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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


Apocalypse Teaser Trailer, beginning the microstory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW3YB2ptGws
Apocalypse Launch Trailer, ending the microstory?:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AssQqRk3qQM

War.

War never changes.

Except in Stellaris 2.0 "Cherryh on top of the Apocalypse" edition where all the wars are new. For all you returning players, rather than a somewhat mind-numbing slog through an opponent's systems until you max out your warscore and can pick up a small selection of planets, wars now feature concepts like 'terrain', 'strategic chokepoints', 'not being decided in a single fleet engagement' and also - for DLC owners - 'blowing the poo poo out of planets'.

But for those of you who only clicked on this thread because it said 'I WANT TO BELIEVE' by the side of it:

What is Stellaris?

Stellaris is a mashup of a 4X (e.g. Civ, MOO2, Alpha Centauri) and a Grand Strategy game. In SPACE. It's from Paradox Interactive, the masters of renowned mapgames like Crusader Kings 2 and Europa Universalis, except this time rather than castrating your cousins or purging Protestantism, you're venturing to the stars to find ancient secrets, explore new worlds and forge an empire to stand the test of grossly overpowered entities from Beyond Space.


Show me on the planet where the science ship touched you.

It launched as a game you could play and squeeze some fun out of, but was not without its flaws. Since its launch, however, it's been patched to buggery and comes with a range of DLC that expands the experience considerably. These are detailed below. Following patch 2.0, the game has been radically reshaped - gone are the starting choices of FTL type and weapon preference, and in are hyperlanes for all and a new method of expanding your empire. You now have to build an outpost in a system to own it, whereas previously you could own a system because your race of starfish aliens had popped out enough tiny starfish to push your SpaceColour over that system, even if you'd never actually visited it.


This was fine, honest.

I like space! Should I buy it?

If you enjoyed other 4X games or other Paradox games, then go right ahead. If you've never played a strategy game before but quite liked the sense of exploration you got from Star Trek, you should buy it - and enable the tutorial. Basically, you should buy it*.

*on buying it, your view may differ - you should probably read the thread and not just the view of someone who cared about a videogame enough to write screeds on it.

Okay, I bought it! What DLC should I buy?

Essential

Utopia. So you’re in space, right, and you go, “Is this it? Can’t I reshape my future space society to my liking?” Well, with this DLC, you can! You can turn your species into powerful psykers and accidentally unleash the not-Chaos Gods, become perfect beings of steel and circuitry, rewrite your very genome to make your race geniuses (and make other species justdelicious), or, if you prefer, build enormous megastructures like ringworlds and Dyson Spheres, primarily just to show off. Utopia has a dramatic effect on the midgame and endgame especially, and allows you to play as Hive Minds for people who think other people having a separate consciousness is a terrible inconvenience.


Apocalypse. The new major DLC, which I’m assuming here is essential because it allows you to explode worlds. But you don’t only have to explode them! You could also wrap them in an impenetrable spathi slave shield, thus ensuring their safety that they can never bother the universe again. You can be a space Mega-Evangelist and convert entire worlds to your faith. You can even Borgify whole worlds in a single go. Alongside this you get a spicier midgame through new Space Mongols, who might band together to force your subservience before losing Horde Unity and collapsing.

Really Cool
Leviathans. Does space feel just too big? Put it in proportion with this Story Pack that adds in beasts the size of worlds! Shoot space dragons in the face, and ruin your economy by selling your family energy-silver to space traders! Get fleeced by itinerant artists, who get you drunk then nick your stuff!

Synthetic Dawn Did you watch Terminator and hope SkyNet won? With this DLC you can BE SkyNet! Play as a machine mind spread across billions of robots following either the horrendous war of Man and Machine, or the less horrendous Rise of the Roombas in a society in which we have turned over all our decision-making to our former vacuum cleaners.

Strictly Optional
Plantoids. Re-enact the Little Shop of Horrors in space, but this time you get to be the carnivorous plant! Or you could be like a tree I guess.

