Stellaris Dev Diary #270 - Traditional Results (of Summer Experiments)

[Thiend]

Some people have said this already, but if this is the update where you're trying to bring ascensions in balance, psionics needs even more. Dramatically more, actually. Just adding a pop assembly slot in either machines or cloning is going to give at least around 50% more total pop growth than psionics and can easily be moved to far, far more than that (try an overtuned or progenitor hivemind with budding, it's... Majestic), and it continues to get better from there - having double the population is generally equivalent to simply having double production on all pops, before taking into account that other ascension paths also have production increases in addition to pop growth/assembly boosts. Sure, eventually you run out of jobs to fill, but the enormous advantage you got over psionics up to that point means you have ringworlds, habitats and ecumenepoli much faster and probably before you do run out of jobs to fill, so you don't actually slow down within any meaningful timeframe.

I propose an alternative, balance tests pending (both to confirm my belief about the current state above and if it's bad to confirm that my idea isn't going in the other direction): psionic pops increase output of psionic pops on the planet by 1%, including trade value. This might actually not be enough to exceed full pop assembly builds - assuming a simple 50% increase in number of pops from biological ascension (and assuming no associated output increases, this is JUST the assembly) it'll take 50 psionic pops just to match biological ascension (and that's still disregarding the additive vs multiplicative bonus problem someone brought up earlier, 50% won't actually increase output by 50%). And that's the floor of how many more pops biological ascension can get you.

This would do one major other thing, actually - why is psionics increasing production? We could argue it's because you can monitor that people are working with telepaths, but that's not it, you can be egalitarian and psionic. What would make way more sense, conceptually, is if each psionic pop was adding to the total psionic power available to improve efficiency.

 

[grommile]

psionic pops increase output of psionic pops on the planet by 1%, including trade value.

I have a glorious vision. It is:

Coruscant, but everyone is a Jedi.

 

[Thiend]

I have a glorious vision. It is:

Coruscant, but everyone is a Jedi.

Mine is a barbaric despoiling necrophage seeking to create the most overpopulated oddly productive hellhole this side of dystopian sci-fi.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Some people have said this already, but if this is the update where you're trying to bring ascensions in balance, psionics needs even more. Dramatically more, actually. Just adding a pop assembly slot in either machines or cloning is going to give at least around 50% more total pop growth than psionics and can easily be moved to far, far more than that (try an overtuned or progenitor hivemind with budding, it's... Majestic), and it continues to get better from there - having double the population is generally equivalent to simply having double production on all pops, before taking into account that other ascension paths also have production increases in addition to pop growth/assembly boosts. Sure, eventually you run out of jobs to fill, but the enormous advantage you got over psionics up to that point means you have ringworlds, habitats and ecumenepoli much faster and probably before you do run out of jobs to fill, so you don't actually slow down within any meaningful timeframe.

I propose an alternative, balance tests pending (both to confirm my belief about the current state above and if it's bad to confirm that my idea isn't going in the other direction): psionic pops increase output of psionic pops on the planet by 1%, including trade value. This might actually not be enough to exceed full pop assembly builds - assuming a simple 50% increase in number of pops from biological ascension (and assuming no associated output increases, this is JUST the assembly) it'll take 50 psionic pops just to match biological ascension (and that's still disregarding the additive vs multiplicative bonus problem someone brought up earlier, 50% won't actually increase output by 50%). And that's the floor of how many more pops biological ascension can get you.

This would do one major other thing, actually - why is psionics increasing production? We could argue it's because you can monitor that people are working with telepaths, but that's not it, you can be egalitarian and psionic. What would make way more sense, conceptually, is if each psionic pop was adding to the total psionic power available to improve efficiency.

Pop growth is only a limiter for early game, pacifists, purifiers, and roleplayers (for whom the balance of these ascensions doesn't particularly matter). Conquer or Nihilistically Acquire your neighbor's pops, and you'll far outstrip polymelic-fertile-overtuned hiveminds that don't.

If psionic gave this 1% resources from jobs per pop bonus, psionic would be, far and away, the most broken ascension. As it is, they get 20% resources from jobs and another 10% to research and unity, compared to synth's 20% (and giving up event traits), cybernetic's 15% (to specialists), and genetic's 20-30% to researchers (and 5% to everything else). Giving them an order of magnitude more output when you can conquer and assimilate your neighbors to replace growth would be too much.

