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[Haly]

Oh yea, no ticking warscore is awful. I couldn't win a war but I couldn't lose it despite having captured all my war goals. The time it would've taken for them to capitulate to my demands just by "length of war" modifier would've been enormous. But one half the alliance was a quarter of the galaxy away and I couldn't get military access.

I think you misunderstood my post. I was saying that if you have slavery, even non-enslaved pops who believe that slavery is wrong will get angry, i.e., the very thing you are complaining about in the second half of your post. That is the balance mechanic that exists to keep slavery in check.

Obviously the slaves will ALSO get angry but, like, who cares, they can't rebel.

I'd like it more if it was the slaves who actually rebelled. At the moment, "slaves" don't really feel like slaves as we understand them, because our concept of "slavery" has very little in common with "collectivism". I feel like they should've found some other word for it. Right now, as far as ethics and government types and factions go, "slavery" means "cog of the machine", like in Confucian thought. That the slaves meekly accept their destiny instead of rebelling supports this view.

Except slavery is still externally imposed, and it's portrayed as a serfdom-like exploitation of peoples (better laborers, worse thinkers). So it's either the enslavement that's out of place or collectivism that's out of place.

I don't think the thing you're describing is a bug.

To be clear, I was indicating slaves not rebelling being the bug, not the happiness mallus. It's just so weird coming from their other games that the people you supposedly oppress and exploit will never, ever consider rebelling against you. I can understand achieving such a state by exploiting the mechanics (slavery tolerance, namely), because that is part of the species roleplaying side of the game, but I don't understand why they refuse to rebel as a baseline.

If you're a Divine Mandate and have slaves, all non-collectivists will still be mad about slavery. If you're a Transcendent Empire, all individualists will still be mad. Your official species ethos is actually totally irrelevant once the game starts (except for ethics divergence) -- all that matters is the ethos of the individual pops.

I understand why they're mad, but it just makes slaves not worth using because the small gains you make with them don't outweigh the increased chance of rebellion for people who are not themselves the enslaved but happen to suffer the mallus and maybe dislike you for other reasons. Slavery just seems to be zero-sum right now instead of giving some sort of clear advantage like xenophilia or individualism. For ethics like Militarist and Pacifist, the idea is that the pros would outweigh the cons, but do the pros of slavery and collectivism really outweigh its cons? I don't think so.

For the time being I really dislike the balance and conceptualization of slavery. It makes Collectivism and Xenophobia (which has its own issues) two of the most worthless ethics.

 

[Kvik]

Running low on energy credits? Don't worry, your allies will bail you out.

I'm at 24-57 last night since I'm rushing 3 colonies and 10 battleships at the same time, thankfully my allies wants some of my minerals (3 of them at the same time) which I have plenty of (20K+775). Gained almost 2500 credits worth of energy this way for almost next to nothing.

 

[Durante]

Another day, another unexpectedly large number of hours fallen victim to the "just one more thing" syndrome. Early on today I got swamped by the Unbidden, so I couldn't really stop playing until I had taken those worlds back.

Those worlds and then some as it turns out, once I had a fleet which could deal with the Unbidden I noticed that the fact that they spread throughout other empires as well meant that I could take those systems without any war or other such unpleasantness.

Also, 90%+ evasion corvettes are silly.

Running low on energy credits? Don't worry, your allies will bail you out.

I'm at 24-57 last night since I'm rushing 3 colonies and 10 battleships at the same time, thankfully my allies wants some of my minerals (3 of them at the same time) which I have plenty of (20K+775). Gained almost 2500 credits worth of energy this way for almost next to nothing.

Since simply moving my fleets from orbit takes me from +20 credits to ~ -100 I've also traded for a lot of energy.

 

[DrSlek]

So I started close to Earth and set up an observation post. Shortly after this an asteroid threatened the planet. I consulted some friends who said to save the planet and then enslave them. My individualist Owl People of the Ninox Coalition don't like slavery...currently, so I saved Earth without enslaving the filthy humans.

The humans thanked me by nuking themselves back to the Iron Age an hour later.

A pessimistic, but accurate portrayal of humanity.

 

[Kvik]

Another day, another unexpectedly large number of hours fallen victim to the "just one more thing" syndrome.

