Stellaris Dev Diary #274 - 3.6.0.beta.final.final(1)v2 Copy

[CometBliss]

Yeah, there should definitely be smaller pop growth penalties for genocidal necrophages, since they don't get to maintain alien populations to steadily grow from..

Necro hive is very different from regular necrophage.

 

[TrotBot]

I'd be in favor of locking even more planetary ascension bonuses behind specifically being spiritualist and/or psionic. The planetary ascension buffs are the only thing holding psionic together and they aren't even exclusive to it.

this is fine but ONLY if utopian abundance/internal politics specifically gets reworked to make it the "not necessarily spritualist path to unity/utopia". otherwise, it really feels sad that exactly the kind of ways you'd think a utopian abundance society providing massive amounts of unity would kind of bloom, get locked behind spiritualism

 

[currylambchop]

I'd be in favor of locking even more planetary ascension bonuses behind specifically being spiritualist and/or psionic. The planetary ascension buffs are the only thing holding psionic together and they aren't even exclusive to it.

Maybe they get another +30% ascension effect on the psionic tree?

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Maybe they get another +30% ascension effect on the psionic tree?

Getting another 30% would get them to +100% ascension effects, and would put fully ascended planets at 100% sprawl reduction (-50%x2). And that, unlike job upkeep reductions, might actually be broken (not sure, but probably). At the very least, it would make all sprawl reductions from other sources (other than sprawl from systems and branch offices) totally irrelevant.

If you had to be pacifist, maybe. Right now conquest is constrained by sprawl, and the strongest sprawl reduction comes with restrictions on conquest (though spiritualist-egalitarian-pacifist is already a tiny bit better than fanatic-pacifist-egalitarian). But without the restrictions of pacifism, you would be able to just snowball and use the ludicrously cheap ascensions to keep driving empire size all the way down, and just have a straight linear increase of research.

In theory, if you were hovering around 1000-2000 size before starting the ascension bonanza, it could give you 2x-3x research speed (after you drop to ~100 size), and 90-95% reduced edict and ascensions costs. But even with your empire size shrinking from ascensions, the amount of unity you'd have to invest to actually get to that point is absurd.

It might be ok. Its usefulness is still bounded by number of pops/planets and the unity costs would grow out of control (even with the tiny empire size) if you tried to exploit it with something like infinite habitat spam for growth or just conquering the entire galaxy. But it seems much closer to the broken side than e.g. 100% job upkeep reductions.

 

[Thiend]

Getting another 30% would get them to +100% ascension effects, and would put fully ascended planets at 100% sprawl reduction (-50%x2). And that, unlike job upkeep reductions, might actually be broken (not sure, but probably). At the very least, it would make all sprawl reductions from other sources (other than sprawl from systems and branch offices) totally irrelevant.

If you had to be pacifist, maybe. Right now conquest is constrained by sprawl, and the strongest sprawl reduction comes with restrictions on conquest (though spiritualist-egalitarian-pacifist is already a tiny bit better than fanatic-pacifist-egalitarian). But without the restrictions of pacifism, you would be able to just snowball and use the ludicrously cheap ascensions to keep driving empire size all the way down, and just have a straight linear increase of research.

In theory, if you were hovering around 1000-2000 size before starting the ascension bonanza, it could give you 2x-3x research speed (after you drop to ~100 size), and 90-95% reduced edict and ascensions costs. But even with your empire size shrinking from ascensions, the amount of unity you'd have to invest to actually get to that point is absurd.

It might be ok. Its usefulness is still bounded by number of pops/planets and the unity costs would grow out of control (even with the tiny empire size) if you tried to exploit it with something like infinite habitat spam for growth or just conquering the entire galaxy. But it seems much closer to the broken side than e.g. 100% job upkeep reductions.

Agreed on all counts. The specific buff I'd give psionics if I could do anything I wanted would be a finisher on the tradition preventing ascension costs from getting quite as out of control, then keep the rest the same - so you can still take both and they synergize strongly, but without stacking any one bonus too much.

An important part of current hypotheticals about what would be OP if you had 10 planet ascensions everywhere is the fact that it's functionally impossible. I had all the currently available buffs and cost reductions and 4 ecumenepoli focused on unity with a max-level Holy Covenant and I still couldn't afford to do that before the crisis was gone... The cost is out of control way, way too fast.

 

[MadCow94]

Is the politics tree still missing all of its icons for everyone or do I need to re-verify and/or reinstall?

(Obviously I assume they'll be present in actual 3.6 and might be legit missing from the beta)

 

[currylambchop]

Getting another 30% would get them to +100% ascension effects, and would put fully ascended planets at 100% sprawl reduction (-50%x2). And that, unlike job upkeep reductions, might actually be broken (not sure, but probably). At the very least, it would make all sprawl reductions from other sources (other than sprawl from systems and branch offices) totally irrelevant.

