Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Kaal
May 22, 2002

through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

OwlFancier posted:

Yes the tile system can definitely be made more interesting and the AI can be made to handle it better too, but I am hopeful that the new system is going to prove more interesting still.

I totally agree with this. The tile system isn't too bad in theory, but it struggles to scale. The sector system was the intended solution for this, but it just doesn't work well enough for you to let the sector AI handle it alone - especially newly colonized planets. That's fixable, especially if the player was given more control over governing the AI, but developing a new system works too.

On a related note, the tile system is getting rendered a bit of a moot point when planets are basically the only place to invest in mineral production - which is the key resource for most of the game. As a result a lot of the tile mechanic is just getting ignored.

Kaal fucked around with this message at 19:44 on May 27, 2018

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

ZypherIM
Nov 8, 2010

"I want to see what she's in love with."

Nightgull posted:

Are strike craft still bad? How has the weapons meta changed? I’m still rocking neighbors with torp/autocannon corvette swarms.

I haven't seen anyone talking about changes to strike craft. They've never been terrible for me mid game, but never great late game. I sort of hope they get a redesign a bit to differentiate them from missiles better. Even if its something like hanger sections getting access to new support modules or something (like smaller versions of titan auras, etc).

The rest of the weapons all are pretty balanced, the main reason torp/autos work is because the AI doesn't counter designs (and torps let them do damage against big stuff). You can make large ships have a really high accuracy against corvettes and focus on big hits to bypass disengage chances to really tear apart corvette fleets. If you can get them into fighting with -disengage chances it can also really wreck them.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

If you are looking for some improvements to tile management the CGM series looks very interesting, I'm trying a game out with CGM planets and CGM buildings now.

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

MiddleOne posted:

Is there anyway to cut down on the relentless amount of busy-work? I don't remember it being this bad at release.

Not really, and you're right the amount of busywork has skyrocketed. Now not only do you have planet tiles to click click click you also have like 40 starbases to click, it's basically 10 more tiles per starbase to fuss with, and god help you when you want to upgrade your defense stations. No idea why the game doesn't have a simple "upgrade all" button somewhere. Nope, you gotta click like 4 times per station 40 times to keep your defense platforms up to date. Got a new power plant? Go into your 6 core planets and upgrade each tile on at a time. People have been begging for planet or even empire wide "upgrade all" buttons but we've never gotten them, the excuse I remember being that they couldn't think of where in the interface to put the button.

I know there's a mod out there that will auto-upgrade all your buildings, and putting them in a sector generally works ok once a planet is fully built out, but it's still a really weird and obvious quality of life thing they haven't added. Like why not let us click the little UP arrow on the outliner that shows a planet has upgradable buildings and have that automatically upgrade every tile? Why not have a similar button in the planets and sectors list that you can click once and it upgrades every possible building you can afford? I guess there's the problem of labs and the weird choice where you have to pick a specialty but only after the first level. Again, tile system can't die soon enough.

Tiles are going away, which is great, so we should really focus our quality of life requests on starbases.
-Let us build modules before the associated slot is filled, ie let us build a fleet academy even if there's no shipyard there. It's just pointless busywork having to keep coming back to queue up more things.
-Have an empire-wide upgrade button for platforms.
-Maybe let us save designs as templates and then apply that template to a station. I'll generally just have a defense station design, a shipyard design, and a trade station design. Build a new station, apply template, never have to click on it again.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

How do you have 40 starbases?

The maximum upper I tend to hover at is like, 15, 20 maybe if you pick grasp the void. And most of those don't need much upgrading because they're trading hubs or anchorages which you don't really need to do anything with once you set them up. Unless you've conquered the entire galaxy I don't see how you end up with anything close to 40.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon
I just started playing and I already hate the tiles. Goddamn.

OwlFancier posted:

How do you have 40 starbases?

The maximum upper I tend to hover at is like, 15, 20 maybe if you pick grasp the void. And most of those don't need much upgrading because they're trading hubs or anchorages which you don't really need to do anything with once you set them up. Unless you've conquered the entire galaxy I don't see how you end up with anything close to 40.

