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Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Bholder posted:

We should get back on arguing what Authoritarian/Egalitarian really mean

Stellaris: To Serve Man and argue about political definitions

# ¿ Jan 20, 2017 19:21

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 08:26

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Bloody Pom posted:

Civ BE is the reason why I can't imagine why anyone could have been excited for Civ VI. Firaxis has lost its soul.

Civ BE was a better game than Civ VI.

At least Civ BE tried new things, Civ VI seemed to change everything in a way that didn't really matter.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2017 05:18

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Is there a slowdown bug in Utopia?

Even at the fastest speed things are agonizingly slow. But Task Manager shows Stellaris at sub 5% of my CPU and no IO traffic. Sometimes it'll spike up to 30% and start going fast again, but most of the time it sits there at barely above idle.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2017 13:53

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

I went syncretic evolution and a bunch of slavery related traits.

I played the game normally until Habitats then I moved all my glorious Space Republicans into the Habs and left the proles planets that were nothing but mines and farms.

Eventually I engineered the proles to be dumber and more productive while Space Republicans were engineered into Randian Ubermensch who spent all day making money and acting as gentleman scientists.

Microing the populations sucked hard until the split.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2017 19:00

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

GotLag posted:

I made a little mod that halves all megastructure build times and costs, and doubles Dyson sphere output. It actually feels worth building now, although I think doubling the Dyson sphere energy production might have made it a bit too powerful. Perhaps a 50% boost would work better.

The problem with Megastructures is that you can only build on at a time. Is there a way to change that?

# ¿ Apr 13, 2017 20:27

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Is there a mod that makes Defensive Pacts have a cost for NPC Empires?

I'm kind of sick of the end game being two giant blobs and myself not doing anything.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2017 02:38

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Splicer posted:

It "makes sense" that you have to know how to build the biggest ships and biggest stations before you can build the biggest stations, but at the same time ehhhhh. Make it a first pick option with only 4 tiles to start with and have every station research add another tile.

Voidborn is amazing because it lets you make colonies with 11 Betharion Power Plants.

4 Habitats produce more energy than a full dyson sphere for significantly less cost and build time than just the site and frame of the sphere.

Staltran posted:

It lasts for a hundred years, that's pretty long, and possibly practically permanent since you're not going to keep playing for a hundred years after getting it.

I'm becoming a fan of consecrated worlds. 10% Happiness and Faster growth that, with techs, lasts 150 years for 150 influence.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2017 22:34

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

LordAbaddon posted:

It seems like a bad idea to allow you to build buildings that need strategic resources to operate on habitats and should probably be the first thing they address with re balancing them.

It is called a Solar Collector instead of a Beth Power Plant, but it provides the same +10 Energy per tile.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2017 22:48

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

GotLag posted:

I was dicking around trying to make rings available earlier and quicker, and I couldn't make them available early enough to matter.

And the thought occurs to me: why not give one or two ascension perks at game start (gate the powerful ones behind having X perks unlocked already)? I'm still interested in making it exclusive choice between space colonisation and terraforming (except the most trivial first stage terraforming).

The problem with going all-habitat is that you've currently got no new spaceports until you can build a ring. Maybe make the ring frame quite cheap, and adding each habit section is the expensive part?

The problem I run into with all Megastructures, other than Habitats, is that by the time I can complete them I've won the game.

Needing to hit the rare tech doesn't help with that.

It would be more interesting if you could start them mid game and start gaining benefits from them sooner. I think that is why Habitats work. You can get them fairly early and almost immediately start helping you.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2017 23:26

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Soup du Journey posted:

~*Mod ur way into tranquility*~

I doubled the energy output of dyson spheres and lowered the energy production of habitats

There should be a mineral version of the Dyson Sphere.

Some sort of planet cracking mine that sacrifices a habitable planet for 4 times the number of tiles the planet had for minerals a month.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2017 15:57

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

peak debt posted:

By the way don't forget that a habitat increases the amount of research needed for technologies both because it's a planet, and for the pops it houses. Meanwhile the Nexus doesn't do that. It shifts the cost/benefit ratio quite a bit especially in smallish empires.

