL works (2.2?) and they tried to fix it and failed.
• Ascension path traits like Erudite don't reliably appear on leaders in the pool, or on existing leaders after gene-modding. It's possible to mod a species from one template (with Erudite) to another template (with Erudite) and have leaders of that species lose the trait in the process. Been that way since at least 2.2.
• When new Specialist job slots (and probably also Ruler slots?) become available, the game will sometimes briefly create more job than there should be (like a Research Lab temporarily giving three Researcher job slots), promote a Worker into the glitched slot, and then fire somebody who has actually been a specialist longer than "since this morning" when the extra slot vanishes, leaving you with a Specialist (or possibly Ruler) who is unemployed for no reason and you have to do lots of manual fiddling with the jobs to fix it.

That's just the outright bugs, still unfixed for more than one release, that come to mind. I'm sure there's plenty more. Consider also the incredibly stupid builds that the AI does, and has done at least ever since 2.2 came out:

• Starbases with shield modules and anti-shield weapons in Pulsar systems.
• The AI mixing in a single S or M disruptor on a ship with no other bypass weapons.
• The AI building clinics on absolutely all their planets even though it takes 334 months (most of 30 years!) for any pop working in one of those things to lead to enough additional pop growth that you have merely as many productive pops as without it (and they they go upgrade the thing, spending exotic gases and wasting five pops on it!)
• The AI building xenophobic megacorps, which is such a stupid combo (phobes want to go wide, corps want to go tall; phobes have diplo penalties but corps are all about diplo, phobes can't be philes and philes have the bonuses to trade and diplo that corps focus on), it might be the new pre-Inward Perfection equivalent of xenophobic pacifists.
• The AI having almost no concept of what ascension perks, much less ascension paths, are good ideas, leading to lots of Transcendent Learning or Imperial Prerogative or whatnot and very little in the way of ringworlds, ecumenopoli, and other things they could actually use that resource bonus on. It's even possible (unlikely but possible) for a a Spiritualist empire to go Machine ascension, which is the stupidest possible thing because spiritualist empires cannot use full AI rights!
• The AI still has no idea how to handle crime. I once (in either late 2.2 or some time in 2.3) saw a planet where they hade the Broken Crime Lord Deal modifier (which imposes a heinous penalty to stability) eight times on a planet (the modifier only lasts 10 years!) and many had expiry dates only months apart, meaning they had spent at least 200 influence over the course of a decade on Crime Lord Deals thet they'd then almost immediately broken, leaving the planet with a -80 stability modifier. Maaaaaaybe they fixed that one now?

Then there's the outright exploits they actually fixed, but it took them over half a year at least:

• The exploit where you could delete a starbase module mid-combat to instantly repair the base. Goes from 2.2 or earlier until either 2.4 or 2.5.
  
• The multiple exploits where you could get free alloys by doing weird tricks with "upgrading" (actually downgrading) and merging, been around since at least 2.2 and only fixed with... maybe 2.3, I forget.

Again, this is a partial list. All of these have been reported, usually many, many times. Some of them have their own mentions in the wiki. Many are single-line changes in the game's plain-text data files, stuff a mod can fix.

 

[FiddleSticks96]

Let's see...

• Rulers still generate without a pre_ruler_class in most games, causing them to vanish as soon as they lose re-election. That one's been there since at least 2.1.
• The worm-in-waiting still gives non-militarists the Intelligent trait rather than the Resilient trait. Not that I want them to fix this, Resilient is 100% garbage and it should add Strong or even Very Strong instead / as well, but still. Been there since at least 2.2.
• The tooltip for Fanatic Purifiers still says it reduces ship cost by 25%, when it's actually only 15% and has been so since at least 2.2.
• Still possible for Unity to overflow (in a normal-settings, achievement-enabled game) wiping out your stockpile rather than just capping itself at the maximum value. Possibly possible for other resources to do the same. Less bad than the overflows used to be but they didn't even fix overflows properly when they said "we're fixing it", they just made it go to 0 instead of negative.
• Upgrades costs more resources than it says, even after the upgrade is complete. Been there since at least 2.3, maybe longer.
• Fleets sometimes fail to enter combat mode when attacked, and will just wander around getting their asses shot off without shooting back. Been in the game since at least 2.1, the devs say they're aware of it but don't know how to fix it.
• Plenty of text bugs (including @Duuk's favorite), some of which have been there literally since release but would be easy to fix.
• Pulsating Stars event chain doesn't actually happen, been that way since at least 2.3.
• Amenities traits for hive minds are totally broken (maintenance drones don't have different weights for charismatic/repugnant and haven't since 2.2, and - at least since 2.5, not sure about before - both charismatic and repugnant provide bonuses from hive maintenance drones).
• The exploit where you can Experimental FTL from anywhere to the isolated system, and from the isolated system to anywhere, in only one day each, making access to that system plus Speculative Hyperlane Breaching a free ticket anywhere in two days. Been this way since they changed how Experimental FTL works (2.2?) and they tried to fix it and failed.
• Ascension path traits like Erudite don't reliably appear on leaders in the pool, or on existing leaders after gene-modding. It's possible to mod a species from one template (with Erudite) to another template (with Erudite) and have leaders of that species lose the trait in the process. Been that way since at least 2.2.
• When new Specialist job slots (and probably also Ruler slots?) become available, the game will sometimes briefly create more job than there should be (like a Research Lab temporarily giving three Researcher job slots), promote a Worker into the glitched slot, and then fire somebody who has actually been a specialist longer than "since this morning" when the extra slot vanishes, leaving you with a Specialist (or possibly Ruler) who is unemployed for no reason and you have to do lots of manual fiddling with the jobs to fix it.

