Stellaris: a second Astral Planes has hit the game

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

ZypherIM: Nov 8, 2010; "I want to see what she's in love with."

Reveilled posted:

My favourite part of that is that the description of the God Ray implies that it's wielders are fully aware that the religious experiences it imparts are mere hallucinations with no genuine spiritual content.

We'll make them believe, even if we have to trick them into doing so.

Have you met insanely religious people? I know actual people who have said this unironically.

# ? Nov 18, 2018 01:31

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# ? May 26, 2024 01:37

Galaga Galaxian: Apr 23, 2009; What a childish tactic!
Don't you think you should put more thought into your battleplan?!

TheDeadlyShoe posted:

There's a mercenary office that gives you some stuff and grants the planet a Soldier job

Screw the ground pounder poo poo (though thats fine too), a real space mercenary wants to compete/beat the Nomads for the "Space Fleet for Hire" business.

# ? Nov 18, 2018 02:29

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Two cool things from my current achievement-hunt/explore-the-unmodded-content game (huge galaxy, lots of primitives, max fallen empires/raiders, no other AIs):

1. Never seen a settled L-Cluster before, and I look forward to asking them awkward questions.
2. On first finding a ruined ringworld after completing one of my own, having the button to close the box about how it's the product of an advanced civilization just read "As advanced as we are, at least." That, I really appreciated.

# ? Nov 18, 2018 02:44

ur in my world now: Jun 5, 2006; ^{Same as it ever was}
^{Same as it ever was}
^{Same as it ever was}
^{Same as it ever was}; Smellrose

Bremen posted:

One of the options is a neutron sweep that just kills off the entire population. I'm not 100% sure if it leaves the buildings though (I've never used it).

If you're driven assimilator there's also a nanobot option that instantly assimilates all the pops.

Neutron sweep kills all pops but leaves the buildings and makes the planet a radioactive hellhole for something like ~20 years. You can resettle it before then but it has a -30% habitability malus

# ? Nov 18, 2018 04:48

Shadowlyger: Nov 5, 2009; ElvUI super fan at your service!

Ask me any and all questions about UI customization via PM

ur in my world now posted:

Neutron sweep kills all pops but leaves the buildings and makes the planet a radioactive hellhole for something like ~20 years. You can resettle it before then but it has a -30% habitability malus

Really? Huh. I don't think I've ever noticed the habitability hit...

# ? Nov 18, 2018 05:15

Psychotic Weasel: Jun 24, 2004; Bang! You're dead.

By the time you have one you likely have all, or nearly all, the habitability techs as well so the penalty is barely noticeable.

# ? Nov 18, 2018 05:27

binge crotching: Apr 2, 2010

Psychotic Weasel posted:

By the time you have one you likely have all, or nearly all, the habitability techs as well so the penalty is barely noticeable.

Yep.

# ? Nov 18, 2018 05:29

Xerxes17: Feb 17, 2011

If Tomb world adap pops are effected by that, literally unplayable.

# ? Nov 18, 2018 10:59

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

I did a MSF run and went with Militarist/Egalitarian/Xenophile, strong+the 1-point habitability pick, oligarchy and the Citizen Service + Beacon civics.

Naturally I made Earth an 'ocean' world. The United Nations has no idea what we're up to.

# ? Nov 18, 2018 11:07

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

Pylons posted:

Nothing really special. Army damage +20% Army Upkeep -20%.

Mercenaries are expensive, and not very reliable.

Army damage +20%, Army Upkeep +50%, Army morale -20%

They are also good at warcrimes, so +50% morale damage.

# ? Nov 18, 2018 11:14

Bloodly: Nov 3, 2008; Not as strong as you'd expect.

Bremen posted:

Stellaris: Really making you appreciate that the Imperium of Man is so incompetent at everything.

There's a Warhammer total conversion about.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1218196255

It suffers because of the current systems and sheer slowdown dragging everything to a crawl. But the Imperium is basically unplayable despite being an option ad having the most mechanics devoted to it. They can't research because they have so god damm many planets and systems(Everyone starts mostly at the bottom of the tech tree, except for most weapon types being unlocked-Necrons have an advantage here, starting with Level 2 Plasma and some X-weapons), and other races are more able to advance at it's expense, and indeed have to.

Many planets are under-developed, and it lacks enough armies and fleets to cover everything.

Bloodly fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Nov 18, 2018

# ? Nov 18, 2018 16:21

pmchem: Jan 22, 2010

Is Stellaris 2.2 gonna do anything for the crappy font size and scaling on 1440p / higher res monitors? WHAT YEAR IS THIS?

