Stellaris Dev Diary #211: 3.0.3 Beta Updates

[maxirage]

I'd just like to note that having 4 different active threads for the 3.0.3 beta is very confusing. Could the mods maybe merge some of them so people know which one they're supposed to post in?

 

[Ketrai]

You're calculating Thrifty wrong.

Thrifty is not 25% increased trade. It's 25% increased trade from pop jobs. Except that in the game % increased trade from pop jobs doesn't actually exist and thrifty as a trait simply adds base trade to relevant trade jobs.

A thrifty clerk produces 5 trade base. As such thrifty is multiplicative with all those other modifiers instead of additive.

So your 4 optimized clerks are producing 24,7 energy and 12,35 consumer goods and unity. Of course as has been mentioned literally nobody uses culture workers and even then you're not counting their society research output. Nor are you taking any kind of upkeep into account.

3 optimized clerks vs 1 technician, 1 artisan and 1 entertainer is a much fairer comparison, as those every empire will almost certainly have.

Assuming stratified living standards our 3 clerks will produce 18,52 energy, 9,26 consumer goods, 9,26 unity and 6.9 amenities while costing 3 food and 0.3 consumer goods in upkeep.
Our other jobs will produce 17.36 energy, 14,56 consumer goods, 3,54 unity and 11,5 amenities while costing 3 food, 2.3 consumer goods and 6 minerals in upkeep.

So our optimized clerks are 1,16 energy, 6 minerals and 5,72 unity ahead but 3,3 consumer goods and 4,6 amenities behind.

So which of those is better? And if clerks are better are they good enough to warrant all the investment made into them.

Personally, I don't think they quite make it if you're looking for the optimal empire but you certainly wouldn't shooting yourself in the foot by focussing on trade.

Woops, forgot to change that part about thrifty. I went ahead and updated it (Handy thing about spreadsheets, all the numbers pull from one another, so it's easy to update). They don't quite get to your numbers though. Upkeep is still a WIP, as it's a whole added level of variables with how the new factories work. I still think they're worthwhile, mainly because you can cut down on at least three job types whilst saving on the cost of maintaining factories and energy plants in favor of more research and alloys. As I mentioned prior, trade is mostly unaffected by habitability, so you could just dump your poor clerks onto the most inhospitable rock.

 

[Gobla]

Woops, forgot to change that part about thrifty. I went ahead and updated it (Handy thing about spreadsheets, all the numbers pull from one another, so it's easy to update). They don't quite get to your numbers though. Upkeep is still a WIP, as it's a whole added level of variables with how the new factories work. I still think they're worthwhile, mainly because you can cut down on at least three job types whilst saving on the cost of maintaining factories and energy plants in favor of more research and alloys. As I mentioned prior, trade is mostly unaffected by habitability, so you could just dump your poor clerks onto the most inhospitable rock.

Just updated my post with what should be correct. Was a bit hasty in editing your sheet and thought you'd be using the numbers on the right side for the clerk output rather than the percentages on the left.

So I changed the thrifty to add 0 but kept the 25% in there while updating the base output. So that made it apply both.

That said, if we're optimizing clerks you can get an additional 20% from planet designation which all things considered isn't that bad if you're optimizing clerks.

 

[Pornek]

Entertainer jobs are the best jobs for amenities. Culture workers are the only job type that's universally available to all empires for producing unity, which is relevant for specific builds. You could run this with priests or memorialists, clerks would STILL be superior at producing unity. There's additional benefits to be had here, like the complete lack of upkeep, and the ability to save building slots. As well as being able to build trade worlds on like, 10% habitability tomb worlds. Because guess what, trade is only influenced by habitability when it comes to stability.

I mean you're investing a whole lot of suboptimal picks into them to make them barely worth and some big opportunity costs like FXenophile, early Diplo tradition, thrifty to name a few. You also didnt take some other bonuses into account eg. any of the ascensions. Im not even opposed to clerk builds, just giving my opinion on premature conclusions.

