Stellaris Dev Diary #325 - 3.10.3 "Pyxis" Released [d2aa] + Further Beta Plans

[Thiend]

i think empire sprawl now will have more of a bite to it if u play wide and get plus +15% research cost before it was not much but now that can be tens of thousands of tech
Below, i will show the old vs. new base then the old vs new cost with 15% increase from empire
1000 vs 1000 1150 vs 1150 with 15%
2000 vs 2500 2300 vs 2875 with 15%
4000 vs 6500 4600 vs 7475 with 15%
8000 vs 17500 9200 vs 20125 with 15%
16000 vs 48500 18400 vs 55775 with 15%
32000 vs 137500 36800 vs 158125 with 15%

as u can see that 15% from empire sprawl is a hell of a lot now so wide players that used to ignore the sprawl will now pay at tier 3 nearly 1000 more for a tech and at tier 6 it goes up to 12000 more, which is a lot more tech to need

A lot more tech to need and more researchers for that amount of tech. This should inherently make empire sprawl significantly more punishing. We'll see if it's too far or just right, that's literally what the beta is for. My feeling is it's probably actually about right, people have gotten so used to stacking repeatables they've missed the point of them - to not have a hard end "the tech tree is done." Not to spend half the game researching them.

Now, a possibly relevant concern now I say that, some megastructures are currently quite weak due to pop numbers and outputs compared to the megastructure output. The art installation is probably the best example. But if tech is much slower, we'll have even more pops by the time megastructures come online, so regardless of what specific magnitude of research rate reduction actually goes live this is probably a good time to think about megastructure output buffs.

 

[cerberus189]

A lot more tech to need and more researchers for that amount of tech. This should inherently make empire sprawl significantly more punishing. We'll see if it's too far or just right, that's literally what the beta is for. My feeling is it's probably actually about right, people have gotten so used to stacking repeatables they've missed the point of them - to not have a hard end "the tech tree is done." Not to spend half the game researching them.

Now, a possibly relevant concern now I say that, some megastructures are currently quite weak due to pop numbers and outputs compared to the megastructure output. The art installation is probably the best example. But if tech is much slower, we'll have even more pops by the time megastructures come online, so regardless of what specific magnitude of research rate reduction actually goes live this is probably a good time to think about megastructure output buffs.

I agree that the megastructures need some tweaking, especially for the investment needed to get them up and running. also agreed that it will be interesting to see how the balance plays out personally. I am a fan of the price increase since it will allow, in my mind, more ways of playing to be viable. for instance, in Knights of the toxic God, the origin late game is strong but due to the time it takes to scale, it easily gets outpaced by normal tech This, however, will bring them more in line

 

[Thiend]

I agree that the megastructures need some tweaking, especially for the investment needed to get them up and running. also agreed that it will be interesting to see how the balance plays out personally. I am a fan of the price increase since it will allow, in my mind, more ways of playing to be viable. for instance, in Knights of the toxic God, the origin late game is strong but due to the time it takes to scale, it easily gets outpaced by normal tech This, however, will bring them more in line

I'm just living for being able to say "I'm spiritualist so I'm going to produce more unity than research" without my non-mouse hand involuntarily grabbing a sharpie to write "idiot" on my forehead. Research will still be very good, just not as outsized in value compared to other specialist jobs your empire may be more inherently inclined toward. The reduction could definitely be too far, but research is so much faster than it should be I'm just not sure.

 

[klingonadmiral]

So, after sleeping on it I think I've already found the solution to the proposed researcher nerfs:

Utopian Abundance Unemployment

 

[Anonim97]

I love it. I'm honestly excited how these chances will influence the game!

Also one of the propositions I have seen on Reddit, that I really liked, was the inclusion of (pseudo-)repeatables in the tiers. Rather than going from "blue laser->breakthrough tech->purple laser" it could have a few more steps in-between like "blue laser->reduced energy consumption->slightly more damaging laser->breakthrough tech->purple laser".

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Here's some food for thought. If 1x tech cost in the beta is 8x the research cost compared to before, players who like the old research times won't even be able to use the slider to get it back, because even the lowest setting on the slider (0.25x tech cost) will be twice as slow as the current 1x tech cost.

I understand your worries, and I am not going to claim you are wrong, but here's some other food for thought: Until we get a chance to test the game with breakthrough technologies and throughput/upkeep modifiers taking the place of many output modifiers, none of us can have the faintest idea of how the changes will play out in practice based on the information we've received about the increased base science cost per tech level.