Truly a dangerous game to play on weeknights. I'd refrain myself from playing and wait until Friday night to play again. I can catch up some anime in the meantime.

Speaking of anime: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=682458406

 

[spiritfox]

Anime is a mistake.

 

[Royal_Phalanx]

Truly a dangerous game to play on weeknights. I'd refrain myself from playing and wait until Friday night to play again. I can catch up some anime in the meantime.

Speaking of anime: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=682458406

Big titted spider-legged waifu? Sign me up

 

[squall23]

Once you successfully push back the Unbidden, will they still come back randomly when you jump?

 

[ExVicis]

In my current game there's a 25-tile Gaia world that's not a holy world. I don't care if it far away, I'm getting that shit.

I had one of those Gaia worlds next door, max tile and every. First goddamn thin I colonized. Planet is made re my Homeworld than the actual Homeworld. Wish I could switch it.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

In secret mod MP I picked the "coexist with natives" option after I colonised a planet and got that event chain. I was PISSED because it tile-blockered like 66% of the planet. Turns out though, they give +3 society research bonuses PER tile blocker. There is a tile getting +12 society research from adjacency and 2 others getting +9.

Don't have it fully popped up yet but I'm getting over 30 society research from like 4 pops currently.

 

[Maiorum]

So I just got the "Prethoryn Swarm" Event. Is there any way to get my federation and vassals to help me fight them, like how they do when I go to war with a regular empire? As of now, my fleet is just enough to keep the swarm at bay, but I know that our combined force can just trample them in no time.

 

[DBT85]

I've decided my second game, whenever that starts, I'm going to be fanatical purifiers. Kill, burn, destroy everything in my path.

 

[Aureon]

Thanks. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing some sort of penalty (like happiness). One of my inner planets I want to move to a sector to make way for new colonies, but it is such a huger producer for energy credits for me that it takes me from +50 a month down to negatives at 50% tax rate.

Quite honestly I am not a huge fan of how the sectors work. The AI is garbage at developing the planets properly, so I have to slow my expansion to develop them first. I know Paradox wanted to lower the amount of micromanagement involved, but I have to imagine there was a better way to do so.

I'm not quite sure how AIs end up being shit so often.
Optimization minigame isn't even that hard. Parametrize everything, run 10^9 simulations, and see what works.

Also, 90%+ evasion corvettes are silly.

I'm SO looking forward to the first MP game i get with people thinking autocannon evasion corvettes are the end of all things...
.. And i've got swarm missile battleships.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

I've decided my second game, whenever that starts, I'm going to be fanatical purifiers. Kill, burn, destroy everything in my path.

Good luck fighting through the galaxy 3 planets at a time. Lol warscore.

 

[KKRT00]

I've decided my second game, whenever that starts, I'm going to be fanatical purifiers. Kill, burn, destroy everything in my path.

This what i'm doing currently and dont like that NPC can just Vassalize ;/ You cant fully burn them to the ground it seems, unless i have not researched something.

I also slept only 5h today, because of this game ;/ I think i need to ban myself from launching it on working days.

 

[DBT85]

This what i'm doing currently and dont like that NPC can just Vassalize ;/ You cant fully burn them to the ground it seems, unless i have not researched something.

I also slept only 5h today, because of this game ;/ I think i need to ban myself from launching it on working days.

In one of Quills videos where he had the AI guy form Paradox on Skype, he said that the AI for Fanatical Purifiers has a specific routine whereby it resettles one of its own onto said planet, so that it can purge the rest, since you can't purge the whole planet.

 

[spiritfox]

I wish we can just raze entire planets.

 

[Kvik]

Since I wanted a Dune mod, I was amused by this tooltip.

The Spice Must Flow

I wish there is a filter to check which planets produces what resources. I had wanted to rename it Arrakis.

 

[Jintor]

I wish there is a filter to check which planets produces what resources. I had wanted to rename it Arrakis.

yeah being unable to toggle individual icons sucks. I wanna see special resources one layer, wanna see habitable planets on another, instead of toggling every single icon all at once...

 

[Ucchedavāda]

I wish we can just raze entire planets.

That can happen, but the game clearly isn't built with that in mind. I currently have a ghost battalion that I cannot control, since the army screen disappeared after the last pop on that planet was wiped out. Luckily it is in my territory, so I can probably work around it by colonizing the planet again, but it is a rather silly oversight.

