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More UI - Galaxy Screen Day one is incorrect and does not update properly till month changes. Notice on Game Start you the indication the system has a colony is not there but appears on day of the next month.


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More UI - Galaxy Screen Day one is incorrect and does not update properly till month changes. Notice on Game Start you the indication the system has a colony is not there but appears on day of the next month.


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It is the same when loading.
They probably can't get numbers without actually producing, so they have to cache or approximate them.
I expect it way down the line.
 
While I think that many players will appreciate the addition of the Industrial Zone, my bigger problem still lies with the Early Industry Zone. It doesn't feel satisfying from a game play perspective to start with something you just want to delete as fast as possible. That's kind of the point of the blockers on your homeworld. I think it would be much better to have a "do-it-all" zone that is capital-unique and upgradeable. That would help with both the game experience and roleplaying by making the capital unique. Most players will likely delete the starting building and then replace the starting zone with an Industrial Zone anyway. This is janky and could be improved. Adding the Industrial Zone feels like a bandage to the problem and will likely be unused outside of the early game.
I actually never considered how unspecial capitol's are. It would absolutely be great for them to have a completely unique zone(s) that allowed them to be truly special. I think there are a lot of ways that could be done but we can all agree that special designations are not enough and really don't make that planet feel special in a way that the cultural heart of a space nation should be. Please expand on this and really make it amazing.
 
DO NOT DELETE the Early Industry Zone EVER!

This zone is the thin veil between life and death in the beta. It provides all the jobs you need to maintain a stable income and research. If you delete it, you will face constant unity shortages, have no research, and end up with millions of unemployed pops.

I repeat, DO NOT DELETE THAT ZONE! It’s the best zone you could wish for!
Kind of. I delete this zone after a few colonies get up and running, at least one with unity and one with cg. deleting that first building is actually useful.
I don't understand why so many people disagree with this so hard
Because without the base 4.0--and thus the beta--the DLC doesn't matter, and this is the thread for the beta. Plus, they are probably still doing a dev dairy tomorrow, so who knows what it will be.

On the face of it, my big desire for the next major change is to get more than one mine, city, farm, or whatever. After that I'd like to see something that provides amenities and doesn't take up a zone. The requirement for an amenity zone on every planet is the biggest problem I've seen with the current build.
 
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Because without the base 4.0--and thus the beta--the DLC doesn't matter, and this is the thread for the beta. Plus, they are probably still doing a dev dairy tomorrow, so who knows what it will be.

On the face of it, my big desire for the next major change is to get more than one mine, city, farm, or whatever. After that I'd like to see something that provides amenities and doesn't take up a zone. The requirement for an amenity zone on every planet is the biggest problem I've seen with the current build.
The DLC very much still matters, although obviously I agree given I said it's an unanswerable question right now.

It's probably not a good sign for how confident the devs are that 4.0 will be ready any time soon, but I'm also not confident 4.0 will be ready any time soon so I'm taking it as a good sign that they're going to take as much time as necessary to make this good and functional.
 
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The DLC very much still matters, although obviously I agree given I said it's an unanswerable question right now.

In a thread specifically about the beta, DLC absolutely has no relevance. He can be patient like everyone else and wait for PDX to say something about it.
 
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In a thread specifically about the beta, DLC absolutely has no relevance. He can be patient like everyone else and wait for PDX to say something about it.
If all the dev diaries were about the DLC, would you be saying "we can be patient and wait for PDX to say anything about the beta?"

They're both important, and "when will there be dev diaries about X" is a relevant question in any dev diary. It just also has a clear answer currently, because finalizing the presumed genetic DLC is impossible without finalizing the 4.0 release.
 
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Feedback on the beta:

I like the pop mechanics. I think making pops more granular, removing fractional growth, and unifying the migration mechanics was a very good move. Not just for performance, I like it for gameplay.

I do not like the new planet management. I wanted to like it, but it's just miserable.

Part of the issue is that a lot of it is still broken - but even the parts of it that work just aren't fun.

Zones are very restrictive. There's too many things that you can only reliably get from urban zones, and there's only three of them that you can actually choose. You need a few extra amenities on a built-up planet? Hope that you haven't used up both of your two(!) general-use building slots, or you need to replace one of your existing zones to make an amenity zone and instantly create two thousand extra jobs you don't need or want.