Or do people still use mods for that?

# ? Nov 18, 2018 17:23

Jazerus: May 24, 2011

Bloodly posted:

There's a Warhammer total conversion about.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1218196255

It suffers because of the current systems and sheer slowdown dragging everything to a crawl. But the Imperium is basically unplayable despite being an option ad having the most mechanics devoted to it. They can't research because they have so god damm many planets and systems(Everyone starts mostly at the bottom of the tech tree, except for most weapon types being unlocked-Necrons have an advantage here, starting with Level 2 Plasma and some X-weapons), and other races are more able to advance at it's expense, and indeed have to.

Many planets are under-developed, and it lacks enough armies and fleets to cover everything.

this sounds like an extremely accurate portrayal of the imperium

# ? Nov 18, 2018 19:20

Dareon: Apr 6, 2009; by vyelkin

pmchem posted:

Is Stellaris 2.2 gonna do anything for the crappy font size and scaling on 1440p / higher res monitors? WHAT YEAR IS THIS?

Or do people still use mods for that?

I'm pretty sure I saw something in a diary or tweet about experimental UI scaling.

# ? Nov 19, 2018 07:11

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

Jazerus posted:

this sounds like an extremely accurate portrayal of the imperium

Yeah, the Imperium should not be able to research at all (except maybe through reverse-engineering) and should just try to solve everything with brute force and huge production bonuses for their ancient, but huge ships and giant armies.

The Necron are even weirder. Necron ships have weapons which work a lot like Arc Emitters or Cloud Lightning. Necrons with plasma? WTF? How could you fail so bad at making a 40K-mod?

# ? Nov 19, 2018 12:34

McSpanky: Jan 16, 2005

Libluini posted:

There are three of those, if you don't want to make planets unusable.

The assimilator-only variant.
The neutron sweeper.
The God Ray.

How's Colossus modding? Could you make like, a Genesis Effect Colossus that turns the planet into a Gaia world but wipes out all existing life and structures in the process?

# ? Nov 19, 2018 12:51

Rynoto: Apr 27, 2009; It doesn't help that I'm fat as fuck, so my face shouldn't be shown off in the first place.

Should be possible. All using a colossus on a planet does is trigger an event.

# ? Nov 19, 2018 13:02

LordMune: Nov 21, 2006; Helim needed to be invisible.

McSpanky posted:

How's Colossus modding? Could you make like, a Genesis Effect Colossus that turns the planet into a Gaia world but wipes out all existing life and structures in the process?

Actually creating a new ship model and animations for it would be a hassle, but the gameplay effects you describe would be trivial to mod.

e:f,b

# ? Nov 19, 2018 13:04

Thyrork: Apr 21, 2010; "COME PLAY MECHS M'LANCER."

Or at least use Retrograde Mini's to make cool mechs and fantasy stuff.; Slippery Tilde

McSpanky posted:

How's Colossus modding? Could you make like, a Genesis Effect Colossus that turns the planet into a Gaia world but wipes out all existing life and structures in the process?

That could be a really easy ascension perk, requiring both colossi and world shaper.

# ? Nov 19, 2018 13:05

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

Thyrork posted:

That could be a really easy ascension perk, requiring both colossi and world shaper.

Don't even bother with an extra ascension, if you have both you get the combo special for free.

# ? Nov 19, 2018 13:11

Thyrork: Apr 21, 2010; "COME PLAY MECHS M'LANCER."

Or at least use Retrograde Mini's to make cool mechs and fantasy stuff.; Slippery Tilde

Yeah that's better. Its only perk worthy if it's not going to kill everyone and destroy all the buildings. Because then you'd just go around terraforming your worlds and allied worlds.

# ? Nov 19, 2018 13:46

Canuck-Errant: Oct 28, 2003; MOOD: BURNING - MUSIC: DISCO INFERNO BY THE TRAMMPS; Grimey Drawer

So it looks like happiness isn't going to be tied to habitability anymore, but habitability is going to affect consumer goods need on a per-planet basis. Neat.

# ? Nov 19, 2018 14:20

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

Canuck-Errant posted:

So it looks like happiness isn't going to be tied to habitability anymore, but habitability is going to affect consumer goods need on a per-planet basis. Neat.

Sexy Planet feature: domes appear based on how many low hab pops you have

# ? Nov 19, 2018 14:35

GunnerJ: Aug 1, 2005; Do you think this is funny?

Splicer posted:

Sexy Planet feature: domes appear based on how many low hab pops you have

I like this.

