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Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

Relevant Tangent posted:

Your game maybe. I have never resettled a dude. Maybe if I start a despotic hell regime I will.

eh? resettlement is only a tiny fraction of the tile management micro in this game, it's expensive enough that I rarely use it even if I'm playing authoritarian

# ? Jul 23, 2017 02:03

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# ? May 9, 2024 19:34

turn off the TV: Aug 4, 2010; moderately annoying

While looking at the game's files for defining star sky boxes I noticed that you can set the game to use certain textures at different distances from the galactic core, so I hopped in Space Engine to make some tests.

In increasing distance from the core:

My current plan is to make five or six sets of four. I haven't been able to break 2 gigs of ram usage even with 15 of these textures and two doom stacks dumping weapons at each other, so I think that I'll probably be able to make 24 maps work out.

# ? Jul 23, 2017 02:28

Twlight: Feb 18, 2005; I brag about getting free drinks from my boss to make myself feel superior; Fun Shoe

turn off the TV posted:

While looking at the game's files for defining star sky boxes I noticed that you can set the game to use certain textures at different distances from the galactic core, so I hopped in Space Engine to make some tests.

In increasing distance from the core:

My current plan is to make five or six sets of four. I haven't been able to break 2 gigs of ram usage even with 15 of these textures and two doom stacks dumping weapons at each other, so I think that I'll probably be able to make 24 maps work out.

These are really cool I've been using the real space mod as well to give things some more flair.

# ? Jul 23, 2017 02:43

Tarantula: Nov 4, 2009; No go ahead stand in the fire, the healer will love the shit out of you.

Just bought this game, loving it so far time seems to fly when I'm playing, have a lot to learn. Feeling a little overwhelmed when I start pushing out to 3 planets as it's a lot to manage with populations and such but overall I can see myself sinking hundreds of hours into this, for most people how long does a single game take to finish? I'm only a few hours in and I still haven't gone far in my little galaxy.

# ? Jul 23, 2017 06:40

Anticheese: Feb 13, 2008; $60,000,000 sexbot

Tarantula posted:

Just bought this game, loving it so far time seems to fly when I'm playing, have a lot to learn. Feeling a little overwhelmed when I start pushing out to 3 planets as it's a lot to manage with populations and such but overall I can see myself sinking hundreds of hours into this, for most people how long does a single game take to finish? I'm only a few hours in and I still haven't gone far in my little galaxy.

While there are a couple of win conditions based on territory and conquest, they don't mean much. Aim to get them for the achievement, and then just pick a goal and work towards it.

# ? Jul 23, 2017 08:50

Sanctum: Feb 14, 2005; Property was their religion
A church for one

Haha okay. Well that's how I got 3 ring worlds from an ascended empire without doing much of anything.

One thing I've realized is that it's better to use a cheap-rear end fortress that has a higher combat strength/lower maintenance than a decked-out defense-platform.

# ? Jul 23, 2017 09:18

Reveilled: Apr 19, 2007; Take up your rifles

Bloodly posted:

Sometimes I don't know what I want exactly out of Stellaris.

There's tile and population management!-Pops and planets feel empty, even with factions.
There's cool space battles!-With a lack of real control.
There's diplomacy!-You have little reason to talk rather than fight, even as a pacifist. It's nigh-impossible for certain types to be talked down.
There's terraforming and super-projects!-None are all that great, and take forever to even reach. The most game-changing is Habitats.
There's ethics and customisation!-It's there, but in the end, it doesn't mean much. Civics are similar. The most game-changing is Agrarian Idyll, or possibly the 'have level 4 leaders 'combo of Talented, Meritocracy, and Polytechnic Education'.
There's exploration and events!-Nice while it lasts, but generally doesn't last long.
Mighty Leviathans to test yourself against!-These are cool.

I feel like I'm being unreasonable somehow. I mean, I've put 579 hours in it, so clearly I must have enjoyed it somehow. But does it really count when I've not been playing the base game?

I don't know. I do the stuff, I take my losses, but I don't know exactly what I want.

Having played for a similarly significant amount of time I've decided that what I want is CK2 in space, basically. Sectors are intended to remove micromanagement, but since there's not a huge overwhelming amount of things to do in this game, I find the micromanagement entirely bearable, especially when the behaviours of sectors is suboptimal and I can't rely on them to run the way I want. But I wouldn't mind all that if sectors had interesting gameplay (and in a game like this a "story" is part of the gameplay) which came out of it. I don't mind the demesne limit in CK2 because it generates interesting outcomes.

