Stellaris Dev Diary #375 - Notes on the Open Beta

[Thiend]

Does biology count as a social science? You could call them social scientists if so, though a two word job name isn't ideal.

Biology is a natural science, technically.

The society tree has too many disparate ideas within it to categorize accurately in one word, because the only word I can think of that would fit all of them is "science" (and even that is undermined a little by psionics), which encompasses the other two trees as well.

 

[AllYourPopsAreBelongToUs]

I think "human scientist" is the only fitting job description and i don't see any problem with it.

But imo biologist is technically correct as in "study of living things" - it's unintuitive, i mean who'd consider a tech to build a mega-shipyard "Biology" - but so is the whole society tree if you think too hard about it

 

[Newbee53]

Does biology count as a social science?

No. Biology is a 'Natural Science.'

the society tree has too many disparate ideas within it to categorize accurately in one word, because the only word I can think of that would fit all of them is "science" (and even that is undermined a little by psionics), which encompasses the other two trees as well.

I'm pretty sure anything you can research and study falls under a science, and so psionics would be a science in stellaris.

 

[Tseudonym]

Biology techs are a subset of society techs, not sociology techs. Sociology has a meaning, and that meaning is not synonymous with society.

You cannot use Sociologist as a stand-in for anything in the society tree, because it does not include many categories with in it. Such as biology.

I'm not suggesting that biologists be renamed to sociologists because Society Research is a good name for that hodge-podge tech field. I'm suggesting that they be renamed because sociologists producing society research is consistent with physicists producing physics research and engineers producing engineering research.

And, for the record, sociology is defined as the study of societies; so sociologist is the correct term in this context.

 

[Thiend]

No. Biology is a 'Natural Science.'

I'm pretty sure anything you can research and study falls under a science, and so psionics would be a science in stellaris.

Probably. I would call it a science because it exists (in Stellaris), but it is essentially magic, and I figured I'd cover my bases there because most people probably wouldn't call a Magic field science.

I'm not suggesting that biologists be renamed to sociologists because Society Research is a good name for that hodge-podge tech field. I'm suggesting that they be renamed because sociologists producing society research is consistent with physicists producing physics research and engineers producing engineering research.

And, for the record, sociology is defined as the study of societies; so sociologist is the correct term in this context.

Sociologist is not the correct term because the society research tree includes biology, a completely different scientific field. For the record.

It's also not consistent, because while physics is produced by physicists and engineers produce engineering, sociologists would produce sociology. It isn't sociology. It's society, which isn't a matching term but is what it's called precisely because sociology is objectively incorrect for multiple fields within the broader society category.

Sociology is an accurate term for multiple subcategories of society. It is not an accurate term for the society research tree in its entirety because the society research tree includes things that are simply not sociology. A sociologist cannot produce genetic modification techs, unless they are also a biologist, which is completely different. It's not even a word match because, again, they don't produce "society," they would produce sociology.

 

[Jabarto]

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.

See you then!

Forget meat ships, I will accept no less than entire meat planets:

 

[roths_]

This is going to be a bit of a hot take but I honestly think trade builds have been made significantly weaker by the 4.0 beta rather than being made stronger despite the emphasis on trade being a universal currency along with the planetary upkeep requirements. In normal stellaris its much easier to absorb the surplus production of energy for productive purposes, but the heavily zone bottlenecked nature of science/alloy production now changes the economy such that a glut of surplus basic resources is more common relatively speaking. Since in even a best case scenario a massive amount of your trade revenues end up going towards energy (based on currently existing trade policies) alongside the natural passive generation of energy from space mining (instead of being purely unity/CG), any pops you allocate towards being dedicated trade producers are not going to have a similar degree of useful productive activity compared to ones devoted to foundries or science labs.

While you can spend surplus trade on goods such as raw materials, rare resources, or alloys on the galactic market, the liquidity limits on buy orders quickly results in hyperinflation if you try to buy too large a volume at a time. I never really got the chance to really burn trade upkeep too heavily with anything akin to an endgame fleet tbf while poking around, but even if its useful endgame for conventional ships the economic cost of overproducing resources you can't use early game is crippling.