# ? Nov 19, 2018 15:12

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

LordMune posted:

Actually creating a new ship model and animations for it would be a hassle, but the gameplay effects you describe would be trivial to mod.

e:f,b

Would it be possible to use the code for creating a Dyson Sphere (which after all, messes up the entire system) to create a custom Colossus to destroy entire suns?

-Black Hole Gun: Reduces target sun to a black hole. All planets in-system are rendered barren. Target system gets +physics
-Neutronium alchemist: Depending on size, a sun blows up and turns into a white dwarf / neutron star / pulsar / black hole; planets are either barren/frozen or barren/molten, some additional resources may turn up after the cataclysm
-Hyperinmestron: Induces an artificial super-nova by transforming a sun's core partially into antimatter. A blast tears the sun apart, the sun is reduced to a nebula, the planets are reduced to asteroid belts.
-Red Shield: Like the version surrounding planets with impenetrable shields, just on a stellar scale. The entire system is encapsuled and become inaccessible. Comedy option: Using this Ultra-Colossus severs all outgoing hyperlanes. :v:

You could even gate this as an additional tech a player has to research after researching the normal version of a Colossus-weapon!

# ? Nov 19, 2018 17:51

Zurai: Feb 13, 2012; Wait -- I haven't even voted in this game yet!

I don't believe Colossi can target suns currently and I don't know if that side of things is exposed to scripts.

Also, while we're on the subject of Colossi, let me just state now that it's super irritating that you can't use a colossus against a faction which is hostile to you but which isn't in a declared war against you. I made the mistake of installing a mod which added a fallen empire to the L Gate possibilities lists, but said fallen empire acts like a marauder empire/crisis and its ringworld home system has between 16k and 35k power in troops on the ring sections so it's basically not invadable. I'd like to just sterilize the ring since I have total control of space but the game won't let me because I'm not at war with them.

Zurai fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Nov 19, 2018

# ? Nov 19, 2018 18:41

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

The Colossus-perk gives you a total war casus belli. You should be able to declare on them.

# ? Nov 19, 2018 20:10

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Zurai posted:

I don't believe Colossi can target suns currently and I don't know if that side of things is exposed to scripts.

It's doable. The whole setup is basically just "use Thing on Thing, trigger Effect" with conditions and descriptions buried in what those Things and Effects are. I haven't really looked at Colossi before, so I don't know the extent of how everything is defined, but have a short example of what the code looks like, from 01_scripted_triggers_planet_killers.txt:

code:

# Check if a planet can be targeted by a planet killer weapon in general.
# Not meant to check any specific weapon type, just general constraints on planet destruction.
# Scope:
#   this = planet being targeted
#   from = fleet
can_destroy_planet_general = {
	is_star = no
	OR = {
		NOT = { exists = owner }
		owner = { is_hostile = from.owner }
	}
}

It's then followed by lists defining what a planet is, what a megastructure is, etc., all based on things like "is_planet_class = pc_asteroid" being false. To target a star, you'd just write that the limitation is "is_star = yes", then fill in (elsewhere) stuff about what effect the weapon would have (swapping star type, changing planet types, etc.)

# ? Nov 19, 2018 20:13

Staltran: Jan 3, 2013; Fallen Rib

Libluini posted:

The Colossus-perk gives you a total war casus belli. You should be able to declare on them.

Not against an always-hostile entity, surely? I don't think you can declare war on marauders either, since you'd never need to.

# ? Nov 19, 2018 20:16

GunnerJ: Aug 1, 2005; Do you think this is funny?

So the modded FE is basically the equivalent of space critters?

# ? Nov 19, 2018 20:18

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

Staltran posted:

Not against an always-hostile entity, surely? I don't think you can declare war on marauders either, since you'd never need to.

Oops, missed that bit about them being a fallen empire.

So how far extends the modding? Do you have to wait until the mod empire awakes or declares a new Khan or, is it literally just "like marauder/FE, but without the war bits"?

If they're more like a real Fallen Empire then a Marauder, you should be able to insult them until they declare war on you. If not, welp guess you're hosed. :shrug:

# ? Nov 19, 2018 20:44

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Or build up a 50k strength invasion army. :stonklol:

What mod is it?

# ? Nov 19, 2018 21:18

Zurai: Feb 13, 2012; Wait -- I haven't even voted in this game yet!