Humanoids. Is being a not-human a bit challenging? Want literal orcs, elves and dwarves in your spacegame? Get this! Also contains some really cool replacement voicepacks.

And mods?

Most mods are now updated to run in 2.0. Some goon favourites are:

Star Trek: New Horizons – The best Star Trek game. Really.
Guilli’s Planet Modifiers – Goonmade improvements to all your worlds.
Awful Apocalypse - Tired of generic empires clogging up your space? Have goonmade alternatives stand between you and galactic conquest!


How do I meet other goons for multiplayer?

Join the Discord!

https://discord.gg/Wa28D77

HOW MAKE SHIP FIGHT BETTER

You have four types of combat computers that determine how ships will behave in combat: Swarm, Picket, Line and Artillery.

Jazerus posted:

1. the swarm is the center of the messy brawl. anything set to swarm goes here unless there aren't enough opposing swarm ships to stop them from advancing.

2. the picket is hard to distinguish sometimes but they are set back slightly from the swarm. they weave back and forth horizontally in a covering pattern, and if they're equipped with PD they attempt to intercept missiles or strike craft aimed at the line and artillery. if your swarm falters, the picket will start getting swarmed.

3. the line is generally pretty easy to see. these ships hang back well behind the picket and snipe into the swarm, or at the opposing picket and line.

4. the artillery is just the line but even further back.

to get these behaviors working completely as intended, it's important that your weapon range matches the role range. ships will close to the range of their shortest-range weapon basically always.

so, the swarm can mount anything, though the actual stat bonuses indicate that this is a role intended for small-only kinetic + energy corvettes, and also this is the type of ship you want to have in there anyway so that your swarm can actually hold back the enemy swarm through sheer numbers while trying to hollow out the enemy swarm directly. the picket can also mount anything and is kind of the jack-of-all-trades position, personally this is where i put missile corvettes, and also strike craft + PD cruisers when i bother to use those. the line is intended for the usual range of medium weapons; this means that, for example, if you use a destroyer with 2 medium weapons and a small weapon, your small weapon selection is actually restricted to the long-range smalls (standard lasers & guns usually) if you want it to act as part of the line, which is a good place for destroyers. the artillery has the same range-matching issue for cruisers, but with large & medium weapons instead, while artillery battleships can mount all large weapons and thus hang way back.

it's pretty complicated and the formations do fall apart during battle as one side or the other gains the advantage in the swarm. also, if you jump in right on top of the other fleet or they jump in right on top of you, all of this goes out the window and it's just a huge swarm from the start

my recommendations for which ships should go where are just one possible "doctrine", although probably one of the more simple yet effective ones out there especially given the range bug that currently affects artillery. there are many other combinations you could create, keeping in mind your goals:

1. break the enemy swarm with small weapons, and have enough swarm ships to occupy them until they're broken. small-only corvettes are the easy solution to both problems, but also won't be as good against the bigger ships once they do break through.

optional: shoot down missiles

2. kill the enemy line, and if necessary the artillery, with medium and large weapons, while trying to avoid exposing cruisers or battleships to the enemy line or artillery. that's often impossible and you'll end up with a slugfest, that's alright too.

What ascension perks should I get?

VANILLA PERKS

Consecrated Worlds: Allows you enact the Consecrate World planetary edict, which gives a planet a buff of +5% happiness, +15% growth speed, and +15% unity and +25% spiritualist ethics attraction for 100 years, modified by your edicts duration modifier – so given that you can only get this as spiritualists it’s at least 125 years. It costs 300 influence, which is a bit steep for a non-permanent modifier, but for a Life Seeded start or one with few colonies, it could have merit. Situational.

Eternal Vigilance: +25% starbase damage, +25% defence platform damage, and +5 defence platforms. A great perk for defensively-focused empires, and would be amazing in the early game if it didn’t require two other perks to be picked first. Even still, this could help you fend off a technologically superior aggressor pre-Jump Drives. Situational.

Executive Vigour: +50% Edict Duration. Empire-wide edicts are really good, and this allows you to keep them up longer and correspondingly saves you loads of influence. Recommended.

