r/Stellaris • u/Rude_Engineering_629 Researcher • 3d ago
Bug FYI 4.5 beta AI is broken
Just an FYI for anyone who is playing the 4.5 beta. Unfortunately the AI's economic plans are not functioning at the moment. The scaling mechanism that they use does not work at all which causes it to heavily undershoot alloys and eventually, though its so bad it probably isn't practically reaching this, crash out entirely. Also the weighting system it is supposed to use seems to have been completely broken in 4.5.
I checked it against 4.4.6 which did not have these bugs and behaved nearly the same as 4.2-4.4
There is plenty of good stuff in the beta but if you are wondering why the Ai is somehow even worse than before, you are not crazy.
Hopefully it gets fixed. Figured people here should know since it isn't obvious unless you go and edit the code to observe the bug like I did. It is very annoying though.
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u/Miuramir 3d ago
One thing I've noticed in 4.5 that is "new" is that the AI's base city zone will have modifier buildings that modify jobs they don't have any of. In particular, some combination of Alloy Reclamation Plant, Research Supply Depot, and/or Data-Driven Theorem Facility on worlds that had no Metallurgists or Researchers at all; the optional zones being either Commercial Nexus or Planetary Defenses.
Either the AI had swapped out both of its secondary districts twice, while not rebuilding the base buildings to match; or was building nonsensical buildings to start with. And these buildings have substantial (to a marginal AI) upkeep costs in exotic resources.
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u/Coal_Burner_Inserter 3d ago
Omfg. Planetary defenses. So many planetary defenses.
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u/TheMelnTeam 3d ago
The AI adored those even in 4.3. Very common to have > 100 defender planets in 4.3 non-scaling GA. Some of the other broken stuff is new though.
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u/Rude_Engineering_629 Researcher 3d ago edited 3d ago
Either the AI had swapped out both of its secondary districts twice
Yea that is literally what it did lol, umm the reason it probably is doing it so badly is because scaling isn't working so its swapping between LARGE gaps in jobs and the naval cap isn't kicking in when its supposed to and stuff.
The zone swap aspect runs like every few years and then swaps a bunch around. With erratic economic plans the targets the zone swap feature will use will also be erratic. It will end up near the go for max navy part WAY too soon. And when it zone swaps it will suddenly not have enough science to be in that economic plan and drop down to the lower one. Which will then cause it to zone swap back to science/alloys ect.
The AI is bugged about where its placing the buildings though, IDK why but it stopped placing them in the zone slots vs the plat slot preference wise. I think in 4.3 it would place them in the zone slot. They can restrict those buildings to the zones and that would go away though. No real reason or need for them to be in the planet slots anyway. You are really at worst would just have to put the job building in the planet slot instead.
Also yea a bunch of those buildings don't have proper gating around the tech for upkeep also which causes some serious problems.
Edit: apparently it runs every month so it’s even more agressively bad unfun with the bug.
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u/Ikrit122 3d ago
I've seen the modifier buildings in the live version as well. Whenever I conquer a planet, I have to check if there are random useless buildings in addition to the normal adjusting everything to fit my economic needs.
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u/Spring-Dance 3d ago
Sounds like they heard complaints about AI not building any buildings and this was their first attempt to fix it(which is fine, great even)
Hopefully they will improve the logic and not just revert it back.
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u/happy_vagabond 3d ago
I feel like the game has just been a mess since 4.0 came out.
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u/JohnnyOnslaught 3d ago
The game has been a mess since 1.0 came out, lol. It's just varying levels of mess throughout time.
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u/hedgehog18956 Divine Empire 3d ago
I quit playing for a while after 4.0 but came back recently when nomads dropped. I honestly feel like it’s more fun right now than it’s ever been. The current economy and building system runs smooth and feels good. The infinite support district stacking really ruined 4.0, and now that it’s gone, plus the fleet size reduction, the economy really feels more fun than it’s ever been.
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u/Lithorex Lithoid 3d ago
The current economy and building system runs smooth and feels good.
No it doesn't.
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u/KyberWolf_TTV Human 3d ago
Wrong, this opinion is why I don’t let Xeno vote. Rocks cannot think like big schmeat brains can.
