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I want performance improved as much as anyone else but galaxy sizes above 1k are not officially supported by the game so that is a terrible metric for what 'good performance' means.
As someone playing a 1.8k galaxy to 900 years in 3.14 right now, I completely agree. Anything above 1k is not supported and a terrible metric for good performance. Now here's hoping this game finishes before Paradox rushes the 5.0 beta.
 
As someone playing a 1.8k galaxy to 900 years in 3.14 right now, I completely agree. Anything above 1k is not supported and a terrible metric for good performance. Now here's hoping this game finishes before Paradox rushes the 5.0 beta.
900 years in itself is probably also not supported given that the default end year is like what? 2500? 2600?

Although that logic ironically enough would mean that "Crisis: All" isn't supported XD (and tbh the difficulty spike with each wave definitely is a challenge that not many can handle)
 
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Actually, crazy thought:

Storm damage scaling up with Districts over 10, and down with proper protections (like a planetary shield protecting another 10 districts, scientist level protecting 1~2 per level, etc)

It won't hurt your early game or ring world megas but mid to late game or against an FE it can be used to target bigger less protected worlds in preparation or alongside war. It also will pass over pre ftls and such.
 
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900 years in itself is probably also not supported given that the default end year is like what? 2500? 2600?

Although that logic ironically enough would mean that "Crisis: All" isn't supported XD (and tbh the difficulty spike with each wave definitely is a challenge that not many can handle)
The default size is 600, the default time is 300 years and goes up to 1050. In that sense 900 is "supported" but also "excessive." Either way, I don't think its a good performance standard, I'm just treating Stellaris as an idle incrementsl game at that point. I'm not expecting or demanding it to run well that late in the game.
 
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Actually, crazy thought:

Storm damage scaling up with Districts over 10, and down with proper protections (like a planetary shield protecting another 10 districts, scientist level protecting 1~2 per level, etc)

It won't hurt your early game or ring world megas but mid to late game or against an FE it can be used to target bigger less protected worlds in preparation or alongside war. It also will pass over pre ftls and such.
It will hurt your capital?

And why do ring worlds need to be spared? They can suffer like everyone else, they're more than tough enough for that
 
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The devs have said several times that the "performance optimizations" won't be active during the beta due to them making bug fixing more difficult.

that makes absolutely no sense. the whole point was performance dealing with jobs and pops. what other performance optimizations are people imagining being held off for a miracle build?

On a whole other issue, why does my empire focus state I need to build and industrial district when there is no such thing?
 
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Yesterday’s stream gave us a glimps into the plans and thoughts.
Yes, the zones are staying — and the reason why is that they plans to add more cool stuff for them and this new system over the course of the next year. But again, no specifics. So to be clear: for this argument to work, I imagine there must be a big document with a well-thought-out list of features and mechanics planned that only work with the new zones.

I do not feel like the goal will be met by the end of May. We are losing the industrial district by merging it into city districts — so technically speaking, we can no longer build industrial districts. In the last patch post, there was an attempt to sway us by saying we can still have an industrial planet by just building industrial zones in our city districts, and that it's basically the same — with extra steps. Nitpicky, but also not entirely false.
Having clear and easy access to building slots is also gone. It now requires us to jump through the hoops of zones, as building slots are not the same across all planets anymore. The UI and the transparency of building access and job creation are far better now than in 3.99.0, but still not fully transparent.
But these aren’t really my main problems with this approach.

I already teased it in my second sentence: they plan to finalize and implement the reasons for this change over the course of the next year.
That sentence made me stop for a second — because it shows a kind of mentality that doesn’t really fit with the current state of the game.
It told me: “We made changes to the game that seem odd now, but we plan to develop the features that make this system complete in the future.”
And that doesn’t sound like a rework — it sounds like a development milestone in an Early Access game, testing out new stuff, with an end goal or list of things that still need time in the oven.

And if you see my point here, you'd agree — this is not an Early Access game.