That's just the outright bugs, still unfixed for more than one release, that come to mind. I'm sure there's plenty more. Consider also the incredibly stupid builds that the AI does, and has done at least ever since 2.2 came out:

• Starbases with shield modules and anti-shield weapons in Pulsar systems.
• The AI mixing in a single S or M disruptor on a ship with no other bypass weapons.
• The AI building clinics on absolutely all their planets even though it takes 334 months (most of 30 years!) for any pop working in one of those things to lead to enough additional pop growth that you have merely as many productive pops as without it (and they they go upgrade the thing, spending exotic gases and wasting five pops on it!)
• The AI building xenophobic megacorps, which is such a stupid combo (phobes want to go wide, corps want to go tall; phobes have diplo penalties but corps are all about diplo, phobes can't be philes and philes have the bonuses to trade and diplo that corps focus on), it might be the new pre-Inward Perfection equivalent of xenophobic pacifists.
• The AI having almost no concept of what ascension perks, much less ascension paths, are good ideas, leading to lots of Transcendent Learning or Imperial Prerogative or whatnot and very little in the way of ringworlds, ecumenopoli, and other things they could actually use that resource bonus on. It's even possible (unlikely but possible) for a a Spiritualist empire to go Machine ascension, which is the stupidest possible thing because spiritualist empires cannot use full AI rights!
• The AI still has no idea how to handle crime. I once (in either late 2.2 or some time in 2.3) saw a planet where they hade the Broken Crime Lord Deal modifier (which imposes a heinous penalty to stability) eight times on a planet (the modifier only lasts 10 years!) and many had expiry dates only months apart, meaning they had spent at least 200 influence over the course of a decade on Crime Lord Deals thet they'd then almost immediately broken, leaving the planet with a -80 stability modifier. Maaaaaaybe they fixed that one now?

Then there's the outright exploits they actually fixed, but it took them over half a year at least:

• The exploit where you could delete a starbase module mid-combat to instantly repair the base. Goes from 2.2 or earlier until either 2.4 or 2.5.
  
• The multiple exploits where you could get free alloys by doing weird tricks with "upgrading" (actually downgrading) and merging, been around since at least 2.2 and only fixed with... maybe 2.3, I forget.

Again, this is a partial list. All of these have been reported, usually many, many times. Some of them have their own mentions in the wiki. Many are single-line changes in the game's plain-text data files, stuff a mod can fix.

Is it too much to ask for a little quality in the products we buy? I expect this kind of half-baked non-quality from Bethseda, but not from Paradox. I've seen what the devs are capable of. They've delivered high quality before. If only their higher ups would just give them the time to clean this game up it would be golden.

 

[Methone]

Is it too much to ask for a little quality in the products we buy? I expect this kind of half-baked non-quality from Bethseda, but not from Paradox. I've seen what the devs are capable of. They've delivered high quality before. If only their higher ups would just give them the time to clean this game up it would be golden.

The higher-ups wanted Gamebear to do their thing. It's already started.

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Didn't we hear a similar thing before 2.2? And then the AI couldn't even upgrade buildings?!

And it's yet to learn how to re-enable buildings >.>

corps are all about diplo

To be fair, you can subjugate instead. Not that xenophobic megacorp makes any sense, of course...

 

[RabbaDooDabba]

Not that xenophobic megacorp makes any sense, of course...

Eh... I would guess a xenophobic MegaCorp just wants to keep it's managment free from xeno influence, if they can make a profit - they would ablolutely do so... while loudly proclaiming how those primitive underraces can be happy they even got a chance to buy the MegaCorps far superior product while not being part of their race.

As is often the case, though... it depends on what the ethic is mixed up with.

