Stellaris Dev Diary #301 - Galactic Paragons is out, what's next?

[Eladrin]

Hi all!

Galactic Paragons and the first hotfix have been released on all PC platforms, and we're working on a balance and bugfixing patch that we're currently targeting for the end of the month. Please keep on providing your thoughts and feedback.

Based on the feedback you've all provided thus far, we are creating a plan for fixes and improvements. While it's possible that we may release a stability hotfix before the balance patch, it will not include any design changes.

Cooperative Mode and Out of Syncs

The 3.8.2 hotfix took care of a number of out of sync issues, but there are more to hunt down. The programming team is focusing heavily on clearing these up, so every bit of information we can get is helpful.

If you're running into frequent out of sync issues, you can help us out a lot by having the host add these startup parameters to their game:

-randomlog -randomlog_stack=5 -randomlog_frames=3​

Then, if you run into an Out of Sync, please post in the Bug Report forum and give us the Host's OOS logs as well as at least one of the clients that the popup mentioned. (OOS logs can be found in Documents\Paradox Interactive\Stellaris\oos near your save games.) Any details you can provide about what you were doing at the time is also helpful.

This setting has some performance implications (which is why it's not on by default), but if you're running into OOSes reliably, it can really help us track them down.

Tell Us More About the Balance Patch

Here are a few selected notes.

Spoiler: A few of the things planned for 3.8.x

Balance

• Legendary leaders no longer count towards Leader Capacity.
• Admirals that command fleets hired from marauders no longer count towards your Leader Capacity.
• Added the Leader of Opportunity trait, leaders that have this trait do not count towards Leader Capacity while under Level 4.
  • Assigned some event spawned leaders the Leader of Opportunity trait.
• Aptitude Tradition "Champions of the Empire" now gives bonus per Leaders' levels.
  • Effect is now a flat -2 Empire Size per Governor level, and 0.5% Exp per Scientist level and 2 Naval capacity per Admiral/General level.
• Autocannons are no longer valued at three times their intended military power.

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug where ships would sometimes stop following its target when they entered a hyperlane
• Leaders can no longer start the game with traits that produce resources. This should stop machine leaders from keeping a bonsai tree garden as a hobby.

AI

• AI will now wait until it has at least 5 planets and 25 years before choosing a specialization designation for its homeworld

Performance

• Leader view performance optimizations

There will, of course, be more.

Next Week

Our next dev diary will be Thursday, May 25th, when we'll be going over a more complete list of the preliminary patch notes.

See you then!

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Are there any plans to modify the leader cap? I know it's supposed to be a soft cap, but so far I haven't yet encountered any methods other than a tradition or two that increase it. It would be nice if there were some more.

There's a couple of bonuses scattered about:

• Transcendent Learning AP: +2
• Dystopian Society civic: +1
• Pooled Knowledge civic: +1
• Autonomous Drones civic: +1
• Factory Overclocking civic: +1
• Precision Cogs civic: +1
• Colonial Centralization tech: +1
• Collective Self/Embodied Dynamism tech: +1
• Aptitude tradition: +1
• Statecraft tradition: +1
• Chosen of the Composer ruler: +1

Granted not all of these are accessible to all empires, but it should be possible for most to get a leader cap of around 8-10.

Thank god new leaders no longer have resource traits, i lost count of how many new leaders i skipped due to those even as a non-gestalt.
Also i assume legendary leaders are supposed to mean legendary paragons and renowned paragons still take a slot right?

Yeah, only the five legendary leaders (Gray, Azaryn, Keides, Sharpbeak and the Beholder) don't count towards the cap.

 

[Eladrin]

So the 0 empire build with grey eminences aren't getting touched a whole patch?

I don't know where you got that idea.

There will, of course, be more.

 

[Enfield_PDX]

Any news on the constant pinging circles on the galaxy map?

On my Radar to be fixed

Ship build discount stacking.
2. Ship upkeep discount stacking.
3. A bug that increases defense platform armor as the starbase upgrades.

Alfray has been staring at a big list of all the discounts in the game for the past couple days. Safe to say we're looking into it.
Defence platform bug will also be resolved.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Alfray has been staring at a big list of all the discounts in the game for the past couple days. Safe to say we're looking into it.

I have done nothing but look at spreadsheets since the release.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

I'm not sure how making him play more EVE would help?

I quit playing EVE in 2006!

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Not sure how I feel about the autocannon but I like the idea about the legendary leaders.
Maybe also implement a repeatable technology that would raise the leader cap under sociology

I'd rather avoid a repeatable tech to raise leader cap, since it'd effectively remove the cap from the game completely and be the most powerful Society repeatable by a mile.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Check how that scripted trigger works again:

country_uses_food = {
    if = {
        limit = {
            # Check if we have an uninitialized economy, then return true to be safe because we don't know
            resource_expenses_compare = {
                resource = food
                value = 0
            }
            resource_expenses_compare = {
                resource = minerals
                value = 0
            }
            resource_expenses_compare = {
                resource = energy
                value = 0
            }
        }
    }
    else = {
        resource_expenses_compare = {
            resource = food
            value > 0
        }
    }
}

This explicitly will not work for your starting leaders, because it checks if you use food by checking if you paid any food upkeep last month. If your empire hasn't existed long enough to have paid any upkeep yet, it won't help you.

Yup, the problem was (and what I fixed) was that before the game starts, due to first clause, which states "Check if we have an uninitialized economy, then return true to be safe because we don't know", the scripted trigger returns true even if you're playing a regular machine empire. This means that your starting leaders could have a trait that adds food production when it is meaningless to you, so I updated the trigger for the trait to

    leader_potential_add = {
        has_global_flag = game_started
        owner = { country_uses_food = yes }
    }

The other resource generating traits also have the "has game started" check, but as soon as a leader levels up (or a new leader appears in the pool) they'll qualify for the traits.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Oh. Since it was mentioned as an incoming fix in this DD, I thought that wasn't enough somehow. Because that's already what we've got right now in 3.8.2:

leader_trait_homesteader = {

    leader_potential_add = {
        has_global_flag = game_started
        owner = { country_uses_food = yes }
    }

So the problem is already solved then?
To be fair, it does say "A few of the things planned for 3.8.x", so 3.8.2 fits. It's just a bit misleading in this context.

I thought that was scheduled for 3.8.3 not 3.8.2, my bad!

 

[Eladrin]

The main issue with that particular resolution is that it applies instantly. You can suddenly be in breach if you're actually using your fleets to maximum effectiveness (instead of leaving a ton in reserve) against the crisis, and lose a lot of ships in one engagement.

The resolution line is intentionally abusable and fundamentally unfair. Most of them are, to force opponents into difficult positions against their will.