Stellaris Dev Diary #272 - The Pact is Signed and Spoken

[-Marauder-]

Because the game randomly choses three leaders to become chosen. And the other two might be generals.

Or you can have a normal chosen emporor and a covenant chose heir.

Oh god, that's horrible.

 

[MonzUn]

Will TTS also be available for archeological phases?

It's available for the main texts in the archeological sites UI.

 

[Kiwibaum]

Interesting idea. Could you expand on that a bit, so I can better see what you are thinking?

Honestly I haven't fully thought this through, but I think the simplest implementation would be to design another covenant with more generic boni. This would save development time and still provide a good result. You would probably gain the opportunity to ascend one of your species or select a covenant, the first time you enter the shroud. The growing of boni would then reflect that the one you ascended grows in power.

You could go further and have the boni depend on your ethics or being able to select from multiple either once or each step, but I think that would require to much development time for what is only one small part of one mechanic of the psi ascension.

 

[MonzUn]

I guess I'm what other would call a "min max"-Player. Most of the time I don't actually read any event text. Just the options I am presented with and choose according to what's gives me the best results. I'd like for TTS to continue reading the text. I'd also like a "queing system". So new events, that appeared while another is being read out laud, should be able to be qued next.

Currently, TTS will keep reading after you close the window, but it will skip reading the options in that case.

There is functionality in the TTS handling code interface for queueing, but I opted to keep it simple to begin with.
Maybe a simple "hold shift to queue" alternative would work?

 

[MonzUn]

I'm not sure I'm the target audience of the TTS buttons, but I'm making use of it. I already use the option for other things in my computer. I have adhd and large amounts of text are ineffectual at communicating things to me unless I'm under the effect of my medication, which wears off before I have free time to play the game.

• If you are one of the people who often skip out on reading text content even though you feel that you would be interested in what it says; was this helpful and/or convenient for you?
  
  - Yes, however, simply having the option to text to speech isnt quite enough, something that allows me to choose the speed of how things are read would be quite useful too, as the game frequently throws more pops at me than the text-to-speech can read them. So far I use it sparingly due to how slow it reads.
  
  
• Was there a point in the game where you missed having access to TTS readouts of written text?
  
  - I frequently skip through longer bits of text if I'm playing after my medication lost it's effects for the day, which nowadays means almost every time I play the game. Archeology is one of the main culprits.
  
  
• What do you think about the fact that TTS keeps reading, even though you've closed the window that contained the text being read?
  
  - That's the whole point of what it makes it useful for me. I'm going to listen to it while playing. If I need to know something before picking and option, I usually just read it.
  
  
• Did TTS actually read the text you expected it to read and did you notice any TTS related bugs?
  
  - So far, so good.

Thank you for the feedback!

I haven't looked into if readout speed is something that can be configured in the TTS APIs on Windows and Mac, but I've added a note to my backlog to have a look and if it's easy to do, it should get done as long as I get some time

 

[currylambchop]

Wat. You clearly didn't actually do the math behind this, at all. I'm not trying to be mean, but it feels a lot of people who are defending the current Psi Ascension seem to be rather new to the game/inexperienced.

calling everyone who disagrees with you inexperienced and noobs isn’t particularly a good way to have a constructive discussion.

most of your arguments are like ‘every other ascension blows psi out of the water because of pop growth’ which is somewhat true, except you’re forgetting that Psi can build servitude robots and this keep up with cybernetic at the least.

also you seem to have a particular problem with whisperer. Which is fine, I agree it’s weak in the current state. But there’s no need to trash everyone else to say that.

all the other ascensions are fine especially since Psi was competitive in certain builds even before this update, unless you’re going to argue this is a nerf due to some minor debuff they added (seriously, +25% pop upkeep or a debuff that only appears when you’re not at war are basically nothing)

I mean that’s your opinion but it’s not an objective truth. There’s no ‘stellaris equation’ because you’d have to take into account every possible factor. even whisperer’s debuff can be overcome (and no, don’t believe everything you read, stability isn’t a hard cap or martial law wouldn’t work)

 

[SeekingEtermity]

Nice to see that Slaanesh, err, I mean, the Instrument of Desire, is still the best. Even has the best ship aux component!