That's actually one of my biggest issues. With the old system, whether it was industrial districts or job buildings, you built one and created two jobs. If you needed a few extra alloys, you could build a few alloy districts on a research world for a bit of extra income. Now? You add a new zone (if you even have space) and instantly create hundreds and hundreds of new jobs.
 
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If all the dev diaries were about the DLC, would you be saying "we can be patient and wait for PDX to say anything about the beta?"

Of course. I don't feel any particular need to rush PDX, I'm perfectly content with PDX releasing information at their own pace. It's not like Stellaris is the only game I own.
 
Having played the new update a bit, I don't think my thoughts have changed much. I'll be reiterating what I've said in other threads as I think it's important to keep providing feedback on 4.0 as a whole. All of my testing is done using the UNE as they suggested, as they are very much the most "default" type of Empire.

First and foremost, adding an Industrial Zone is very much appreciated. I know the Devs were originally saying they did not plan on it, so I'm glad they decided to change their minds.

Unfortunately, the District/Zone/Building system is still not that functional. At just over 20 years in, my Capitol had it's three Zones set up (Industrial, Unity, Research). The Capitol Zone had Luxury Housing and Robot Manufacturing. The other three Zones had what limited buildings there are to build there. I built four Energy, Mining and Food Districts to help ensure I have those, and the rest of my Capitol is City Districts. I've colonized my first two starting planets one as Factory and one as Research each with their first Zone corresponding to that. The Capitol Zones again had the Luxury Housing and Robot Manufacturing with the other Zones having what limited buildings there are to build there. I built one Energy, Mining and Food District on my colonized planets so I can eventually make use of their Zones. I think it's fair to say that this would be a pretty standard start for a lot of players, and one that I think feels fairly intuitive. Despite this, my Capitol currently has a massive Amenities deficit, which has led crime to spiral out of control. This Amenities deficit is despite taking the Ascension Perk that lowers Amenities usage, and Expanding my Council to have the Tribute of Rights ALSO lowering Amenities usage. I tried prioritizing Enforcer jobs to help with Crime but populations would not move to that job. I assume this is a bug so I will not focus too much on it, as it will probably be fixed. I also fell into a pretty big Consumer Goods deficit (Despite still being on only Decent Living Standards) and had to start buying them off the market. This feels incredibly bad. There needs to be a significant re-balance of numbers to fix some of these issues.

The issues go deeper than just a numbers balance though. Flat numbers (Like on Luxury Housing) don't really work in a new system that is all about scaling what the City District produces. You either need to massively inflate the numbers, or the building becomes almost useless after a certain amount of Districts are built. Due to the way Zones work, adding jobs to the City District, once you had three Zones you're adding anywhere between 300-900 (If you build three Research Zones) jobs PER District. If you build 15 City Districts, you've now added 4,500 to 13,500 jobs, and this isn't counting any base jobs the District produces BEFORE Zones. You now have a single Luxury House, with it's flat bonus, trying to provide Amenities for a massive population. You could argue that an Amenities Zone fixes this, but then you may as well only be able to choose two Zones as one will almost always need to be Amenities as this is a planet resource and not an Empire resource. This same issue will happen with Crime if you happen to have a heavy Crime presence on a planet (Like if you have Oppressive Authority, Syndicate Branches, ect), as Precinct Houses give a flat number of Enforcers. Now this building is not Planet Limit 1 which helps, but it still means it is trying to have Crime Reduction (Again a planet and not Empire resource) with a flat bonus against potentially scaling Crime.

Another big problem are Buildings in general. Planets have previously had two aspects to them which limit how big that planet can be. Districts, which scaled with Planet Size, and Building Slots which are fairly static. It wasn't that difficult to hit the Building Slot maximum of 12. This was completely open with only the "Planet Limit 1" buildings being a restriction. These all worked with flat numbers, as did pretty much everything in the previous version of the game. Most Buildings gave you 2 Jobs baseline and then more when upgraded, and this was your biggest provider of Jobs on anything that wasn't a Basic or Advanced Resource world. It was flexible and intuitive to use, as you could simply swap out Buildings should a need arise. Amenities are low? Toss on a Holo-Theater, and if the planet has a large population upgrade it. Crime too high? Same with Precinct Houses. Need extra Naval Capacity? Same with Forts. Zones, and Building limitations has complicated this. Now as I've said in the other Open Beta threads, I actually like the idea behind Zones and Buildings. Zones have become a "middleman" on the Planet, with much more limited space than Districts and Building Slots previously had. If we count the Capital Zone and Basic Resource Zones, you have 7 Zones maximum with 4 of them being unchangeable. Zones are now your main source of Jobs, which means you are limited to 3 Job "Types" per planet if we ignore Basic Resources at the moment. That is a stark difference from the amount of jobs you could have on a planet in older versions of the game, as most Buildings are now a static "X% More Workforce/More Workforce Output/Less Upkeep. Passive buffs like these are, in my opinion, quite boring. That's always been what Tech has been for, passive buffs making your Empire better. Currently in this Beta, having Tech unlock a Building that gives +X% More Workforce Output, is no different than just having Tech that gives a passive +X% More Workforce Output.

