Stellaris Dev Diary #311 - Chiseling Away

[Anaximatter]

Clerks being meaningful in the mid game with the +1% to trade looks to be a great alteration.

Thanks for listening to our feedback, ignoring our stupid suggestions and implementing something far better. Looking forward to giving it a go.

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

Cheers for the update. Huge change being able to build around stars, it will certainly make energy habitats easier to get. Are there any plans to change it so that building an orbital collects a resource deposit as that's a bummer in the early game?

Also on the aesthetic front can I ask what the logic is for a habitat complex always spawning with a major orbital right next to it? IMO it looks bad and with some structures (the lithoid one) the tips of the stations overlap.

Both of these.

Orbitals not collecting deposits is a noob trap and an early game headache.

The thing where habitat complexes spawn with a major orbital is awkward. I thought it was a visual bug at first because I didn’t know why I had an unaccounted for orbital.

 

[Starfury]

This change makes Traders worth employing, if you build the building, but not worth building the building in the first place, because the Clerks aren't worth employing.

The Clerk 1% change doesn't change the fundamental problem that the current TV numbers are too low to be late-early/early-mid-game competitive with Technicians/Miners/Artisans they replace for producing energy/CG. For the new Base 5 clerk to reach the baseline of about 9TV that the 3.8 clerks had, they're going to need 80% in TV bonuses vis-a-vis the baseline 40% that 3.8 clerks, which is to say 40 Clerks.

Empires won't have 40 clerks in the early game. And by the time they could, the tech economy would already be well past the point where technicians/miners/artisans- and terraforming- would already make the 9-TV clerk benchmark obsolete.


The Clerks may nominally improve other TV sources, but this goes back to the point that % bonuses have to be applied to large-enough baselines to matter. Living Standard TV really isn't. Traders aren't common or large enough for them to meaningfully outweigh either. The 1 Trader/4 Clerk balance after thrifty averages to 6 TV a trade-pop, with a 4% bonus, for a bonus .24 TV. While every commercial zone+urban district will add this to every other set of Trader/Clerks, this is going to require mid or late-game scale.

Which misses the boat, because trade builds are strategically an early-game prioritization during the habitability era, which gives way by the mid-game to ascensions and terraforming.



Now, mind you, this is all on the assumption that the TV bonus is planet-specific. If the Clerks were empire-wide 1% bonuses, that would be relevant. It be a rational to employ clerks on non-trade worlds, or even have trade worlds without trade-governors when your governor-boosted TV world is built out.

Or to look at it from another perspective:
A 3.9 clerk needs (100 + trade modifier) base trade value to boost before he breaks even with the old clerks +1 base output.

What does that mean?
8 commercial zones + 6 city districts = 8 traders + 22 clerks = 190 base trade value (with thrifty) + maybe 10 trade from living standards
And I think any empire running thrifty and mercantile will easily have a +100% trade modifiers on a 30 pop trade world.

As for incidental trade:
A size 25 angler ocean world will have less than 150 base trade value
A size 25 ecu filled with artificers will have a bit over 300 base trade value, so there a 3.9 clerk will be better than a 3.8 clerk (but still pointless, even if he creates another 3 tv off the artificers...)
A size 25 megacorp unity ecu may even reach 400 base trade value if you fill the building slots. But adding a clerk would still be pointless.

While I do think this new clerk modifier will help with trade's biggest weakness (it's scaling worse over time than other jobs), there's still no good incentive to build the first commercial zone. And if you never build one commercial zone, you'll never have a trade planet where the new clerks would start becoming good.

 

[Goodwood Empire]

When can we expect this update? I'm very excited for it.

 

[DeanTheDull]

Or to look at it from another perspective. A 3.9 clerk needs (100 + trade modifier) base trade value to boost before he breaks even with the old clerks +1 base output.

8 commercial zones + 6 city districts = 8 traders + 22 clerks = 190 base trade value (with thrifty) + maybe 10 trade from living standards
And I think an empire will easily have a +100% trade modifiers on a 30 pop trade world.

