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Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Stations are definitely spawning inside planets, I just lost a slaver raid because the defending stations were inside the planet.

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nessin
Feb 7, 2010

Arglebargle III posted:

Stations are definitely spawning inside planets, I just lost a slaver raid because the defending stations were inside the planet.

It's a bug introduced with the hotfix on Friday.

Taerkar
Dec 7, 2002

kind of into it, really

Arglebargle III posted:

Found the source of the problem. SotS II was defaulting to my onboard graphics chip instead of my Geforce 660M. :doh: A quick trip to the Nvidia control panel to force the SotS II and Mars executables to use the GPU fixed it. No wonder the game was chugging on a nice computer! If anyone has encountered this problem, or is just dealing with low frame rate, check the graphics device the game is set to.

I have a similar problem on my laptop with SOTS 2, but unfortunately when I try to force it to use the 555M it just won't start.

Eliza
Feb 20, 2011

It should be noted that to defend against slavers and pirates without an admiral or command vessel, you can drop defense platforms (which are different from naval stations - check Drone Sattelites) or police cutters in the system. The latter will also decrease the chance of piracy happening at all in the system by 1% each. Either option will take up one defense asset point from the system, which start out at 3 and can be increased via Naval stations.

To upgrade a station (any kind) you will need to tell a fleet with at least 1 Construction vessel to go and do it. This happens through the mission system, so you can also autorelocate them afterwards.

Also thank you Arglebargle for mentioning that - now I can finally run the galaxy map on full settings and have it chug along smoothly. How on earth is that decided anyway?

Eliza fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Dec 8, 2012

Ham Sandwiches
Jul 7, 2000

Arglebargle III posted:

Which brings up another issue: when I press "upgrade station" in the station manager nothing happens. I don't actually know how to make a station bigger and the interface isn't helping.

You make the station bigger by building a bunch of modules on it, then upgrading it. The blue bar in the station manager screen is like a progress bar that tells you how far towards being able to upgrade to the next level a given station is. For level 1 it's usually like 6-7 modules built, at that point the blue bar will be maxed, and "upgrade station" will be an option for a construction fleet in range.

Once you get to level 2 naval stations you can drop guns on them, and once you research a sat tech (drone sats are easiest) you can build static satellites in systems as well. You really need to have at least one fleet patrolling each system per planet, at least early game when everything is fragile. Heavy planetary missiles help if you research those, they don't take too long - I'd get them somewhere in the first 50 turns you take.

The admiral thing isn't as big a drag as it would seem on your early game growth. You just need ships, which you need to support and build, and you will be cash constrained and other things as you are colonizing. If you balance defense / colonizing / growth / research, you should generally have 3-4 spare admirals constantly, while having lots of patrol fleets, and growing at a good clip.

Taerkar
Dec 7, 2002

kind of into it, really

The button that automatically queues up the stuff the station needs to upgrade will simply hit the minimums for that station step. For everything except for tech labs it's perfectly fine, but for science stations you'll likely want to pick what tech modules you're putting into it, especially if you're aiming to get a lvl 5 station as that requires that all of the labs be the same type.

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Game design issue: is it just me, or does the prototyping mechanic punish the player for using one of the game's most entertaining features? I have a line of battle bridge|armor|void cutter cruisers with fusion weapons coming online and I realized that, while I could try out blazer cruisers, one prototype will cost as much as 5 fusion gun cruisers. I'd like to try out a variety of designs (because designing your own ships is a core feature) but the prototyping "feature" punishes me for that. It would be more optimal (and far less fun) to not even try blazer cruisers because I'm fairly sure those fusion guns will be enough.

Also thanks for the station tips, I kinda wish the game would mention stuff like what the hell that bar meant.

I notice that, a year after launch, the empire budget is still a color-coded pie chart... and there's still no color key. It doesn't take long to guess which is which but still, come on guys.

:negative:

Nuclearmonkee
Jun 10, 2009


So is there any trick that can be used to kill stations stuck in planets?

DatonKallandor
Aug 21, 2009

"I can no longer sit back and allow nationalist shitposting, nationalist indoctrination, nationalist subversion, and the German nationalist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious game balance."

