Stellaris Dev Diary #345 - Upcoming 3.12.3 Improvements

[Calvax]

I hope that modularity IM will be able to assimilate organics into machines. Otherwise they either:
a) have to be xanophobes towards organics and maintain machine purity.
b) loose lot of modular traits bonuses since organics can't get those.

Not to mention that modularity traits for synths will makes them op just because assimilation thing

I'd rather they didn't get the ability to assimilate organics. It doesn't make narrative sense and makes the two pathways boringly similar. But some sort of buff to offset the fact that bio synths will have the traits and more would be good. Like extra trait picks or something.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

I'd rather they didn't get the ability to assimilate organics. It doesn't make narrative sense and makes the two pathways boringly similar. But some sort of buff to offset the fact that bio synths will have the traits and more would be good. Like extra trait picks or something.

Modularity gets to stick more traits on their pops.

Robot/Synth Trait Points:

• Base: 0
• Synthetic Tradition Tree: +2
• Technologies: +4
• Total: 6

Machine Trait Points:

• Base: 1
• Modularity Tradition Tree: +4
• Technologies: +4
• Total: 9

Robot/Synth Trait Picks:

• Base: 4
• Synthetic Tradition Tree: +2
• Total: 6

Machine Trait Picks:

• Base: 5
• Modularity Tradition Tree: +4
• Total: 9

Even with the +2 Points/+1 Picks from Mechanist (and Synthetic Fertility in 3.12.3), Machine empires with Modularity can still get more Trait Points and Picks on their species.

 

[yarpus]

View attachment 1137996 < I'm considered the Human robot portrait.



This is a select list of some of the upcoming changes and fixes that I thought players would be most interested in. If you have found lots of broken stuff, please report what you find in the bug report forum.



Don't panic about this. We're not nerfing Cosmogenesis into the ground.

There will be some adjustments to how the lathe works, though it'll still be extremely powerful at what it does, and the Fallen Empires will have more of an opinion regarding unworthy upstarts exploring technologies that they are unworthy of. The Materialist Fallen Empire will also remember that their historic job is literally to prevent people from researching dangerous technologies that could threaten the universe, and may have some words.

Unless you're their Scion, of course. Then your antics are cheeky and amusing.

These changes will also impact empires that acquire such technologies through non-Cosmogenesis means. (But of course, as they'll have fewer of them, they won't stack quite so much.)

Cosmogenesis is still a Crisis path. There must be reasons to not always pursue it.

Great, altough I worry that the only consequence will be yet another Humiliation war. They already do humiliate you in current version and you can just eat the penalty over and over.
Maybe they did humiliated me because of the Heatwave event though. Still, I never had to fight FE (or any empire) due to Cosmogenesis but I did play Pacifists.

I think the biggest issue I had with difficulty of Cosmogenesis was on how easy it was to farm Advanced Logic. I started with 50/50 split between Research & Logic but quickly shifted to just Research because I was close to max Logic in few years.

 

[King Harkinian]

There will be some adjustments to how the lathe works, though it'll still be extremely powerful at what it does, and the Fallen Empires will have more of an opinion regarding unworthy upstarts exploring technologies that they are unworthy of. The Materialist Fallen Empire will also remember that their historic job is literally to prevent people from researching dangerous technologies that could threaten the universe, and may have some words.

Shouldn't the Contingency also have something to say about the player crisis paths? It's a bit of a shame that there's currently no way to actually trigger the Contingency to do its job, while there's a whole bunch of ways to get the Unbidden to show up early.

I suspect fallen empires won't be that much of a threat to someone who's well underway with Cosmogenesis, but running a gradually increasing risk of being faced with the Contingency with the crisis player as their sole target would probably serve as a more significant check.

 

[Cleaving3]

Love the election tweaks, it’s something I’ve been (Silently) asking for for quite a while now.

 

[Necron123]

At the very least, we need to be able to tell when empires take the perk

If they're a player empire and it's the midgame... they have the perk.

Also opinion maluses at any stage past the first one.

Million research on the Lathe is possible when there are at least 700 pops on it. Correspondingly, there will be many deaths per month.

 

[Archael90]

I'd rather they didn't get the ability to assimilate organics. It doesn't make narrative sense and makes the two pathways boringly similar. But some sort of buff to offset the fact that bio synths will have the traits and more would be good. Like extra trait picks or something.

Not allowing modular IM to assimilate organics, means they have to be xenophobes towards organics.

Shouldn't the Contingency also have something to say about the player crisis paths? It's a bit of a shame that there's currently no way to actually trigger the Contingency to do its job, while there's a whole bunch of ways to get the Unbidden to show up early.

