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sleepyKitsune

Private
Apr 20, 2025
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I noticed that pops cannot get bonesses from more than one automod trait. I am uncertain if this is working as intneded or a bug. I reported it as a bug but now I am unsure. I assumed one the beenfits of mutation was supposed to be stacking automod traits.

Anyone know?
 
I noticed the same thing playing with cybernetic overtuned, and it seems like a bug to me. If it's a deliberate decision, it's a bad one. I just assumed that automodding wasn't working very well with the new pop group system yet.
 
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Considering the 4.0.7 patch notes say "Multiple auto modding traits will now work together", it's a bug if they aren't. If you're playing on the current version, you should probably fill out a bug report.
 
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The way Automodding seems to work now is that if X% of the pop group is working in job Y, then automodding pushes that pop group pop toward having X% of the Y trait. So if you have e.g. 33% researchers and 66% bureaucrats, you'll get 33% of the effects of Traditional and 66% of the effects of Intelligent.

The game tells you what that % is ("efficiency" under each trait) and what % of pops have the right trait for their job overall at the bottom (under e.g. Adaptive Frames: Current Efficiency).

The net result is that Automodding is nearly perfect on very specialized worlds, but only 1/3 to 1/4 effect on planets with mixed pops. Which makes it especially bad on your capital to start.

Aka, it's now a rough substitute for pop modding micro without the work, rather than a "all your pops get perfect traits for free" trait. There's actual value now in taking Efficient Processors instead of Adaptive Frames.

Overall, I like it. It's a much needed nerf. But I do have a problems with its current implementation: Jobs that have no trait should be excluded from the trait weighting. If I have 250 researchers, 250 bureaucrats, and 500 metallurgists, I should get a 50/50 split on Intelligent/Traditional, rather than a 25/25/50 split between Intelligent/Traditional/nothing at all.



Side note: the jobs that have an effect on ethics and an attraction for pops working a certain ethic (like researchers and priests with Spiritualist/Materialist) should then end up having better performance, since the pop groups working them would prefer working that job over others.

i.e. If your spiritualist pop group is working all the priest jobs because they have slightly higher weight, then no other ethic's pop groups will have Traditional sucking up automod preference, and your spiritualist pop group should have a correspondingly higher Traditional %. So a 50/50 priest/researcher split may end up with 75%/75% efficiency, rather than 50%/50%.

I have no idea if those job weightings/ethic effects even work in 4.0 anymore though.
 
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I have no idea if those job weightings/ethic effects even work in 4.0 anymore though.

As far as I know they do still work. BTW paradox hasn't commented if this is a bug or intentional change still. I seriously doubt its intentional, it at best was the actual leftover result and they decided they liked it.
 
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As far as I know they do still work. BTW paradox hasn't commented if this is a bug or intentional change still. I seriously doubt its intentional, it at best was the actual leftover result and they decided they liked it.
There is absolute zero (0) chance that they "accidentally" built all new scripts, UI, and tooltips to calculate the trait balance, show multiple traits in the pop group at the same time, and then tell you what % has what.

Seriously, look at it in game. There's a ton of new work on this.
 
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Sorry to be clear I meant from within the earlier 4.0 like builds not from 3.14. As far as I know they didn't plan on grouping all the pops by strata previously this effect only happens because pop groups are at the strata level and not job level.
 
Sorry to be clear I meant from within the earlier 4.0 like builds not from 3.14. As far as I know they didn't plan on grouping all the pops by strata previously this effect only happens because pop groups are at the strata level and not job level.
I'm saying that they did a lot of work to port automodding traits from 4.0 and make them work with a single pop group straddling multiple jobs. They didn't do that work by accident.

This is not something that was built for 3.14 and just happens to work this way in 4.0 because they didn't look at it.

Are you referring to ethics or something, rather than the trait? I'm not sure how to interpret "Yes, it still works. I'm pretty sure this is a bug" (to paraphrase) other than to assume you were talking about the rest of the post when you referred to the bug. Presumably something working isn't a bug (or "unintentional').
 
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The way Automodding seems to work now is that if X% of the pop group is working in job Y, then automodding pushes that pop group pop toward having X% of the Y trait. So if you have e.g. 33% researchers and 66% bureaucrats, you'll get 33% of the effects of Traditional and 66% of the effects of Intelligent.

So if I'm taking advantage of "local production" (e.g. Artisans and Researchers on a single colony) then my bonus for each automod trait will be reduced, but if I fully specialize such that there's only one job per stratum on a colony then I'll get the full bonus from all automod traits.

This is kinda awful.
 
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So if I'm taking advantage of "local production" (e.g. Artisans and Researchers on a single colony) then my bonus for each automod trait will be reduced, but if I fully specialize such that there's only one job per stratum on a colony then I'll get the full bonus from all automod traits.

This is kinda awful.
That's part of why it would be better if the no-trait jobs were excluded. Ideally you'd get the full 100% efficiency of Intelligent, in that scenario.
 
My understanding is that strata, which is combined now, was not before in the earlier betas of 4.0. So they behavior of automodding shifting between jobs worked like before at the job level because that is where the group was. But when pops where grouped by strata it caused the current behavior. But TBH thinking about how the shifting happens it may not be possible without it being intentional I would need to see the actual code. If it is intentional they really should have stated about the nerf to automodding because its pretty massive, especially for the AI who doesn't specialize planets like that.

The entire automodding stuff works counter to the current planet trade deficite stuff is also why is a red flag. Along with no in game language changes on the traits to indicate you don't get the full buff. That all seems suspect.
 