Imperial Prerogative: +5 core systems. The Expansion tree gives you +2 core systems and you can pick up another +2 from relatively cheap tech. If you really want to manage more than 7 systems at once, just download a mod that removes the limit entirely. Not Recommended.

Interstellar Dominion: -20% starbase influence cost, -20% claim cost. A straightforward reduction in cost of your primary influence sinks, making it an excellent choice if influence is bottlenecking your expansion in the early game or your conquest later in the game. Given that you also want to be spending influence on edicts, unless you plan on staying very small, this is a great pick. Recommended.

Mastery of Nature: -33% cost of removing tile blockers and allows you to enact the Land Clearance edict, which adds 1-3 tiles to a planet in proportion to its size at a cost of 500 energy and 100 influence. Previously the no-brainer first pick, 2.0 has given it new functionality and removed its former ability to give you all the tile removing technology at once. Now that tile removal only costs energy, which is relatively plentiful, the case for this pick has weakened further. Land Clearance is helpful if you have a bunch of smaller colonies, but at 100 influence per planet – equivalent to the cost of ten years of an edict – it’s a bit steep. Situational.

One Vision: +10% Unity and +50% Governing Ethics Attraction. A unity buff is always nice, but given that you want unity in order to get traditions and perks spending a perk on it is a bit odd. You have lots of tools to manage factions, and +50% attraction isn’t going to stop slaves inspiring Egalitarianism, whereas suppressing them might. Not Recommended.

Shared Destiny: -50% subject integration influence cost. If you’re expanding through vassalisation and integration exclusively, then this might be a good pick to cut your influence costs overall. However, if integration is something you’ll only do once or twice per game, then giving up a perk slot for this isn’t worth the cost. Situational.

Technological Ascendancy: +10% research speed. A spectacularly unspectacular pick, but one that’s useful regardless of your stage in the game and regardless of playstyle. While it’s no-regrets and essential for any research-focused build, it’s a little boring. Nonetheless, it’s Recommended.

Defender of the Galaxy: +50% damage to Crises and +20 opinion from everyone. Given that there’s a crisis in every game and you’re probably going to have to lead the fight against it, because heaven knows the AI will gently caress it up, this is a really handy pick to grab before it arrives. Of course, if you’re the type of hardcore player who has 200k fleetpower by 2250, then you probably don’t need it, but for the rest of us it’s Recommended.

Galactic Contender: +33% damage to Fallen and Awakened Empires. FEs and AEs are less dangerous than crises, but can still ruin your day if they’re provoked or awaken before you’re ready for them. This is useful for those situations where you’re nearly on a par with them but need an extra boost to assure victory. Accordingly, it is Situational.

Galactic Force Projection: +20 fleet command limit and +80 naval capacity. A nice early game buff for those with the mineral and energy output to support a bigger fleet – especially for empires that plan on being tall – but rapidly superseded by tech and anchorages past the early game. Fleet command limits cap out at 200, which can be reached by tech, rendering it even more irrelevant in the late game. Really Situational.

World Shaper: -25% terraforming costs and can make Gaia worlds. This would be a no-brainer pick for the -25% terraforming cost alone if it didn’t require Climate Restoration, which only pops up relatively late in the game. However, if you have both terraforming resources the cost of making a Gaia world comes down to around 6000 and the time to around 15 years, which given they give a 10% buff to everything starts making using this perk as an energy sink potentially worthwhile. It’s especially valuable for spiritual empires, who can use Gaia terraforming on a small planet and Hallow it to get a 10% unity buff (the same as One Vision), and for xenophiles who no longer have to worry about different habitability races migrating to the same planet. If you’re going the Evolutionary Mastery route, however, you’re better off genetically engineering everyone into compliance. Situational.

Aethernet fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Mar 22, 2018

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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
Finally managed to play at least the early game. It has a totally different feel; the mad land grab is like a different game. The autodesigned ships are actually... not bad. The AI still seems to piss its minerals away on ships in the early game though, thus allowing the player to compound their advantage. Now that early rushing is harder, this might be something to revisit.