Yea a way for removing sprawl, essentially. Maybe attached to inwards perfection instead

 

[HFY]

Yea a way for removing sprawl, essentially. Maybe attached to inwards perfection instead

I'd love to see Inward Perfection actually get something special.

Still wouldn't ever be my main, but at least I'd find an excuse to use it sometimes.

 

[luxeritib]

I've seen a lot of hay made about the -100% job upkeep, but it's just a gimmick, especially with repeatables. Would you think it was a problem if forge worlds gave +15% output, instead of -20% upkeep?

That -20% upkeep is saving 2.4 minerals. When you fully ascend a planet, you're saving an additional 85% (10.2) minerals per job, assuming you've chosen the right federation type and invested a civic. A late game miner makes around 24-30 minerals per pop, even before repeatables, and well over 30 after a few repeatables. Easily 42, if you're taking "10 ascension levels" as a casual assumption, like with alloys, as the ascensions on a mining world give +148% to miner output after Balance in the Middle.

Compare these two scenarios:

• Metallurgists consuming 12 minerals and making ~15.8 alloys (+100% from other modifiers and +63.75% from the revised designation), with miners making 30 minerals per pop. That's ~11.28 alloys per pop, on average.
• Metallurgists consuming 1.8 minerals (reduced by the designation) and making 12 alloys, again with miners making 30 minerals per pop. ~That's 11.32 alloys per pop.

The same. And the more efficient your miners become (or the more minerals you get from non-pop sources, like deposits, a Matter Decompressor, or vassals), the more efficient the high consumption but higher output metallurgists get, up to a point. Meanwhile, the low upkeep metallurgists are just as good as they'll ever get.

With the 42 minerals per pop from a fully ascended mining world, the boosted metallurgists would make 12.3 alloys per pop, while the low upkeep ones are just 11.45.

The -20% upkeep reduction is strong (on par with a 7.5% bonus in the early game, or a 15% bonus in the late game), but the ability to drive upkeep almost to zero (or all the way, with no capital upgrades) is really not a big deal. The fact that you're still limited by pops makes it a non-issue.

The same would not be true of something like a -100% fleet upkeep reduction, or -100% ship build cost reduction (since those can scale indefinitely), but there's no effect which is bound only by its upkeep that can be broken by planetary ascension. Even the most "broken" options (0 upkeep nanite transmuters, or similar) are bound by building slots, and the change makes them merely usable (for once).

Note that they buffed ascensionist in the second-to-last beta update (to also reduced empire sprawl effects on traditions). It was too weak, not too strong.

Agreed. People seem to get "no upkeep" as "no cost" despite the opportunity cost of specializing. It might even be better to move your empire capital to a metallurgy world, or make your empire capital an ecumenopolis, since empire capital designation has +10% Resources from jobs modifier.

At tier 10, with ascensionists+harmony+federation bonus, Empire capital designation gives +52.5% resources output, +52.5 amenities, +26.25 stability, +525% Governing ethics attraction, +52.5% Automatic Resettlement Destination Chance. This seems much more valuable to me.

As for research designation, ring worlds are unique in having both the output designation(+15%) and being able to support research jobs through districts(which is way more efficient than using building slots; +10 researcher jobs at -2 gas cost). In addition, 3.6 beta ring worlds now have +10% pop growth speed, +10% pop assembly speed bonus tied to the designation. At tier 10, Research ring worlds give +78.75% research output, +52.5% pop growth speed, +52.5% pop assembly speed.

 

[Dr. B]

I find the AI difficulty of the current beta to be very interesting!

I have a lot of hours in this game, so I play on Grand Admiral, with the new double AI % bonus setting on too.

Previously, I have been able to eclipse the AI by about 2240, but not now. They keep up still, and are dangerous. I have not experienced this in a very long time, and I am even trading favors to all the AIs for ridiculous 10-year resource boosts per AI I meet.

This is a great experience, I hope the AI keep up even longer.

I wonder if this is caused mainly by better AI, the impact of the double % modifiers or both?

 

[Kerricthebig]

Are you guys planning on fixing the issue with the Shattered Ring Origin where other damaged ringworlds don't spawn in on galaxy generation?

