Ultimately I'd say Ham is closer to the truth even if he's articulating it poorly. Treating Stellaris like any other 4X is a mistake. Wiz did not even particularly want victory conditions in the game. There is an obvious emphasis on emergent narratives the likes of which CK2 and to a lesser extent EU4 are known for. Their content production pattern alternates between major expansions (Apocalypse, Utopia) and what they've dubbed story packs (Synthetic Dawn) by the developer's own statements, and that tells us a lot about what kind of game they perceive Stellaris to be. The player is expected, and encouraged, to make decisions for thematic or roleplaying reasons. I do not think the developers actually care about balance in a strict sense. Sure, they'd probably like the margins between optimal and suboptimal to be smaller but "a basic axiom of game design is that the fun way to play your game and the powerful way to play your game should be the same" doesn't really apply to Crusader Kings 2, EU4, and it definitely doesn't apply here. Doing weird nonsense for it's own sake is a pretty time honored tradition in Paradox grand strategy games and, now, Paradox 4X games with grand strategy leanings.
Ultimately I'd say Ham is closer to the truth even if he's articulating it poorly. Treating Stellaris like any other 4X is a mistake. Wiz did not even particularly want victory conditions in the game. There is an obvious emphasis on emergent narratives the likes of which CK2 and to a lesser extent EU4 are known for. Their content production pattern alternates between major expansions (Apocalypse, Utopia) and what they've dubbed story packs (Synthetic Dawn) by the developer's own statements, and that tells us a lot about what kind of game they perceive Stellaris to be. The player is expected, and encouraged, to make decisions for thematic or roleplaying reasons. I do not think the developers actually care about balance in a strict sense. Sure, they'd probably like the margins between optimal and suboptimal to be smaller but "a basic axiom of game design is that the fun way to play your game and the powerful way to play your game should be the same" doesn't really apply to Crusader Kings 2, EU4, and it definitely doesn't apply here. Doing weird nonsense for it's own sake is a pretty time honored tradition in Paradox grand strategy games and, now, Paradox 4X games with grand strategy leanings.
Nothing about an emphasis on emergent narratives precludes a reasonable level of game balance. The idea that there's some sort of conflict between good story and good mechanics that only allows you to have one of the two is game design poison.
If that axiom didn't apply then there'd be no reason to rework weapon or ship loadouts to make them mechanically compelling, because players who want to can just put terrible missiles on all their ships for RP reasons. There'd be no reason to rework defense stations because it doesn't matter if they serve a mechanical purpose, they're just options available to players to fuel an emergent narrative! There'd be no reason for increased population and number of planets to penalize research, because there's no clear logic behind why it should, an empire with more scientists should research faster, and we don't need to give bonuses to make tall play mechanically viable because players who want to play that way can just do it for fun even if it's bad. No reason to rework doomstacks because players who want a lot of fleets can just choose a suboptimal strategy for thematic reasons, and so on and so forth for every mechanic they've reworked since launch. Their content production pattern is full of mechanical reworks that make clear that balance is a thing that matters to them, and the fact that players have been consistently excited about those reworks independently of any new story options makes clear that players care about it, too.
About the only diplomatic thing you can do is Stellaris that I have never seen in a 4X is a joint declaration of war with an empire you are not in an alliance/federation with. In fact, there are a couple of diplomatic options that Stellaris doesn't have that I feel are missing that I've seen in 4Xs.
Nah, Civ does that too. Many Civ games even let you do full-on proxy wars where you pay Civ A to declare war on Civ B for you without you needing to declare war yourself, something Stellaris doesn't allow as far as I recall. Stellaris' diplomacy is relatively barebones right now.
You will be able to pay pirate bands to attack your rivals in the Cherryh update
Ultimately I'd say Ham is closer to the truth even if he's articulating it poorly. Treating Stellaris like any other 4X is a mistake. Wiz did not even particularly want victory conditions in the game. There is an obvious emphasis on emergent narratives the likes of which CK2 and to a lesser extent EU4 are known for. Their content production pattern alternates between major expansions (Apocalypse, Utopia) and what they've dubbed story packs (Synthetic Dawn) by the developer's own statements, and that tells us a lot about what kind of game they perceive Stellaris to be. The player is expected, and encouraged, to make decisions for thematic or roleplaying reasons. I do not think the developers actually care about balance in a strict sense. Sure, they'd probably like the margins between optimal and suboptimal to be smaller but "a basic axiom of game design is that the fun way to play your game and the powerful way to play your game should be the same" doesn't really apply to Crusader Kings 2, EU4, and it definitely doesn't apply here. Doing weird nonsense for it's own sake is a pretty time honored tradition in Paradox grand strategy games and, now, Paradox 4X games with grand strategy leanings.
Nothing about an emphasis on emergent narratives precludes a reasonable level of game balance. The idea that there's some sort of conflict between good story and good mechanics that only allows you to have one of the two is game design poison.
If that axiom didn't apply then there'd be no reason to rework weapon or ship loadouts to make them mechanically compelling, because players who want to can just put terrible missiles on all their ships for RP reasons. There'd be no reason to rework defense stations because it doesn't matter if they serve a mechanical purpose, they're just options available to players to fuel an emergent narrative! There'd be no reason for increased population and number of planets to penalize research, because there's no clear logic behind why it should, an empire with more scientists should research faster, and we don't need to give bonuses to make tall play mechanically viable because players who want to play that way can just do it for fun even if it's bad. No reason to rework doomstacks because players who want a lot of fleets can just choose a suboptimal strategy for thematic reasons, and so on and so forth for every mechanic they've reworked since launch. Their content production pattern is full of mechanical reworks that make clear that balance is a thing that matters to them, and the fact that players have been consistently excited about those reworks independently of any new story options makes clear that players care about it, too.
I would agree that good game mechanics and good story do not preclude one another. However, the caveat to that is that there is no such thing as good game mechanics in a vacuum. Mechanics can only be good or bad relative to a set of game design parameters, which is to say mechanics are good or bad based upon how well they fulfill the needs of a game and by extension it's audience. You would likely concede to me, if pressed, that Stellaris will never be balanced enough to support a competitive multiplayer scene. In other words, it will never be truly be balanced. If that is so then, and if many other games shared these characteristics (they do), why make balance based mechanical changes at all? Because the objective is not true parity between options, but rather that options appear to be "near enough" to parity as far as the play patterns of the intended audience are likely to scrutinize them.
It doesn't particularly matter if there's a set of civics and government type that crushes Stellaris effortlessly, there very likely always will be. The only thing that matters is that the various options play effectively enough/in a satisfying manner in the hands of the average player.
Pretty good. At the moment.
Standard Cruiser design for me is the medium bow, Hanger middle, and medium stern
Put your best point defense in the middle along with bombers and then tune the medium weapons for the enemy defenses. swarms and swarms of bombers for days and it just cuts through them so hard.
Its a bit of a delay because it takes time for bombers to get to the target, but unless they are geared for stupid amounts of point defense, they die pretty hard to bomber swarms.
I'm getting to the point where my robot exterminator empire can just about take on either of the two fallen empires: the first is a Keepers of Knowledge and the second is an Ancient Caretakers. My fleet strength is sitting around 80k with around 200 fleet cap left to fill (just finished a war that grabbed a bunch of territories). Was wondering which of the two I should try to take on first, and how I should tailor my fleet for said fight? I started with kinetics but I've gotten enough energy techs from researching debris that I think my pewpew is on par with my dakka (in fact, the auto-best designer is trying to build my battleships and cruisers with energy weapons). I repaired a sentry array so I know each has a fleet strength of around 77k but their homeworlds are protected by some pretty potent fortresses so I would need to lure them out of their territory before actually engaging. I'm guessing that if I were to fight a FE and win with heavy casualties that my rivals will wardec on me as soon as the most recent truce is up in ~3 yrs? Should I build up for the FE battle but start a small fight against the federation with a small goal (humiliate, maybe grab 1 system) to enforce a peace and keep on front safe? Honestly this is the farthest I've ever gotten in this game before so this is all uncharted territory.
