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I am seeing lots of negative reviews on steam as well, but from what it seems like it doesn't add _that_ much new compared to other DLCs. I'm holding off for now personally.
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Dec 13, 2023 20:18
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Dr. Clockwork posted:Is Astral Planes worth picking up? I never know if a paradox DLC is actually good because people always dogpile them to negative on steam. Based on the amount in there, I’m waiting for a sale.
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Dec 13, 2023 20:19
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I like it, but your mileage may vary on whether it's worth $20. The rifts are ultimately just more self-contained mini-stories but they feel substantial and there are a lot of them. Definitely helps to fill up the midgame. I like the choose your own adventure gimmick too. They hide some neat rewards down different branches of the stories so there are incentives to go through them again, although there's the problem all Stellaris story add-ons have where after you've played it once and seen 50%+ of the content, you're going to end up skipping or missing some of the new content on subsequent replays because you're skipping past so many that you've seen before. Ultimately the Stellaris combo of grand strategy and interactive fiction still doesn't quite work for me.
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Dec 13, 2023 21:10
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Cimber posted:I am seeing lots of negative reviews on steam as well, but from what it seems like it doesn't add _that_ much new compared to other DLCs. I'm holding off for now personally. stellaris dlc is mostly overpriced so imo wait for a sale is always what you should do
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Dec 13, 2023 21:15
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The patch that accompanied the DLC was also a bit buggy and has had quite a few ongoing problems. That's part of the reason why the DLC got so many negative reviews.
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Dec 14, 2023 02:23
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I like the dlc as well, the rifts are decent, there are branching rewards and does seem to do a decent job of "multiple options to pick out for your benefit" Doing the more difficult options also is not always to your benefit as well. Also just rushing through rifts can still be beneficial because you unlock the astral thread rewards faster.
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Dec 14, 2023 17:32
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https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/stellaris-dev-diary-326-3-10-4-pyxis-released-e9b6-upcoming-holiday-tech-beta.1616931/ New beta coming tomorrow. Also comes with toxic knights nerfs, because god forbid a fun origin have fun.
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Dec 14, 2023 18:31
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scaterry posted:New beta coming tomorrow. Also comes with toxic knights nerfs, because god forbid a fun origin have fun. I think that's a nerf aimed at pvp, which is a dumb thing to try and balance around since so few people play online. The game really needs a gamerule split between standard single player/online coop, and online pvp.
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Dec 14, 2023 21:02
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binge crotching posted:I think that's a nerf aimed at pvp, which is a dumb thing to try and balance around since so few people play online. The game really needs a gamerule split between standard single player/online coop, and online pvp. AFAIK, toxic knights are unplayable in pvp. The origins people use in multiplayer (progenitor hives and clones) have never received nerfs this harsh. So the changes are somewhat unwarranted, imo
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Dec 15, 2023 01:56
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scaterry posted:https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/stellaris-dev-diary-326-3-10-4-pyxis-released-e9b6-upcoming-holiday-tech-beta.1616931/ I think it is to put the knights in line with researchers, I am noting that the knights will get any buffs that apply to researchers, or Administrators under the new system.
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Dec 15, 2023 02:12
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AtomikKrab posted:I think it is to put the knights in line with researchers, I am noting that the knights will get any buffs that apply to researchers, or Administrators under the new system.
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Dec 15, 2023 02:14
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It's all in the highly experimental and explicitly subject to change beta branch anyway, so I wouldn't get too excited about it just yet. I'll give the beta a go and see how it feels, there's so much changing that it's hard to get a picture of it from the patch notes alone
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Dec 15, 2023 02:29
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I did multiplayer exactly once and my fanatic purifier neighbor rushed me with 3k fleet power on 2210. I’m ok never playing mp again.
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Dec 15, 2023 02:45
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AtomikKrab posted:I think it is to put the knights in line with researchers, I am noting that the knights will get any buffs that apply to researchers, or Administrators under the new system. They always benefited, it just wasn't shown. Making Squires additive makes them useless as jobs. The luminous blades alloys modifier was a big part of catching up in the midgame, too. I don't like that they went out of their way to balance a fun origin that was not meta nor game-breaking, when there are origins in the game right now that are meta/game-breaking. Dr. Clockwork posted:I did multiplayer exactly once and my fanatic purifier neighbor rushed me with 3k fleet power on 2210. Ouch. With tech nerfs this probably will become the most optimal play :/ The slower tech speed is, the better it is to rush your neighbors.