Eater was awful because of the chance to wipe worlds before, now I guess Whisperer gets the short end of the stick with that -15 Stability.

Man, the ship component is nice (sorry Eater, the warfare-focused pact gets the basically-just-a-cheap-standard-component as a perk, who uses enough bombardment to care about 20% anyhow?) but the main bonus looks... super underwhelming.

Let's run the numbers for a conventional bio empire running decent living standards, no bonuses from buildings or traditions. At the max bonus - 10% increased resources from jobs, but 25% increased pop upkeep - what does that actually get you? I'll put the market or TV value conversion in parentheses.

• Politician: +0.6 unity, -0.25 food, -0.25 CG (1.2 - 0.75 = 0.45 energy equivalent gained)
• Merchant: -0.25 food, -0.25 CG (-0.75 energy)
• Metallurgist: +0.3 alloys, -0.25 food, -0.125 CG (1.2 - 0.5 = +0.7 energy)
• Bureaucrat/Manager/Priest/CW: +0.4 unity, -0.25 food, -0.125 CG (0.8 - 0.5 = +0.3 energy)
• Entertainer: +0.1 unity, -0.25 food, -0.125 CG (0.2 - 0.5 = -0.3 energy)
• Enforcer/Roboticist: -0.25 food, -0.125 CG (-0.5 energy)
• Chemist/Refiner/Translucer: +0.2 strategic, -0.25 food, -0.125 CG (2 - 0.5 = +1.5 energy)
• Farmer/Technician: +0.6 basic, -0.25 food, -0.0625 CG (0.6 - 0.375 = +0.225 energy)
• Miner: +0.4 minerals, -0.25 food, -0.0625 CG (0.4 - 0.375 = +0.025 energy)
• Clerk/Soldier: -0.25 food, -0.0625 CG (-0.375 energy)

Obviously, lots of stuff can influence this. Buildings that increase base production will help (though not ones that modify production by a percentage). Civics or traditions that add resource output (most often unity) will help. Slavery will help. Servitude robots will help. Shitty living standards will help. On the other hand, some stuff will make it worse. Better living standards will be hurt badly. Lithoids will pay in minerals rather than food, which really ought to be considered more valuable than food or energy (since the base production is only 2/3 as much).

But overall, this is... a very situational benefit. Empires that run a lot of high-output specialists (strategic resource producers, metallurgists, researchers) will benefit meaningfully, though still much less than it looks like. Empires that run lots of soldiers, or lots of trade, or good living standards, might outright consider this a drawback! It's hard to convert the value of research into other resources, but if you run Academic Privilege, you'll pay 0.75 energy equivalent for 1.2 total science output per researcher, which is probably not a great outcome even if worthwhile. If you're running Utopian Abundance, this "benefit" is net-negative value for every kind of Worker unless you have a lot of output-boosting buildings.

Now sure, the Instrument does provide other benefits, including trade value and happiness (the latter of which very slightly boosts all output if your stability is below 100). But overall, the benefit is... really not that great compared to the other pacts, and it's the only one where the benefit directly conflicts with the drawback and the drawback is unavoidable.

 

[Kypamop]

• If you are one of the people who often skip out on reading text content even though you feel that you would be interested in what it says; was this helpful and/or convenient for you?

I did not try TTS, but I can tell that I sometimes skip the text not because I don't want to read it, but because it's too small on my 2560x1440 display and my eyes become too tired.
I'd love an option to increase the size of popup window and text size in it without scaling everything else (especially outliner).

 

[SeekingEtermity]

Reworking the covenants is good thing, they felt lacking. But the downsides to some of them seem, steep. Whisperers in the Void has -15 Stability. That translates into a massive nerf to pop output of roughly 7.5%. And a huge hit to trade value.

Sorry, but you're giving up a huge chunk of production and trade value for some extra influence, research speed, CODEBREAKING of all things. That feels like whoever came up with these numbers didn't do the math.