I'm about halfway to a Domination victory and I've got 30, so I can see it.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Are you playing on a very large galaxy? I can control like, a fifth of the map without hitting 15.

I mean in either case I would suggest that the amount of starbases I have scales fairly well with the amount of places I want to put a starbase, there's always an observatory, listening post, wormhole, habitable system, or something I want to put a starbase at. And I rarely have enough starbases to put them everywhere I'd like to.

PittTheElder
Feb 13, 2012

:geno: Yes, it's like a lava lamp.

I have 15 star bases in my game right now, and it's only 2270. I don't know why you'd choose to get by with so few.

Psychotic Weasel
Jun 24, 2004

Bang! You're dead.

OwlFancier posted:

If you are looking for some improvements to tile management the CGM series looks very interesting, I'm trying a game out with CGM planets and CGM buildings now.

OwlFancier posted:

How do you have 40 starbases?

The maximum upper I tend to hover at is like, 15, 20 maybe if you pick grasp the void. And most of those don't need much upgrading because they're trading hubs or anchorages which you don't really need to do anything with once you set them up. Unless you've conquered the entire galaxy I don't see how you end up with anything close to 40.

I generally loathe to play Paradox games with mods since they often break more than they fix or are just completely unbalanced garbage but recently I've begun using CGM's buildings mod since it added a lot of variety to the things you can build. Ironically 2.1 was released not long after I started using it and the update completely broke the mod, making me go back to playing vanilla Stellaris. Still, it was fun being able to do more than just build endless power plants and mines. Give some planets a bit of character.

As for star bases, it's not hard to get an obscene amount by the late game. I think on the last page or the one before I posted a screenshot of the AI fleets loving up but if you check the bar at the top you'll see I have room for ~46 bases. You eventually get to a point where you don't need any more and just forget about it after a while. Keep in mind that this is with a completely unmodded game and I wouldn't waste an ascension pick on something as worthless as extra star bases (why is this even an option?). Granted it is on a 1000 star galaxy but I only have ~50 planets or so as far as I can remember.


And as for changes to the tile system, I wouldn't count your chickens before they hatch. The bits we did hear about were very high concept and it was mentioned wouldn't be coming until other parts of the game were going to be looked at so I don't expect any changes to come in the near future.

Psychotic Weasel fucked around with this message at 20:15 on May 27, 2018

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

PittTheElder posted:

I have 15 star bases in my game right now, and it's only 2270. I don't know why you'd choose to get by with so few.

*shrug* that's just how many I get. I can't go by dates because I play with doubled costs but I tend not to pick the perk for them because it's not very interesting, I usually grab the techs if I don't need anything else. And pops don't make a huge difference because I think it's like, one per 40 or something so whether I find colony species or not I don't end up with a huge difference.

I suppose if you play with quite a lot of planets that might change things because I tend to play life seeded and with very few habitable worlds while also being choosy about where I settle anyway. Maybe if you fill everywhere with people it changes things.

Psychotic Weasel posted:

Granted it is on a 1000 star galaxy but I only have ~50 planets or so as far as I can remember.

That might be why. I'm lucky if I go above 15 planets even by the time I own half the galaxy.

OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 20:18 on May 27, 2018

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

OwlFancier posted:

Are you playing on a very large galaxy? I can control like, a fifth of the map without hitting 15.

I mean in either case I would suggest that the amount of starbases I have scales fairly well with the amount of places I want to put a starbase, there's always an observatory, listening post, wormhole, habitable system, or something I want to put a starbase at. And I rarely have enough starbases to put them everywhere I'd like to.

Whatever the default mapsize is. Medium, I think? I think I just have a really large population, since I wasn't expressly trying to get a huge cap. Though I did take Grasp the Void because I didn't like the other Ascension Perks for my Barbaric Despoilers. +10% research speed is for effete scientists, not manly (orkly?) orcs :black101:

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

I guess if you find tiles and starbases annoying then my suggestion is turn habitable planets down to 0.5 or 0.25 and pick life seeded. It doesn't at all hurt your ability to win, but it does mean you can really go for quality over quantity.