Consider a fairly normal ecumenopolis with 170 metallurgists, 16 entertainers, and the usual assortment of enforcers/politicians, etc. Your metallurgists would be producing double the output of every other empire type.

 

[Thiend]

Pop growth is only a limiter for early game, pacifists, purifiers, and roleplayers (for whom the balance of these ascensions doesn't particularly matter). Conquer or Nihilistically Acquire your neighbor's pops, and you'll far outstrip polymelic-fertile-overtuned hiveminds that don't.

If psionic gave this 1% resources from jobs per pop bonus, psionic would be, far and away, the most broken ascension. As it is, they get 20% resources from jobs and another 10% to research and unity, compared to synth's 20% (and giving up event traits), cybernetic's 15% (to specialists), and genetic's 20-30% to researchers (and 5% to everything else). Giving them an order of magnitude more output when you can conquer and assimilate your neighbors to replace growth would be too much.

Consider a fairly normal ecumenopolis with 170 metallurgists, 16 entertainers, and the usual assortment of enforcers/politicians, etc. Your metallurgists would be producing double the output of every other empire type.

It is my stance that "just go militarist and take every pop you can" should not be the only viable option. Also, firstly, the 1% production would be in place of current bonuses (and I specifically said it would require testing, 1% is a throwaway number) - secondly, you've just outlined how currently synthetics has equivalent bonuses + assembly and biological has lesser bonuses but assembly. They also both lack RNG and don't require rare techs to start.

Yes, I do think that nonconquering empires should be able to play the game and not be left in the dust. No, I am not apologizing for wanting other builds to be good at all. I have enjoyed taking barbaric despoilers in the past, but it shouldn't be required. If the bonuses required to make psionics equivalent make taking other pops unbalanced, just remove the ability to assimilate aliens to psionics. It's not like it's anything other than RP when you take it now anyway.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

It is my stance that "just go militarist and take every pop you can" should not be the only viable option. Also, firstly, the 1% production would be in place of current bonuses (and I specifically said it would require testing, 1% is a throwaway number) - secondly, you've just outlined how currently synthetics has equivalent bonuses + assembly and biological has lesser bonuses but assembly. They also both lack RNG and don't require rare techs to start.

Yes, I do think that nonconquering empires should be able to play the game and not be left in the dust. No, I am not apologizing for wanting other builds to be good at all. I have enjoyed taking barbaric despoilers in the past, but it shouldn't be required. If the bonuses required to make psionics equivalent make taking other pops unbalanced, just remove the ability to assimilate aliens to psionics. It's not like it's anything other than RP when you take it now anyway.

I agree, and I count myself as, alternately, a roleplayer or pacifist, so pop growth is relevant to the way I play. But that's a separate issue, one solved (maybe) by making new conquests less inexplicably immediately productive, or by making cooperation between equals more competitive with conquest or zero-sum vassalization and taxes.

But that doesn't change the fact that handing a huge productivity bonus to psionic and "balancing" it with the lack of growth is not balanced, as militaristic expansion (which is mostly the default in a 4x game) makes that counterbalance not matter at all.

Removing the ability to assimilate would somewhat solve the problem (with the exception of other psionic empires or released vassals being pop farms), but it's a drastic change.

 

[Thiend]

I agree, and I count myself as, alternately, a roleplayer or pacifist, so pop growth is relevant to the way I play. But that's a separate issue, one solved (maybe) by making new conquests less inexplicably immediately productive, or by making cooperation between equals more competitive with conquest or zero-sum vassalization and taxes.

But that doesn't change the fact that handing a huge productivity bonus to psionic and "balancing" it with the lack of growth is not balanced, as militaristic expansion (which is mostly the default in a 4x game) makes that counterbalance not matter at all.

Removing the ability to assimilate would somewhat solve the problem (with the exception of other psionic empires or released vassals being pop farms), but it's a drastic change.