Ultimately I'd say Ham is closer to the truth even if he's articulating it poorly. Treating Stellaris like any other 4X is a mistake. Wiz did not even particularly want victory conditions in the game. There is an obvious emphasis on emergent narratives the likes of which CK2 and to a lesser extent EU4 are known for. Their content production pattern alternates between major expansions (Apocalypse, Utopia) and what they've dubbed story packs (Synthetic Dawn) by the developer's own statements, and that tells us a lot about what kind of game they perceive Stellaris to be. The player is expected, and encouraged, to make decisions for thematic or roleplaying reasons. I do not think the developers actually care about balance in a strict sense. Sure, they'd probably like the margins between optimal and suboptimal to be smaller but "a basic axiom of game design is that the fun way to play your game and the powerful way to play your game should be the same" doesn't really apply to Crusader Kings 2, EU4, and it definitely doesn't apply here. Doing weird nonsense for it's own sake is a pretty time honored tradition in Paradox grand strategy games and, now, Paradox 4X games with grand strategy leanings.
I think it's poorer for that focus though. Much of the mechanics are... mediocre. Megastructures are effectively useless but still kinda cool. There's no espionage or ability to gain knowledge on or influence over other empires, no meaningful diplomacy except federations I suppose. The tech tree is too dependent on getting the random drops you want
Combat is both opaque and boring. There's literally one button you can press and you have no control over anything. Want your fleet to escape from the system? Well something flew in the magic combat circle, now you have to fight. No tense "will they jump before getting killed" they just turn around and die. Want to pursue an enemy fleet? Well you ran across a single lone ship so your doomfleet turned around. Both fleets just slowly meander at each other regardless of if one has longer range weapons, performs better close or far, etc
Even race design has little impact beyond picking a few modifiers. There's plenty of design space to create racial archetypes that feel mechanically different to play - see ES or Stars! Even space empires had racial options that opened up unique tech trees or abilities. Stellaris has... purifiers who can't make peace, pacifists who can't do offense, hive minds don't really feel any different. Maybe robots?
I don't get the emergent narrative feel from stellaris. CK or EU sure, but this? Sure there are a couple cool event lines, but that's it really. One game feels the same as another to me
It doesn't particularly matter if there's a set of civics and government type that crushes Stellaris effortlessly, there very likely always will be. The only thing that matters is that the various options play effectively enough/in a satisfying manner in the hands of the average player.
Okay. They currently don't, and the thing that doesn't is the flagship new feature of a paid expansion. That's probably not ideal!
I'm getting to the point where my robot exterminator empire can just about take on either of the two fallen empires: the first is a Keepers of Knowledge and the second is an Ancient Caretakers. My fleet strength is sitting around 80k with around 200 fleet cap left to fill (just finished a war that grabbed a bunch of territories). Was wondering which of the two I should try to take on first, and how I should tailor my fleet for said fight? I started with kinetics but I've gotten enough energy techs from researching debris that I think my pewpew is on par with my dakka (in fact, the auto-best designer is trying to build my battleships and cruisers with energy weapons). I repaired a sentry array so I know each has a fleet strength of around 77k but their homeworlds are protected by some pretty potent fortresses so I would need to lure them out of their territory before actually engaging. I'm guessing that if I were to fight a FE and win with heavy casualties that my rivals will wardec on me as soon as the most recent truce is up in ~3 yrs? Should I build up for the FE battle but start a small fight against the federation with a small goal (humiliate, maybe grab 1 system) to enforce a peace and keep on front safe? Honestly this is the farthest I've ever gotten in this game before so this is all uncharted territory.
Don't use lasers against FEs (plasma is good when backed by kinetic artillery/energy torpedoes, but FEs use a lot of shields and shield caps - you don't want to show up with a weapon loadout that's bad against shields). Most FEs rely a lot on strike craft, so bring some PD. The two you're up against both also rely a lot on tachyon lances and plasma/lasers, so bringing a shield-heavy fleet of your own would be wise. Most FEs (spiritualists excepted) have a hard time hitting small targets once their bombers are down, so bringing more destroyers than you normally would can be good (this is usually where I put my PD - destroyer loadouts with 1 large kinetic artillery + 2 flak batteries).
As for which of the two to hit first, those are the two FEs that are most similar to each other and have functionally near-identical fleet loadouts, but the Caretakers can't undergo an upstart awakening while the materialists can. So if you go after the caretakers first, there's a strong risk of the keepers awakening and stomping you, whereas if you conquer the keepers first the caretakers will just sit around until you're built back up to conquer them too.
War against either FE doesn't usually take long (not a lot of systems, so low warscore requirement to conquer them, and no ability to build new fleets after you smash the first one) but if the other empires are still a legitimate threat extending the truce first might be the safe play. Just be aware that you're also over the fleet power threshold that can trigger an upstart awakening, so if it's also past year 100 there's a risk of the keepers turning into an awakened empire every year you spend not at war with them (they can't awaken while at war or after their fleet is destroyed).
Thanks for the info, Abbalah, much appreciated! I didn't think to rework my destroyers to Large/PD, that should help bump up the overall damage to my fleet. I've been running heavier on the armor lately and going light on shields. relying on the hull regen from Living Metal and bringing enough ships to mitigate too much damage to any one craft; guess I'll retrofit those as well. Does either FE bring enough PD of their own to mitigate bombers or should I just go full artillery?
FEs always bring a pretty respectable amount of PD to a fight - every FE battleship has a fighter hangar and every FE destroyer has 4 PD slots, regardless of FE type. I don't usually bring strike craft to an FE fight unless I'm running PD on cruisers (which forces you to bring a hangar, usually outfitted with fighters for more PD), and I don't usually bother with PD cruisers unless I'm up against a spiritualist FE (they get extra tracking on their ships that makes relying on destroyers for all your PD dicey, and they're missile-heavy so you end up wanting more PD anyway.).
Also as a sidenote, I'm a fan of the Galactic Contender ascension perk, especially on large maps with 3-4 FEs - it also provides a pretty substantial boost to any fight you have with an FE (and more importantly with any Awakened empires that get triggered by you conquering another FE), which are likely to be your most challenging pre-Crisis fights anyway. I usually end up taking it as my third or fourth perk and if you have it it'll cut your casualties against a fallen empire significantly.
AE's aren't insurmountable. Even on a very large map they seem to usually cap out around ~300k fleet power unless they've got a lot of vassals, which is usually pretty obtainable by the player by the time you're dealing with one. You're usually pretty close to FE-lootable tech level by the time one awakens anyway (you won't have all the repeatables unless you're on a high-tech plan, but you can't loot those regardless), and if you took Galactic Contender you can punch above your weight if necessary. You do need jump drives to keep up, but you have a pretty good shot at getting those naturally before that point even if you don't salvage FE wrecks for them (average time for an FE to awaken if you haven't conquered one is year ~125). They can build new ships but if you can smash their initial fleet it takes a while (and might prompt any existing vassals of theirs to declare war for liberation). Plus by that point you can just optimize your whole fleet to fight them specifically, since nothing else can touch you anyway.