The issue isn't getting to +100% trade modifier, the issue is the need for more trade modifiers that the alternative wouldn't get.

When TV is based on a base 6.25, then a 10% TV modifier is an additional 0.625 TV. When a base 5, the 10% TV modifier is 0.5 TV.

This means for the base 5 TV job to get the same bonus, it doesn't need 10% TV modifier- to get that extra .125, it needs between 12%-13%, or 2-3 more clerks. Round that down to 2 for the excess amenity stability, or 1 clerk per 5% TV bonus from all other sources.

When you factor in that most modifiers are going to be shared, the 3.9 Clerk % bonuses aren't actually catching up with 3.8 Clerks- they're trying not to fall progressively further behind. To enjoy the relative bonus of the early-game 40% TV from Mercantile and Urban world, you'd need to be employing an additional 4 clerks to just be getting the same extra TV from the same modifiers.

While I do think this new clerk modifier will help with trade's biggest weakness (it's scaling worse over time than other jobs), there's still no good incentive to build the first commercial zone. And if you never build one commercial zone, you'll never have a trade planet where the new clerks would start becoming good.

While I disagree with the first part- the Clerk % bonuses aren't a net gain over the older higher-base TV Clerks getting all the other same bonuses- I do agree on the second. There's no compelling reason to build the Commercial Zone.

 

[Kamis51]

how to ask question for Reddit AMA wher to post them it wiil bie live or questions will be collected before?

 

[King Harkinian]

The all-or-nothing design of clerks, where you either disable all of them or go maximum trade build, has always felt bad, and this new 1% bonus only reinforces it.

Why can't clerks just be something you need some of on most planets to make things go around, like the real life service industry? Make amenities more scarce so that on a populous planet you NEED clerks to provide them. Limiting Holo-Theaters to 1 per planet would help. It's not very realistic that you can just fix any shortage of basic amenities by sending your citizens to the movies, after all.

 

[DeanTheDull]

The all-or-nothing design of clerks, where you either disable all of them or go maximum trade build, has always felt bad, and this new 1% bonus only reinforces it.

Why can't clerks just be something you need some of on most planets to make things go around, like the real life service industry? Make amenities more scarce so that on a populous planet you NEED clerks to provide them. Limiting Holo-Theaters to 1 per planet would help. It's not very realistic that you can just fix any shortage of basic amenities by sending your citizens to the movies, after all.

It's not even holo-theaters, it's the entertainers themselves. Clerk amenities might matter if you could only get 20 amenities from entertainers, but 20 amenities from entertainers is enough to get most planets to the 25 pop upgrade point, which is the natural nesting point for capital upgrading and then stopping as a breeder world. Clerks already served as the buffer to that point when moving pops for the upgrade and the new ruler/building amenities.

For clerk-amenities to be worthwhile, the entertainer amenity production would have to be kneecapped.

 

[klingonadmiral]

• Habitat Industrial Districts give +0.25 Building Slots

That feels like a non-change. Building slots on habitats are an absolute non-issue.

• Increased Alloy and Influence cost of Habitat Central Complexes
• Removed the Influence cost of Orbitals

Some specific numbers for the influence cost? I also fear that this will only further slow down the already glacial Void Dwellers start.

• Void Dwellers and Voidborne now gives +2 Max Districts on Habitats

That's nice.

• You can now build Habitat Central Complex and Major Orbitals around stars.

So the 2 extra districts will most likely go towards 2 energy districts gathered from the energy deposit on most stars in order to fight the awful energy production from the 3.9.0 habitats.

I also find it weird that even with maxed habitability techs, a non-voiddweller species without habitability traits maxes out on 85% habitability even with Voidborne.

 

[Starfury]

The issue isn't getting to +100% trade modifier, the issue is the need for more trade modifiers that the alternative wouldn't get.

When TV is based on a base 6.25, then a 10% TV modifier is an additional 0.625 TV. When a base 5, the 10% TV modifier is 0.5 TV.

