Stellaris Dev Diary #375 - Notes on the Open Beta

[Rafss]

We’ll have two dev diaries next week that will be a bit meatier than this one, to flesh out some of the other things coming in the next Quarter.

Looks like it's still moving... it's that raw... a good vet can bring it back to life!

Gordon Ramsey shall be personally judging each of the next quarter announcements, look at his face here:

 

[WoodenP]

There is an insistence that the ultra early beta was "valuable" and yet the only examples of things caught have been incredibly obvious find-in-one-hour results that the QA team would rapidly discover. Not sure how that justifies the early push, to be honest.

Does the Stellaris team have no QA team for 4.0? They're all tied up on the new DLC?

Meaningful feedback born from significant play time en masse can't be offered yet because too much stuff is still broken. (And the remaining feedback, on matters fundamentally iffy from the design perspective, [eg. zones] isn't being responded to.)

 

[Paspinall]

What I find amusing so far is, despite the horribly low, to the point of impossible, starting levels on a lot of resources.. some of the changes then made production of some things (unity notably) even worse LOL

and heaven forbid you want to actually provide some amenities while producing things on a planet now that the holo theatres are restricted

 

[Scyobi_Empire]

I'm going to be honest, i have tried the beta but i have no clue what i am doing anymore as so much has changed...

changed for the better! sure, i had a slight heart attack when i thought 30k workforce was pops and was concerned about my laptop exploding, but the changes open the doors to many new playstyles or evenbeing able to hit the default 2500 victory screen

 

[Mister X-X]

So what awaits us next? Will you finalize this system?

 

[TLEG_Managarmr]

Did the endgame lag improved with the changes?

No one can GET to endgame yet, so we don't know. Beta is still far too broken to get anywhere.

 

[TLEG_Managarmr]

This is going to be a hot take since some people are against the "post-primitive" start, but I think it be neat if we started with all 3 city zones on our capital pesudo-developed. Primitive industry, research, and administration that only offer 80% of the jobs that they could (instead of a scary looking penalty) and upgradable into their "modern" counterparts once you have the resources. It also add some early game decision making over what to priortize updating first, since we don't have the building decisions we used to have.

I mean, yeah. But "Neat" and "Functional" are two very different things. I, too, thought that having a non-unified, pre-space age unification capital would be a "neat" idea, until I played it in practice and watched the early game grind to a complete halt, or end in one of a myriad of death spirals because you couldn't produce any kind of resources to do ANYTHING.

So...no. Please no.

 

[Newbee53]

Since people have been complaining about how building city districts increases the number of jobs provided by every zone, which isn't always ideal, I'd like to suggest making each of the four city zones have it's own district. That way, you can increase the number of jobs from a specific zone as needed without creating a ton of extra, unneeded jobs from other zones.

I think this is a good thought. Though it might be a better job to combine the 'end resource' productions into a city district--so unity, research, and the like--and the 'used elsewhere' resources--cg and alloy at least--into an 'industrial district' that works much the same as the city ones. that way you have control over the 'consumes' and 'produces' sides of the economy. It would also hopefully allow for more advanced resources. which is something I've wanted for a bit.

There is an insistence that the ultra early beta was "valuable" and yet the only examples of things caught have been incredibly obvious find-in-one-hour results that the QA team would rapidly discover. Not sure how that justifies the early push, to be honest.

The difference is, how long does it take for the first person to see a Pre-FTL to disappear before tehy figure out what caused it. A missed notification? Did the pops just blink out of existence? Was that the gasalte pre-FTL or was it not? Was it a weird interaction with an event, or something more fundamental?

Paid reviewers can't always stop playing and restart the game just to see. They might have to test the end game. Plus, because they have at least two branches, they might not know which one caused the problems. Especially if the only person to notice that first play through is the one guy currently working on that one branch.

And none of that matters if your testers were specifically asked to help narrow down why pops are changing jobs all the time, and so they weren't even looking at total numbers, or the pre-ftl planets to start with.

But with us, we only have one branch, and sense none of us are required to make it to the mid-game crisis, a thousand people can go back and realize that the Pre-FTL was declining from the first moment we found them, every single time. all the time. So, it's clearly fully fundamental and not 'something common but not universal' and the like.