We may make guesses, and if enough of us do, somebody may get it right, but it'll be more by accident than design as we simply don't have enough information to perform well informed extrapolation at this point.

As someone that enjoys 0.75x tech cost with early mid and endgame years because condensing the game into fewer real-life hours and avoiding endgame lag is just more fun, I won't even be able to play the game nearly the same way as before. The sliders won't help me. I think a lot of people might even quit Stellaris altogether if it becomes that bad.

Quite possibly a lot of people will quit Stellaris or stall on 3.10.x or 3.9.x for a while, awaiting the inevitable major balance issues arising being addressed. And amongst those that do not, many will be pushed out of their comfort zones as they have to adapt to a game that, in certain respects, functions differently from what they are used to.

But that's the case with every major game change in a living service game and not an argument in itself against performing what the developers consider a necessary change to maintain long-term viability. Their concerns about how the game has been gradually speeding up tech-wise for a long, long, time are well founded.

As are your concerns about prolonging the game and dying by lag. A perfectly understandable fear. It will be interesting to see how that plays out in practice.


--

Fair point again. I didn't think about that because I'm still mentally in the "science is king" era myself, though I've read on the forums that's no longer the case (in your posts actually). So I didn't think of all those other factors as alternatives to increasing research production, but as methods to circumvent the game's anti-snowballing mechanic.

My general concern still is that the empire size effects are largely toothless because of how much they can be reduced.

Yes, the change of mindset from "science is king" to "research is king" is taking a lot more time than I expected. Not that it was ever completely true in the first place, just like "research is king" isn't completely true now, but it was at least understandable why some people would believe that as a kind of mental shorthand until well into the 2.x stage of the game, arguably into the early 3.x stage. But since 3.3 the last excuse for it has died.

With regards to your general concern, I will make an an observation: The mere fact that strong players are willing to invest enormous amounts of resources into reducing the empire size effect, resources obtained from POPs that would otherwise have been working alloy or science jobs, as well as investing civics, traditions, ascension perks, that are the scarcest resources in the game, is probably the best argument anybody could make that the empire size effect is not toothless but very much working as intended.

Oh, perhaps the magnitudes of some modifiers might need tweaking, but it does what it needs to: People either ignore it and gain research and tech slower than they would were there no empire size effect, or they invest in it to control it.... and still gain research and tech slower than they would were there no empire size effect, but now feel they are mastering a game system rather than being arbitrarily punished for success.

As for anti-snowballing mechanics in general, I can't say I have ever observed Paradox making those. From Europa Universalis through Crusader Kings to Hearts of Iron to Victoria to Stellaris, and even Imperator, all I have observed is them trying to control the rate of snowballing when it occurs faster than they prefer. They aren't against snowballing in general, and they don't introduce measures to prevent snowballing, because doing so would punish successful play in the metrics appropriate to the types of game they make, as they are all focused on expansion.

More broadly though I think the issue is how beneficial negative modifies stack to produce increasing returns on investment.

Now that one I quite agree with, which is why I am happy that that's not how it is handled with respects to empire size reduction, but rather divided into distinct categories that are additive within the category, but multiplicatively between them, which is why there are only a few extreme cases of civic/ascension perk/origin stacking where it is possible to reduce any of the empire size components (districts, systems, planets, POPs) to zero, no matter how many reduction modifiers they introduce.

That makes it much easier to balance. Full planetary ascension without ascension modifiers = half ES cost, regardless of whatever other empire size reduction you have. Full ascension with all three modifiers, requiring the player to pick a specific tradition, civic, and federation = 15% ES cost. Everything else is somewhere between these extremes, and furthermore scaling up from zero to max ascension is linear in the number of completed tradition groups starting at 3.

So Planetary ascension is perfect linear scaling of planetary ES costs, regardless of all other ES reduction modifiers, and it can thus be balanced largely in isolation by changing its own modifiers or changing unity output if and when it is deemed neceessary. (Which it undoubtedly will one of these days.)

Likewise if it is deemed that empire size is reduced to easily, or too much, for POPs, by stacking modifiers in the all-species category (civics, origin, tradition, tech) you can largely disregard the effects of ascension and those of the POP specific category (POP traits, governors), and focus on those that are problematic.