It does make megastructures much more appealing though because there's so little space to expand your population otherwise.

MiddleOne
Feb 17, 2011

Baronjutter posted:

Not really, and you're right the amount of busywork has skyrocketed. Now not only do you have planet tiles to click click click you also have like 40 starbases to click, it's basically 10 more tiles per starbase to fuss with, and god help you when you want to upgrade your defense stations. No idea why the game doesn't have a simple "upgrade all" button somewhere. Nope, you gotta click like 4 times per station 40 times to keep your defense platforms up to date. Got a new power plant? Go into your 6 core planets and upgrade each tile on at a time. People have been begging for planet or even empire wide "upgrade all" buttons but we've never gotten them, the excuse I remember being that they couldn't think of where in the interface to put the button.

I know there's a mod out there that will auto-upgrade all your buildings, and putting them in a sector generally works ok once a planet is fully built out, but it's still a really weird and obvious quality of life thing they haven't added. Like why not let us click the little UP arrow on the outliner that shows a planet has upgradable buildings and have that automatically upgrade every tile? Why not have a similar button in the planets and sectors list that you can click once and it upgrades every possible building you can afford? I guess there's the problem of labs and the weird choice where you have to pick a specialty but only after the first level. Again, tile system can't die soon enough.

Tiles are going away, which is great, so we should really focus our quality of life requests on starbases.
-Let us build modules before the associated slot is filled, ie let us build a fleet academy even if there's no shipyard there. It's just pointless busywork having to keep coming back to queue up more things.
-Have an empire-wide upgrade button for platforms.
-Maybe let us save designs as templates and then apply that template to a station. I'll generally just have a defense station design, a shipyard design, and a trade station design. Build a new station, apply template, never have to click on it again.

That's a bummer. And I really regret picking robots to play as now since that just adds more micro with building population.

Rookersh
Aug 19, 2010
And my game bugged out and broke right at the end.

Contingency showed up. Two in the North Galaxy, next to my semi friends the religious nuts and another right in the middle of the Hive Mind circle jerk.

I got two in the south. One in my stronger allies lands, and one next to the Enigmatic Fortress in a semi no mans land ( rip Enigmatic Fortress I was going to check you out after I beat the event. ).

My galaxy is ready for it. Most fleets are now 80k-120k, most of us have r5+ stuff. Figured this would be a tough fight but not a brutal one. Most of the galaxy is on the precipice of joining my Federation.

Except not a single AI will recognize the Contingency. None of them will send a single fleet to fight the Contingency fighting in their territory. Two Empires were in the middle of a war, they didn't break it up at all, even though both has Contingency within their lands. I have a Survey up so I can see everything, and I'm seeing tons of 150k-200k fleets just sitting in the middle of nowhere, not going to engage with the Contingency forces.

But whatever. At least I have my Federation. And thankfully my ally who is President seems to at least understand this is a problem. We can knock off the two Contingency bases down here then I guess deal with the North later. Together our Federation Fleets number about 300k, and the two Machine Worlds in our area are only 100k built. I have Guardian of the Galaxy, we rip up 2-3 Contingency fleets on the way to the Machine World.

Then noooope. Suddenly the allied fleets stop. They are all set to follow the core Federation Fleet, and it's suddenly got the command "heading to Khell.". I've checked every single area on my map, there is not a single Khell. Khell does not exist in my galaxy. But boy howdy is my Federation stuck trying to go to Khell. So I have to sit here and watch my galaxy die because the AI just crapped out at the end and stopped working across the board.

Oh, and the other AI still don't recognize the threat at all. Our northern Slaver neighbors declared war on us in the middle of all of this. The Fallen Empire that's all about Holy Sites declared war on us again. It's great.

I'm basically just building colony ships and sending them into the cleared L Sector and giving up the core galaxy.

Oh other bug, that I'm abusing. The Contingency can't use L Gates. Or don't recognize them.