I find this worrying, again.
Many people have already pointed out that this feels undercooked and should have been more complete before it even went into beta.
Because the initial reception, as I perceived it, was bad — and if this was a test, then that would be the point where you throw it in the bin or take a step back.
But since this has a nebulous end goal, we’ve only seen glimpses or arguments that can be easily rebutted with “well, that could’ve worked in the old system,” which makes the whole thing seem more and more silly with every patch.

Again, I would again suggest either rolling this back completely until we can REALLY see and TEST the reasons behind this rework of planet building to make us understand— or rework the rework into something more akin to the old system, but far more flexible and more fun than zones.
I'm talking about the same thing. There is no clear concept, no fully working core mechanics. I won't even mention the integration of old content and balance.

In my opinion, they should either abandon this altogether. Or offer players at least a full-fledged skeleton of the concept, and not those jerks from one side to the other that we see in the beta iterations. And then, develop the beta in parallel with the main game. And it's worth introducing it into the game itself at least when it is in normal working condition.

And the developers, including according to their comments, want to do something on their knees and with crutches by the 5th. And then tell us that everything is just great and they, such great guys, will delight us with "innovations" for another whole year (in fact, just integrating old content and balancing all this).

And we, meanwhile, have to either stay on 3.14 or play in fact a beta. This is a bad approach. It is a pity that someone's pride, quarterly report, and unwillingness to admit the obvious are leading the game into a crisis stage.

The result will be disappointment for a considerable part of the regular old players, a drop in ratings and, as a consequence, sales. Which will already call into question the entire life cycle of the game in the future.
 
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I disagree wholly with the zone strategy and that a district focused system would not have worked better. Most of what they promised with Zones can simply be baked into planetary features to provide bonuses and such only specific empire and specie can fully take advantage of. The issue is they want to make this big break with the economic model of the 3.xx and past games yet they are not actually doing anything to get there. The proof is the existence of energy and their odd claim they always meant to keep it as a currency. It should be trade and nothing else. Trade could be used to greatly simplify the game - colony management is already too complex and proven near impossible for the developers themselves to code a computer opponent who can work it either.

However to be honest I have learned over far too many years to not rely on a miracle build to correct issues seen in a game with an imminent release but more importantly I am not paying for DLC on the promise it will all be revealed to us throughout the year. (then again my tag still takes precedence).

Off to beta again... and sadly I really don't see feedback having an effect except for outright bugs. This whole two player customizable zones does not work for me.
 
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Actually, I take back my words about galactic weather control being useless.
Now galactic weather control might actually be extremely good.
I had forgotten about putting storms on my own planets, which previously was a bad idea due to devastation.
Now? Now you can get a permanent -200% metallurgist upkeep on your alloy world.
You can finally make a defensive layer of particle storms around your empire.
So basically it just went from being an offensive ascension perk to being an ascension perk about boosting your own empire.
A bit sad though that we lost the only fun/good espionage operation the game had.
Oh well, it was a waste of time and it remains one. Randomness and short-term effects won't let you build a strategy out of it. Actually, we already have the same mechanic - espionage. You can and even should just ignore it. It's much better to spend your micromanagement time and resources on many other things.
 
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It will hurt your capital?

And why do ring worlds need to be spared? They can suffer like everyone else, they're more than tough enough for that
Your capital starts with less than 10 districts. Assuming damage scales with districts, by the time you have maximized your capital you should have other worlds as well.

Sparing Ring Worlds is a side effect and personally not one I care for or against.
 
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The last thread also had quite decent discussion on the subject, with people, including myself, explaining why this sentiment is not universal and many people do in fact like job buildings for a variety of reasons.
I'm going to pull in your post because it's a good one:
I'd like to add my two cents on static Job buildings. I think the 3.99.5 did them fairly well - they were objectively worse option than district jobs, especially with urban district where you got about third the jobs from building than you did from district, but they were there if you needed them. I think having fallback to create more jobs if you can't get more planets/right districts or if you just need a lttle more of certain resource to balance the books is a great thing. I do not think the game should revolve around them, nor does it, but I honestly don't quite understand the opposition to them existing at all.