We haven't seen any big changes to this system since its introduction in 3.3, but - mathematically speaking - it is something that is much easier to deal with than e.g. "we additively stack percentage-wise reductions from many sources and it got out of hand", so if (when) it is eventually deemed to get out of hand, which it is pretty much guaranteed to at one part, it'll be much easier to focus on what is considered the problematic parts without doing across-the-board nerfs risking throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

 

[-Marauder-]

Overall effect looks like ~4-6x slower progress through the tech tree, which means I'd be hitting repeatables around 2800-3100 with default settings and normal gameplay.

While I appreciate the point that the beta will allow any proposed changes to be tested and balanced, what is being suggested here is so far removed from anything that I would enjoy playing that even the proposal is rather concerning.

People also don't take into account the bandwagon issues. This will lead to a much weaker economy in all areas. Stellaris jobs start incredibly inefficient and then get "fixed" with the various technologies. All of that will be slower, much slower or gone entirely. Which will in turn slow progress even more.


At the end of the day what this is is people who barely play the game/tend to start a new game around midgame looking at absurd min max power players who at times keep starting over and over again to get almost perfect starts to achieve absurd outcomes and deciding "that should be fixed!".

You don't balance around those players, ever. You look at what difficulty the average player is playing on, what kind of progress and advancement they make and how the game feels to them. Not folks playing on 25x crisis, Grand Admiral difficulty adjusted bonuses with min maxed builds who cheese the early game by being fanatic xenophiles and cozying up to the AI.

The worst part is, that this is in many ways an attempt to force those players to adhere to the way they think the game should be played, i.e perpetual mid game. As they never play beyond that stage of the game anyway. It's two extremes in the community clashing and everyone from newer, to average, to high difficulty but not top end extreme ones being caught in the middle and being ground to dust.


Looking at Stellaris achievements, even taking mods into account. Only 5.9% of players ever finished a game for crying out loud.

 

[A2ch0n]

cheese the early game by being fanatic xenophiles and cozying up to the AI

That is in NO way a cheese! This game is not only about warfare and conquering. And if your empire is based around diplomacy and xenophile ideals (what is a intended strategy) then in my opinion the word cheesing is misused here. And no i'm for sure not a min-maxer because i like to play a xenophile empire or at least try to avoid warfare.

Only 5.9% of players ever finished a game for crying out loud

In this case remember that not everyone like to play ironman. Especially in mp settings we have no ironman option. And another part of the community doesn't care about archievements. I for myself don't have that one too because i end a game after the last crisis is finished and not with the victory year.

 

[-Marauder-]

That is in NO way a cheese! This game is not only about warfare and conquering. And if your empire is based around diplomacy and xenophile ideals (what is a intended strategy) then in my opinion the word cheesing is misused here. And no i'm for sure not a min-maxer because i like to play a xenophile empire or at least try to avoid warfare.


In this case remember that not everyone like to play ironman. Especially in mp settings we have no ironman option. And another part of the community doesn't care about archievements. I for myself don't have that one too because i end a game after the last crisis is finished and not with the victory year.

The cheese in this case is that the people playing at the extreme end tend to all go for it, because it allows them to avoid conflicts early one they wouldn't be able to survive otherwise. If you have an almost singular viable approach, then yes it's cheese. And shows that the intended "fix" comes from folks who don't really engage with that level of difficulty and play, which in itself is fine, but also means they lack perspective.

I literally pointed out that the achievement isn't entirely reliable, but it does show that a huge number of players never even finish a game. If we had achievements for difficulties finished one the numbers would be even lower. We're facing sweeping changes here pushed by people who quit games around mid game that from a mathematical standpoint alone are absolutely unhinged. All to "reign in" a tiny 0.0x% of the player base at the very top end.

Without any regards to bandwagon issues that will cause for the rest of the game, and how it will affect the player base at large.

 

[Juboboman]

We seem to be getting a more beta-y beta than what we're used to.

Past betas were typically bugfixes + mostly complete features that weren't ready for a full release whereas this one seems to be more on the experimental side.

And with any luck, they read this feedback and preemptively lower these new values before the beta actually starts. Changing tech costs is trivially easy, so much so that it would probably take Eladrin longer to submit a request for the change than it would take someone on his team to make the change.

My hunch/hope is that they decided to throw in every single potential research nerf that they have been tossing around internally into the beta to see at one time how they all work out in the wild, and will take the best performing/received one or two nerfs and actually implement them. If so then the beta will have been a great success. Research has crept up too much and needed to be reigned in so players could have some time to breathe with each tech era. But I also don't think the playerbase actually wants to spend 100 years on each tech tier either. I certainly don't.