Wolfechu
May 2, 2009

All the world's a stage I'm going through


Dockworker posted:

Has anyone found the L-gate event way too powerful for a "mid game event"? The nanobots can basically spawn infinite fleets that kill everything in one hit. Even using massed corvettes (which seems to be the best strategy given their death lasers) I was still not able to even find their base with a 75k fleet. Exploration is also screwy in the L-cluster: normally my sensors should let me see into the next system, but I found that I had to sacrifice a science ship for every hop.

The nanobots also instantly destroy any starbase you try to build, so slowly trying to take the sector doesn't seem to work. They also don't count as a faction with which you are at war, so your allies / vassals can't even help! I guess I shouldn't have played a "tall" empire focused on vassals / allies, but not being able to use them was crippling.

There were 4 L-gates in my galaxy: 2 in my empire and 2 in an AI empire. I got shared vision with the AI empire before opening the gates (to make sure the nanobots didn't go anywhere I cared about) but the nanobots just seemed to spawn at the gates in the AI empire and not move. The one in my empire would spawn a fleet that made a beeline for my capital.


I'm pretty sure I'm turbofucked in my current game; I opened the L-cluster last night and there's at least 3 fleets of 27K nanobot swarms roaming the galaxy gobbling up empires, and one on a direct course for mine. Before I got into a defensive pact war with a couple of neighbors, I had a 5K fleet total, which is down to about 3K and rebuilding right now. That war hasn't even ended yet, because apparently my ally doesn't know how to offer a peace deal, but in about 2 months, the nanobots are going to be into my space. The guys we're fighting are also getting swallowed by the 'bots, so there's that.

I'm not even complaining, it's kinda fun watching the claimed systems disappear from the map, like V'ger's on its way to Earth or something. But I honestly can't see how you're meant to deal with it as early in the game as I am. I assume this is one of several things you can find in the L-Cluster?

Meldonox
Jan 13, 2006

Hey, are you listening to a word I'm saying?
Hi guys, thanks for the advice this morning. I'm about to settle in for the afternoon and put some of it to practice.

Is there a priority to how I build out tiles? Like, if I'm doing a ton of power plants to bolster my energy production but have a ton of mineral income and am running a robot society, do I just plop them down on empty/mineral/food tiles? Should I keep science tiles clear unless I have a big imbalance or are those always good to exploit as are?

And should I keep trading excess minerals to my next door neighbor since I've been grooming them as a buffer on one of my chokepoints, or is it less dangerous to sell for a lovely rate with the exchange some random race is holding, or should I try to be clever and sell to the xenophobic militarists that are really far away and got beef with the dudes who are talking poo poo at me from the other side of my neighbor?

Sorry for posting a bunch of dumb questions, I'm actually getting into this and want to make sure my first (no doubt inevitably failing) proper campaign leaves me taking away the right habits.

Chalks
Sep 30, 2009

Wolfechu posted:

I'm pretty sure I'm turbofucked in my current game; I opened the L-cluster last night and there's at least 3 fleets of 27K nanobot swarms roaming the galaxy gobbling up empires, and one on a direct course for mine. Before I got into a defensive pact war with a couple of neighbors, I had a 5K fleet total, which is down to about 3K and rebuilding right now. That war hasn't even ended yet, because apparently my ally doesn't know how to offer a peace deal, but in about 2 months, the nanobots are going to be into my space. The guys we're fighting are also getting swallowed by the 'bots, so there's that.

I'm not even complaining, it's kinda fun watching the claimed systems disappear from the map, like V'ger's on its way to Earth or something. But I honestly can't see how you're meant to deal with it as early in the game as I am. I assume this is one of several things you can find in the L-Cluster?


I had the same. L-Gate stuff seems to be available way too early - I had two fleets of 6k strength each and was the strongest empire in the region when the L-Gate dumped ~30k stacks on my doorstep.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Huh, how long has there been that cool animation for when a gas giant turns into a barren planet?

skeleton warrior
Nov 12, 2016


Dockworker posted:

Has anyone found the L-gate event way too powerful for a "mid game event"? The nanobots can basically spawn infinite fleets that kill everything in one hit. Even using massed corvettes (which seems to be the best strategy given their death lasers) I was still not able to even find their base with a 75k fleet. Exploration is also screwy in the L-cluster: normally my sensors should let me see into the next system, but I found that I had to sacrifice a science ship for every hop.