I think the best solution to this issue, is to change how Buildings function, without needing to touch Districts and Zones much at all. Buildings should be mostly unlocked, and either convert a portion the jobs (Maybe 25%) in a Zone to a different Job, or simply add additional jobs and make these Buildings "Zone Limit 1". I think the latter is not as good of an option as that increases "planet bloat" as you'll have TOO many jobs. The former would mean you could potentially add three Job Buildings to a Zone, to have that job pool split evenly between those four jobs. You can then keep some of passive bonus Buildings for extra choices. I think this would solve a few issues 4.0 looks to be having. The first is flexibility and customization. If I'm playing the Citizen Service Civic, and want my Homeworld to be well defended with Forts, but not at the expense of it providing things my Empire needs by using a whole Zone on Soldiers, I could throw a Fort into all 7 Zones to convert a portion of those jobs to Soldiers. If I have a planet that is going to have three Consumer Goods Zones (Which means only three extra Buildings), I can have at least one of those Zones producing a few different jobs that the planet will need to run properly. The second would fix the issue of flat buffs/jobs from Buildings simply don't work as well when everything else is scaling Per District. Now if I build a Holo Theater in one Zone, Precinct House in another Zone, and Luxury Housing in a third (In this scenario it would give a much smaller buff that scales with Districts), then I can ensure that these Buildings and what they produce will not get completely overrun by the fact that there are so many City Districts and will instead keep up with what's being built. The third would be that it creates actual competition for those flat passive bonus Buildings. Now you can choose "Do you want your Research Zone to be an AMAZING Research Zone, or do you want to have it produce a few different jobs that the planet might need". Lastly I think it would just be more fun. As I said at the start, I'm on Year 2220 and since there's so few options on what I want to Build once I select what three Zones I want, I just find myself not even really looking at my planets. I looked when I started getting Crime reports on Earth, but because I don't have any options to customize what my Zones are doing my only REAL choices are to tank my economy to fix the Amenities and/or Crime or simply ignore it because there's nothing else to really build.

I love Stellaris. It's my "comfort game". I have 1,600 hours in it, and often play on easier difficulties like Commodore with RP heavy Empires so I can sit and chill while playing. I want 4.0 to be just as great as the other versions, and I think the base idea of Districts being enhanced by Zones, being further customized by Buildings is a great one. The implementation just leaves a lot to be desired currently. I know I'm not the only one who thinks so as I've seen similar complaints from the community in the Open Beta threads, so I really do hope the Devs take the time to listen to the feedback that goes further than Bug Reports, so they can make the best game they can.
 
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Due to the way Zones work, adding jobs to the City District, once you had three Zones you're adding anywhere between 300-900 (If you build three Research Zones) jobs PER District. If you build 15 City Districts, you've now added 4,500 to 13,500 jobs, and this isn't counting any base jobs the District produces BEFORE Zones

[..]

I think the best solution to this issue, is to change how Buildings function, without needing to touch Districts and Zones much at all. Buildings should be mostly unlocked, and either convert a portion the jobs (Maybe 25%) in a Zone to a different Job, or simply add additional jobs and make these Buildings "Zone Limit 1". I think the latter is not as good of an option as that increases "planet bloat" as you'll have TOO many jobs. The former would mean you could potentially add three Job Buildings to a Zone, to have that job pool split evenly between those four jobs.

I've been thinking along similar lines of the problem with adding jobs to a district via zones. We just end up with massive numbers of jobs per zones which is not ideal for granularity, amenities (though I think that's a balance issue), and civilians. I don't think zones should add jobs to a city district so much as change jobs that are already there, and not civilians either since we want those for other things. E.g. let's say a city district provides +100 clerk jobs and +100 civilian positions per district, then we build a research zone. It shouldn't be that we now have +100 clerks, +100 physicists, +100 biologists, +100 engineers. Instead we should have +10 clerks, +30 physicists...etc. Second zones shouldn't add more jobs but change the ratio further. So if there was a unity zone we'd now have +10 clerks, +15 physicists..., +45 bureaucrat etc.
 