Arglebargle III posted:

Game design issue: is it just me, or does the prototyping mechanic punish the player for using one of the game's most entertaining features? I have a line of battle bridge|armor|void cutter cruisers with fusion weapons coming online and I realized that, while I could try out blazer cruisers, one prototype will cost as much as 5 fusion gun cruisers. I'd like to try out a variety of designs (because designing your own ships is a core feature) but the prototyping "feature" punishes me for that. It would be more optimal (and far less fun) to not even try blazer cruisers because I'm fairly sure those fusion guns will be enough.

Also thanks for the station tips, I kinda wish the game would mention stuff like what the hell that bar meant.

I notice that, a year after launch, the empire budget is still a color-coded pie chart... and there's still no color key. It doesn't take long to guess which is which but still, come on guys.

:negative:

You don't actually need to build a Naval station to defend a planet with a fleet - you can also have them patrol for a long time (possible forever) as long as that planet is in range of another systems Naval Base Supply radius.

The prototyping exists mostly so you don't instantly get access to your latest tech. It makes the races that can get by with less prototyping (Loa, Hivers, Liir, Morrigi) better in the early game, before you get the rapid-prototyping tech (which cuts costs and production times to almost mass production levels).

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

Arglebargle III posted:

Wait, wait wait. Hang on. If I want to protect myself from pirates (who have destroyed more than half my trade fleet) I need to have one admiral per colonized system?! And admirals are a precious commodity that the game hands out whenever it feels like it? AND I NEED TO BUILD A COMMAND SHIP FOR EVERY SYSTEM?! MECRON!!! :argh:

If you want to protect yourself from pirates you actually need to build Police Cutters and put them in the Defense 'fleet'.

Police Cutters in a system massively reduce the rates of Piracy to the point where it is eliminated completely. (Incidentally because the Loa don't get Cutters they have no easy way to prevent piracy. Fun!)



To Arglebargle III; the Prototyping system is supposed to prevent you from just constantly updating your ships to be the best of the best at all possible times; go in cycles. After you've unlocked a major tech (like Antimatter drives) or 2 - 3 minor techs (like Torpedoes and Heavy Beams) then you do a new round of ship prototypes. Definitely give Torpedo and Blazer cruisers a shot because they project a lot more firepower than the Armour section, but are also more fragile.

Blazers are pretty much used for stationary targets and hitting larger ship classes too, so don't expect them to perform too well against other cruisers. Against stationary targets and dreadnaughts however they melt poo poo.

Naval Stations are used to increase your supply. A system with a naval station can deploy more "Cruiser Equivilant" assets in the system (Police Cutters and Defense Stations basically) and can support more fleets stationed in a system (a system without a Naval Station can typically support 1 or 2 fleets.

You typically want Naval Stations on larger systems and especially systems near enemy space, because when fully upgraded and fully equipped with combat modules they actually project a surprisingly ferocious amount of power.

Neruz fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Dec 8, 2012

Antares
Jan 13, 2006

Neruz posted:

To Arglebargle III; the Prototyping system is supposed to prevent you from just constantly updating your ships to be the best of the best at all possible times; go in cycles. After you've unlocked a major tech (like Antimatter drives) or 2 - 3 minor techs (like Torpedoes and Heavy Beams) then you do a new round of ship prototypes. Definitely give Torpedo and Blazer cruisers a shot because they project a lot more firepower than the Armour section, but are also more fragile.

To me this seems like another half-baked "realism" change. I don't understand the material difference between this and increasing research times on weapons platforms and hull section upgrades, other than the negative impression it makes on the player when they try to employ new technologies.

Soup du Journey
Mar 20, 2006

by FactsAreUseless

Neruz posted:

(Incidentally because the Loa don't get Cutters they have no easy way to prevent piracy. Fun!)
Well that's a bummer. Is there any way to change that just by modding the XML files?

DatonKallandor
Aug 21, 2009

"I can no longer sit back and allow nationalist shitposting, nationalist indoctrination, nationalist subversion, and the German nationalist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious game balance."

Antares posted:

To me this seems like another half-baked "realism" change. I don't understand the material difference between this and increasing research times on weapons platforms and hull section upgrades, other than the negative impression it makes on the player when they try to employ new technologies.

The difference is that it means you can design ships that are future proof, and will save you money in the long run (by giving them tech you can upgrade with retrofits), or spend more to always have the best ships possible. It means there's actual tradeoffs to employing the latest tech.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
Additionally the Prototype ships have a chance to have some random traits that might make them slightly better or slightly worse than the mass produced version.