They get particularly easy to deal with if they make the mistake of conquering a couple worlds close to your borders - they keep their fleets in their home system unless they're at war, so you can often sneak in and occupy those far-flung worlds before their fleets get to you, which will A)lock down their fleets, since their AI will make them divert all their forces to bombard any occupied worlds one at a time until they're recaptured, rather than invading yours or defending against your invasions of additional worlds, and B)can let you squeak your way to the 20 warscore you need to make demands without necessarily fighting their fleets at all, which can often let you demand that they cede their homeworlds (which completely cripples them instantly since those worlds represent so much of their mineral/energy income).
Plus the decadence mechanic means that even if you're not in a position to fight them, if you can just avoid outright war and/or stalemate them for ~30-40 years, they'll turn into pushovers again.
They can be really tough if they show up unusually early (usually triggered by you conquering another FE, which speeds up the upstart awakening for remaining ones significantly) and/or if the one that awakens is right in your backyard - best way to avoid that is kill both those birds with the same stone and take your neighboring FE's lunch money as soon as possible so that any AE you DO have to deal with is on the other side of the galaxy and will waste a good chunk of his decadence timer vassalizing his AI neighbors before coming after you.
I wish Federation fleets were more useful. Or that you could contribute to the fleet even if you aren't the president. Or that the AI was better in using it.
There's like zero point building it up, IMO, because the AI will horrifically misuse any Fed fleet you happen to create.
I was thinking that earlier in my current game as I was watching one of my federation allies feed our ~60k federation fleet into the scourge.
Though since then I've built it up to a 250k monster, and there's about no bad way to misuse a fleet that large, just fun ways.
The current state of the galaxy, my territory in blue and my allies/vassals in green:
I think this game is about done, really. The only thing left is carving more chunks out of the enemy federation, and I think I've done enough of that already.
I found one star system called Covfeve, and another called Lando.
Yeah they have hidden a lot of references in system names. If you've heard of a planet in sci-fi, there's a chance you'll see that name somewhere. Same with ship names.
There's no plan, there's no race to be run
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
I wish Federation fleets were more useful. Or that you could contribute to the fleet even if you aren't the president. Or that the AI was better in using it.
There's like zero point building it up, IMO, because the AI will horrifically misuse any Fed fleet you happen to create.
I was thinking that earlier in my current game as I was watching one of my federation allies feed our ~60k federation fleet into the scourge.
Though since then I've built it up to a 250k monster, and there's about no bad way to misuse a fleet that large, just fun ways.
The current state of the galaxy, my territory in blue and my allies/vassals in green:
-snip-
I think this game is about done, really. The only thing left is carving more chunks out of the enemy federation, and I think I've done enough of that already.
About done? About done?! Look at all those filthy Xenos infesting a galaxy that by all rights belongs to you!
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
Ultimately I'd say Ham is closer to the truth even if he's articulating it poorly. Treating Stellaris like any other 4X is a mistake. Wiz did not even particularly want victory conditions in the game. There is an obvious emphasis on emergent narratives the likes of which CK2 and to a lesser extent EU4 are known for. Their content production pattern alternates between major expansions (Apocalypse, Utopia) and what they've dubbed story packs (Synthetic Dawn) by the developer's own statements, and that tells us a lot about what kind of game they perceive Stellaris to be. The player is expected, and encouraged, to make decisions for thematic or roleplaying reasons. I do not think the developers actually care about balance in a strict sense. Sure, they'd probably like the margins between optimal and suboptimal to be smaller but "a basic axiom of game design is that the fun way to play your game and the powerful way to play your game should be the same" doesn't really apply to Crusader Kings 2, EU4, and it definitely doesn't apply here. Doing weird nonsense for it's own sake is a pretty time honored tradition in Paradox grand strategy games and, now, Paradox 4X games with grand strategy leanings.
I think it's poorer for that focus though. Much of the mechanics are... mediocre. Megastructures are effectively useless but still kinda cool. There's no espionage or ability to gain knowledge on or influence over other empires, no meaningful diplomacy except federations I suppose. The tech tree is too dependent on getting the random drops you want
Combat is both opaque and boring. There's literally one button you can press and you have no control over anything. Want your fleet to escape from the system? Well something flew in the magic combat circle, now you have to fight. No tense "will they jump before getting killed" they just turn around and die. Want to pursue an enemy fleet? Well you ran across a single lone ship so your doomfleet turned around. Both fleets just slowly meander at each other regardless of if one has longer range weapons, performs better close or far, etc
Even race design has little impact beyond picking a few modifiers. There's plenty of design space to create racial archetypes that feel mechanically different to play - see ES or Stars! Even space empires had racial options that opened up unique tech trees or abilities. Stellaris has... purifiers who can't make peace, pacifists who can't do offense, hive minds don't really feel any different. Maybe robots?
I don't get the emergent narrative feel from stellaris. CK or EU sure, but this? Sure there are a couple cool event lines, but that's it really. One game feels the same as another to me
That's unfortunate. I would suggest though, particularly based on the bolded, that there may be a fundamental conflict of interests that is irreconcileable. Highly defined races like in Endless Space 1/2 are something that Stellaris is explicitly not trying to do. Stellaris is meant to provide you enough detail to demonstrate a concept, but not enough detail to prevent you from filling in your own headcanon on top of that. Self-imposed limitations of definitions are kind of The Point. If you've literally ever watched an Extraterrestrial Thursday stream or followed the developers' twitter you'd see for yourself what kind of game they aspire to make. If you are uninterested or unable to do any roleplaying then well...there just might be an upper limit to how much you can get out of the game. C'est la vie.
It doesn't particularly matter if there's a set of civics and government type that crushes Stellaris effortlessly, there very likely always will be. The only thing that matters is that the various options play effectively enough/in a satisfying manner in the hands of the average player.
Okay. They currently don't, and the thing that doesn't is the flagship new feature of a paid expansion. That's probably not ideal!
Sure isn't. Cherryh/Apocalypse's overhaul to warfare is much needed. More depth of features to peacetime are also needed, and I think it's a preeetty safe bet that's our next destination after Apocalypse.
I simply don't agree with the assertion that because an optimally played empire doesn't need megastructures that makes them totally useless. The above statement and this one aren't mutually exclusive.
They are useless though. If you're in a bind, megastructures are not the answer to your problems. Diverting your resources towards megastructures will never grasp victory from the jaws of defeat. Building them is essentially just showing off. At best they're win-more projects that cement your already established superiority over any would-be peers.
I'm quite fond of them as a way of maximizing the value of a given region of space when playing Pacifist personally, which tends to be important when you aspire to survive end game crises without bulldozing your neighbors willy nilly.
I don't believe anybody used the phrase 'totally useless', but they are not a worthwhile investment for virtually any strategy. For any given gameplan, the time, perks, and minerals could be spent in another way to provide significantly more benefit. As a result, they don't fit coherently into any strategy and are just a silly trinket you can waste resources on for fun. Fun is a perfectly valid reason to build them, but it's not a sufficient justification for their existence from a game design perspective, and they should get the same kind of overhaul other mechanically-flawed game concepts have gotten and are getting to make them mechanically relevant, especially since they are paid feature that currently has little to no legitimate mechanical purpose, and especially since the existence of and reception to those other mechanical reworks demonstrates that this sort of thing matters to both the players and the developers.