Right now Whisperers is +15% research speed, the new one will be 10%. 15% influence which will remain the same. 2 code breaking, which will remain the same as well. So all in all Whisperers will give 5% less research than it does now, while slapping you with a hefty penalty in terms of stability that far, far, far, far outweighs what it currently does.

Eater of Worlds is in a similar situation, 100% fleet upkeep increase is frankly speaking insane.

-15 stability is at best -9% of (base) resource production and trade value. At worst, its -15% of each and a brewing rebellion. Those are steep penalties indeed.

Honestly, as annoying as it would be to be unable to do much gene-modding, Composer of Strands is the only one of these where the base tradeoff (pop growth for fewer trait picks) feels good. Eater can be dealt with by always being at war, but that has some big downsides (greatly restricted diplomacy, harder to pick-and-choose when to attack, opportunistic empires more likely to attack you, needing to strongly guard your borders constantly). Instrument really, REALLY wants you to run slaves (or at least Stratified) as otherwise the increased upkeep vastly reduces the benefits (whatever you do, don't go Utopian with Instrument).

 

[DC E1G]

I think this is a bad change. Clones vats will now produce 4.5 pop assembly at most. That's only a little more than the 4 pop assembly from Roboticist jobs, and less than the 4.6 with the Mass-Produced trait.

And that's not even accounting for any of the other bonuses to mechanical pop assembly.

I don't know, biological pop assembly could get pretty nuts very quickly with a base +6/month, especially when stacking other bonuses like budding or the trait gained from killing the Tyanki Matriarch along with vat-grown.

 

[DarkyVX]

Man, the ship component is nice (sorry Eater, the warfare-focused pact gets the basically-just-a-cheap-standard-component as a perk, who uses enough bombardment to care about 20% anyhow?) but the main bonus looks... super underwhelming.

Let's run the numbers for a conventional bio empire running decent living standards, no bonuses from buildings or traditions. At the max bonus - 10% increased resources from jobs, but 25% increased pop upkeep - what does that actually get you? I'll put the market or TV value conversion in parentheses.

• Politician: +0.6 unity, -0.25 food, -0.25 CG (1.2 - 0.75 = 0.45 energy equivalent gained)
• Merchant: -0.25 food, -0.25 CG (-0.75 energy)
• Metallurgist: +0.3 alloys, -0.25 food, -0.125 CG (1.2 - 0.5 = +0.7 energy)
• Bureaucrat/Manager/Priest/CW: +0.4 unity, -0.25 food, -0.125 CG (0.8 - 0.5 = +0.3 energy)
• Entertainer: +0.1 unity, -0.25 food, -0.125 CG (0.2 - 0.5 = -0.3 energy)
• Enforcer/Roboticist: -0.25 food, -0.125 CG (-0.5 energy)
• Chemist/Refiner/Translucer: +0.2 strategic, -0.25 food, -0.125 CG (2 - 0.5 = +1.5 energy)
• Farmer/Technician: +0.6 basic, -0.25 food, -0.0625 CG (0.6 - 0.375 = +0.225 energy)
• Miner: +0.4 minerals, -0.25 food, -0.0625 CG (0.4 - 0.375 = +0.025 energy)
• Clerk/Soldier: -0.25 food, -0.0625 CG (-0.375 energy)

Obviously, lots of stuff can influence this. Buildings that increase base production will help (though not ones that modify production by a percentage). Civics or traditions that add resource output (most often unity) will help. Slavery will help. Servitude robots will help. Shitty living standards will help. On the other hand, some stuff will make it worse. Better living standards will be hurt badly. Lithoids will pay in minerals rather than food, which really ought to be considered more valuable than food or energy (since the base production is only 2/3 as much).

