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There was a war going on where one of the participants was a tiny single-system empire with a mercenary base in it. I had a fleet camped out in their system while I dealt with other stuff. About once a month I'd get the whole fleets entering combat alert noises and messages when a single lovely single ship hired out of the mercenary garrison would appear and get exploded almost immediately. ...for about five in-game years.
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Mar 19, 2024 18:10
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I'm getting back into this game after a bit of a hiatus. I last played back when Nemesis dropped. I picked up the overlord today in the sale, mainly because galactic custodian + hegemony federation leader with mass vassals was one of the silly gimmicks I liked to do and I heard it makes vassals better? Given how much the free updates that come with DLCs change the game up, I'm wondering if there's much I need to relearn over the last few releases? A few things I remember from when I last played (playing solo with scaling hardest difficulty): * Corvette spam into cruiser spam then Battleship spam was a solid approach for a fleet deathball. Bullets, Bombers and torpedos tended to be the better weapons. * The new pop growth curve was ruffling feathers. Did this change or did people get used to it? * Outside of the midgame crisis the midgame was still pretty slow. * Internal politics still didn't really exist. * Espionage was new but pretty poo poo. Are there any newer DLCs worth getting? I heard there's one that adds cloaking which ends up being so annoying to deal with that you're better off not touching it. FurtherReading fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Mar 20, 2024 |
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Mar 20, 2024 02:00
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FurtherReading posted:I'm getting back into this game after a bit of a hiatus. I last played back when Nemesis dropped. I picked up the overlord today in the sale, mainly because galactic custodian + hegemony federation leader with mass vassals was one of the silly gimmicks I liked to do and I heard it makes vassals better? Of all of them, I really like paragons. The AI is still trash and wont best sit your little mary sue guys in the positions you want, done a few runs and it feels almost spiteful at this point. But its cool, you get to have your little RPG mans in your empire and it actually cares about who they are.
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Mar 20, 2024 07:29
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I got the The Flesh is Weak ascension perk and unlocked the cybernetics tradition but wasn't allowed to actually unlock anything in it because I didn't have The Flesh is Weak??? Turns out it was referring to a project with the exact same name as the perk but didn't actually specify that because hörf dörf. (yes I haven't chosen that path in ages)megane posted:I haven’t touched it in a while, but as far as I know the format hasn’t changed since then. It’s this one. 
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Mar 20, 2024 17:19
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Piracy is just bad. Let me spend extra on protection or something, because at some point, if you have Hiper Relays everywhere, you can't even program a patrol route from point A to point B, because the AI just decides to go to X, Y AND Z for some reason.
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Mar 21, 2024 18:20
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Despacho posted:Piracy is just bad. Let me spend extra on protection or something, because at some point, if you have Hiper Relays everywhere, you can't even program a patrol route from point A to point B, because the AI just decides to go to X, Y AND Z for some reason.  ...the extra way is to make sure you only collect from starbases that are connected via a starbase chain back to your capital. This is mildly annoying and limits your expansion somewhat early on, but it does work as piracy is always 0 in a system with an upgraded starbase.
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Mar 21, 2024 19:27
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I don't see it posted yet, but the latest dev diary seems pretty cool: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/stellaris-dev-diary-336-the-origins-and-situations-of-the-machine-age.1635464/ We've got fast-track origins for Cybernetic and Synthetic Ascension, spiritual-compatible cybernetics, an origin for Machine Empires that starts them with an arc furnace, fancy new situations that let you manage how your society goes about cyberization/sythization (apparently gestalt empires get their own versions of these), as well as the option to "transcend" civics into new versions to reflect the new social paradigm of your ascended polity. Kind of feels like Bio Ascension is lame now (Pysch Ascension already was lol).
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Mar 21, 2024 20:04
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Kurgarra Queen posted:I don't see it posted yet, but the latest dev diary seems pretty cool: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/stellaris-dev-diary-336-the-origins-and-situations-of-the-machine-age.1635464/ Nice changes, it looks promising as always. Paradox know what they're doing, if this turns out to be good, I would absolutely buy a DLC to spruce up bio ascensions, and another DLC to enhance psi ascension.
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Mar 21, 2024 20:22
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Maybe instead of the shroud popping up once per ten years it’s a situation thing like the toxic god path. Or maybe the astral threads expac should have been refactored to be psychic only and without threads (utilizing zro).
