Negative Federation XP

[Elazul]

It's been a long time since I've played so apologies if this seems like a dumb question. I used some favors I had stockpiled up and got my first federation formed, however, I'm getting negative Federation XP. Is there a way to get this reversed and make it positive? Or did I rush forming the federation?

[IPWIW]

you have to send/switch envoy to the federation to boost cohesion,thus increase xp after some time
you have to rush fed to grow early,since the xp gaining limit is really low
https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Federation#Federation_Cohesion

[russak]

You'll lose XP if your empire outlooks differ too much. Sometimes, they drift into opposing outlooks after you've got them on board (or been invited), and what was a barely functioning alliance becomes a degenerating one.

There are also some temporary hits to cohesion, which can make it look like the Federation is going down the tubes, but you might survive long enough for those to go away.

[Elazul]

Man this game is a lot more complex than I remember. I ended up fixing the Cohesion issue, started a war, won the war, and now i'm negative on energy as well as consumer goods and my empire is imploding haha... fun times. Guess i'll start over again xD

[Oakshadow]

Cohesion is effected by a couple things.
The rate is always negative by default. How negative is determined by the number of members + opposing ethics(cohesion modifier if base federation type) + active cohesion level
The higher your cohesion level is set to, the bigger the drain.

Cohesion will also always take a one time fixed hit when a new member joins, or when a federation vote fails.

Keeping cohesion positive, requires envoys. Each envoy has a base cohesion increase value of +1. Not sure if it can be increased by diplomacy grants or late research.

Generally if you're in a federation with too many empires with opposing ethics it's going to fall apart. So make sure that the empires you're inviting in are similar to you or at the very least don't have an opposing ethic.