By 60 years after mega engineering you're probably at the end the tech tree anyway.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2017 16:32

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Dr Snofeld posted:

What do you guys do by way of galaxy generation settings? I've just been going by the defaults, only switching between elliptical and spiral shapes now and then.

I almost always use spiral. I use tiny to test concepts and large for "normal" games. Usually with hyper lanes only.

If you want a change of pace try a ring Galaxy with only Wormholes.

It is almost as good as hyper lanes.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2017 21:41

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Guildencrantz posted:

I agree that would be better, but unfortunately it can't be done. As far as I can tell there are no modifiers for orbital station output. In any case this is just a quick and dirty fix to prevent PSC from basically breaking the game, I'd love to dump the concept but I have zero ideas for things that Science Better and aren't just duplicates of other Discovery traditions so

Make labs and science stations cost less upkeep.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2017 23:14

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Fanatical Purifiers should get a Terrorforming device that kills the inhabitants of a planet while rapidly teraforming it.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2017 15:25

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Something seems bugged with Mega-Engineering.

I've got Battleships, Deep Space Engineering and Zero Point Power, but the tech won't even show up in the console tech weights.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2017 20:15

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

alcaras posted:

After having played my first Hive Mind game, it felt a bit shallow/frustrating.

- Until the second Gene Modding ascension perk (which comes super late), I had no option but to harvest enemies for food
- This, of course, gave me a huge negative Genocidal modifier with everyone
- This ended up being with the game being perpetual war with everyone

Maybe enable Hive Minds to "mind meld" somehow with new pops earlier (i.e. apply "Hive Minded")

Game felt a lot more one-dimensional when playing a Hive Mind. Habitability > 40% was all I cared about.

Take extremely adaptive with hivemind. It is amazing. Settle everything and give no fucks.

I liberated or subjugated empires until I had the tech to integrate them into the hivemind.

Once I had the tech I integrated other species.

I really wish Gene modding was less costly because it blows to spend a decade tweaking things, even with the reduced cost.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2017 18:26

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Dog Kisser posted:

Precursor artifacts should be strategic resources. The chain should check whether you have the correct amount. That way you could trade other empires for em', too.

Only if they give me a "gently caress off and never talk to me again" option.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2017 22:38

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Soup du Journey posted:

MoO1 had stargates that let you travel instantaneously between two systems if they both had stargates built. Maybe wormholes could be a lategame tech that let you do something similar? To borrow some Civ language, regular hyperlanes could be like a road network that branches out more with higher techs, but wormholes could be a railroad analogue, letting you zip instantaneously between hubs. Maybe keep the radius around wormholes, but have it be exclusionary, so you can only have one wormhole station in a wide area centered around an already existing station. Endgame repeating techs could shrink that radius down a bit?

The ability to construct an artificial Wormhole/Hyperlane between two systems you control sounds like a great Mid game Mega-structure.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2017 21:38

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Chalks posted:

Yeah, this really should be the case - robot ascension should mean robot pops auto build like normal pops.

Also if Sector AI stopped building farms for their Robots.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2017 16:19

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Buckwheat Sings posted:

Ringworlds are a bit dumb in how they're inplemented. The game treats them as if they're a huge deal but the amount of time and resources required to make them is obscene.

You can only build 1 part of it at a time. You can't build any other big tech as it's building. The amount of time even with build speed is crazy. By the time you're done with it you've sunk about 75000 minerals and at least 30 years. If you're able to pull that off you've already won. Basically for 4 gaia planets. Big woop. Same withe gross amount needed for the science structure. Its hilariously lategame. I guess it's good for all those 5 percent increases.

It's more dressing than an actual goal or tactic. Much like how terraforming only really works on open planets and if you already control said system and leave OK planets open instead of just bum rushing everything you actually want to win.