But overall, this is... a very situational benefit. Empires that run a lot of high-output specialists (strategic resource producers, metallurgists, researchers) will benefit meaningfully, though still much less than it looks like. Empires that run lots of soldiers, or lots of trade, or good living standards, might outright consider this a drawback! It's hard to convert the value of research into other resources, but if you run Academic Privilege, you'll pay 0.75 energy equivalent for 1.2 total science output per researcher, which is probably not a great outcome even if worthwhile. If you're running Utopian Abundance, this "benefit" is net-negative value for every kind of Worker unless you have a lot of output-boosting buildings.

Now sure, the Instrument does provide other benefits, including trade value and happiness (the latter of which very slightly boosts all output if your stability is below 100). But overall, the benefit is... really not that great compared to the other pacts, and it's the only one where the benefit directly conflicts with the drawback and the drawback is unavoidable.

Resources from Jobs is one of the strongest modifiers in the game, and it comes at barely any cost here. That's more Alloys and more Research, everything else is secondary and most of it you won't even produce yourself because trading for them is cheaper. Empires that "run lots of soldiers or trade" are RP empires that are eminently not the meta, which is fine but it doesn't feature in a discussion about what's the best because you can just change.

I mean you're playing a game where Worker jobs are close to useless because of trading, and the jobs that matter, the Specialist ones, have few modifiers so any generic buff to all production makes quite a bit of difference. It's also why Meritocracy is so OP and a must pick. And I don't see why this makes higher living standards worse, CGs are cheap and the AI can't get rid of them fast enough; they shouldn't meaningfully impact your economy after a point.

Edit: And you dramatically overstate what +25% pop upkeep really means, it's like a 10% or even less uptick in your CG consumption because most of the consumption will be through jobs.

 

[MonzUn]

Really like the TTS-Feature. Personally I like that it keeps being read out even after I close the window, because my main problem is focusing on the wall of text that some events can be. So being able to fidget around or do something else in that time is great. Maybe a dedicated "stop TTS" button might be helpful to some as compromise, if they need a way to stop the TTS.

EDIT:
Opening the Pause Menu is an effective "Stop TTS" button. Kinda read over that part, lol

EDIT2:
Maybe I am being a dunce, but I am getting a foreign TTS-Voice despite the fact, that I am using English as my windows language. Does it read System Language or System Locale? I used to have another language as default but switched that over to English, now Windows ignores some stuff, so I checked and saw that it had not downloaded English TTS voices, but having downloaded them nothing's changed.

EDIT3:
Edit: The Game respects whatever voice you choose under "Voices" in the Windows Speech settings. So you can have some French guy with a thick accent whisper things into your ear, or whatever head cannon you have for you nation. Restarting the game is required

Thanks for the feedback

I considered adding some TTS controls up around where the music player is, but decided to initially just go with something simple just to get it out there and tested.
If it looks like what we have doesn't offer enough control, that may be a route in the future.

I actually don't know what voice the OS will supply as the default. What I do in code is just to ask the OS for the default.
It should be possible to change the voice in runtime, but I opted to keep the scope of the feature down so that it would be done and tested for the open beta, rather than add more features and skip the beta.

Thanks for digging into it, very interesting!

 

[SeekingEtermity]

Resources from Jobs is one of the strongest modifiers in the game, and it comes at barely any cost here. That's more Alloys and more Research, everything else is secondary and most of it you won't even produce yourself because trading for them is cheaper. Empires that "run lots of soldiers or trade" are RP empires that are eminently not the meta, which is fine but it doesn't feature in a discussion about what's the best because you can just change.

I mean you're playing a game where Worker jobs are close to useless because of trading, and the jobs that matter, the Specialist ones, have few modifiers so any generic buff to all production makes quite a bit of difference. It's also why Meritocracy is so OP and a must pick. And I don't see why this makes higher living standards worse, CGs are cheap and the AI can't get rid of them fast enough; they shouldn't meaningfully impact your economy after a point.

My condolences. So many ways to play this game, so many empire types and strategies... and you only play a tiny slice of them. If it's not the most reliable path to victory it's dead content, right? Have you ever considered, instead of trying to do a "meta" build (just checking, do you even know what that word means?) for the sake of what's "best", trying one of the "RP" builds for the challenge? Or playing en empire that doesn't lean 100% on the incredibly broken AI trade agreements, either because you're genocidal or because you decide to eschew what is borderline cheating for, again, a challenge?