If anyone finds some good new player guides or mods they think should be in the OP, :justpost:

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
Having played a bit more, some further thoughts:

- The economy feels so much tighter now. There's more things to spend on will comparable priorities, making decisions in the early to mid game much more interesting.
- Haven't actually fought a war yet, but ship design is much more interesting and I'm actually going to have more than one design per hull class.
- +Research now feels slightly OP. While minerals and influence are the hard limit on expansion, the soft limit of increased research costs is actually more telling. This means that both Discovery and Tech Ascendancy might be the best choices for first picks for many playstyles - after all, it doesn't really matter if an industrious xenophobe grabs a bunch of systems if it renders them backwards and you can subsequently take them off them.
- +Core Systems techs now feel more buried in the tech tree, and because you no longer need planets to expand, the initial limit of three feels really restrictive.

Game is amazing though.

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
Synchronised Defences, previously a bit of a joke tech, is now AMAZING in the early game. Get it and be safe.

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
Everyone in my first playthrough is very friendly slavers. :shrug:

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
All the events with a timer to get to like Drill Rampage and the Pheremone one could really do with their deadline being increased significantly in line with slower movement overall.

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

Space Skeleton posted:

I love the fleet manager but I keep running into a possible bug where my destroyers will seem to "forget" what design they are when I update the design in the ship designer so in my fleets they become 10/0 meaning they are not recognized as part of the fleet design. I'm not renaming the design and it just seems to happen to the destroyers. Am I doing something wrong?

Pulling them out of the fleet and putting them back in sometimes fixes it. Other times they get stuck like that.

No, I got that bug too. You can 'retrofit' the design to change it to the actual design, which appears to fix it.

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

OwlFancier posted:

The way regenerative hull plating works I feel like you could make some fairly hench builds out of just buffing your hull and armour points and sticking that on, especially as it regenerates armour twice as fast as hull.

Regen on fortresses made them practically invincible pre 2.0. Be interesting to see how it works in the new world.

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
Finally had my first war. Fleet combat is so much less relevant now - starbases can handle most defensive duties and fleet combat will inevitably lead to losses and war exhaustion, so you're better off just avoiding their fleet even if it's smaller and trusting your starbases to handle it.

The fleet manager is just as good as I hoped it would be. One-button reinforcing is the best.

Much slower FTL has made wars feel much more meaningful, and fleet caps plus that actively encourage distributing fleets around your empire. It's excellent stuff.

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

WMain00 posted:

There seems to be a bug going on in war at the moment:



All those defeats in that list are actually wins on my side? They're territory containing spaceports that I've attacked and taken successfully? So why are they registering as Defeats and making my war exhaustion go up? Rather than the other way round?

Quite sure this is a bug.

This appears to be about how war exhaustion works. If you win a combat but lose a significant portion of your naval cap in ships, you get more war exhaustion than the opponent and so it counts as a defeat. I don't think the game gives starbase loss enough war exhaustion points right now.

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
Prosperity reduces the cost of ships, ans therefore reduces maintenance as it's a percentage of their cost. Always get prosperity.

I think defence platforms could do with lower maintenance, but ships feel reasonably balanced.

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
Normal AI empires seem willing to piss minerals and energy at you for strategic resources too. Now that there's fewer of them they're a ticket to quite a bit of income.

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
The Ancient Terraforming Equipment event, according to the forums, has something screwey with its odds. You're much more likely to torch the planet now, so probably best picking dismantle until that's fixed.

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

Skippy McPants posted:

Does Stellaris have a bug report forum? I was lookin' on Paradox's website, but if it's there, I can't seem to find it.

I got lucky enough to roll a Psionic Expertise scientist on my fanatic materialists and noticed that the output bonus from Academic Living Standards vanished when I picked Mind Over Matter. Tried it with Chemical Bliss as well and got the same result. It looks like the Latent Telepath trait overwrites any output bonuses provided by Living Standards. Reloading from a save after selecting the perk fixed the issue, but I might have lost dozens of science if I hadn't noticed, dozens!

