Stellaris 3.99.5 'Phoenix' Open Beta Release Notes

[DrFranknfurter]

The increased granularity of the pops is one of the things that I really wanted in the new scale - constant growth of pops across all pop groups and continual migration rather than rarer but larger chunks.

I would have tried to fix things like the old migration push and pull mechanic first before deleting them.

+/-growth per month already did continual migration very clearly and predictably. It just needed to be updated and balanced so it actually worked. Specifically:
1. The migration numbers were capped so it couldn't actually cause decline. Remove the cap and unemployed+overcrowded pops could actually move.
2. The migration numbers were swamped by free housing after the update to growth made you always want lots of free housing
3. The migration numbers were calcualted after decisions to reduce growth. Setting growth to 0, migration push x0 did nothing.
(bugs and balance issues ignored for years, and yes I did post bug reports)

Migration as a random movement of pops is so unclear to me I still can't tell if migration is working yet.
(I know something is broken, but I think it's both growth and migration - I have 2 0% habitability worlds still with 100 organic pops after 10 years, robots are growing at least)

As for granularity of jobs:
In the beta my 5 farmers produce 0.29 food (a rounding error, I don't need to see resource outputs less than 1)
0.05 pops before fully grown could still have produced 0.29 food (if you wanted lots of useless mini-pops to exist... I don't)

I know it's a personal thing but I much prefer numbers simplified whenever possible.
2738 days I like to see 7 years and 6 months, especially when most calculations are done monthly and not daily.

Instead of 6.1k pops, 100 roboticists and 1000 metallurgists, I'd much prefer:
61 pops, 1 roboticist and 10 metallurgists
(11 characters for numbers or 5 characters to display the same information)

And the huge number of starting flat job buildings?
That feels odd (3 research labs = 2 districts - when my starting habitat has 4 max research districts, 3 Alloy foundries = 6 districts worth of jobs added without increasing empire sprawl).
I thought the whole point of the changes was to reduce building spam and make jobs from districts?

 

[Eladrin]

Anyone else found betharian fields yet?

Am I doing something wrong or is the zone still missing?

Betharian's a mineral, the zone turns your miners into energy producers.

If you do this I'd want a mixed unity/science zone, so that you can still produce scaling amounts of all resources with a single planet.

Interesting idea. Would mirror the industrial zone nicely.

 

[Red Death]

Anyone else found betharian fields yet?

Am I doing something wrong or is the zone still missing?


View attachment 1272909
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It's a mining zone district, right? So build a mining district first.

 

[Bergest]

As it is right now, the planetary deficits feel too harsh. I get and like the idea, but right now it is too punishing in terms of specializing planets and needs to be finetuned.

 

[tappi]

Betharian's a mineral, the zone turns your miners into energy producers.

It's a mining zone district, right? So build a mining district first.

There it is. That makes too much sense. Yeah, I've always associated betharian with energy production so my brain immediately went to "of course it's an energy zone".

My bad.

 

[Newbee53]

All of the combinations that we added in this pass are either one or two zones. However, one of the changes that I've been considering based on feedback is actually removing one City Zone slot from planets, increasing the free Government Zone to have six building slots, and framing them more explicitly as City Specialization. While this is similar mechanically to "forcing" an Urban Zone, it may make the intent of "zones are intended to be your way of picking what special district you want here" more of a real thing.

This might be good, I'll have to play with it. But I don't build urban zones all that often, so I'm not certain it makes sense to do it that way. Or that its useful for most players. I guess that's the advantage of a wider view.

I question if two zones are enough for a gai world start--or even an unlucky ocean paradise--to get everything they need. General planets will need industry, unity, and research a few decades in if they can't force a second planet in.

But there's also the fact that since building slots are limited, and not based on how many times you upgrade your districts, spending building slots on flat jobs instead of modifiers seems like it's usually a bad idea. Seems like something that will teach new players bad habits. Especially the fact that you start of with an Urban zone and three flat jobs buildings is a problem in that respect.

I don't think its teaching bad choices. Mainly because its not a bad choice, its just not always a good choice. Flat jobs are important to get that little extra something onto a planet, especially if its a planet that doesn't have that zone to start with. Building a CG plant with a flat job bonus is quite useful if you are tight on CG and that planet is consuming a lot. Same with other things like energy.

Right now the optimal strategy seems to be to tear out the basic factory and build an Industrial zone to actually get an economy going. Then, once you get planetary unification, rip out the other two buildings and Urban Zone, building a Research Zone and a Unity Zone.

