Stellaris Dev Diary #211: 3.0.3 Beta Updates

[RafaelRamus]

Any chance we'll be getting this on GOG any time soon?

 

[Atreides]

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.

The Wakou pirates of Japan are perhaps an even better example.

 

[TSBasilisk]

I am concerned about the Doomsday Origin's viability with the latest update outside of specific civic choices.

Resettling pops off your homeworld still costs the same amount of Influence as standard. While Evacuation Protocols will halve the influence cost, this still represents a big influence loss early-game when expanding is key. Assuming minimal automatic resettlement and you don't add any new specialist jobs on your homeworld, you're looking at roughly 500 influence to move pops within the first 40 years of your game, or roughly a third of your total influence earned up to that point.

Spoiler: Quick maths

Assume resettlement accounts for any new pops plus the one free pop from the blocker.

Evacuation Protocols: 100
Workers: ~85
Specialists: ~75
Rulers: 50
Abandonment: 200
Total cost: 510

Of course you can further reduce this by going Nomadic/Spiritualist or even eliminate all but the final abandonment charge by using Corvee System civic, but that means either sacrificing a trait/civic and the Egalitarian ethic.

Prior to the latest update this wasn't actually an issue as the Resettlement push was strong enough that moving pops manually wasn't necessary. However reducing the base resettlement push to 5% across the board hit Doomsday as well and will severely restrict the viability of letting unemployed pops resettle of their own accord in the short timeframe available.

I'd suggest either making Evacuation Protocols waive the Influence cost outright or make it significantly increase resettlement chance off the homeworld.

 

[King Harkinian]

Problem with too many jobs per planet: Solved. I actually get to see the automatic resettlement in action now, and even deal with some unemployment occasionally.

However, pops are far too productive - I was making thousands per month of every resource by the end of the game, without resource Megastructures, Habitats or special Ascension Perk planets. Even constantly putting out Battleships from two Mega Shipyards didn't drain my resource stockpiles, and I had 20+ levels of repeatable techs by 2400. This wasn't from a galaxy-spanning empire - I only had 25 or so planets.

I think a generalized reduction in resources is in order. We're getting flooded with them right now. The Hydroponics Bay that gives 10 food per month for just 1 energy credit upkeep for example is obviously overpowered. Minerals are a bit too plentiful in space. Districts produce a bit too much. And most importantly, Tech still snowballs exponentially, so either weaken research income or make late-game techs more expensive to compensate. Unity also has the issue where you finish all the Traditions by the start of endgame even if you don't focus on it at all, and after that you soon have enough of it to keep all the Unity Ambitions running at the same time, after which Unity is useless.

Easy economy aside, I have plenty of fun with this version of the game and I think it only needs balance tweaks and bugfixes rather than huge changes.

 

[kwheeler]

The Wakou pirates of Japan are perhaps an even better example.

Good point!

 

[Glamazon]

This patch effectively nerfs the logistic growth curve since previously it maxed out at 3.0 correct?

 

[Cymsdale]

This patch effectively nerfs the logistic growth curve since previously it maxed out at 3.0 correct?

Yes, it maxes out at 1.5 now (with default settings).

 

[malakhglitch]

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.

While that would be a nice addition. it's hardly... "realistic." I mean, just take a look at governing bodies today and how long it takes for them to take action... and they're all humans! Imagine dealing with alien sapients.

 

[TrotBot]

Can we consider making Utopian Abundance anger slaves and non utopian living standard workers on the planet the way Decadent does? I find it perverse that it can coexist alongside slavery and other lower standard pops without causing issues.

 

[AlphaAsh]

Too bad they aren't listening to everyone.

No, that's clearly a good thing. Since everyone has different ideas. Finding a middle ground with solutions that please many, will inevitably displease a few. For them, there's always mods.

 

[malakhglitch]

"...but since everyone felt equally shafted they all assumed it must actually be fair."
-- In Nomine, p.186

 

[grommile]

Too bad they aren't listening to everyone.

Since "everyone" is a collective group that encompasses people with mutually contradictory opinions, they have to decide who they're going to not satisfy, which is not the same thing as not listening.

(Also some opinions are stupid and should not be listened to for longer than it takes to confirm that yes, they are stupid.)

 

[Troyen]

I'd suggest either making Evacuation Protocols waive the Influence cost outright or make it significantly increase resettlement chance off the homeworld.

Didn't they waive the energy cost for resettlement off the doomed homeworld in one of the late 2.x patches? Seems a similar influence exemption would be appropriate here.

 

[Sir Arkatreides]

Played a handful of games (with console enabled to accelerate through/check out different empire setups) with different slider settings and my feeling is the following:

• Low or very low empire pop penalty are the most 'fun' in the late game, as well as feeling more realistic (no more pops on planet A magically neutering the pops on planet B).
• Low logistic equation cap is not very much fun as it basically takes the 'logistic' out of the equation, you go back to pretty much constant growth with just a penalty at the end. Overall I like the logistic equation and the 'soft' micromanagement that comes with it (i.e. aiming to get feeder planets to the optimal zone of pops = planet capacity / 2 and then migrating them off. It creates the backwaters that you wanted to see and I see the appeal of this
• I would love to also see a slider for a 'planet capacity' multiplier as I think it would be great to play with that as well. Rather than putting the cap very low I want to make the planet capacity less so that the inflection point is lower. This would have a similar effect to the logistic cap but reintroduce the mechanics of trying to get planets into that sweet spot for growth.

 

[rubert]

The Transport fleets seem remember their Aggressive setting after the invasion, great change. Makes invading multiple planets lot easier. I found this out when I was conquering Sanctuary from my previous empire as the Driven Assimilator AI rebellion.

 

[TrotBot]

The Transport fleets seem remember their Aggressive setting after the invasion, great change. Makes invading multiple planets lot easier. I found this out when I was conquering Sanctuary from my previous empire as the Driven Assimilator AI rebellion.

wait transport fleets can be aggressive? and when you say it makes conquering multiple planets easier, do you mean I can hold shift and queue invading the next planet and then the next like I'm pretty sure I used to be able to do?

 

[rubert]

wait transport fleets can be aggressive? and when you say it makes conquering multiple planets easier, do you mean I can hold shift and queue invading the next planet and then the next like I'm pretty sure I used to be able to do?

Aggressive transport fleet will automatically invade any planets they can invade succesfully (with some marging of error). They will also follow military fleet automatically so you can put transport fleet to aggressive, point your warship fleet at the enemy system and the transports will follow and invade automatically.

Before the setting was reset after every invasion but now the aggressive mode seems to stick.

 

[TrotBot]

Aggressive transport fleet will automatically invade any planets they can invade succesfully (with some marging of error). They will also follow military fleet automatically so you can put transport fleet to aggressive, point your warship fleet at the enemy system and the transports will follow and invade automatically.

Before the setting was reset after every invasion but now the aggressive mode seems to stick.

this is huge and eliminates most of my pet peeves about ground war

 

[Ketrai]

After messing around with clerks extensively... I feel like they're almost there. If the trade value provided was 5 per clerk instead of 4 you'd get a lot more options

 

[kwheeler]

this is huge and eliminates most of my pet peeves about ground war

It's been around for a while before 3.0--but never widely touted.