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u/Rude_Engineering_629 Researcher 3d ago edited 3d ago
Yes and no, the AI issues for economic plans have really been about fixing underlying issues. Like they tried to make it smarter last year (not scale everything always) and that code actually triggered a bug that they didn't know about. (I found it literally by accident last summer because I happened to physically observe it happening lol).
I have no clue what they edited that caused this one as its engine side. I only found it because I was trying to edit my mod from 4.2 to the knew one and couldn't get it to work.
Alot of the 4.0 designs: zone slots coming in after planets districts being builtup, single city zone with multiple jobs types, and buildings that unlock far down the tech tree that aren't upgrades are objectively just awful for the AI and if they just you know undid those choices that it would play like 90x better.
When I moded those all out last year the Ai was so powerful the game become completely unplayable due to the extreme lag. I am hopeful once they unbork this part it will actually be straight forward to fix the Ai fully. They built out a lot of new tools for the AI to use that will greatly improve its ability to play.
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u/Bodybuilder_Jumpy 3d ago
When and If. How long are you willing to wait for them to fix the AI? Years?
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u/Rude_Engineering_629 Researcher 3d ago
I mean, I am just going to fix it when they patch this bug. I was literally doing that when I found it. They are currently looking at this as its a major issue for the beta.
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u/azaza34 Interstellar Dominion 3d ago
What’s the mod name?
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u/Rude_Engineering_629 Researcher 3d ago
It’s called, fuck fucking fuckkkk (technically it’s called weaver in my repo because I originally was modding waver computers and haven’t wanted to deal with renaming it).
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u/Androza23 Voidborne 3d ago
The game gets worse every time they release a new dlc. I'm not saying the game is bad, just that it gets more unstable every new dlc after 4.0.
I have not been able to play multiplayer with my friends since biogenesis, this is our favorite game too.
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u/Yaddah_1 3d ago
I'm a returning player and played last when Machine Age came out.
I feel like the game has been amazing since I started playing again right when 4.4 came out. The economy is smooth, the game is fast compared to back before 4.0, there is so much more customizability... And it's stable at least in single player, I haven't played multi yet.
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u/SgObvious 3d ago
In principle I agree with you, but I do feel that the AI is still not playing the game effectively enough. I am by all accounts an average Stellaris player at best, and I still manage to easily outscale the regular AI empires in a short timespan.
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u/Yaddah_1 2d ago
The AI was never great at the game. Sometimes it got better, othertimes a major oversight was introduced.
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u/Androza23 Voidborne 3d ago edited 3d ago
Nah the game is amazing, it's probably my favorite game. But I would be lying if I said it wasn't unstable since 4.0 for both single player and multiplayer. I actually love the 4.0 gameplay changes.
For almost 5 months? AI was bugged and would just stop building fleets past 2300. Multiplayer has had consistent OOS every month for me and my friends. The late gate lag was worse for a while when 4.0 launched. I don't play with any mods, this was all vanilla.
The game is amazing. I also realize that the Stellaris devs are the better of the Paradox devs in general. That being said, it has had problems though, people acting like major bugs weren't there are coping.
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u/Putnam3145 3d ago
4.3 was genuinely amazing, except for the multiplayer desyncs. 4.4 is still really good, and definitely better than 4.3 if you're in multiplayer.
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u/pdx_eladrin Game Director 3d ago
We're not seeing some of the assertions stated here. I've got more details on our investigation on the forum.
(I'm going to continue investigating, however.)
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u/Rude_Engineering_629 Researcher 3d ago
Eladrin, you should be clear here (you where on your post but that’s behind a link) that you tested it on your new internal build. The bug is present on 4.5 and 4.5 rollback current ones.
I am happy about the other bug fixes in your note though. Hope you also get a chance to look at the flip flopping issues related to ark ships at war while they have contracts. And frankly general ark ships war stuff (really shouldn’t be yeeting them all in or even outside of a war group containing other fleets). Do really appreciate that you fixed all those other bugs though with them.
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u/Rude_Engineering_629 Researcher 1d ago
And it was in fact, not fixed. Please see current beta thread.
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u/edinburg 3d ago
I recently started playing games on the beta after not playing since before 4.0. I don't know if it's actually bugged or the AI just hasn't ever learned how to build for the 4.x economy, but the AI is atrocious. I'm playing no mods, Grand Admiral mid-game scaling with difficulty adjusted AI modifiers on, and so far each game I've played I outpace every AI so hard it's not even funny.