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Dec 15, 2023 04:50
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The real solution to early game rushes is improving defense platforms so that they were actually effective. If they weren’t such moneypits then the standard empires would have a much better response to aggressive neighbors.
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Dec 15, 2023 13:36
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One thing that's concerning me is the constantly increasing demand for consumer goods as they rework the game. It started with the CG tax on ruler jobs that made them near useless, then traders were added and had their own CG upkeep, and now researchers are having their own upkeep massively increased. Just more and more and more demand for mountains of CG, meanwhile hiveminds continue to be overpowered largely because of their ability to ignore them.
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Dec 15, 2023 18:28
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Jabarto posted:One thing that's concerning me is the constantly increasing demand for consumer goods as they rework the game. It started with the CG tax on ruler jobs that made them near useless, then traders were added and had their own CG upkeep, and now researchers are having their own upkeep massively increased. Just more and more and more demand for mountains of CG, meanwhile hiveminds continue to be overpowered largely because of their ability to ignore them. Pretty much gotten used to my first two planets being a factory planet & a resource/rural planet at this point just to stave off the CG problem. it is nice to play gestalts and not give a gently caress though
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Dec 15, 2023 18:47
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Downloaded the open beta for the tech stuff. If their goal was to massively slow down tech progression, they accomplished their goal. Its 2271 and I haven't even seen *cruisers* pop up yet. If they are going to do this they have to get rid of the card system so you can actually pick what you want. This is miserable. e: got another few years in and just said screw this. Back to not-beta. ilkhan fucked around with this message at 05:07 on Dec 16, 2023 |
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Dec 15, 2023 18:57
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ilkhan posted:they have to get rid of the card system
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Dec 16, 2023 10:21
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For some dumb reason it took me a long time to realize that if I'm maxing out the number of other empires in the galaxy I really want to reduce the planet frequency.
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Dec 16, 2023 11:37
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I spawned next to a federation origin. They invited me to the federation and I'm going to do whatever political shenanigans are required for me to ultimately vassalize and consume them because their border gore is viscerally upsetting.
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Dec 16, 2023 15:16
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Splicer posted:I spawned next to a federation origin. They invited me to the federation and I'm going to do whatever political shenanigans are required for me to ultimately vassalize and consume them because their border gore is viscerally upsetting. Get to power, one by one kick them out of the federation then vassalize them so they are back in as vassals (And also maybe fix up the border gore) And then you will have a federation without taking the diplomacy tree either which is good (I did this in my current game) of course I just consumed one poor poor nation that submitted to me... and now I have to fix up their lovely planets, and deal with their pops who are not my ethics (For now), but I got 300 more pops and many of them should migrate to my ever growing string of ecus
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Dec 16, 2023 19:59
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AtomikKrab posted:Get to power, one by one kick them out of the federation then vassalize them so they are back in as vassals (And also maybe fix up the border gore) And then you will have a federation without taking the diplomacy tree either which is good (I did this in my current game)
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Dec 16, 2023 20:08
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Congrats, you've become the British Empire.
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Dec 17, 2023 04:40
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AtomikKrab posted:Get to power, one by one kick them out of the federation then vassalize them so they are back in as vassals (And also maybe fix up the border gore) And then you will have a federation without taking the diplomacy tree either which is good (I did this in my current game) Doing this with hegemony start is very strong and one of favorite strategies. Immediately kick one member out and then take them over at the 10 year mark as a vassal or directly annex their cap depending upon the situation. You can then proceed to subjugate your neighbors and force vassalize them with terrible terms. Due to hegemony you steal an increasingly large amount of their fleet power and resources so it doesn’t even matter if they hate you since even all of them together can’t muster enough of a fleet to overthrow you. Take the first few crisis perks (just don’t go all the way since it dissolves your federation) and let your one non-vassal fed member fill up the fed fleet while you just crank out endless bullshit crisis ships. If you get archeotech nano missiles the bullshit gets even more insane. Nanomissile crisis ships wreck literally everything. Once you’re done your federation acts as the defacto galactic empire, except you can get there way faster.