The nanobots also instantly destroy any starbase you try to build, so slowly trying to take the sector doesn't seem to work. They also don't count as a faction with which you are at war, so your allies / vassals can't even help! I guess I shouldn't have played a "tall" empire focused on vassals / allies, but not being able to use them was crippling.

There were 4 L-gates in my galaxy: 2 in my empire and 2 in an AI empire. I got shared vision with the AI empire before opening the gates (to make sure the nanobots didn't go anywhere I cared about) but the nanobots just seemed to spawn at the gates in the AI empire and not move. The one in my empire would spawn a fleet that made a beeline for my capital.


When I got this event, I only had one L-gate in my territory and I saw a bunch of other empires stars to suddenly uncolagonized, but no fleets came out to fight me. I ended up sending in 3 50K fleets, killing the nanites in the entryway system, and fought a holding action for about five years where nanite fleets would come in, get killed, and I’d rotate fleets out to get them healed and upgraded before the next nanite wave. This went on for like five years - I started wondering whether I’d started the Stellaris version of the Vietnam war - before the waves slowed enough that I could explore the star and build an outpost, upgrade it to a station, and throw shipyards on it to allow immediate healing and defense station support.

I think after that I had eaten most of the wandering nanite fleets, so I was able to slowly advance, kill defensive fleets, and explore/outpost the L-sector.


THEN (double spoiler) I either missed their home base because it was behind another star, or the star didn’t show up until then, and just as my ships were half-way Home to parades and refits, another 5 nanite fleets popped in and overwhelmed the non-existent defenses and rolled me all the way back to the gate before my fleets came back and I had to redo the whole campaign. My fleets sat at a choke point until I was able to build them up to 200K total, and then they were able to invade the nanite home world and end the whole threat.

In the end, it was maybe 15 years of constant direction and maneuver of fleets, throwing scientists to their doom to get eyes on stars, and tens of thousands of resources for lost ships and bases. By the end, my personal war weariness was closing in on 100%, but the rewards - strategic resources unavailable anywhere else and six systems with 1-3 20+ sized planets - felt well worth it.


But yeah: This felt more like takin out an FE than anything else. Very late-mid game, or “oh, the Khan is my neighbor” sized.

Shugojin
Sep 6, 2007

THE TAIL THAT BURNS TWICE AS BRIGHT...


Is the little sentient corvette I rescued from a planet ever gonna do anything or do I just need to keep him benched because I don't want him to die

Gadzuko
Feb 14, 2005

Wolfechu posted:

I'm pretty sure I'm turbofucked in my current game; I opened the L-cluster last night and there's at least 3 fleets of 27K nanobot swarms roaming the galaxy gobbling up empires, and one on a direct course for mine. Before I got into a defensive pact war with a couple of neighbors, I had a 5K fleet total, which is down to about 3K and rebuilding right now. That war hasn't even ended yet, because apparently my ally doesn't know how to offer a peace deal, but in about 2 months, the nanobots are going to be into my space. The guys we're fighting are also getting swallowed by the 'bots, so there's that.

I'm not even complaining, it's kinda fun watching the claimed systems disappear from the map, like V'ger's on its way to Earth or something. But I honestly can't see how you're meant to deal with it as early in the game as I am. I assume this is one of several things you can find in the L-Cluster?


What year is it? Sounds like you either got "lucky" and got way too many insights early on or you have a really understrength fleet because 5k is way low for midgame.

Meldonox posted:

Hi guys, thanks for the advice this morning. I'm about to settle in for the afternoon and put some of it to practice.

Is there a priority to how I build out tiles? Like, if I'm doing a ton of power plants to bolster my energy production but have a ton of mineral income and am running a robot society, do I just plop them down on empty/mineral/food tiles? Should I keep science tiles clear unless I have a big imbalance or are those always good to exploit as are?

And should I keep trading excess minerals to my next door neighbor since I've been grooming them as a buffer on one of my chokepoints, or is it less dangerous to sell for a lovely rate with the exchange some random race is holding, or should I try to be clever and sell to the xenophobic militarists that are really far away and got beef with the dudes who are talking poo poo at me from the other side of my neighbor?