Moreover this whole conversation about whether Stellaris is really about playing optimally or whatever is rather tangent to my original point. Like, somehow we seem to have changed subjects from "Megastructures aren't really any good" to a philosophical discussion of whether they need to be good or not. Regardless of whether they need to be powerful, they currently are not, which was the fairly straightforward original assertion. It's very weird to me that people keep taking issue with that statement and then arguing against an evolving series of different ideas instead. It seems like there are several people who really want the statement "Megastructures are not powerful" to be false, but really don't want to dispute it by saying "No, megastructures are powerful" - presumably because that would be a very difficult point to defend - and so are instead trying to dispute it indirectly by arguing about design philosophy.
+2
Options
AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
If you can afford to build a megastructure you probably don't need to build a megastructure.
Which isn't really a situation you want a key piece of a DLC to be in.
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
It seems like there are several people who really want the statement "Megastructures are not powerful" to be false, but really don't want to dispute it by saying "No, megastructures are powerful" - presumably because that would be a very difficult point to defend - and so are instead trying to dispute it indirectly by arguing about design philosophy.
To cross genres for a moment, this seems to be what's called the "Timmy" mindset in Magic the Gathering terms. "Timmy" is the name used by Wizards of the Coast to describe the archetype of player that likes big powerful cards like giant Dragons or Leviathans, but generally those cards don't see competitive play because they're prohibitively expensive to play and are frequently answered by cards that are much cheaper. Completed megastructures ARE powerful. As far as individual assets are concerned, megastructures are probably the most powerful things that you can have within your empire. The problem that you're well aware of is that megastructures are ridiculously inefficient and the time and resources exhausted to create one are better spent on virtually anything else.
The other two main player archetypes are "Spike" who is predominately interested in the most efficient and optimal game winning strategies, and "Johnny" who enjoys delving into obscure interactions in the game rules to break the game and do something crazy like going infinite even if the procedure to do so is impractical.
I found one star system called Covfeve, and another called Lando.
Yeah they have hidden a lot of references in system names. If you've heard of a planet in sci-fi, there's a chance you'll see that name somewhere. Same with ship names.
I feel like the fact that there's a system called "Belgium" is a Hitchhiker's guide reference (said to be the most horrific profanity ever in galactic standard and one of the many reasons the rest of the galaxy has a very dim view of humanity).
+2
Options
CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
Has anyone tried to attack the Infinity Machine? In my latest save, I tried to hack it and was dismissed. Now it's just sitting there, taunting me with its existence. If anyone has blown it up, what was your fleet strength?
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
The nice thing about habitats though, is that it costs 5000 minerals instead of 5000 energy. Use habitats if you want to invest in power and science generation. Terraform for mineral and food investment (caveat on those proper worlds)
I mean sure, you can just use the trader enclaves for direct infusions of wealth, but with investing you dont have to worry during a multiplayer game if someone just decides to kill the trader enclaves.
Its a MAD option, but offworld trading company taught me that players are petty and see near any price paid as an offset gain if they can deny an opponent their easy eco engine.
They are useless though. If you're in a bind, megastructures are not the answer to your problems. Diverting your resources towards megastructures will never grasp victory from the jaws of defeat. Building them is essentially just showing off. At best they're win-more projects that cement your already established superiority over any would-be peers.
If you are equivalent to a FE or anyone really a Dyson Sphere can give you the energy boost to overbuild your fleet to get the edge. As one example.
For any given gameplan, the time, perks, and minerals could be spent in another way to provide significantly more benefit.
This is obviously false. You get 8 traits. Even if you take another ascension path, you still have plenty left and only like the 200 fleet cap one is really better all the time. So the perk cost is basically zero.
Once you hit the mineral cap the mineral cost is effectively zero.
So you basically choose between a megastructure and more habitats, and I'm pretty sure megastructures are more efficient since they don't add research penalties like habitats do.
Moreover this whole conversation about whether Stellaris is really about playing optimally or whatever is rather tangent to my original point. Like, somehow we seem to have changed subjects from "Megastructures aren't really any good" to a philosophical discussion of whether they need to be good or not. Regardless of whether they need to be powerful, they currently are not, which was the fairly straightforward original assertion. It's very weird to me that people keep taking issue with that statement and then arguing against an evolving series of different ideas instead. It seems like there are several people who really want the statement "Megastructures are not powerful" to be false, but really don't want to dispute it by saying "No, megastructures are powerful" - presumably because that would be a very difficult point to defend - and so are instead trying to dispute it indirectly by arguing about design philosophy.
Because your definition of powerful presupposes a certain playstyle, so the more fundamental issue is that there are other playstyles for which megastructures are powerful.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
Megastructures are pretty rad for the solo planet challenge thing. Science nexus to superpower your research and a dyson sphere to power your galactic force projection + grand fleet edict fleet were invaluable in the latter portion of my recent solo planet game
I was surprised that the dyson sphere was good, I guess they upped the energy generation a bunch from when megastructures first released? I seem to recall it was really tiny then.
Habitats have value because basically none of the more problematic costs of 'real' megastructures apply to them.
They unlock decades earlier (usually around year 50) because you just need Battleships and Deep Space Installations, no requirement for Zero Point Power or Mega-Engineering
Additionally, while they still cost a perk, the habitats perk can be your first perk if you want, whereas galactic wonders/ringworlds have to be your fourth.
They're substantially cheaper (5000 minerals as opposed to 100,000+)
They build way faster - your first ones will come online 5 years after the already-much-earlier unlock instead of 25 years+ - so you'll be profitably using them starting 55-60 years into the game instead of 100+.
And most importantly, they don't have the one-at-a-time limit that keeps other megastructures from providing a meaningful power spike. You can hit year 50 with 20,000 minerals banked, and at year 55 you'll have added four new worlds to your home system. The growth they give you is limited only by your actual mineral generation, not an arbitrary toggle, and even though they're smaller worlds than Ringworld segments, A)that doesn't matter until population growth has allowed a hypothetical Ringworld to grow larger than a Habitat would allow, and even though there are some penalties for having more worlds, and thus some bonuses for concentrating your people into those big 25-tile planets, the reality is that 10-12 Habitats are still going to outperform 4 Ringworld segments, and they're going to cost half as much and they're going to come online 50+ years sooner.
It's telling that they clearly set out to make habitats playable to try and allow tall strategies to work, and in order to do so they had to make them function differently from the other megastructures in basically every way.
They are useless though. If you're in a bind, megastructures are not the answer to your problems. Diverting your resources towards megastructures will never grasp victory from the jaws of defeat. Building them is essentially just showing off. At best they're win-more projects that cement your already established superiority over any would-be peers.
If you are equivalent to a FE or anyone really a Dyson Sphere can give you the energy boost to overbuild your fleet to get the edge. As one example.
Ultimately I'd say Ham is closer to the truth even if he's articulating it poorly. Treating Stellaris like any other 4X is a mistake. Wiz did not even particularly want victory conditions in the game. There is an obvious emphasis on emergent narratives the likes of which CK2 and to a lesser extent EU4 are known for. Their content production pattern alternates between major expansions (Apocalypse, Utopia) and what they've dubbed story packs (Synthetic Dawn) by the developer's own statements, and that tells us a lot about what kind of game they perceive Stellaris to be. The player is expected, and encouraged, to make decisions for thematic or roleplaying reasons. I do not think the developers actually care about balance in a strict sense. Sure, they'd probably like the margins between optimal and suboptimal to be smaller but "a basic axiom of game design is that the fun way to play your game and the powerful way to play your game should be the same" doesn't really apply to Crusader Kings 2, EU4, and it definitely doesn't apply here. Doing weird nonsense for it's own sake is a pretty time honored tradition in Paradox grand strategy games and, now, Paradox 4X games with grand strategy leanings.
