Stellaris

Stellaris

Carrying Capacity
db48x 5 Dec, 2019 @ 7:24am
the math for mixed biological and robot populations
This is a great idea for a mod, but I'm not sure it works out in all cases.

However, I don't think the math works out correctly on a large planet with a mixed biological and machine population. It's now the end game, and my ecumenopolis hasn't been filled yet. That's not so unusual, but it's less than half-full and no more biological pops are growing or moving in.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/id/db48x/screenshot/784120200242170731

As you can see, I've got 143 synths and 93 biological pops. At some point, I didn't notice exactly when, the penalty from having many pops overcame the bonus from having lots of biological pops, and biological pops stopped growing.
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Showing 1-15 of 22 comments
starchitec  [developer] 6 Dec, 2019 @ 9:54am 
Yeah, that is an odd side effect of how it works. Robot pops dont increase pop growth speed, but the capacity modifier accounts for all pops. So if you get a large population of robots on a planet, it will choke out all biological growth. This isnt entirely bad, as if that did not happen, you would get exponential growth from both Robots and Biological pops, which would lead to far too high a growth rate.
db48x 7 Dec, 2019 @ 3:28pm 
I don't think it's a very good result. (I also think I left out a sentence somehow.) My empire spent a gazillion dollars paving over the oceans of this planet so that an extra 300 billion people could live there in comfort and style. Everyone who lives there knows that the planet is only half full, and yet both the population growth and immigration has halted? That doesn't make much sense. Since this can happen on any world, I think some tweaks to the growth curve would make the mod lot better.

Perhaps the penalty from the existing population should grow more slowly when the planet is mostly empty, and grow more quickly as it actually fills up?
starchitec  [developer] 7 Dec, 2019 @ 10:25pm 
You have 1.5 synths for every biological pop. Your Synth growth rate should be through the roof, it says you are getting 16 robot assembly a month. Thats 2 pops a year, which is far faster than the vanilla growth rate since you are getting extra roboticist jobs per pop, and that will only start declining once the planet starts to fill up. The planet is still growing- its just all synthetic now, your bio pops are essentially obsolete.
db48x 8 Dec, 2019 @ 5:22am 
They may be obsolete, but why would they care? The premise of this mod is that a population stops growing when the world becomes crowded, but this world is only half full. They shouldn't be feeling very crowded yet.
starchitec  [developer] 8 Dec, 2019 @ 8:38am 
The world has not stopped growing. Its just all growing synthetics (and extremely quickly at that) You are still getting exponential growth. You want to have double the amount of exponential growth, which would effectively make having mixed planets massively imbalanced because you would be getting two sources of exponential growth. Your bio pops would still be growing if your ratio of Synths to bios was more even. Since its not, all your remaining growth is going to be synthetic. I understand it seems weird, but its working as designed.
db48x 8 Dec, 2019 @ 3:59pm 
I think we're talking past each other here. I know that you've implemented your design correctly, I just don't think that the design matches the premise you set out in the description of your mod, at least when a planet has both robot and non-robot populations. I think a fairly small tweak to how the growth penalty is calculated would make the design match the premise better.

Balance isn't relevant, since all players have the same growth mechanics. (Maybe it changes which game strategies are best, but what else are mods for?)
starchitec  [developer] 8 Dec, 2019 @ 6:21pm 
That may be so. I do get that it doesnt seem right when it happens, but its more than a small tweak to the calculation to fix, that will have wide reaching effects and I do have to keep some kind of balance in mind.

One thing I am working on now is essentially the opposite problem. Right now bio pop growth is reduced by the presence of robot pops, but robot pop growth is not reduced by organics. Ideally, they both should behave the same. So I working on a system where robots only get additional roboticist jobs from robotic pops- just as bio pops only get growth rate from bio pops. The goal is that on a planet like yours, where there is a mix of pop types, youll have the same overall growth rate as if it were a single species, but it will be split proportionally between robots and organics. However, thats easier said than done with the modifiers I have access to in game.
pudy248 29 Dec, 2019 @ 7:00pm 
on the subject of robots: the roboticist calculations in the deposit powershell file use $k8 twice and skip $k9. the bug is reflected in the final document as well might wanna change that
Last edited by pudy248; 29 Dec, 2019 @ 7:01pm
Phoenixblood 9 Jan, 2020 @ 6:03am 
My main problem with this subject is that it makes getting enough Bio-Trophies for Rogue servitors very difficult, because they dont start enough to grow fast enough to keep up with the higher robot growth
starchitec  [developer] 9 Jan, 2020 @ 6:51am 
Yeah. I am shifting around the calculation so that robot pops and bio pops are counted separately. (they will each have their own capacity modifier). Its the only way I can avoid the current problem, as right now, servitors dont work so well
Schlegel 9 Jan, 2020 @ 7:26am 
hey i was loking in your mod and it has a problem in conting the houses created by other mods. I had figurate a way to easily solve this problem. its just change the code in cont_housing in the file common\scripted_effects\carry_effects.txt to somfing like this:
#conting the free hoses, of corse i didn't put all the if that are nescessarie
if = {
limit = { free_housing < 0 }
change_variable = { which = housing value = -5 }
}
if = {
limit = { free_housing > 0 }
change_variable = { which = housing value = 5 }
}
#and to cont the population that is living in the planet
if = {
limit = { num_pops > 0 }
change_variable = { which = housing value = 5 }
}
if = {
limit = { num_pops > 5 }
change_variable = { which = housing value = 5 }
}
in this way the number of housses is conted corectely undependent of others mods. However the capacity flutuate along the time whith a 5 capacity of range, exemple a capatity of 240 can be or 235 or 245 (that is totally aceptabled).
starchitec  [developer] 9 Jan, 2020 @ 7:29am 
Yep. Ive got a system almost exactly like that in progress. Just havent had time to polish/test it yet.
starchitec  [developer] 19 Jan, 2020 @ 10:48am 
The update I mentioned is now implemented. So Rogue Servitors/Driven Assimilators should work just fine in this mod. Now you have a separate modifier for bio pops (which only counts organics) and for robot pops (which only counts robots).
db48x 20 Jan, 2020 @ 8:58am 
Cool, it does seem to work. However, the growth bonus is presented as a negative reduction, which is a bit confusing. Any chance you could use pop_growth_speed instead of pop_growth_speed_reduction in that case?
starchitec  [developer] 20 Jan, 2020 @ 11:09am 
That was an intentional change. Pop growth reduction is a multiplicative modifier applied after other modifiers are already accounted for, where pop growth speed is simply additive. This means that traits like fast breeders or buildings like health clinics will still be relevant and not just drowned out by the larger modifiers from capacity, instead now those modifiers will be multiplied by capacity effects. Plus, it also means that when you get to -100% growth from capacity, all growth will actually stop, rather than it being somewhat a moving target with all the other ways you could get growth boosts.

That said, I probably should just relocalize the modifer and just call it 'multiplicative pop growth' That would make it clear why its set up that way
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