Stellaris Dev Diary #328 - New Year, New Beta

[HildoY]

Glad see you guys finally ceased the endless vacation and had some jobs done.
The breakthrough technology is removed now. It might be a good idea if you only concern the negative reaction from last open beta, but it looks more like a great nerf if you check with the live version. It looks like a great conspiracy that the removal of 9 20% tech bonus is already planned.
Speaking of the curve, it's pretty nice that the difference in difficulty has results other than the boring AI extreme bonus. The number of the curve also needs more tests to result in a fair judgement. I'm excited to start a few new games to see the changes in tech cost. At the first glance, the new curve means that we will have a much harder early game even comparing with the old open beta, yet things getting better as tier getting higher. I currently doubt that the early game will probably be a hell when playing with low pop setting/game style.
In addition, the overpowering mechanics are still outside that escaped the changes in today's patch. As I mentioned in the last questionnaire, the crisis ascension is still an essential method bypassing the tech nerf. Players still get free tier 5 technologies with the same requirement: gaining enough menace. As the main point in the beta which is slowing down the game, this system should be seriously considered in the following patch. On the other hand, the subject gameplay is another way to against the slow rule. As long as you release a scholar subject with one system, one planet, and one pop, you gain the research bonus with an affordable hyper relay. Either nerf it on the numbers or change the requirement would help slowdown the game as expected in the 3.11 theme.
Finally, I am a little bit disappointed that the new game doesn't fix any bugs. There are some obvious annoying bugs such as T2/3 scientist society focus not working. There are a few typos in the beta files that could easily be fixed. I'm really looking forward to hearing those bugs got fixed, and probably some more flexible API for modders.

 

[Starfury]

How does difficulty adjusted tech costs interact with scaling difficulty? If I pass on a tech and don't see it again for a few decades, or set it aside to do a special project during which the difficulty ticks upward, will its cost have increased?

It doesn't. Scaling difficulty doesn't mean you start at Cadet and end up at the selected difficulty.

It only means that the AI doesn't get the full benefits of selected difficulty setting until the end of the scaling period.

 

[Palillo]

There is one thing that has not been clear to me with "Removed Breakthrough Technologies". Does it mean that the 3 technologies that existed per field that increased the research produced by researchers by 20% have also disappeared? Or has the new concept of Breakthrough Technologies just disappeared and they have put those technologies back?

 

[Torredebelem]

As a non beta tester and having logged significantly less than 1000 hours in the game, while not being a min-maxer of any sort, I enjoy the gist of the changes and sincerely hope the devs keep the Technology Cost Slider on the production version. I usually play with tech costing 5 times more and have no desire to mod all the tech costs in the game files. I am sure other players also adjust tech costs and taking out the setup slider would be cutting on the game's features.

 

[aadf97799c]

that bio reactor change look interesting

now please add something that allow hive mind to use food to construct building and upkeep researcher

 

[GOLANX]

Hmm, the Bio-Reactor changes...

Bio-Reactors are useful for two different scenarios:
1 - I need food but I have too much; and
2 - I don't need food and I have any.

Case 2 is for things like Synth Ascension with no immigration and you have a big food stock left.

The old Bio-Reactor was useful for case 2; the new one appears to only work for case 1.

Also, this new Bio-Reactor is not great for cases where food is coming from non-Farmers (e.g. from Vassals) -- if I have food income without Farmers, what does this new design do to help me spend that food?


Suggestions:

- Switch Bio-Reactor to modify Technicians instead of Farmers. Give the Technicians on a planet +1 Food upkeep in trade for +1 base Energy. Perhaps also unlock +5 generator districts on this colony. That gives me something to do with a controlled value of food income, and I can just delete the building if I'm burning down a backlog.

- Keep the gas-fermentation building as its own thing (not an upgrade to the Bio-Reactor), or make Exotic Gas Refinery have food upkeep. That's a cool change.

I think Bioreactor should allow energy districts to be built on Agriculture features. So if you have a planet with a lot of Agriculture features you don't need you can use them for extra energy. The food > energy transition should be a thing you can disable with a planetary decision, for the case where you are synth/lithoid and aren't making food at all.

 

[Friedrich von Deutschland]

A bit of a shame breakthrough techs had to be removed altogether, but I understand if getting them working would require effort better spent improving other parts of the game.

 

[HFY]

I agree with the fact that farmers need to get buffed by energy bonuses if we want reactors to be viable, specially late game, however when you play as agrarian ideal, you want to have as many farmers as possible, and making them able to produce your energy would help with that. IMO the building should work as you said in most cases, but should be modified for this type of empires to something close to what it is in this beta

Instead of trying to edit 50 different effects in 10 DLCs (and a hundred mods) to conditionally buff some Farmers, it seems a lot easier to just let Technicians consume food. That's one change in one place, and they will get full benefit from all +% energy buffs.

