by Eladrin
Hello everyone!
This week we’re going to look at the upcoming changes to Pops in the Stellaris 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update.
Last week I said we might also look at the Planet UI, but I’m going to save that until next week since there’s quite a bit to cover here (especially if you’re into the technical details), and I’d rather not split the feedback.
Pop Groups and Workforce
As mentioned in Dev Diary 366, the Pop and Jobs system introduced in Stellaris 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ has always had significant performance implications in the late game, and we’ve been working on incremental improvements ever since. In the Stellaris 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update, Pops will be grouped into Pop Groups based on species, strata, ethics, and faction, and these Pop Groups will produce Workforce that is used to fill (or partially fill) Jobs. As part of this change, we’re changing the overall scale of Pops - most things that previously affected or manipulated 1 Pop would now affect or manipulate groups of 100. The new systems can manipulate any number of Pops within a Pop Group just as easily as manipulating one, and I’ll go into some of the benefits of the finer resolution below. Our primary desire with these changes is to improve late-game performance, but while working on it we took the opportunity to streamline some aspects of planetary management and improve the planet UI. Let’s take a closer look at some of the details.Workforce
In Stellaris, the core economic loop since 2.2 has been: Pops fill Jobs, and Jobs produce resources. With the 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update, we’re making a subtle but important change - Pops will now generate Workforce, which is used to fill Jobs, and planets themselves will produce resources. At a basic level, this works almost the same way. By default, every Pop generates 1 Workforce, so Jobs are still filled at the same rate. However, this shift is crucial for backend performance improvements, reducing the number of calculations the game needs to make each month. Example: Then vs. Now Before (3.14):- Take a planet with 100 Pops working Metallurgist Jobs, where 20 of them have a +10% Production Bonus from a Species Trait.
- These 100 Pops produce 612 Alloys per month.
- Every Pop is individually checked - 80 produce the standard amount, while 20 get a 10% Alloy production bonus from their species trait.
- Instead of tracking individual Pops, we track Workforce filling Jobs.
- Jobs are now filled by 10,000 Workforce (since Pops are scaled up by 100).
- 8,000 Workforce comes from regular Pops, while 2,000 Workforce comes from the bonus-earning Pops. [list]
- The species bonus is now “10% bonus Workforce when working Alloy jobs” - those Pops contribute an extra 200 Workforce, making the total 10,200 Workforce. Bonus Workforce is allowed to go over the required Workforce for a job, yielding extra production.