I think they should cost about twice the district upgrade price (360) for basic resources and a bit less than full urban district (standard 400) minerals for advanced/unity/research.
I agree with all the game needs and use cases you listed here, and the problem isn't static +X job buildings in isolation. The issue is immediately available, repeatable, static +X empire resource job, zone slot buildable buildings are a sledgehammer approach that muddy and mess with the way zones work.

Moving the +X spammables to planet unique capital building slots allows balancing the local books while still letting zones be zones, and a much more tangible cost/benefit analysis to just building a new district than the somewhat invisible and newbie trap option of making them cost inefficient.

The tech locked +efficiency zone slot buildings, the promised-but-not-in-the-beta "+20% jobs from districts" zone slot building, and just building more districts allows you to balance the empire-level books by using zones as zones - drop the former into empty slots (or replace existing -cost slots if you're out of planets to expand to and are just playing bonsai (complimentary) with your current setup), and build the latter to - well, that's the entire point of the system.

Adding the two together and you get a distinct and intuitive division between zone slots and capital slots - urban districts are for scaling up your primary planet export, zones are for deciding what those exports are, zone slots are for making large scale infrastructural decisions based on empire makeup and local planetary modifiers, and capital slots are for literal buildings with fixed benefits to help balance the local requirements.

That to me all sounds like fun, intuitive gameplay depth. But spending the start of the game with zone slots being somewhere you build repeatable static +X empire resource job buildings just makes zones into 3.x build slots and districts with more steps.

e: Rural zones are much more straightforward - three free job producing build slots that are as valuable whether you build 1 district or 20 basically deletes the entire concept of rural district scarcity or local urban/rural district competition from the game.
 
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Today's update includes some fixes to Civilians, and armies can now invade planets. Oh, and Cosmic Storms no longer deal devastation.

Stellaris 3.99.7 ‘Phoenix’ Open Beta update​

Fixes and Improvements​

  • AI now uses the focus system
  • Adjusted colony designation tooltips in the colonization UI.
  • Increased habitat district jobs
  • Zones conversions (such as when a hive takes over a standard planet) should now function and retain buildings that fit in both zone types.
  • Civilians no longer count as unemployed (they will still automigrate).
  • Civilians now appear in the jobs list correctly when it is collapsed.
  • The ANGRY RED BRIEFCASE of unemployment will now only appear if there are 100 or more unemployed pops on a planet. The orange briefcase of migration will still appear if there is any outward migration going on.
  • Clerk icon fix.
  • Timeline forward and back buttons can now be clicked if you have a very lengthy timeline
  • Armies can invade planets again! There still aren’t defenders, so ground combat is very easy.
  • More pop growth modifiers work.
  • Fix building and district job outputs being inflated
  • You now have to own a planet to modify job sliders
  • Improvements to Colonization UI
  • Planetary Ascension text is in
  • Concepts that referred to Industrial Districts have been updated
  • Leaders are now affected by species modification correctly
  • More tooltips and fields show real pop numbers
  • All planets should now have the correct number of zones (2) in their primary district
  • Rare Resource buildings now require the appropriate deposits or technologies
  • Enforcers and Entertainers should no longer bounce around
  • Cosmic storms no longer cause devastation.

How Do I Opt Into the Beta?​

  1. Turn off your mods. They will almost certainly cause you to crash.
  2. Go to your Steam library, right click on Stellaris -> Properties -> Betas -> select "stellaris_test - 3.99.7 Open Beta" branch in the Beta Participation dropdown.

All previous 3.99.* Open Beta branches will also remain available. If you are having issues accessing the latest version of the 3.99.* Open Beta, please see this forum post for troubleshooting.

For more information on the Open Beta, as well as the intentions and goals of releasing such an early, unpolished version, please see this dev diary.

This is the final update to the 3.99 Open Beta.