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Mar 21, 2024 20:48
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Kurgarra Queen posted:I don't see it posted yet, but the latest dev diary seems pretty cool: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/stellaris-dev-diary-336-the-origins-and-situations-of-the-machine-age.1635464/ Psionic ascension is great if a) you pick the instrument of desire, really the only good one right now and b) have another method of pop growth beyond what you would get from ascensions. Psionic Necrophages can be great, for instance. Bio ascension has been bad since the rework. The advanced traits are okay, but maximizing their usefulness requires a lot of micromanagement that can distract from other stuff, and clone vat food upkeep is expensive as hell. I can see it being better with Overturned as an origin, but that has a lot of drawbacks as well. Cybernetic got more powerful after the tech rebalance due to already having a way to reduce empire size from pops, and getting people there faster just makes it easier to use.
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Mar 21, 2024 21:47
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The cybernetic and synthetic leader traits are also generally better than the erudite and psionic traits, which is a bit of a shame imho. The two non-robotic ascension paths definitely need some dev attention, especially when you compare them to what the other two path have and are getting now!
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Mar 21, 2024 22:00
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If this automodding thing they're talking about is any good it could make bio ascension way better.
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Mar 21, 2024 22:08
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Kurgarra Queen posted:I don't see it posted yet, but the latest dev diary seems pretty cool: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/stellaris-dev-diary-336-the-origins-and-situations-of-the-machine-age.1635464/ Shadowlyger posted:If this automodding thing they're talking about is any good it could make bio ascension way better.
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Mar 21, 2024 22:56
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I haven't once tried the Toxic God origin, but I'm tempted to. What's it like and how do you build for it?
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Mar 21, 2024 23:56
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Psionic is very strong in the current game if you pick the shroud teachers origin and optimize hard for unity. Starting with the latent psionic trait is strong by itself (+10% research +5% unity) but permanent guaranteed access to the required psionic techs and shroud minor faction lets you get all the toys early. It's not just the species and leader traits. The PSI corps building, unique techs, and soldiers are also quite good, and there's still a lot more unique content locked behind the shroud than any of the other paths. It's definitely weaker if you try to pick it up midgame without the origin though.
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Mar 22, 2024 00:33
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Torrannor posted:Paradox know what they're doing, if this turns out to be good, I would absolutely buy a DLC to spruce up bio ascensions, and another DLC to enhance psi ascension. It is a little ironic that this expansion is coming out right as DUNC 2 is making waves and getting lots of people interested in the non-mechanical aspects of scifi, though. Like it has clearly been in the works for a long time, but in the alternate universe where they've been working on a bio/psionic expansion instead and time it to come out right when lots of players might maybe kinda wanna play as Paul's Imperium or other weird stuff from Dune, Paradox makes maybe 61 billion dollars
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Mar 22, 2024 12:28
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Many machines on Ix... new machines Better than those on Richesse...
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Mar 22, 2024 12:50
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Yeah it'd be nice to have more options for doing some really funky transhuman stuff with your empire leader. We can now - kinda - turn our leader into a sort of 40k God Emperor, although it and the Galactic Imperium feel a little underdone. It'd be cool if they added content that let us turn our leader into a giant sandworm or other monster, merging with some kind of alien (maybe the Horizon Signal Worm?) that gives them mental or psychic superpowers. Or something that lets them transcend into a being of pure energy or something. Basically the rest of the race remains largely the same - but they are now ruled over by a transhuman being of some kind. It'd be a great way to make Imperial/Dictatorial governments more interesting.
