Hey man, I did some testing and digging to see if I can find out if the smuggle population works, but I've encountered some weird inconsistencies which left me baffled.

I started digging into the mod files, to see if I can specifically find the code for the operation and I can't see absolutely anything, that refers to this specific operation...
Which makes zero sense, because I have the operation available, but there is no "Smuggle Population" text in any of the localisation files.

Weird, but I figured maybe there is something behind it, that I'm simply missing. So I used debugtooltip to see what event is called when the operation finishes it's last stage. When hoovering over the "We have done what we can" option I saw that it should start event called bio.915

But the problem is, that there is no such event inside the mod... There is no text referring to the operation itself either.

I removed the mod completely from my disc, unsubscribed from steam and then subscribed again.

Everything is exactly the same. I still can't locate neither the event nor the operation inside the files, even though the operation is still available in game.

I'm searching for any text related to this operation via VSCode search, and it doesn't find a single thing... I've never seen anything like it. It's like the operation doesn't exist in the mod at all, and yet I can clearly access it in game and conduct till the end, just without any result...

I feel like I'm going crazy lol

Originally posted by alankraskow:

Hey man, I did some testing and digging to see if I can find out if the smuggle population works, but I've encountered some weird inconsistencies which left me baffled.

I started digging into the mod files, to see if I can specifically find the code for the operation and I can't see absolutely anything, that refers to this specific operation...
Which makes zero sense, because I have the operation available, but there is no "Smuggle Population" text in any of the localisation files.

Weird, but I figured maybe there is something behind it, that I'm simply missing. So I used debugtooltip to see what event is called when the operation finishes it's last stage. When hoovering over the "We have done what we can" option I saw that it should start event called bio.915

But the problem is, that there is no such event inside the mod... There is no text referring to the operation itself either.

I removed the mod completely from my disc, unsubscribed from steam and then subscribed again.

Everything is exactly the same. I still can't locate neither the event nor the operation inside the files, even though the operation is still available in game.

Hey @alankraskow, thanks for digging into this so thoroughly and for your detailed report!

What you're describing definitely sounds strange at first but good news: you're not going crazy. :D
The "Smuggle Population" operation you're referring to is part of vanilla Stellaris, not my mod.
That's why you won't find any references to it (like events or localization) in the mod files it's not included.

I just ran another test on my end using only my mod (Stellaris v4.0.21), and the operation worked as expected.
The event triggered properly at the end.
I also checked and , nothing suggests that my mod affects this operation.

A few things to keep in mind:

• All of my operations use custom namespaces, unique event IDs, and isolated logic
  
• No vanilla operations are overwritten
  
• No global vanilla triggers, scopes, or mechanics are modified

If the vanilla operation is bugged or behaves inconsistently, possible reasons could be:

• A vanilla bug
  
• Operation conditions not being met (e.g. no valid POP type)
  
• Mods that touch espionage mechanics, population systems, or event scripting (even indirectly) might be silently overriding the vanilla behavior. Some mods may also overwrite the bio event namespace, causing failures.
  
• A save file conflict

Suggestion:
Try a clean test run with only my mod + vanilla active and see if the issue still occurs.
If anything weird pops up again, feel free to share it here. I’m actively monitoring the thread.

Hey, I made some more testing yesterday, but was late and forgot to get back to you. The operation itself works fine, it's just that the amount of pops is so random, sometimes it adds mere 3 pops. And if you have those species in your empire, it's very easy to miss. I was lucky to get 100 at one point and saw the number jump up as soon as I clicked it. So the thing works fine, it's just very random and hard to notice, as it doesn't tell you where the pops land.

Also, thank you for explaining this to me, cuz I really thought I was losing my mind hahaha