They need to implement other ways to play instead like civ. Expanding as much and as soon as possible is by far the best thing you can do as there aren't any good alternatives early to mid game.

I would characterize the mega structure implementation as "cautious". Overly so.

None of them are worth building because they cost too much, take too long and show up too late.

Mods can help with this though.

Hopefully they revisit them and make them something you build up to over time instead of something you start when you already won the game and then spend the next hour watching build after you've already double won.

# ¿ May 1, 2017 22:19

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

AlphaMod is just one of those mods that gives you infinite options... and the impact of any choice is negligible.

For some people that is what they want. They want a billion levers to pull, even if those levers aren't connected to anything.

That is exactly what I don't like though. I don't want 100 options that at +5% to this and -5% to that to net out to nothing. I want a few big, power levers that make an impact when used.

# ¿ May 2, 2017 15:02

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

I Said No posted:

The AI is kind of easy to juke sometimes.

My current game was kind of stagnated, with me and another empire both controlling about half of the galaxy each and a bunch of smaller independent states have defense pacts going on with the huge empire (who I don't want to fight yet) so I couldn't really expand more or get much more leverage. I take a look at the opinions between states, and find that my nearest neighbor who are protected by the large empire have middling to good relations with the empire, mostly trust on positives and not much negatives.

I took a world I had from integrating a vassal completely inside in the large empire's territory and gave it to the neighbor, who gladly accepted such a generous gift.
Border friction immediately shot up to -150 between the two and the empire cancelled their defense pact immediately. Cue me dropping on the neighbor like a ton of bricks to plunder a bunch of their planets.

The AI is super, super easy to bait.

Leave some Troop transports in their territory sitting on the system's sun.
Have a fleet in the next system, ready to jump.

They'll dedicate everything they have to killing the transports. As soon as they enter the system start moving the transports to the area in the system your fleet will jump into.

# ¿ May 3, 2017 22:40

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

MarquiseMindfang posted:

I'm feeling personally attacked right now, and

When in doubt either go for "a slap in the face" or "an outrage".

# ¿ May 4, 2017 17:08

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Senethro posted:

I'm thinking those 28 habitats and the science nexus was 250k minerals that would have been better spent on acquiring more planets.

I'm pretty disappointed that the only Megastructures worth it are repairing existing ones.

220K Minerals for a Dyson sphere is still insane.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2017 04:59

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

I think they changed something to prevent save scumming this patch.

I tried to save scum the psionic drives Shroud event dozens of times and they all failed.

Don't judge, I was in a conference call.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2017 17:55

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Baronjutter posted:

I was always worried there was no "AE" effect in stellaris and "threat" wasn't enough, but it seems to be working to an extent. Early game some horrible hive mind managed to wipe out a civilization, shocking since we were all still at the 500-600 fleet phase of the game so I have no idea how they managed without any advanced start. Everyone in the area flipped the gently caress out and the top of my screen was flooded with non-aggression pact notifications and the odd defense pact. They went to war again, and won again, destroying a 2nd race. This swarm now was about 4x the power of anyone in the area, and another flood of defense pacts emerged. The next war didn't go well, ending in a white peace due to the locals working together via their defense pacts. Not longer after a bunch of empires joined together and attacked the swarm, and after a few wars this hive that seemed poised to overrun the galaxy was demolished down to a minor rump. With the threat eliminated, defense pacts began to fall apart, non-aggression pacts canceled due to opposing ethos and border friction, things returned to the status quo.

People complained a lot about the diplomacy in stellaris, saying defense pacts and treaties lasted forever, and empires never intelligently worked together to face existential threats. It's not perfect, but things seem a lot better now.

They only work together to block the player.

As soon as you hit critical mass they Fed up or Defensive pact into a huge blob.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2017 01:40

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

OwlFancier posted:

In the sense that "you haven't won yet" is your fault.

But I would prefer if crises were supposed to be more interesting than a glorified max turn timer.