If you get lucky your very first Leviathan might actually turn out to be a Super Prototype

Neruz fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Dec 9, 2012

DatonKallandor
Aug 21, 2009

"I can no longer sit back and allow nationalist shitposting, nationalist indoctrination, nationalist subversion, and the German nationalist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious game balance."
On the Prototype note, I'm almost certain they did away with the whole "Negative or Positive" thing. All the attributes I've seen so far have been hybrid, containing good things (faster rate of fire!) with bad things (but it generates more signature than it should).

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

DatonKallandor posted:

On the Prototype note, I'm almost certain they did away with the whole "Negative or Positive" thing. All the attributes I've seen so far have been hybrid, containing good things (faster rate of fire!) with bad things (but it generates more signature than it should).

I had one prototype that just had a positive modifier and i've had another with 3 negative modifiers. I'm pretty sure it's fairly random but it does tend to generate 1 positive and 1 negative.

Eliza
Feb 20, 2011

It's just taking them randomly from a List, actually.

I have found that boarding shuttles still have the ability to take over stations stuck in planets. Don't ask me how it works.

About the retrofitting...another aspect in which the Loa are hilariously broken right now. Retrofitting usually is associated with building level 3 naval stations, getting ships to them, and spending X amount of time to refit the ships to spec.
The Loa don't have that. The Loa update the design and they're done, implementable halfway across the galaxy within one turn. I recently could update my Loa leviathan to its Mark 2 model as soon as it was done prototyping the original plans, at no cost.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

Eliza posted:

About the retrofitting...another aspect in which the Loa are hilariously broken right now. Retrofitting usually is associated with building level 3 naval stations, getting ships to them, and spending X amount of time to refit the ships to spec.
The Loa don't have that. The Loa update the design and they're done, implementable halfway across the galaxy within one turn. I recently could update my Loa leviathan to its Mark 2 model as soon as it was done prototyping the original plans, at no cost.

The Loa can freely turn their colonization fleets into warfleets in a single turn. That's the entire point of their Cubes system; the Loa don't have specialised fleets that do any one thing, they just have general fleets that change composition to whatever is needed at the time. That's why their poo poo was so expensive. Of course now it's all dirt cheap again so they're just hilariously amazing.

Neruz fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Dec 9, 2012

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Eliza posted:

I have found that boarding shuttles still have the ability to take over stations stuck in planets. Don't ask me how it works.

Well, I guess this is now the only way to take a system that has even one station in it!

Good times, good times.

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸
Can anyone point me to a good rundown of how civilians affect economy in sots1? The kerberos one is horribly out of date.

As far as I can tell, imperial population gives you cash equal to (pop/14), which is fair, but civilian pop gives you cash equal to (pop/42.4), which is an odd number.

e: nevermind, worked it out. Imp pop gives pop/140,000, civ pop gives (pop/140,000)*0.33

Industry does the same (multiplies what would be imp pop * 0.33)

Splicer fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Dec 9, 2012

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Stations spawning inside planets means that I can't conquer (glass and recolonize) any systems that have another empire's station now, right? Is there any point to playing the game in its current state? War is broken.

Talkie Toaster
Jan 23, 2006
May contain carcinogens
Nope! Well, a max grand menace/random encounter survival game would still work.

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Boarding pods bounce off the planet; I cannot in fact conquer systems and thus the game is not really playable to completion right now.

Joe_Richter
Oct 8, 2005

Laser Lenin approves of hobo murder simulators.

Arglebargle III posted:

Boarding pods bounce off the planet; I cannot in fact conquer systems and thus the game is not really playable to completion right now.

I have also ran into this. This thread purports to have a crude workaround. I haven't tried it though, so caveat emptor.

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

A Kerberos employee mentioned this will be fixed "next update" it's funny that this appears over and over in their patchnotes, yet it can't be that complicated to code. What are they smoking over there? Now I'm honestly glad I stayed away from the game this long.

That said, I'm starting to get the hang of it and while the game is slooooooooower than the first one it's not completely terrible.

I really wish there was a quick battle feature because then I could get at 90% of what's good about this game without doing the other 10% that takes 95% of your time.

Deadmeat5150
Nov 21, 2005

OLD MAN YELLS AT CLAN
I haven't played since yesterday but I have yet to have a station get stuck in anything.