The best way for that to happen is a stronger character focus. Sectors should elect governors in Democracies and Oligarchies, be inherited in Imperial states, and be appointable only in Dictatorships. Characters should have ethics which influence their interactions with the state and their sector, pushing for things like lower taxes, a large garrisoned army to reduce unrest, a wormhole station in every inhabited system in the sector, a hydroponic-focused habitat to alleviate food poverty, etc etc.

Or If my president is from the Egalitarian faction, I'd like events where we campaign to elect the egalitarian candidate for governor in the Delphic Sector, or maybe I'm pushing to get Authoritarian governors elected because I want to change the authority level to Imperial without triggering a massive civil war. And maybe when I do it too early some fanatic egalitarian governors form an alliance and spark a civil war anyway seeking to reimpose democracy or split away.

Right now Governors aren't actual characters, they're stickers I can barely afford, which I can stick on a sector to make it marginally better. That's boring.

# ? Jul 23, 2017 10:05

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

I really want to build some drill bots now. Why don't I have any drill bot building games.

# ? Jul 23, 2017 11:58

Larry Parrish: Jul 9, 2012; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Reveilled posted:

Having played for a similarly significant amount of time I've decided that what I want is CK2 in space, basically. Sectors are intended to remove micromanagement, but since there's not a huge overwhelming amount of things to do in this game, I find the micromanagement entirely bearable, especially when the behaviours of sectors is suboptimal and I can't rely on them to run the way I want. But I wouldn't mind all that if sectors had interesting gameplay (and in a game like this a "story" is part of the gameplay) which came out of it. I don't mind the demesne limit in CK2 because it generates interesting outcomes.

The best way for that to happen is a stronger character focus. Sectors should elect governors in Democracies and Oligarchies, be inherited in Imperial states, and be appointable only in Dictatorships. Characters should have ethics which influence their interactions with the state and their sector, pushing for things like lower taxes, a large garrisoned army to reduce unrest, a wormhole station in every inhabited system in the sector, a hydroponic-focused habitat to alleviate food poverty, etc etc.

Or If my president is from the Egalitarian faction, I'd like events where we campaign to elect the egalitarian candidate for governor in the Delphic Sector, or maybe I'm pushing to get Authoritarian governors elected because I want to change the authority level to Imperial without triggering a massive civil war. And maybe when I do it too early some fanatic egalitarian governors form an alliance and spark a civil war anyway seeking to reimpose democracy or split away.

Right now Governors aren't actual characters, they're stickers I can barely afford, which I can stick on a sector to make it marginally better. That's boring.

It's funny because like, why do I even have to pay for leaders when I assign them once and forget about them until they die. The game might as well just have an empire, fleet, and planet modifier that randomizes once and a while based on genetics tech

# ? Jul 23, 2017 12:18

GenericOverusedName: Nov 24, 2009; KUVA TEAM EPIC

Splicer posted:

I really want to build some drill bots now. Why don't I have any drill bot building games.

My friend, have you heard the good word of Factorio?

# ? Jul 23, 2017 13:11

RattiRatto: Jun 26, 2014; :I'd like to borrow $200M

:To make vidya game

Reveilled posted:

Having played for a similarly significant amount of time I've decided that what I want is CK2 in space, basically. Sectors are intended to remove micromanagement, but since there's not a huge overwhelming amount of things to do in this game, I find the micromanagement entirely bearable, especially when the behaviours of sectors is suboptimal and I can't rely on them to run the way I want. But I wouldn't mind all that if sectors had interesting gameplay (and in a game like this a "story" is part of the gameplay) which came out of it. I don't mind the demesne limit in CK2 because it generates interesting outcomes.

The best way for that to happen is a stronger character focus. Sectors should elect governors in Democracies and Oligarchies, be inherited in Imperial states, and be appointable only in Dictatorships. Characters should have ethics which influence their interactions with the state and their sector, pushing for things like lower taxes, a large garrisoned army to reduce unrest, a wormhole station in every inhabited system in the sector, a hydroponic-focused habitat to alleviate food poverty, etc etc.

