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Note that war costs are absolutely absurd, so most of the time you can't just force an entire empire to be your vassal, even if you literally could - and likely will have to - manually conquer every single planet on your own.
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Jan 31, 2017 10:55
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...It seems at odds that there's just nothing to do if you're at peace, but war is finicky and difficult to deal with.
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Jan 31, 2017 11:04
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StrixNebulosa posted:...It seems at odds that there's just nothing to do if you're at peace, but war is finicky and difficult to deal with.
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Jan 31, 2017 12:06
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Been sick the last couple of days, so I haven't kept up with the thread as closely. Espionage/sabotage/assassinations would go a very long way in making the diplomatic game far less stale. For example, assassinating leaders of certain government types would be more effective in certain cases, whereas culturally co-opting other societies could work in other cases. As it stands, the only real use of the diplomacy panel at the moment is to decide whether or not you wish to crush another empire at that particular point in time. Perhaps if interstellar trade were a thing as well.
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Jan 31, 2017 12:13
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Heartcatch posted:Been sick the last couple of days, so I haven't kept up with the thread as closely. Before enclaves were a thing, I used to try and trade minerals and energy with other empires. Since most of them tend to vomit out -1000 modifiers for sometimes dumb reasons (they won't take my energy because they are "too far away" are you serious, game???), it was a very frustrating experience.
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Jan 31, 2017 12:23
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Argas posted:Pfft, that's small time. Eventually, I hope you can build an artificial star, send it spinning past a system and completely destroying it as its mass wrenches planets out of their orbits, flinging them into the void. Artificial stars are only allowed if you strap a set of giant star-sized engines on them.
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Jan 31, 2017 12:40
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ChrisBTY posted:A war against my allies would be ugly, as they surround me. And my federation probably consists of 3 of the 4 most powerful non-fallen empires on the map at this point, including myself. I thought I could just turn enough of the map into a federation that I could win that way. But that doesn't look like it is about to happen.
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Jan 31, 2017 12:45
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ProfessorCirno posted:Note that war costs are absolutely absurd, so most of the time you can't just force an entire empire to be your vassal, even if you literally could - and likely will have to - manually conquer every single planet on your own. Heartcatch posted:Been sick the last couple of days, so I haven't kept up with the thread as closely. Splicer fucked around with this message at 13:49 on Jan 31, 2017 |
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Jan 31, 2017 13:45
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Another space station, this one looks like it includes O'Neill cylinders https://twitter.com/Martin_Anward/status/826408207501365248/photo/1
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Jan 31, 2017 14:21
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The problem right now with espionage/assassination is that losing a leader hardly affects anything. There's no shock, dissent, or risk of rebellion. In other Paradox games there's usually some mechanic that can destabilize nations. Maybe this will change when factions are fleshed out in 1.5. Federations need a lot of work too. The whole rotating Presidency thing is annoying. It should be some kind of static position decided by power or influence or something, so the player can stay in charge if they're the 800 lb gorilla in the alliance, but can also lose it if they don't pay attention.
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Jan 31, 2017 14:25
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Nielsen posted:Another space station, this one looks like it includes O'Neill cylinders There was also this pretty picture, which Wiz posted earlier but wasn't reposted here. https://twitter.com/Martin_Anward/status/826346839641321472 Roland Jones fucked around with this message at 14:33 on Jan 31, 2017 |
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Jan 31, 2017 14:31
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I can only imagine the rotating presidency of federations is there as a bizarre balance mechanic to ensure you don't just get a free second fleet, because otherwise it is too inane to grasp.
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Jan 31, 2017 14:42
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Tigey posted:Apes obviously That'd work really well with the new species mechanics. Bronze Age Ape Civilization with human slaves. Make it possible to show up instead of the UNE even if you're the Commonwealth of Man so we can find Earth and yell "YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP!"
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Jan 31, 2017 14:44
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Wiz posted:Maybe a post-apocalypse alternative to cockroaches? What would be the giant animal that's taken over though?
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Jan 31, 2017 14:48
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The federation president should just be decided by each other members' opinion of you like the EU holy roman emperor (actually was this in an earlier build of Stellaris?). That would help federations trend towards having a unifying ethos and you could just steal the imperial reform system to strengthen your federation or do things like increasing the presidential term length at the cost of a hit in relations with the other members.
