Stellaris Dev Diary #225 - 3.1.2 "Lem" Patch Update

[Colonizor48]

-50% alloy output can 100% be exploited still. Just build twice as many industrial districs because it has no other penalty. Heres an idea. What if with catalytic processing instead of taking alloys to assemble pops it took a mixture of food and alloys? It would make sense. And if you didnt have the food it would give a pop assembly malice only to machine empires with catalitic processing.

 

[Nebbie Zebbie]

Shattered Ring definitely needs it to be easier to colonize the other segments and to restore the whole thing. It was the immediate Ringworld districts that made the origin so powerful before. And yes I mean the whole thing, including the section the Interloper ruined; with the tech, we can completely make a new Ringworld from scratch and destroy all the planets in a system in the process, so we should be able to get rid of one planet and use it to fix the structure around it.
Relatedly, I feel like flavor would be a lot better if you guys made Ringworld construction only destroy the planets in the actual Ringworld zone that might overlap, instead of all of them.
Catalytic Processing is still only useful for the exploit. Unfortunately any buff to it just makes the exploit worse since it's unlikely even 3.2 will rework deficits...
Clone Army changes look helpful, but I'm still expecting Ascendant to be utterly busted as a rush build.

Overall, this patch has less fixes than I'd expect (no Mastercraft Inc. fix especially is perplexing considering the simplicity), but I guess this wasn't the best week. Hopefully 3.1.3 addresses things like the asteroid bug and takes a whack at balancing Phototrophic/Radiotrophic (Phototrophic is a straightup detriment and Radiotrophic is too situational).

...

Naturally, I am not a Paradox programmer and don't know internals of Clausewitz engine, but considering how little math needs to change to achieve this, it shouldn't be a difficult thing to implement, nor have any noticeable impact on performance. Can we have this in 3.2, pretty please?

Non-Paradox programmer here: Most likely, by making these values no longer fixed, you lose CPU cache benefits on the deficit modifiers when switching between empires to calculate things. This could have a significant detriment to end-of-month performance if Stellaris tends to interleave empire calculations within a CPU thread.

 

[wodzu_93]

Non-Paradox programmer here: Most likely, by making these values no longer fixed, you lose CPU cache benefits on the defecit modifiers when switching between empires to calculate things. This could have a significant detriment to end-of-month performance if Stellaris tends to interleave empire calculations within a CPU thread.

Most economy modifiers need to be recalculated monthly anyway - is really 1-5 more divisions per empire going to crash the performance?

 

[Nebbie Zebbie]

Most economy modifiers need to be recalculated monthly anyway - is really 1-5 more divisions per empire going to crash the performance?

I'm not talking about initial calculations, but what Stellaris is doing to figure out final production values with that calculated number. A lot of performance depends on how this is all actually arranged (ideally, if empire calculations aren't prebundled, then things iterate one empire at a time per thread, so any modifier like this would be cached after the first use and things would be fine).

 

[ponasozis]

As much as we'd like to redesign how resource deficits work in the game, overhauling the system would be an impossible task for a hotfix given the relatively short time between the release of 3.1.1 and 3.1.2. However the fix for catalytic processing not intended to be a long-term solution and will hopefully be revisited again in the future.

Paradox i beg of you
make the penalty harsher for machine empires and lithoid
its kinda ruining mp as we have to make sure people ban catalytic even with 50% reduction is still not enough for machine empires and lithoid empires
Or can you just make it so catalytic does not work if you have 0 food would make far more sense

 

[zZander56]

Good to see that you guys are dedicated to putting out fixes so soon. Still, I'm experiencing a few issues I'm not seeing mentioned here.

• Criminal jobs can still be avoided using prioritization. I'm not sure what makes this job so wonky to weight, but this has been a problem for a long time that has only gotten a little better in Lem.
• There seems to be some connection between the Clone Army origin and the crashing of multiplayer lobbies.
• Multiplayer lobbies have gotten slower.

