[Dev Team] 4.0.4 Patch Released (checksum 6a76)

[Eladrin]

Ever? EVER!!???!??

Does this mean you will never make the game faster, or is this just within this patch until 4.1 or 4.2, etc., comes out?

No, it means that we'll be making improvements in every patch, and will never consider optimization "complete".

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

Can we have some kind of abandon colony button?
Even one unit of pop will split into several factional pops, and force migrate one of them can't actually abandon colony and take full influence cost.

We're investigating some solutions to this. (One of the possibilities is exactly what you're suggesting - an Abandon Colony decision.)

An "evacuate planet" decision that costed influence and forced all pops to automigrate, regardless of open jobs/habitability, would be great. Would have a lot of use cases and could add some great narrative moments as you order the evacuation of worlds ahead of a crisis, and have to deal with the sudden influx of jobless, homeless citizens on the rest of your worlds.

This decision when used on a highly populated planet should indeed be very expensive or unusable.

But for those cases where it's just a few fractional pops on a small planet: please make it cheap or just equivalent to the cost for resettling those pops. I don't think there's risk of exploits anymore, since colonising a world does not produce pops.

I have long thought that Doomsday's Evacuation Protocols edict should be replaced with a planetary decision, designed in such a manner that it helps an AI player reliably escape its homeworld if it has found any other acceptable world. While the edict's modifiers are slightly helpful, they do not change the fact that an evacuation currently requires a LOT of micro-management.
(The edict's modifiers also kind of seem like bonuses that would feel natural as permanent bonuses of the Doomsday origin. The civilization would have a cultural and administrative heritage of packing up and leaving when it becomes necessary. It should be a part of their "societal DNA", as their post-FTL society was effectively organised around that purpose.)

+100% Colony development speed
−50% Resettlement cost

In my opinion, a planetary decision to evacuate a world should effectively automate the evacuation process.

• Greatly increased automatic resettlement chance, and reduced resettlement cost.
• Nullified resettlement destination chance (nobody should move there voluntarily).
• Nearly instantaneous demotion of unemployed pops.
• Pops leave their current jobs, unless it causes an output shortage (global or local);
  pops do not take new jobs, unless it helps alleviate such a shortage.
  • This could perhaps be handled as an automated deprioritization of jobs that no longer need to be performed on this world (it seems excessive to make each pop think long and hard about their role in the economy before making job decisions).
• Unused buildings/districts are automatically removed/recycled.
• If the Civilians lack any valid resettlement target, they instead depart via the refugee system (so you better make sure other worlds have room for them, because the Civilians might not wait for very long before taking their destiny into their own hands).

The way the above would play out, I imagine, is that:

1. There exists at least one suitable other world that already has, or gradually acquires, the ability to hold the pops and produce the outputs of the old world.
2. Civilians begin flowing to the other world as soon as possible.
3. Research jobs are among the first to be emptied / stop receiving Workforce, since there is no potential deficit there (locally or globally). Depending on global Unity expenditures, Unity jobs may also come early - or later in the process. Something similar goes for Alloy jobs, Consumer Goods jobs and other refined output jobs. As the supply side of the economy shifts to the other worlds, the resource jobs of the evacuated world are drained of labour.
4. As the number of pops on a world declines, the local need for Amenities and Law Enforcement goes down, and those jobs can be reduced too.
5. Eventually the last pops have become Civilians, who finally leave their old home.
6. The world is abandoned, and the last remaining buildings and districts are removed.

The cost of the planetary decision should be Unity, since it would be the most consistent with other game systems - it is just another kind of resettlement. It adds neither territory nor new pops, and should therefore not cost Influence.

While the above is primarily written with Doomsday in mind, it should apply equally well (but probably much smoother) to vacating undesired colonies. Evacuation Protocols like this could also be used later in the game, to save pops from approaching crises and genociders. The suggested point of allowing evacuees to become refugees, if there is no valid resettlement target for them, would be especially flavourful in situations like that - and in case of the Doomsday origin, which could allow failed homeworld evacuations to still spawn some surviving diaspora.

Evacuation Protocols could perhaps also be locked behind a technology (new or existing), which could also be a guaranteed research option for Doomsday empires.

 

[LeSingeAffame]

Oh, and can someone please tell me where and how I can build chemical and synthetic crystal plants? I'm running dangerously low. Thanks.

In my Wilderness empire it's in the alloy-producing specialization for my urban district

 

[Foxosaur]

I have long thought that Doomsday's Evacuation Protocols edict should be replaced with a planetary decision, designed in such a manner that it helps an AI player reliably escape its homeworld if it has found any other acceptable world. While the edict's modifiers are slightly helpful, they do not change the fact that an evacuation currently requires a LOT of micro-management.
(The edict's modifiers also kind of seem like bonuses that would feel natural as permanent bonuses of the Doomsday origin. The civilization would have a cultural and administrative heritage of packing up and leaving when it becomes necessary. It should be a part of their "societal DNA", as their post-FTL society was effectively organised around that purpose.)


In my opinion, a planetary decision to evacuate a world should effectively automate the evacuation process.