Yeah, no. I think its a terrible idea to have research and unity on the same planet. They escalate your cg costs way to much for that lone planet. I'd build one on the capital--whichever is more important to you--and build one or two on colonies. Research makes a lot of sense for the capital, but I can see spiritualists and a few others going for unity first. Especially if you want to ascend quickly.

If you do this I'd want a mixed unity/science zone, so that you can still produce scaling amounts of all resources with a single planet.

could be useful. But I doubt I'd use it. See the paragraph above. Still, I can guess at a few situations where I might want a mixed zone.

 

[SirBlackAxe]

Yeah, no. I think its a terrible idea to have research and unity on the same planet. They escalate your cg costs way to much for that lone planet. I'd build one on the capital--whichever is more important to you--and build one or two on colonies. Research makes a lot of sense for the capital, but I can see spiritualists and a few others going for unity first. Especially if you want to ascend quickly.

could be useful. But I doubt I'd use it. See the paragraph above. Still, I can guess at a few situations where I might want a mixed zone.

A split zone giving 50/50 unity/research jobs should have the same CG upkeep as a zone giving 100 of one.

And it solves

I question if two zones are enough for a gai world start--or even an unlucky ocean paradise--to get everything they need. General planets will need industry, unity, and research a few decades in if they can't force a second planet in.

 

[DevWolf]

I'm not too fond of the buildings and their upgrades been separated. I'd much rather have buildings work like how they have for much of Stellaris's life. This issue compounds with the number of building slots, their new restrictions and limitations for which buildings can be built. This further compounds with the reduction of habitable planets. With fewer planets players will need to do more with what planets they get. Especially in the early game when terraforming and habitats aren't available. Specializing planets usually takes place later on when the player has more colonies to play around with.

I especially don't like how medical workers and gene clinics have been implemented. You've taken one building that provided some decent bonuses and then separated them. Now to get the full benefits of medical workers you have to build all 3 buildings. Using up an entire zone's worth of buildings. Please put some buildings and their upgrades back together to reduce the number of buildings. You could change how these upgraded buildings work too.

For example you could have the medical center provide 200 medical worker jobs, a pop upkeep reduction. Then upgrade to a gene clinic to provide 400 medical worker jobs total and add in the habitability modifier. Then the upgrade for that could add in the pop growth and assembly bonuses. So then it works like it did before all as part of one building chain.

Another issue for me are the monument buildings. I like building one on each planet to ensure a steady supply of unity, but now we have one monument that can be built anywhere. Then the 2nd level is it's own building which can still upgrade to 3rd level, but it requires a unity zone. I'd much prefer if it could go from level 1 to 3 without requiring a unity zone. Because it provides steady unity that scales with ascension perks and helps with factions via ethics attraction. I'm also not too fond of it providing culture worker bonuses to civilians, we need to send them to colonies. So maybe bring back culture workers or rework the ethic bonuses. Because you can get way more civilians than culture workers and that could lead to some wacky things with reduction modifiers. Plus it just feels odd having two of them.

I think how buildings are handled could drastically impact how Stellaris 4.0 is received by the players.

Edit: I've just noticed that the 1st level monument is now a spam-able building. This is a strange choice.

I don't think adding in spam-able buildings is a good idea. We only have so many building slots and many buildings will take priority over others. Maybe they're okay for some but not for others.

 

[Newbee53]

I would have tried to fix things like the old migration push and pull mechanic first before deleting them.

As I understand that statement, he wanted to get read of the situation where the vast majority of the months planets did not grow. Mainly because 'fix current mechanics' should have been the first consideration if fix current mechanics was the only thing you were looking to do.

A split zone giving 50/50 unity/research jobs should have the same CG upkeep as a zone giving 100 of one.

And it solves

fair enough. probably should have given it a moment before hitting post. I didn't see your post until after I wrote the bit about single planet origins and kind of failed to connect the two.

 

[tappi]

Couple of extra notes.

You can build betharian power plants on every planet, even ones without betharian fields. (Doesn't feel intended)

And with mining guilds you still produce minerals from the betharian zone. (Probably just an interaction that isn't implemented yet.)

 

[Newbee53]

And with mining guilds you still produce minerals from the betharian zone. (Probably just an interaction that isn't implemented yet.)

Might not be a bad thing. the guilds might not like being forced to mine this one thing, so they set up side mines just because they are pouting!!!

 

[DrFranknfurter]

As I understand that statement, he wanted to get read of the situation where the vast majority of the months planets did not grow. Mainly because 'fix current mechanics' should have been the first consideration if fix current mechanics was the only thing you were looking to do.