I suspect fallen empires won't be that much of a threat to someone who's well underway with Cosmogenesis, but running a gradually increasing risk of being faced with the Contingency with the crisis player as their sole target would probably serve as a more significant check.

I really thought that going cosmogenesis will trigger contingency that will specifically target cosmogenesis empire.

 

[Carl_Bar]

I agree that it would be better to smooth out the power spike than nerf it in general, but I disagree that this is going to make Virtuality somehow unviable. Virtuality will be just fine.

Really? I thought this is a pretty slight nerf to the absurd power of infinite pop at ~year 40.
What do i care if many other builds can produce more stuff at ~2300 when they are all already pathetic compared to a virtual Empire at that point? Even If you could catch up, they won't allow that... If they are smart.

Nerfing alloys doubles down on it's (imo) biggest weakness right now: early Aggression. (If you have to pump unity like a madman there isn't much left for defense)
On the other Hand, you can almost adopt & finish the tradition in one go, so the nerf comes only month before the biggest production spike imaginable... With or without 15%

TLDR: i think it is a sensible nerf, but doesn't address vitualities inherent "rush it or leave it" nature and it's crazy power levels when rushed.

Carl, how many planets have you usually been turning into Ecus under Virtuality?

I hate to say it, but if you have even built one as a piece, this is an absurd perception of effect, absolutely absurd.

Quoted you three to respond. if its taking you till 2500 to match virtuality your doing something seriously wrong, and yes i've done Ecu's, double Ecus in a couple of runs. They're super powerful initially. But i can match that output by 2400ish on my hive playthroughs as cybernetic, (didn;t do a non-hive non-machine playthrough yet). With this nerf on top, especially for individualist machines, its going to make the allready problematic late game much rougher. At the end of the day theres just an upper cap on your power level based on your alloy and research output and without Lathe shenanigans, (which is rough as virtual anyway because it counts against your colony cap), theres only so far ahead you can get in the research compared to a normal playthrough.


What i'd have preferred to see is say the virtual trait tradition effect reduced from +175% output from jobs to +75% output from jobs, and every repetabel improved the output bonus by an additive 3.334%. So the ideal number of colonies initially drops from 5-6 to 3-4, but every 15 repetables increases it by 1 effectivvly. Far more balanced in both phases of the agme IMO.

 

[mrt1212]

Quoted you three to respond. if its taking you till 2500 to match virtuality your doing something seriously wrong, and yes i've done Ecu's, double Ecus in a couple of runs. They're super powerful initially. But i can match that output by 2400ish on my hive playthroughs as cybernetic, (didn;t do a non-hive non-machine playthrough yet). With this nerf on top, especially for individualist machines, its going to make the allready problematic late game much rougher. At the end of the day theres just an upper cap on your power level based on your alloy and research output and without Lathe shenanigans, (which is rough as virtual anyway because it counts against your colony cap), theres only so far ahead you can get in the research compared to a normal playthrough.


What i'd have preferred to see is say the virtual trait tradition effect reduced from +175% output from jobs to +75% output from jobs, and every repetabel improved the output bonus by an additive 3.334%. So the ideal number of colonies initially drops from 5-6 to 3-4, but every 15 repetables increases it by 1 effectivvly. Far more balanced in both phases of the agme IMO.

I think this is a bad way to evaluate it, but explains why at 15% haircut CGs and Alloys elicited such a dramatic prognostication. Are you playing a game for domestic benchmarks to give a green light on moves you would make, or are you trying to figure out moves in the wake of power strike that makes such evaluations circa 2425 parochial? (and I've got a holiday weekend to bang out a game at 2374 where I'm obviously the most powerful ring leader in the galaxy and poised to pull the noose tight on the rest of the jamokes)

If you harness what it does during the time that it does it, I'm straining to figure out why you would invoke 'but here's where I should be!'

Give it time, and play around with it since some of us are missing this entire 'and now what' or 'but I'm not stronk any longer' probably for methodological/selection/game vision reasons that precede Virtuality's advent.

God, I wish this was its own thread so I could show the illustration of where my game's at and how a 15% haircut with habs and 1 Ecu wouldn't be notable or deeply impactful, and the Vassal taxes only turn a Mineral deficit into Mineral profit - everything else is profitable with Domestic Economy and Branch Offices and so will remain so.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Quoted you three to respond. if its taking you till 2500 to match virtuality your doing something seriously wrong, and yes i've done Ecu's, double Ecus in a couple of runs. They're super powerful initially. But i can match that output by 2400ish on my hive playthroughs as cybernetic, (didn;t do a non-hive non-machine playthrough yet). With this nerf on top, especially for individualist machines, its going to make the allready problematic late game much rougher. At the end of the day theres just an upper cap on your power level based on your alloy and research output and without Lathe shenanigans, (which is rough as virtual anyway because it counts against your colony cap), theres only so far ahead you can get in the research compared to a normal playthrough.