I think it's poorer for that focus though. Much of the mechanics are... mediocre. Megastructures are effectively useless but still kinda cool. There's no espionage or ability to gain knowledge on or influence over other empires, no meaningful diplomacy except federations I suppose. The tech tree is too dependent on getting the random drops you want
Combat is both opaque and boring. There's literally one button you can press and you have no control over anything. Want your fleet to escape from the system? Well something flew in the magic combat circle, now you have to fight. No tense "will they jump before getting killed" they just turn around and die. Want to pursue an enemy fleet? Well you ran across a single lone ship so your doomfleet turned around. Both fleets just slowly meander at each other regardless of if one has longer range weapons, performs better close or far, etc
Even race design has little impact beyond picking a few modifiers. There's plenty of design space to create racial archetypes that feel mechanically different to play - see ES or Stars! Even space empires had racial options that opened up unique tech trees or abilities. Stellaris has... purifiers who can't make peace, pacifists who can't do offense, hive minds don't really feel any different. Maybe robots?
I don't get the emergent narrative feel from stellaris. CK or EU sure, but this? Sure there are a couple cool event lines, but that's it really. One game feels the same as another to me
That's unfortunate. I would suggest though, particularly based on the bolded, that there may be a fundamental conflict of interests that is irreconcileable. Highly defined races like in Endless Space 1/2 are something that Stellaris is explicitly not trying to do. Stellaris is meant to provide you enough detail to demonstrate a concept, but not enough detail to prevent you from filling in your own headcanon on top of that. Self-imposed limitations of definitions are kind of The Point. If you've literally ever watched an Extraterrestrial Thursday stream or followed the developers' twitter you'd see for yourself what kind of game they aspire to make. If you are uninterested or unable to do any roleplaying then well...there just might be an upper limit to how much you can get out of the game. C'est la vie.
It's not like they've completely shied away from mechanical differences, robots have to be constructed, don't require food and hive minds don't have happiness for example. There's no reason they couldn't add a few new big archetypes and add some unique techs locked or mostly locked by traits for example. They don't have to build completely defined races, but a way to actually differentiate races beyond diplomacy opinion modifiers and disabling certain diplomatic options would be nice! As it is, every single endgame empire is nearly identical in near every respect, from techs to available ship components to planet builds, except that robots don't have farms
should you be able to build up earlier and more gradually to transition to a ringworld/sphere? should you be able to commit early as a risky build and take a hit to production for a long time for a major benefit in the mid game? should they just be slightly earlier/better and provide late game rewards that boost your final push for the win or defense against a crisis?
this would all be solved by having the game play more like a legacy roguelike so that civilizations inevitably fall and you start your next game centuries later, so the ruined megastructures are actually from your past games and empires....
Edit: they could also interact with alternative win conditions, like "have a fully upgraded ringworld for x years" or whatever. But that's a whole different update, I imagine, if it ever happens
should you be able to build up earlier and more gradually to transition to a ringworld/sphere? should you be able to commit early as a risky build and take a hit to production for a long time for a major benefit in the mid game? should they just be slightly earlier/better and provide late game rewards that boost your final push for the win or defense against a crisis?
It's hard to say exactly since there are a lot of variables and we don't have the benefit of a playtesting environment, but my first pass would probably be ditching the mega-engineering requirement, moving wonders from T3 to T2 (so you can take them as your third perk instead of your fourth), eliminating the one-at-a-time limit, and probably rolling ringworlds into either voidborne or galactic wonders rather than setting them up as their own separate perk. Test that, and see what needs to be tweaked from there (with a particular eye on mineral costs). Again, the problem isn't that they don't do enough, it's that they're too slow to apply to anything.
They are useless though. If you're in a bind, megastructures are not the answer to your problems. Diverting your resources towards megastructures will never grasp victory from the jaws of defeat. Building them is essentially just showing off. At best they're win-more projects that cement your already established superiority over any would-be peers.
If you are equivalent to a FE or anyone really a Dyson Sphere can give you the energy boost to overbuild your fleet to get the edge. As one example.
For any given gameplan, the time, perks, and minerals could be spent in another way to provide significantly more benefit.
This is obviously false. You get 8 traits. Even if you take another ascension path, you still have plenty left and only like the 200 fleet cap one is really better all the time. So the perk cost is basically zero.
Once you hit the mineral cap the mineral cost is effectively zero.
So you basically choose between a megastructure and more habitats, and I'm pretty sure megastructures are more efficient since they don't add research penalties like habitats do.
Moreover this whole conversation about whether Stellaris is really about playing optimally or whatever is rather tangent to my original point. Like, somehow we seem to have changed subjects from "Megastructures aren't really any good" to a philosophical discussion of whether they need to be good or not. Regardless of whether they need to be powerful, they currently are not, which was the fairly straightforward original assertion. It's very weird to me that people keep taking issue with that statement and then arguing against an evolving series of different ideas instead. It seems like there are several people who really want the statement "Megastructures are not powerful" to be false, but really don't want to dispute it by saying "No, megastructures are powerful" - presumably because that would be a very difficult point to defend - and so are instead trying to dispute it indirectly by arguing about design philosophy.
Because your definition of powerful presupposes a certain playstyle, so the more fundamental issue is that there are other playstyles for which megastructures are powerful.
1) No, you don't get 8 traits, because you'll almost never unlock all 8 in the course of a normal game unless you just continue to play indefinitely and refuse to end the game. Most games you'll get to ~5, maybe 6 unless you're specifically playing a very tall, very unity-focused game and not ending it in a reasonable timeframe, in which case you're already pursuing a weirdly specific and underperforming strategy to begin with. As for other perks not being better, your estimation of the power level of perks seems to be wildly off - Imperial Prerogative is highly valuable especially for wide play, Interstellar Dominion and Technological Ascendancy are both solid early perks for tall play, Mastery of Nature is currently so good that they're changing it to a completely different perk in the upcoming patch so that there's a reason to ever take anything else as perk 1, Galactic Contender and Defender of the Galaxy are huge bonuses against the game's only real threats, and so on. Force Projection (the 200 fleet cap one) is actively one of the least useful perks for almost any strategy except a one-planet challenge (where it is the critical game-changing perk that defines your ability to win, not megastructures.) because it won't represent a huge increase to your total fleet cap by the time you can get it (because it's a T2 perk that you can't take until your 3rd slot). Even if every other part of this idea weren't wrong, the notion that you can just define a cost of 1-2 out of 8 slots as 'zero' is ridiculous, not least because you don't start with all your slots and so which perks you are able to take at which times also constitutes a cost of its own (IE, you take Galactic Wonders as your 4th perk and bump Synthetic Evolution to perk 5, you're giving up ~30 years of +20% pop output, as well as a bunch of other bonuses and the loss of any leaders that die in that 30-year window while you unlock your next perk)
2) "Once you hit the mineral cap the mineral cost is effectively zero"- This is an even more egregious and fundamental failure of cost/benefit analysis. We're not comparing the value of megastructures against the value of 'do nothing with your minerals, sit around with your minerals capped and let them evaporate', we're comparing the value of megastructures against the value of the next best thing you can do with them. There's always something to spend minerals on.
3) "You basically choose between a megastructure and more habitats, and I'm pretty sure megastructures are more efficient" No, they trivially are not and I just did a whole post explaining why. Habitats are vastly more efficient on every possible axis.
4) No, my definition of powerful does not presupposed a certain playstyle except insofar as it presupposes that you have some goal towards which you are proceeding and aren't just sitting around doing nothing with your minerals capped. And no, the whole point of this conversation from the opening was that even in a one-planet challenge, where megastructures are at their absolute most valuable, they still aren't actually the strategically correct play. There is no strategy or playstyle whose performance is improved by building a megastructure, and that is the problem.