If my theory on the beta is not the case and these 500-600% cumulative slower progress through the tech tree per game changes are more or less already baked in with just some minor tweaking planned (as they initially claimed with the leader cap) then the game is in for a rough few months. It will be released, overwhelmingly controversial, and they'll spend 80% of their dev time over the next few months trying to walk them back. At the end of the day players are not going to play games out to 2700-2800+ just so they can get all the end game tech goodies.

Like I said though I really do support the idea of slowing down progress through the tech tree, but I think the sweet spot for a play through is 50-100% longer, not 300, 400, 600% or whatever. But as always I do remain appreciative that almost 8 years into the life of the game they are still putting in the time and effort to overhaul core systems to make the game that much better when they see it is needed, as opposed to just coasting on fluff DLCs until Stellaris 2 in however many years.

 

[AllYourPopsAreBelongToUs]

Uhh addressing tech in a way that feels good will be a challenge - especially for players that are used to a "hide & tech rush into utter dominance" play style, but i'm glad to see you want to make one of the core pillars of the game not as one sided as it is now!

Something i would love to see in these experiments are some more active ways of closing the tech gap.
For example, what if a successul invasion of a planet grants you a small chance of gaining progress towards tech(s) researched by them?
What if spy networks passivly gave you a monthly chance of gaining tech progress towards their tech at high intel?
What if Branch offices/Commercial pacts or whatever rarely gave you an event to buy tech progress? (and the owner empire could not refuse)

Might be interesting (or horrible) - anyways thanks for your ongoing care for the game! <3

 

[Foxosaur]

That is in NO way a cheese! This game is not only about warfare and conquering. And if your empire is based around diplomacy and xenophile ideals (what is a intended strategy) then in my opinion the word cheesing is misused here. And no i'm for sure not a min-maxer because i like to play a xenophile empire or at least try to avoid warfare.


In this case remember that not everyone like to play ironman. Especially in mp settings we have no ironman option. And another part of the community doesn't care about archievements. I for myself don't have that one too because i end a game after the last crisis is finished and not with the victory year.

Exactly same for me. Hardly any achievements, never won a game or even hung around for the victory year intentionally, most of my games I’ll see the crisis defeated or know its unwinnable. I still can’t believe that "a lot of" or "most" people only play to mid game, I’ve been a save-scummer myself over and above quitting the game and hording achievements.

The cheese in this case is that the people playing at the extreme end tend to all go for it, because it allows them to avoid conflicts early one they wouldn't be able to survive otherwise. If you have an almost singular viable approach, then yes it's cheese. And shows that the intended "fix" comes from folks who don't really engage with that level of difficulty and play, which in itself is fine, but also means they lack perspective.

I literally pointed out that the achievement isn't entirely reliable, but it does show that a huge number of players never even finish a game. If we had achievements for difficulties finished one the numbers would be even lower. We're facing sweeping changes here pushed by people who quit games around mid game that from a mathematical standpoint alone are absolutely unhinged. All to "reign in" a tiny 0.0x% of the player base at the very top end.

Without any regards to bandwagon issues that will cause for the rest of the game, and how it will affect the player base at large.

I think you're both right and what I've surmised is this. The MP Stellaris games in the official roleplay discord server mostly have stopped playing beyond the third session (and that's usually prior to 2300) but I also see them bringing the years forward to try and keep the momentum up and to compete against the AI. That renders human players as having to play pretty well to survive and leaves little room for slow-pokes (both in skill and internet speed and more those more RP focussed). So the people in the room being pushed "out" of room are, I believe, are the silent majority, the casuals and slow pokes. Need to bring them into the room.

Maybe this will make it a bit more equal-footed and bring some harmony to those games for both ends of the scale. I just hope that people can still do 'as they please' in their own games and people can still get that power fantasy if they so want it with science so we don't cut people off one way or another. This was a selling point by Paradox for Stellaris, so I think they should ensure its still offered.

These changes do target those more optimal players and probably a % of players that go heavy on science in the early game - I'd be interested to know how this will impact me as my benchmark is usually to aim for 1k science by 2300 but I also don't have to hit it, I'm having a good game if I get to 3k science by 2400 but it doesn't stop me from trying to save the galaxy against a X5 crisis, if I don't get to that amount of science.