 

[CloudWolf]

That can happen, but the game clearly isn't built with that in mind. I currently have a ghost battalion that I cannot control, since the army screen disappeared after the last pop on that planet was wiped out. Luckily it is in my territory, so I can probably work around it by colonizing the planet again, but it is a rather silly oversight.

That's better than the bug I ran into. I landed my army on an enemy planet the second he surrendered and for some reason I didn't get the armies back and I can't take them off. They have been vacationing on that planet for a hundred years now and I cannot just conquer the planet because the owner became a protectorate of one of my federation allies.

 

[LurkerPrime]

Hmm. I went into a war with someone teetering between weaker/equivalent power and ended up having 4x his fleet strength. I shouldn't take those diplo strength estimates so literally. From there, all it took was a single planetary invasion for him to vassalise. Felt pretty good.

Next step: the rest of the galaxy. All will feel the fuzzy warmth of fanatical collectivism.

 

[Brohan]

It's really pissing me off that i can't give sectors strategic resources from outside that sector.

 

[Durante]

I'm SO looking forward to the first MP game i get with people thinking autocannon evasion corvettes are the end of all things...
.. And i've got swarm missile battleships.

Have you tried your swarm missiles against corvettes which have point defense?

 

[CloudWolf]

I'm SO looking forward to the first MP game i get with people thinking autocannon evasion corvettes are the end of all things...
.. And i've got swarm missile battleships.

Autocannons? Plasma weaponry is way better. Dat 100% armor penetration.

 

[Durante]

Go Matter Disintegrators or go home.

 

[hobblygobbly]

A look for what is to come in the upcoming big patches (before expansion DLCs). Stellaris Dev Diary #33 - The Maiden Voyage

 

[owlbeak]

Question - I'm currently at capacity for energy and I'm not sure how I expand my "Storage" so I'm not just losing +32/turn.

 

[EndcatOmega]

A look for what is to come in the upcoming big patches (before expansion DLCs). Stellaris Dev Diary #33 - The Maiden Voyage

I'm not sure adding XL weapons to Battleships is really going to do anything balance wise (possibly make sure you take a lot more of them instead of just one per buff/debuff), but I'm glad the AI improvements are coming in the first major patch at least as that was the biggest problem in the couple of games I ran. Well, that and fastest speed no longer working at endgame, but I assume that's my crappy cpu. Heinlein I assume will be coming with the first dlc?

Question - I'm currently at capacity for energy and I'm not sure how I expand my "Storage" so I'm not just losing +32/turn.

I think just research- if any of your sectors are low you can dump some in them, but the AI very rarely seems to run a deficit in that. You can destroy a power plant on one of your sectors I guess and replace it, but that's going to be bad news if you decide you need to arm up very rapidly.

 

[GrandHarrier]

A look for what is to come in the upcoming big patches (before expansion DLCs). Stellaris Dev Diary #33 - The Maiden Voyage

Love most of what I read there. Especially the nod towards needing access through other empires space. That's probably my personal number one. I shouldn't have to conquer my way across the galaxy to get at a distant objective.

Edit: Also, I want an XL level Battleship weapon to be Macross Cannon in scope. I want a giant beam of destruction!!!

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

A look for what is to come in the upcoming big patches (before expansion DLCs). Stellaris Dev Diary #33 - The Maiden Voyage

Clarke's update:

Any sufficiently detailed sector control system is indistinguishable from micro hell.

Love most of what I read there. Especially the nod towards needing access through other empires space. That's probably my personal number one. I shouldn't have to conquer my way across the galaxy to get at a distant objective.

There is a real problem in map terms caused by the lack of 'oceans' in addition to the difficulty gaining access through other countries. In EU4 there is this whole other part of the map that is controlled separately from the large land masses. In Stellaris, as in other 4x space games, space is a series of islands and you have big areas of influence between them.

 

[dmann]

Why did I play this game until 4am in the morning and I had to be at work 7am? I'm currently at work now drinking tons of coffee to stay awake while thinking of Stellaris when I should be productive.

I need to give myself a time limit on workdays.

Quick question: How does terraforming work in this game? I know you can build Terraforming stations with the Construction Ship above planets that are able to be terraformed. How long does it usually take? What's the progression in the planet improvement to the next type i.e. Desert -> Arid?

