Stellaris: a second Astral Planes has hit the game

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Stellaris: a second Astral Planes has hit the game

jokes: Dec 20, 2012; Uh... Kupo?

Mid-game I always fall into a lull, is that when I'm supposed to be starting wars and poo poo or should I keep on building up even though I'm scraping 80 pops+ on most/all planets. It's when I feel like starting over because I'm bored at that point before the end-game/crisis starts.

# ? May 20, 2020 05:20

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# ? Apr 26, 2024 01:33

QuarkJets: Sep 8, 2008

If you're in the midgame then you can practically force the Khan to spawn by attacking marauder systems. Otherwise yeah, midgame is the time to hunt down leviathans, clean up archeological sites, and conquer more people. The midgame is when everyone starts getting wormhole tech so conflicts become a lot easier; I tend to have more fun with more wormholes, I 3x that slider

And L Gates are designed for a midgame altercation, open up one of those

# ? May 20, 2020 05:30

ShadowHawk: Jun 25, 2000; CERTIFIED PRE OWNED TESLA OWNER

QuarkJets posted:

I don't think that racial bonuses are accounted for at all, drones will normally prefer to take complex jobs over menial ones, just like how normal pops prefer becoming specialists over becoming workers

Brain Drone

code:

	weight = {
		weight = @complex_drone_job_weight
		modifier = {
			factor = 3
			has_trait = trait_erudite
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 2
			has_trait = trait_intelligent
		}

Maintenence Drone

code:

	weight = {
		weight = 1
		modifier = {
			factor = 2
			OR = {
				has_trait = trait_robot_emotion_emulators
				has_trait = trait_charismatic
			}
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 0.5
			OR = {
				has_trait = trait_robot_uncanny
				has_trait = trait_repugnant
			}
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 1.1
			exists = owner
			years_passed < 1
			owner = { has_valid_civic = civic_machine_assimilator }
			has_trait = trait_cybernetic
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 0.1
			NOT = { has_job = maintenance_drone }
			planet = {
				free_amenities > 5
			}
		}

In common/scripted_variables/01_scripted_variables_megacorp.txt we see that @complex_drone_job_weight = 10

So without any racial mods tech jobs have weight 10 and maint jobs have either 1 or 0.1 if there are free amenities.
With racial mods tech jobs have weight 20 or 30.

This is basically identical to non-hivemind version. So yeah I think you're right it's just that complex jobs >> basic jobs. Unlike regular empires, for gestalts there are no ruler or specialist jobs that give amenities. So it's more noticeable (maint should have a bigger base weight in this case)

# ? May 20, 2020 05:35

benzine: Oct 21, 2010

QuarkJets posted:

And L Gates are designed for a midgame altercation, open up one of those

Only to find it empty...

Speaking of which, the mini story of the L-Gates, might be my favourite in Stellaris.

# ? May 20, 2020 05:46

RandomBlue: Dec 30, 2012; hay guys!; Biscuit Hider

QuarkJets posted:

If you're in the midgame then you can practically force the Khan to spawn by attacking marauder systems. Otherwise yeah, midgame is the time to hunt down leviathans, clean up archeological sites, and conquer more people. The midgame is when everyone starts getting wormhole tech so conflicts become a lot easier; I tend to have more fun with more wormholes, I 3x that slider

And L Gates are designed for a midgame altercation, open up one of those

Hadn't thought about upping wormholes. Once you get that tech you suddenly remember you have way more border systems to defend than you thought.

# ? May 20, 2020 05:46

Horace Kinch: Aug 15, 2007

I always go max wormholes, with luck it can save you tons of travel time until you're able to build your own gateways.

# ? May 20, 2020 07:36

Gort: Aug 18, 2003; Good day what ho cup of tea

Now I want a mod that makes the "Greater than Ourselves" edict cost nothing to activate and deactivate, and be available to all empires from the start of the game.