Or If my president is from the Egalitarian faction, I'd like events where we campaign to elect the egalitarian candidate for governor in the Delphic Sector, or maybe I'm pushing to get Authoritarian governors elected because I want to change the authority level to Imperial without triggering a massive civil war. And maybe when I do it too early some fanatic egalitarian governors form an alliance and spark a civil war anyway seeking to reimpose democracy or split away.

Right now Governors aren't actual characters, they're stickers I can barely afford, which I can stick on a sector to make it marginally better. That's boring.

CK2 has still one of the best base strategy games of all times.
Stellaris could benefit so much by inheriting this (yea..)

# ? Jul 23, 2017 13:21

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

GenericOverusedName posted:

My friend, have you heard the good word of Factorio?

I want a game where I can look at a robot, say "I think this needs a drill arm", attach a drill arm to it, and then send it off to do... something... while I work on the next robot/template.

# ? Jul 23, 2017 13:34

Imperialist Dog: Oct 21, 2008; "I think you could better spend your time on finishing your editing before the deadline today."
\

What I like best is the stories that come from anomalies. Who crashed the mineral freighter? What planet was the mummified fighter pilot from? Does it still exist? Can we visit it?

I also want Space Wreckage. Exploring a new star system and HEY LOOK AN ABANDONED SHIP. What's inside? How do we get inside? Why is it abandoned?

I basically want a Civ 5/sci fi novel mashup with explosions.

# ? Jul 23, 2017 13:55

turn off the TV: Aug 4, 2010; moderately annoying

My favorite mods on the workshop are the ones that add more events, including empire/planet focused ones, introduce a crap ton more leader traits which make them all more interesting, and introduces CK2 style hobbies and related events for your ruler. I'd really love a lot more events, though, especially ones triggered by the internal circumstances of your empire.

E: Event chains kicked off by governors and planetary pops having certain ethics would be pretty cool. Like, a xenophobic governor at a predominantly xenophile planet could have an event chain dealing with resistance movements that varies in severity depending on the planet's overall happiness. Things like that would add a lot of character to the world.

turn off the TV fucked around with this message at 14:26 on Jul 23, 2017

# ? Jul 23, 2017 14:14

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

I've been playing around with mods to make the map larger, but this has taught me most star map mods just put more stars into the same amount of space. This results in everything above 2000 stars feeling far too smushed together, if that makes sense.

Are there any star map mods who also make the maps wider, instead of just putting more and more stars into the same space?

# ? Jul 23, 2017 15:44

Fintilgin: Sep 29, 2004; Fintilgin sweeps!

Libluini posted:

I've been playing around with mods to make the map larger, but this has taught me most star map mods just put more stars into the same amount of space. This results in everything above 2000 stars feeling far too smushed together, if that makes sense.

Are there any star map mods who also make the maps wider, instead of just putting more and more stars into the same space?

I'd really like more shapes for the maps, like scattered clusters of stars or two areas of stars separated by a gulf.

# ? Jul 23, 2017 15:53

turn off the TV: Aug 4, 2010; moderately annoying

Libluini posted:

I've been playing around with mods to make the map larger, but this has taught me most star map mods just put more stars into the same amount of space. This results in everything above 2000 stars feeling far too smushed together, if that makes sense.

Are there any star map mods who also make the maps wider, instead of just putting more and more stars into the same space?

I'm not at my commuter right now, but I think that there's a folder under common/maps that contains defines for the different galaxy sizes, and in those files you can adjust the size of the galaxy in addition to the number of stars. However, there's a comment saying that you may not want to bump the size over what the vanilla 1000 star galaxy has. Alternatively, you can adjust FTL speeds and sensors in some other files.

# ? Jul 23, 2017 16:47

Weavered: Jun 23, 2013

Reveilled posted:

Lots of good ideas to make CKII in space.

Something along these lines would be great.

People are talking about all the Great Stories they get from this game and I don't get how you make these after the early game. Once you're built up in Stellaris all the Great Stories I've had are me declaring war against the next random looking crocodile race over and over. Everything about Stellaris is about min/maxing.

Compare this to CKII: even if you decide to go on a world conquest game (the worst way to play CKII) there are still Great Stories to be had as you can find Hindu Persia or Muslim Ireland or whatever.