As far as I can tell the way you minmax in the game now is to rush for science/alloy zones asap, and then use civics that bypass zone restrictions for the other resources you kinda need but not as much like anglers, parliamentary system, or etc. Does raise interesting questions as to what the devs will end up doing to rework gestalts that don't need consumer goods to produce science when they eventually implement them into the beta.

 

[Alexandre]

I played with a friend this evening. I have a couple of observations:

1) it's now stable in multiplayer
2) migration doesn't seem to be working. My home planet says that there is no valid auto-migration destination, though I have a new colony with a lot of open job slots.
3) I still think the build queue should default to being open, especially when you have things in it.
4) prioritizing a job doesn't actually move populations to it, nor does decreasing the workforce limit.
5) job prioritization seems a bit flaky.. If I have a -4 energy deficit, and plus one amenities, why are new workers becoming colonists rather than technicians? It would make more sense to prioritize jobs where there is a planetary deficit than ones where there is a planetary surplus in a given tier.
6) it would be helpful if we could have the little arrow on a building which can be upgraded. I hadn't noticed that I had a basic research lab which I should have upgraded to a research lab as soon as I had the minerals.
7) I wouldn't use "upgrade" as the button name if you are building a new district. Expand, Enlarge or Construct seems more appropriate.

The changes from the initial beta are very noticeable, and definitely moving the game in the right direction!

-Alexandre-

 

[Newbee53]

This is going to be a bit of a hot take but I honestly think trade builds have been made significantly weaker by the 4.0 beta rather than being made stronger despite the emphasis on trade being a universal currency along with the planetary upkeep requirements.

I don't know if this is true, one I don't expect any of the trade policies to remain the same as vanilla, and I'm still hoping for a policy the prioritizes trade because even with the added industrial district I'll ether be spending a lot on alloys, or not much on anything. At least based on the current balance.

I guess its possible I'll be spending a lot on CG instead of alloys, depending on the flavor of the game I'm playing. But based on my play through of the betas, I expect to be mostly spending on CG or Alloys most of the time. With a possible dip into Food if hydroponics dies off. Which is what seems to be happening in the beta right now.

I'm kind of amused at the idea of a mega corp dependent on trade for basic food and the like, so I half expect to go that way on my first mega corp run just for giggles.

I don't know that trade builds will be weaker, but I do expect them to be less of a way to avoid building CG factories or power plants.

On the other hand, everything I've said here is based on my Assumption that the trade policies aren't just going to be the 3.14 polices. Which were mostly disappointing to me.

 

[Newbee53]

I just started a habitat build because you guys asked for it, and I don't feel like sleeping tonight, and this was the first contact I made. Think the 'Random empire placement' algorithm might need to be adjusted for a starburst galaxy.

While it doesn't bother me as the player, can you imagine being the one stuck as your first game? that would be a terrible start! Also it was a hive mind, which limited my ability to do anything. Wonder what happens when it collapses given some of the, weirdness from older versions of the beta.

 

[Tisifoni12]

I like the change to the zones.

The obvious progression is to update the three initial 'buildings' in the 'urban zone' with updated versions rather than building the updated versions in new zones; in the Government zone or factory zone or research zone.

As you appear to be limited to one building of any type, so you can have research labs in the urban zone or the research zone. If you decide you want a building in a different zone you have to demolish and build new; potential socio-economic disruption !
I wonder if an option to 'migrate' might be created so for example new research labs are built in the research zone and when they come on-line the prior research labs, in say the urban zone, is demolished ?

 

[Calvax]

I like the change to the zones.

The obvious progression is to update the three initial 'buildings' in the 'urban zone' with updated versions rather than building the updated versions in new zones; in the Government zone or factory zone or research zone.

As you appear to be limited to one building of any type, so you can have research labs in the urban zone or the research zone. If you decide you want a building in a different zone you have to demolish and build new; potential socio-economic disruption !
I wonder if an option to 'migrate' might be created so for example new research labs are built in the research zone and when they come on-line the prior research labs, in say the urban zone, is demolished ?