That handles non-farmer food income, too.

What's your solution to Lithoids / Synths / Machines / etc. who get a Tributary and now have too much food, but have zero Farmer?

I think Bioreactor should allow energy districts to be built on Agriculture features. So if you have a planet with a lot of Agriculture features you don't need you can use them for extra energy. The food > energy transition should be a thing you can disable with a planetary decision, for the case where you are synth/lithoid and aren't making food at all.

That's an interesting idea, too, but how does it help if you're getting food income from non-farmer sources, like Tributaries?

 

[starchitect]

Why is the the "Difficulty Adjusted Technology Cost" slider not simply a "Technology Cost Curve" slider. Making one slider dependent on the setting of another is really unintuitive, as evidenced by all the confused questions about it here. Difficulty and the Tech curve are related, but not intrinsically tied to one another.

What if I want civilian difficulty but a high cost curve? I cannot achieve that with the new game settings because civilian multiplies wherever I put the difficulty adjusted tech cost by 0. I enjoy the pacing of the game with larger difference between tiers, but dont always enjoy the AI having the massive output bonuses they get on high difficulty. Having any game setting be completely negatable by another setting is bad UX, as a player might set the cost curve to high and not realize it was having literally no effect because they stayed on default difficulty. This makes no sense. Simply make it a Cost curve slider with no relation to difficulty, then, we are not forced to play on grand admiral to get the highest possible tech curve .

 

[GOLANX]

That's an interesting idea, too, but how does it help if you're getting food income from non-farmer sources, like Tributaries?

That's the thing, you can have technicians turn food into energy, it's just something you can turn on and off. If I'm playing Synth and I don't have that tributary then the last thing I want to do is make Agriculture Districts just to support energy. I'm synth I don't want to invest in farmers, Agriculture technologies, leaders with farmer traits, or food buildings just to boost my energy, that's a big waste of resources when all I want is energy.

 

[Isharon]

I had an idea, what if breakthrough tech cost was equal to the cost of unresearched tech in that tier? So you can choose between dropping points on a tech that gives you nothing but access to next tier, or research useful techs and make your breakthrough tech go faster when you get to it. (I actually liked breathrough techs)

 

[Ezumiyr]

Well, for me it means that I'm just going to wait for Stellaris 2 at this point. Technology requires more radical changes and Breakthrough Techs should just have been a first step.
Had a good run , more than 2400h on this game. But there are some fundamental chances that have been needed since launch and now it's pretty clear that it's not going to happen.

 

[Isharon]

Well, for me it means that I'm just going to wait for Stellaris 2 at this point. Technology requires more radical changes and Breakthrough Techs should just have been a first step.
Had a good run , more than 2400h on this game. But there are some fundamental chances that have been needed since launch and now it's pretty clear that it's not going to happen.

See you in a few years then. Or maybe never, who knows

 

[GnoSIS]

New major Expansion when?

 

[Abdulijubjub]

How would those buildings affect Anglers?

Unless they did something funky, Anglers are in the planet_farmers category, so they should be affected (assuming it's an auto generated tooltip).

My proposed revision would be useful for them, too -- they need energy, and have too much food. So spend the food to create energy as a throughput element.

This beta-test version is okay for them, but not great, since it can't reduce food below an arbitrary threshold, and many energy scaling buffs don't apply to farmers (while all of them do apply to the +1 energy in my proposal).

And it's basically worthless if those empires get a couple of Tributaries or other resource-taxed Vassals, while mine would be beneficial in those cases, too.

-2 food, +2 energy for farmers and technicians? It would result in technicians getting an odd throughput effect (their "upkeep" would scale with output modifiers, as it would give them negative output instead of true upkeep). And it would need a custom tooltip to not be weird.

One downside (?) to that would be that technicians would be much more effective than farmers at the conversion: farmers' food output modifiers would affect only the upkeep, while technicians' energy output modifiers would affect only the output. It would be a spread of -1.2 for the farmers and +1.2 energy for the technicians (after all the +60% techs).

 

[MrFreake_PDX]

Glad see you guys finally ceased the endless vacation and had some jobs done.

A lot of the devs have been back from vacation for almost two weeks. No dev diary doesn't mean there isn't anyone working.

 

[HFY]

That's the thing, you can have technicians turn food into energy, it's just something you can turn on and off. If I'm playing Synth and I don't have that tributary then the last thing I want to do is make Agriculture Districts just to support energy. I'm synth I don't want to invest in farmers, Agriculture technologies, leaders with farmer traits, or food buildings just to boost my energy, that's a big waste of resources when all I want is energy.

Right, in that case just don't build a Bio-Reactor.

My suggestion is that the Bio-Reactor building changes Technicians to have +1 Food upkeep => +1 Energy production. If you don't build a Bio-Reactor, your Technicians will not have Food upkeep.

