I've continued this mod here: Rebalanced Research & Tradition Penalties

How about keeping the 10% penalty per planet, eliminate the penalty for habitats and quarter the penalty for each system?

@Ender 2.0 changed how research penalties work overall. Not sure of exactly how I want this mod to update atm. Suggestions welcome!

update?

How does this mod work out with Robotic Empires now in the game from the Synthetic Dawn DLC?

NordikaMan, is there any way that you can make a version that makes the per-colony cost 40-50%, and make it so pops don't do anything to the penalty, like what is going to happen with 2.0?

@vaporfeces Finally had a chance to take a look and it seems to be working as intended for me. I've uploaded a version update, give it another shot and let me know if you're still having issues with it.

Are people still experiencing the issues they reported after the last two patches to the game? I am not seeing any changes to the values changes by this mod in the original game from 1.6 to 1.8. Unless the game is now doing something else with these number, I think it must be another cause. I will see what is going on in my next game.

not sure if its working properly. ( seems to get alot more penaltys than boosts with SD ) always in the negetitves for researching

update plz

@HuntsmanMC Do whatever you like! The lines of code I changed are listed in the description. If you have any questions just ask!

Is you're willing to wait a week or so I can upload another variation in the way you want. On vacation atm. ;)

And or you make a varient that does just that? Sorry didn't even think of just requesting but I hate to impose.

Would it be alright with you if I were to take this mod and increase the penality for large empires and upload it mostly for personal use?

@BambiSlayer You can turn it on and off at will, doesn't have any affect on saves beyond the technologies already reasearched and the progress researched while using the mod.

Is this save game compatible?

@aidynmaster Here you go: Rebalanced Research Penalties - Variant A

Technologie works for adjusting traditions, just never managed to get it working for tech cost :(

@Idrinth Ah, interesting. How do you manage that mid-game? And you're not wasting my time, thanks for reaching out and using the mod!

My point is, that the tradition cost can be modified in that regard, tradition_cost_num_xenos_mult= -0.1 does work for example. Just thought you might have had more luck than me finding one for tech/research.
Sorry about taking your time.

@Idrinth No problem! I have not found a way, nor do I expect to with the current implementation. I mentioned in a response earlier to a similar question that a dynamic rate would likely need to be handled in an entirely different way as these flags are global presets defined at game start.

@aidynmaster Sounds like a good idea! I'm in the habit of ignoring anything smaller than 17-18 tiles. I'll make a branch of this mod with lower penalties and link it here for you. Probably this weekend. In the meantime feel free to pop open the modded files and fiddle with the numbers yourself!

Hint:
TECH_COST_MULT_NUM_COLONIES = 0.2
TECH_COST_MULT_NUM_POPS = -0.00625

I would like to see both the penalty and bonus to be halved, so that it'd be a 20% per colony penalty with a .625% per pop bonus, just for the sake of not searching for size 25 planets exclusively.

Sorry about that, was just wondering, if you found a way to modify TECH_COST_MULT_NUM_COLONIES during a game, would allow for even more punishing costs decreasable by research.

Sorry for the delayed response guys, been working on getting my own game up on Steam.

@Idrinth Sorry, but I'm not sure what you're asking!

@Яoriи I haven't found a mod like that. And I will take a deeper look into whether or not this mod can be changed to be dynamic relative to the colony size when I get some more time. Let me know if you find something in the meantime, it may help me out!

I was looking for a mod that in combination with this make the habitat to not count for the reseach penalty. I mean, making habitat give a 0% research penalty. Do you know of any mod that make something like that?

Seems like I'm not the only one who thinks people talking helps research along even if 40% is pretty punishing :D
You didn't by chance find a way to affect the constants via research, failed to find any option to do that myself.

@aidynmaster Updated the version file so you won't see the incompatibility warning anymore.

@NordikaMan I forgot to come here and tell you that it is working for 1.6.1 :p

2 other mods that lower and eliminate the penalties wouldn't work, even though it did not give me the warning.

@Aidynmaster This mod is compatible with 1.6.1. You can ignore the red '!' warning in the launcher for now. I'll update the version this weekend.

Also, just an FYI: Stellaris does not do anything special to determine if a mod is actually compatible with the version of the game you're playing. All the launcher does is look at a very simple text file that has a version number hard-coded. If the version of the game is not the same as the version the mod says it was made for then the launcher will present the red '!' warning. But that does not mean the mod is actually incompatible with the game... Next time give it a try! If the game crashes on launch, or the effects are unnoticable then you know for a fact that the mod is incompatible. Otherwise you're good to go!

Although I didn't try...

I really appreciate this mod, I absolutely hated this mechanic. Why would I want a single planet when there's an entire galaxy out there to colonize? That seems pretty counter-productive.

Not compatible with the 1.6.1 beta patch though.

@Zares It might be, but not in the same way that this mod does it.