They aren't. You can beat them.

If you're having trouble beating them adjust the slider and tone them down?

# ¿ Oct 5, 2017 21:26

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Shugojin posted:

I actually kinda like the idea of a crisis that starts at multiple places, because it makes it so I can't just say "oh hey crisis, meet my SUPER FLEET right in your home system " and have it be over.

That is one of the reasons why the Scourge are my leave favorite crisis.

"Oh hay duder who started on the outer rim near a blackhole. It would be a shame if someone dropped a million fleet strength right near your homeworld".

# ¿ Oct 5, 2017 23:20

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Splicer posted:

Hopefukl the war update will include "rally here!" "Attack here!" Options. Allies will follow you into battle as is, but adding a way to ensure we all show up at about the same time would be a huge boost.

Selecting Galactic Defender should open up a button like the "Follow me" one for Feds and Allies, except for everyone who is currently trying to fight the Crisis.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2017 14:31

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

wiegieman posted:

If I'm playing, say, Inward Perfection, not only can I not expand since space is limited and expansion requires wars, I also can't put together defensive pacts and federations since I'm an isolationist.

Liberate, Vasselize and Integrate.

Just peacefully.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2017 19:47

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Populating worlds mid/late game as robots sucks. There should be a Robo-Ascension perk that allows you to build multiple pops at once.

Maybe tie to to Machine Age or Machine Worlds?

# ¿ Oct 8, 2017 16:32

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Splicer posted:

There's a tick box at the top of the build robot screen that let's you queue multiple robots. Late game you should easily have the 2,500 on hand needed to queue them all up at once.

They still take forever to build, even with Techs and Unity Perks.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2017 16:48

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

drat, you can't Teraform ringworlds into machine worlds.

Or any other habitats.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2017 20:28

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Is there a mod that force all specials like Leviathans, Nomads, Ruined Megas, etc to spawn?

# ¿ Oct 11, 2017 22:52

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Talkie Toaster posted:

+Energy is better in the early game, as you can build specialist bots on energy tiles then robomod everyone to -10% energy later. The other way around is harder as you can�t retrofit bots selectively.

+Energy is better until you're at the dyson sphere stage.

Even then Dyson spheres are still bad investment of minerals so you're better off spamming 20 habitats and filling them with solar collectors.

Meaning +10% Energy generated is always better than -10% Robo Upkeep.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2017 16:46

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Baron Porkface posted:

I sure hope the next DLC is about egalitarians and xenophiles because currently that playstyle seems totally unremarkable compared to the boosts the others have gotten.

Fanatic Xenophile + Spiritual : Unlocks Civic "Fertility Cult" 10% Faster population growth per type of species on planet, 5% Unity per species type in Empire

# ¿ Oct 18, 2017 04:17

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Hyperlanes with expensive fixed point wormholes for intra empire traffic.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2017 20:16

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Baron Porkface posted:

what is the significance of "doesn't miss" in the long run of things?

Mouse over the accuracy in your next fleet fight.

30 or 50% accuracy is pretty common.

So "doesn't miss" can mean the weapon punches well above its listed DPS.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2017 05:50

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Lets talk about the real problems:

Why do I need to download a mod to get decent traits for Robits?

What is the point of having robo modding ascension and tech perks if there is only Tier 1 traits and most of them are garbage?

You can't even use all the points possible because you have limited number of slots.

And why can't I force my Sectors to use certain Templates? I've got some uber bot that costs the same and builds the same as some trash tier filth and the AI just spams the bad one. You should be able to mark a template as deprecated so no new one can be built.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2017 14:46

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 08:26

Xae: Jan 19, 2005

Baronjutter posted:

Welcome to the republican party

Xenophobic and Militarist Decadent Authoritarians with Syncretic Evolution.

The glorious self actualized Boot Strappers ruling over the prole Unwashed Masses.

:smug:

Or at least that is my Space Republicans build.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2017 21:11

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