Stellaris Dev Diary #324 - 3.10.2 "Pyxis" Released [1cff] and December Plans

[TheFunMachine]

It would be really lovely for the Q1 patch and balancing update if the team takes a look at the currently mid 'mid-game' crisis events. The bugs with ship upkeep meant in my most recent game, the Khan actually stood a chance somewhat. Awakened empire fair better, depending on when they wake up and whether it's a united galaxy or a fractured one, but they get bludgeoned down more easily than they should tbh. But it would be good to see the Tempest and Khan have the capability to really shake map geography up. Maybe some more game sliders are in order? Because sliders have really helped players find a better balance of challenge for end game crisis'.

It's a mark of how much great work has been done on the base AI, though and that is to be applauded even though accumulated power creep in content and features is bleeding through in really obvious ways.

Also, I would love to see some work done on how AI builds ship load outs so there is a reason to kit out fleets with counters, rather than everything being really generalised and even for the AI. Gives a boost in terms of utility for espionage too, which is something that needs some teeth.

But in the mean time, great work. The team has done and is doing really great things

 

[Galen Dragonay]

Higher cost for stuff, higher tier techs, ships, upkeep etc. (about tech tiers there was a topic, briefly low level techs take relatively too long to research (5-10 years), especially at increased tech/trad cost, but as snowballing is ongoing later level techs are finished in matter of months.)

That kind of snowballing is like a coin with two sides, one of which is tech/tradition (and everything else) costs becoming trivial by the later stages of the game as you have mentioned, but the other side is pop number growth during the game.
Which is to say, decreasing the number of ways to get exponentially more pops will lead to the same result as drastically increasing tech/tradition (and everything else) costs over the board. The only difference is the former option is less tedious, and is already available in-game through the habitable planet and pre-ftl planet sliders. The only thing that's missing is a habitat limiter of some kind in my opinion.

 

[Ikael]

As per usual, the Custodiam team rules. Good job! I would also like to congratulate you guys for giving a balance pass in the latest patch to most Ascension Perks, it was sorely needed and much appreciated. Picking APs is much more meaningful and full of interesting choices than before.

So of course, I am excited about the new balance undertaking, since there are a lot of things to do.

From the top of my head:

- Research speed and snowballing in general (hell yeah!)
- Several Tradition Trees. Domination, Adaptability, and Diplomacy come to mind, but there are also isolated traditions in other TTs that are... less than great.
- Weapons and ship classes. Already extensively tackled by other members. Perhaps doomstacks and warfare mechanics too, maybe, someday.
- Vassals vs. federations and how they interact with each other
- Federations in general, too
- Old origins like Life-seeded or On the shoulders of giants. Their age is showing
- Megastructures and Gaia worlds slowly being outclassed due to the gradual power creep of new additions like Ecumenopolis or planetary rings
- Factions and their demands. Some of them are super easy to please while others are a pain in the ass. They are unbalanced up the wazoo
- Stability, as in "how rebellions work"
- Invasion shock and general easiness of incorporating new territories through conquest (related to the previous point as well)
- Space deposits and stations in general
- Heck, economy in general. Research + alloys reign supreme forever and ever
- Racial traits need a mega-balance pass too
- Habitability not mattering at all past the early game. Generally speaking, planets and pops are mostly interchangeable, bland entities
- Pop growth mechanics (this is the big one, good luck with it).
- A couple of civics, some civic-specific council positions are super lame
- Espionage (a touchy issue, I know)
- All things related to pacifism

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

The 3.11 "Eridanus" update in 2024Q1 will focus on stability, AI, and balance.

We're planning on running a balance related Open Beta over the holidays to collect feedback regarding some experiments around Research.

If it is not too late, here is a wishlist of relatively minor and straightforward tweaks:

• Planetary modifiers
  • Atmospheric Hallucinogen should give a bonus to Unity, not Physics (and the sizes of the effects from regular/filtered should also match their descriptions)
  • Titanic Life should be updated and tweaked
• Technology tree
  • Psionics research field should be moved to Physics (it desperately needs more techs, the Psionic techs match the Physics techs, and Psionics is basically "different physics")
  • L-Gate Insight should be moved from Engineering to Physics or Society
  • The "Administrative Efficiency" repeatable should be moved to the Statecraft field (if it is instead removed, the Statecraft field should get another repeatable; it needs at least one)
  • Carrier Operations and other Strike Craft technologies could be moved from Engineering (Voidcraft) to Society (Military Theory). It would put them in the same area and field as the Synapse Interceptors and Heat Recyclers repeatables, and it could be argued that effective Strike Craft utilization is more a matter of military tactics and logistics than of engineering. (We also start the game with the ability to build ships as big as Corvettes; strike craft are much smaller than that, and they can arguably already be built at the beginning of the game - they can just not be utilized efficiently without sufficient advances in military theory.)
  • Many permanent modifiers could be made (rare) technologies; this would help reduce clutter in the list of empire modifiers, as well as allow spies to steal these rare technologies, and these new technologies could also be used to fill the Society and Physics trees (if some of them are made researchable, though rare - for instance, the space fauna choices could be changed to make one corresponding rare technology a guaranteed research option, while the other effects are still potentially researchable).
  • Megastructure technology tree improvements (easier to get first megastructure but slower to get multiple, via requirement tweaks)
• Traditions
  • "Bureau of Espionage" to the Subterfuge tradition tree
  • Unyielding tradition tree improvements
• Policies
  • Isolationist diplomatic stance: +1 Encryption -1 Codebreaking
  • War Doctrine policies should apply to land warfare as well
  • No Retreat should increase Ship Weapons Damage, not Ship Fire Rate
• Ethics
  • Nationalistic Zeal and Militarist ethic made better by swapping modifiers
  • Pacifists should be able to create Trade League federations
  • Certain faction approval conditions (Extranational Authority, Imperial Hegemony) should be met by Hegemony presidents, Galactic Sovereigns
• Civics
  • Shadow Council should add +1 Encryption (perhaps Police State also should)
  • Philosopher King should allow Dictatorial and Imperial to use otherwise blocked civics
• Origins
  • Post-Apocalyptic should start with Tomb World Adaptation
• Species traits
  • Natural species traits should not affect specific ethics' attraction
  • The Resilient trait should be improved
  • The Serviles trait should block irrelevant traits
• Buildings
  • Servant jobs from Luxury Residences
• Prescripted content
  • Entering the Shroud should cost Unity, not Energy Credits
  • Pay with Unity to reduce the randomness of the Shroud, or get more frequent visits (similar to the reliquary rework)
  • The Final Rest: letting the coffin go should give Unity, not Research
  • "Delicious Eukaryotes" are not Delicious - literally uneatable
  • Alien Species Procurement should have a more interesting reward
  • Racket pops should be Cybernetic instead of Psionic
  • The Rubricator system and the Weapon Trails anomaly need an update
  • Environmentalist should modify some anomalies, events, et cetera
  • Restore Ecumenopolis should probably require the Arcology Project ascension perk
    (there are now so many Relic Worlds that the ascension perk can frequently be skipped, especially in smaller galaxies)
  • A game setting that allows AI empires to pursue the precursors, or completely disables precursors, or leaves things the way they are now = default
    (I personally do not enjoy getting such a huge advantage over the AI empires, but it would feel better if I knew some of them got similar advantages, or that one of them might even obtain "my" precursor before I do)
• Other
  • Some Influence costs could be made (more) proportional

If Space Santa is feeling extra jolly, here is a bunch of more extensive suggestions with fundamentally simple tweaks (though these may be too big and too late to think about):

• Size 300 galaxies (while not an in-game balance issue, it does concern the granularity of one of the most important game balance settings)
• Happiness bonuses need to be culled (while big as a concept, the individual changes would be small; for instance, enclave agreements could be nerfed into the ground and still be good)
• Throughput, rather than output, bonuses (also big as a concept, but the individual changes would be small)
• Job weights should also consider pop upkeep effects (again big as a concept, but relatively straightforward and should be easily repeatable across all jobs of the same strata; pops' productivity being equal, Conservationist pops should outcompete Wasteful pops, and habitability should matter more - even if there is no resource output that is affected)
• Ascension Perk picks should never require technologies to pick (but rather focus research towards the technologies required to implement them)
• Comprehensive ethics review
• Balance the Crisis (ascension perk)
• Give "Defensive Wars" a greater ability to engage in defensive warfare & diplomacy, or consider changing "Defensive Wars" to "Restricted Wars"?
• Adaptability tradition tree ideas
• Slavery option for "Natural Servitude Only" (Serviles, Zombie, Nerve Stapled, et cetera)
• Edict Funds from Ruler jobs (would make Unity from Specialist jobs more valuable, would enable more differentiation of Ruler jobs, would make Ruler jobs feel like they... well... rule, and it would also help slow down the Tradition gains a bit)
• Junk Worlds could replace some Relic Worlds (and some Tomb Worlds), thereby helping reduce the current overabundance of Relic Worlds - while recycling existing but rarely used graphic assets

If Space Santa has imbibed their special maced, spaced and laced eggnog, here are some things that could require coding changes (and may be too big and too late to think about):