They're basically a pre-awakened FE. You can initiate diplomacy but there are just a couple of fluff options, stop talking, or bend the knee. I haven't tried doing the latter then seeing if I can declare an independence war because I can't be bothered. I'll link the mod but it'll have to wait til I get home from work. It's a submod of a bigger set of mods that expand fallen empires. I'm probably gonna drop the whole set because all it seems to do is give them bigger numbers, not make them more interesting, but I haven't had a chance to fully explore everything yet.

# ? Nov 19, 2018 21:26

Staltran: Jan 3, 2013; Fallen Rib

Does bombardment still stop armies from healing? You could probably grind them down eventually with smaller armies. Not sure how great army disengagement chances are though, I've never paid much attention to planetary invasions. Also, if you use xenomorphs or another army type with high collateral damage, you might knock out their planetary shields.

# ? Nov 19, 2018 22:50

Zurai: Feb 13, 2012; Wait -- I haven't even voted in this game yet!

It does, but the special super fortresses they get give them 60 defensive armies, and they auto-spawn fleets in their home system (with a ton of HP) every few years, so progress is glacially slow in bombarding them to death. Also I'm playing fanatic pacifists so I'm limited to selective bombardment which doesn't help.

The mod is The Zenith of Fallen Empires: Sins of the Fallen Empires (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1481972266). Reading through the full feature document, it's clearly intended as a mega-Crisis for a full galaxy with multiple FEs which will awaken and band together to help (or at least "help", depending on FE) defeat the L-Gate FE. Not really my cuppa, but maybe someone else will enjoy it.

# ? Nov 19, 2018 23:34

Hunt11: Jul 24, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Zurai posted:

It does, but the special super fortresses they get give them 60 defensive armies, and they auto-spawn fleets in their home system (with a ton of HP) every few years, so progress is glacially slow in bombarding them to death. Also I'm playing fanatic pacifists so I'm limited to selective bombardment which doesn't help.

The mod is The Zenith of Fallen Empires: Sins of the Fallen Empires (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1481972266). Reading through the full feature document, it's clearly intended as a mega-Crisis for a full galaxy with multiple FEs which will awaken and band together to help (or at least "help", depending on FE) defeat the L-Gate FE. Not really my cuppa, but maybe someone else will enjoy it.

So how much fun is the main mod?

# ? Nov 20, 2018 01:19

Zurai: Feb 13, 2012; Wait -- I haven't even voted in this game yet!

I haven't had a lot of chance to mess with the other aspects of the Zenith of Fallen Empires mod so I can't say much about it other than what I've seen so far seems to be just bigger numbers. But again, I've only played one game (and not a standard game either) with the mods on.

# ? Nov 20, 2018 04:02

Anno: May 10, 2017; I'm going to drown! For no reason at all!

This recap voiceover montage at the beginning of the last dev clash is insane. I can�t imagine how much work this took.

# ? Nov 20, 2018 04:37

Clarste: Apr 15, 2013; Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

Zurai posted:

It does, but the special super fortresses they get give them 60 defensive armies, and they auto-spawn fleets in their home system (with a ton of HP) every few years, so progress is glacially slow in bombarding them to death. Also I'm playing fanatic pacifists so I'm limited to selective bombardment which doesn't help.

I'm glad that your fanatic pacifist empire is wondering how to conquer a Fallen Empire without compromising on their ideals.

# ? Nov 20, 2018 05:02

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# ? May 26, 2024 01:37

Zurai: Feb 13, 2012; Wait -- I haven't even voted in this game yet!

Clarste posted:

I'm glad that your fanatic pacifist empire is wondering how to conquer a Fallen Empire without compromising on their ideals.

I tried to seal them away in their nice ringworld for all eternity, but the game wouldn't let me. Fanatic pacifist doesn't mean you don't maintain a fleet or protect yourself from an empire out to crush the entire galaxy under its heel, otherwise it wouldn't be a playable ethic because it'd be literally unplayable. Fanatic pacifist just means that you don't start the fights and you don't cause any more damage than is necessary, ever. In this case unfortunately my in-universe choices are 1) die, 2) bend the knee (and I'm playing as a fledgling Awakened Empire using other aspects of the ZoFE mod family so that just won't do), or 3) destroy them. 4) seal them away forever was denied to me by game mechanics, which started this whole sidethread.

If I could enforce a peace in any way other than conquest, I would. That is literally the only option the game gives me at this point: total victory, or defeat. I don't get to just close the L-Gates back up again, I don't get to Pacify their worlds, and I don't get to do anything to cause peace other than to surrender, which as an Awakened Empire cripples me and isn't really an answer anyway.

My goal isn't conquest, it's survival.

Zurai fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Nov 20, 2018

# ? Nov 20, 2018 05:38

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