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Dec 17, 2023 17:54
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I need to figure out federations. They've always seemed pretty complicated to me, moreso as I usually play genocidal and don't really use them. Thought while typing that, can you play exterminator and start with federation machine empire friends?
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Dec 17, 2023 18:02
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Splicer posted:That is exactly the kind of stuff I want yes. By "building ships with food" I mean I want want living ships that are grown, not ships built from particularly sturdy sandwiches. I want to be shoving food and pheromones and growth hormones down the gullets of select larvae until they grow gun ports. Ships with food upkeep and passive XP gain that mature as they rank up would only make it cooler for me, as would station shipyards that also act as hangar bays, megastructures as huge organic leviathans grown over alloy skeletons, and a unique brood queen colossus that carpets planets with her feral children. I want buildings that eat food and passively upgrade over time and have special starvation situations in times of shortage. Living ships would be a cool idea, yeah. Especially since it'd be a step closer to my old dream, recreating the crystalline, life-eating Abruse from my favorite SF-series. They technically don't build ships either, like the Tyranids. In their case, infected planets turn the oceans into big solution pools that slowly "grow" crystalline ships in them. Including the crew (though that's complicated, from a certain viewpoint, crewmembers are barely sentient crystal formations, and the "captain" is often a strangely organic looking mobile crystal formation that's only there to add some intuition to what otherwise would just be a big, floating crystal computer). They're weird, and they don't fit very well into Stellaris with their solar-system spanning death aura (that would be kinda OP as a weapon), but I want them! I think it would be best if something like this were to be added as a trait, something like "Bio-Ship Assemblers" to keep a mostly neutral term. You'd need organic material to slowly grow your ships, and Lithoids would instead use minerals. Drawback: Growing your ships like animals/crystals is loving slow, and bigger ships like battleships are what your ships are growing into, you better wait and not lose any of your small ships in the meantime. But on the other hand, you don't need alloys and all your ships have strong self-healing abilities. At least that's how I would implement this kind of thing. 
Libluini fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Dec 17, 2023 |
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Dec 17, 2023 18:17
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ilkhan posted:I need to figure out federations. They've always seemed pretty complicated to me, moreso as I usually play genocidal and don't really use them. You can’t start with friends, but you could always force spawn a bunch of potential friends I suppose. Most machines won’t hate you as much but I’ve never tried being super friendly with other machine civs. They are one of the only ways to get an influx of pops since you can’t buy market robots and purge everything but machines. Most of them will hate you only slightly less than organics unless they are also exterminators or assimilators, and if I get a breather from the organic purge, eating another machine civ is a great way to get a huge surge of economic power. I’ve only had one game where there was another determined exterminator besides mine and they died off before I got too close to them, but I could have in theory federated with them. Would probably just rather kill them though unless they’re big enough to make it a hassle.
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Dec 17, 2023 18:17
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Nuclearmonkee posted:Doing this with hegemony start is very strong and one of favorite strategies. Immediately kick one member out and then take them over at the 10 year mark as a vassal or directly annex their cap depending upon the situation. My only complaint with Hegemony is that I can't pair it with Necrophage.
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Dec 17, 2023 18:53
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Libluini posted:Living ships would be a cool idea, yeah. Especially since it'd be a step closer to my old dream, recreating the crystalline, life-eating Abruse from my favorite SF-series. They technically don't build ships either, like the Tyranids. In their case, infected planets turn the oceans into big solution pools that slowly "grow" crystalline ships in them. Including the crew (though that's complicated, from a certain viewpoint, crewmembers are barely sentient crystal formations, and the "captain" is often a strangely organic looking mobile crystal formation that's only there to add some intuition to what otherwise would just be a big, floating crystal computer). This idea sounds great for a Crisis type event - a race that converts habitable systems into more crystalline horde ships for you to fight (with the planets being made into barren/crystal world terraforming candidates). That kind of 'strip & consume planets and move on' might be trickier to do for playable races though - it's a bit at odds with core Stellaris game mechanics (colonies and pops) and could be difficult to balance. More widely, Crystalline aliens are such a major sci-fi trope that I kinda feel Stellaris hasn't done that much with the concept. We have the Crystalline Entity systems, and a few rocky crystal looking races in Lithoids, but not that much else all things considered. Space Empires V used them as one of its major tech theme playstyles (alongside tropes like Organic tech races, Temporal tech races, etc) and it feels like there are more opportunities for themed play, such as growing your own Crystalline Entities as either controllable fleets or uncontrollable 'guard dog' system defenses, etc. The existing ship models are pretty and a bit underused.
