Rebalanced Research Penalties Stellaris

Rebalanced Research Penalties Stellaris

UPDATE: 1.6.1 Adams compatible!
Rebalances the population and colony research penalties. Research time will be significantly increased with every new colony, but reduced slightly with every new pop.

Heavy expansion and developing colonies put a burden on a the progress of a civilization’s science industry; however, once populated and developed, colonies should be able to provide increased overall scientific output.

Each colony will give a 40% research penalty while each pop gives a 1.25% research boost.

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)

Note: I’m completely open to balance and improvement suggestions! I threw this together really quickly after becoming rather frustrated with how slow wide empires develop technologically. That being said I do want to keep the game balanced in order to accomidate both tall and wide strategies throughout the early, mid and late game.

To do: Make the penalty relative to the overall size of the colony, rather than a flat rate.

Compatibility
Only touches ‘common/00_defines.txt’ lines:

NGameplay = {
TECH_COST_MULT_NUM_COLONIES = 0.4 # Each Planet adds +X% tech cost
TECH_COST_FREE_POPS = 0 # First X pops do not add any tech cost
TECH_COST_MULT_NUM_POPS = -0.0125 # Each non-free Pop adds +X% tech cost
}

My other mods:
Better Border Brightness
Green Ripple Ping
Less Aura Glow
Scifi Night Lights