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So what does Synthetic Dawn add, just the AI empires and their respective civics? Any other content, shipsets, anything?
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Nov 5, 2018 16:36
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How will sectors work on LeGuin anyway?
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Nov 7, 2018 21:44
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OwlFancier posted:Sectors are now regions of space that are hard defined by the map geography and you still appoint governors to them. Acceptable.
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Nov 7, 2018 22:26
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Xerxes17 posted:So, ship and platform design. Just skip Destroyers and Cruisers (unless you can hit evasion cap on DDs, in which case they're good). Corvettes pack autocannons + plasma as you realized, eventually transitioning out to pure autocannons plus PD picket, while Battleships go full on lancers and neutron launchers. You keep them on separate fleets, the corvettes moving faster and pinning down the enemy while evasion-tanking the initial salvos, shredding shields with their autocannons, and the battleships move into position and finish the job from a safe distance away.
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Nov 24, 2018 13:20
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Strobe posted:So will using Cruisers and Destroyers, which have the highest chances to disengage. The goon that advised skipping those entirely is still remembering last balance patch's fleet optimization. No, it's still the same - the disengage changes give destroyers and cruisers an attrition advantage, but don't help you actually win fights with them. hobbesmaster posted:Aren’t cruisers the worst of all worlds? Cruisers are terrible. As line ships their DPR is terrible, and if you want maximum survivability just go evasion cap destroyers. Conspiratiorist fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Nov 24, 2018 |
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Nov 24, 2018 20:21
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Bremen posted:While the thread is on the topic, I have a question about ship design. I remember reading that evasion is capped at 90%. Is that 90% total, or 90% after being modified by tracking? I had noticed that late game my frigates easily hit >90% evasion and my destroyers can reach it too - I was wondering if it might be worth switching over entirely to destroyers at that point. Evasion is capped at 90% before tracking. If you can hit the evasion cap with them (ie evasion admiral), destroyers are very good.
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Nov 24, 2018 21:00
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Baronjutter posted:I hate that the combat and ship design system in this game means after every major update everyone just has to accept a new meta where X and Y ships are traps and "All Z" or some very specific mix becomes the new objectively mathematically proven optimal design outside of very specific edge cases. It's boring. The game is complex enough and, in the case of pure vs AI play, easy enough that unless you're very experienced or observant you really won't notice it. There are a lot of variables, so you'll seldom run into straight fleet comparisons. Where you could definitely notice it is in multiplayer against a competent human opponent, but even in that situation a lesser player is liable to get outplayed in multiple ways beyond ship design. Back Hack posted:I don't know, I've been using mine like torpedo bombers with afterburners and a swarm computer, they've been working out fine for me. Case in point. Agean90 posted:Considering the massive amounts of other variables that go into war if you winning or losing comes down 2 fleets that are the same size and yours needs to have the perfect ideal ratio of weapons you've messed up And this too, exactly. That said, if we're doing objective analysis of specific game components, some strategies are going to turn up to be just better in general, even if we're long past the obscenity of corvette swarms wiping 10 times their fleet strength in Fallen Empire fleets. Good ship design is relatively painless to implement. Conspiratiorist fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Nov 25, 2018 |
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Nov 25, 2018 05:31
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Zurai posted:There should definitely be a bigger reason to actually control the space around a planet. As-is, bombardment is awful. You can chip away at a planet for literal decades to minimal effect. In anything approaching reality, control of space would mean that any forces on the ground would be restricted to purely guerilla warfare because it's really not that hard to aim a railgun slug at any obvious massing of troops for massive damage to the army with relatively minimal damage to the environment or infrastructure at large. I understand that they want ground combat to have meaning, but right now the meaning is "it exists". I know that a revamp of ground combat is something Wiz is planning to get to, and I have full faith that the Stellaris team will revitalize it well, but yeah in vanilla there's just no reason to even try to bombard planets. Ground combat should just go the way of tiles - it's an artifact of when they initially conceived the game as a Grand Strategy + MoO hybrid.
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Nov 26, 2018 21:44
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Zurai posted:No, ground combat has value and should stick around, it just needs to be significantly better than what we have now. The majority of sci-fi movies or stories involve significant ground combat at some point except for Star Trek, which is intentionally pacifistic anyway. It's too important to the overall genre to discard even if it's somewhat unrealistic in principle. Given the focus of the rest of the game, there is just no good way to implement it that isn't a glorified progress bar. It needs to be abstracted and streamlined further, as a function of your fleets/techs/policies, and doubly so if/when we get an overhaul to fleet design and combat mechanics.