# ? May 20, 2020 11:56

Black Pants: Jan 16, 2008; Such comfortable, magical pants!; Lipstick Apathy

Speaking of crises, I've fallen in love with the options in https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2036491639

It presents a lot of stuff to you at once when you start a new game but it lets you configure a lot of interesting things. Like making it so a Khan will never die of old age. Or hell even never die at all, and infinitely respawn each time their ship is blown up.

# ? May 20, 2020 13:24

Captain Oblivious: Oct 12, 2007; I'm not like other posters

Captain Invictus posted:

lol that they actually put in an option at game generation to disable the Xeno-Compatibility ascension perk instead of just removing that loving garbage from the game entirely

Why would you want to disable it? Wouldn't you just...not choose it as a perk?

# ? May 20, 2020 13:31

Torrannor: Apr 27, 2013; ---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

Captain Oblivious posted:

Why would you want to disable it? Wouldn't you just...not choose it as a perk?

Have you seen the species overview tab once an empire has gotten xeno-compatibility? It's bad enough when there are dozens of versions of a base species around, because the AI loves to randomly gene-mod it's populace, but it's a 1000 times worse with xeno-compatibility. I'm glad that there's an option to disable it.

# ? May 20, 2020 13:34

Cynic Jester: Apr 11, 2009; Let's put a simile on that face
A dazzling simile
Twinkling like the night sky

Captain Oblivious posted:

Why would you want to disable it? Wouldn't you just...not choose it as a perk?

The AI can still pick it. It'll still gently caress up the species view list. If you are unlucky enough to play as someone who has migration treaties or accepts refugees, they'll even ruin your domestic species list.

# ? May 20, 2020 13:34

Captain Oblivious: Oct 12, 2007; I'm not like other posters

Torrannor posted:

Have you seen the species overview tab once an empire has gotten xeno-compatibility? It's bad enough when there are dozens of versions of a base species around, because the AI loves to randomly gene-mod it's populace, but it's a 1000 times worse with xeno-compatibility. I'm glad that there's an option to disable it.

Okay I guess :effort:

# ? May 20, 2020 13:37

Staltran: Jan 3, 2013; Fallen Rib

I've also heard that the ballooning number of subspecies contributes to slowdown.

# ? May 20, 2020 14:17

Captain Invictus: Apr 5, 2005; Try reading some manga!; Clever Betty

what were they thinking with this new edict system

like the technician edict, +20% energy from technicians but also increases the upkeep of technicians by .5 energy, aren't you only making like a bit over .5 energy profit per technician at the cost of an edict slot and 200 influence. that seems...ungood, especially compared to the old one which was powerful but also very expensive until you get Will to Power, at which point you're likely in the endgame anyways.

Captain Oblivious posted:

Okay I guess

I mean, that's literally why. playing as a biological ascension empire, it's nice to be able to upgrade specific species. with xenocompatibility, you now have 800 variants of species clogging up the species tab and often making it run like garbage. it's a cute idea executed terribly, much like a bunch of mechanics in stellaris.

# ? May 20, 2020 14:27

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Captain Invictus posted:

what were they thinking with this new edict system

like the technician edict, +20% energy from technicians but also increases the upkeep of technicians by .5 energy, aren't you only making like a bit over .5 energy profit per technician at the cost of an edict slot and 200 influence. that seems...ungood, especially compared to the old one which was powerful but also very expensive until you get Will to Power, at which point you're likely in the endgame anyways.

The new edict system is good, but the actual edicts...

# ? May 20, 2020 14:30

Gort: Aug 18, 2003; Good day what ho cup of tea

Yeah, I pretty much just run Greater Than Ourselves and that's it.

# ? May 20, 2020 15:11

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

The point of having mutually exclusive things like that is you can make them all real good because the true cost is the ones you're not taking. Making them all super anemic is like, why did you do it in the first place?

# ? May 20, 2020 15:31

Schadenboner: Aug 15, 2011; by Shine

silentsnack posted:

For minmaxing in general you should disable Land Appropriation policy because pops are a valuable resource and you don't want to displace them when there are better uses...