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Jan 31, 2017 14:53
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Wiz posted:Maybe a post-apocalypse alternative to cockroaches? What would be the giant animal that's taken over though? Giant frog people who constantly argue and fight wars about what "winning" truly means.
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Jan 31, 2017 15:10
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LogisticEarth posted:The problem right now with espionage/assassination is that losing a leader hardly affects anything. There's no shock, dissent, or risk of rebellion. In other Paradox games there's usually some mechanic that can destabilize nations. Maybe this will change when factions are fleshed out in 1.5. Priority #1 for federations is that they need to fix whatever it is that makes the federation navy not follow your orders. It's seriously so unbearably annoying.
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Jan 31, 2017 15:12
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On the other hand, this game really is great. I mean we gripe about it, but I've been spending all my free time playing this one game recently where everything about the awakened empire and war in heaven really sang and made for a tense, gripping challenge. The key elements for me were that I wasn't bothered by the possibility of having to be an AE's vassal for a while, and the WiH seemed to end a bit inconclusively, which led to a cold war dynamic between the AE xenophobes and xenophiles. Being a thrall isn't so bad because you can still go to war. Even after gobbling up neighbors I still had to wait for the two AEs to be at war to get the chance to jump my overlords in a an ongoing fleet battle between the two. After I won the rebellion I got a bit too big for my britches though and started supporting independence and guaranteeing independence left and right, leading me to end up at war with the xenophile AE, which was by this point the far stronger one, and losing a bunch until I got my poo poo together. All in all, really fun game.
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Jan 31, 2017 15:18
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Started a new game for the first time in forever in anticipation of the new patch/expansion. Had an anomaly event that gave me survey data for a distant star. That star had a planet called "Dragon's Hoard" with 30 minerals and 30 energy, and wasn't too far away, near the galactic core. The first science ship was blown up by pirates hanging out at the edge of the gravity well. The second ship takes a detour and gets eaten by an extra-dimensional horror in a black hole on the way. Finally, the third ship makes it there, finding, predictably, an actual dragon that blows it up too. A few years later, as exploration in that area of space continues, I make contact with the Curators. Awesome, let's find out some more info about all these monsters! Not even a month after making contact, a Red Wraith shows up, blows up the Curators, and my fourth science ship. I think I'm just going to write "Here be Dragons" on the map down by the core and focus my time elsewhere.
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Jan 31, 2017 16:00
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Weirdly knowing the next patch is so awesome has lead to me not playing the game, as I know I will sulk the entire time thinking "Wiz is fixing this soon. It would be much better then".
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Jan 31, 2017 18:08
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ProfessorCirno posted:I can only imagine the rotating presidency of federations is there as a bizarre balance mechanic to ensure you don't just get a free second fleet, because otherwise it is too inane to grasp. It rotates so that all presidents experience centrifugal force which is far more cost efficient than artificial gravity 
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Jan 31, 2017 19:21
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I've begun playing the game a lot more in anticipation of the update. Maybe counterproductive, but I'm bored and remember liking this game a lot. I've played like seven games recently and I am still really bad at war. I'll defend myself, but balancing a fleet against building the perfectly-designed bunch of planets is tough. Chasing down enemy fleets is a pain as well. Do you build defense stations on your border to catch and slow down invaders? One in every system? Do you build one big doomfleet or do you spread your ships out into multiple ones?
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Jan 31, 2017 19:39
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Serf posted:I've begun playing the game a lot more in anticipation of the update. Maybe counterproductive, but I'm bored and remember liking this game a lot. I've played like seven games recently and I am still really bad at war. I'll defend myself, but balancing a fleet against building the perfectly-designed bunch of planets is tough. Chasing down enemy fleets is a pain as well. Always doom fleet, and stations are good on hyperlane maps. Build a speed-bump station near where the enemy will warp in, then surround that with sniper stations. It will destroy smaller fleets no problem, and hold the enemy doom fleet in place long enough for your death ball to arrive.