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Nov 26, 2018 22:43
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OwlFancier posted:Or if you are going to have granular combat it makes infinitely more sense to integrate it into the fleet combat or the economy, because those are the two developed areas of the game. Hence the wisdom of tying ground combat into fleet strategy decisions and economic development directly. You can not have a well functioning combat system that is wholly relegated to what happens after you conquer a planet, a thing that is entirely decided by fleet combat and does not integrate into the rest of the game.  ED: some games built entirely out of minigames like Star Ruler 2 can be quite good, but it requires deliberate structuring towards that. It doesn't fit Stellaris' post-release sense of direction.
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Nov 28, 2018 21:59
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But they're an essential part of science fiction!
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Jan 26, 2019 05:23
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toasterwarrior posted:What's the common wisdom around fleet design again? I've been running with a 2:1 ratio for ship sizes (2 corvettes to a destroyer, 2 destroyers to a cruiser, etc.) mindset and it seems to be doing ok. Corvettes are better offensively under no-retreat doctrine, otherwise destroyers have the advantage of high survivability with the right evasion set ups. Battleships form the backline with large mount long-range weapons, and are best kept off in a separate fleet that engages after the cvs/dds. Skip cruisers.
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Jan 29, 2019 14:18
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Beta branch patch fixes it.
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Jan 31, 2019 14:26
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ZypherIM posted:Machine empires are weaker than normal based mostly on some econ fiddly stuff. They were nerfed a little too hard right before 2.2, because they were like twice as good as normal empires. The devs have acknowledged this in a couple places. Only if by acknowledgment you meant denial.
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Feb 3, 2019 06:40
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Can anyone confirm if disabling gateways improves performance in 2.2.4 like it does in the rest of 2.2.x?
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Mar 1, 2019 20:51
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Ship/fleet design in Stellaris is pretty simple, really; Corvette swarms counter Battleships, Destroyers counter Corvettes, long-range Battleships counter Destroyers and other Battleships, and Cruisers are useless.
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Mar 3, 2019 20:54
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Destroyers are indeed only good for mounting PD; they're support ships that should be used in conjunction with other ship types. If the enemy doesn't have missiles, torpedoes or bombers, they aren't worth using. Cruisers aren't worth bothering with because they're soon enough obsoleted by Battleships. Their window is just too narrow to even bother designing them.
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Mar 3, 2019 22:17
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ZypherIM posted:Cruisers are worse as a screen against missiles (poor picket section options), but can function really well as anti-corvette ships (combination of mount options and computer options). They're also quite functional as a missile base, and are your first strike craft option. They're likely to have better hull than your corvettes per CP as well (takes both +hull techs to get more). They do a lot of poo poo that battleships can't (notably battleships have no missile options, and can't use picket computers) and can mount the same amount of s/m/l slots per CP as a battleship. The only real edges battleships have is xl slots, hangers, and if you're going for max L slots (6 L slots versus 4 L 4 M). Thing is, XL Battleships with Emitters/Launchers/Artillery will demolish Cruisers and Destroyers, and are only really threatened by mass Torpedo Corvette swarms and other Battleships (which Destroyers screen them against). The Cruiser usability window is just really small - like right after you unlock them, before anyone has anything bigger, and even then I'd rather spend the alloys on hulls I can repurpose latter.
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Mar 4, 2019 00:38
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Kestral posted:Are there any viable "Tall" strategies / civic-ethic combos going around at the moment? I haven't played since Apocalypse, and I'd like to ease into the new mechanics without having to also manage a gigantic empire. I was always the "Science Nexus rush" kind of player, but I'll take a look at anything that keeps empire size down. Tall tech rush is strong. There are several ways to do it, and megacorps are good at it, but if you want to minimize dealing with various mechanics: Devouring Swarm, Divided Attention Sedentary, Communal, Rapid Breeders Expand into the guaranteed matching habitability planet quickly, then look into locking down your constellation with good chokepoints and rushing into star fortresses to secure them. No need for a fleet or trade or diplomacy, starbases can handle enemy fleets, so just tech rush until like 2300 and then emerge from your space to dominate the game. Expansion Tradition + Devouring Swarm means your outposts will be dirt cheap on influence. Supremacy after to buff up the starbases. No need to actually build defense platforms until you actually get into a war, but just from their high fleet power the AI will be strongly discouraged to mess with you. Adaptability is a good third Tradition for the additional building slot on planets. Focus on pop growth since they're the basis of the economy in 2.2, research labs + mining districts to sustain them, sell poo poo you don't need on the market for the resources you need. Specialize worlds as you colonize more within your space. Ascencion Perks: Technological Ascendancy into Engineered Evolution, followed by Hive Worlds. Evolutionary Mastery when available. Once you get Genetic Tailoring you can modify your pops on your main research worlds into Intelligent + Engineering (get rid of sedentary), and on the rest of your worlds into Agrarian + Nomadic. Turn on Migration Control so they don't intermingle. And with Genetic Resequencing you can go ahead and modify both pop types into a single Fertile+Communal+Nomadic+Erudite race (guaranteeing all leaders get Erudite). By around 2300 you should be running into the repeating Admin Cap tech, and be technologically superior to all other empires, so you can begin retooling your economy towards alloy production and fleet building. War is a simple affair: steamroll, capture planets, then relocate all their pops into a single specialized world for consumption while your own pops settle whatever seems most valuable.