Tip for genocidal empires in particular: purging diminishes the population at a flat rate regardless of habitability, traits, or pop count. So they'll die at a rate proportional to the number of planets with ongoing purges. If you just go by the civic's description that shouldn't be an issue because you supposedly just want to kill people, except that you gain resources from purge jobs and not from pops dying. So it's counterintuitive but you want to keep your undesirables around for as long as possible, which means resettling them onto to a minimal number of planets.

Purge jobs are affected by generic "+x% [resource] from jobs" modifiers (and edicts and empire-wide effects) so if you stack bonuses on a world specialized for those outputs then initially it's a waste of energy to resettle, but fairly quickly you'll get enough additional resources during the extended pop lifetime as to pay off the cost, and then some.

Their output is also affected by low-habitability penalty so if you're using this strategy you'll benefit greatly from having something that is universally habitable like gaia/ring/ecu/relic/habitat, which you might want to factor into your empire origin/species traits.

Also it sounds completely loving insane, which is the best reason.

I used to purge xenos on their planet of origin, now I relocate them all to Earth so that they might witness the glory they are being made a part of (in the form of they skulls for my throne).

Apparently there are mechanical benefits to this as well?

:shrug:

# ? May 20, 2020 16:25

Gort: Aug 18, 2003; Good day what ho cup of tea

Black Pants posted:

Speaking of crises, I've fallen in love with the options in https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2036491639

It presents a lot of stuff to you at once when you start a new game but it lets you configure a lot of interesting things. Like making it so a Khan will never die of old age. Or hell even never die at all, and infinitely respawn each time their ship is blown up.

Wow, this stuff is brilliant. Gonna try a game where every crisis happens, one after another.

# ? May 20, 2020 16:32

Drone_Fragger: May 9, 2007

Grid amalgamation is such terrible Garbage it�s unreal. Machine empires have enough problems with amenities as it is without dozens of slaves draining them too.

# ? May 20, 2020 16:33

Captain Invictus: Apr 5, 2005; Try reading some manga!; Clever Betty

so, wait. I'm trying out the Scion origin since I've heard it's interesting and also hilariously busted.

the FE gave me a small fleet, basically a single use of Zarqlan's Head, and I've been tooling around using that for a while now. they eventually got overwhelmed by a fanatical purifier I attacked and a single escort died, and...

I know it's a broken origin, but man, I think maybe they should make it so the ships they give you don't give you analyzable debris when they die. :v:

another fun side affect of the scion origin, no closed borders ever! so you can waltz right into the xenophobe FE's territory and unlock all their shielded worlds! hell yeah 6000 engineering research before I even have tier 3 railguns! :q:

edit: aw, the analyzed debris still doesn't let the techs show up in the cards until you've got the prerequisites apparently, dang

Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 16:48 on May 20, 2020

# ? May 20, 2020 16:42

Gort: Aug 18, 2003; Good day what ho cup of tea

Drone_Fragger posted:

Grid amalgamation is such terrible Garbage it�s unreal. Machine empires have enough problems with amenities as it is without dozens of slaves draining them too.

The solution I've seen people use is resettling all the organic pops to a single habitat of like 1,600 pops, that's entirely full of fortresses. All the stats there will suck, but hit the machine version of the martial law decision and stability will remain at 100% and you'll make oodles of energy.

# ? May 20, 2020 17:01

Schadenboner: Aug 15, 2011; by Shine

Gort posted:

The solution I've seen people use is resettling all the organic pops to a single habitat of like 1,600 pops, that's entirely full of fortresses. All the stats there will suck, but hit the machine version of the martial law decision and stability will remain at 100% and you'll make oodles of energy.

The Matrix was a Stellaris LP.

:aaaaa:

E: Come to think of it, Dark City (aka "The Matrix only good") was also that thing?