IF you have a Tributary (or other Food source of some kind) then you might want a Bio-Reactor on some of your colonies.

-2 food, +2 energy for farmers and technicians? It would result in technicians getting an odd throughput effect (their "upkeep" would scale with output modifiers, as it would give them negative output instead of true upkeep). And it would need a custom tooltip to not be weird.

One downside (?) to that would be that technicians would be much more effective than farmers at the conversion: farmers' food output modifiers would affect only the upkeep, while technicians' energy output modifiers would affect only the output. It would be a spread of -1.2 for the farmers and +1.2 energy for the technicians (after all the +60% techs).

My suggestion doesn't touch Farmer output. I'm assuming that if you have Farmers, then you want some food for something, and that the Exotic Gas building (separate from Bio Reactor) would handle cases where you just want to reduce your Food slightly.

My suggestion is only about Technician upkeep / throughput -- turning food into energy through a job which already has all energy buffs applied correctly.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

My suggestion doesn't touch Farmer output. I'm assuming that if you have Farmers, then you want some food for something, and that the Exotic Gas building (separate from Bio Reactor) would handle cases where you just want to reduce your Food slightly.

My suggestion is only about Technician upkeep / throughput -- turning food into energy through a job which already has all energy buffs applied correctly.

If you're proposing to have bioreactors only change technician output (and revert the presented change to farmers): this is fixing the fact that it doesn't work for lithoids/robots by making it not work again for Agrarian Idyll/Anglers.

If you're proposing to have both: this is the case I'm talking about. If both jobs get -2 food/+2 energy, then the technician will get a % increase (buff) to the energy output, while farmers will get a % increase (nerf) to the food output reduction.

If you're proposing that the technicians will use real upkeep instead of an output modifier: this has an even bigger swing. A technician "producing" -1 food with +100% output from designation, generic (non-energy) tech bonuses, ascension, governor, etc. will actually drain 2 food. But if it's upkeep, it will drain less (possibly 1.25 with all techs, but possibly even less depending on governor modifiers). That's the same as the output modifier problem, but worse.

However, if the conversion is less efficient for technicians (2 food upkeep or -2 food output, but only +1 energy output), then you can preserve that use case of turning food into energy for non-food empires. It's optional (you can just not build a bioreactor), so the fact that it's inefficient is not a major concern.

It still leaves a small niche uncovered (synth/lithoid trade empires who don't use technicians), but that's a much smaller segment than "everyone who doesn't use food".

And this is all presupposing that "farmers are bad at turning food into energy" is really an issue in the first place. Hence the (?). Narrative wise, either way makes sense ("farmers can grow crops specifically for energy conversion, like starch heavy staple crops" or "of course technicians run the energy infrastructure more efficiently than farmers who are outside their area of expertise"). So it's mostly a question of what the intended gameplay effect is.

Yet another alternative would be to keep the -25 food, +20 energy building output, in addition to the farmer effects. Farming empires can modify their farmers, while non-food empires can keep just using them as stat sticks. Though you'd have to spread them around, since the job output modifier would necessitate making them planet-unique.

 

[Dragatus]

"Removed" breakthrough technologies is interesting.. I'm hoping that they've just been reclassified, rather than removed from the game itself. Having more available techs tends to be more enjoyable (at least from my perspective.) Rather than having less. makes focused gameplay more enjoyable.

Honestly though I thought a technologies update had a hope for a few more techs, lawls. Maybe I'm just reading it wrong?

The Breakthrough Techs previously replaced the techs that increased Research output from Jobs.

With their removal are the techs that increased Research output from Jobs returning?

Or are those techs just completely removed from the game?

The technologies have been removed entirely. They did not bring back the old research boost techs.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

We would likely have avoided unity or tech related benefits as breakthrough technology rewards had we kept them. Their primary purpose was to put roadblocks between tech tiers and slow down the frontrunners, providing them a (timed) tech boost would have been counterproductive. (Regarding Unity, we've moved towards a design philosophy where technology should rarely provide unity bonuses.)

But tech should, apparently, still provide unity penalties, as it remains the gatekeeper for fully half the planetary ascension tiers.*

Grumpf.

EDIT
* As well as unity ambitions and the final ascension perk, of course, but it is gatekeeping planetary ascension that creates the most absurd in-game issues for players that focus on unity, since it is better to stockpile unity for years or decades after completing the tradition tree and ascending high value planets to tier 5, piling up ever more unity until you finally get Ascension Theory and can ascend your high value planets to 10, than to spend it on ascending low value planets, since ascending them makes it more expensive - possibly prohibitively expensive - to ascend your high value planets once you finally reach Ascension Theory.

So let me repeat my suggestion of letting ascension perks 3-7 unlock 2 planetary ascension tiers each, and 8 unlock either -10% planetary ascension cost or +10% planetary ascension effect.