Talkie Toaster posted:

If Stellaris’ scripting language was even half as straightforward our lives would all be so much easier.

Baronjutter posted:

Start with what ever tells the story you want to tell. This is a free-form non-competitive sandbox game.

Baronjutter posted:

Start with what ever tells the story you want to tell. This is a free-form non-competitive sandbox game.

prefect posted:

I always start with the Autochthon Monument or the Temple. Is that a bad idea? Second is alloys. Third is Consumer Industries.

Malick23 posted:

Don't build a gene clinic. It's not worth it. Someone else did the math earlier in the thread.

Poil posted:

Aethernet posted:

I think "at most" is almost certainly not true. Regardless, did you play before 2.0? You may prefer warp to hyperlanes.

Fister Roboto posted:

This is a bad post. You still need a good idea of how to make your sandbox creation function well, otherwise you'll just end up in a death spiral all the time. You can't just say "lol nothing matters just build whatever because ~*roleplaying*~" especially when people are actually asking for advice.

Also it is absolutely not free-form. There are still rules and limitations you need to abide by.

Jazerus posted:

i'm honestly shocked that no one has ever made a language that compiles to paradox script but has support for (very limited) loops, functions, and also syntax that doesn't slowly make you want to die

Vengarr posted:

I'm honestly confused that Paradox doesn't have an Event Maker, even as an in-house tool. They make all their events with a text editor, which explains all the copy/paste errors in the code.

Sometimes I want to try making an event but then I look at the spaghetti code and the brackets and decide to do something more productive.

alcaras posted:

Exploration

AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:

The virus is spreading

Sindai posted:

It would take more time and build and maintain that tool than it would save for Paradox themselves. Maybe it would benefit modders, but a small minority of people ever use gameplay mods, let alone develop them.

The Bramble posted:

Do megacorps get some kind of innate buff to trade value generation, or more benefit from trade value, than a regular empire does? I swear, in all my games as a corp, I'm much more flush for cash in the early game than I am as a regular empire. The tooltip for corporate authority doesn't say anything though, so maybe it's just in my head?

alcaras posted:

Here's my current line of thinking for buildings. Corrections / suggestions welcome.

I generally try to fill all building slots before upgrading buildings to anything that requires a rare resource for upkeep, largely because rare resources are pretty rare early game. I should probably try a playthrough with earlier upgrading, though I find I often don't unlock the rare resource factory tech until late...

On Every Planet
Food Planet
Research Planet
Mineral Planet
Energy Planet
Filler for Mineral/Energy Planets
Ecumenopolis

I should probably build enough Alloy Factories to get the Forge World bonus and make sure to put down a Ministry of Production. I usually go very Alloy heavy (all alloy districts) on my Ecumenopolis.

Buildings I'm not sure when to build
Precinct House -- Crime doesn't seem to be a problem; the decision usually is enough to mitigate any short term weirdness, but I don't see crime as a problem at all.

Resource Silos -- I don't think I've ever built this on a planet. Sometimes I'll toss this Starbase upgrade on a lonely Anchorage somewhere (particularly to get to 20k+ mineral cap to build an Ecumenopolis)

Luxury Residences -- Usually have more than enough city districts that I don't need these.

Stronghold -- If my planet is being invaded, something has gone horribly wrong. Thus I don't care about defensive troops. I haven't really needed the fleet cap from the Soldier jobs (+4 per Soldier, but only one Soldier for a Stronghold before upgrades that require rare resources).

Military Academy -- Usually my armies just waltz onto a planet that's had its defending armies already denuded thanks to bombardment, so I don't see it worth a building slot for some army experience and another lone soldier.

alcaras posted:

My usual tradition / ascension perk order:

1. Expansion
2. Supremacy
3. Prosperity
4. Adaptability / Harmony
5. Harmony / Domination
6. Domination / Diplomacy
7. Discovery

Discovery is such a lackluster tree outside of the early game that I find if I don't take it first (and I'm hard pressed to do so between Expansion and Supremacy) then I just put it off forever. Maybe it's because I play Tiny / Small maps and thus run out of things to discover pretty quickly. The researcher upkeep reduction and +10% research speed are nice finishers in late game. I do sometimes wish I had the extra tech pick earlier, but am not sure where to put it in my order.