Sorry for posting a bunch of dumb questions, I'm actually getting into this and want to make sure my first (no doubt inevitably failing) proper campaign leaves me taking away the right habits.

Matching buildings to tile resources is pretty much always a good idea. The only big exception is when you need to fit a special building onto a planet like a gene clinic or something where the bonus outweighs the resource loss. Also food tiles can be overwritten with something else if you're food capped since the bonuses for excess food aren't very good compared to having more minerals/energy/research. The planetary capital produces energy and provides adjacency bonuses only for minerals, food and energy, not science or unity, so it's best to place your capital on an energy tile that's surrounded by non-science tiles. Buildings that produce two kinds of resources, like slave processing centers or farms if you have access to the Purity unity tree, are excellent for adjacency tiles because they will get double the bonus.

Generally speaking minerals are bad to trade away, you will need to spend them on something eventually and energy tends to be more plentiful. That's not a hard rule though, if you're going to hit the minerals cap or something then trade away. Grooming your neighbors is a good idea though if lasting peace is your goal. They will stick with you unless you do something to antagonize them and defensive allies are very useful. Selling off excess strategic resources to your allies is a great way to make tons of cash and boost relations at the same time.

ZypherIM
Nov 8, 2010

"I want to see what she's in love with."

Starbases talk: If you have 40 starbases you have like 1200+ population which is around 50 25-size planets. At that point in the game defense sats are speedbumps at best and you shouldn't be needing to constantly updating them, and most of your starbases aren't going to be needing defense sats anyways. Sectors that can't redevelop will also handle the majority of your planets just fine (build the base buildings yourself if you don't trust the sector AI). Upgrade all buttons would be nice, but they're pretty low on my list of things I want improved (and with a tiles redesign going on, the UI guys working on that is a better use of time IMO).


@Meldonox: If you have excess minerals there is probably a place to spend them instead of giving them away. Actively courting a defensive pack can be useful sometimes, but check to see how they feel because if they hate you for a lot of reasons it can be a lot of work to get one. There are planets to colonize, starbases to build to cap, ships to build to cap, building slots on planets, etc to put those minerals to improve your empire. If you're really mineral rich you can consider leveraging a trader enclave to give you a 2->1 trade for more energy, though a trade with another empire might be able to get you a better rate (you're helping a potential enemy though).

Building planets I tend to match tiles if possible, though food is usually limited to one or two tiles (preferably stuff like paradise dome - food+unity). As robots you don't have to worry about food luckily. Each planet you colonize gives you a unity/research penalty, so you'll want to build stuff like monuments on clear tiles and research tiles where you get that bonus to stay ahead of that penalty so I'm disinclined to build over those. When I'm more towards mid-game I'll be willing to ignore +1 tile bonuses on minerals/energy if I want to colonize a planet to increase production of <X>, but early on those little edges can add up. I'd rather get a glut of 1 resource and look for another planet to balance it out (or trade).

Building a starbase around a colonized system (or a trader enclave) lets you fill up with trade hubs, which can give a ton of energy (4 per upper slot, +2 with a trading company building, +1 with prosperity tradition : +42 energy late game).

As long as you're not hitting your storage cap it can be ok to bank resources. There are some energy edicts to spend there, the artist/curator enclaves have stuff to buy with energy. Minerals stockpiled can let you immediately leverage new tech (starbase upgrades, ships, etc).

Wolfechu
May 2, 2009

All the world's a stage I'm going through


Gadzuko posted:

What year is it? Sounds like you either got "lucky" and got way too many insights early on or you have a really understrength fleet because 5k is way low for midgame.

I'd say pretty early game, though I'm bad at judging this. I'm not at home right now, but I'm somewhere toward the end of, say, the first 70 years. My fleet wasn't at full cap when my ally called me into the war, but every other species I'd encountered was showing up as inferior on all counts to me even without capping out, so I must be reasonably ahead of the curve. I'm holding a fair chunk of the northern side of the galaxy, certainly moreso than anyone else I can see. Weirdly haven't seen any marauders or FEs so far, they must be lurking in the southern end of the galaxy.

