Based on
the stuff GnoSIS said, vacant jobs are the main problem. If that's the case, then I propose a question/solution:
Does using the manual job prioritization mechanic to decrease free jobs improve performance? And if so, the devs should use that to their advantage (and maybe even do a hotfix for it if it can be done quickly wink wink nudge nudge
@Moah). You can still see the "x/y" jobs filled number when you use it, meaning that you can use that number to show the free jobs instead of the actual vacant jobs. Vacant jobs can simply be deprioritized and when you want to do a job check (monthly might be fine, among other triggers), restore those jobs back and then deprioritize them once all pops finish taking jobs. Makes it feel like a monthly hiring process.
Unfortunate that we can't mod in job deprioritization (as far as I know).
EDIT: For those who want to test it, here's my additional files. And yes, I did all of the deprioritizations manually...
In my tests so far (playing on fastest for 30 days as FoP on galaxy view using littlemod from GnoSIS), it doesn't seem like it does. I'm getting two totally different times for the save without deprioritization. Want to note that I experienced slowdowns when an empire claimed a system on me and while the game was transitioning from 3/1 to 3/2.
EDIT #2: Turn off the AI for more accurate results because they may reprioritize the jobs back. Didn’t do this in my tests so I’ll do it after I sleep.
EDIT #3: Results
here. Do not use the saves attached here. Go to my linked post.