 

[The Founder]

Arena Combat lets the rulers of competing empires battle it out. Certain traits for the ruler (both species and ruler-specific) will influence how large chance the ruler has at winning. The Chosen will of course be very hard to beat.

Klingon Promotion? Awesome!

 

[DrNukeLear]

Eh... I would guess a xenophobic MegaCorp just wants to keep it's managment free from xeno influence, if they can make a profit - they would ablolutely do so... while loudly proclaiming how those primitive underraces can be happy they even got a chance to buy the MegaCorps far superior product while not being part of their race.

As is often the case, though... it depends on what the ethic is mixed up with.

Would a Xenophobic Megacorporation just be one which exploits external suppliers of raw materials, processes it and the sells it externally at rip off prices to customers while refusing to hire migrant workers?

 

[RabbaDooDabba]

Would a Xenophobic Megacorporation just be one which exploits external suppliers of raw materials, processes it and the sells it externally at rip off prices to customers while refusing to hire migrant workers?

Well, yes ?
Depends on how the MegaCorp realises it's xenophobia - they could give them e.g. residency status.

 

[The Founder]

Honestly, I've just stopped joining federations altogether, at least in single-player. I've become more of a hegemonic player over time; I never knew how much of a control freak I was until I had to deal with the asinine AI one time too many.

I know vassals are kinda useless, but I tend to play on Ensign difficulty, so their lack of bonuses is irrelevant when the other AI empires don't get them either.

There are some very serious issues with how federations work in single-player (and to a far lesser extent, multiplayer; having human players with functioning brains alleviates/negates most of the actual single-player issues) right now, so I hope they're fixed with the rework. I want to be a team player again.

For all those chaps with AI concerns - I agree that the AI is crap, but could you wait until the expansion comes out before judging it? And about the bugs, the only major vanilla bug I've had was the caravaneer bug, and I've had few others despite running a huge mishmash of mods.

The biggest issue with Federations is leader sucession. As long as you could keep Presidency, there were no issues with teh AI missusing the federation fleet.
For wich there are several options. A human should have an easy time to maximise whatever value is needed to keep leadership.

Note all those cases where it says "President decides".

Would a Xenophobic Megacorporation just be one which exploits external suppliers of raw materials, processes it and the sells it externally at rip off prices to customers while refusing to hire migrant workers?

Why refuse to hire migrant slaves? As long as they are not Charismatic, they should not improove Xenophile attraction. Or at least not more then being in a Federation to begin with.

Well, yes ?
Depends on how the MegaCorp realises it's xenophobia - they could give them e.g. residency status.

Residency Alien do increase Xenophile Attraction. Actually even more for them, then your pops.



@grekulf :
Could you be in multiple Federations? Say a Trade League and a Galactic Union? I asume not, but better to ask.
Also could you change the Federation type? Say if the Trade League grows to diverse, could you change it to a Galactic Union? Of course members would have to vote on this change and get a option to leave if outvoted.

 

[Foefaller]

To be fair, you can subjugate instead. Not that xenophobic megacorp makes any sense, of course...

Great Britain's Honorable East India Company says Hi.

 

[RabbaDooDabba]

Residency Alien do increase Xenophile Attraction. Actually even more for them, then your pops.

Correct, but residency still counts as disenfranchising xenos - they are deprived of Full Citizenship after all.

 

[DrNukeLear]

@grekulf :
Could you be in multiple Federations? Say a Trade League and a Galactic Union? I asume not, but better to ask.
Also could you change the Federation type? Say if the Trade League grows to diverse, could you change it to a Galactic Union? Of course members would have to vote on this change and get a option to leave if outvoted.

I would like to see multiple federation memberships possible for a single country. It could be fun trying to stop the multiple responsibilities and obligations from colliding (at which point you would have to leave one).
For instance if you were in two Galactic Unions, you would have to contribute to two different fleets. You could possibly be dragged into an offensive war by Federation A, but fellow members of Federation B could vote against joining a war (Which would result in a choice), however if you were attacked both federations would have obligations to join.

Unfortunately I don’t think it’s going to happen, but it could be interesting.

 

[LWE]

Adding to the bug list:

* Attempting to change citizenship rights of Synthetics always sets them to Undesirable, if your policy allows purges.
* Servile Syncretic Evolution species can generate leaders and work certain specialist jobs if granted all rights and full military service.
* Cosmetic: Species namelist changes when you become cybernetic (The Flesh is Weak perk).

Tbh the game having even 3-4 of all these listed issues would still be within the limits of acceptable, and the Xenophobe Megacorp issue is debatable. However, summing up, while game is not “literally unplayable”, and you still can have some fun, right now, a bug pass is needed.