Given how long this war's dragged on, by the time I get my fleet up to strength, it's going to be more in the 12-15K range, though that doesn't sound like it'd help much.

Gadzuko
Feb 14, 2005

Wolfechu posted:

I'd say pretty early game, though I'm bad at judging this. I'm not at home right now, but I'm somewhere toward the end of, say, the first 70 years. My fleet wasn't at full cap when my ally called me into the war, but every other species I'd encountered was showing up as inferior on all counts to me even without capping out, so I must be reasonably ahead of the curve. I'm holding a fair chunk of the northern side of the galaxy, certainly moreso than anyone else I can see. Weirdly haven't seen any marauders or FEs so far, they must be lurking in the southern end of the galaxy.

Given how long this war's dragged on, by the time I get my fleet up to strength, it's going to be more in the 12-15K range, though that doesn't sound like it'd help much.

Oh yeah that's super earlier than I thought, my first and so far only Distant Stars game I'm just now opening the L gate at 2370 so I thought it was a more late game thing. I don't know how that compares to most people's experience though, it sounds like normally it's supposed to land around midgame. I guess I got unlucky on insights this time around.

Wolfechu
May 2, 2009

All the world's a stage I'm going through


Gadzuko posted:

Oh yeah that's super earlier than I thought, my first and so far only Distant Stars game I'm just now opening the L gate at 2370 so I thought it was a more late game thing. I don't know how that compares to most people's experience though, it sounds like normally it's supposed to land around midgame. I guess I got unlucky on insights this time around.

I already had 6/7 insights, so I figured I was trucking along as I should, and picked up the last one through research, which cost something like 12000 points - compared to the regular stuff I was researching being no higher than 8000 - so I didn't expect to get mauled so much.

I'm not even mad, just more bemused. I suspect I just got 'lucky' with the anomalies leading to the insights early, and I think there's more than one type of thing that can be behind the gates, so I just drew the 'rocks fall, everyone dies' card.

Chalks
Sep 30, 2009

Yeah, all the insights for me have come from random science ship discoveries too, except for the last one. If it's meant to be late to mid game, the tech shows up far too early and far too low a cost.

Kaal
May 22, 2002

through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

Meldonox posted:

Hi guys, thanks for the advice this morning. I'm about to settle in for the afternoon and put some of it to practice.

Is there a priority to how I build out tiles? Like, if I'm doing a ton of power plants to bolster my energy production but have a ton of mineral income and am running a robot society, do I just plop them down on empty/mineral/food tiles? Should I keep science tiles clear unless I have a big imbalance or are those always good to exploit as are?

And should I keep trading excess minerals to my next door neighbor since I've been grooming them as a buffer on one of my chokepoints, or is it less dangerous to sell for a lovely rate with the exchange some random race is holding, or should I try to be clever and sell to the xenophobic militarists that are really far away and got beef with the dudes who are talking poo poo at me from the other side of my neighbor?

Sorry for posting a bunch of dumb questions, I'm actually getting into this and want to make sure my first (no doubt inevitably failing) proper campaign leaves me taking away the right habits.

Ultimately, planets are your main source of mineral investment throughout the game, and should be prioritized as much as possible. Starbases can give you tons of energy, as can habitats or Dyson Spheres. Science and Unity can be had pretty easily too, and are largely related to how large you grow rather than specific investment. You're likely to be swimming in Food unless you make a specific effort not to be, and it's not that useful in any case. At the end of the day, it's probably wisest to only match tiles that are at least +2, and otherwise focus on mineral production and planetary uniques.

Kaal fucked around with this message at 22:36 on May 27, 2018

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Gimmick Account posted:

fits the bill.
heh

Well, stopping for the night on the verge of grabbing my last L-Gate insight. Wish me luck!

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Kaal posted:

Ultimately, planets are your main source of mineral investment throughout the game, and should be prioritized as much as possible. Starbases can give you tons of energy, as can habitats or Dyson Spheres. Science and Unity can be had pretty easily too, and are largely related to how large you grow rather than specific investment. You're likely to be swimming in Food unless you make a specific effort not to be, and it's not that useful in any case. At the end of the day, it's probably wisest to only match tiles that are at least +2, and otherwise focus on mineral production and planetary uniques.