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Mar 6, 2019 20:55
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That's what you get for meddling with artifacts beyond your understanding!
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Mar 7, 2019 13:24
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Strike craft are currently pretty nice in terms of winning battles, but their damage burst is anemic so the targeted enemy ships just disengage before you can kill them. Probably some value in countering rushes in PvP but I haven't experimented with that.
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Mar 8, 2019 18:59
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ZypherIM posted:Oh yea, you're right. Not sure how I swapped that in my head. Their hive districts are really efficient comparatively since they don't generate jobs on you. It's a good tree early-mid game, when all its bonuses actually make an impact.
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Mar 8, 2019 22:32
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Xeno-compatibility is a management clusterfuck just there for the roleplay.
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Mar 11, 2019 01:57
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AnEdgelord posted:Any advice for playing criminal syndicates? I feel like its way to easy for my branch offices to get removed without really getting up and running. There's no trick; they can do pretty good in MP since the crime lords deal is excellent for players, but the AI easily counters them by spamming precints and there really isn't much you can do about it.
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Mar 25, 2019 02:22
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Speaking of pop growths, I've been experimenting with zero consumer goods builds, and I was having population issues with my syncretic Fanatic Hypocrites (FanEgal + Xenophobes that enslave the serviles), but I think I nailed it down with Nonadaptive on the main race and Slow Breeders on the plebs which nets a 1:4 growth ratio.
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Mar 25, 2019 22:22
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The only penalty to going zero energy is fleet strength, so you could've just let it coast there while scrapping useless buildings and and settling into the new vital space. You could've even gone to war against the next target right away while on negative energy - sell resources for cash right before the monthly tick, and if you're on a positive balance it'll restore your fleets to full.
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Mar 26, 2019 04:58
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The Iron Rose posted:Machine empires are comically overpowered. Like into repeating techs and 900 ships by 2300 overpowered. It's great and the AI with one can almost keep up. It's been fluctuating over the course of 2.2 but currently Driven Exterminators are about neck to neck with tech rush tall Devouring Swarms, as far as the better Early~Mid races go. Their downside is they can't get Ecumenopoli unless by events or stealing them off those who do, and Ecumenopoli are OP as hell and the key to truly exploding past the mid-game. That said, if you have a strong enough early-mid game you don't need an overwhelmingly powerful late game, which is why aggressive early rush races (FanMil+Xenophobe, Admiralty+Life Seeded) also work, and might even be better in MP environments were players are unpredictable and might rush you if they see you turtling up to build tall.
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Mar 27, 2019 19:45
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Cynic Jester posted:Determined Exterminators are right up there with Post-Apocalypse Purifiers in terms of early game snowballing, but Purifiers get to make robits and ecus, which puts them far ahead in the mid and late game. Nah, Tall Swarms are pretty strong, and have the advantage of not requiring to eat their neighbors to achieve this (though they absolutely can if they spot a particularly vulnerable target). It's all about the massive pop growth and lack of dependency on CGs, and discounted expansion costs letting them quickly lockdown favorable space without having to actually switch to a war economy.
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Mar 27, 2019 20:09
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Gyshall posted:How does a tall swarm work exactly? Take advantage of your 50% influence cost discount to quickly expand out to your chokepoints and lock them down with upgraded starbases, then focus on a pop rush with communal + rapid breeders species (Divided Attention also helps since this is a tech rush build) and the 33% growth policy. The high food consumption is sustainable with some attention paid to farming, but if there's a vulnerable target nearby you can also turn their pops to livestock (best way to do this is to relocate all the foreign pops to a single dedicated feeding planet). A tech rush is also significantly easier to execute with a hive mind because all you need to do is build a bunch of research labs and the mining districts to sustain them (and Hive World ascension allows you to designate entire worlds towards mining) and if you're not getting distracted by wars then you needn't worry about alloy production either until like 2280, at which point every single other empire should be technologically pathetic towards you, and you can then begin switching to a war economy and fleet building to take over the galaxy.