Schadenboner fucked around with this message at 17:32 on May 20, 2020

# ? May 20, 2020 17:21

benzine: Oct 21, 2010

Gort posted:

Wow, this stuff is brilliant. Gonna try a game where every crisis happens, one after another.

You can just console command it.

# ? May 20, 2020 17:49

Gort: Aug 18, 2003; Good day what ho cup of tea

benzine posted:

You can just console command it.

Not (as easily) in multiplayer!

Plus this has settings that may stop the crisis from being so dumb

# ? May 20, 2020 18:21

Bofast: Feb 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Black Pants posted:

Speaking of crises, I've fallen in love with the options in https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2036491639

It presents a lot of stuff to you at once when you start a new game but it lets you configure a lot of interesting things. Like making it so a Khan will never die of old age. Or hell even never die at all, and infinitely respawn each time their ship is blown up.

This looks really interesting!

Schadenboner posted:

The Matrix was a Stellaris LP.

E: Come to think of it, Dark City (aka "The Matrix only good") was also that thing?

Dark City was a good movie.

# ? May 20, 2020 18:28

Schadenboner: Aug 15, 2011; by Shine

Bofast posted:

This looks really interesting!

Dark City was a good movie.

It really really was.

# ? May 20, 2020 18:36

benzine: Oct 21, 2010

Gort posted:

Not (as easily) in multiplayer!

Plus this has settings that may stop the crisis from being so dumb

Speaking of, how is multiplayer in this game? How long it takes a match, for example.

# ? May 20, 2020 18:56

Aethernet: Jan 28, 2009; This is the Captain...

Our glorious political masters have, in their wisdom, decided to form an alliance with a rag-tag bunch of freedom fighters right when the Federation has us at a tactical disadvantage. Unsurprisingly, this has resulted in the Feds firing on our vessels...

Damn you Huxley!; Grimey Drawer

Schadenboner posted:

It really really was.

This opinion has been labelled correct.

Tried a 5x crisis that popped as soon as it was able. Took Defender of the Galaxy and was leading a Level 4 Galactic Union, so I thought I'd try sending a 500k fleet against a 1.4m Contingency fleet.

I would advise against doing this.

# ? May 20, 2020 19:32

Relevant Tangent: Nov 18, 2016; Tangentially Relevant

Captain Invictus posted:

lol that they actually put in an option at game generation to disable the Xeno-Compatibility ascension perk instead of just removing that loving garbage from the game entirely

Xeno-Compatibility is a really fun flavorful perk and I usually take it if I'm not playing Space Assholes.

# ? May 20, 2020 19:48

Relevant Tangent: Nov 18, 2016; Tangentially Relevant

benzine posted:

Only to find it empty...

Speaking of which, the mini story of the L-Gates, might be my favourite in Stellaris.

it's really interesting because you never know what will pop out and the land rush that pops off leads to new allies and enemies which is more or less the heart of the game

# ? May 20, 2020 19:56

Libluini: May 18, 2012; I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...; Grimey Drawer

Schadenboner posted:

The Matrix was a Stellaris LP.

E: Come to think of it, Dark City (aka "The Matrix only good") was also that thing?

Not really, the things ruling Dark City wanted to explore "individuality" and used the Humans as their labrats, experimenting on them by mixing up their memories to see what would happen. They're basically the organic hivemind variation, but they extract science instead of energy or food.

Also there is a non-zero chance that your enslaved pops will rebel by killing your entire hivemind race and take over the habitat they were stuffed in. :v:

Dark City was an incredibly good movie.

# ? May 20, 2020 19:58

Relevant Tangent: Nov 18, 2016; Tangentially Relevant

Captain Oblivious posted:

Why would you want to disable it? Wouldn't you just...not choose it as a perk?

Some people are ocd about how the races in the galaxy work. Prior to an update or two ago you could end up with hundreds of one pop species in your empire because despite saying otherwise half-X and half-Y would make half XY if X or Y had been modified in any way. If you were an egalitarian empire with Xenocompatibility optimising your species was basically impossible.