As a corrolary to this, mineral income is only useful as long as you have something to spend it on, and unless you are trying to conquer everyone that can cap out quite quickly, so you can also focus, or refocus, on science production as well.

Kaal
May 22, 2002

through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

OwlFancier posted:

As a corrolary to this, mineral income is only useful as long as you have something to spend it on, and unless you are trying to conquer everyone that can cap out quite quickly, so you can also focus, or refocus, on science production as well.

This is certainly true, particularly in the early game. Fleets, starbases, and megaprojects take up most of your mineral income. If you are only investing in one or two of these areas, then you can prioritize science instead. That being said, a habitat takes minerals to build and is a fantastic source of science.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

True but I find they do a number on your unity production and again, I prefer quality over quantity. Habitats are good certainly but I use Guilli's planet modifiers so I tend to only build them if I'm going to get a couple of extra resources from them. Otherwise I'd rather rush tech and unity for ringworlds.

skeleton warrior
Nov 12, 2016


OwlFancier posted:

As a corrolary to this, mineral income is only useful as long as you have something to spend it on, and unless you are trying to conquer everyone that can cap out quite quickly, so you can also focus, or refocus, on science production as well.

Corrolary to the corrolary: there is always something to spend minerals on, especially once you can make megastructures.

hobbesmaster
Jan 28, 2008

skeleton warrior posted:

Corrolary to the corrolary: there is always something to spend minerals on, especially once you can make megastructures.

At that point you can easily be influence limited.

Jazerus
May 24, 2011


skeleton warrior posted:

Corrolary to the corrolary: there is always something to spend minerals on, especially once you can make megastructures.

definitely not

science is the only infinitely scaling resource. if your whole empire is devoted to minerals you're going to hit a point where they're effectively unspendable

skeleton warrior
Nov 12, 2016


OwlFancier posted:

True but I find they do a number on your unity production and again, I prefer quality over quantity. Habitats are good certainly but I use Guilli's planet modifiers so I tend to only build them if I'm going to get a couple of extra resources from them. Otherwise I'd rather rush tech and unity for ringworlds.

Yeah, let’s not give the new guy “based on the mods *I* play, this is optimal” advice.

My General rule of thumb: for the first hundred years or so, net minerals should be twice net energy, and science for each type should be at or above net energy income.

Once you get to 150 - 200 minerals, start using new energy and minerals income as an excuse to break down worse energy and mineral production on planets and replacing it with science production.

hobbesmaster
Jan 28, 2008

Jazerus posted:

definitely not

science is the only infinitely scaling resource. if your whole empire is devoted to minerals you're going to hit a point where they're effectively unspendable

I mean you can always go higher and higher over your fleet cap, spending more and more on each ship

Nordick
Sep 3, 2011

Yes.
Huh, I just noticed that strategic resources in my current game have reverted back to their pre-2.1 effects. Wonder if some mod's loving up or what.

skeleton warrior
Nov 12, 2016


Jazerus posted:

definitely not

science is the only infinitely scaling resource. if your whole empire is devoted to minerals you're going to hit a point where they're effectively unspendable

Sure, assuming you’re ignoring all of the other advice so far of “build to tile specialties” and “go back later and build all of the science stations”.

If your whole empire is devoted to minerals, yes, you’re playing wrong. If your “one unity building, respect tile resources, conquer a bunch of stars and build of a bunch of stations” can’t take one perk for habitats, then man, I don’t know

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


Jazerus posted:

definitely not

science is the only infinitely scaling resource. if your whole empire is devoted to minerals you're going to hit a point where they're effectively unspendable

This is the point at which you won the game, though. If your mineral income scales past your ability to spend it it's because you're not replacing losses fast enough.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Grumio
Sep 20, 2001

in culina est
My aggressive neighbours have not only managed to expand into the shape of the Paradox logo's head, but the 'mouth' is a black hole system named "Demons Maw"

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply