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

[Vreivai]

Increasing Empire Size Effect penalties would probably not have that effect, as I explained earlier in the thread in this post

Rather than reducing the tech snowball significantly for everybody, you'd be disproportionally slowing down the rate of tech gain for the players that are least in need of being slowed down in the first place.

That's why I suggest also removing things like destiny traits that reduce empire size effect. And of course you could remove/nerf other things that reduce or mitigate empire size, as well.

 

[fourteenfour]

Why not put it in the players hands and split the Research/Tradition tree slider.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Why not put it in the players hands and split the Research/Tradition tree slider.

That is already confirmed as being done in the beta: See this dev post.

 

[fourteenfour]

Honestly leaders have never been in a worse place than they are now. Besides the ridiculous limits on how many an empire can employ without excessive penalty the leaders themselves are just being buried under negative traits. Negative traits which are occurring even when every civic and tradition that can reduce such an occurrence from happening.

So they need to be a focus going forward in addition to bring bonuses back into reality.

I actually have this macro in console which I repeatedly use by pressing up arrow (no, I did not write it) to remove negative traits frequently.

effect every_owned_leader = { limit = { num_leader_traits = { value > 0 negative = yes } } remove_all_negative_traits = yes } every_pool_leader = { limit = { num_leader_traits = { value > 0 negative = yes } } remove_all_negative_traits = yes }

 

[NotAYakk]

I mean, most leaders have like 1 negatove trait? 2 is rare in my experiemce.

Sometimes a negatove trait means I retire a leader - it is no worse than a random death - other times I grin and bear it.

But a mid game "+5 CG upkeep" on a good leader is fine, or "-5% happiness as councilor" on an admiral. I even accept some penalties on councillors as councillors if their other traits are good enough.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Honestly leaders have never been in a worse place than they are now. Besides the ridiculous limits on how many an empire can employ without excessive penalty the leaders themselves are just being buried under negative traits. Negative traits which are occurring even when every civic and tradition that can reduce such an occurrence from happening.

If you have stacked to -4 maximum negative traits and you still get negative traits on the yearly pulse (paragon_2.1020), or more generally if you get more negative traits than should be possible from the yearly pulse and the optional extra negative on leader creation (max = 4 - number of max negative trait reducers), file a bug report with a savegame attached and explain the issue.

If this is not the case, your leaders are not being buried under negative traits, but dealing with business as usual.

If you have not stacked to -4 maximum negative traits, I suggest you either play an empire that is capable of achieving that or try adjusting your expectations to a world of imperfect beings, where most people will turn out to have flaws once you know them long enough.

Allow me to copy-paste an earlier post of mine, in the hope you'll find it useful; If you know all of the following, my apologies for wasting your time.

Reducing max negative traits:

Empire-wide:
-1 Aptitude (Tradition)
-1 Harmony/Versatility (Tradition)
-1 One Mind (Hive Civic)
-2 Purge Traits Finisher currently active (Hive Agenda)

Species traits:
-1 Talented (Regular or Hive)
-1 Enhanced Memory (Cyborg ascension, Synthetic ascension, or Machine)
-1 Learning Algorithm (Cyborg ascension)
-1 Erudite (Genetic ascension)
-1 Elevated Synapses (Overtuned origin)

As you can see, reaching -3 is doable for most empires one way or the other without paying a high opportunity cost, whereas -4 for most empires has a high opportunity cost or is outright impossible, though trivial for Cyborgs.

Max negative traits is set when a leader is created. The only negative traits counted towards the maximum are those set on leader creation and those arising from the yearly pulse (paragon_2.1020).

Assuming Galactic Paragons:
1% chance for 0 max negative traits
4% chance for 1 max negative traits
20% chance for 2 max negative traits
55% chance for 3 max negative traits
20% chance for 4 max negative traits

Note that if the leader is one of those generated with an extra positive and negative trait (10% chance, separate roll), this counts towards the leader's maximum negative traits.

What this means is that in practice, if you get -3 to max negative traits (easy to do if you are willing to pay moderate opportunity costs), 80% of those that are created without a negative trait are immune to gaining negative traits through the yearly pulse, and 100% of those that start with a negative trait are. (And if you take it to -2, the numbers are 25% and 80% respectively.)

This is why it is arguably better to aim for 3 than for 4 max negative traits even if your build can reach 4, since 3 is easier to acquire and all else being equal, leaders that start out with extra traits tend to, on average, end up better leaders unless the negative traits they start with is so bad that it scuppers the leader, in which case the leader is never recruited in the first place, so over time (if you play to leaders' strengths) you are likely to have many of your best leaders be those that started with extra traits despite only 1/10th being created that way.

To be clear, -4 is better than -3 in the sense that you eliminate the chance of negatives from the yearly pulse for everybody, but the extra opportunity cost paid to get there may very well not be worth it in practice.

Note that if you do not have Galactic Paragons, the maximum negative traits is 2 rather than 4, and uses a 1/7, 2/7, 4/7 distribution for 0, 1, and 2 max negative traits.

 

[NotAYakk]

There does seem to be a gap. Psionic empires. Even with aptitude and harmony, they are forced to use talented with their very limited species trait points. And if multi-species, you'll often import completely unmoddable species (by your genetech).

Psionic ascension could probably do with some kind of negative trait restricting option. A copy of the hive minded negative trait agenda maybe?

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

There does seem to be a gap. Psioonic empires. Even with aptitude and harmony, they are forced to use talented with their very limited species trait points. And if multi-species, you'll often import completely unmoddable species (by your genetech).

Psionic ascension could probably do with some kind of negative trait restricting option. A copy of the hive minded negative trait agenda maybe?

I don't really see why? The current breakdown clearly favouring Cyborg and Genetic empires is a nice change from the general trend the last year. Not that I begrudge Psionic's reign of glory this summer after so many years of being the red-headed stepchild of ascensions, but the different ascensions having different strengths sits well with me. Since the current situation has the organic body modification ascensions with lots of options, and everybody else with few, the split seems more thematic than arbitrary.

Not that I'm against something psionic special dealing with negative traits, mind you; I just don't see the need.

Number of options:
7 Cyborg Overtuned Hive
6 Cyborg Hive
6 Genetic Overtuned Hive
6 Cyborg Overtuned
5 Cyborg
5 Genetic Hive
5 Genetic Overtuned
4 Genetic
4 Psionic Overtuned
3 Psionic
3 Synthetic
3 Machine

Also, from a practical perspective, Psionic is practically begging the player to play high unity/leader focused ascensionist, at least in singleplayer, which means that Aptitude and Harmony will be taken as a matter of course, and that starting out with Talented for -10% leader upkeep (quite useful in the early game) and -1 max negative leader trait (very useful in the long run) is about as good as it gets; On par with or better than Traditional for a 1 point/1 pick trait.

As for multi-species empires and importing unmoddable species as Psionic, there's a simple solution to that: Give them residence so they don't generate leaders. Or make them slaves if you are the scum of the universe.

 

[Nevars]

And then you are necrophage or god forbid, psionic necrophage.

The best you can do is -2 maximum negative traits.

I find it incredibly sad that necrophage not only need to deal with their slaves constantly stealing specialist job but also the fact that necrophage leader is the weakest leader in game.

What is the point of specialist bonus when your pops ain't gonna get specialist job (aside from researcher cuz this job is easy to manage job weight).

It might as well just be a pure penalty cuz you either left your necrophage pop as worker in which they have penalty output or need to use chattel slavery on every other species which is very suboptimal.

In short, necrophage need a buff lol

 

[Starfury]

Keeping the -1 max negative trait for the Necrophage tradition swap wouldn't hurt, I suppose.

 

[trent.layell]

starting out with economic acceleration traits

I'd be interested in trying out this build. Since hive minds don't do trade, what do you mean by this?

 

[Shark7]

with regards to the excess of bonuses I would like you to consider capping bonuses.

The game really is one of chasing bonuses because to ignore them can penalize the empire.

With a cap on bonuses it allows for more flexibility in game play as now players can choose how they achieve that cap. No longer would players just take a tech, civic, tradition, or even leader, because of the bonus but instead focus on many more quality of life choices. There are literally a ridiculous number of guides and all they do is stack bonuses and chide anyone for doing otherwise.

I agree, but there also needs to be a cap on penalties as well.

Again, I've said it before, just too many modifiers in this game period. Too many things touching too many systems.

 

[Shark7]

Just a thought that might be interesting for end-game.

Instead of having a specific 'repeatable tech' that the player chooses to research 1 at a time once the tree is finished, what if the repeatable techs were tied to a sub-field of research (IE computing, biology, statecraft, etc.) and once all other techs are exhausted automatically researched as "ongoing". These 'techs' would all be research concurrently, thus splitting the research points between all the research sub-fields. "Ongoing" research has a system where once a set amount of research points have been expended in that sub-field, then you are given a "We've had a breakthrough in the field of "x" message and a corresponding X% increase in whatever it touches.

How it would work:

• Before ongoing tech research could begin, you must first completely finish the tech tree in the corresponding major field.
• Each sub-field gets its own research and benchmarks.
• Each sub-field will improve whatever systems in game that are determined to be affected by it.
• Research Points for each major field (Physics/Social/Engineering) are evenly distributed across the sub-fields they pertain to.
• The player has no direct control over ongoing research. It's the endgame after all, you get what you get.

This would best be done if each major field was balanced so that they have equal numbers of sub-fields, and preferably and equal number of technologies (I always seem to get physics done first and engineering last in the current research system). That way you could expect to see arriving at ongoing research in each major field at roughly the same time.

What is the point of this you may ask? Well...

• It removes some micro-management at end-game from the player.
• It prevents players from 'doubling down' on certain repeatable technologies and getting far ahead of the AI/other players (no more focusing armor for example).
• It slows the progression of end game repeatable tech advances since your research points will be evenly distributed among the sub-fields each major tech field.
• It realistically represents how research actually progresses. That is you have many researcher working on many different projects at the same time.

What I don't want to touch is the regular research tree. For end-game repeatable tech, this ongoing system is fine. However, before the tech tree is finish, the player still needs to be able to focus a certain tech/field if they need to.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

I'd be interested in trying out this build. Since hive minds don't do trade, what do you mean by this?

Beats me.

Could be growth focus, could be habitability focus, could even be research focus, could have amenity boosting incorporated to be able to allocate less drones to low value jobs - in short, just about anything that delivers raw power up front if the plan is to go wide through mostly peaceful means early game, without conquest unless the opportunity to take advantage of a federation take-point war.

I only had general ideas when I wrote that post, and if I were to decide to take a stab at making a very, very, wide Hive build, it would be done by starting out from the build concept and then refining the design through testing with different traits rather than decide in advance what I would focus on.

Who knows, perhaps I'd give up on Cyborg accepting the loss of a -10% POP ES trait in favour of Genetic anyway, as I do consider Genetic superior in general - it is just that I'd love to make a good non-trade Cyborg build one of these days, and this seemed to provide an opportunity - or at least an excuse for doing so, even if suboptimal.

So you are out of luck. Go test yourself and report back with the results. My vacation plan remains either seeing how much I can abuse Sovereign Guardianship or just how wide and wild I could make a version of my 3.8.4 UOR build updated to handle the 3.10 nerfs and take advantage of the new opportunities.

EDIT: Or perhaps there are so many in-your-face bugs remaining in 3.10.4 that I mainly play the beta rather than performing a few cursory tests in it, since I generally get less annoyed by bugs in betas. Time will tell.

 

[akya]

Stability

• Fix crash on startup for Linux (including steam deck).

Thank you! <3

 

[Miuramir]

I don't really see why?

Because a far-future society with abundant mental linkages should have better mental health care. In my opinion everyone should have about -1 negative traits based on those tables to start with; this is the future, we're choosing the best out of tens or hundreds of billions of candidates, and it's not nearly as fun dealing with a bunch of gradually disintegrating wackos decided purely by random fiat.

But in a psionic society in particular, the odds of someone going off the deep end and suddenly demanding ten times the energy consumption of a small planet, or otherwise going nuts in ways that affect an entire empire should be far lower, and there should be proper mental health care available to cure such problems in the rare cases they crop up.

Taking a more dystopian approach, in a darker psionic setting it should be possible to forcibly "cure" individuals of bad habits whether they like it or not. (Not the way I'd usually choose to play, but it should be available. Maybe that's a function of the Psi Corps (see Babylon 5)? What if they gave, say, -25% leader experience, to represent overhead, fear, and repressed creativity, but -1 negative trait?)