Depends on what kind of playthrough I'm going for. If I'm playing a Technocracy then I usually only colonize 1 or 2 planets for the first while so that I can streak ahead technologically. But if I'm playing some sort of Spiritualist empire then I don't mind the penalty and instead focus on numbers, then reverse-engineer techs from battles with more advanced civs. Or in some cases be super-duper diplomatic with more advanced civs in order to negotiate reserach agreements. Etc!

It would be awesome, if penalty was relative to the size of the colony. Is it even possible to mod? Or maybe decreasing penalty after some time after the planet was colonized? But it also looks hard to code, I don't know - I am not modder :(

What about you - do you colonize 15 and smaller planets in the early/mid game?

@Zares Colonies give 40% research penalty. Pops give 1.25% research boost.

So, that means that a planet with:
25 pops = 8.75% research penalty (31.25% research boost)
20 pops = 15% research penalty (25% research boost)
15 pops = 21.25% research penalty (18.75% research boost)
10 pops = 27.5% research penalty (12.5% research boost)
5 pops = 33.75% research penalty (6.25% research boost)

Mind you, none of this factors in what resources or buildings are on those tiles too.

I also play with AlphaMod and have been considering looking into a way to make the penalty relative to the overall size of the colony, rather than the flat rate.

Not every AI, but my neighbors. Some of them had 2-3 planets, while I had 3-5 and some of them had 5-15 :D But these with 2-3 planets had their planets full populated. I think it was mid-game. I just didn't colonize, if my previous planet isn't 75-100% populated.

If there is so huge penalty per planet, how many tiles does a planet need to have in order to colonization is worth without being punished too hard? AlphaMod adds asteroids, which are small, and other hostile worlds. With this mod I don't even think about colonizing asteroids or average sized planets.

Maybe decrease the penalty per planet and bonus per pop slightly? Or even JUST the penalty per planet? :) Unko/Juunkee wrote that he had more penalty than in vanilla. And I'd like to colonize some small planets :D

@Zares It should affect everyone in the game. Does the AI seem weak on every playthrough, no matter what strategy you choose? And what stage of the game are we talking?

I notice that the AI mostly likes to colonize far and wide fairly quickly, which is penalized further than vanilla by this mod. So if you play tall then it's to be expected that you're going to streak ahead technologically, in the early-game at least, before the AI has a chance to populate their planets. But overall, two players with the same number of colonies and pops will have the exact same penalties regardless of AI.

What about AIs' research with this mod? I play on hard difficulty and they have pathetic/inferior technology level. I think that they can't handle this penalty. Or something was changed in 1.5 patch.

Yes, but vanilla gives me +600% total, your mod gave me 700%, I was looking to reduce it, which will happen but too late in the game (which is my fault since I love colonizing and wont stop). Thanks for your work anyway !

@DumbCustomer Thanks for the report! Please let me know how another play feels.

@Unko/Juunkee Vanilla penalizes both colonies and pops. This mod increases initial colony penalty, but as your pops grow that penalty will reduce.

Nevermind, I got +1100% for having 30 planets so thats a no go for me :D thanks anyway

Could you tell me what are the original numbers ? for comparison

Thanks fdor the mod, it feels more of a natural progression. Though I must say, I made a science/engineering focus spacemonkeys empire on hard that quickly crushed technologically the wholegalaxy until a war in heaven crushed me to death with how stupid that mechanic is.

Kinda had all the good conditionsfor development throughout with lucky diplomacy and map.
Will try another game with a different empire and give a second feedback !

@Jide Aurelius Yes. Vanilla penalizes both colonies and pops. This somewhat offsets the colony penalty via population growth.

Does its mod mean a fully populated planet hits research less than in vanilla?

@Zares Yeah, and what I meant was that the comment after TECH_COST_MULT_NUM_POPS is referring to the variable TECH_COST_FREE_POPS. :)

Hope you enjoy! I'm still fiddling with balance locally post 1.5...

Thank you for a quick answer and explanation. And for the mod, of course! :) I'm playing with it now and enjoy it so far. I didn't mean the TECH_COST_FREE_POPS, but in this - TECH_COST_MULT_NUM_POPS = -0.0125 # Each non-free Pop adds +X% tech cost - this "non-free Pop" made me think if Pop isn't free, then it has to be a slave.

@Zares Yes, that's right. And every pop. The TECH_COST_FREE_POPS variable has nothing to do with slaves. It was originally put in place to prevent your homeworld pops from penalizing research. So if you set it to 10 then the first 10 pops would not affect research.

So each planet adds +40% tech cost and each pop removes 1.25% tech cost? And also - every pop or only slaves? (there is a "non-free pop" in the comment)

thx! i really love this

Alright! Updated for 1.5.1.

They changed '00_defines.lua' to '00_defines.txt', and with that came some syntax changes. I've simply updated the mod to work with 1.5.1! Enjoy!

Hey all, I'm looking into the update. It's not as simple as updating the version. It seems some variables have changed! I'll have to look into it a bit more. Sorry for the wait!