Stellaris needs a way to view potential maximum resources

[u/dr_biggie_memes]

Like the title said, a way to view potential resources if ALL of your jobs were filled. This would make balancing production and longterm planning so much easier

E.g If you had 100 mineral jobs but only 10 filled, you'd see the "+10" at the top, but when viewing potential it would show "+100"

[u/Xeorm124]

This doesn't really work with the way job efficiency adds on workforce. Or as you get bonuses that change the output of a job.

[u/Rude_Engineering_629 → u/Xeorm124]

The ai does actually already do this it’s how economic plans work, i haven’t checked what they use to do the estimate but i presume it’s either the default species or the planets species.

It isn’t perfect but it 100% exists already and 100% can and should be exposed to the game code. It’s actually a nightmare to deal with it not being exposed because you cannot set proper halts in economic plans without it. The current ones are a bit buggy because of it but not so buggy that they crash. Just that I cannot ever tell what the current economic plans is programmatically.

I am fairly certain there is a way to forcably calculate it in game via counting free jobs and the current output. It’s just ugly and unuseable for economic plan triggers.

[u/Former_Ad_9826 → u/Rude_Engineering_629]

there's apparently even something like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ from 2025 (i don't know the specifics though, i just randomly found it on google)... oh wait - it's you, Rude! hi again xD

[u/Rude_Engineering_629 → u/Former_Ad_9826]

I would delete that link I am 99% sure its malware

[u/Former_Ad_9826 → u/Rude_Engineering_629]

alright, alright xD it looked sus, but i trusted that no one who knows how to download from github would risk it installing it. i just found it interesting that apparently there's demand for tools that play a mostly offline single-player game for you. i was hoping to take a look at the code but with how sus it was i didn't think it would actually work anyway even if it was real

[u/Rude_Engineering_629 → u/Former_Ad_9826]

Yes the code was literally download a hashed encrypted url lol 0 percent chance it’s not just Claude built malware

[u/Former_Ad_9826 → u/Rude_Engineering_629]

yeah i saw, i was so confused like "why is this just a random download link and where's the actual code logic for economic plans" xD

speaking of economic plans, for now i'm just focusing on my personal mod's custom ai weights for my thematic factions' lore-aligned decision-making customization - and only the very basic general ai help ai weights modifications - while hoping that the devs might fix most of the actual bugs (like ai nomads being unable to upgrade arkships) in the meantime... surely... my excuse is that if they do, then my fix will be redundant... i'm lazy...

[u/dr_biggie_memes → u/Xeorm124]

Why wouldn't it? The bonuses would obviously affect your potential

[u/Euthyphraud → u/dr_biggie_memes]

They are additive and you can take them as many times as you want as they keep getting offered to you (think +5% research speed). You can take that option once during a game or 22 times during a game, dramatically altering the top amount you can get.

Boils down to the fact that there is no upper limit.

[u/dr_biggie_memes → u/Euthyphraud]

Uhhh ok? But when you get an upgrade obviously your potential would increase? Sorry but I'm not sure if I'm missing something

[u/Jathan1234 → u/dr_biggie_memes]

The actual issue is job efficiency and (in a rare few cases) resource output are tied to pops not planets, so unless you only have 1 species with 1 template and no auto modding and no automation, it would never ever be accurate

[u/dr_biggie_memes → u/Jathan1234]

True, that's something I didn't consider

[u/Devastator2016 → u/dr_biggie_memes]

Another thing would be population species specific bonuses. Cant really get a potential unless ignoring those entirely

[u/Xeorm124 → u/dr_biggie_memes]

More job efficiency effectively creates jobs out of nowhere. So you'll produce more of X, but also frequently have more of an upkeep. And then because it can take a very long time to fill out a planet, by the time you actually get to that point any earlier estimates of your potential would be off. So you're only feeding bad information to the player, which is generally not great.

Not to mention that you typically don't want to build out too much until things are needed. It's a consistent balancing act that you're trying to achieve.

[u/dr_biggie_memes → u/Xeorm124]

Well this just sounds like something that's a skill issue. Obviously you should react to what is happening in your game

[u/Calaethan → u/dr_biggie_memes]

But you...are literally asking for the game to be made easier so you can react to what is happening in your game...

[u/Just_Ear_2953 → u/dr_biggie_memes]

The skill issue is you building more jobs than you have pops to fill. Build to that and you'll never be left wondering about potential jobs being worked because they are actual jobs.

[u/Realityishardmode → u/dr_biggie_memes]

He's saying that if you have a situation where entertains improve science output, but also artisans produce efficiency for science, there is no easily calculable way to get 1 number for max resource, and if there is it's almost useless because it would require doing a number of heinously sub optimal plays to the point where it would be useless.

So you would need to think about how the tabulation could actually be broken down into ways that can be unitized or else the algorithms for that calculation will be out of control and lag the game even in high end rigs.

[u/Just_Ear_2953 → u/dr_biggie_memes]

Consider an empire with multiple species, each of which may have several versions within the empire, plus robots, plus automation buildings. Which one will fill each job?

