Stellaris Dev Diary #352 - Stellaris 3.13 'Vela' Improvements and Preliminary Release Notes

[Cassilda]

Nice rework of these two world designations.

 

[hoz]

Are the toiler jobs still preventing auto-resettlement?

 

[L-Histidine]

I suppose the change to strategic resource deposits works around the issues with limited job availability and competing for valuable building slots, but it also feels like it'd incentivize paving over Gaia worlds with mines.

Will there be changes to the refinery side of those resources? (for Ancient Refinery non-havers)

 

[Ikael]

Freaking great rework of both prison and thrall worlds. And the rare resource changes are quite a pleasant surprise, too! Curious about how refineries and mining guilds will change to adapt to those modifications (or if they will change at all).

A bit bummed to see that the next custodian patch will have to wait until after the Grand Archive is released, tho.

 

[Madgt123]

I feel like the Battle Thrall segment should be added to all worlds in a slaver empire.

 

[Rafss]

A bit bummed to see that the next custodian patch will have to wait until after the Grand Archive is released, tho

It is probably a major rework of something, maybe pop growth mechanics, or starbase templating, or genemodding/species management, who knows, but I am quite excited for it, it is certainly big.

 

[Cleaving3]

I really like all of these changes. 10/10

Just wondering, will this make it to where you can have city/industrial districts on a planet and still be able to convert it to a thrall world/penal colony?
If the answer is yes, will industrial districts convert into battle thrall districts?

 

[Cleaving3]

Also, BUFF TO SLAVERS!
It’s what we’ve been asking for!
Thanks PDX!

 

[AaronArx]

Are the refineries and hydroponic farms getting some love too? Can there be an option to upgrade them now?

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Personally I somewhat agree with the criticism voiced here that synthetic ascension getting modularity traits, seemingly as an afterthought while for machine empires it's a core focus, feels weird both thematically and mechanically.

And it tips the scales a bit too heavily in favor of the physical ascension path, leaving the virtual one in the dust (the virtual focus policy is much weaker than modularity traits).

I would definitely not mind seeing that revisited somehow, perhaps with physical and virtual authorities both getting somewhat different bonuses instead of just borrowing from machine ascensions.

I'm just sad that the game had a very brief glorious period where the game timeline actually made sense, the end game existed, and it just worked... immediately followed by a patch that slapped +60% resources from jobs on almost everything before you hit mid game. And the official position is that there are no plans to reduce the power level of any of the new stuff.

 

[AllYourPopsAreBelongToUs]

Is it just me, or does this seem counter to the theme?

The basic tradeoff is that the job has half as much throughput, in exchange for benefitting from worker/slave modifiers. This means it's an extremely uphill battle for this to outperform normal metallurgists from a pop-efficiency perspective, but doable.

But the way it outperforms normal metallurgists is by being more mineral-efficient - a normal metallurgist has anywhere between 100% to 33% more base (multiplicative) output depending on your level of forge building, so unless you have absurdly high slave output modifiers compared to metallurgist output modifiers, making your alloys on a non-penal world will result in more alloys, at the cost of using more minerals.

But if I have high worker/slave output modifiers, that necessarily means I have extremely efficient miners who can produce tons of minerals, and I am therefore uniquely interested in a job that is mineral wasteful but produces more alloys.

It all just feels backwards - it would be better thematically and better fit the slaver playstyle if penal industrial worlds had the potential for higher raw output, at the expense of being less mineral efficient, not the other way around.

Well payed, educated Specialists should be more (Pop) efficient than people who have to be forced.
It would feel very backwards If someone who barely knows what they are doing would be better at something (because of the whip behind them) then someone who knows the ins and outs of the machinery and is motivated.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

On Penal Colonies: they look powerful, but only for empires that have lots of tech already.

The metallurgist's net output is +3 (+1.5*4-3). That makes it one of the weakest jobs in the game. To make it equal in efficiency to a default metallurgist, you'd need +50%, plus another +20% for every +10% the default gets. Ex. Default with +10% makes +7.2, so the slave metallurgist needs +70% (1.5*1.7*4-3=7.2) to match.

But once you add supporting buildings and Superior Alloy, the slave metallurgist only needs +15% and another +12% for every +10% the default gets. And that's extremely easy to beat: Domination, Iron Fist, and Ruthless Developer will drive your output through the roof. Not to mention, the designation providing +10% output instead of reducing upkeep.