I'm not sure anything less than a drastic change can fix it. Right now it's worse than the other ascensions unless you are taking pops from other empires, but the only ways to make it better are 1. Give it pop growth/assembly, in which case it's too similar to biological ascension or 2. Make the bonuses much higher. If the bonuses are higher it will obviously be the best if you are taking pops, but if it has the worst pop growth it has to have the best other bonuses... And it really doesn't, either in live or in this preview. The best idea I have is to go all-in on bonuses so that they're obviously and massively better on a per-pop basis (20% isn't doing it, that's equivalent to one basic resource tech per field, and it doesn't even mathematically improve it by 20% - it's 20% of base yield), which means conversely destroying the ability to circumvent that downside.

Another way to balance it would be to make psionic pops only boost psionics of their own species, which is easily explained away as not having cross-species compatibility. Then it's at least a muted advantage when taking pops from another empire.

Similarly, in my opinion void dwellers should be an empire modifier so that you can't skip that entire downside - any time you can skip a downside it's either trash if you don't/can't or insanely OP if you can, only one can ever be balanced if it's possible to negate.

 

[Ferrus Animus]

It is my stance that "just go militarist and take every pop you can" should not be the only viable option.

As long as the majority of resources come from jobs, and pops do jobs that wont change.

 

[Sutopia]

As if pop growing empires can’t also be militarist. It’s the opposite, those empires have way more base productivity to launch a military campaign. Especially genetic ascension now only requires gene tailoring which is not later than psionic theory, there isn’t much advantageous time if at all for psionic if not playing Teacher of the Shroud origin.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

As if pop growing empires can’t also be militarist. It’s the opposite, those empires have way more base productivity to launch a military campaign. Especially genetic ascension now only requires gene tailoring which is not later than psionic theory, there isn’t much advantageous time if at all for psionic if not playing Teacher of the Shroud origin.

They are practically both on the same footing. Without conquest, genetic ascension will have ~2x as many pops as psionic. With it, they will have 10% more. So a change that is "balanced" when you're trying to make psionic keep up with genetic without conquest ("just slap a 1% bonus per pop on the planet on it") is clearly wildly overcompensating when you're talking about a 10% difference.

The point isn't that psionic is somehow magically the only one that can conquer. The point is that the growth bonus becomes mostly irrelevant in the face of conquest.

 

[Thiend]

They are practically both on the same footing. Without conquest, genetic ascension will have ~2x as many pops as psionic. With it, they will have 10% more. So a change that is "balanced" when you're trying to make psionic keep up with genetic without conquest ("just slap a 1% bonus per pop on the planet on it") is clearly wildly overcompensating when you're talking about a 10% difference.

The point isn't that psionic is somehow magically the only one that can conquer. The point is that the growth bonus becomes mostly irrelevant in the face of conquest.

That's exactly why I suggested that maybe assimilation shouldn't be possible for psionic empires. Clearly, a 5% or even a 20% per-pop advantage doesn't even come close for non-conquering empires to making up for that growth disadvantage - so this is, like live, going to make psionics completely non-viable without conquest. What you're missing here is that if psionics can't have better bonuses it can't have entirely missing other advantages without just being "that one ascension that isn't good." It has no relative advantage.

What it gains is up for debate. I gave a suggestion, and yes it would need downsides. Psionics needs upsides though, not just downsides. There are many things that could be experimented with, for instance, shroud boons are often enough to make a psionic build temporarily worth it - completely RNG-based, so a way to make that better would be to make it unlock one-use no-upkeep edicts from successful shroud visits so you can activate the bonuses when you actually want them. There are plenty of ways of improving psionics that can be tried out, but "it's equivalent if militarist and hot garbage if no" is no way to balance something in a game that has a pacifist ethic. That's a Total War balance, not a Paradox balance, and neither is bad but the former doesn't fit this game.

 

[Silesian Burd]

Some people have said this already, but if this is the update where you're trying to bring ascensions in balance, psionics needs even more. Dramatically more, actually. Just adding a pop assembly slot in either machines or cloning is going to give at least around 50% more total pop growth than psionics and can easily be moved to far, far more than that (try an overtuned or progenitor hivemind with budding, it's... Majestic), and it continues to get better from there - having double the population is generally equivalent to simply having double production on all pops, before taking into account that other ascension paths also have production increases in addition to pop growth/assembly boosts. Sure, eventually you run out of jobs to fill, but the enormous advantage you got over psionics up to that point means you have ringworlds, habitats and ecumenepoli much faster and probably before you do run out of jobs to fill, so you don't actually slow down within any meaningful timeframe.