You have to actually sign into the forums before the bug report forum becomes visible.

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 think gates were meant to be more common or the tech that lets you build them come sooner - certainly, I've never seen it. Is it locked behind mega-engineering?

You can certainly liberate quite large empires, you just have to have enough of a combat advantage to do it without incurring heavy losses. I think ticking attrition should probably be removed for that particular war goal though, or at least halved.

Edit: also, Khan fleets tend to be very low on PD and very vulnerable to strike craft, at least in the games I've seen so far.

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

Archonex posted:

So I chose to vassalize an empire and at the end of the war it just straight up gave their only planet to me. Is this normal?

If you have a claim on a system then it takes priority over the vassalisation demand. If you want to take them as a vassal but not their systems, you need to renounce your claims.

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

GotLag posted:

Hah, just had pirates spawn in year 11 who immediately attacked a pod of space whales... which wiped them out.

Space whales are the best.

Domesticated space whales now!

For xenophobes, who get a food bonus and a special starbase whale pen building.

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
Don't bomb worlds, drown them in clones. They're cheap, quick to build, and losing them doesn't seem to offer a big WE hit. Stronger armies are better if you build them in advance, but if you haven't, fire up the vats.

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

Taear posted:

Rubbish. Man I hate the army system so much.

It used to be worse - at least it's more engaging now. But the fleet manager has badly exposed the lack of an equivalent for armies, and the fact that I can't just click a button to send an army to a particular rally point (i.e. a fleet I want it to follow consistently) is not positive. Hopefully that'll be wrapped up in subsequent patches.

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

THE loving MOON posted:

You should be able to make claims when you're declared on, I had no intention of taking his poo poo and losing systems in a white peace was pretty lame.

You can make claims when at war - just go to talk to them and click 'make claims'. Not sure whether it's more expensive for defensive wars - it's +100% for offensive wars.

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

Captain Oblivious posted:

I feel like Hive Minds could use the Synthetic Dawn treatment. They feel like a rough draft for what they did with Machcine Intelligences, and could probably use more archetypes than just Devouring Swarm to give them some flavor.

In keeping with some classic sci-fi tropes, I really want a Lonely Hive Mind that gets bonuses for every other hive mind it's in contact with.

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

Splicer posted:

Hiring Marauders is the opposite day version of the espionage options I've been wanting.

*They're effectively an AI only mechanic.

*All they do is blow up your poo poo.

*There's no build up to them blowing up your poo poo, they just say "we're coming to blow up your poo poo" and then blow up your poo poo.

*There's no counter to them blowing up your poo poo other than blowing up their poo poo harder.

Somewhere on Wiz's desk is a monkey's paw perfectly oriented to give me, personally, the finger.

I would be amazed if Thursday's dev diary didn't include some proposals for reworking the bidding system to humans have a chance to actually bid.

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

Crazyeyes24 posted:

So as someone who has owned this for a while and picked up the new expansions, but hasn't actually figured out how to be Good at it, are there any good getting started tips or advice you all have? I messed around a bit with a couple games but still struggle a bit when it comes to balancing my expansion and tech, etc. Any tips on a civ setup for learning the ropes? Key things to know in the current 2.0 build?

Play a Fanatic Authoritarian with the Slaving and Mining Guild civics. Spend your minerals on whatever you fancy, but ensure that your fleet is at cap, you've built starbases on choke points and your other starbases are split between Trading Hubs and Anchorages.

This should take you a reasonably long way on Normal.

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
So, pirates can spawn when your science ship is in that system surveying it.

That sucks.

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
The change to Expansion was absolutely necessary, as not taking it felt a bit like gimping yourself.

Not persuaded that starbase maintenance was a problem. Putting costs on a fun thing - which they are - is dumb, when they're already balanced by the cap.

Be interesting to see if liberation wars are more viable now.

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
Yes. You might win a war through massive expenditure of personnel and material, but that doesn't mean your people will thank you for it.