I mean, yeah. But "Neat" and "Functional" are two very different things. I, too, thought that having a non-unified, pre-space age unification capital would be a "neat" idea, until I played it in practice and watched the early game grind to a complete halt, or end in one of a myriad of death spirals because you couldn't produce any kind of resources to do ANYTHING.

So...no. Please no.

I don't think the problems with the pre-ftl factory are fundamental to the idea. just that it was made to poorly. I'd like to see some 'poor' before your interstellar infrastructure myself. It should just provide less jobs than the modern versions and thus kind of needs to be removed.

 

[Scyobi_Empire]

So what awaits us next? Will you finalize this system?

its a beta, obviously they're going to make changes and finalise it

 

[Atalvyr]

A question for all those of you who have spent time with the beta:

How is the conversion of trade to resources via the trade policies handled? As I understand it, aproximately half of the trade generated is now converted, with the rest going to the "trade-stockpile" and the other half gets converted to energy/goods/unity as normal.

However, with the new trade cost associated with getting input resources from offworld, it becomes important if the conversion of trade to resources is happening at the planet level or on empire level. If you have a planet where there is no dedicated energy production but lots of trade production, does the the part of trade that gets converted to energy then count towards the planet being self-sufficient on energy? Or does it only convert on empire level and you need to pay trade to ship it back to the planet, like if the energy was being supplied by a surplus on a different planet?

 

[Scyobi_Empire]

I don't think the problems with the pre-ftl factory are fundamental to the idea. just that it was made to poorly. I'd like to see some 'poor' before your interstellar infrastructure myself. It should just provide less jobs than the modern versions and thus kind of needs to be removed.

maybe it could be represented at blockers, we already have sprawling slums and industrial wastelands, what if they instead gave "jobs" (not productive ones, mind you) that while do produce some resources, they reduce the workforce of the more modern equivalent

when you remove them, the pops would absorbed into the "modern" district and remove the workforce penalty is gave

Slums could make less efficient civilians that cant migrate
Industrial wastelands could be what give the primitive labourer jobs, maybe electricians too
Substance farms could give a farmer job (serf? substance farmer? peasant?) that produces enough to only pay for the upkeep of 1.5 pops

 

[Sigilstone17]

So: meat is coming to Stellaris?

With the slicey and the dicey!

 

[Afinati]

My hot take from a year away from Stellaris and an unadvised avoidance of dev diaries is that it's not super clear which buildings actually make jobs in zones, that selecting zones when districts do most of the work isn't very satisfying, and that this is some EU4 level spamming of events and superfluous clicks for minor bonuses going on. Specimens, relics, council agendas, astral rifts, anomalies, archeological sites, astral powers - all the while the more emergent, narratively rich content a la CK-the factions, the galactic council, the promise of personality or drama from leaders, is shunted further to the background. Doesn't help that on my halfway completed campaign the faction system appears to be ... nonexistent in the beta?

I strongly would prefer there to be a rework on ALL these systems to make them more potent and less corpulent.

 

[Newbee53]

maybe it could be represented at blockers, we already have sprawling slums and industrial wastelands, what if they instead gave "jobs" (not productive ones, mind you) that while do produce some resources, they reduce the workforce of the more modern equivalent

when you remove them, the pops would absorbed into the "modern" district and remove the workforce penalty is gave

Slums could make less efficient civilians that cant migrate
Industrial wastelands could be what give the primitive labourer jobs, maybe electricians too
Substance farms could give a farmer job (serf? substance farmer? peasant?) that produces enough to only pay for the upkeep of 1.5 pops

could be an interesting way of doing it. The biggest advantage of doing it through districts and zones is that you could give late space age Pre-FTLs the same districts and zones, sort of completing the loop. But this way you can name the blockers the same as the districts/zones/buildings of the Pre-FTLs and then give them the same blockers when they become empires--or join your empire--which would be really cool.

Sort of makes you feel like you are seeing someone else do the same thing you did. or you are guiding them through the same process.