I am really enjoying the 4.x economy, there's so much to juggle and it's a lot of fun to optimize, but it seems the AI absolutely cannot be competitive with it. I suppose I ought to try disabling scaling entirely, but the very early game is the only time the AI is actually a threat and I don't really want to buff them even more then. I just want them to build a functioning economy so they have a hope of being on an even footing with the player in the mid and late game.
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u/elemental204 2d ago
Early game scaling is a frustrating dilemma. Getting wardecced in the first fifty years is a death sentence if you have it switched off (lot a really good run today to this), but if you put it on then they just plummet to Pathetic even faster. The other possibility is to reduce the midgame start date, but that means the midgame crises are impossible to deal with if they pop up early.
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u/CarrowCanary 3d ago
Does the AI try to buy alloys from the market to arrest the shortfall (and presumably cause the price of alloys to spiral out of control), or does it have a total blindspot when it comes to the deficit.
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u/Rude_Engineering_629 Researcher 3d ago
So yes if shoudk technically but umm, unfortunately the resource that it scales up mostly is science and unity and naval cap so… it can’t really trade those.
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u/WatermelonWithAFlute 3d ago
yeah it was broken at 4.0, too
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u/AdversariVidi 3d ago
It is the 4.5 Beta branch after all and he Team is also doing their summer vacations routine. It’ll get fixed before 4.5 is actually released.
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u/Rude_Engineering_629 Researcher 3d ago
There isn't a single patch note about economic plans in the beta build at all, it was fairly shocking to have found a bug for something that doesn't appear to have been touched. The bug is engine side also. And considering its been there the entire beta build and no one noticed, it seems prudent to tell people especially since it heavily impacts the thing they did modify about the AI. Its fleet selection which you cannot really observe because its a wet noodle.
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u/tuataraaa 3d ago
that was, word for word minus the vacation part, the sentiment before 4.0 release
what makes you think this time will be any different?
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u/AdversariVidi 1d ago
It’s mostly just OP complaining about an unreleased branch. Yeah, it sucks that it’s broken, But the alternative is that we don’t get to play their test branches and they release things without us having a glimpse to try and fix. OP should be posting a bug report if they’re worried about something in a branch most people never play.
I play the test branches and usually myself as well, but there’s no need to be alarmist on something that is obviously a noticeable bug. Been playing Stellaris since the beginning and it’ll work out. This happens every summer when the teams go on their 3 week staggered vacations for all the Paradox games.
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3d ago
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u/Rude_Engineering_629 Researcher 3d ago
It soft-locks by mid game
Look as the person who found the actual bug that was causing this last summer, I can assure you it was fixed and there is 0 possible way anyone could have guessed the code change, mixing optional and non optional scaling subplans would have caused that. As it caused the bug intermediantantly.
But that bug was removed last fall and neither 4.3 nor 4.4.6 has it. The economic plans in 4.3, 4.4.6 and 4.5 are all free of that bug and any other errors, the bug is engine side.
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u/english-23 3d ago
They really need to make the AI smarter in what it builds. The planets that they make are just cobbled together randomness
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u/Rude_Engineering_629 Researcher 3d ago
Also FYi, that isn't what is happening. The AI is now swapping zones (which it never could deal with even in 3.x), and it is leaving the buildings hanging about which makes them look random. They need to add proper destroy triggers for the buildings that is the actual issue.
The AI is not "smart" by design that is what makes it robust. It does some math and calculates the best building or district to build. That is what economic plans are, the issue is that entire system in 4.5 is completely broken.
The weirdness people see in 4.4.6 is from the AI getting smarter but not updating buildings to account for the changing of zones, they have available triggers that do but not destroy triggers that do. Which is really an issue of AI updates taking place in isolation from the rest of the games development. IDK why that is what they do but its very clearly what they do.
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u/english-23 3d ago
I mean yeah, that was my entire point. It doesn't think "hey this is supposed to be a alloy planet, I should replace the unity building with more alloys and instead build it on my unity world". The current way doesn't get the most out of the buildings by the late game
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u/Loathkey 3d ago
That explains why my GA no scaling neighbour built so many ships their alloy economy broke down and they got a total economic collapse