This means for the base 5 TV job to get the same bonus, it doesn't need 10% TV modifier- to get that extra .125, it needs between 12%-13%, or 2-3 more clerks. Round that down to 2 for the excess amenity stability, or 1 clerk per 5% TV bonus from all other sources.

When you factor in that most modifiers are going to be shared, the 3.9 Clerk % bonuses aren't actually catching up with 3.8 Clerks- they're trying not to fall progressively further behind. To enjoy the relative bonus of the early-game 40% TV from Mercantile and Urban world, you'd need to be employing an additional 4 clerks to just be getting the same extra TV from the same modifiers.

I think you misunderstood my argument.

I was saying that new clerks are worse than the old clerks when they're on a planet with less than 200 base trade value. They start to become clearly better once they're on a world with 300+ base trade value.
The calculation was only meant to show how large of an investment you needed to reach that 200 base trade value.

You were calculating how much extra trade modifier you need to compensate for the lower base output of 3.9 clerks
I was calculating how many other trade sources that 1% boost needs to improve, to make up for it's own lower base output.
(And come to think of it, I only accounted for a base difference of 1, not 1.25 with thrifty, so the break even point would be closer to 250 base trade value)

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Tasty Titans Resort Ecumenopolis now 1000% meta. Space Vegas, here I come!

Edit: to be clear, since I'm hearing "clerks OP" noises, which is definitely not true.... this will still be bad. It's an exploit which doesn't need fixing because it has minimal effect on gameplay, but it's still funny enough that I do it every game just because of the amusing result. This change just makes it funnier.

 

[Jernsaxe]

Small FYI:

Lithoid Hivemind Void Dwellers still start with 3 unemployed pops (was 6 before)

 

[ValinShadow]

While the clerk buff IS nice, i’d rather keep the second one from city districts so we can have more filler jobs

this

 

[ezno]

Is a way to automate (or reduce micro for) orbitals planned?

 

[tordenfjork]

Buffed Catalytic Processing civics.

• Chemist, Translucer and Gas Refiner jobs (and their gestalt equivalents) now have food upkeep for Catalytic empires.

I wish that this would count for Hivemind brain drones as well. The minerals upkeep of them really is a pain when playing with Organic Reprocessing civic. Which is a shame, I think this civic really suites Hiveminds.

 

[DeusMalefor]

Hello, is the < bio pop detected, proceed to the purge> ==> <Bio pop purged, proceed activate the Mechromancy protocol> ==> <Horrible zombie bio pop detected, proceed with the purge> from the DE always a thing?
Thats funny because the DE are bugged robots so purging a pop 2 times seems legit buuut in a gameplay perspective...

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Hello, is the < bio pop detected, proceed to the purge> ==> <Bio pop purged, proceed activate the Mechromancy protocol> ==> <Horrible zombie bio pop detected, proceed with the purge> from the DE always a thing?
Thats funny because the DE are bugged robots so purging a pop 2 times seems legit buuut in a gameplay perspective...

• Fixed Mechromancers purging their cyber-zombies.

 

[HFY]

While I do think this new clerk modifier will help with trade's biggest weakness (it's scaling worse over time than other jobs), there's still no good incentive to build the first commercial zone. And if you never build one commercial zone, you'll never have a trade planet where the new clerks would start becoming good.

There's still Trade Habi-- oh, right.

Never mind.

 

[Rafss]

So the upcoming Buff for Clerks (the 1% thing) is not enough to make up for the existing Nerf for the majority of the game where it matters. Either not enough or just plain wrong.
But I forgot the exact reason, why were clerks nerfed to begin with?
And what is the final consensus on a real solution to make it the most balanced as possible? What solution has the best game design in mind?

 

[HFY]

+1% specialist production would make me run a mix of Clerks on my Ecus and Ring Worlds.

Not much in the mid game when I have +100% from tech alone, but 10-20 pops being equal to an Assist Research leader would be better than just a bit more TV.

This would keep slaves, serviles, and zombies relevant into the late game.