 

[Trigaea]

There is an insistence that the ultra early beta was "valuable" and yet the only examples of things caught have been incredibly obvious find-in-one-hour results that the QA team would rapidly discover. Not sure how that justifies the early push, to be honest.

What needs to be justified, exactly?

This is an opt-in beta and they're being extremely upfront about having in-development features, placeholders, and bugs. If you don't feel "convinced" to playtest the beta... just don't do it.

 

[Critical Ethics]

This is going to be a hot take since some people are against the "post-primitive" start, but I think it be neat if we started with all 3 city zones on our capital pesudo-developed. Primitive industry, research, and administration that only offer 80% of the jobs that they could (instead of a scary looking penalty) and upgradable into their "modern" counterparts once you have the resources. It also add some early game decision making over what to priortize updating first, since we don't have the building decisions we used to have.

I'd kind of like the opposite: a more neutrally described, undemolishable homeworld-unique zone similar to the current one that generates a lot of wildley varied jobs that's more about how this is a planet that's been in the process of growth and decline and waxing and waning for thousands of years instead of a planned colony that's at most a few centuries old by game end. It's not about being "primitive", it's about being a mature planet with that homey, lived-in feel.

If you want to give it an early tech feel maybe limit the buildings you can build in it to things unlocked on game start, with everything researched after that having to go into a properly specialised zone.

 

[Newbee53]

I'd kind of like the opposite: a more neutrally described, undemolishable homeworld-unique zone similar to the current one that generates a lot of wildley varied jobs that's more about how this is a planet that's been in the process of growth and decline and waxing and waning for thousands of years instead of a planned colony that's at most a few centuries old by game end. It's not about being "primitve", it's about being a mature planet with that homey, lived-in feel.

If you want to give it an early tech feel maybe limit the buildings you can build in it to things unlocked on game start, with everything researched after that having to go into a properly specialised zone.

Another way to do it, is have your special zone start with 'primitive buildings' and let you replace them as new tech is unlocked or resources become available. The problem with this, is that the zone might become so powerful that everyone has to conquer at least one extra homeworld to be competitive. And if you close the loop with Pre-FTLs, it would make 'uplift to space age, then conquer' the biggest bonus ever. kind of why I stayed away from primitive zones/buildings/whatever so that these kinds of things can be more carefully handled.

 

[Grothgerek]

The new system of districts and jobs heavily changes the importance of districts.

The 3 basic resource districts feel kinda weak in comparison to city district that provides you with all other ressources. Especially because some playstyles focus on avoiding basic resource districts altogether (like livestock, trade etc.)

Maybe add buildings that add specialist jobs to the basic districts to give them more relevance and importance.

For example a mining world with tons of mining districts could get a industrial building that adds metallurgists jobs. A generator world could get researcher jobs and farming districts could add Bureacrats or clerks.

It kinda doesn't make much sense, that my industrial mining world only mines minerals and is more or less empty with everything else. Or that they ship these goods through the entire galaxy instead of using the minerals in the place they get excavated. It would also give these worlds a bit more identity.

 

[Tseudonym]

and heaven forbid you want to actually provide some amenities while producing things on a planet now that the holo theatres are restricted

I really think holo-theatres should give entertainer jobs instead of just boosting the amenities zone.

 

[TrueWolves]

I mean, yeah. But "Neat" and "Functional" are two very different things. I, too, thought that having a non-unified, pre-space age unification capital would be a "neat" idea, until I played it in practice and watched the early game grind to a complete halt, or end in one of a myriad of death spirals because you couldn't produce any kind of resources to do ANYTHING.

So...no. Please no.

If 80% of jobs isn't enough to be self sustaining, then the problem isn't the districts but the jobs themselves. When designing a new system, that includes adjusting the balance of new mechanics. If 2.0 districts acted 1 for 1 like 1.0 tiles, pops would starve. Instead, food (and mineral/energy) output was adjusted for the new system.

When negatively critiquing an idea, explaining why it doesn't work is half the battle. Designing a solution is the other half. "Just don't do X" isn't a solution, since the old jobs/buildings/districts *are* being replaced for better potential performance down the line.