It in theory 'should' be a good thing though in terms of diversifying play, we have an awesome-looking level 5 holy covenant perk called "Union of Faith" that effectively starts a conversion of non-spiritualist empire pops into priests jobs (from admin jobs) but how many AI and human players actively invest in admin jobs? Not many. This could change that and if theres other similar perks, might make those more usable too

 

[Calvax]

At the end of the day what this is is people who barely play the game/tend to start a new game around midgame looking at absurd min max power players who at times keep starting over and over again to get almost perfect starts to achieve absurd outcomes and deciding "that should be fixed!".

You don't balance around those players, ever. You look at what difficulty the average player is playing on, what kind of progress and advancement they make and how the game feels to them. Not folks playing on 25x crisis, Grand Admiral difficulty adjusted bonuses with min maxed builds who cheese the early game by being fanatic xenophiles and cozying up to the AI.

Multiple people have pointed out to you that they don't play 25x crisis GA games and still face issues of finishing the tech tree long before the end game, or ending up with so many ship build cost reductions that the limiting factor becomes time rather than alloys when it comes to fleets. You keep repeating this idea that it's just the tipidy-top minmax players who will benefit from this but it's simply not the case.

 

[-Marauder-]

Multiple people have pointed out to you that they don't play 25x crisis GA games and still face issues of finishing the tech tree long before the end game, or ending up with so many ship build cost reductions that the limiting factor becomes time rather than alloys when it comes to fleets. You keep repeating this idea that it's just the tipidy-top minmax players who will benefit from this but it's simply not the case.

"Multiple people", who exactly? And also, once again. The Tech tree isn't meant to be finished "by the end game/once the game ends". It locks all kind of techs that would basically cease to exist and never factor into anything in any way shape or form if that was the case. From Megastructures to Titans none of these things would ever be build again or really matter because they wouldn't fall within the scope of the game anymore. The tech tree isn't meant to last the entire game, which is why the original devs introduced repeatables.

The ship cost reductions are a problem, but an entirely different one. And there is the problem that ultimately there wasn't a cap. Something Eladrin himself kept missing in various areas and people pointed out long before it went live. From empire size reductions to ship cost reductions etc. The problem isn't them existing but the amount of stacking that was possible.

The math was done on the forums way in advance, and it was ignored. By the same people who now push this mess. Already some folks have done the math in terms of cost increase to techs and new research output based on proposed changes. And the numbers point at the year 2700-2800. Which is absolutely ridiculous to an extreme degree. And that doesn't even factor in that with slower tech other jobs also all become vastly less efficient leading to further slow downs.

The same people who keep pushing horrendous game breaking additions and changes in their misguided attempt to morph this game into something entirely different, who have brought us a bunch of half cooked and ill thought out ideas are now pushing this one, again. And shouting down anyone who points out it's the same mess, again.

This will go live as it is right now or at best slightly less severe and it will cause all the problems that are brought up right now and then will take forever to halfway fix before it'll be "kinda stopped" in a "good enough but worse than it used to be state" as Eladrin and co find the next thing to take a sledgehammer to.

 

[Calvax]

[quote of deleted post moderated out]

"Multiple people", who exactly?

Me for one, also @Thiend

 

[-Marauder-]

Maybe this will make it a bit more equal-footed and bring some harmony to those games for both ends of the scale. I just hope that people can still do 'as they please' in their own games and people can still get that power fantasy if they so want it with science so we don't cut people off one way or another. This was a selling point by Paradox for Stellaris, so I think they should ensure its still offered.

These changes do target those more optimal players and probably a % of players that go heavy on science in the early game - I'd be interested to know how this will impact me as my benchmark is usually to aim for 1k science by 2300 but I also don't have to hit it, I'm having a good game if I get to 3k science by 2400 but it doesn't stop me from trying to save the galaxy against a X5 crisis, if I don't get to that amount of science.

It in theory 'should' be a good thing though in terms of diversifying play, we have an awesome-looking level 5 holy covenant perk called "Union of Faith" that effectively starts a conversion of non-spiritualist empire pops into priests jobs (from admin jobs) but how many AI and human players actively invest in admin jobs? Not many. This could change that and if theres other similar perks, might make those more usable too

1. I agree, Eladrin does not. He has a vision of this game and he's forcing it onto us no matter what.

2. You're screwed. That's basically it. With the insane increase to research cost and the proposed change to researchers without even accounting for bandwagon issues you're looking at absurdly long games if you'd want to hit certain points.