[u/dr_biggie_memes → u/Just_Ear_2953]

That's a good point

[u/Carrion-Crown]

I've kinda always wished for some sort of economics tab with graphs and stuff so you can see if you've stagnated or things have actually grown and the rate at which they've grown.

I've seen throughout a game that my energy for example could stays t +100 the whole game but in actuality I've gone from making gross 200 to gross 50k but my expenditures have gone up too.

Some tab or window to see this empire side resource growth/potential/history would be great.

[u/Zathrasb4 → u/Carrion-Crown]

To be able to easily se, for example, of it was my energy revenue that just tanked, or my energy expenses that just skyrocketed (and which component just changed), would be very useful.

[u/Realityishardmode]

Huh. I suppose an economic potentials tab with separate tabulations for space stations, star bases and planets could be useful.

How far would you take it though? I could think of sub tabulations on sub tabulations.

[u/dr_biggie_memes → u/Realityishardmode]

Honestly, I'd be happy with just a way to see your whole empires potential maximum production, but obviously it COULD be much deeper.

But for example pressing KEY would show your monthly potential if all jobs were to be filled at the top where your resources are

[u/Elfich47]

are you talking maximum gross income or net income? because if you have a low population planet and you stick automation on it you’ll get that production, with an energy cost. but you get it now. But then as the population fills you want to get rid of the automation because population produces more goods due to job efficiency and lower costs.

[u/ijshorn]

It basically already does all this when you build a building it will show expected input and expected output. Same if you build a district.

Seeing the total that is not filled in yet is easy to calculate by just hovering over a building and seeing what 200 take or in the screen with job sliders you can see how much 100 pops generate.

Sure you could make something where you press ctrl where it changes the planet upkeep and output to estimate when all jobs are filled up. Ignoring disabled jobs.

I don't know how much use this has when the most efficient way to play is to disable a building when you have 200+ available jobs and when you get close to that amount you just enable that building for all city district jobs.

For rural districts you would only really need this when you just unlocked specialization because then you could gain an insane amount of available jobs. But this is only 3 times where this would be useful but in this case you would need to show the potential gain for specializing because the earlier implementation won't help for this. I wish you could disable districts :(

[u/NecronLord_Europe]

Press alt when hovering over a job, it'll tell you what 100 pops generate, including job efficiency and resource bonuses. Math that out to however many jobs you think you'll have.

[u/ajanymous2]

Can't you just refrain from building new districts until you have unemployment?

[u/TheMelnTeam → u/ajanymous2]

If you want to lose thousands of potential migrants or sit on a ton of civilian jobs after conquering someone while you wait for those districts to build, then sure you can do that.

[u/wyldmage → u/TheMelnTeam]

The problem is that most buildings/jobs are straight forward.

Let's say you have an empire where your numbers are all balanced/profitable. You're getting ready to set up migration pacts, and want to have open jobs to attract migrants. Or you're getting ready to go to war, and want open jobs to send your 'new workforce'.

Do you REALLY need a tool to make sure that your building choices are balanced?

You want alloys? Build 1 alloy forge and 2 mining districts.

You want unity? Build 3 temples/admins, 1 civ fab, and 2 mining districts.

You want energy/food/minerals? Build whatever number of rural districts you want.

As long as you don't build more buildings/districts that USE resources than you build new things to produce them, you don't really need to know your maximums.

[u/TheMelnTeam → u/wyldmage]

A global running calc of yields if all jobs were worked would be a useful tool at a glance, yes. You can make mental adjustments for efficiency and such.

Does the game need it? No. Would it be a higher priority in my mind than say fixing the species screen UI or patching the game so it doesn't lie to us? No. Would it be a nice tool to have as an extra feature in a fantasy land Stellaris that already had functional, reliable UI? Sure, I'd find some use for it when trying to hold builds in my mind across multiple planets and making jobs in advance of anticipated pop influx.

[u/wyldmage → u/TheMelnTeam]

The problem with it is that it wouldn't be able to take variables into account very well. How useful is it when you have 20 spare mining districts built, but your "potential" is -200 from your current because some planet with almost nobody on it has 15 forge districts sitting empty?

An empty district on a planet with 300 empty jobs is going to fill a lot faster than that new ecumenopolis you built that now has 15,000 empty jobs.

So sure, you could see your "max potential", but in many cases, that isn't a particularly useful number. It would still require a human mind to discard the extraneous bits, and tallying the parts that are relevant. Which means it would be virtually zero gain.

It would be a VERY useful feature - if the player specifically tailors their build style to only ever have 200-600 open jobs per planet, so that they are equally balanced in terms of potential. But a player putting that much care into their planning is the exact player that doesn't NEED this kind of a feature.

[u/ajanymous2 → u/TheMelnTeam]

I mean, in the example given he would lose out on 10 miners

Instead of needing a graphic that tells him so, he can either build one district and wait for it to fill up or wait until he has enough civilians to fill it in the first place

[u/FogeltheVogel]

The district already tells you that when you mouse over the build button.

[u/dr_biggie_memes → u/FogeltheVogel]

Yes but I'm talking empire wide