They are useless though. If you're in a bind, megastructures are not the answer to your problems. Diverting your resources towards megastructures will never grasp victory from the jaws of defeat. Building them is essentially just showing off. At best they're win-more projects that cement your already established superiority over any would-be peers.
If you are equivalent to a FE or anyone really a Dyson Sphere can give you the energy boost to overbuild your fleet to get the edge. As one example.
For any given gameplan, the time, perks, and minerals could be spent in another way to provide significantly more benefit.
This is obviously false. You get 8 traits. Even if you take another ascension path, you still have plenty left and only like the 200 fleet cap one is really better all the time. So the perk cost is basically zero.
Once you hit the mineral cap the mineral cost is effectively zero.
So you basically choose between a megastructure and more habitats, and I'm pretty sure megastructures are more efficient since they don't add research penalties like habitats do.
Moreover this whole conversation about whether Stellaris is really about playing optimally or whatever is rather tangent to my original point. Like, somehow we seem to have changed subjects from "Megastructures aren't really any good" to a philosophical discussion of whether they need to be good or not. Regardless of whether they need to be powerful, they currently are not, which was the fairly straightforward original assertion. It's very weird to me that people keep taking issue with that statement and then arguing against an evolving series of different ideas instead. It seems like there are several people who really want the statement "Megastructures are not powerful" to be false, but really don't want to dispute it by saying "No, megastructures are powerful" - presumably because that would be a very difficult point to defend - and so are instead trying to dispute it indirectly by arguing about design philosophy.
Because your definition of powerful presupposes a certain playstyle, so the more fundamental issue is that there are other playstyles for which megastructures are powerful.
1) No, you don't get 8 traits, because you'll almost never unlock all 8 in the course of a normal game unless you just continue to play indefinitely and refuse to end the game. Most games you'll get to ~5, maybe 6 unless you're specifically playing a very tall, very unity-focused game and not ending it in a reasonable timeframe, in which case you're already pursuing a weirdly specific and underperforming strategy to begin with.
I unlocked all the perks in all the games I played to completion since Utopia came out.
2) "Once you hit the mineral cap the mineral cost is effectively zero"- This is an even more egregious and fundamental failure of cost/benefit analysis. We're not comparing the value of megastructures against the value of 'do nothing with your minerals, sit around with your minerals capped and let them evaporate', we're comparing the value of megastructures against the value of the next best thing you can do with them. There's always something to spend minerals on.
You have built all stations and buildings. You have no more planets to settle in your borders. You have no expansion plans and surrounded by allies. You are at fleet cap. What exactly can you even spend minerals on at that point?
3) "You basically choose between a megastructure and more habitats, and I'm pretty sure megastructures are more efficient" No, they trivially are not and I just did a whole post explaining why. Habitats are vastly more efficient on every possible axis.
Your argument was basically that habitats are easier and faster to get. Which is not an argument about their efficiency vis a vis minerals spent per point of science/energy/etc especially when you factor in the pop and colony maluses for habitats.
4) No, my definition of powerful does not presupposed a certain playstyle except insofar as it presupposes that you have some goal towards which you are proceeding and aren't just sitting around doing nothing with your minerals capped. And no, the whole point of this conversation from the opening was that even in a one-planet challenge, where megastructures are at their absolute most valuable, they still aren't actually the strategically correct play. There is no strategy or playstyle whose performance is improved by building a megastructure, and that is the problem.
It clearly does, because I spend most of my games sitting around with maxed resources after a certain point.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
Realistically speaking, any civilisation sufficiently advanced enough to build something like a Dyson Sphere or a Ringworld are probably at or beyond the point of Fallen Empire level. It makes sense for them to be excessive demonstrations of power- the things that massive and long-lasting societies would build. They're very win-more by nature.
I like that habitats are smaller and less potent, singularly speaking, and easier to construct- they're the expected stepping stones.
So I'm fairly content with the position in the developmental hierarchy that the big megastructures have (though maybe the science nexus and sentry array could use more, smaller, steps since the idea of a basic version of those seems kinda reasonable for earlier civilisations) because it fits with the storytelling a great deal. But if storytelling in the game isn't your jam like it is for me then I can understand why the balance position the megastructures sit in might not be ideal. But balance minutia are fairly low down on why I love this game!
1) No, you don't get 8 traits, because you'll almost never unlock all 8 in the course of a normal game unless you just continue to play indefinitely and refuse to end the game. .
I still feel like having victory conditions in the game is purely optional. I almost never end a game once I hit one of the victory conditions, I just keep playing til I am satisfied.
So I started a new game as an Inward Perfection Xenophobe Pacifist. And immediately discover that there is a primitive civ in literally the first system outside my borders. Atomic Age, so it's pretty definitely that they will eventually pop up and steal a chunk of my empire. I can't invade them because I'm a pacifist, and I can't uplift them because I'm a xenophobe, so there's no way for me to ensure I bring them under my thrall.
I drop a observation post on the planet so I can keep an eye on them while I try to decide how I'm going to deal with them.
But oh lucky day! I get the notification shortly thereafter that they have nuked themselves into oblivion! How lucky is that?
Before following any advice, opinions, or thoughts I may have expressed in the above post, be warned: I found Keven Costners "Waterworld" to be a very entertaining film.
Posts
White FC: 0819 3350 1787
Nothing about an emphasis on emergent narratives precludes a reasonable level of game balance. The idea that there's some sort of conflict between good story and good mechanics that only allows you to have one of the two is game design poison.
If that axiom didn't apply then there'd be no reason to rework weapon or ship loadouts to make them mechanically compelling, because players who want to can just put terrible missiles on all their ships for RP reasons. There'd be no reason to rework defense stations because it doesn't matter if they serve a mechanical purpose, they're just options available to players to fuel an emergent narrative! There'd be no reason for increased population and number of planets to penalize research, because there's no clear logic behind why it should, an empire with more scientists should research faster, and we don't need to give bonuses to make tall play mechanically viable because players who want to play that way can just do it for fun even if it's bad. No reason to rework doomstacks because players who want a lot of fleets can just choose a suboptimal strategy for thematic reasons, and so on and so forth for every mechanic they've reworked since launch. Their content production pattern is full of mechanical reworks that make clear that balance is a thing that matters to them, and the fact that players have been consistently excited about those reworks independently of any new story options makes clear that players care about it, too.
You will be able to pay pirate bands to attack your rivals in the Cherryh update
Steam profile - Twitch - YouTube
Switch: SM-6352-8553-6516
I would agree that good game mechanics and good story do not preclude one another. However, the caveat to that is that there is no such thing as good game mechanics in a vacuum. Mechanics can only be good or bad relative to a set of game design parameters, which is to say mechanics are good or bad based upon how well they fulfill the needs of a game and by extension it's audience. You would likely concede to me, if pressed, that Stellaris will never be balanced enough to support a competitive multiplayer scene. In other words, it will never be truly be balanced. If that is so then, and if many other games shared these characteristics (they do), why make balance based mechanical changes at all? Because the objective is not true parity between options, but rather that options appear to be "near enough" to parity as far as the play patterns of the intended audience are likely to scrutinize them.
It doesn't particularly matter if there's a set of civics and government type that crushes Stellaris effortlessly, there very likely always will be. The only thing that matters is that the various options play effectively enough/in a satisfying manner in the hands of the average player.
White FC: 0819 3350 1787
Standard Cruiser design for me is the medium bow, Hanger middle, and medium stern
Put your best point defense in the middle along with bombers and then tune the medium weapons for the enemy defenses. swarms and swarms of bombers for days and it just cuts through them so hard.