Don't get me wrong, I've played your way too. It's fun to try to be the very best, take advantage of every balance failure or AI flaw or outright exploit (remember when a scientist could run multiple dig sites while simultaneously surveying or similar? Ever avoided clicking on any options in an event for a while so you can shuffle ships or leaders around to maximize gains or minimize costs? Hell, ever used a mod or edited a save file to give yourself the best precursor or make your starting planets max-sized?). It can even make for a really interesting challenge, if you set up the rest of the galaxy right (force-spawn six advanced-start same-species optimized-design FP empires?). But... it gets boring, once you've done it enough (I have just over 2600 hours in this game). It's nice to play the rest of the content, too.

 

[DarkyVX]

My condolences. So many ways to play this game, so many empire types and strategies... and you only play a tiny slice of them. If it's not the most reliable path to victory it's dead content, right? Have you ever considered, instead of trying to do a "meta" build (just checking, do you even know what that word means?) for the sake of what's "best", trying one of the "RP" builds for the challenge? Or playing en empire that doesn't lean 100% on the incredibly broken AI trade agreements, either because you're genocidal or because you decide to eschew what is borderline cheating for, again, a challenge?

Don't get me wrong, I've played your way too. It's fun to try to be the very best, take advantage of every balance failure or AI flaw or outright exploit (remember when a scientist could run multiple dig sites while simultaneously surveying or similar? Ever avoided clicking on any options in an event for a while so you can shuffle ships or leaders around to maximize gains or minimize costs? Hell, ever used a mod or edited a save file to give yourself the best precursor or make your starting planets max-sized?). It can even make for a really interesting challenge, if you set up the rest of the galaxy right (force-spawn six advanced-start same-species optimized-design FP empires?). But... it gets boring, once you've done it enough (I have just over 2600 hours in this game). It's nice to play the rest of the content, too.

I did not say any of that; I explicitly say that RP builds are fine (which I also play, you presume too much about my preferences), I just wouldn't go into a discussion about what's going to get you more Alloys and Research (because that's what all Stellaris economic activity boils down to from an objective performance metric as that's how you make your fleets and improve them) and then backtrack when confronted with the current place of worker jobs in the meta and say that that disregards RP builds...

Well yes, the meta is the meta, it doesn't invalidate other ways of playing but it doesn't help in an argument about performance. So, honestly it's a poor display for you to immediately start chiding me for imagined preferences. Talk about beating up a strawman. For what it's worth, AI trade agreements are not completely broken; most AI empires will trade at a dear premium. There are some issues with it like Gestalts buying Consumer Goods, Lithoids/Machines buying Food when they don't have any organic pops, and favors getting you too much while the AI doesn't ever call in on their favors, but once you've expended the favors and have the discipline to avoid selling bridges to poor AI, trading with the AI is a functional part of the game.

Nothing in your second paragraph that I haven't already responded to, but I'll just wrap it up by saying that anyone can play however they want but shouldn't feel offended when it's pointed out that Instrument of Desire is probably the best from a min-max point of view and that the pop upkeep barely matters. At just over 2600 hours, your arguments can do better than including gems like "but think about RP builds" and "+25% pop upkeep really makes a meaningful difference!".

 

[kwheeler]

Honestly I haven't fully thought this through, but I think the simplest implementation would be to design another covenant with more generic boni. This would save development time and still provide a good result. You would probably gain the opportunity to ascend one of your species or select a covenant, the first time you enter the shroud. The growing of boni would then reflect that the one you ascended grows in power.

You could go further and have the boni depend on your ethics or being able to select from multiple either once or each step, but I think that would require to much development time for what is only one small part of one mechanic of the psi ascension.

Thanks!

 

[Marmelado]

I would like some gameplay benefits for rejecting the entities and venturing into the psionic realm alone. It would make sense, especially for Fanatic Xenophobes.