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Jan 31, 2017 19:42
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Kitchner posted:Weirdly knowing the next patch is so awesome has lead to me not playing the game, as I know I will sulk the entire time thinking "Wiz is fixing this soon. It would be much better then". dangerous thinking friend
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Jan 31, 2017 19:43
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Kitchner posted:Weirdly knowing the next patch is so awesome has lead to me not playing the game, as I know I will sulk the entire time thinking "Wiz is fixing this soon. It would be much better then". I was doing the same until just recently when I decided to just give this another quick spin. Game is still plenty fun but I kept thinking to myself "man I'm going to have to relearn this stuff all over again in a few months".
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Jan 31, 2017 19:59
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Serf posted:Do you build defense stations on your border to catch and slow down invaders? One in every system? Do you build one big doomfleet or do you spread your ships out into multiple ones? I've had some good luck building a main doomfleet and a sort of "light cavalry" fleet of hundreds of torp corvettes* and a few large support ships. When you have to deal with anything that has a big fuckoff death beam attack (AE Titans, for example), lots of small ships are better, being able to flank/distract seems useful (the ships do have to turn to face targets after all (I think??)). *Full disclosure: I am tinkering with a simple homebrew mod that gives afterburners a bonus to evasion.
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Jan 31, 2017 20:06
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So, I started a new game, tried out using warp drive, playing on a spiral galaxy (I knew what this combination would mean and kinda liked the idea of the challenge), finally got to send a fleet to the other spiral arm to kill off some space bugs, on the way there I made contact with a new empire that promptly closed its border to me, trapping my fleet on the other arm. In the middle of a war I had going on elsewhere. Uh. What do you do about this besides reload?? I tried war declaring just to get my fleet back but its independence was guaranteed by an advanced start empire that kicked my teeth in, making the maneuver counterproductive.
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Jan 31, 2017 20:09
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Also, do you mix up your weaponry or build dedicated ships that just do one thing? I managed to get both lasers and missile tech on my most recent game, so I threw missiles on my laser boats and the results are... unclear. I try not to go into a fight unless I have higher numbers. Should I just load each ship down with something in every slot or is it best to build ships as barebones as possible? I love designing ships, but its hard to tell what works and what doesn't. Like I've looked all over and I can't find somewhere that just tells you how much fleet strength each ship gives, or what weapons/defense tech the enemy is using.
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Jan 31, 2017 20:16
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do not use missiles at all at current, point defense is extremely effective against missiles and the AI likes point defense a lot. hybrid designs that mix both kinetics and energy weapons are effectively the 'gently caress it' route of ship design. it works fine, especially if you are the bigger man in the fight, but proper counter-design of your opponents is what will give you the extra oomph you need to handily defeat someone who is your size or bigger. plasma casters are the general 'use this if you're not sure' weapon right now. they do so much damage that specifics matter a bit less. fleet strength is about half-bunk. it's a good indication of how hard a fleet can shred, but it's only loosely based on tech level and ship hp/size. i've had a 70k FS fleet absolutely butcher a 90k one. Coolguye fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Jan 31, 2017 |
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Jan 31, 2017 20:21
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That's a really complicated topic I can't go into in as much depth as some here, but the current meta seems to be that missiles suck past the very early game, but a mix of energy and kinetic weapons can be useful depending on what you're up against. A well designed fleet really can punch above its numeric weight but you need to take advantage of the properties of the weapons and the defenses the opposition has. efb
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Jan 31, 2017 20:22
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GunnerJ posted:A well designed fleet really can punch above its numeric weight but you need to take advantage of the properties of the weapons and the defenses the opposition has. This is true, but it's almost never worth the effort to figure out what your opponent is using and then make a design to counter it. The game gives poor feedback on what an enemy is using, then you have to figure out what counters that, make a new design, maybe research components based on what you do or don't have, take the time and spend the resources to get your fleet ready - it all adds up to a huge ball of  that just isn't necessary if you design your ships to be well-rounded.More importantly, the whole idea of countering goes out the window if you're going to be fighting more than one opponent at once (allies, etc.), or at least in less time than it takes to redesign and upgrade. This is usually the case so even if countering weren't a pain in the rear end, which it is, it still wouldn't be a good idea. As others have suggested, there is definitely a "one size fits all" design right now and it's a roughly even mix of plasma and kinetics. Toss some PD on your destroyers and you're good to go. This is really all you need to know right now. This design works well enough that it's just not worth the effort to design to counter your opponents, especially since you'll probably be fighting more than one empire at once. The exception is endgame crises and awakened empires. These can be seriously strong, so it's actually worth the effort to make a design to counter them. But in every other scenario just do plasma + kinetics. Important exception: In the very early game, before the AI researches point defense, missiles are good because they pretty much have no counter. If you anticipate getting into a war very early on, like basically rushing someone, missiles are a viable pick. Possibly the best pick. As soon as the AI researches point defense, they are trash. Bold Robot fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Jan 31, 2017 |
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Jan 31, 2017 21:06
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GunnerJ posted:So, I started a new game, tried out using warp drive, playing on a spiral galaxy (I knew what this combination would mean and kinda liked the idea of the challenge), finally got to send a fleet to the other spiral arm to kill off some space bugs, on the way there I made contact with a new empire that promptly closed its border to me, trapping my fleet on the other arm. In the middle of a war I had going on elsewhere.