• Intelligence on other empires should provide bonuses against them (including a technology rubberband effect for stragglers)
• Base Intel needs rework, should be possible to defend against
• Deep Space Black Sites should slow down hostile spy infiltration
• Using excessive fleets in combat should incur penalties
• Colossi should be more worthwhile
• Colonization should not give free pops
• Urban buildings could add jobs to City Districts, instead of being spammed
• The Galactic Community resolution cycle should be reorganised (progress faster through resolutions with much support)
• Rulers should be allowed to hold field positions (in some select situations)
• Stellaris could be better off with a single pop migration system, instead of two parallel ones (the old pop growth migration system can be removed, merged into the pop resettlement system)

(While technically not a balance issue per se, the current lack of a Planetary Ascension availability notifier makes me personally not bother with the planetary ascension system, which affects the game balance. A notifier would be a small addition with a big impact on how I play the game.)

 

[Alfray Stryke]

If it is not too late, here is a wishlist of relatively minor and straightforward tweaks:

I'll bookmark this list and look at it once I'm done bugfixing for 3.10.x

 

[Jay Sherman]

This release contains a fix to a common MacOS crash, fixes to ship build costs being applied, and adds full customization to the outliner tabs.

If this release is exactly the same as the 3.10.2 open beta, ship build speed from "Bulwark of Harmony" (+33% Ship Build Speed while in a defensive war) was not being applied sadly

 

[DurianKing]

Crash to desktop problem resolved, even for the old saves! Really appreciate this.

 

[MadCow94]

My suggestions for 3.11

Make planetary deposits worked directly rather than require buildings. There are multiple threads about this one.

Make entertainers a worker job, not a specialist job.

Allow residents, rather than just full citizens, to be enforcers. Collaborators are a thing!

 

[King Harkinian]

Will the beta for 3.10.3 be out this week?

 

[Madgt123]

honestly, all i want from the UI is to caregories my fleets alphabetical or numerical.
I constantly rename them

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Allow residents, rather than just full citizens, to be enforcers. Collaborators are a thing!

Residents should be allowed to work Enforcer jobs provided they have Military Service allowed

 

[Kamis51]

Hello, on this forum we complain about the large number of BUGS after each DLC, of which there are quite a lot, but it is worth adding that developers fix them faster than other game publishers. The number of patches and their frequency is much higher than generally seen with most developers, and I still think that when it comes to large developers, PARADOX can still be safely called the best on the market.

 

[fourteenfour]

I am glad you adapted the outliner to a fully flexible system as requested by many players.

Is there an indicator on the outliner for colonies under automation? I seem to not be able to recognize it if there is one and if it actually does not exist them it would be a great addition.

 

[LogicMage]

I recall several asks for megastructure rebalancing. They've not been updated in a while. A point I didn't see mentioned is that Frigates are the only ship class without their own reactor class. A new set of reactors with 33% more power than corvette reactors would give them more fitting flexibility.

 

[Terran91]

I'll bookmark this list and look at it once I'm done bugfixing for 3.10.x

Can you also think about creating special destiny traits for new specialities of leaders? There are only 2 traits for many of them. For example:

1) There is no any destiny trait for delegate in federation, only for GC.
2) There are 2 traits for analyst, and 1 of them is for psionic only.
3) Explorer has only 2 destiny traits too, but at least empire of any ethic can have benefits from it.

 

[Commander Tobe]

Will it be possible to set the Outliner Customization on a certain default for every game or will we have to customize it every time we start a new game?

 

[Lorenerd11]

The Environmental Engineering trait now requires a blocker removal tech to be researched

The Mining, Farming and Generator focus traits have moved from officials to commanders

I still don't like these changes.

Remnants and Shattered Ring empires both have uses for an Environmental Engineer before researching any blocker-clearing techs since they have plenty blockers to clear on their own homeworlds, and while adding the focus traits to Commanders is fine, I feel that Officials should keep them too.

 

[CMDR Exorcist]

This is excellent, especially the fully customizable outliner! The Stellaris team needs to take the Cities Skylines II team to lunch and show them how it's done.

 

[KnifeyMcKnifeFace]

I really want a better way to manage planets/sectors that don't result in chaos / automation doing insane things. The really old sector management was actually much more useful than the current way automation / management works.

If we had a way to copy planets like we do with fleets, that would be an incredible quality of life improvement. Or even better, if we had a way for people to define their own templates for each planet designation (e.g. build this district first, then this building, etc.).

I also really hope the crashing is resolved, I'm on windows and 3.10.1/3.10.2 is unplayable due to how many crashes I have experienced.

Machine Intelligence
Determined Exterminator
Rapid Replicator
Gestalt

Seems to pretty consistently get crash to desktops.

 

[MadCow94]

Will it be possible to set the Outliner Customization on a certain default for every game or will we have to customize it every time we start a new game?

The outliner stays customized persistently through games.