# ? May 20, 2020 20:01

hobbesmaster: Jan 28, 2008

Relevant Tangent posted:

Some people are ocd about how the races in the galaxy work. Prior to an update or two ago you could end up with hundreds of one pop species in your empire because despite saying otherwise half-X and half-Y would make half XY if X or Y had been modified in any way. If you were an egalitarian empire with Xenocompatibility optimising your species was basically impossible.

Eventually opening the colonize planet dialog is basically impossible.

# ? May 20, 2020 20:15

Schadenboner: Aug 15, 2011; by Shine

Libluini posted:

Not really, the things ruling Dark City wanted to explore "individuality" and used the Humans as their labrats, experimenting on them by mixing up their memories to see what would happen. They're basically the organic hivemind variation, but they extract science instead of energy or food.

Also there is a non-zero chance that your enslaved pops will rebel by killing your entire hivemind race and take over the habitat they were stuffed in.

Dark City was an incredibly good movie.

Dark City gets unfairly grouped with Matrix because it came out the same time and might have used some of the sets? I know there was some actual cross-over there.

But it was the better of the two :thunk:

scifi movies which came out around the same time and it's unfortunate that The Matrix "won".

In fact, if we're talking Wachowski movies, I legit think Jupiter Ascending was a better movie than The Matrix, I'd re-watch that 100 times before The Matrix. Even with Hover-Rollerblading Werewolves the bureaucracy planet and the space battles and the Jupiter Gas Works (?) are just amazing visuals.

Schadenboner fucked around with this message at 20:38 on May 20, 2020

# ? May 20, 2020 20:35

Schadenboner: Aug 15, 2011; by Shine

Another thing that's good and Stellarisy (if you play Shroud/Worm) is Stross' A Colder War.

# ? May 20, 2020 20:45

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Captain Invictus posted:

I mean, that's literally why. playing as a biological ascension empire, it's nice to be able to upgrade specific species. with xenocompatibility, you now have 800 variants of species clogging up the species tab and often making it run like garbage. it's a cute idea executed terribly, much like a bunch of mechanics in stellaris.

Pops should really retemplate themselves over time so at least everything would slowly migrate toward "good" templates.

I found a system with two primitive empires in it, each on tomb worlds. I'm wondering if this is a special event or just a very neat confluence of random things.

# ? May 20, 2020 21:13

Schadenboner: Aug 15, 2011; by Shine

Splicer posted:

Pops should really retemplate themselves over time so at least everything would slowly migrate toward "good" templates.

I found a system with two primitive empires in it, each on tomb worlds. I'm wondering if this is a special event or just a very neat confluence of random things.

If they're both similar and Bronze Age then yes, they (or their great-great-great-grandparents?) wiped each-other out.

Sometimes there's an anomaly that fires for it I think?

E: I wish you could remove templates or at least collapse them. Especially if you're using the Distant Worlds mod there's a native system trait that disappears in all generations after game start but the (0-pop) template is still there.

Schadenboner fucked around with this message at 21:20 on May 20, 2020

# ? May 20, 2020 21:17

PittTheElder: Feb 13, 2012; Yes, it's like a lava lamp.

benzine posted:

Speaking of, how is multiplayer in this game? How long it takes a match, for example.

Multiplayer is good, games usually take a dozen or so hours though. Depends on how fast you're running though of course, but that's been my experience.

# ? May 20, 2020 21:24

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# ? Apr 26, 2024 01:33

ShadowHawk: Jun 25, 2000; CERTIFIED PRE OWNED TESLA OWNER

Torrannor posted:

Have you seen the species overview tab once an empire has gotten xeno-compatibility? It's bad enough when there are dozens of versions of a base species around, because the AI loves to randomly gene-mod it's populace, but it's a 1000 times worse with xeno-compatibility. I'm glad that there's an option to disable it.

The new patch makes the AI generate fewer subspecies when it starts gene modding - they'll only pick the best existing one.

# ? May 20, 2020 21:27

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