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Mar 22, 2024 13:37
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two fish posted:I haven't once tried the Toxic God origin, but I'm tempted to. What's it like and how do you build for it? It's a "start lovely, bloom later" origin rather than a "start strong so you can snowball" origin. You've got a "situation" for their quest which ends up lasting around a hundred years. If you replay the origin you'll probably actively look into ways to hurry that up: while it's running, the situation's eating up a small but noticeable percentage of your (internal and direct) energy and alloy generation. You get quite a few interesting events with lots of flavorful writing along the way, each of which will give you a choice between some mutually-exclusive rewards. You may want to spoil yourself on what some of the options are, because the branching point can be in an earlier step of the same event. And if so then find a recent spoiler because the latest patch just changed some of these, particularly the one with alloys. (But generally speaking going with "knights generate more science" is a safe bet, although the "make your starting planet less lovely" ones are much better now than they used to be.) Spoilers and details can both be found here: https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Quest_for_the_Toxic_God_events Conquest and overlording synergizes well if you can pull it off, but also that much harder to pull off. Comedy short-term option is to offer yourself up to an AI as a vassal and drain your overlord of resources (consider bulwark for this), then gain independence later when you're better-situated. Vil fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Mar 22, 2024 |
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Mar 22, 2024 14:35
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two fish posted:I haven't once tried the Toxic God origin, but I'm tempted to. What's it like and how do you build for it? Toxic God origin is a harsher start, you have a malus to energy and alloys due to the quest but you start with two planets (one homeworld (damaged) and a special habitat) this helps with pop growth, the knights can get very powerful and they changed the bonsues to your homeworld as well through the quests. Questing takes about more or less 100 years to complete and you are going to unlock bonuses about once every 11 or 12 years through an event change with a lot of lore. End of the quest allows you to make a choice between being able to expand knights beyond your home system (knights are research + unity and can produce a lot of either) or get a unique colossus. Also you have different options in a host of events. The alloy malus effects your fleets but you have a policy options for your knights that effectively gives you the same bonuses to fighting that a fanatic purifier would get when its on, so you can compete or even dominate with your fleets playing right.
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Mar 22, 2024 14:42
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Toxic god is also just very flavorful. It is more difficult than most starts, but I recommend everybody try it out at least once. If you are unsure about whether you can pull it off, you can just go with a difficulty one step below what you usually play.
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Mar 22, 2024 14:48
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I saw a video from toxoids launch where you could fill up the special habitat with livestock xenos and the stability bonus from all the knights jobs that creates offset the rampant homeless of the huge slave population. I heard it got nerfed though?
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Mar 22, 2024 14:55
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I love toxic gods for the roleplay experience even if they struggle to get going in the early game. I would recommend not worrying about the optimal build and just go with whatever seems most fun and on theme for your questing space knights. In terms of strategy it may be worth it to look up some spoilers for the quest decisions because some of the best choices are gated behind previous choices in ways that might not be obvious. Psionic also unlocks some unique quest decisions so that's probably your best ascension choice if you want access to those choices.
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Mar 22, 2024 15:22
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GunnerJ posted:It is a little ironic that this expansion is coming out right as DUNC 2 is making waves and getting lots of people interested in the non-mechanical aspects of scifi, though. Like it has clearly been in the works for a long time, but in the alternate universe where they've been working on a bio/psionic expansion instead and time it to come out right when lots of players might maybe kinda wanna play as Paul's Imperium or other weird stuff from Dune, Paradox makes maybe 61 billion dollars
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Mar 22, 2024 15:40
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Tigey posted:Yeah it'd be nice to have more options for doing some really funky transhuman stuff with your empire leader. I would be so into anything that allows for leader or pop transcendence. With how much Unbidden stuff showed up in Astral Planes, I really wish there was some way to turn your population into shroud entities or pure energy beings. Currently hitting a late game for the first time post-patch, and the difference in difficulty is really stark based on which empires spawn next to you. Finding out that your neighbors are fanatic purifiers was always kind of frustrating, but the difference between spawning next to a neighbor with any militarist ethic vs spawning next to empires without feels about as big as playing on GA or Ensign. Materialist empires can't tech like they used to, so non-militarists just roll over and die because the AI behaviors don't really work anymore. Whereas militarist empires will have multiple stacks of 40 corvettes by 2215 and just eat everyone around them. I still don't really like the tech changes and am curious to see if Paradox will walk them back at some point; materialist empires just look very not viable now.
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Mar 22, 2024 18:03
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Why do random leaders refuse to be appointed to the council? You can select them and the game closes the select leader screen and plays the sound effect but the position remains open. You can attempt to assign that leader over and over and it won't work but any other person seem to work fine.
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Mar 22, 2024 21:45
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Could be due to a leader capacity limit or something?
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Mar 22, 2024 22:35
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I noticed it with scientists who are working on a project (anomaly, etc) which normally prevents reassignment. Even though adding them to the council doesn't reassign them, it still seems to have a problem doing so.
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Mar 22, 2024 22:40
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standard.deviant posted:I noticed it with scientists who are working on a project (anomaly, etc) which normally prevents reassignment. Even though adding them to the council doesn't reassign them, it still seems to have a problem doing so.