The only issue is the low total volume of the jobs you can produce. I'd almost rather the crime reduction got completely removed, in favor of letting you make as many as you wanted.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Well payed, educated Specialists should be more (Pop) efficient than people who have to be forced.
It would feel very backwards If someone who barely knows what they are doing would be better at something (because of the whip behind them) then someone who knows the ins and outs of the machinery and is motivated.

I believe what he was proposing was that the worker metallurgist be less efficient overall, but that the inefficiency come from extra waste: higher mineral upkeep, but the same (or almost the same) output.

Ex. +3 alloy, -9 minerals (for net +3 value) instead of +1.5 alloy, -3 minerals (for net +3 value).

Thematically: they're worse at their job, but you work them harder. Same throughput, but more wasteful.

I think the change already does a bit of that (+10% output instead of -20% upkeep from designation), though.

 

[mrt1212]

• The Chthonian Planet, Extensive Moon System and Carbon World modifiers will now only add their mineral deposits to the planet the first time they are surveyed instead of every time they are surveyed

So now I have even less reasons to spare the AI, great. (I'm being half facetious, but I loved letting the AI get cracks at these for a novel important mineral world)

Love the Strategic Resource changes, btw.

 

[Methone]

Any upcoming fixes to Awakened Empire AI, which have done nothing but drool on keyboards since APOCALYPSE?

 

[luanmameili[LM]]

The deposits that previously gave access to Crystal Mines, Gas Extraction Wells and Mote Harvesting Traps buildings, now instead increase the number of mining districts available on the planet and, after researching the technology to extract the relevant resource, add a small amount of resource production to miners on that planet.

View attachment 1183105​

How about habitats built on planets with these resources?

 

[Lorenerd11]

How about habitats built on planets with these resources?

I think it would be cool if they behaved the same way, +3 mining districts and +0.1 multiplied by deposit size (+0.3 for size 3 deposit).

Hopefully it's something like that.

 

[DamnedLackOfTropicalFruit]

Well payed, educated Specialists should be more (Pop) efficient than people who have to be forced.
It would feel very backwards If someone who barely knows what they are doing would be better at something (because of the whip behind them) then someone who knows the ins and outs of the machinery and is motivated.

you say your workers are "motivated", but my slaves are the ones working 18 hour shifts

More seriously, slaves have always been more pop-efficient at the jobs they have access to. The catch is that they don't have access to a lot of important jobs without Indentured Servitude (which forfeits the slave modifiers).

I think it makes more sense for both gameplay and roleplay if whipping the slaves harder forced them to outproduce the trained professionals (while also wasting a lot more material because they don't know what they're doing), rather than allowing them to match the production of a trained professional while somehow only using half the input materials.

The whip is for motivating workers, not inspiring them to make breakthrough discoveries in efficient nano-metallurgy!

But once you add supporting buildings and Superior Alloy, the slave metallurgist only needs +15% and another +12% for every +10% the default gets. And that's extremely easy to beat: Domination, Iron Fist, and Ruthless Developer will drive your output through the roof. Not to mention, the designation providing +10% output instead of reducing upkeep.

Given Penal Colonies is a rare T3 society tech with an additional 0.25x modifier if you don't have a curator/statecraft scientist on your council, this unlocks at a pretty similar time to a Ecumonopolis (gated behind a very common T3 engineering tech, plus an AP and 10 year construction time).

While thematically slave workshops are pretty low-tech, in reality they're competing with Ecumenopolis Capitals. How do they compare?

I think the change already does a bit of that (+10% output instead of -20% upkeep from designation), though.

The designation is something I didn't consider - if we can't have forge/factory penal colonies, that will definitely make them more annoying to work with.
Having just gone out of my way to replace a bunch of specialists with 0 CG upkeep slaves, what am I supposed to do with all the consumer goods? My ruling strata can only eat so many iPhones.

 

[Ajacoba]

Any upcoming fixes to Awakened Empire AI, which have done nothing but drool on keyboards since APOCALYPSE?

Really? I see them take over big chunks of the galaxy whenever they actually get to awaken without half a dozen vultures ripping them apart

 

[Incompetent]

The Toiler job still looks almost completely futile, is that intentional?