3. The problem is that this doesn't help "diversify" play and give more approaches. It does the opposite. It's trying to force everyone into a singular playstyle the devs ahve envisioned under thunderous applause of the people on the forum who share that same playstyle. Wanting to dictate to people how to play this game. Small map, midgame latest, etc.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Looking at Stellaris achievements, even taking mods into account. Only 5.9% of players ever finished a game for crying out loud.

Achievements track people who both:

1. Want to play Ironman in the first place, for the challenge, for being told they have achieved something, or for whatever other reasons, and
2. Care enough about playing on to until they reach the official end date, which exists partly to give players who are chronically incapable of declaring their own end to a sandbox game in order to start a new one an official Paradox approved excuse to do so

I'm impressed it is as high as 5.9%.

 

[Foxosaur]

1. I agree, Eladrin does not. He has a vision of this game and he's forcing it onto us no matter what.

2. You're screwed. That's basically it. With the insane increase to research cost and the proposed change to researchers without even accounting for bandwagon issues you're looking at absurdly long games if you'd want to hit certain points.

3. The problem is that this doesn't help "diversify" play and give more approaches. It does the opposite. It's trying to force everyone into a singular playstyle the devs ahve envisioned under thunderous applause of the people on the forum who share that same playstyle. Wanting to dictate to people how to play this game. Small map, midgame latest, etc.

Well, someone did say the maths point to it taking 400 years or so - well that's coincidentally the timelines of EU4(some 380 ish years). So maybe Johan is consulting with Eladrin on taking this game down the "Long end" - or maybe that empires will stop being able to 'get everything' and only what they want and think they need.

I don't know, its a big change, at least they're doing a OB, a lot that hasn't been said, I feel, we'll need to make an effort on writing some good threads about it.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Well, someone did say the maths point to it taking 400 years or so - well that's coincidentally the timelines of EU4(some 380 ish years). So maybe Johan is consulting with Eladrin on taking this game down the "Long end" - or maybe that empires will stop being able to 'get everything' and only what they want and think they need.

We do not have anywhere near enough information to make a qualified guess or mathematical estimate as to how long time it'll take to complete the tech tree.

All we have are some baseline numbers for tweaks to some of the systems involved coupled with vague descriptions without numbers of changes to other existing systems, and general information about the introduction of a new system that will shake up the tech game (breakthrough techs)

Couple this with the population curve in Stellaris making it difficult to extrapolate how substantial changes to existing systems will play out decades later, and I can assure you that anybody claiming that "the maths" points to any number in particular is making things up as he goes along, not making a qualified guess.

Spoiler: Consider this if you want boring reasoning:

• New base science costs for techs; These are details, that can be used in calculations
• New base researcher output; Likewise
• We have been told about the elimination of certain science output modifiers; Likewise
• We have been told about the introduction of throughput modifiers coupled with upkeep modifiers; We don't have any numbers, so we we cannot meaningfully use this information in calculations to extrapolate, yet this information is essential to making any sort of good estimate
• We have been told about the introduction of expensive breakthrough techs, that gatekeep technological advantage and provide something of a catch-up mechanic; We don't have any idea about the number of such gate-keeping techs, or costs if you are the prime mover researching it first, or the rapidity of decline in price as the tech spreads, and we don't know whether somebody who wants to be on the bleeding edge of tech will need to be prime mover on all those breaktroughs or whether it will make strategic sense to focus in some areas and letting others take the lead in other areas, so given that we actually know NOTHING about how it will impact tech gameplay, how can we possibly incorporate this information in our extrapolations with more confidence than "I made some assumptions, and I could theoretically be right"
• What does the current curve of research output divided by (1 + tech penalty) (which is the value that matters, not science output, which is merely one factor in the equation) look like through a normal game (whatever that is), and how will the above changes, and other changes not specifically mentioned but falling under the general headers of change announced, and just as importantly behavioural changes - affect this?
• From a certain point in current gameplay that curve will often trend towards the population growth curve for an empire; Do we assume that this will still be the case? If so, why? If not, why not? Given that we are talking about projecting things hundreds of years into the 3.11 game based on extrapolating from the current first hundred years or so, even if we had full information on anything else, which we don't, any mistaken assumptions here could easily end up making decades or hundreds of years of difference in the end

Too many interdependent systems, too little information. This really is a wait and see case.

 

[Rafss]

Now that Gateway Activation will cost almost 50k research, can Galactic Doorstep get a buff? Because just unlocking the Tech will be worthless if you have to spend 10 years researching it and nothing else.