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Mar 22, 2024 23:24
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I made a mod that gives ringworlds a bit of an oomph and would appreciate feedback
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Mar 22, 2024 23:33
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Heh, the RulerChip is basically the Matrix of Leadership.
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Mar 25, 2024 14:01
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standard.deviant posted:I noticed it with scientists who are working on a project (anomaly, etc) which normally prevents reassignment. Even though adding them to the council doesn't reassign them, it still seems to have a problem doing so. I've noticed this for admirals engaged in battle and for admirals and scientists of ships in emergency ftl
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Mar 25, 2024 22:26
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I've been playing Knights of the Toxic God and while I love the flavour I'm having a terrible time trying to get my economy going properly. Does anyone have any good tips on how to get off to a decent start?
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Mar 26, 2024 05:21
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FurtherReading posted:I've been playing Knights of the Toxic God and while I love the flavour I'm having a terrible time trying to get my economy going properly. Does anyone have any good tips on how to get off to a decent start? I'm playing it for my first time, and all I can say is hope you have amiable neighbors so you're not having to sink alloys into war right away.
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Mar 26, 2024 14:37
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Judgy Fucker posted:I'm playing it for my first time, and all I can say is hope you have amiable neighbors so you're not having to sink alloys into war right away. Yeah that's pretty much been my main problem! Last one in particular had a exterminator machine empire kill the 3rd member of the cluster and set its sight on me. I'm considering going megacorp (maybe with criminal heritage) so I can get some branch offices helping out my economy.
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Mar 26, 2024 15:52
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FurtherReading posted:Yeah that's pretty much been my main problem! Last one in particular had a exterminator machine empire kill the 3rd member of the cluster and set its sight on me. Last time I tried playing criminal empire I thought it was one of the hardest empire types I've played- everyone hates me but the bonuses don't make up for it. That was a loooong time ago, though.
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Mar 26, 2024 15:54
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FurtherReading posted:Yeah that's pretty much been my main problem! Last one in particular had a exterminator machine empire kill the 3rd member of the cluster and set its sight on me. Megacorp Knights have a special building as well for their corp holdings, if you can vassalize a normal empire you can build both.
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Mar 26, 2024 15:54
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AtomikKrab posted:Megacorp Knights have a special building as well for their corp holdings, if you can vassalize a normal empire you can build both. Oh cool, I'll try non-criminal megacorp and see how that goes! Edit: After looking online a bit more I think I'm gonna try an undead megacorp build for the knights, which feels a good mix of flavourful and optimally overcoming some of the obstacles I had in my previous attempts.  Repugnant should be offset by all my clerks, while decadent will be offset by relying on zombie labour. Thrifty as a spartan knightly order is both good flavour and a powerful benefit for a trade value build, while budding will allow for faster zombie construction. I mainly took conservationist for flavour as we're a spartan knightly order, I'm pretty sure I can offset my CG needs from trade and none of the other 1ers really spoke to me (although natural engineers to get habitats a little faster is tempting). I'm not sure about fanatical spiritualist, thinking maybe bumping it down and grabbing xenophobe so I can get some livestock slavery going, who might be better options to sacrifice. Alternatively xenophile so I can make friends easier. Not sure on the eventual third civic pick yet. FurtherReading fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Mar 26, 2024 |
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Mar 26, 2024 16:01
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Sorry for the double post but holy poo poo is that build going well. I had no economy issues at all and even with max toxic god quest support I have plenty of alloys and energy. It's a pretty clerk heavy build where I basically convert mortal initiates into literal cubicle zombies. I'm not sure though how the math works out for the sacrifices. I currently do 1 sacrifice pop per world which combined with my vassal is currently getting about +30% energy/minerals from the bounty option. I'm wondering if there's a point where I am better off using the +happiness option with less pops?
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Mar 27, 2024 02:47
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FurtherReading posted:Sorry for the double post but holy poo poo is that build going well. I had no economy issues at all and even with max toxic god quest support I have plenty of alloys and energy. It's a pretty clerk heavy build where I basically convert mortal initiates into literal cubicle zombies. Instead of death cult another strong civic choice is syncretic evolution, as then you can get a syncretic species to do the non-clerk worker tasks while your main species remain decadent managers/zombie clerks (who both benefit from the same +trade trait).
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Mar 27, 2024 12:58
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