 

[GrandHarrier]

Why did I play this game until 4am in the morning and I had to be at work 7am? I'm currently at work now drinking tons of coffee to stay awake while thinking of Stellaris when I should be productive.

I need to give myself a time limit on workdays.

Quick question: How does terraforming work in this game? I know you can build Terraforming stations with the Construction Ship above planets that are able to be terraformed. How long does it usually take? What's the progression in the planet improvement to the next type i.e. Desert -> Arid?

Each level of upgrade or change our level takes 3600 days and causes massive unrest in the population... Even if you're making it better for the inhabitants, lol.

 

[EndcatOmega]

Clarke's update:
There is a real problem in map terms caused by the lack of 'oceans' in addition to the difficulty gaining access through other countries. In EU4 there is this whole other part of the map that is controlled separately from the large land masses. In Stellaris, as in other 4x space games, space is a series of islands and you have big areas of influence between them.

I wonder if you can mod in impassible terrain with the galaxy shapes? There's always the galactic core and the gap between arms but that doesn't remain relevant for very long and isn't much of a gap regardless. Maybe some sort of mod that used one of the larger galaxy sizes but the number of stars of a smaller map- have 'islands' of systems between larger density areas, so even warp and wormhole travel have to deal with chokepoints.

 

[One Foul Note]

Question - I'm currently at capacity for energy and I'm not sure how I expand my "Storage" so I'm not just losing +32/turn.

If you've researched robots you could build a bunch of them. They are a good way to burn through excess energy.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

I wonder if you can mod in impassible terrain with the galaxy shapes? There's always the galactic core and the gap between arms but that doesn't remain relevant for very long and isn't much of a gap regardless. Maybe some sort of mod that used one of the larger galaxy sizes but the number of stars of a smaller map- have 'islands' of systems between larger density areas, so even warp and wormhole travel have to deal with chokepoints.

Imagine if there was a spiral galaxy setup, but there was an "inner ring" that you could access but not colonize or build inside of. You "hop on" then "hop off" at various places along the configuration. Good luck justifying that in the lore, but map wise it would allow for a similar sort of concept, where you could in principle be "land locked" but there were also star systems that had access to this interiour hyperlane network.

Stellaris offering 3 kinds of FTL is an interesting idea, but I would contend probably to its detriment. Not only in the sense that it's challenging to balance well, but also in that kind of throws out a lot of tactical or strategic considerations if you can't be sure of what your enemies are going to have access to. Warp drive is extremely boring, while Wormhole and Hyperdrive both have very interesting properties that impact strategic thinking - you have to defend wormhole stations, and you have chokepoints that you can defend with hyperlanes. I think hyperdrive is probably the best/most interesting from a game design perspective.

A lot of the crappy nature of fighting once you actually get to the gravity well would be fixed if there was a predictable way to tell where people would show up when they dropped out of FTL. You'd need an overhaul for that probably, limiting the number of places FTL travelers could appear to a few per system, perhaps even with fixed exit points when coming from certain directions.

 

[SmiteOfHand]

A look for what is to come in the upcoming big patches (before expansion DLCs). Stellaris Dev Diary #33 - The Maiden Voyage

Yep, that border change sounds pretty good.

 

[EndcatOmega]

FTL stuff

Warp seems to have slightly more limited range versus the other two, but yeah the 'needs more upkeep' is probably the most penalty- I don't want them to jettison it entirely, and I think they're stuck with the 3 FTL types now anyway, but harder to think of ways to make it more interesting without making it weak. Maybe it's much more effected by stuff like nebulae, with the addition of some 'positive' FTL areas?

And yeah, I was hoping ships would have maybe three entry and exit points into a system max- not like, eight.

Doomdark's posting in that thread, by the way; there's a few minor titbits, but he straight up reference evasion corvettes as a problem.

 

[Royal_Phalanx]

Paradox just posted an update on their upcoming plans for patches:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...llaris-dev-diary-33-the-maiden-voyage.932668/

 

[Jintor]

i need to play a hyperlane empire to see what that's all about but I think strategically speaking that's the most interesting.

I haven't unlocked interdictor technology yet (I understand stations come with it automatically?) but I always envisioned being able to play around with that more. Brings me back to my time reading extended Star Wars EU stuff where Thrawn was always dicking around with Interdictor Star Destroyers and shit.