On the stream Eladrin mentioned wanting to have it so that changing a zone kept any buildings that are still valid in the new zone. Moving them is an interesting idea too.

 

[The Founder]

Sociologist is not the correct term because the society research tree includes biology, a completely different scientific field. For the record.

Biology impacts sentient societies deals with animal societies too?
If it covers 90% without question and the remaining 10% if you squint, that is close enough.
As opposed to Biologist which covers like 10% without question.

Computers are somehow in physics. Which makes about as much sense as Biology being in Physics.
So saying Biology is in Sociology would not be a huge stretch.

1) it's now stable in multiplayer
2) migration doesn't seem to be working. My home planet says that there is no valid auto-migration destination, though I have a new colony with a lot of open job slots.
3) I still think the build queue should default to being open, especially when you have things in it.
4) prioritizing a job doesn't actually move populations to it, nor does decreasing the workforce limit.
5) job prioritization seems a bit flaky.. If I have a -4 energy deficit, and plus one amenities, why are new workers becoming colonists rather than technicians? It would make more sense to prioritize jobs where there is a planetary deficit than ones where there is a planetary surplus in a given tier.
6) it would be helpful if we could have the little arrow on a building which can be upgraded. I hadn't noticed that I had a basic research lab which I should have upgraded to a research lab as soon as I had the minerals.
7) I wouldn't use "upgrade" as the button name if you are building a new district. Expand, Enlarge or Construct seems more appropriate.

2. I think migration for Civilians in particular is bugged. But I do think other works now.
3. Agreed
4. A known issue
5. The emergency weight for resources kicks in below +10. Colonist just has a way to high priority, and is way to sticky once a pop is in that job.
6. Agreed
7. agreed

I just started a habitat build because you guys asked for it, and I don't feel like sleeping tonight, and this was the first contact I made. Think the 'Random empire placement' algorithm might need to be adjusted for a starburst galaxy.

Please make a bug report with a savegame.

 

[passeris]

I could argue that sociology is a subset of biology. Society only exists because biological organisms are complex enough to have a society to begin with. It emerges from biology in much the same way biology emerges from chemistry and chemistry from physics. yet we don't split them like that because puny human brains really like our own categories even if they don't always reflect reality well.

Still, there is no good name here, because while it makes sense to mix the two--if only due to the numbers of relevant techs--so neither name really works.

Does biology count as a social science? You could call them social scientists if so, though a two word job name isn't ideal.

Computers are somehow in physics. Which makes about as much sense as Biology being in Physics.
So saying Biology is in Sociology would not be a huge stretch.

There is moderate precedent for grouping biology with social sciences rather than the natural sciences. Here is an example of one such perspective from physics, based on the observation that living things, while increasing the overall entropy as required by the second law of thermodynamics, do not tend towards equilibrium with their surroundings. This leads to the oft-repeated claim that "physics can't explain biology", and thus a justification for separating them.

More generally, the organisation of living things at the biological level is often mirrored at the social level. Social behaviours like selfishness and altruism are regularly investigated in groups of single cells (such as the slime mold Dictyostelium) as in animals, and in humans. There are fields of study (behaviourism, basal cognition) which propose that social behaviours are conserved (that is, retained) from our distant and ultimately cellular ancestors. It's very sensible to group sociology and biology, though it's important to recognise much of human society as emergent from biology rather than dictated by it. I guess this approach might be described as 'socio-biology' or 'life science' (as opposed to the science of matter). Ironically it is closely related to what was historically called 'cybernetics' but is now known as systems theory.

I think "human scientist" is the only fitting job description and i don't see any problem with it.

Uh, I can think of one small problem with that... unless you play Commonwealth of Man.

 

[Tisifoni12]

On the stream Eladrin mentioned wanting to have it so that changing a zone kept any buildings that are still valid in the new zone. Moving them is an interesting idea too.