What i'd have preferred to see is say the virtual trait tradition effect reduced from +175% output from jobs to +75% output from jobs, and every repetabel improved the output bonus by an additive 3.334%. So the ideal number of colonies initially drops from 5-6 to 3-4, but every 15 repetables increases it by 1 effectivvly. Far more balanced in both phases of the agme IMO.

1. Virtual ascend for a power spike, then subjugate to keep growing.
2. Virtual ascend for a power spike, then accumulate livestock/UA pops to keep growing.
3. Virtual ascend for a power spike, then conquer more territory to release as subjects.
4. Virtual ascend for a power spike, then go for Cosmogenesis/Nemesis while the rest of the galaxy is helpless to oppose you.

It would be very silly to assume the Virtual player sat on their hands doing nothing except researching tech for the rest of the game.

You should not be comparing "Virtual with the same 5 planets for 200 years vs. Modularity slowly expanding to 6000 pops and 100 colonies over 200 years". It would be more useful to compare Virtual using 200 years to accumulate power through any means other than expanding via more colonies/pops vs. Modularity.

And also: Virtual may simply kill the Modularity empire before it gets to that point, and either assimilate/purge the pops, or throw them in the lathe. It doesn't matter if you'll catch up by 2400 if you were dead in 2300.

 

[Revengeance_oov]

Worker Cooperatives are really quite undertuned. I would suggest the following fixes:

1. Make Stewards override Priests when playing Spiritualist.
2. The Mercantile Tradition swap should apply to Utopian Abundance.
3. Replace Food from TV with whatever type is used by your main species as upkeep - food is wasted on lithoids and machines!
4. Boost Trade Policy to 0.4/0.3/0.3, and add a Trade League variant. That variant could either improve efficiency over the basic policy (e.g. +0.1 E/M/F), or have a toned-down version of the normal Trade League policy (maybe +0.1 Unity/CG).
5. Allow Xenophobe again!

And while I'm asking for things, the benefits from Under One Rule's "Genome Artist" trait apply to Synths if (perhaps only if) you go that route.

 

[mrt1212]

Worker Cooperatives are really quite undertuned. I would suggest the following fixes:

1. Make Stewards override Priests when playing Spiritualist.
2. The Mercantile Tradition swap should apply to Utopian Abundance.
3. Replace Food from TV with whatever type is used by your main species as upkeep - food is wasted on lithoids and machines!
4. Boost Trade Policy to 0.4/0.3/0.3, and add a Trade League variant. That variant could either improve efficiency over the basic policy (e.g. +0.1 E/M/F), or have a toned-down version of the normal Trade League policy (maybe +0.1 Unity/CG).
5. Allow Xenophobe again!

And while I'm asking for things, the benefits from Under One Rule's "Genome Artist" trait apply to Synths if (perhaps only if) you go that route.

One thing that is kinda hilarious with all the excess food as Lithoid Worker Cooperative is that you're never ever going to run out of gift collateral, and then sometimes start having to debase its value as gift collateral at all because you can't give anymore gifts and have to sell it (personally, I love it, but I wear a big diplomatic hat when I've given Worker Cooperative notice. Part of that is realizing I have gift collateral out the rockzoo) There's so many little oversights with Worker Cooperative which you've touched on that have been mentioned, and #1 is one of those 'y'all even played the problem to see it happening' where macro rule overwrites empire specific unique. Sight unseen, you might not imagine it happening, you notice it right away the second you have a building slot and all you got is temples.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

1. Replace Food from TV with whatever type is used by your main species as upkeep - food is wasted on lithoids and machines!
2. Boost Trade Policy to 0.4/0.3/0.3, and add a Trade League variant. That variant could either improve efficiency over the basic policy (e.g. +0.1 E/M/F), or have a toned-down version of the normal Trade League policy (maybe +0.1 Unity/CG).

Tiny nit: Food/energy would be swapped for minerals at a 2:3 ratio, to be consistent with other sources. Otherwise lithoids get a much better deal.

So it would be 0.4/0.3/0.3 (energy/food/minerals), 0.7/0.3 (energy/minerals) or 0.4/0.5 (energy/minerals).