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Jan 31, 2017 21:16
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Splicer posted:There's a little circley arrow in the top left of each fleet menu. Click that, and it will try to send your guys back to your nearest port. If they can't get there they will (I think) go MIA for a bit and then re-appear at a spaceport. Cool, thanks!
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Jan 31, 2017 21:28
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GotLag posted:\steamapps\workshop\content\281990\ Cheers. Bold Robot posted:This is true, but it's almost never worth the effort to figure out what your opponent is using and then make a design to counter it. The game gives poor feedback on what an enemy is using, then you have to figure out what counters that, make a new design, maybe research components based on what you do or don't have, take the time and spend the resources to get your fleet ready - it all adds up to a huge ball of It'd be worth it to create varied ships if the game had some more complexity and control offered to the player on the combat end. I hate to harp on mods fixing and expanding vanilla features with Wiz checking out the thread, but NSC and ASB show this off pretty well. NSC expands the late game ship gameplay and adds more depth to the combat system while ASB adds in the ability to customize exactly how ships act in combat (IE: Charge, flank, hit and run, escort larger ships, etc, etc, etc.) and at what distance they start it at. A group of late game corvettes in a game using ASB are a hell of a lot more potentially dangerous than vanilla ones if designed right. A squadron of corvettes designed to execute a hit and run maneuver with missiles or torpedoes while using afterburners will easily punch 2-4x times above what their weight is provided they have enough shields to get in and out of the kill zone. Having some time to recharge their shields means they have more survival time in battle, which means that they can get more shots in assuming the enemy is primarily rolling with closer range weaponry. They're also useful for slowing down and distracting fleets while you prep for a fight, since fleets will be obliged to chase them down and slowly surround them while they harass them at a distance. Likewise, with NSC and it's many new capital and super-capital ship types it pays to keep an array of weaponry on hand just in case you run into a different fleet type than what you're used too. After all, there's lots of weapon slots available, and it proliferates some of the rarer weapon types to more end game ships. So having a weapon specifically designed to burrow through armor is much more viable than just building for power. Of course, seeing as how they're new cap and super-cap ship types it also preserves the early and mid game, while adding some depth to the later mid to late game. The higher cap on ship types and sizes also means that scouting out a fleet type is one of the more effective ways to counter an opponent that has more advancements in voidcraft tech than you do. Something NSC, ASB, and Alphamod's Fleet Mod also do is add more weapons that can be shot down by point defenses, along with rebalances the existing damage distribution of some weapon types so you have more reason to actually roll with weapon types that aren't just "energy weapons forever". I think it's Fleetmod that also adds a "swarmer" missile type that shoots slower but sends a whole swarm of missiles at a target too. It helps to keep missiles viable into the end game since you can't just go into a fight with maybe 3 point defense carrying ships tops and expect to negate their weapons. NSC also adds a special "Frigate" type ship class that can optionally be kitted out with a "flak" type weapon that's basically a torpedo sized suped up point defense that can also shoot ships if nothing is nearby. Doing so encourages you to not just roll in with maxed out military strength ships if you want to avoid casualties (Which you do want to avoid, since the new end game ships can get loving expensive.). Couple that with most end game NSC ship class types being able to fit at least one ship section with a hangar group and you have plenty of reason to use the sensor stations to assess fleet composition before invading. Along with using earlier ship classes like modern day fleet escorts for force projection ships and heavier bombardment ships. Really, the game just needs a bit more complexity on that end. This upcoming patch looks like it's at least adding the framework for it with the implied spy/sensor stations though. So i'm not too worried. Archonex fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Feb 1, 2017 |
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Jan 31, 2017 22:56
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Honestly, the big boys (crises and AEs/FEs) are what I had in mind as the use case for specializing fleets. Otherwise yeah you can get pretty far with a decent mix of energy/kinetics.