Changing a zone is more perhaps an administrative re-designation than a physical re-location.

 

[Troyen]

Just watched the stream from yesterday and something came to my mind: In Victoria 3, there is no real reliable way that unemployed pops settle to other regions, where low level jobs or peasent farms are available. The new system from Stellaris is now also going into this direction, where some kind underlying pop strata is soaking up unemployed pops until those spaces are all filled.

Will 4.0 have a mechanic that unemployed pops migrate to planets with better conditions, even if its just for the civilian strata? So once planets are filled, automatic mechanisms ensure that pops are spread around my worlds?

In Victoria 3, the migration attraction of your state is influenced by available jobs (among other things). Unemployment tanks it. Lots of open jobs adds a bonus (somewhat outweighed by the available arable land bonus but still notable if you have a lot of openings). You can also use a decree to add +25% migration attraction.

I'm hoping to finally try the beta this weekend, but on live we have planetary decisions like "Distribute Luxury Goods" and "Exhibit Art Museum" which increase migration pull. Those could become our equivalent of the Greener Grass Campaign decree if you want strong encouragement beyond general weights. But yes, hopefully the automatic migration weights in the background are tuned right so we can push enough pops to the worlds that need them.

 

[Tseudonym]

Sociologist is not the correct term because the society research tree includes biology, a completely different scientific field. For the record.

Hence why "society" is a poor name for the tech field which includes everything from military science to archaeology to Jedi Mind Tricks.

It's also not consistent, because while physics is produced by physicists and engineers produce engineering, sociologists would produce sociology. It isn't sociology. It's society,

Keep in mind that the trait that gives bonus society research from jobs (and thus, in 4.0, bonus workforce for Biologist jobs) is called Natural Sociologists. With Natural Physicists boosting Physicists and Natural Engineers boosting Engineers, it's inconsistent for Natural Sociologists to boost Biologists. They should be called Sociologists to match the trait.

It's not even a word match because, again, they don't produce "society," they would produce sociology.

Except it is a word match because "society" is the root of "sociology".

 

[Tisifoni12]

Biology is defined as the study of living organisms, divided into many specialized fields that cover their morphology, physiology, anatomy, behaviour, origin, and distribution; behaviour would include sociology.

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

Biology is a natural science, technically.

The society tree has too many disparate ideas within it to categorize accurately in one word, because the only word I can think of that would fit all of them is "science" (and even that is undermined a little by psionics), which encompasses the other two trees as well.

"Life sciences", with its definition stretched just a little bit further?

Forget meat ships, I will accept no less than entire meat planets:

I see you are a fellow sentient of culture.

Biological ships confirmed?

If so:
Any chance of Stellaris finally getting a meat planet, with potato-shaped moons,
where a sample brought back for scientific analysis can get eaten if a leader has the Corrupt trait?

 

[Thiend]

Hence why "society" is a poor name for the tech field which includes everything from military science to archaeology to Jedi Mind Tricks.

Keep in mind that the trait that gives bonus society research from jobs (and thus, in 4.0, bonus workforce for Biologist jobs) is called Natural Sociologists. With Natural Physicists boosting Physicists and Natural Engineers boosting Engineers, it's inconsistent for Natural Sociologists to boost Biologists. They should be called Sociologists to match the trait.

Except it is a word match because "society" is the root of "sociology".

Society is the root word, but it is not a match equivalent to engineer -> engineering. Again, you get sociology from sociologists, not from society.

The trait is also not a match for that reason. Having the problem in two places doesn't make it not a problem.

What you seem to be missing is that I'm not saying its correct as-is, or even that it was correct in 3.14, I'm saying that sociology is also wrong.

Biology is defined as the study of living organisms, divided into many specialized fields that cover their morphology, physiology, anatomy, behaviour, origin, and distribution; behaviour would include sociology.

One single part of biology fitting the definition of sociology doesn't mean biology fits into sociology.

"Life sciences", with its definition stretched just a little bit further?

That... seems to work better than society or sociology, at least. Life sciences/life scientists?