Stellaris - Machine Fallen Empire - Not spawning in broken ringworlds [3.6.0 open beta] **** Shattered Ring Origin bug ****

Description Machine Fallen Empire - Not spawning in broken ringworlds **** Shattered Ring Origin bug **** Game Version 3.6.0 Beta What version do you use? Steam What expansions do you have installed? Do you have mods enabled? No...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[aadf97799c]

speaking of utopian abundance
it really should have a 90 or 100% reduction on demotion time

 

[Sutopia]

I really think the planatery ascension boosts provided by the civic, federation and tradition finisher together are a unbalanced addition to the game. When combined they provide a 70% bonus to planet acension. Which results in a lot of late game bonuses to empires that can get those. I've run the numbers before, which results in around a 5.25x bonus at tier 10 to colony designations. It also results in a -80% empire size reduction to the planet. These high numbers can result in alloy, consumer goods and researchers having no job upkeep, as their respective designations reach a -105% upkeep reduction.

I think it would be more balanced if they just allowed for faster and cheaper ascension over more powerful acensions. At the very least I'd think keeping an option all empires can get such as the Harmony finisher is a good additon. But I'd make it s 20% bonus instead of 25%. It makes for nicely rounded numbers. A total of a 4x bonus at tier 10 planet acension. Which would reduce the upkeep of alloy, consumer goods and technology designations to -80% total. Still good but not broken. If changes have already been made to these then I'll change my post.

Yet it cannot mitigate the ridiculous cost of ascending planets. You're looking at maybe 5~6 planets fully ascended instead of 2~3 and that's it. Unless you're playing with ONLY 6 planets and the rest rely on vassal tax, your majority of planets are still generating all those empire sizes.

 

[Calvax]

this is fine but ONLY if utopian abundance/internal politics specifically gets reworked to make it the "not necessarily spritualist path to unity/utopia". otherwise, it really feels sad that exactly the kind of ways you'd think a utopian abundance society providing massive amounts of unity would kind of bloom, get locked behind spiritualism

Ascending planets and unity has nothing to do with abstract notions of a utopian culture. Unity simply means that political consensus has been strong enough for long enough that you've developed solid cultural institutions.

 

[Ikael]

Regarding psionics, ascensions, and power levels, I do think that we need some kind of bonus to psionic pop output at the very end of their covenants (say, a pop output bonus in addition to the auxiliary component).

I mean:

- Psionic ascension is still unable to compete with the other type of ascensions in any other area but coolness (it is the clear winner on that regard, but still)
- Additional ascension-related bonuses might reach the "zero maintenance" uncharted territory (protip: another alternative bonus to ascensions might be making ascensions increase pop output, in addition to its other effects, rather than further increasing its sprawl & maintenance reductions)
- The timing of the maximum covenant level would roughly coincide with the final stages of other ascensions, thus avoiding rush exploit and snowballing shenanigans
- By tie-ing psionic pop output bonuses to covenants, you can also double down in their respective themes as well as help you balance each other (say, giving +20% research output to psionic pops at the end of the Wishperers covenant, giving unique shroud traits to psionic pops at the end of the Composer covenant, etc, etc)

 

[TrotBot]

Ascending planets and unity has nothing to do with abstract notions of a utopian culture. Unity simply means that political consensus has been strong enough for long enough that you've developed solid cultural institutions.

which sounds exactly like something a utopia should be broken levels of strong at.

 

[Calvax]

which sounds exactly like something a utopia should be broken levels of strong at.

Utopian abundance is a living standard tied to how happy people are based on their political power and the largesse of consumer goods they are allocated. It has nothing to do with how culturally unified your society is.

 

[HFY]

Utopian abundance is a living standard tied to how happy people are based on their political power and the largesse of consumer goods they are allocated. It has nothing to do with how culturally unified your society is.

Hmm, things like Information Quarantine and Fear Campaigns both serve to "unify culture", but they do this by being divisive and deceptive.

Having an honest and inclusive culture might merit some added benefit if the current perks aren't enough.

Like, "you trusted in Egalitarianism, and now here's the payoff".

 

[TrotBot]

Utopian abundance is a living standard tied to how happy people are based on their political power and the largesse of consumer goods they are allocated. It has nothing to do with how culturally unified your society is.

and yet, when you give people oodles of free things, they tend to fanatically unite behind your fanatic egalitarian faction, so i would say there's a clear argument to be made that utopian abundance should be the "not necessarily spiritualist" path to infinite unity. the living standard even makes the pops passively PRODUCE unity. so your argument doesn't even hold water if we take into account CURRENTLY EXISTING BENEFITS to the standard.

 

[Calvax]

Hmm, things like Information Quarantine and Fear Campaigns both serve to "unify culture", but they do this by being divisive and deceptive.

Having an honest and inclusive culture might merit some added benefit if the current perks aren't enough.

Like, "you trusted in Egalitarianism, and now here's the payoff".

Sure, I think there's a lot of ways that internal politics and culture in stellaris could be made more rewarding and interesting. I'm just not a fan of Trot's constant requests to give every possible advantage to his favourite living standard