Stellaris has the double whammy of being in space so having none of the novelty of finding a Buddhist French Turkey and also being totally devoid of any character or charm. Even the Commonwealth of Man doesn't care if it meets The UN.

# ? Jul 23, 2017 16:53

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

I don't suppose there's a mod which adds small neighboring galaxies on the main map and some sort of ftl gate you can build to reach them?

# ? Jul 23, 2017 17:27

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

turn off the TV posted:

I'm not at my commuter right now, but I think that there's a folder under common/maps that contains defines for the different galaxy sizes, and in those files you can adjust the size of the galaxy in addition to the number of stars. However, there's a comment saying that you may not want to bump the size over what the vanilla 1000 star galaxy has. Alternatively, you can adjust FTL speeds and sensors in some other files.

Yeah, that size-limit is what I was talking about. There are mods with up to 10k stars, but I'd rather have less stars and have them more spaced out. Oh, well I didn't know FTL-speeds were moddable, thanks about that. I found some neat little mods to speed up FTL.

And since there is no mod trying to make maps larger (I think, I don't want to test them all to see if some stretched the map larger than they should, warnings be damned), I think I experiment a bit with this setting.

Edit:

OK, wow. Paradox wasn't joking when they warned to not set galaxy size too large. There's literally an invisible wall your stars smash into if you set width too high. What the hell?

Poil posted:

I don't suppose there's a mod which adds small neighboring galaxies on the main map and some sort of ftl gate you can build to reach them?

Plenty of those, just replace "gate" with "I had to make jump drives jump farther so you can reach them"

Libluini fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Jul 23, 2017

# ? Jul 23, 2017 17:36

turn off the TV: Aug 4, 2010; moderately annoying

Libluini posted:

Yeah, that size-limit is what I was talking about. There are mods with up to 10k stars, but I'd rather have less stars and have them more spaced out. Oh, well I didn't know FTL-speeds were moddable, thanks about that. I found some neat little mods to speed up FTL.

You can do that. Galaxy size and star count are separate, so you can make a setting that has 100 stars in a galaxy that's the size of a 1000 star one.

I have my own game set up to have 3000 stars, hyperlanes more irregular, about .05% of the habitable planets as normal, FTL, borders and sensor radii reduced to accommodate for increased density, with outpost influence costs reduced to accommodate. It's been pretty cool so far. The increased use of frontier outposts makes it so that minor wars to destroy them are more frequent and more important and fleet sizes are generally much smaller

# ? Jul 23, 2017 18:18

Truga: May 4, 2014; Lipstick Apathy

turn off the TV posted:

You can do that. Galaxy size and star count are separate, so you can make a setting that has 100 stars in a galaxy that's the size of a 1000 star one.

I have my own game set up to have 3000 stars, hyperlanes more irregular, about .05% of the habitable planets as normal, FTL, borders and sensor radii reduced to accommodate for increased density, with outpost influence costs reduced to accommodate. It's been pretty cool so far. The increased use of frontier outposts makes it so that minor wars to destroy them are more frequent and more important and fleet sizes are generally much smaller

Is there an easy way to achieve all this? I'd like to play a game like that.

# ? Jul 23, 2017 18:36

GamingHyena: Jul 25, 2003; Devil's Advocate

Reveilled posted:

Having played for a similarly significant amount of time I've decided that what I want is CK2 in space, basically. Sectors are intended to remove micromanagement, but since there's not a huge overwhelming amount of things to do in this game, I find the micromanagement entirely bearable, especially when the behaviours of sectors is suboptimal and I can't rely on them to run the way I want. But I wouldn't mind all that if sectors had interesting gameplay (and in a game like this a "story" is part of the gameplay) which came out of it. I don't mind the demesne limit in CK2 because it generates interesting outcomes.

The best way for that to happen is a stronger character focus. Sectors should elect governors in Democracies and Oligarchies, be inherited in Imperial states, and be appointable only in Dictatorships. Characters should have ethics which influence their interactions with the state and their sector, pushing for things like lower taxes, a large garrisoned army to reduce unrest, a wormhole station in every inhabited system in the sector, a hydroponic-focused habitat to alleviate food poverty, etc etc.