DatonKallandor
Aug 21, 2009

"I can no longer sit back and allow nationalist shitposting, nationalist indoctrination, nationalist subversion, and the German nationalist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious game balance."

Neruz posted:

The Loa can freely turn their colonization fleets into warfleets in a single turn. That's the entire point of their Cubes system; the Loa don't have specialised fleets that do any one thing, they just have general fleets that change composition to whatever is needed at the time. That's why their poo poo was so expensive. Of course now it's all dirt cheap again so they're just hilariously amazing.

Their ships are also the weakest in the game, they have barely any armor layers, very little section health and have huge sideways profiles (tiny frontal profiles, making them good at 1v1 battles). They have Zuul weaponry at less than Zuul and less than Liir durability. They get instant refits, anywhere, into any ship design - but their offensive fleets are incredibly limited in terms of cube size (unless you use the singleplayer pre-battle fleet merge loophole).

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

DatonKallandor posted:

Their ships are also the weakest in the game, they have barely any armor layers, very little section health and have huge sideways profiles (tiny frontal profiles, making them good at 1v1 battles). They have Zuul weaponry at less than Zuul and less than Liir durability. They get instant refits, anywhere, into any ship design - but their offensive fleets are incredibly limited in terms of cube size (unless you use the singleplayer pre-battle fleet merge loophole).

Which is all to counterbalance the fact that their upgrades are universal; as soon as i prototype a single Dreadnaught design every fleet I have is now full of Dreadnaughts. I don't build a single one, I don't pay anything extra over the initial prototype cost. Every fleet is just now Dreadnaughts.

Their ships are lovely because their fleets are always in their absolute strongest possible configuration and being able to transform a fleet on the fly from a heavy-hitting assault fleet to a assault-shuttle laden invasion fleet can be brutally effective.

DatonKallandor
Aug 21, 2009

"I can no longer sit back and allow nationalist shitposting, nationalist indoctrination, nationalist subversion, and the German nationalist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious game balance."
Important to not forget that while the ships can turn into any other ship for free, the ships are not free. Cubes cost money and high tech ships cost a lot of cubes (which also means, the better your ships, the fewer of them you get per offensive fleet).

Loa are strong though, and especially nice to play if you don't like the fleet system.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
Of course, the Loa have to make a lot of tradeoffs because they have some really good advantages (like being able to colonise every planet regardless of climate hazard). And given that 'balance' is at best a theoretical concept in SotS2 it's impossible to tell if the tradeoffs they make are worth it or not.

I like them though (especially how their Battle Bridge has 2 torp tubes :D) and shields help a lot in dealing with their low durability.

They seem to have pretty good chances to pick up techs too with the exception of the Light Emitter which they seem to be terrible at getting :T

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Deadmeat5150 posted:

I haven't played since yesterday but I have yet to have a station get stuck in anything.

Please send me your SotS II folder TIA.

Fire Storm
Aug 8, 2004

what's the point of life
if there are no sexborgs?
I'm not sure if this is because of my save editing or a bug: I can't deploy any Loa platforms. Is this happening for anyone else?

Demiurge4
Aug 10, 2011

Fire Storm posted:

I'm not sure if this is because of my save editing or a bug: I can't deploy any Loa platforms. Is this happening for anyone else?

Are you building them in the system? I know that the Loa leviathan transports (which let loa move platforms to other systems) are bugged and transform their cargo into cubes during transit.

Fire Storm
Aug 8, 2004

what's the point of life
if there are no sexborgs?

Demiurge4 posted:

Are you building them in the system? I know that the Loa leviathan transports (which let loa move platforms to other systems) are bugged and transform their cargo into cubes during transit.

In system. Anything I build (at all) is cubed on completion.

TehSaurus
Jun 12, 2006

So I played a bunch this weekend, maybe 12 hours all told, a bit of multiplayer and a bit of singleplayer. My multiplayer game only got to about turn 45 before we ran out of time, but my single player game I made it to turn ~100 before I started having too much trouble with rebellions and called it quits. I'm pretty sure I was doing something dumb like having a war without having enough protection fleets or something, and a couple of meteor strikes didn't help maybe?

Anyway, aside from the stations spawning inside the plantes bug, everything else seems to work as intended? Hopefully the next update will fix the station bug and then I'll be able to actually finish a game for the first time ever!

StringOfLetters
Apr 2, 2007
What?

Arglebargle III posted:

Boarding pods bounce off the planet; I cannot in fact conquer systems and thus the game is not really playable to completion right now.