 

[Calvax]

Given the number of requests for a "reject all covenants feature" perhaps that could be the means by which the Chosen one is manifested? Instead of linking the psychic power of a species to a mysterious entity, they funnel their power into one of their own. It could be mechanically interesting while fitting the 40k theme.

 

[Verdammnis]

Ftang!

No Cthulhu? I hope we see Lovecraftgods too.

 

[-Marauder-]

calling everyone who disagrees with you inexperienced and noobs isn’t particularly a good way to have a constructive discussion.

most of your arguments are like ‘every other ascension blows psi out of the water because of pop growth’ which is somewhat true, except you’re forgetting that Psi can build servitude robots and this keep up with cybernetic at the least.

also you seem to have a particular problem with whisperer. Which is fine, I agree it’s weak in the current state. But there’s no need to trash everyone else to say that.

all the other ascensions are fine especially since Psi was competitive in certain builds even before this update, unless you’re going to argue this is a nerf due to some minor debuff they added (seriously, +25% pop upkeep or a debuff that only appears when you’re not at war are basically nothing)

I mean that’s your opinion but it’s not an objective truth. There’s no ‘stellaris equation’ because you’d have to take into account every possible factor. even whisperer’s debuff can be overcome (and no, don’t believe everything you read, stability isn’t a hard cap or martial law wouldn’t work)

Don't put words in my mouth. I've never called anyone here a "Noob", which is generally seen as a derogatory term. I also didn't refer to everyone who disagrees with me as "inexperienced". I said that a lot of people who appear to be disagreeing with me are very recent additions to the forum and seemingly the game in general. Many of them clearly don't really know the math behind all of this, or do not care about it. Which makes a discussion about production and other values moot.

No, my argument is threefold.

- Psi has atrocious growth, yes it can grow robots and absolutely piss off it's major factions and cause an inevitable Ai rebellion down the road.
- Many people including some of the Devs appear to be seeing Psi pops as more efficient. They're NOT. They're actually on a per pop basis less productive quite quickly than Synths or Robots with the right traits/techs.
- The downsides slapped on top of Psionics is NOT justified by any of the upsides. They seem to be arbitrary, at times outright defeat the upsies, and aren't really justified by the benefits Psionics is getting compared to the other Ascensions. Hell, the Psionic Tree has two picks which are Intel/Infiltration+Encryption. Both of them are entirely pointless.

Psi was competitive because with Teachers of the Shroud it helped early rush. Which others were also very much capable of doing. But unless you got snowballing early, you would fall behind compared to the other Ascensions. With this patch Psi is taking an absolute pounding in almost all areas. Which the Devs seem to view as a buff, it's not. While the other ascensions are getting buffs and positive changes.

And no, this is NOT an opinion. We got the math behind the total output of pops, pop growth, traits and their impact. We can directly compare these. And Psionics in the new patch if it went live as it is right now would consistently underperform in almost all areas compared to Synthetic and the other Ascensions. You say it's an opinion, subjective, and unproven. But yet you talk in general terms, please point out where exactly I'm off. I'm open to having a fruitful discussion about this.

As for Whisperers. It's the worst offender, it's a pact that's entirely self defeating and in almost all circumstances harmful. Some people playing beta have reporte that.

- It doesn't simply give you -15 stability. It gives you -15 max stability. I.e it also caps you at 85 stability. If this is true. It's a 9% production decrease to EVERYTHING. 9% less alloys, 9% less unity, 9% less science. This is a huge efficiency nerf.

- Paying 300% upkeep for your fleet while not at war is HUGE. I have a game right now where in 2390 I'm paying roughly 3k alloys and 15k energy for my fleet. Now tripple this in terms of upkeep, then slap the hit for being over cap on top of it. You're telling me paying 45k energy is "not a big deal"?

- I agree that the 25% pop upkeep is the mildest of the negatives here. But that's the thing. The covenants DO NOT STOP at the mentioned downsides.