My point is that planets were growing, it's just that fractional pop didn't do anything (because making <1 food was pretty pointless)
And now capital planets will still not appear to be growing as 6.1k still takes months to grow to show 6.2k

Fixing migration would have fixed granular growth and let colonies grow faster. Making fractional pops able to work jobs while growing would have achieved mechanically the exact same situation as the beta (without inflating the numbers by x100 and without removing the migration push and pull mechanic).

 

[Red Death]

If you do this I'd want a mixed unity/science zone, so that you can still produce scaling amounts of all resources with a single planet.

Interesting idea. Would mirror the industrial zone nicely.

If this happens, you can also consider changing the starting setup to Alloys/CG zone + Unity/Science zone instead of the current Urban+flat jobs buildings.
You lose the "early industry" feeling but it does have some benefits:

1. Teaches new players how they are supposed to build their economy: zone-modified districts as the primary source of jobs (with maybe buildings as a supplementary source).
2. New players can learn in stages, first learning about building districts for jobs, then only needing to worry about what zone to pick once they get their first colony.
3. Since leaving the starting zones in place is an acceptable build, new players don't need to think about replacing the districts until they are comfortable with that.
4. This seems like it might become the optimal initial start for actually producing all resources at scale from year 1. As such, it might be good to have the AI also start of with it.

I don't think its teaching bad choices. Mainly because its not a bad choice, its just not always a good choice. Flat jobs are important to get that little extra something onto a planet, especially if its a planet that doesn't have that zone to start with. Building a CG plant with a flat job bonus is quite useful if you are tight on CG and that planet is consuming a lot. Same with other things like energy.

Hmmm. You might be right, but I feel like buildings are supposed to be a "supplementary extra", like those exception situations you are describing. Shouldn't the starting setup be what you're supposed to do in the average case? I am worried about players learning to build a bunch of research buildings and unity buildings instead of tearing down the Urban Zone and building districts for those other two.

Yeah, no. I think its a terrible idea to have research and unity on the same planet. They escalate your cg costs way to much for that lone planet.

Not sure what you're talking about. Research, Industrial (not even a factory zone!) and Unity zone with a CG surplus:

I'd build one on the capital--whichever is more important to you--and build one or two on colonies. Research makes a lot of sense for the capital, but I can see spiritualists and a few others going for unity first. Especially if you want to ascend quickly.

Neither is ever more important, you need scaling production of alloys, CG, research and Unity from day 1, or you have an unnecessarily slow start. Also, as you noted there are the cases of empires that will have to stick with

could be useful. But I doubt I'd use it. See the paragraph above. Still, I can guess at a few situations where I might want a mixed zone.

Keep in mind that even if a Research Zone plus a Unity zone consume too much CG, a mixed zone would only consume half as much. So it would be pretty easy to fit in. The only reason not to would be planetary designations/specialisation buildings (and you could probably build both of those in the one zone).

 

[Newbee53]

My point is that planets were growing, it's just that fractional pop didn't do anything (because making <1 food was pretty pointless)
And now capital planets will still not appear to be growing as 6.1k still takes months to grow to show 6.2k

Not really, they grow if they can produce more stuff. even tiny amounts

Fixing migration would have fixed granular growth and let colonies grow faster. Making fractional pops able to work jobs while growing would have achieved mechanically the exact same situation as the beta (without inflating the numbers by x100 and without removing the migration push and pull mechanic).

Its not like 'we have to see numbers go up.' its an interplay between the numbers you see, the numbers you see in tool tips, and the actual increases in resources.

A fraction of a Consumer Good unit is far, far, far better to see on the UI than a fraction of a pop. I don't understand why people think 1.234 pops would be better on the eyes than 1234 pops or even 1.2k. I talk about large populations as 1.2k all the time. But that 1.234 pops just feels like the nails on chalkboard sound. This is obviously very subjective however.

Not sure what you're talking about. Research, Industrial (not even a factory zone!) and Unity zone with a CG surplus:

That's new. Last time I tried it--think it was 3.99.2 or something--the two together were overwhelming a single factory district. Really should have considered rebalance when I wrote that.

Neither is ever more important, you need scaling production of alloys, CG, research and Unity from day 1, or you have an unnecessarily slow start. Also, as you noted there are the cases of empires that will have to stick with

Not really. Its perfectly fine to put off unity for a few decades, assuming you are focusing on expansion and production. Also, you do get a decent chunk of research from space, so even that is not critical. This is especially true if you are using flat job buildings to make sure your leaders don't kill things.