Or If my president is from the Egalitarian faction, I'd like events where we campaign to elect the egalitarian candidate for governor in the Delphic Sector, or maybe I'm pushing to get Authoritarian governors elected because I want to change the authority level to Imperial without triggering a massive civil war. And maybe when I do it too early some fanatic egalitarian governors form an alliance and spark a civil war anyway seeking to reimpose democracy or split away.

Right now Governors aren't actual characters, they're stickers I can barely afford, which I can stick on a sector to make it marginally better. That's boring.

Yeah I think part of the problem Stellaris seems so devoid of personality is that it feels more like you're a logistics department for an empire than the actual leader. The fun parts of Stellaris for me have never been figuring out whether I should put a mine or power plant on this specific tile on a planet. I've never particularly enjoyed going from planet to planet churning out individual ships and trying to herd them all together into a fleet, then having to replace the losses of that fighting force with more ships. You'd really think that planetary governors would be figuring out tile placement rather than the emperor. That's why I'm glad they've improved sectors since the original release.

I think Stellaris would benefit greatly from the palace intrigue of CK II and delegating some of the more tedious aspects. In CK II you fought neighboring kingdoms, but most of the fun was just trying to keep your own dynasty afloat. Dealing with space plagues ravaging your kingdom, figuring out why your admiral wants to assassinate the sector governor (and whether you should intervene), and murdering the neighboring emperor to try and install a more friendly government would be a lot more interesting than trying to optimize a planet's mineral output.

# ? Jul 23, 2017 19:37

turn off the TV: Aug 4, 2010; moderately annoying

I really like the Elusive Carcoa, or however it's spelled, event chain that a mod adds. It deals with an animal species on a planet in your empire that is able to distort reality in order to manipulate information about it. When it's sighted on one of your colonies it creates a cascading wave of people hearing about the animal, having their minds altered, and trying to spead their own version of what the creature is. As reports of the animal spread across your empire due to everyone who has heard about it being compelled to misinform everyone else the player is given a series of choices as to how to respond to the situation, pop modifiers are introduced, as well projects requiring assigned scientists.

I'd really like to see similar event chains.

Truga posted:

Is there an easy way to achieve all this? I'd like to play a game like that.

It's a hodgepodge of workshop mods and edits or merges that I've made, but most of the changes can be made via the files in the game's defines and galaxy set up folders.

Okay, here's my settings. They might be a little weird.

common\defines\defines.txt:

code:

	NGraphics = {
		GALAXY_STAR_ICON_SCALE				= 0.75	# 1.5
		GALAXY_STAR_ICON_MAX_SCALE 			= 0.75	# 1.25

		STAR_PIN_CIRCLE_RADIUS				= 0.0	# 2

		RANDOM_HEIGHT_MIN 				= 10.0	# 20
		RANDOM_HEIGHT_MAX 				= -10.0	#-20
	}

	NGameplay = {

		FLEET_MIN_TI_CLEAR_RADIUS 			= 1	# 10 min radius for clearing terra incognita will use the highest of this and sensor range

		BORDERING_DISTANCE 				= 18	# 50 Within this distance we're considered to be neighbours	
		RELEVANT_DISTANCE 				= 36	# 100 Within this distance we're considered to be diplomatically relevant

		NEBULA_TRAVEL_SPEED_PENALTY 			= 0.50 	# 0.30 30% travel speed penalty

		SENSOR_KNOWLEDGE_HIGH_DIST_PERC 		= 0.10	# See planet classes if distance is 30% of total sensor range sq distance
		HYPERLANE_GEN_REMOVE_PERC 			= 0.40	# 0.20 Try to remove 20% of the longest edges
		HYPERLANE_GEN_REMOVED_MAX_DIST 			= 99

		FTL_RANGE_WARP 					= 50	# 50 Base warp range
		FTL_RANGE_WORMHOLE 				= 60	# 65 Wormhole range
		FTL_RANGE_JUMPDRIVE				= 70	# 100 Jumpdrive range

		BORDER_BASE_RADIUS				= 4	# 15 The base radius of the border
		BORDER_NEW_COLONY_START				= 0.1	# Newly started colony's borders is modified by this goes up to 1x with progress
		BORDER_POPULATION_MODIFIER			= 0.15	# The border population modifier
		BORDER_HABITAT_MODIFIER 			= 0.33

		COLONY_SENSOR_RANGE				= 25.0	# 40.0

		PIRATE_TARGET_DIST 				= 40.0	# 80 Target system can't be further away from home system

		REBELS_JOIN_DISTANCE_SQRT			= 50.0	# 100.0 Distance threshold if rebels are to join an already existing rebel.