I want to sincerely thank you for all of your feedback and assistance through the 3.99 beta test process. You've helped us a tremendous amount in helping the 4.0 release in May.
Cosmic storms no longer cause devastation

1743766768859.png


That was so annoying, especially considering that you had no effective way of stopping it.
 
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The default size is 600, the default time is 300 years and goes up to 1050. In that sense 900 is "supported" but also "excessive." Either way, I don't think its a good performance standard, I'm just treating Stellaris as an idle incrementsl game at that point. I'm not expecting or demanding it to run well that late in the game.
I on the other hand expect it to run reasonably well all the way to the "supported" end and as a paying customer that has for years supported this game yes I also demand that it does.

If I wanted to play an idle game I'd stick to cookie clicker. That one is free.
 
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- 300 jobs base for Districts
- 270 jobs for Hab Research Districts
- 100 jobs for Zones which stack up to 200 if you double-zone (or 180 for double-zoned Research)

It's good that capped Districts are no longer strictly worse than uncapped Zones, but the cap is still a detriment which seems to over-compenstate the +50% jobs. With planets, it's not too hard to get a double-zoned Research colony going pretty early, which starts out mostly Research and ends up with Districts spent on nothing else. Habitats can't do that.

I can still do an Alloy rush conquest build, of course, and use planets for Research.


Maybe that's why 80% of my Fan Egal + Mat pops started out Mil instead of Egal or Mat?
 
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that makes absolutely no sense. the whole point was performance dealing with jobs and pops. what other performance optimizations are people imagining being held off for a miracle build?

On a whole other issue, why does my empire focus state I need to build and industrial district when there is no such thing?
They ment the kind of stuff that delegates stuff to the other processor cores.
Someone more technical than me could probably give a more ample explanation if that interest you.

Yes the industrial district thing is annoying, but it is just a beta, it is not supposed to be finished.
 
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If I didn't have to include Zones in 4.0 I wouldn't. But if I had to include Zones in 4.0 I would:
1. Instead of a single City District make room for 3 Districts that each have 2 Zones. (more flexibility in job numbers)
2. Change the name and colour of districts depending on the outputs (blue for research, white for unity, purple for alloys etc. for a clear, readable UI)
3. Remove spammable buildings that give flat job numbers, with housing/amenities/crime reduction/rare resources as exceptions. (so most jobs come from districts)

The Beta currently feels like the worst of both worlds. Not doing anything that couldn't be done with existing districts and buildings (yet), and doing it all slightly worse.
 
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Why do rare resource buildings now have their tech requirement in potential rather than prerequisites? Won't that prevent them from showing in tech cards, and cause them to spontaneously explode when conquered by someone without the tech to build them?

also all three now need the same tech_mine_volatile_motes tech.
 
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If I didn't have to include Zones in 4.0 I wouldn't. But if I had to include Zones in 4.0 I would:
1. Instead of a single City District make room for 3 Districts that each have 2 Zones. (more flexibility in job numbers)
2. Change the name and colour of districts depending on the outputs (blue for research, white for unity, purple for alloys etc. for a clear, readable UI)
3. Remove spammable buildings that give flat job numbers, with housing/amenities/crime reduction/rare resources as exceptions. (so most jobs come from districts)

The Beta currently feels like the worst of both worlds. Not doing anything that couldn't be done with existing districts and buildings (yet), and doing it all slightly worse.
Or, "Zones" become the name of the box that contains Districts, and you allow several customers Zones per planet. This allows the building of a dozen or more types of Districts, without having a UI cluttered with a dozen Districts. And you can either put building slots directly in the Zones, or leave them seperate, either can work.

With this, you can still have unique Zones and Districts on a per-Planet, per-Empire, and Tech-unlocked manner. It also fits seamlessly with Habitats and the Ecumenopolis, you can provide different Zones for each, Districts can be different sizes, etc.

Screenshot 2025-03-25 135318 Modified7.jpg
 
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