Its a bit of a delay because it takes time for bombers to get to the target, but unless they are geared for stupid amounts of point defense, they die pretty hard to bomber swarms.
Steam - NotoriusBEN | Uplay - notoriusben | Xbox,Windows Live - ThatBEN
I think it's poorer for that focus though. Much of the mechanics are... mediocre. Megastructures are effectively useless but still kinda cool. There's no espionage or ability to gain knowledge on or influence over other empires, no meaningful diplomacy except federations I suppose. The tech tree is too dependent on getting the random drops you want
Combat is both opaque and boring. There's literally one button you can press and you have no control over anything. Want your fleet to escape from the system? Well something flew in the magic combat circle, now you have to fight. No tense "will they jump before getting killed" they just turn around and die. Want to pursue an enemy fleet? Well you ran across a single lone ship so your doomfleet turned around. Both fleets just slowly meander at each other regardless of if one has longer range weapons, performs better close or far, etc
Even race design has little impact beyond picking a few modifiers. There's plenty of design space to create racial archetypes that feel mechanically different to play - see ES or Stars! Even space empires had racial options that opened up unique tech trees or abilities. Stellaris has... purifiers who can't make peace, pacifists who can't do offense, hive minds don't really feel any different. Maybe robots?
I don't get the emergent narrative feel from stellaris. CK or EU sure, but this? Sure there are a couple cool event lines, but that's it really. One game feels the same as another to me
Okay. They currently don't, and the thing that doesn't is the flagship new feature of a paid expansion. That's probably not ideal!
Don't use lasers against FEs (plasma is good when backed by kinetic artillery/energy torpedoes, but FEs use a lot of shields and shield caps - you don't want to show up with a weapon loadout that's bad against shields). Most FEs rely a lot on strike craft, so bring some PD. The two you're up against both also rely a lot on tachyon lances and plasma/lasers, so bringing a shield-heavy fleet of your own would be wise. Most FEs (spiritualists excepted) have a hard time hitting small targets once their bombers are down, so bringing more destroyers than you normally would can be good (this is usually where I put my PD - destroyer loadouts with 1 large kinetic artillery + 2 flak batteries).
As for which of the two to hit first, those are the two FEs that are most similar to each other and have functionally near-identical fleet loadouts, but the Caretakers can't undergo an upstart awakening while the materialists can. So if you go after the caretakers first, there's a strong risk of the keepers awakening and stomping you, whereas if you conquer the keepers first the caretakers will just sit around until you're built back up to conquer them too.
War against either FE doesn't usually take long (not a lot of systems, so low warscore requirement to conquer them, and no ability to build new fleets after you smash the first one) but if the other empires are still a legitimate threat extending the truce first might be the safe play. Just be aware that you're also over the fleet power threshold that can trigger an upstart awakening, so if it's also past year 100 there's a risk of the keepers turning into an awakened empire every year you spend not at war with them (they can't awaken while at war or after their fleet is destroyed).
Also as a sidenote, I'm a fan of the Galactic Contender ascension perk, especially on large maps with 3-4 FEs - it also provides a pretty substantial boost to any fight you have with an FE (and more importantly with any Awakened empires that get triggered by you conquering another FE), which are likely to be your most challenging pre-Crisis fights anyway. I usually end up taking it as my third or fourth perk and if you have it it'll cut your casualties against a fallen empire significantly.
They get particularly easy to deal with if they make the mistake of conquering a couple worlds close to your borders - they keep their fleets in their home system unless they're at war, so you can often sneak in and occupy those far-flung worlds before their fleets get to you, which will A)lock down their fleets, since their AI will make them divert all their forces to bombard any occupied worlds one at a time until they're recaptured, rather than invading yours or defending against your invasions of additional worlds, and B)can let you squeak your way to the 20 warscore you need to make demands without necessarily fighting their fleets at all, which can often let you demand that they cede their homeworlds (which completely cripples them instantly since those worlds represent so much of their mineral/energy income).
Plus the decadence mechanic means that even if you're not in a position to fight them, if you can just avoid outright war and/or stalemate them for ~30-40 years, they'll turn into pushovers again.
They can be really tough if they show up unusually early (usually triggered by you conquering another FE, which speeds up the upstart awakening for remaining ones significantly) and/or if the one that awakens is right in your backyard - best way to avoid that is kill both those birds with the same stone and take your neighboring FE's lunch money as soon as possible so that any AE you DO have to deal with is on the other side of the galaxy and will waste a good chunk of his decadence timer vassalizing his AI neighbors before coming after you.
I was thinking that earlier in my current game as I was watching one of my federation allies feed our ~60k federation fleet into the scourge.
Though since then I've built it up to a 250k monster, and there's about no bad way to misuse a fleet that large, just fun ways.
The current state of the galaxy, my territory in blue and my allies/vassals in green:
I think this game is about done, really. The only thing left is carving more chunks out of the enemy federation, and I think I've done enough of that already.
Yeah they have hidden a lot of references in system names. If you've heard of a planet in sci-fi, there's a chance you'll see that name somewhere. Same with ship names.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
About done? About done?! Look at all those filthy Xenos infesting a galaxy that by all rights belongs to you!
That's unfortunate. I would suggest though, particularly based on the bolded, that there may be a fundamental conflict of interests that is irreconcileable. Highly defined races like in Endless Space 1/2 are something that Stellaris is explicitly not trying to do. Stellaris is meant to provide you enough detail to demonstrate a concept, but not enough detail to prevent you from filling in your own headcanon on top of that. Self-imposed limitations of definitions are kind of The Point. If you've literally ever watched an Extraterrestrial Thursday stream or followed the developers' twitter you'd see for yourself what kind of game they aspire to make. If you are uninterested or unable to do any roleplaying then well...there just might be an upper limit to how much you can get out of the game. C'est la vie.
Sure isn't. Cherryh/Apocalypse's overhaul to warfare is much needed. More depth of features to peacetime are also needed, and I think it's a preeetty safe bet that's our next destination after Apocalypse.
I simply don't agree with the assertion that because an optimally played empire doesn't need megastructures that makes them totally useless. The above statement and this one aren't mutually exclusive.
White FC: 0819 3350 1787
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
White FC: 0819 3350 1787
Moreover this whole conversation about whether Stellaris is really about playing optimally or whatever is rather tangent to my original point. Like, somehow we seem to have changed subjects from "Megastructures aren't really any good" to a philosophical discussion of whether they need to be good or not. Regardless of whether they need to be powerful, they currently are not, which was the fairly straightforward original assertion. It's very weird to me that people keep taking issue with that statement and then arguing against an evolving series of different ideas instead. It seems like there are several people who really want the statement "Megastructures are not powerful" to be false, but really don't want to dispute it by saying "No, megastructures are powerful" - presumably because that would be a very difficult point to defend - and so are instead trying to dispute it indirectly by arguing about design philosophy.
Which isn't really a situation you want a key piece of a DLC to be in.
The other two main player archetypes are "Spike" who is predominately interested in the most efficient and optimal game winning strategies, and "Johnny" who enjoys delving into obscure interactions in the game rules to break the game and do something crazy like going infinite even if the procedure to do so is impractical.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
I feel like the fact that there's a system called "Belgium" is a Hitchhiker's guide reference (said to be the most horrific profanity ever in galactic standard and one of the many reasons the rest of the galaxy has a very dim view of humanity).
I mean sure, you can just use the trader enclaves for direct infusions of wealth, but with investing you dont have to worry during a multiplayer game if someone just decides to kill the trader enclaves.