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

prussian advisor posted:

So since I had heard that Marauders were kinda broken with the new patch, I’ve simply been playing with the Marauder slider set to zero since 2.0 dropped. Now that the “neutral rampage” bug has evidently been fixed, I figure I’ll start playing with them in. Anyone have a basic idea of the best way to deal with them? Are they strong enough that you can’t deal with them just one-on-one early on (outside of a Great Khan event of course)?

Torpedoes and strike craft. They have next to no PD and are vulnerable to these - you might want missiles for the faster ships too.

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 love getting refugees as Rogue Servitors. "Fleeing oppression? Have a seat and we'll get you a nice cup of tea*."

*non-optional

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

Kemper Boyd posted:

Feeling kinda stupid but:

I just fought a war against robitts alongside an AI. Is there any way to find out what systems my AI ally needs to occupy to win the war?

Claims mode - one of the buttons on the bottom right - will allow you to mouseover systems and find out who has claims on them.

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
Reducing Executive Vigour down to 50% was necessary, as it was way too good especially if you picked up Droning Optimisations early. Still a good perk though. By comparison, +4 starbases looks a bit weak, except for REALLY tall empires.

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 would love to play huge galaxies if I had a better machine. As it is, I top out on large. I like the feeling that the other side of the galaxy is a genuinely remote place.

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

TalonDemonKing posted:

You can lose your original population as a Xenophobe. When you do so, if you have any other races (Such as slave races), you won't be able to set those races as 'full citizenship'. Instead, they'll forever remain residences, castes, or slaves, despite no one enslaving them.

Interestingly enough, I still get my original races as leader, despite not having any in my entire empire.

One imagines a tiny remnant of a race, trapped in the Imperial Palace, desperately trying to convince their slaves that they're still in charge.

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
Importantly, winning isn't about stars, but planets, which you have to have colonised or conquered. As it's a proportion of total colonies - including habitats - you can also win by spamming habitats until you reach the threshold.

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

Captain Oblivious posted:

So, I'm having a interesting game.



I'm playing as Life Seeded/Free Haven xenophile/pacifist/spiritualist space hydras with the intent of poaching a bunch of immigrants with migration treaties to my (now apparently multiple) lush gaia world and colonizing from there. The problem: So far my neighbors are an Inward Perfection shitlord and a Xenophile/Militarist honorbound warrior. The Xenophile isn't totally unworkable I don't think, they're only -20 with me due to the shared xenophilia. Does anyone have any ideas on how to butter them up for migration treaties? I've never gone with quite such a diplomacy emphasis before.

Also yeah that's a Tomb World Sol with upliftable cockroaches literally right next to my capitol :psyduck:

Guarantee independence, take diplo traditions and let trust tick up.

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
Yeah, the War in Heaven is amazing. Playing as the UNE, I founded the League of Non-Aligned Worlds, and fought a decades-long war against the Spiritualist and Materialist AEs and their vassal swarm. I abandoned large parts of my empire I knew I couldn't defend effectively until I'd eliminated at least one of them, sending my fleets all the way round the galaxy to knock out the spiritualists first.

As I was cleaning up the last Materialist worlds, the Unbidden arrived. In the nick of time, I finished both the AEs off and their vassals transferred to my ownership. The league and my new vassals were now ready to face this new threat united. Except...



... I was still somehow at war with my new vassals. The game bugged out when I conquered both FEs and assumed the WiH was still running. This was, as you can imagine, rather disappointing.

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

3 DONG HORSE posted:

This is really good and should be in the OP. Explains combat roles and weapon slot relationships perfectly.

Indeed. Jazerus, is there anything else you'd add before I put it in?

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

Jazerus posted:

just that my recommendations for which ships should go where are just one possible "doctrine", although probably one of the more simple yet effective ones out there especially given the range bug that currently affects artillery. there are many other combinations you could create, keeping in mind your goals:

1. break the enemy swarm with small weapons, and have enough swarm ships to occupy them until they're broken. small-only corvettes are the easy solution to both problems, but also won't be as good against the bigger ships once they do break through.

optional: shoot down missiles

2. kill the enemy line, and if necessary the artillery, with medium and large weapons, while trying to avoid exposing cruisers or battleships to the enemy line or artillery. that's often impossible and you'll end up with a slugfest, that's alright too.