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Jan 31, 2017 23:05
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Arglebargle III posted:Judging by life in America, it's the squirrels who will inherit the Earth. In the same vein Pidgeons
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Jan 31, 2017 23:21
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GunnerJ posted:Honestly, the big boys (crises and AEs/FEs) are what I had in mind as the use case for specializing fleets. Otherwise yeah you can get pretty far with a decent mix of energy/kinetics. Plasma and GIGA CANNONS are all anyone needs for a generalised fleet composition at the moment.
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Feb 1, 2017 01:22
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Huh. Would it be worth it to build a buncha garbage level ships, then have them upgraded to a better design? Upgrading seems to take a lot less time? Repair costs don't decrease upgrade costs do they? If I move my capital around, can I build more Empire Captial thingies to get more influence? EDIT: why is the battle screen so useless? Why is the battle as a list, so I have to scroll around to see if I any ships are dying or not? Why do I care about the totals of various kinda damage except that I could maybe compare them if I wrote them down and compared to other battles? I guess I can see that they're doing a lot of damage from missiles, so I need more point defense? That's something? The end of battle screen at least tells me that yeah, my weaker ships died. But what can I do about that? I can't set different tactics, so what, am I supposed to uhh, do seperate fleets so they can do different things? Ugh. EDIT EDIT: I miss my lists so much. I just want to know "Am I doing well compared to the rest? Is my fleet strength greater than theirs? Exactly how much is "overwhelming" ? For people that mocked a dev for doing the same sorta vagueness in their mod its pretty ironic to see them doing the same sorta poo poo here. Hell, I can't even see the fleet strength of my vassals. Why is this info kept from me? EDIT EDIT EDIT: Goddamn fallen empire jingoistic motherfuckers, why do you not stop hating me after I humiliated myself and shut down those goddamn colonies I don't care how long it will take or how much my pacifists will hate it, you are going to be purged, every single loving one of you why can't I allow my vassals to colonize? Or then, at least colonize in their space?? I just gave away some strategic resources for 30 years to a FE that said it would give me a bonus to their opinion, only to find out that it does not. What the gently caress. Deceitful Penguin fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Feb 1, 2017 |
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Feb 1, 2017 01:27
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i think you might need a break
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Feb 1, 2017 04:58
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Coolguye posted:i think you might need a break Nah, he's at least right about there being some really buggy/wonky things in the game still. It's not something to get that upset about though. Some stuff i've noticed that messed up: Vassals are completely hosed balance-wise. Either they aren't really counting power properly or they actually get opinion modifiers that make them hate you (and scale quite a bit) the stronger you are than them. This means that it makes far more sense to either liberate or outright take over a planet in the base game since most vassals will immediately become disloyal and do absolutely nothing trade-wise if you're at the mid to late game. The modifier appears to also be an aggregate of all vassals and possibly protectorates too. It also means that all of your vassals will likely be more likely to rebel when you're able to effortlessly crush them, instead of when you're weak. Which makes no sense. It looks like the opinion modifier is literally backwards in how it's intended to work. Even if it's reversed so that weak=a good time to rebel it doesn't change the fact that it's a bit generalized. Simply checking power in favor of policy, past actions to other vassals, possible threats (I've yet to see any vassals do this, even when there's an AE on our doorstep.), etc, etc would be better. I'm really not sure what the point of that modifier is given it's current function. It just makes it so that it's better to liberate rather than vassalize since vassals will inevitably turn on you in some way. Edit: And apparently there's no longer a mod that directly fixes it too. The only time that i've seen one try to address it is with the Improved Populations mod that enables actual population and ethos based rebellions springing up in your empire. Though that's outside the scope of the game as it stands in vanilla. Archonex fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Feb 1, 2017 |
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