I really wish the space combat was more than ship design and stacks... maybe I should go check those Homeworld remasters...

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

I really wish the space combat was more than ship design and stacks... maybe I should go check those Homeworld remasters...

It's utterly mindboggling they didn't ship the game with stacking penalties, lol. I mean I guess having micro-swarms isn't much more interesting. But at least that might incentivize having more than one fleet.

 

[EndcatOmega]

It's utterly mindboggling they didn't ship the game with stacking penalties, lol. I mean I guess having micro-swarms isn't much more interesting. But at least that might incentivize having more than one fleet.

I don't know if they ever fixed it (last time I played CK2 was the viking expansion, I should probably do another game sometimes) but all attrition did was have my army spread over 3 provinces instead of 1, combining for assaults. There's got to be a better solution for doomstacks.

 

[Uthred]

The listed updates sound good, especially the combat summary screen, its entirely useless at the moment.

I'm not sure adding XL weapons to Battleships is really going to do anything balance wise (possibly make sure you take a lot more of them instead of just one per buff/debuff),

If you're taking just one battleship you're "doing it wrong" ( https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/4j3cns/minmaxers_guide_to_fleet_composition/d33pcy6 )

It's utterly mindboggling they didn't ship the game with stacking penalties, lol. I mean I guess having micro-swarms isn't much more interesting. But at least that might incentivize having more than one fleet.

But they increase upkeep cost, so you'd have a big stack while not in combat and then split it for combat, doesnt seem to add much. I found later when fighting big empires I broke my "doomstack" apart because a) it was overkill and b) I needed fleets to keep my homeworld safe

 

[Jintor]

It's utterly mindboggling they didn't ship the game with stacking penalties, lol. I mean I guess having micro-swarms isn't much more interesting. But at least that might incentivize having more than one fleet.

The main thing incentivising that to me is that the AI loves having single fleets so I can usually bait one out of a system then blow the wormhole generator... except the AI apparently just kept warping around anyway. *shrug*

those improvements look great. I guess I'll be back in a year or two. well, maybe i'll try a conquest game with hyperway-riding militant bugs or something.

/edit lmao are hangers bugged to only attack at 5/6 range?!?!?! pffft

 

[ClosingADoor]

I wonder if you can mod in impassible terrain with the galaxy shapes? There's always the galactic core and the gap between arms but that doesn't remain relevant for very long and isn't much of a gap regardless. Maybe some sort of mod that used one of the larger galaxy sizes but the number of stars of a smaller map- have 'islands' of systems between larger density areas, so even warp and wormhole travel have to deal with chokepoints.

Putting in some toxic clouds or whatever that can't be passed seems like a good idea. Doesn't even have to be a large black area in the map, just make it so the wormhole stuff also can't jump through due to interference.

 

[EndcatOmega]

The listed updates sound good, especially the combat summary screen, its entirely useless at the moment.



If you're taking just one battleship you're "doing it wrong" ( https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/4j3cns/minmaxers_guide_to_fleet_composition/d33pcy6 )

Yeah, I saw that but with how long it takes to make battleships it's usually less of a headache to focus on corvettes, if you can support the increased power drain. I'm hoping something comes out in the spreadsheetin' that makes cruisers and destroyers a little more viable though.

 

[Jintor]

is there a mass relay equivalent in the tech tree I haven't uncovered yet?

 

[spiritfox]

Territory changes sound great. I'm so helmed in right now in my current game.

 

[Ucchedavāda]

The May update and the June update sound promising. The change to border access, especially, is going to be interesting. But I'm a bit disappointed to see that the only civilian inclusion appears to be cosmetic. I'd love system centered around civilian trade between civilizations, perhaps something that you can't control directly, rather than just the lump-sum / drip-feed barter system that is currently in place.

 

[Jintor]

The May update and the June update sound promising. The change to border access, especially, is going to be interesting. But I'm a bit disappointed to see that the only civilian inclusion appears to be cosmetic. I'd love system centered around civilian trade between civilizations, perhaps something that you can't control directly, rather than just the lump-sum / drip-feed barter system that is currently in place.

something like Civ V Gods and King's spread of religion is what I'm envisioning...