Cheers fella, have added.

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

Gay Horney posted:

How strong is the Great Khan? I have 40k or so fleet power and getting into my systems involves going through two Citadels. Can I stand up to him? Never made it this far into a game.

Yes, if you use your fleet to support whichever citadel they attack first. His largest fleet is ~40k.

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
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-107-the-post-apocalypse.1076726/

Dev diary is up. Trade and better planet management are things they'd like to do In The Future.

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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
Yeah, why the Fleet Manager doesn't apply to armies is beyond me.

Edit: new beta is up: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/dev-team-2-0-2-beta-patch-updated-8-3-2018-checksum-da0f.1076790/

* Ether Drake Hatchling and Psionic Avatar can no longer be merged into other fleets or assigned leaders
* Assist Research is no longer researched by technology, and is instead unlocked by a Discovery tradition
* Increased max number of Titans from to 3 to 20
* Resource Replicators mineral production increased from 30 to 40
* Raised starbase max cap to 999
* Raised naval max cap to 9999
* Psionic Shields can no longer be reverse-engineered
* Purifiers, Devouring Swarms and Exterminators can now be spontaneously raided by Marauders, and can also offer tribute
* Faith in Science now gives 3 months of Unity production per tech unlocked instead of adding Unity production to assist research
* To Boldly Go now gives +50% science ship disengage chance instead of +30 science ship evasion
* Planetary Survey Corps has been replaced with Databank Uplinks; which unlocks Assist Research (techs related to Assist Research are no longer researchable, and base effect was buffed)
* Grasp the Void effect on starbase capacity increased from +4 to +5
* Clicking your own empire shield on colonized systems in the galaxy map will now open planet view and cycle between colonies in that system
* Expanding changes from "distance" trigger to "distance_to_empire" trigger distance_to_empire = { who = <target> type = <hyperlane/euclidean> uses_bypass = <yes/no> } uses hyperlane and bypasses by default, the empire in "who" is used to determine bypass usage
* Reworked distance trigger. It now works: distance = { source = <target> min = 50 max = 120 type=<hyperlane/euclidean> uses_bypass=<yes/no> bypass_empire=<empire> min_jumps = 2 max_jumps = 10 }" ); type = hyperlane/euclidean (hyperlane by default) uses_bypass: yes/no (yes by default) whether to use bypasses (wormholes/gateways) when evaluating distance bypass_empire is used to determine what bypass can be used. This parameter is ignored if uses_bypass=false if unset, bypasses will be ignored min_jumps and max_jumps work the same as min/max, except in number of jumps instead of distance units. These parameters are ignore if 0, or if the type isn't hyperlane
* Growing pops are now always killed when a planet is bombarded into a tomb world
* Fixed a bug where Prethoryn could end up with non-infested planets which could not be bombarded
* Fleet capacity now displayed correctly for fleets that should not have any. Also, the "open fleet manager" button in the fleet view is disabled for fleets that the player does not have a fleet template for (alliance fleets)
* Fixed misaligned constructed ringworld segments
* Fixed Casus Belli notification spam
* Synthetically Ascended empires no longer get the Ghost Signal modifier on newly constructed Pops
* Fixed issue with Gateway construction event incorrectly firing when someone else activated a Gateway in your system
* Wormholes and Gateways are now taken into consideration when checking if empires are neighbors
* Fixed "Go To" location and typo in "Habitat Complete" event
* Event ships now get proper fleets with templates, but are blocked from cheat building through fleet manager
* Marauder raiding fleets now go after mining/research stations of their intended target, and scale properly according to difficulty
* Robotic workers are now automatically allowed when you synthetically ascend

Some big changes to Discovery there, which felt really weak in 2.0. Looks very helpful for tech-focused empires with weak unity production. Also, lol@+5 instead of +4 starbases.

Aethernet fucked around with this message at 15:40 on Mar 8, 2018

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