Its a MAD option, but offworld trading company taught me that players are petty and see near any price paid as an offset gain if they can deny an opponent their easy eco engine.
Steam - NotoriusBEN | Uplay - notoriusben | Xbox,Windows Live - ThatBEN
If you are equivalent to a FE or anyone really a Dyson Sphere can give you the energy boost to overbuild your fleet to get the edge. As one example.
This is obviously false. You get 8 traits. Even if you take another ascension path, you still have plenty left and only like the 200 fleet cap one is really better all the time. So the perk cost is basically zero.
Once you hit the mineral cap the mineral cost is effectively zero.
So you basically choose between a megastructure and more habitats, and I'm pretty sure megastructures are more efficient since they don't add research penalties like habitats do.
Because your definition of powerful presupposes a certain playstyle, so the more fundamental issue is that there are other playstyles for which megastructures are powerful.
I was surprised that the dyson sphere was good, I guess they upped the energy generation a bunch from when megastructures first released? I seem to recall it was really tiny then.
They unlock decades earlier (usually around year 50) because you just need Battleships and Deep Space Installations, no requirement for Zero Point Power or Mega-Engineering
Additionally, while they still cost a perk, the habitats perk can be your first perk if you want, whereas galactic wonders/ringworlds have to be your fourth.
They're substantially cheaper (5000 minerals as opposed to 100,000+)
They build way faster - your first ones will come online 5 years after the already-much-earlier unlock instead of 25 years+ - so you'll be profitably using them starting 55-60 years into the game instead of 100+.
And most importantly, they don't have the one-at-a-time limit that keeps other megastructures from providing a meaningful power spike. You can hit year 50 with 20,000 minerals banked, and at year 55 you'll have added four new worlds to your home system. The growth they give you is limited only by your actual mineral generation, not an arbitrary toggle, and even though they're smaller worlds than Ringworld segments, A)that doesn't matter until population growth has allowed a hypothetical Ringworld to grow larger than a Habitat would allow, and
It's telling that they clearly set out to make habitats playable to try and allow tall strategies to work, and in order to do so they had to make them function differently from the other megastructures in basically every way.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
It's not like they've completely shied away from mechanical differences, robots have to be constructed, don't require food and hive minds don't have happiness for example. There's no reason they couldn't add a few new big archetypes and add some unique techs locked or mostly locked by traits for example. They don't have to build completely defined races, but a way to actually differentiate races beyond diplomacy opinion modifiers and disabling certain diplomatic options would be nice! As it is, every single endgame empire is nearly identical in near every respect, from techs to available ship components to planet builds, except that robots don't have farms
should you be able to build up earlier and more gradually to transition to a ringworld/sphere? should you be able to commit early as a risky build and take a hit to production for a long time for a major benefit in the mid game? should they just be slightly earlier/better and provide late game rewards that boost your final push for the win or defense against a crisis?
this would all be solved by having the game play more like a legacy roguelike so that civilizations inevitably fall and you start your next game centuries later, so the ruined megastructures are actually from your past games and empires....
Edit: they could also interact with alternative win conditions, like "have a fully upgraded ringworld for x years" or whatever. But that's a whole different update, I imagine, if it ever happens
It's hard to say exactly since there are a lot of variables and we don't have the benefit of a playtesting environment, but my first pass would probably be ditching the mega-engineering requirement, moving wonders from T3 to T2 (so you can take them as your third perk instead of your fourth), eliminating the one-at-a-time limit, and probably rolling ringworlds into either voidborne or galactic wonders rather than setting them up as their own separate perk. Test that, and see what needs to be tweaked from there (with a particular eye on mineral costs). Again, the problem isn't that they don't do enough, it's that they're too slow to apply to anything.
1) No, you don't get 8 traits, because you'll almost never unlock all 8 in the course of a normal game unless you just continue to play indefinitely and refuse to end the game. Most games you'll get to ~5, maybe 6 unless you're specifically playing a very tall, very unity-focused game and not ending it in a reasonable timeframe, in which case you're already pursuing a weirdly specific and underperforming strategy to begin with. As for other perks not being better, your estimation of the power level of perks seems to be wildly off - Imperial Prerogative is highly valuable especially for wide play, Interstellar Dominion and Technological Ascendancy are both solid early perks for tall play, Mastery of Nature is currently so good that they're changing it to a completely different perk in the upcoming patch so that there's a reason to ever take anything else as perk 1, Galactic Contender and Defender of the Galaxy are huge bonuses against the game's only real threats, and so on. Force Projection (the 200 fleet cap one) is actively one of the least useful perks for almost any strategy except a one-planet challenge (where it is the critical game-changing perk that defines your ability to win, not megastructures.) because it won't represent a huge increase to your total fleet cap by the time you can get it (because it's a T2 perk that you can't take until your 3rd slot). Even if every other part of this idea weren't wrong, the notion that you can just define a cost of 1-2 out of 8 slots as 'zero' is ridiculous, not least because you don't start with all your slots and so which perks you are able to take at which times also constitutes a cost of its own (IE, you take Galactic Wonders as your 4th perk and bump Synthetic Evolution to perk 5, you're giving up ~30 years of +20% pop output, as well as a bunch of other bonuses and the loss of any leaders that die in that 30-year window while you unlock your next perk)
2) "Once you hit the mineral cap the mineral cost is effectively zero"- This is an even more egregious and fundamental failure of cost/benefit analysis. We're not comparing the value of megastructures against the value of 'do nothing with your minerals, sit around with your minerals capped and let them evaporate', we're comparing the value of megastructures against the value of the next best thing you can do with them. There's always something to spend minerals on.
3) "You basically choose between a megastructure and more habitats, and I'm pretty sure megastructures are more efficient" No, they trivially are not and I just did a whole post explaining why. Habitats are vastly more efficient on every possible axis.
4) No, my definition of powerful does not presupposed a certain playstyle except insofar as it presupposes that you have some goal towards which you are proceeding and aren't just sitting around doing nothing with your minerals capped. And no, the whole point of this conversation from the opening was that even in a one-planet challenge, where megastructures are at their absolute most valuable, they still aren't actually the strategically correct play. There is no strategy or playstyle whose performance is improved by building a megastructure, and that is the problem.
I unlocked all the perks in all the games I played to completion since Utopia came out.
You have built all stations and buildings. You have no more planets to settle in your borders. You have no expansion plans and surrounded by allies. You are at fleet cap. What exactly can you even spend minerals on at that point?
Your argument was basically that habitats are easier and faster to get. Which is not an argument about their efficiency vis a vis minerals spent per point of science/energy/etc especially when you factor in the pop and colony maluses for habitats.
It clearly does, because I spend most of my games sitting around with maxed resources after a certain point.
I like that habitats are smaller and less potent, singularly speaking, and easier to construct- they're the expected stepping stones.
So I'm fairly content with the position in the developmental hierarchy that the big megastructures have (though maybe the science nexus and sentry array could use more, smaller, steps since the idea of a basic version of those seems kinda reasonable for earlier civilisations) because it fits with the storytelling a great deal. But if storytelling in the game isn't your jam like it is for me then I can understand why the balance position the megastructures sit in might not be ideal. But balance minutia are fairly low down on why I love this game!
I still feel like having victory conditions in the game is purely optional. I almost never end a game once I hit one of the victory conditions, I just keep playing til I am satisfied.
I drop a observation post on the planet so I can keep an eye on them while I try to decide how I'm going to deal with them.
But oh lucky day! I get the notification shortly thereafter that they have nuked themselves into oblivion! How lucky is that?