I propose an alternative, balance tests pending (both to confirm my belief about the current state above and if it's bad to confirm that my idea isn't going in the other direction): psionic pops increase output of psionic pops on the planet by 1%, including trade value. This might actually not be enough to exceed full pop assembly builds - assuming a simple 50% increase in number of pops from biological ascension (and assuming no associated output increases, this is JUST the assembly) it'll take 50 psionic pops just to match biological ascension (and that's still disregarding the additive vs multiplicative bonus problem someone brought up earlier, 50% won't actually increase output by 50%). And that's the floor of how many more pops biological ascension can get you.

This would do one major other thing, actually - why is psionics increasing production? We could argue it's because you can monitor that people are working with telepaths, but that's not it, you can be egalitarian and psionic. What would make way more sense, conceptually, is if each psionic pop was adding to the total psionic power available to improve efficiency.

Gosh, I'd love mages in Stellaris... or "godbros" with massively-increased output.

I know a lot of people hate that there's any fantasy in the science-fantasy game, but still.

 

[aadf97799c]

maybe composer of strands give 3 base pop growth speed or something similar
that way psionic can compete with other path on pop number but only when they choose composer of strands

 

[Thiend]

maybe composer of strands give 3 base pop growth speed or something similar
that way psionic can compete with other path on pop number but only when they choose composer of strands

That could work. Give options for relevancy in any scenario based on which covenant you choose. That still leaves random covenant rolls terrible, but that's an entirely separate problem if they're all actually good - actually, if the other two besides Instruments had stuff like that in their field (and maybe slightly less awful downsides, honestly) I wouldn't mind gaining RNG for adaptability. I really like that idea.

 

[aadf97799c]

just allow player to refuse and roll again in 5 years
should not be difficult to implement even for paradox
eater of worlds can give 100% naval capacity and - 40% ship build and upkeep
instrument of desire can give + base consumer good and alloy production and extra amenity
whisperers in the void can give + base research
so each of them can compete with other path

 

[Wendigo514]

maybe composer of strands give 3 base pop growth speed or something similar
that way psionic can compete with other path on pop number but only when they choose composer of strands

Good suggestion but I'll be more "extreme" and say that the Composer of Strands could give +3 Organic Pop Assembly instead. In my Spiritualist runs I always end up using robots since Pops are kings but I'd really like to satisfy both the No Robot and the Psionic Pursuits issues of the Traditionalist faction.

 

[Silesian Burd]

Sci-fi does not, and never has meant science-fantasy. It is science-fiction. I get your point, and don't even disagree with it, but you can make that point without posting incorrect information.

Oh sorry, I should have explained. My stance on Stellaris is that it's science fantasy, because it assumes stuff that breaks the current laws of physics is possible.

The big example is FTL; though hey, if String Theory finally reveals that there is a hyperlane network you can transport energy through without being massively inefficient, that'll be neat.

 

[Ohirra]

Oh sorry, I should have explained. My stance on Stellaris is that it's science fantasy, because it assumes stuff that breaks the current laws of physics is possible.

The big example is FTL; though hey, if String Theory finally reveals that there is a hyperlane network you can transport energy through without being massively inefficient, that'll be neat.

Pretty much ALL sci-fi has something that breaks what we currently know about the limits of physics, or biology, or technology, because it's fiction.

 

[Harkinian's Dinner]

Pretty much ALL sci-fi has something that breaks what we currently know about the limits of physics, or biology, or technology, because it's fiction.

Hard sci-fi is a pretty major subgenre of sci-fi. A significant portion of sci-fi stories only use currently feasible technology. Any story about near-future humans surviving on Mars for example, which is a pretty popular theme.

 

[Ohirra]

True, but surely any work of science fiction that uses current science without any extrapolation of future use, is just "fiction".

Martian dome-style tech, while it may be plausible in concept, is still fantastical compared to today's level of tech and is what puts the "science" in science fiction.

I find Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness to be quite interesting reading. (Warning: TV Tropes article. Say goodbye to the rest of your day.)