A slow start isn't a bad start, by any means. Unless you are fighting grand admiral ai or competitive players. but we know most players are single player, and they can turn down their AI if they find they prefer the slower start.

 

[vulcan7200]

All of the combinations that we added in this pass are either one or two zones. However, one of the changes that I've been considering based on feedback is actually removing one City Zone slot from planets, increasing the free Government Zone to have six building slots, and framing them more explicitly as City Specialization. While this is similar mechanically to "forcing" an Urban Zone, it may make the intent of "zones are intended to be your way of picking what special district you want here" more of a real thing.

While maybe a bit inelegant of a solution, it might be the best compromise to make the system feel right. Though if that change goes through I would argue the "City Buildings" certain buildings need to go back to an Upgrade chain and not splitting them all into separate buildings. Gene Clinics, Precincts, Holo-Theaters, ect would start taking up too much still limited space.

 

[Red Death]

Not really. Its perfectly fine to put off unity for a few decades, assuming you are focusing on expansion and production. Also, you do get a decent chunk of research from space, so even that is not critical. This is especially true if you are using flat job buildings to make sure your leaders don't kill things.

Hmmmm, you might be right on the research platforms. Though in my experience currently leaders definitely kill my unity production without a unity zone (or at least reduce it to practically zero, stalling Traditions).

A slow start isn't a bad start, by any means. Unless you are fighting grand admiral ai or competitive players. but we know most players are single player, and they can turn down their AI if they find they prefer the slower start.

Not sure I agree with this. It's fine for a game to have universally slow start. But if there's an extremely obvious way and to start much stronger, that is easy (only annoying) to do once you know about it, it feels weird to lead players away from it. In the end this is still a strategy game, not a tabletop RPG.

 

[couriervictor]

Empire timeline seems to be broken with today's update, the next page button shows up like this and can't be clicked:

Focuses and everything else is fine, just this one button on the timeline.

 

[Zaacplot300]

Initial thoughts so far:

Migration is definitely fixed, which means that colonizing planets actually works as intended and its awesome to see them fill up from the initial civilian pool on your homeworld.

I'm not opposed to the new specialized research labs, but they need individualized sprites. Back in 1.X when specialized labs were a thing they all had their own sprites, which should still be somewhere in the game currently, even if they are already in use elsewhere

I can also confirm that the UNE starts in a food deficit of -6. If that's not intentional, it might be worth tweaking some numbers to make that not a thing, though in the long run it is manageable and not run-breaking.

 

[Calvax]

Empire timeline seems to be broken with today's update, the next page button shows up like this and can't be clicked:

View attachment 1272950
Focuses and everything else is fine, just this one button on the timeline.

I put it in my feedback forms but I hope this gets turned into a proper scroll bar. Not sure why it isn't given that we have scrolling menus elsewhere in the game. Having it just show a couple of events at a time while we click through isn't the best user experience.

 

[DrFranknfurter]

Not really, they grow if they can produce more stuff. even tiny amounts

Its not like 'we have to see numbers go up.' its an interplay between the numbers you see, the numbers you see in tool tips, and the actual increases in resources.

A fraction of a Consumer Good unit is far, far, far better to see on the UI than a fraction of a pop. I don't understand why people think 1.234 pops would be better on the eyes than 1234 pops or even 1.2k. I talk about large populations as 1.2k all the time. But that 1.234 pops just feels like the nails on chalkboard sound. This is obviously very subjective however.

I understand the mechanical benefits (mostly for multi-species growth).

It's just the UI that bothers me. Numbers being two characters longer for no reason has that "nails on a chalkboard" feel to me, personally. Especially when it lacks thousands separators so you see 1000/1000 jobs, the numbers blend together more than 1,000/1,000, 1k/1k or better yet, the old version: 10/10

Initial thoughts so far:

Migration is definitely fixed, which means that colonizing planets actually works as intended and its awesome to see them fill up from the initial civilian pool on your homeworld.

I'm not opposed to the new specialized research labs, but they need individualized sprites. Back in 1.X when specialized labs were a thing they all had their own sprites, which should still be somewhere in the game currently, even if they are already in use elsewhere

I can also confirm that the UNE starts in a food deficit of -6. If that's not intentional, it might be worth tweaking some numbers to make that not a thing, though in the long run it is manageable and not run-breaking.

Migration/growth doesn't seem to work on 0% habitability worlds where they should have -50% growth the pop count is stuck at 100 organic pops (robots grow fine) and if you move pops there they never grow or migrate away.
(I wonder if the penalty is doubled to -100% growth? I've posted a bug report)