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Dec 18, 2023 11:32
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Tigey posted:This idea sounds great for a Crisis type event - a race that converts habitable systems into more crystalline horde ships for you to fight (with the planets being made into barren/crystal world terraforming candidates). That kind of 'strip & consume planets and move on' might be trickier to do for playable races though - it's a bit at odds with core Stellaris game mechanics (colonies and pops) and could be difficult to balance. Terravore exists, but it's really weird to play because, as you say, you want to colonise planets, not eat them
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Dec 18, 2023 12:34
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Phosphine posted:Terravore exists, but it's really weird to play because, as you say, you want to colonise planets, not eat them Yeah, I even made some Abruse-variants using crystal-looking Lithoids portraits and Terravore, but it still doesn't feel right. They would work better with a crystal-version of the infected hiveworlds. They do infect planets by hurling pieces of themselves at planets*, but they don't damage planets, they just give them a nice new sheen. Mechanically, they have more in commom with that blasted Nanite-swarm that turns planets into nanite hellscapes, just with crystals and far, far slower. And then can use them to grow more ships.
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Dec 18, 2023 13:30
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Phosphine posted:Terravore exists, but it's really weird to play because, as you say, you want to colonise planets, not eat them Yeah, the mechanic is simply not powerful enough to justify destroying a planet. I assume the idea is to convert some of the planets you find into materials/pops to catalyze a conquest fleet early on, and snowball from there. Maybe if there were some method of damaging planets in enemy space rather than my own colonized planets... but it's already a total war species. If you've captured that space, the planet is already yours. Rushing Menace for a Crisis ascension is really the only benefit, but that feels antithematic as the terravore wants to eat the universe, not ascend to the Q Continuum. Deuce fucked around with this message at 04:14 on Dec 19, 2023 |
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Dec 19, 2023 04:09
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The only time I've found Terravore to work and be fun is when playing Void Dweller Terravores, which are actually fun as hell.
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Dec 19, 2023 06:51
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Yeah my most fun terravore time was as voidborne. It feels like it could work as an alternative take on uninhabitable planets. Settle greens, eat reds, maybe yellows also if enough greens, and use the resources to snowball into your neighbours. You don't have to use your space efficiently if you can just take someone else's. The problem there is that terravore is linked to lithoids, whose point is basically "you can use all of the mammoth!".
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Dec 19, 2023 07:30
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I really think having vassals is more trouble than its worth. I'm playing an auth/militant build and have been running wars to vassalize other civs. I get them under my thumb, work on building up their loyalty and things are starting to go well, then all of the sudden they have an internal rebellion, one system stays loyal and the remainder of their worlds becomes this other civ. Now i have to go fight another war again to reclaim all those systems for my vassal.
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Dec 22, 2023 16:21
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Cimber posted:I really think having vassals is more trouble than its worth. I'm playing an auth/militant build and have been running wars to vassalize other civs. I get them under my thumb, work on building up their loyalty and things are starting to go well, then all of the sudden they have an internal rebellion, one system stays loyal and the remainder of their worlds becomes this other civ. Now i have to go fight another war again to reclaim all those systems for my vassal. This keeps happening in my games too. I don't know why or how and it's a royal pain in the rear end.
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Dec 22, 2023 21:15
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Going to guess it has something to do with the puppet government having your ethics, while their population still has ethics compatible with their old government?
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Dec 22, 2023 21:25
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Yami Fenrir posted:This keeps happening in my games too. I don't know why or how and it's a royal pain in the rear end. Best I can tell the AI is terrible at managing resources and happiness. I noticed before the rebellion they had 6 out of 7 planets with crime over 40 percent and stability was down in the 20s. Nothing was being done to manage crime and I think they were out of CG too. It was a complete mess. I'm seriously thinking of scrapping having vassels as its not getting me anything worthwhile. [edit] Lonesome, No, the ethics were pretty much the same as mine, they were militant as well.
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Dec 22, 2023 21:25
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I usually just vassalize the OG empire so i dont think its ethics stuff
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Dec 22, 2023 21:34
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