		WORMHOLE_OPEN_SPEED 				= 0.325	# 1.3 Wormhole opening speed. Wormhole capacity is incremented with this every micro update
		WORMHOLE_CAPREQ_OUTSIDE_BORDERS 		= 0.5	# 0.3 Percentage malus when opening wormholes to systems outside owner borders 

		DEBRIS_DAYS					= 1800	# 1800 How many days the debris is visible for

	}
	NEconomy = {

		OUTPOST_STATION_MINERAL_COST			= 50	# 200 Mineral cost to build outpost
#		OUTPOST_STATION_INFLUENCE_COST			= 0.0	# Influence cost to build outpost
		OUTPOST_STATION_MAINTENANCE			= 1.0	# 3 Monthly outpost station EC maintenance
		OUTPOST_STATION_INFLUENCE_MAINTENANCE 		= 0.10	# Monthly outpost station Influence maintenance

#		EXPANSION_COST_BASE 				= 20.0	# the influence base cost of colonzation and frontier outposts by this value.
#		EXPANSION_COST_DISTANCE_FREE 			= 30.0	# a certain amount of distance that is reduced from actual distance in effect making a "free" distance
#		EXPANSION_COST_DISTANCE_FAR 			= 100.0	# special modifiers will be applied from this range
#		EXPANSION_COST_DISTANCE_COST			= 2.0	# each 1 range equals X of this define as an influence cost to colonize or build a frontier outpost
		EXPANSION_COST_DISTANCE_SCALE 			= 1.20	# 1.1 scaled cost for exponentially increased costs depending on range

	NShip = {

		WARP_INTERSTELLAR_TRAVEL_SPEED 			= 0.07	# 0.35 In micro updates ( 10/day )

		HYPERDRIVE_INTERSTELLAR_TRAVEL_SPEED 		= 0.2	# 1 In micro updates ( 10/day )
	}


	NAI = {


		OUTPOST_STATION_RANGE 				= 100	# 400 AI consider outpost station to be able to extrude border about this far
		FALLEN_EMPIRE_AVOID_DISTANCE 			= 25	# 100

	}

map\setup_scenarios\custom.txt:

code:

setup_scenario = {
	name = "Custom"
	priority = 5					#priority decides in which order the scenarios are listed
	num_stars = 3000
	radius = 450					#should be less than 500, preferably less than ~460
	num_empires = { min = 1 max = 80 }	#limits player customization
	num_empire_default = 40
	fallen_empire_default = 10
	fallen_empire_max = 20
	advanced_empire_default = 13
	colonizable_planet_odds = 0.01
	
	cluster_count = {
		method = one_every_x_empire
		# method = constant
		value = 1
		max = 6
	}
	cluster_radius = 900
	cluster_distance_from_core = 100
	
	num_nebulas	= 20
	nebula_size = 60
	nebula_min_dist = 125
	
	supports_shape = elliptical
	supports_shape = spiral_2
	supports_shape = spiral_4
	#supports_shape = ring
}

turn off the TV fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Jul 23, 2017

# ? Jul 23, 2017 20:56

Korgan: Feb 14, 2012

# ? Jul 23, 2017 22:09

Cease to Hope: Dec 12, 2011

cool meme

# ? Jul 23, 2017 22:15

Psycho Landlord: Oct 10, 2012; What are you gonna do, dance with me?

Korgan posted:

Art.

# ? Jul 23, 2017 22:18

Crazycryodude: Aug 15, 2015; Lets get our X tons of Duranium back!

....Is that still a valid thing to jingoistically blow out of proportion?