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I'm copying my reply from another post, because it is relevant:

I'm trying to think what problem the current 3.99 design tries to solve with zones and districts, and I come up short with an explanation.

After reading so many threads and replies on the beta and playing it for 5-7 hours, my only reply, feedback and wish is for the game to go back to the Stellaris 3.0 design.

If I were to make changes for the old design, they would be to allow for a few more district types like research to be added like what some mods do, and nothing else.

Devs, before trying such a drastic design, please tell us what are you trying to fix.
This is looking more like they are making a change for the sake of making a change, or that there's a hidden design agenda behind it.
 
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I'm copying my reply from another post, because it is relevant:

I'm trying to think what problem the current 3.99 design tries to solve with zones and districts, and I come up short with an explanation.

After reading so many threads and replies on the beta and playing it for 5-7 hours, my only reply, feedback and wish is for the game to go back to the Stellaris 3.0 design.

If I were to make changes for the old design, they would be to allow for a few more district types like research to be added like what some mods do, and nothing else.

Devs, before trying such a drastic design, please tell us what are you trying to fix.
This is looking more like they are making a change for the sake of making a change, or that there's a hidden design agenda behind it.
There's definitely an element of this.

"Why are pops multiplied by 100" is a question I can answer. It's because it makes growth (not to mention job assignment) drastically more granular. It also improves the perceived size of populations. I like it a lot.

"Why use workforce" is another question I can answer. It's apparently very streamlined for performance, and it also makes a much better way for species traits to scale up to matter as the game goes on. No complaints.

"Why do zones exist" is a question I really don't have an answer to, because the only thing I can come up with is to allow every job to effectively scale with districts but it would be easier, faster, and not include basically any of the non-bug problems I've experienced in this beta to just add more district types. The whole change here is confusing and I can't come up with a reason to do it.

It seems like this whole thing would work better by changing all buildings to be planet-unique, reducing the building cap a bit, and just adding districts with each job type. And multiplying the job count by 100 to match the population increase, of course.

It's an extremely over-engineered solution to a pretty simple problem, at least as far as I can tell. There may be a reason, I just don't see it.
 
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We have a bunch of changes coming, hopefully this week, to improve the basic district/zone/building experience.

Goodbye, primitive factory debuffs, you (won't) be missed.
We literally can't wait.
There's definitely an element of this.

"Why are pops multiplied by 100" is a question I can answer. It's because it makes growth (not to mention job assignment) drastically more granular. It also improves the perceived size of populations. I like it a lot.

"Why use workforce" is another question I can answer. It's apparently very streamlined for performance, and it also makes a much better way for species traits to scale up to matter as the game goes on. No complaints.

"Why do zones exist" is a question I really don't have an answer to, because the only thing I can come up with is to allow every job to effectively scale with districts but it would be easier, faster, and not include basically any of the non-bug problems I've experienced in this beta to just add more district types. The whole change here is confusing and I can't come up with a reason to do it.

It seems like this whole thing would work better by changing all buildings to be planet-unique, reducing the building cap a bit, and just adding districts with each job type. And multiplying the job count by 100 to match the population increase, of course.

It's an extremely over-engineered solution to a pretty simple problem, at least as far as I can tell. There may be a reason, I just don't see it.
I'm 1000% behind the pop and workforce rework - the zones/districts /buildings thing I don't get it. I just re-read the large changes DDs to find an answer, but I failed to do so.

Perhaps, have the city zone hold 8 buildings, remove mierals, food and energy districts, and allow the planet to have just 6 configurable zones with levels? Effectively make districts into zones, and also have one large city with buildings? Just thinking out loud.... I'm getting burned out.
 
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We have a bunch of changes coming, hopefully this week, to improve the basic district/zone/building experience.

Goodbye, primitive factory debuffs, you (won't) be missed.

These Words are accepted.
 
We have a bunch of changes coming, hopefully this week, to improve the basic district/zone/building experience.

Goodbye, primitive factory debuffs, you (won't) be missed.
If it at least halved the number of jobs, it could have worked.
Instead it halved job efficiency, so I paid more for the researchers being in the specialist stratum then for their actual job. And never got to use the extra Laborer jobs.

But good riddance either way.
 
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