 

[Ketrai]

Just updated my post with what should be correct. Was a bit hasty in editing your sheet and thought you'd be using the numbers on the right side for the clerk output rather than the percentages on the left.

So I changed the thrifty to add 0 but kept the 25% in there while updating the base output. So that made it apply both.

That said, if we're optimizing clerks you can get an additional 20% from planet designation which all things considered isn't that bad if you're optimizing clerks.

Ah, habitat bonus is 20%, not 10%. You know, it's easier to just kindly tag me on the discord or PM me on the forum!

 

[Cymsdale]

Nothing says you can't make clerks viable by stacking bonuses and whatever, but it points out why clerks are just fundamentally different than other jobs. Farmers don't become useless if you don't stack bonuses for them, in fact, stacking farming bonuses more or less just means you need less of them overall. You don't get any benefit blasting out as much food as possible in and of itself.

What do you want out of your economy? Tech and alloys basically. You make your ships/economy better, and you can build more of them.

So when you get a +food% bonus, it's really a tech/alloy bonus, because that's one less farmer you need to meet your food quota who can now become a scientist or a metallurgist. When you get a clerk bonus, you're making a job you didn't really need or want to begin with better. Woo.

 

[Ketrai]

Nothing says you can't make clerks viable by stacking bonuses and whatever, but it points out why clerks are just fundamentally different than other jobs. Farmers don't become useless if you don't stack bonuses for them, in fact, stacking farming bonuses more or less just means you need less of them overall. You don't get any benefit blasting out as much food as possible in and of itself.

What do you want out of your economy? Tech and alloys basically. You make your ships/economy better, and you can build more of them.

So when you get a +food% bonus, it's really a tech/alloy bonus, because that's one less farmer you need to meet your food quota who can now become a scientist or a metallurgist. When you get a clerk bonus, you're making a job you didn't really need or want to begin with better. Woo.

Unless clerk jobs turn out to enable a new kind of playstyle that's more efficient in terms of producing alloys and science. Which I'm still in the process of figuring out.

 

[EnragedKiwi]

Wait this game has a logistic population model? That's actually awesome. I need to play more Stellaris!

 

[Blackadder23]

Why doesn't crime increase piracy?

Why doesn't piracy increase crime?

I'm not sure I see any connection between street criminals and pirates? Detroit has a lot of street crime, but that hasn't caused piracy in Lake Erie.

 

[Cronos988]

Unless clerk jobs turn out to enable a new kind of playstyle that's more efficient in terms of producing alloys and science. Which I'm still in the process of figuring out.

Honestly if the direction is going to be less jobs overall, cutting clerks completely and replacing them with merchant jobs where needed is the most cost-effective solution.

There are really more interesting things to worry about than making clerks viable.

 

[Cymsdale]

Wait this game has a logistic population model? That's actually awesome. I need to play more Stellaris!

It has a "logistic population model". (Heavy air quotes)

 

[kwheeler]

I'm not sure I see any connection between street criminals and pirates? Detroit has a lot of street crime, but that hasn't caused piracy in Lake Erie.

Strong correlation between street criminals and piracy in the Persian Gulf and places like Nigeria in Africa, though, or in 18th-century Cornwall and pirates operating out of Dartmouth.

So, I'd argue that serious levels of general lawlessness and military helplessness do in fact bring out correlating rises in each activity historically--it's just that what Americans currently consider high crime (in places like Detroit) is a pittance of what actually high crime rates were like in chaotic past ages.

For comparison, there's reason to believe that in parts of the Wirral in England in the 1300s, the crime rate for violent assault was 300X higher on a per capita basis than crime in modern America. So, I'd definitely find it plausible that if you live in a planet/nation/area that stricken with piracy in your coastal regions you probably also are stricken with general lawlessness inland as well.

 

[AlphaAsh]

For the record, and in warning, there has already been a massive population overhaul in the game from the old planetary system, so it seems the business model has survived it before.

Survived, yes.