Also, it's a little sad to see Megacorp equivalent civics not getting the same treatment as their regular empire counterparts. Ruthless Competition still hasn't gotten updated along with Meritocracy, Media Conglomerate with Idealistic Foundation, Naval Contractors and Distinguished Admiralty, still no Funtional Architecture or Technocracy equivalent. I get the sense that Megacorp civics are meant to be a little weaker, but you've got a growing list of civics that are straight up copies of regular civics, so I'm starting to doubt that as a design decision and more of a mistake.

 

[klopkr]

Loving these custodian patches! Keep it up!

 

[MHC]

Fast turnaround on the patch! Also, given all the things you fixed with Lem *and* all the content you added, I'm kind of impressed that this is all that was broken in the process. Bodes well for the future of the team!

 

[Pale Blue]

Could you make the old machine Rebellion room selectable for empire creation? It is in the game files, but completely unused anywhere. Would be a shame to have it just to get forgotten. So if you are not planning to use the room for anything soon why not give players access to it so they can use for their empire creations?

 

[Me_]

like it's something one existing Paradox title does and that title's forthcoming sequel is going to do.

and the existing title even does those consumption calcs daily and a factory that can't get its inputs doesn't produce its full output.

The old game was smaller and the new game is new. Stellaris is old. In the perfectly wrong place of big enough and not optimized enough.

I would love consumable resources. I had a lot of trouble adjusting to the current model, but let's be realistic. There is only so much that can be done before it makes more sense to make Stellaris 2. The game isn't old enough to be abandoned, but old enough to just let some things be.

If the devs would want to RIP it apart and rebuild, that's be great too, but I think engaging internal political would be a better addition than rebuilding the economy.

 

[Calvax]

Are there any plans to address automation massively over reacting to strategic resources shortages? I’m sure there are issues that don’t make a fix easy, but it’s a real demotivater to have to micro manage dozens of planets when they all freak out and try to build refineries

Stellaris - Automated planets severely overreact to strategic resource deficit, Lem v3.1.1 (22a5)

Description Automated planets severely overreact to strategic resource deficit Game Version Lem v3.1.1 (22a5) What version do you use? Steam What expansions do you have installed? All Do you have mods enabled? No Please explain your issue is...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[Darrien]

Any plans to also look at the Scion origin to make the threats of FE intervention not as strong?

 

[Tenchuu]

Thanks for the fixes! But would be awesome if you could fix the Multiplayer Desync Bug regarding UI windows..

 

[Nebbie Zebbie]

...

Also, it's a little sad to see Megacorp equivalent civics not getting the same treatment as their regular empire counterparts. Ruthless Competition still hasn't gotten updated along with Meritocracy, Media Conglomerate with Idealistic Foundation, Naval Contractors and Distinguished Admiralty, still no Funtional Architecture or Technocracy equivalent. I get the sense that Megacorp civics are meant to be a little weaker, but you've got a growing list of civics that are straight up copies of regular civics, so I'm starting to doubt that as a design decision and more of a mistake.

I wouldn't think they want them weaker. The colony ship one is actually pretty good. It's just that for Megacorps, there's nothing that really beats it because of neglect.

Honestly, I think they need to make some civics "shared", as in being reused between authority types, not just copied. Copying stuff always leads to mistakes when you need to later adjust things and forget to apply it to all. For ones shared between Megacorps and regular authorities, but not Gestalts, they could just add a check that you're not Gestalt.

 

[lordVigo]

What about broken new icons? It shouldn't be hard problem to solve.

 

[AlphaAsh]

Changing deficits to be more logical would definetly benefit the game - and it's not even hard to do, nor a performace intensive change.
Deficit modifiers look like this:

energy_deficit = {
    planet_jobs_minerals_produces_mult = -0.5
    ship_weapon_damage = -0.75
    army_damage_mult = -0.75
    ship_shield_mult = -0.75
    spy_network_levels_add = -100
}

All you would have to do, is replace the static values on the right with a deficit ratio.

