anything that makes more sense is always good for immersion and fun. it took me sooo long to figure out that neither pops nor food supply impacts pop growth. it made no sense to me

there are great mods for origins, but yeah, vanilla origins aren't balanced

what are instant resource output tech?

@Info So technically food supply DOES impact pop growth speed, with the "Encourage Pop growth" planetary decision. Which you must renew every 10 years. Lots of micro so no one uses it. One of the things I am absolutely doing is making it a TOGGLE. Turning it on still requires 1000 food and ten years, but after those ten years are up instead of having to turn it back on it will drain food per month (an equal amount as if you had paid 1000 over the same 10 years) and stay turned on so you don't have to keep reapplying it.

So I suppose it will also be a quality of life adjustments in addition to balance changes. Although the true pop growth rework may take some time and again, I'm still not sure if I can even make it work that way. Well I think I have a drastic solution, but it would be very drastic indeed.

Anyways, "Instant Resource Output" techs are the technologies that give bonuses like "+20% Physics Research". Those research increasing ones in particular have terribly upset balance since it costs nothing, so it benefits those who already have lots of science and would already be getting techs faster.

Originally posted by RoverStorm:

@Info
Anyways, "Instant Resource Output" techs are the technologies that give bonuses like "+20% Physics Research". Those research increasing ones in particular have terribly upset balance since it costs nothing, so it benefits those who already have lots of science and would already be getting techs faster.

I've used that food -> growth decision. but it doesn't "feel" immersive

what I really dislike, but what is maybe arguably ok in terms of game design (but I'd wish we could solve another way) is that you are basically forced to research this stuff, even though it doesn't "do" anything by itself -- it would already help greatly if this was framed in a way that makes it logical or immersive...

that would require some place in the game for "buildings" that are outside the usual building path.

maybe a district on the capital world that brings its own job and worker and is locked so neither can go anywhere but to that district, which then increases exactly that research.
like a special institute for science or whatever with specialists that coordinate empire-wide efforts in science.
so the worker isn't produced from pops and can't be lost or abandoned either.
that district should also not be impacted by max-districts or such of course.

% like that without any framing are like magic find in some games. eventually magic find usually gets eliminated from a game, because it doesn't add anything.
Path of Exile is one of the few games that has a very peculiar game design and reward loop where magic find actually works and isn't destructive.

(I've worked in game design ;) )

a general pet-peeve for me is that I don't really see or feel what research I have "accomplished". I can check on it, of course, and I have no idea how to do it better than that button.

but games are about looking at what you've accomplished, and Stellaris kinda hides that from you.
in factorio, I have to look at the tech tree to start any new research. that also shows me what I have already researched.
the UI mod used by most modern mods has an ingame link to a tech tree. but it doesn't highlight what I have done already.
I doubt there is a good way to do it and it's outside the scope of your ideas. but I thought I could mention it


similarly: why do I have to click the planetary features every time when cycling through planets? why aren't they shown all the time when opening a planet? or a toggle?
I like pretty little graphics showing me all the areas of the planet I've colonized or conquered. it feels like stellaris is always playing hard-to-get with the feeling of "I've achieved/discovered something"


the cap on leaders available for hire is a bit weird too. It feels stupid that a star empire isn't able to scrounge up some specialist in e.g. particles or computing, while leaders that magically live 25 years longer or gain 25% experience or accept a 50% paycheck is 99% of what I get.
I haven't played enough to see if offering 10 scientists to choose from, not 3 would break game balance or not. I try to keep my scientists alive, so I have no reason to constantly re-hire anyway.

One thing I'd like to see is a small buff to Gene Clinics and Cyto Clinics, in your proposed "balance fix" patch.

One fix to make them truly useful is +2% Habitabiltiy per Job, so +4% for Gene and +10% for Cyto, but the problem with that is that it's fairly easy to max out Habitability. There are at least four Techs that give +5% each, you might get a Precursor that gives you a +10% option, you can Terraform to your preferred Biome or eventually to Gaia (or Ecumenopolis), you might be Lithoids, or you might play a species with a Habitability bonus Trait.

For this reason, my preferred reason is something that also gives just a little Happiness to biological POPs, even if it's just +1% or even +0.5% per Job, combined with +1% Habitability. Think of the Happiness bonus as being free health care, free fertility treatment to those few couples who have problems, and so forth, whereas on planets without a Gene/Cyto Clinic, people have to pay for health care when they need it.

As for control over the Slaver's Guild slave percentage, e.g. via a Policy, that would be awesome. Options could be 30%, 35%, 40%, 45% and 50%.

@Peter34 Changing up Gene Clinics is absolutely on the list of things to change. It's very tricky though. The goal of most buildings is to make them good enough to justify the building slot but not so good you automatically build it on every single planet without consideration. This is the complaint I have with buildings like Roboticist building. Right now you build it on every single planet because it is that good. Gene Clinics are never built because they aren't worth the building slot or the pops.

One idea I had was an event that sometimes gives a leader a "bad gene" trait. It can do various things, most commonly lowering lifespan but sometimes directly reducing their capabilities and a few may make them vulnerable to dying at any time, even before their lifespan has run out. The chances of this happening is reduced dramatically by having at least 2 gene doctors per colony, and eliminate the chances of these traits appearing if you have 4 gene doctors per colony. To allow expansion without fear, it's only 4 gene doctor per colony and there's no need to have them perfectly spread across all colonies, so you can have your full 5 doctors on most colonies to make up for the fact that your new colonies don't have any yet. I got this idea on the fact that the game describes gene clinics as being "preventative" in nature, while at the moment they don't prevent anything.

I will make sure to tweak things, of course. I do want to keep the mod balanced.

And yes I'm looking at making the Slaver's Guild slave percent to be tied to a policy. I was going to have five different levels: 80%, 60%, 40%, 20%, and 0%. The 0% option will only be available if you have a species that is fully enslaved, to make sure you always have some kind of slave with this civic.