• Greatly increased automatic resettlement chance, and reduced resettlement cost.
• Nullified resettlement destination chance (nobody should move there voluntarily).
• Nearly instantaneous demotion of unemployed pops.
• Pops leave their current jobs, unless it causes an output shortage (global or local);
  pops do not take new jobs, unless it helps alleviate such a shortage.
  • This could perhaps be handled as an automated deprioritization of jobs that no longer need to be performed on this world (it seems excessive to make each pop think long and hard about their role in the economy before making job decisions).
• Unused buildings/districts are automatically removed/recycled.
• If the Civilians lack any valid resettlement target, they instead depart via the refugee system (so you better make sure other worlds have room for them, because the Civilians might not wait for very long before taking their destiny into their own hands).

The way the above would play out, I imagine, is that:

1. There exists at least one suitable other world that already has, or gradually acquires, the ability to hold the pops and produce the outputs of the old world.
2. Civilians begin flowing to the other world as soon as possible.
3. Research jobs are among the first to be emptied / stop receiving Workforce, since there is no potential deficit there (locally or globally). Depending on global Unity expenditures, Unity jobs may also come early - or later in the process. Something similar goes for Alloy jobs, Consumer Goods jobs and other refined output jobs. As the supply side of the economy shifts to the other worlds, the resource jobs of the evacuated world are drained of labour.
4. As the number of pops on a world declines, the local need for Amenities and Law Enforcement goes down, and those jobs can be reduced too.
5. Eventually the last pops have become Civilians, who finally leave their old home.
6. The world is abandoned, and the last remaining buildings and districts are removed.

The cost of the planetary decision should be Unity, since it would be the most consistent with other game systems - it is just another kind of resettlement. It adds neither territory nor new pops, and should therefore not cost Influence.

While the above is primarily written with Doomsday in mind, it should apply equally well (but probably much smoother) to vacating undesired colonies. Evacuation Protocols like this could also be used later in the game, to save pops from approaching crises and genociders. The suggested point of allowing evacuees to become refugees, if there is no valid resettlement target for them, would be especially flavourful in situations like that - and in case of the Doomsday origin, which could allow failed homeworld evacuations to still spawn some surviving diaspora.

Evacuation Protocols could perhaps also be locked behind a technology (new or existing), which could also be a guaranteed research option for Doomsday empires.

Agreed with you on this one Tannhauser, I enjoy Doomsday but not for the actual evacuation part, it just feels hard work.

 

[great lakes]

what happened to the rural world designation?

 

[Psykhes]

We're investigating some solutions to this. (One of the possibilities is exactly what you're suggesting - an Abandon Colony decision.)

Another thing which would be nice is a "do not occupy" toggle for troop transports.

My devouring swarm just wants to harvest the biomass of each planet, but isn't interested in actually keeping it.
So I go at each planet and remove all jobs and resettle already present members of my race, leaving on the Xenos which will soon be processed.
It would be a huge QoL if I wouldn't have to do this.

 

[Ajacoba]

Look, I love you Paradox and appreciate that you have been pumping out the fixes (Makes me optimistic that the game actually will be fixed soon unlike previous overhauls where the game was mostly broken for months), but this really is just more evidence that you should have waited at least a few weeks at least to push this out.

Yes, I bought the season pass and will probably continue buying them so you have no real reason to listen to me but still

Why a few weeks when most issues are already fixed within two days?

 

[ItThatAltersSanity]

This really is just more evidence that you should have waited at least a few weeks at least to push this out.

Corporate scheduling. Whatever is happening in software reality, corporate has to have certain things happen on specific dates. Waiting until the software is good enough is terrifying to corporate accounting. Market forbid revenue due for Q2 actually shows up in Q3!

 

[SupremeGodEmperor]

No, it means that we'll be making improvements in every patch, and will never consider optimization "complete".

Ah, that clarifies it.

 

[Miuramir]

Thanks for the quick update, I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong in my huge galaxies, by year 60, I might have eight-ten colonies but I'm struggling to fill jobs. Is everything fed from the capital planet now for growth? Maybe spreading too thin?

Note that there is a quite substantial debuff to growth for populations below a certain minimum size; substantial enough that in 4.0.2 it meant that a colony just settled with the starting 100 and no additional manual transfer would for practical purposes never grow. I haven't had a chance to test the current balance yet but in 4.0.2 you needed 400 pops to not get a growth penalty; so in practice you needed to manually transfer at least 2, preferably 3, groups of 100 from your homeworld (or other well-developed world later in the game). (Note also that the Expansion tradition no longer gives more pops, just more districts; a substantial nerf.)

This was / is? a substantial debuff / nerf to migration treaties and in general to peaceful xenophile play. If you sign a migration treaty and then colonize a new planet type not really habitable by your starting species, with no additional pops to transfer, the colony will just sit at 100 for a very long time even if it's 80% habitability for the new foreign species. I will do some testing with 4.0.4 to see if this is still the case and how the numbers work out currently.

Edit to add / signal boost from great lakes: this probably makes Broken Shackles significantly harder. Someone should check that it's playable.