Ascension Perks (some ordering may vary based on tech, particularly 2/3/4)

1. Executive Vigor -- 50% longer edicts. I love this pick since I like rolling edicts.
2. Imperial Prerogative -- +30 admin cap early goes a long way
3. Arcology Project -- ecumenopoli!
4. Engineered Evolution -- clone vats alone make this worth it; not sure if the Shroud patrons really compare to gene-editing in the end
5. Evolutionary Mastery
6. Galactic Wonders
7. Master Builders -- faster megastructures, but realistically the game is won by now
8. Defender of the Galaxy

Not sure where to fit in Technological Ascendancy. Played around with Mastery of Nature but found it pretty lackluster and not worth the perk.

quote:

Continuing my afternoon of theorycrafting, here are my usual fleet compositions. Suggestions / improvements welcome.

Corvette: [Swarm]
Interceptor with Autocannons
Afterburners

Destroyer: [Picket]
Artillery with L Plasma
Picket with 2x PD
Auxiliary Fire-Control

Cruiser: [Artillery]
Artillery with L Plasma
Artillery with L Plasma M Plasma
Artillery with M Plasma
Auxiliary Fire-Control

Battleship: [Artillery]
Artillery with 2x L Kinetic Artillery
Artillery with 3x L Kinetic Artillery
Artillery with 1x L Kinetic Artillery
Auxiliary Fire-Control

Usual ratio is 10 Corvettes :: 5 Destroyers :: 3 Cruisers :: 1 Battleship

Titans generally run Kinetic Artillery. [Artillery]
Utility slot wise I outfit titans in this order:
1. Subspace Spare
2. Shield Dampener
3. Quantum Destabilizer
4. Inspiring Presence
5. Targeting Grid
6. Nanobot Cloud

Not sure if that order is best.

Vicar posted:

Huh, I had no idea soldier jobs gave that much naval cap (4 without supremacy and 6 with). I think I just assumed fortresses still just added defense armies like pre 2.2. 12 naval cap per fortress with supremacy seems really good

TheDeadlyShoe posted:

I find they arn't really worth it as the first thing built on the world. Then, usually, not worth it as the second or third or fourth. The other choices are just better. I am typically starved for building slots early game and putting off an alloy plant or robot factory is too much of a tradeoff.

ZypherIM posted:

The first thing you want to build is cloning vats if you have access to them. After that is robot building if you have access to them. After that you might as well build your gene clinic because you're going to be needing amenities.

Raenir Salazar posted:

First, "at most" is only slightly hyperbole. Maybe there's three? Regardless of if it is two or three the resulting map is not immersive.

Second, I've played before 2.0 but that is a non-sequitor; as is "warp to hyperlanes" as that has not been the state of the game since 2.0 and you clearly know this?

Third, I already have a solution which I explained to the OP, just bump up hyperlane density and there's more polities around you and the map is generally more free form. Why are you giving me advice I don't need?

Gort posted:

It always weirded me out that my fanatic egalitarian democracy had the option to build "Deep Space Black Sites"

Smiling Demon posted:

I'll be honest here and say that I've gotten very lazy and trend to one design late game against anything that isn't the contingency/unbidden: 1 tachyon lance 4 neutron launcher battleships. I used to use the giga cannon instead of the lance for damage type synergy against shields, but realized I always had so much more physics research that against even fallen empires it was better to use a pure energy design. Energy also lets you swap to arc emitters if you end up against a crisis with ludicrous shields.