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Mar 28, 2019 01:10
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Through tech rushing you can build up starbases that discourage attacks from the AI at any stage of the early game. Only FEs are a threat. ED: This is even advanced start AI proof. Conspiratiorist fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Mar 28, 2019 |
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Mar 28, 2019 01:27
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ZypherIM posted:What are your difficulty settings? I find it hard to believe you can skip trying to invest in fleet for that long. Medium Galaxy, 18 Advanced AI Empires, Grand Admiral, High AI Aggro, 2300-2350 mid/end game, normal tech costs, halved wormhole pairs.
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Mar 28, 2019 02:30
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That could be more difficult under the right dice rolls, but the settings are mostly to test the functionality of the build when placed under guaranteed stress (limited territory sandwiched between two aggressive advanced AIs).
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Mar 28, 2019 04:50
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Ham Sandwiches posted:In EU4 lots of people try for world conquests and blobbing, in HOI4 it's often the same same, but in Stellaris it seems different, like people seem to expect to be struggling the whole time? Stellaris is different because it's a 4X game with symmetrical starts, vs every single other Paradox grand strategy game in which the initial game state is asymmetrical and offers a great variety of self-selecting difficulty options based on the player's chosen starting position, combined with the variety of ways in which the AI nations will end up playing out their regional conflicts. Plus, in those games the AI tends to easily band together against an overaggressive player that doesn't play the diplomacy game correctly and concurrently with conquest, giving pause to the mindless warmongering that Stellaris encourages.
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Mar 28, 2019 16:37
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I wanted Sword of the Stars with more bells and whistles. ED: A bit tangentially, but the Dev Clash shows that they are oblivious about their game on so many levels. Conspiratiorist fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Mar 28, 2019 |
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Mar 28, 2019 16:53
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Nihilistic Acquisition is kind of bad since if you've got the military superiority to leisurely steal pops then it isn't much of jump to just capture or vassalize, but nevertheless you must spend a tradition pick to get the option. Inward Perfection slavers are funny, though. You can do One Planet Challenges with that.
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Apr 1, 2019 20:41
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Nuclearmonkee posted:The first pick is the least valuable one and it's very good to be able to declare war on someone for whatever random rear end reason you feel like, completely ignore the wargoal and just go around stealing all their poo poo. Having slaves sucked directly onto your planets with people ready to put boots on their necks is quite strong and saves a lot of effort and headache with redistributing pops around from your freshly conquered pissed off planet. It's situationally "decent" but, again, in most cases if they can't stop you from bombarding their planet, then they can't stop you from taking that planet, so might as well save yourself a civic and do that instead. And if all you want are the pops then you can handle relocation in a controlled manner instead of spreading angry pops all over your empire that you then have to manually assign to suitable planets, so there goes that argument, too.
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Apr 2, 2019 04:25
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ZypherIM posted:You're ignoring the main thrust of his post, which is that in order to take their stuff you're forced to invest a bunch into army and claims. Being able to steal pops gets you the majority of the benefit of taking the area, none of drawbacks, and enables you to benefit from fighting in wars that you normally wouldn't (so a war against someone non-adjacent to you isn't a waste of time). Being able to spare a fleet to just sit there and bombard, but not armies? Capturing and releasing space being more of an administrative hassle than reshuffling angry pops that randomly spread about your empire? My point is those are niche situations, and their scope should weighted vs the opportunity cost of an ascension perk. Again, those situations can exist, and when it seems like they'll be a common occurrence in that game then the pick becomes decent enough to warrant taking, but otherwise? poo poo, just take Imperial Prerogative.
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Apr 2, 2019 04:59
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twistedmentat posted:What are generally good dates for mid and end game? I was playing for AGES with the mid game as early as possible as I didn't even know it was a slider, so I was facing threats with fleet powers larger than every single ship in the entire galaxy at the time. Fun, but not winnable. 2300 midgame / 2350 lategame with 5x crisis strength is good.
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Apr 2, 2019 05:58
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Fojar38 posted:Speaking of naval chat, are hangars still terrible? Because I'd really like to use them but in past iterations of the game they've been worthless. Hangars are pretty good, and my go-top pick for defense platforms since they're both fairly strong and inflate fleet power (station itself packs guns, though.) The "issue" with strikecraft currently is that while their damage output is solid, since it comes in small discrete packages it increases the chance of enemy ships disengaging (each hit below their retreat HP threshold giving them a roll to withdraw). So they're relatively good at winning battles, but poor at actually eliminating enemy ships. Conspiratiorist fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Apr 3, 2019 |
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Apr 3, 2019 22:17
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 11:48 |
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Larger galaxies only make the game's problems worse, not better. A competent player is still going to win the game against the AI by 2300 if not earlier as they beat their neighbors and their economies explode, so a bigger map just makes it more a grind in terms of time consumption and micromanagement.
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Apr 7, 2019 21:40
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