 

[Kataclyszm]

No, it means that we'll be making improvements in every patch, and will never consider optimization "complete".

Have you considered undoing the whole 'there are now 100x more pops'? In addition to how there is ABSOLUTELY no way this isn't a problem, it reduces readability across the entire board.

 

[Mech_infect]

Stellaris - [4.0.2] [c7fe] Slave Guilds + Nascent Stage + Livestock = not working

Description [4.0.2] [c7fe] Slave Guilds + Nascent Stage + Livestock = not working Game Version [4.0.2] What version do you use? Paradox Launcher What expansions do you have installed? All Do you have mods enabled? No Please explain your...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

I just want to repeat for reliability.

When you choose civic slave guilds, the slaves sit in civilinas, although they should work, but they just chill and civilans. Slaves of an easy and happy life only. If you transfer to lifestock - the same. Well, follow the link for more details.

 

[TilloKirov]

• Reverted many of the leader changes:
  • Leaders once again gain traits at every level.
  • The number of trait picks per level has been set back to 2 by default.
  • Low level traits that were merged and buffed remain so.

This is the right decision. Leaders were already fairly balanced in version 3.14.

 

[Handepsilon]

just go virtuality so there's no job management to do (don't worry about the -20k amenities )

What's the state of Virtuality btw? I played modded and ended with 100% crime due to 200000 pop in a single planet after Virtuality. I couldn't be sure if it's one of the mods (none of which I remember modifies Virtual pop generation) or vanilla current behavior

 

[Foxosaur]

Note that there is a quite substantial debuff to growth for populations below a certain minimum size; substantial enough that in 4.0.2 it meant that a colony just settled with the starting 100 and no additional manual transfer would for practical purposes never grow. I haven't had a chance to test the current balance yet but in 4.0.2 you needed 400 pops to not get a growth penalty; so in practice you needed to manually transfer at least 2, preferably 3, groups of 100 from your homeworld (or other well-developed world later in the game). (Note also that the Expansion tradition no longer gives more pops, just more districts; a substantial nerf.)

This was / is? a substantial debuff / nerf to migration treaties and in general to peaceful xenophile play. If you sign a migration treaty and then colonize a new planet type not really habitable by your starting species, with no additional pops to transfer, the colony will just sit at 100 for a very long time even if it's 80% habitability for the new foreign species. I will do some testing with 4.0.4 to see if this is still the case and how the numbers work out currently.

Edit to add / signal boost from great lakes: this probably makes Broken Shackles significantly harder. Someone should check that it's playable.

Thank you, I'm working on a new playthrough now and going to see how things pan out going much slower with colonization, though my first colonised world just got this *insert sweating emoji* - "oh well".

Spoiler

I hope to try Broken Shackles, its been awhile but I think you might be right.

 

[grommile]

Have you considered undoing the whole 'there are now 100x more pops'? In addition to how there is ABSOLUTELY no way this isn't a problem, it reduces readability across the entire board.

There is no plausible reason for the multiplication by 100 to have any negative impact on performance.

In 1.0 through 3.14, 20 oldpops of the same faction and species template doing the same job are 20 data objects, so any per-pop effect targeting them has to be run twenty times.

In 4.0, 20, 200, 2000, or 20 000 newpops of the same faction and species template doing the same job are *one* data object, so any effect targeting it only has to be run once regardless of the size of the newpop bucket operated on.

 

[Voidster]

I cant seem to build the grand archive on my wilderness homeworld or planets. It requires pops and my species doesn't really have "pops" anymore, right?

 

[grommile]

Why a few weeks when most issues are already fixed within two days?

Bringing all the bugs to light so that you can investigate and fix them is faster with ten thousand external users playing the game the way they want to, than with fifty internal users playing the game the way the test plan says it should be played.

 

[Kataclyszm]

n 4.0, 20, 200, 2000, or 20 000 newpops of the same faction and species template doing the same job are *one* data object, so any effect targeting it only has to be run once regardless of the size of the newpop bucket operated on.

See this is blatantly false. If it were otherwise, why have I seen a FE with one - 1 - pop flip-flopping between Precursor and Specialist stratum every month? Clearly that means each every centi-pop is running the 'whose job should I take' calculation.

Bringing all the bugs to light so that you can investigate and fix them is faster with ten thousand external users playing the game the way they want to, than with fifty internal users playing the game the way the test plan says it should be played.

What an excuse. 'You can't upgrade buildings to tier 2' isn't something that requires a bunch of external users. It shows that they didn't test it in-house.

 

[mango42]

What's the state of Virtuality btw? I played modded and ended with 100% crime due to 200000 pop in a single planet after Virtuality. I couldn't be sure if it's one of the mods (none of which I remember modifies Virtual pop generation) or vanilla current behavior

you don't get maintenance drones and your logistic workers cannot sustain the amenities demands at all, until they buff the buildings it's unplayable as you'll have a very big amenities deficit on every planet, when the gestalt buildings get buffed to the same level as the luxury apartments you will still need to use 3 to 4 building slots on them to go positive but at least you can do somethign about it. If you still want to play them right now you could go an mod the values on the buildings yourself, it's just about adding some 0 to their values