Let's take advantage of the fact that Stellaris has a registry system for resources, and auto-generates modifiers for all resources, both vanilla and modded.
Append it, so it also auto-generates a hardcoded, country scope scripted variable @x_deficit, where x is a resource name. Let's update our deficit modifier:

energy_deficit = {
    planet_jobs_minerals_produces_mult = @energy_deficit
    ship_weapon_damage = @energy_deficit
    army_damage_mult = @energy_deficit
    ship_shield_mult = @energy_deficit
    spy_network_levels_add = 100 * @energy_deficit
}

All you have to do now, is update that variable monthly when a country has a deficit:
x_deficit = math.max(-1, math.min( x_produced / x_consumed, 0 ) )

So for situation like this:
View attachment 759017
You would get 10/-28 = -0.3571428573 -> -35.7%

As long as each country has its own set of @x_deficit variables, and deficit modifiers stack multiplicatively (important!), you have a stable system where penalty is directly proportional to the deficit, with hardly any performance overhead compared to current static penalties, and no exploits...

View attachment 759047

... oh, right, this. Thankfully, dodging penalties by buying resources is also easily fixable. Make resource stockpiles go from this:
Min: 0, Max: country_resource_max_x
to this:
Min: -country_resource_max_x, Max: country_resource_max_x
Now that dept can actually accumulate, no cheesing with market.

Naturally, I am not a Paradox programmer and don't know internals of Clausewitz engine, but considering how little math needs to change to achieve this, it shouldn't be a difficult thing to implement, nor have any noticeable impact on performance. Can we have this in 3.2, pretty please?

The AI is already drooling like a lobotmised loon. What you're proposing will put a bullet firmly in its head.

As has already been pointed out in this thread, there is far more to re-working deficits than the maths you recommend.

 

[SirBlackAxe]

Honestly, I think they need to make some civics "shared", as in being reused between authority types, not just copied. Copying stuff always leads to mistakes when you need to later adjust things and forget to apply it to all.

Yup. Same for some other stuff, like how Lem fixed forge and factory designation weights ignoring T3 alloy forge and civilian industries buildings for standard planets but not for habitats.

 

[Sidetrack Nick]

Feedback on LEM.

I've played the clone army twice through now, going genetic perfection. My current empire is 99 clones and like 4-500 pops of different species. It's also 2500 and I STILL haven't gotten the psionic theory option to pop.

I like the idea of having a truly elite population controlling the rest, but I can have my main pops on up to, but not more than 5 planets. I know it was designed this way to keep the clones from being OP, but it does feel like this is too much of a penalty as time goes on in the game.

Suggestion: Allow for at least one ancient clone vat on each planet and ring section colonized. Having those clone vats on the planet is a penalty as it is, due to their taking a useful building slot. Perhaps there should be a tech that allows creation of more clone vats, maybe as a percentage of total admin cap? Or the vats should maybe take one of each 3 main rare minerals to keep up? I LIKE the idea of the 'iron womb' to grow new pops. I don't even mind that my pops aren't as numerous as other pops. But they shouldn't be completely absent from some sectors in my empire! Please consider a way to increase the population options for my genetically perfect soldiers! Thank you.

EDIT: Psionic Theory finally popped in 2501. Also, I had to use a cheat to spawn the gateway tech at 2400 as there were no gateways I could find on the map (set it at .75). Only gateways related to archeology digs popped. Could have been a mod issue, could be a bug. IDK. I did set the end game much later than I usually do, though I got all other tech at a 'normal' time.

 

[Idle America]

Have you fixed the bug where the asteroid hits the planet a month after being detected?

 

[James Fire]

On launch day we peaked at ~18k concurrent players on Steam, supposing each of those players plays one hour, that’s 18 000 hours. Assuming a 40 hour work week, that’s 450 workweeks. This isn’t meant to make excuses, but just to put into context that our community does more playing in the hour after release than we could hope to accomplish in the time between the release of Nemesis and now.

Something I'd be interested in, do you get metrics like Unique Players? Could you possibly get this estimation of playtime a bit less lowballed?