A good trade league variant, fairly consistent with the others, would be: shrink the non-energy by 0.1 each (0.4e/0.2f/0.2m), and then add either 0.2 unity or 0.1 of both unity/CG.

 

[Revengeance_oov]

One thing that is kinda hilarious with all the excess food as Lithoid Worker Cooperative is that you're never ever going to run out of gift collateral, and then sometimes start having to debase its value as gift collateral at all because you can't give anymore gifts and have to sell it (personally, I love it, but I wear a big diplomatic hat when I've given Worker Cooperative notice. Part of that is realizing I have gift collateral out the rockzoo) There's so many little oversights with Worker Cooperative which you've touched on that have been mentioned, and #1 is one of those 'y'all even played the problem to see it happening' where macro rule overwrites empire specific unique. Sight unseen, you might not imagine it happening, you notice it right away the second you have a building slot and all you got is temples.

Even having Priests is fine, as long as they get the Councillor bonuses. Being forced into +2 Amenity Priests when you have +3 TV/Amenity Stewards just feels so bad.

 

[ToNieMiasz]

Better is to make game to calculate available shipyards per slot, not per base.
Right now, if you have 60 ships to reinforce, and megashipyard, regular 6 slot shipyard and juggernaut, system will place 20 ships in each of those.
What it should do instead is to put one ship PER SLOT, so mega get 20 ships, starbase get 6, juggernaut gets 2, and repeat cycle untill no ships are left to que

True, but being able to manually manage that is also a good idea as a temporary band aid that will be a feature later on.
Since we can also try to calculate if the fleet X wants to be reinforced as quickly as possible, then the distance needs to be counted in as well, but if it's about the distance and the fleet X is moving from point A where shipyard A is to point B where the shipyard B is and we have no hyper relays nor gateways constructed yet, then just being able to manually manage it is a good option in my opinion.
If for example the ship construction will take like 300 days, the same amount the fleet X gets to the place and gets reinforced. I get that EVERY time when playing wide and fighting on two fronts of my empire because EVERYBODY wants to destroy me because I am a little bit of a xenophobic criminal sindicate that actually did nothing to them, except a little bit of vivisection as part of the usual greetings... LITERALLY NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT RIGHT?

Anyway, for us it's simple to tell that probably using shipyard A is not a good idea for those 4-6 battleships but for a whole reinforcement system not so much as it doesn't know what we plan ahead. Even if it counted in the X's fleet's arrival date as a final destination, there's no guarantee it won't create some other troubles or possibly cause bugs along the way or even more simply, if the build time is 300 days but travel time only 200 and our fleets are currently in battle.

It's just about the ability for a human to take control over the system's logic.

Usually the reinforcements are smart enough not to bother with using other shipyards far away so I assume they do calculate in the distance, but when gateways come into play the distance becomes less and the whole things gets a little wonky especially after you add 2 slot shipyard mobile juggernaut and 20 slot mega shipyard.

 

[mrt1212]

Even having Priests is fine, as long as they get the Councillor bonuses. Being forced into +2 Amenity Priests when you have +3 TV/Amenity Stewards just feels so bad.

"Hey Wobbly Xeno, are you looking into that Liberation Theology stuff again?"
"Yeah, need to make myself feel bad"

 

[Masked Ermine]

Can we please get a fix the uplifted species gene modding bug?

 

[Masked Ermine]

Nice.
This would also allow for a refurbishing of the system infrastructure.
It'S annoying that the AI never builds the Hyperrelay next to a wormhole or a gateway side

Or you know....a hyperlane. Look, I get it. Teaching the AI tactical allocation of resources is hard...but how often have I seen the AI end their relays in a -50% movement system the furthest it could possibly be from ANY hyperlane or exit point is....stupid... Seriously why would you EVER put a relay in a place that would force you to schlep across an entire star system to get you out of it?

Honestly if I were to redo relays, I'd make their deployment potential be limited to anywhere around anything that could be a potential end point of a star system (so like being able to build them around hyperlanes, wormholes, destroyed/working gateways or shroud tunnels [excluding L-gates because they are already interact poorly with the relays and their position may interfere with whatever other position locating the relay script uses])

 

[danone]

I'm probably one of like, 5 people who care about it, but is there any chance synths and cyborgs get ascension armies like bio and psy? It really bothers me for some reason. Also would be nice if we could get fix for robots in servitude not being affected by stratum specific modifiers which goes all the way from 2.7.2(at least).

 

[yarpus]

Any chance for giving Machine Xenophobes Pop Assembly Speed instead of Pop Growth in this patch?