I had this problem, but I was playing as Zuul, so it wasn't a problem. I simply had my giant psychic space god-whale teleport into the system next turn, targeted the station in sensor mode, and had him Life Drain the station. Took about four seconds, bam, lifeless husk.

The suulkas are pretty great. If you prioritize getting a Tribute station up to level 5 ASAP, you can have one within 70 turns on standard rate settings. And that's a unique Leviathan 'ship' waaaay before the zuul can possibly get them. I've only ever gotten Always Empty/The Cannibal, because you don't choose which one appears at your altar, but I assume they're basically similar with different strengths.

AE is his own fleet, until you research some extra-ships-in-fleet tech at which point he can bring some accompaniment. He has 3 turns of endurance outside of your naval stations' operational range, but his 'drive system' is just to teleport, instantly, to anywhere in range. See some tarks or liirs flying through deep space toward your poo poo? Intercept instantly. To the zuul, who can't normally do deep-space intercepts against scouts/colonizers/anything, this is a huge asset. The only ways to repair him is either with his psi 'repair' ability in combat (uses psi points, very slow) or go to the 'repair suulka' strategic screen and devour millions of your own civilian population. But they're zuuls so they repopulate like crazy. The only way (far as I've seen) to refill his psi points is to permanently eat big chunks of a planet's biosphere. I had enough prohibitive-cost but still biospherey planets around in my systems so that this wasn't a huge issue. So I guess he's kind of a non-renewable resource, but that's okay because you get him in addition to your regular space empire, which is excellent on its own merits.

In combat - he has, I think, every psi ability, and an absolutely enormous bucket of psi power in reserve. He can turn invisible, create mirages, look 'friendly' to others, throw up a barrier that stops missiles dead in a huge radius, some other poo poo i can't figure out, use 'movement' to teleport big jumps within combat, temporarily control enemy ships from a distance (supposedly the 'bloodweaver' can do it permanently? and 'the invisible' might have enhanced, or permanent, or strategic invisibility) and telekinetically push/hold/crush ships. I'm guessing that Always Empty has some improved life drain ability. It's got a huge range, it can't possibly miss, and you just hold it down on a ship or station (or planet - it does biig population damage with no infrastructure/environment damage. But why would you want to wipe out a planet that way when a handful of slave disks will turn it into a huge asset to your new colony?) and then after a little bit the ship just goes dead and floats there (also probably unlocking another salvage project).

As just a ship, he's kind of meh. Enormous and armored as all hell, of course. Two of his tentacles fire beams that can 2- or 3-shot a cruiser, but only very occasionally, when he feels like it. The rest of them kind of swing around and sometimes try to hit things - once I saw it one-shot a pesky armor cruiser nearby, but mostly they miss. Probably would be more effective on larger targets. Also after putting him in pursuit mode, he chased down and sucked a cruiser into his mouth, which he kept gently chewing. It did almost no damage, but the poor guy couldn't do anything, and it looked hilarious. *Supposedly* it is possible to refit him with newer weapons and modules, but I cannot figure out how to do that. If anyone figures out how to refit a suul'ka, please let me know. The manual also mentions that suulka can be ordered to "teach" for a turn, which has an effect similar to a paid research boost, but I can't figure out how to do that either. It might just not be possible with Always Empty. Anyways, A+ space god-whale, would summon again.

DatonKallandor
Aug 21, 2009

"I can no longer sit back and allow nationalist shitposting, nationalist indoctrination, nationalist subversion, and the German nationalist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious game balance."
The Suul'ka incombat Teleport is a group teleport too, it's pretty crazy being able to jump slaver discs right into abduction range.

Taerkar
Dec 7, 2002

kind of into it, really

Anyone else notice that you occasionally find systems now with all planets having the same hazard and rather crazy (10k+) biosphere?

DatonKallandor
Aug 21, 2009

"I can no longer sit back and allow nationalist shitposting, nationalist indoctrination, nationalist subversion, and the German nationalist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious game balance."
That's a new (grand?) menace. It's an ancient O'neill cylinder that can be used to super-terraform worlds. It's being pursued by all the Proteans though.

DatonKallandor fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Dec 10, 2012

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Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
There's a couple of new Grand Menaces, including an inexplicable alien 'Observer' that has a name I can't pronounce and can one-shot leviathans.

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