 

[Ketrai]

Here's more data regarding clerk production. This time comparing the most useful jobs.
Once again you can find the spreadsheet here. This time look for the second tab at the bottom left of the webpage. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...6EtDmPiQNPZ7u89OGj8lpVKSsFQ/edit#gid=76980946

Most notable here is the fact you can produce a relatively large and efficient amount of consumer goods and energy for next to no minerals whatsoever, and a a bit of energy.

 

[Killerbeaz101]

I like the new sliders, hope they remain permanent features!

In the same vein as those, would it be possible to add a slider for the Galactic Community meet time? Would be nice to have able to set it to much smaller intervals, as I think it would do much in making it feel much more like an active political body.

 

[Ludaire]

Please reconsider how you're adding the bonuses to jobs via buildings. Doing it in the job definition makes it a compatibility nightmare and makes applying that model to other jobs or other buildings a massive pain. Doing it via economic categories is much better and not difficult, but since you can't overwrite individual economic categories, it's something best done by PDX. Just adding technician_produces_add, metallurgists_produces_add, and equivalents for other jobs would be amazing.

I agree. The number of spots where the effects of a civic, tradition, etc. is on the job or affected thing instead of on the civic/tradition is a really painful issue for mod compatibility. It would be great if we could see less of that instead of more...

 

[OgMummbles]

This response definitely proves devs ARE listening to our feedback. I just need to see how the AI handles the sliders and if removing the empire wide pop growth breaks them further.

Too bad they aren't listening to everyone.

 

[Blackadder23]

Strong correlation between street criminals and piracy in the Persian Gulf and places like Nigeria in Africa, though, or in 18th-century Cornwall and pirates operating out of Dartmouth.

So, I'd argue that serious levels of general lawlessness and military helplessness do in fact bring out correlating rises in each activity historically--it's just that what Americans currently consider high crime (in places like Detroit) is a pittance of what actually high crime rates were like in chaotic past ages.

For comparison, there's reason to believe that in parts of the Wirral in England in the 1300s, the crime rate for violent assault was 300X higher on a per capita basis than crime in modern America. So, I'd definitely find it plausible that if you live in a planet/nation/area that stricken with piracy in your coastal regions you probably also are stricken with general lawlessness inland as well.

Perhaps, but we don't really know whether "high" crime in Stellaris means Detroit levels or Cornwall levels, so ragging the devs for not linking the two seems uncalled for to me.

ETA: It's worth mentioning that you have to get unusually high crime in Stellaris before you even have to worry about the criminal underworld that America already has (without gangbangers or mobsters putting pirate flotillas in the water), so I would lean toward "high" crime in Stellaris being more Detroit levels, if that.

 

[Hansatron]

Please reconsider how you're adding the bonuses to jobs via buildings. Doing it in the job definition makes it a compatibility nightmare and makes applying that model to other jobs or other buildings a massive pain. Doing it via economic categories is much better and not difficult, but since you can't overwrite individual economic categories, it's something best done by PDX. Just adding technician_produces_add, metallurgists_produces_add, and equivalents for other jobs would be amazing.

I said the same thing yesterday before release - I can read their description text in the screenshots and tell it's not auto-generated from a modifier - but it does make me sad. It seems like it would be less work to just create the new modifiers. Plus, modders such as myself would be thrilled...

 

[kwheeler]

Perhaps, but we don't really know whether "high" crime in Stellaris means Detroit levels or Cornwall levels, so ragging the devs for not linking the two seems uncalled for to me.

ETA: It's worth mentioning that you have to get unusually high crime in Stellaris before you even have to worry about the criminal underworld that America already has (without gangbangers or mobsters putting pirate flotillas in the water), so I would lean toward "high" crime in Stellaris being more Detroit levels, if that.

A reasonable interpretation, that.

On my end, I'd push for the Devs to consider treating "high" crime and piracy as something more like Mogadishu or 18th-century Cornwall--i.e., serious breakdown in civilization--i.e., radical crime and political instability that must be dealt with rather than just a quality-of-life problem players can ignore.