# ? Jul 23, 2017 22:33

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

lot of people feeling the need to pretend they don't know the difference between game setup options and in-game choices for some reason

# ? Jul 24, 2017 00:05

Ms Adequate: Oct 30, 2011; Baby even when I'm dead and gone
You will always be my only one, my only one
When the night is calling
No matter who I become
You will always be my only one, my only one, my only one
When the night is calling

Korgan posted:

korgan we needed you in the meme thread and you weren't there

but this makes up for it

# ? Jul 24, 2017 01:45

Reveilled: Apr 19, 2007; Take up your rifles

The problem isn't really whether or not you need to min-max them, it's whether min-maxing them is both trivial and tedious. It's fine to have an option for min-maxing gameplay as long as achieving it is both a technical and mental challenge. Getting a character with 100 in all stats in vanilla Fallout 3, for example, was a task that required a lot of forward planning and careful record keeping, as well as route planning and good use of skills as you acquired them. Min-max gaming like this is fun for a lot of people, and optimising systems is a legitimate way to enjoy playing a game. If it's as simple as "build robot with +energy on power plant", on the other hand, there's both no good reason not to do that and also very little in the way of engaging gameplay if you derive enjoyment from playing optimally. There's no feeling of "ah, I've mastered this system" when optimisation is busywork rather than strategy.

Hopefully their implementation turns out to be more complicated than that.

# ? Jul 24, 2017 02:27

BadOptics: Sep 11, 2012

Korgan posted:

They should have sent a poet.

# ? Jul 24, 2017 06:02

Kitchner: Nov 9, 2012; IT CAN'T BE BARGAINED WITH.
IT CAN'T BE REASONED WITH.
IT DOESN'T FEEL PITY, OR REMORSE, OR FEAR.
AND IT ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT STOP, EVER, UNTIL YOU ADMIT YOU'RE WRONG ABOUT WARHAMMER; Clapping Larry

Reveilled posted:

The problem isn't really whether or not you need to min-max them, it's whether min-maxing them is both trivial and tedious. It's fine to have an option for min-maxing gameplay as long as achieving it is both a technical and mental challenge. Getting a character with 100 in all stats in vanilla Fallout 3, for example, was a task that required a lot of forward planning and careful record keeping, as well as route planning and good use of skills as you acquired them. Min-max gaming like this is fun for a lot of people, and optimising systems is a legitimate way to enjoy playing a game. If it's as simple as "build robot with +energy on power plant", on the other hand, there's both no good reason not to do that and also very little in the way of engaging gameplay if you derive enjoyment from playing optimally. There's no feeling of "ah, I've mastered this system" when optimisation is busywork rather than strategy.

Hopefully their implementation turns out to be more complicated than that.

That's a pretty bad example because getting 100 in all skills in Fallout 3 isn't min-maxing, it's just "maxing" since there's pretty much only one way to do it.

Min-maxing is all about using the least resources to build the most effective, in terms of game play wise, "thing".

While the robots aren't hypothetically that tedious to manage in the sense that you could build planets that are to be exclusively used for one thing (i.e mineral planet has mines and poo poo only, no food, no energy, no research) and you can just simply mod all robots/ascended pops on the planet, this does get hard to track unless you literally rename your planets to "mineral world 1" or something.

I think this would work fine if:

* Players could tick "auto manage pops" on core worlds and the AI would shuffle people around for optimum usage. I know migration seems to be broken now but I used to really wish for this as an egalitarian empire with migration treaties because I'd find my empire starving as all my farmers left and I don't get told until everyone starts running out of food.

* Sectors will know to build robot pops of certain templates on certain tiles. If I bother to make a drill bot, they need to make drill bots.

To a certain extent if both those things were in it would mean that cybernetics are actually vastly superior to biological tampering in that regard because if you have 5 mineral tiles you can build 5 mineral buildings and build 5 robots that have drills, whereas biologically you'd need to build mines on the entire planet and ignore whatever tile resources are on offer.

Realistically the more I play stellaris the more I think the issue is that some of the mechanics don't scale well. Exploration is great early game, when each system you're scouting matters, but you rapidly get distracted from exploration into war and management. This is why the auto explore was needed because at a certain point you want it to be happening but you don't want to pay it any attention.

Likewise pop management is interesting when you have 3 planets and 1 or 2 species, but when you have like 10 planets and 4 species plus robots you want it to happen but you don't want to pay lots of attention to it.

Stationary defences are cool and impact fully early game, having a 400 strength defense station on top of your 1,200 strength spaceport means they have to get a fairly big fleet before they can invade your planets early game. By the time you can build a decent number of fortresses though everyone who is a real threat probably has 8-10K fleets which will just bat aside your 1K fortress and your 1.6K spaceport.