New Shroud Patron Random Events Overview

Hello fellow psionics! With the covenant rework just revealed I decided to go through the shroud events file and compile what the new random adverse events are. There is a price to pay after all, and it's better to know that price before signing...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

Instrument of Desire will randomly slap you with 0.75 Alloy or Unity upkeep, per pop for 720 days. Depending on Empire size, you're looking at hundreds if not thousands of alloy/unity in upkeep for quite some time.

Eater of Worlds will randomly eat a leader, targeting the highest one. Say goodbye to that max level Admiral with Dragonslayer.
It keeps the whole mechanic where it eats pops, giving you -20/-40 happiness, for 3600 days.
'can now eat part of a planet (size > 12, only once per planet, no capital), creating a blocker (-2 districts, -5 stability, +6 phy/soc research)' Really hope you don't like stability, or districts on your planets.

Composer kills leaders as well, will randomly devolve pops into pre-sapients, and mutate your species. Further messing with your efficiency.

Whispers on top of everything will kill both leaders and pops. Given you massive debuffs.

All of this is combined with the running downsides of the covenants.

-15 stability is at best -9% of (base) resource production and trade value. At worst, its -15% of each and a brewing rebellion. Those are steep penalties indeed.

Honestly, as annoying as it would be to be unable to do much gene-modding, Composer of Strands is the only one of these where the base tradeoff (pop growth for fewer trait picks) feels good. Eater can be dealt with by always being at war, but that has some big downsides (greatly restricted diplomacy, harder to pick-and-choose when to attack, opportunistic empires more likely to attack you, needing to strongly guard your borders constantly). Instrument really, REALLY wants you to run slaves (or at least Stratified) as otherwise the increased upkeep vastly reduces the benefits (whatever you do, don't go Utopian with Instrument).

The -15 stability might actually be both a reduction in stability, and in max stability. If so, it would make this so much worse. People seem to really underestimate the impact this has. It not only all but negates it's own bonuses, it hurts your production across the board.

Also, I posted a link farther up. The downsides to the covenants listed here are only the "permanent" ones. You still have the random events where they screw you. It appears eater might just go around and wreck your planets over time for example. And almost all of them will kill off your leaders.

Resources from Jobs is one of the strongest modifiers in the game, and it comes at barely any cost here. That's more Alloys and more Research, everything else is secondary and most of it you won't even produce yourself because trading for them is cheaper. Empires that "run lots of soldiers or trade" are RP empires that are eminently not the meta, which is fine but it doesn't feature in a discussion about what's the best because you can just change.

I mean you're playing a game where Worker jobs are close to useless because of trading, and the jobs that matter, the Specialist ones, have few modifiers so any generic buff to all production makes quite a bit of difference. It's also why Meritocracy is so OP and a must pick. And I don't see why this makes higher living standards worse, CGs are cheap and the AI can't get rid of them fast enough; they shouldn't meaningfully impact your economy after a point.

Edit: And you dramatically overstate what +25% pop upkeep really means, it's like a 10% or even less uptick in your CG consumption because most of the consumption will be through jobs.

Resources from Jobs is one of the strongest modifiers, true. Which is why Synths having about 30%+ of them for doing nothing is so insane. If the +25% pop upkeep would be the only downside, then yes, Instrument would be the strongest pick. And in essence the only one which is genuinely beneficial. Albeit still a lot weaker than Synths.

However, there are further downsides to this. The random events still exist. Which means you get slapped with more punishing events. Your pops might out of nowhere suddenly require 0.75 alloy or unity upkeep for example.

 

[Lorenerd11]

I don't know, biological pop assembly could get pretty nuts very quickly with a base +6/month, especially when stacking other bonuses like budding or the trait gained from killing the Tyanki Matriarch along with vat-grown.

Tiyanki Matriarch is rare and the trait can only be acquired by one empire in the game. Also, all these traits cost two points each, I think?

That means you must spend 4 trait points to outplace an upgraded Robot Assembly creating Mass-Produced robots.

For comparison, upgraded Robot Assembly Plants cost only 1 crystal upkeep, and 1 point trait on the robots to create 4.6 pop assembly, and that doesn't even require any kind of Ascension.