 

[NotAYakk]

Because a far-future society with abundant mental linkages should have better mental health care. In my opinion everyone should have about -1 negative traits based on those tables to start with; this is the future, we're choosing the best out of tens or hundreds of billions of candidates, and it's not nearly as fun dealing with a bunch of gradually disintegrating wackos decided purely by random fiat.

But in a psionic society in particular, the odds of someone going off the deep end and suddenly demanding ten times the energy consumption of a small planet, or otherwise going nuts in ways that affect an entire empire should be far lower, and there should be proper mental health care available to cure such problems in the rare cases they crop up.

Taking a more dystopian approach, in a darker psionic setting it should be possible to forcibly "cure" individuals of bad habits whether they like it or not. (Not the way I'd usually choose to play, but it should be available. Maybe that's a function of the Psi Corps (see Babylon 5)? What if they gave, say, -25% leader experience, to represent overhead, fear, and repressed creativity, but -1 negative trait?)

Notice I did it as a council edict (copied from Hive minded).

The "cure" of the quirks problems kicks in, followed by a period of -2 negative traits, and then ... a period where your leaders can get negative traits.

You have to regularly cull (mind sculpt? treat? how do you define it?) the negative traits, instead of what the other ascensions do.

It should give it a different feeling.

Also, if you get a lucky set of negative traits on some of your leaders, do you really want to reroll them in a few years? The negative trait culling is empire-wide.

 

[Shark7]

Because a far-future society with abundant mental linkages should have better mental health care. In my opinion everyone should have about -1 negative traits based on those tables to start with; this is the future, we're choosing the best out of tens or hundreds of billions of candidates, and it's not nearly as fun dealing with a bunch of gradually disintegrating wackos decided purely by random fiat.

But in a psionic society in particular, the odds of someone going off the deep end and suddenly demanding ten times the energy consumption of a small planet, or otherwise going nuts in ways that affect an entire empire should be far lower, and there should be proper mental health care available to cure such problems in the rare cases they crop up.

Taking a more dystopian approach, in a darker psionic setting it should be possible to forcibly "cure" individuals of bad habits whether they like it or not. (Not the way I'd usually choose to play, but it should be available. Maybe that's a function of the Psi Corps (see Babylon 5)? What if they gave, say, -25% leader experience, to represent overhead, fear, and repressed creativity, but -1 negative trait?)

Better Question: How do these 'leaders' get through the vetting process in the first place? You'd think some of these more serious character flaws would be detected in the screening process.

 

[Nithralder]

One of the issues that I have with Stellaris is the way that certain mechanics work in the game.


Everything should be tied to Ethics. This includes Leader Traits, Tradition Trees and Research options to a lesser extent.


Each Fanatic Ethics should have its own Unique Tradition Tree. Picking Fanatic Militarist for example lets you pick Supremacy Tradition Tree, while picking Spiritualist grants you access to the Harmony Tradition Tree. At the moment in Game you can go Pacifist and then Pick Supremacy which doesn't make sense as they are Ethically opposed. Additionally Research would change based on Ethics as well.

Ship Cost Reduction should stay in the game but either capped or tied exclusively to certain Ethics/Tradition Trees


The +20% Research Field technologies would be exclusive to Fanatic Materialist or tied to certain Tradition Trees.


This would make Tradition's more than just stat sticks and picking between what gives you the best stats.


Basically each Ethics Group should specialize in something that is reflected in Research, Traditions and Leader traits and it is strictly unique to that group.


At the moment you can pick basically whatever you want, and be the best in every single field in the game regardless of ethics. There needs to be some pros and cons for picking specific Ethics Groups.

 

[WoodenP]

Repeatable techs were not positioned around the endgame date (2400) pre-2.2 launch, though, arriving much, much, earlier for both competent players and the AI, and it seems unlikely to me that the proposed changes will result in them being positioned for the endgame date in 3.11 either.

Dude nice post! You went back to the old client and everything. That's really interesting that they basically had an entire century of repeatable gameplay around 2.2. I definitely think what you posted there is a great touchstone for the community with regard to what the -expected- game pacing is until we get a real communication from Paradox.

Obviously the whole thing is constantly in flux regard to the number of techs that exists as well. Early Stellaris versions had even less and so to speak might "bottom out" quicker so maybe there is some justification for a shift based purely on that, but it would be minor IMO. Hope they have a clear idea internally about all this.