My understanding is that strata, which is combined now, was not before in the earlier betas of 4.0. So they behavior of automodding shifting between jobs worked like before at the job level because that is where the group was. But when pops where grouped by strata it caused the current behavior. But TBH thinking about how the shifting happens it may not be possible without it being intentional I would need to see the actual code. If it is intentional they really should have stated about the nerf to automodding because its pretty massive, especially for the AI who doesn't specialize planets like that.
You don't need to see the code, just the tooltip.

All the elements I'm talking about (in particular, the multiple traits in one tooltip and the % efficiency numbers) were added specifically to deal with one pop group straddling multiple jobs. They did not exist in 3.14.

This was added intentionally.
The entire automodding stuff works counter to the current planet trade deficite stuff is also why is a red flag. Along with no in game language changes on the traits to indicate you don't get the full buff. That all seems suspect.
Stellaris is full of competing systems rewarding you for opposite actions, so that you can choose to lean into one or the other.

Research and unity scale linearly as you grow larger, but so does empire size. Planetary ascension increases designations (rewarding specialization), but also reduces empire size (rewarding cramming as many pops on the planet as possible).

In this case, automodding will just sit on the pro-specialization side (along with designations, building slot pressure, support districts, and planetary modifiers), while planetary deficit logistic costs, ascension size reductions, planetary deposit caps, etc. sit on the anti-specialization side.
 
I wish you had mouse hovered over the green bar to show what was being applied. The sub-icons of auto-modding traits disappeared for all but vocational.
What I experienced was confusing and inconclusive and disheartening. But perhaps I am ignorant of the mechanics.

  • I started with Fleeting Excellence. Could see all pops with the large Fleeting Excellence Icon and smaller sub-icon of the applied Overtuned Buff.
  • I completed Biomorphosis Mutation > Adaptive Mutations Icon appeared. It began to show large icon and smaller sub-icon.
  • At this point I had researched Vocational Genomics and decided since above 2 had seemingly stacked (though later I think Adaptive mutations just over-wrote Fleeting Excellence) > So, I applied Vocational on top of the other 2.
  • After about 10 years of game play, I had the large icon for Fleeting, The large icon for Adaptive Mutations and a large icon for Vocational. Only vocational genomics had small sub-icons.
  • My impression after investigating various buffs etc... was that only Vocational Genomics (3 trait points) was being applied because it was the most expensive trait. Ignorance perhaps, but I could not identify a trait icon or a buff indicating anything other than Vocational was being applied.
  • The stacking habitability from mutation was also observed.
Bit of details:
  • I restarted multiple games, some with fleeting applied to all pops at start, other games without any resource buffs.
  • In each game I studied the "efficiency" buffs and "resource output" buffs.
  • What I found:
    • Agriculture as an example, the base output of a farmer is .06 food x 600 farmers = 36 food. Ok, Check.
    • The application of base overtuned Farming Appendages applied a 6% efficiency to the 600 farmers, not the stated 15%... errr ok, Check. new Base food was 38.3. Apparently applied to base.
    • Enabling the Damn The Consequences edict resulted in Farming Appendages applying a 12% efficiency to the 600 farmers, not the stated 30%... err, ok, check. new Base food was like ~40.8. 36*1.12
      • I noticed something which I can't explain, the 600 pops = 6% efficiency was a rule across my pops. Where I showed 300 pops, their efficiency was half of 6% at 3% and when Damn Consequences they went from 3% to 6%.
    • Council member leveled and I chose "Agricultural +5%" or whatever that one is... and that did not appear on efficiency, it appeared after the base number, so it took all the ~40.8 and made it 42.8, but I also had other buffs applied at this level so my total food was 45.8 after stability/habitability/etc.. all at the start of the game and letting it run with no shenanigans until my council member leveled and i selected that buff.
Last bit of details from a game I played very deep before quitting because I couldn't tell if my buffs were applied...
  • I had 4000 agricultural pops and they showed 8000 on the efficiency bar. Essentailly 200% efficiency achieved. That was with 3x auto-modding and full mutation and lot's of excess habitability upwards of 200% on my capital. That was before "increases to resources from jobs" applied.
 
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How it works:
1747945029392.png


The trait is currently at 50% efficiency, meaning 50% of pops in this group have the right trait for their job, as not all pops have had time to automod.

If we look at farmers:
1747945112009.png

The big group is getting +7% (half of 15%) which is what we expect.

If we let it run, efficiency hits 100% (or close to it, since the group grows a bit every month):
1747945225436.png

Then if we check farmers again, they are now getting the full 15% or 14.9% (rounded down for display).
1747945269678.png



Note that they only went to 100% because there are no other worker jobs on this planet.

If we instead of a planet split between farming and mining:
1747945585105.png

Everything sits at around 50% efficiency, and the jobs only get +7% as expected.
 
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There does seem to be a bug where more than one automod trait doesn't get updated. I stacked Vocational Genomics, Fleeting Excellence, and Adaptive Mutations on a single species, and only Vocational (and the habitability trait) ever got updated.
 
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Thanks for the post abuduli, this explains a lot of what I have seen.

On a related topic though, I question the application of auto-modding traits and the mechanics which seem to be occurring.

That is to say, my interpretation of auto-modding traits is that (over time and barring migration/immigration) a population of farmers should acclimate to the full 15% (or 30% if damn the consequences) on all farmers, 100% of them. In my interpretation, if I then add Unity jobs, over time, those unity jobs, say 500 jobs, will auto-mod into the respective trait and eventually be 100% auto-modded.

But rather we seem to be getting exactly as you have laid out in your response. And this bothers, me. I don't even want to play any automod when really what you get is a watered down version of it.