I mean I could go on but I'll stop there as this is already a massively long boring post, but essentially if you pick any mechanic and look at it as if you were an empire with three or less planets it works great. It's when the empires start getting bigger that a lot of them start being seen as a drag. This is one of the reasons I suspect they keep downgrading the default percentage of habitable planets too, it is a conflict driver but it also reduced the micro management involved.

# ? Jul 24, 2017 09:46

double nine: Aug 8, 2013

Really when I think about upcoming feature changes for the mid/late game, I'm in a very simple mindset. If I get to play with it on an empire-level, I'm pro. If I have to deal with it on a planet-by planet, I'm ambivalent, if it's on a grid by grid basis, I'm not gonna touch it if I can help it.

Stellaris needs more stuff on the empire level, and less fiddling with stations and planetary grids.

# ? Jul 24, 2017 14:43

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

I like redesigning robots, but it would be ace if it came with a few macro tools to manage them. If I could press a button that said, "Build Drillbots on every mine or mineral bonus not currently in use," I would be happy. Concurrently, a button that said, "Move all organics off mines if there is space," would help. If I haven't got enough minerals I can prioritise individual colonies manually, but being able to build bots at the empire level would be great.

# ? Jul 24, 2017 15:10

turn off the TV: Aug 4, 2010; moderately annoying

There are mods to automate building robots, building and upgrading structures, and automate building civilian stations.

# ? Jul 24, 2017 15:18

Palleon: Aug 11, 2003; I've got a hot deal on a bridge to the Pegasus Galaxy!; Grimey Drawer

I just really want to see a better interface for telling sectors what I want. I wish I could say "ignore food tile bonuses but respect the others", or "ignore +1 tiles but respect +2, or really anything to prevent the insanly poor decisions the AI makes. Every time I conquer a world, I have to pretty much rebuild it from the ground up as they have farms on energy tiles, mines on pets, it's almost like they just randomly throw down buildings regardless of what makes sense. And if we can't teach them to build in a way that makes sense, more fine tuned control over their decisions would be nice.

Otherwise I'm left with what I do now, which is queueing an entire planets worth of buildings before handing it to sector AI because I don't trust it whatsoever. I keep hearing from devs that sectors are meant to help, and not a punishment, but if sectors were actually designed to help players, we'd use them voluntarily, instead of being forced into it by core limits. And if sectors actually made reasonable decisions (not even min maxing, just not...whatever it does now), I'd probably use it voluntarily.

# ? Jul 24, 2017 15:20

turn off the TV: Aug 4, 2010; moderately annoying

There are also mods that change the sector AI's building decisions, and even mods that can allow sectors to build and employ their own fleets and be represented in your empire's factions.

# ? Jul 24, 2017 15:32

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

Palleon posted:

Otherwise I'm left with what I do now, which is queueing an entire planets worth of buildings before handing it to sector AI because I don't trust it whatsoever. I keep hearing from devs that sectors are meant to help, and not a punishment, but if sectors were actually designed to help players, we'd use them voluntarily, instead of being forced into it by core limits. And if sectors actually made reasonable decisions (not even min maxing, just not...whatever it does now), I'd probably use it voluntarily.

You can't reasonably expect sectors to be as good as manual management, so in the absence of core limits the game incentives would point towards micromanaging all your planets, which would defeat the main point of the sector mechanic.

Though like you said it doesn't actually work atm anyway, since by far the best play is to give the sectors fully developed planets. I think the best solution would be to abandon automation and instead have sectors abstract out planet management, and do so in a way that removes the incentive to manually develop them first. Like if sector'd planets had a flat output that only depends on planet type/population/number of buildings built. There's quite a few implementation problems with that idea, though

# ? Jul 24, 2017 16:06

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# ? May 9, 2024 19:34

toasterwarrior: Nov 11, 2011

I'd be happy for now with a band-aid solution in the form of stronger sector governors. Right now sectors are just planets that end up being shittily optimized, and sector governors better than core planet governors only by the virtue of having their trait bonuses apply to every planet in the sector. Give them a rank-scaling production bonus and/or have their traits double in effect when managing sectors over core planets, and I'll happily play wide again instead of sticking to my core system limit and playing tall because I don't want to eat unity/research penalties thanks to dumbass AI.

# ? Jul 24, 2017 16:43

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