Destroyers are just bad, every time I've used them I regretted doing so. Corvettes are a good way to win battles and lose wars both in terms of war exhaustion and alloys, still good for speed alone and better than destroyers. Cruisers are like bad battleships, they have a use when they first come out but drop off fast once battleships become viable.

scaterry posted:

I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere, but habitats have a +200% bonus to colonization speed! It means that if you have colonization fever, colonizing it and resettling pops over and over is equivalent to 13.33 pop growth per month.

Secretly, habitats were the best growth ascension perk!

alcaras posted:

Thanks; what do your end-game fleets look like? Just Battleships?

alcaras posted:

re: resettling, is it normal to have to babysit pops in the lategame and move them laboriously from overcrowded, jobless planets to new colonies?

shouldn't they move themselves? >.>

Smiling Demon posted:

Destroyers are just bad, every time I've used them I regretted doing so. Corvettes are a good way to win battles and lose wars both in terms of war exhaustion and alloys, still good for speed alone and better than destroyers. Cruisers are like bad battleships, they have a use when they first come out but drop off fast once battleships become viable.

Smiling Demon posted:

Edit: Habitats have a bad reputation in 2.2 for a good reason, but If you are willing to miss out of the +5% specialization bonus I find they are actually really good for alloys/consumers goods. This is obviously situational, but can let you make up on a small efficiency loss for a possible massive scale increase.

Nuclearmonkee posted:

Destroyers are hands down superior to corvettes the very second you get them in the early game for two reasons.

code:

Type      CP  Base Cost  Base Hull  Base EV  Base Speed  Disengage Chance
Corvette  1   30         300        60%      170         1
Destroyer 2   60         800        35%      140         1.5

1) Disengage chance is markedly better with destroyers. It's tied with cruisers for best disengage chance but with good section loadouts vs the cruiser's mediocre ones. The hull base increase vs EV base loss mostly evens out to comparable effective HP per CP when you account for evade and such, but when you combine the hull with the higher disengage chance and stack on hit and run it's a big difference. This is hugely important for keeping attrition down, something which is Very Bad early on when alloys are in the shortest supply. With a trickster + hit and run you barely suffer losses at all when attacking with a set of destroyers w/ max hull until much later in the game when larger weapons become more prominent (at which point you are using marauder admirals probably anyways unless you have immortal admirals that you've been cultivating since game start).

2) More offensive power per CP. You get a better combat computer to increase tracking. Slap a laser in the medium slot and fill smalls with whatever and you will get more hits and more dps on average.

Smiling Demon posted:

Corvettes and cruisers get the same computer so that isn't an advantage at all. Destroyers may disengage well, but they are in practice not survivable. The S sized defenses are just bad and destroyers don't have the high evasion to compensate like corvettes.

On paper destroyers look like they should work. Every time I've tried what you describe it has been a disaster I've regretted. Instead I've embraced no retreat over hit and run .

For cruiser sections I have 2 designs I use. Either all medium with a mix of anti shield and armour (ex: 2 null void 4 plasma, 3 rail 3 laser, etc) or all small/missle hardpoints (small should always be autocannons). These have worked much better for me than destroyers.

Nuclearmonkee posted:

Destroyers are hands down superior to corvettes the very second you get them in the early game for two reasons.

code:

Type      CP  Base Cost  Base Hull  Base EV  Base Speed  Disengage Chance
Corvette  1   30         300        60%      170         1
Destroyer 2   60         800        35%      140         1.5

Nuclearmonkee posted:

What difficulty are you playing on because you are dead as gently caress to attrition on grand admiral w/ no retreat and would likely suffer on admiral unless you are running a purifier or fan militarist + distinguished admiralty. AI has functionally infinite alloys and will happily throw poo poo at you forever at superior fleet strength and you need to be able to win or fight delaying actions on starbases without significant real losses.

You can math it out and play it out. Alloys outlay to attrition goes down significantly once you get destroyers. Later in the game they are relegated to a handful for anti-missile if you even care to do that and you want ablative corvettes to dodge L slot shots since you either want to evade like a corvette or obliterate at range like a battleship/titan. Early game is the time of the destroyer.