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Stellaris |OT| Imperium Universalis
- Thread starter More_Badass
- Start date
Liking it just fine so far outside some UI issues (borderline systems not always easy to figure out etc.). That being said, I'm really not a fan of the tech system as far as I understand it now - it seems to make it very hard for me to plan/target a goal. I know it is not exactly random, but I don't really find its current incarnation that engaging/motivating.
Brawndo Addict
Banned
Huh, I'm trying to switch up my go-to egalitarian/happiness focused builds and try out a slaver empire but I'm pretty confused by them relative to how straightforward the former was. Authoritarian reduces slave unrest but it unlocks a caste system, not the ability to enslave other races which is xenophobe related. And the caste system in general seems to be just flat out superior to species-based slavery because it only causes enslavement if they work a food/mineral tile. Why would you ever use traditional slavery if you have castes (other than for RP purposes)?
Plus, the unrest bonuses you get from authoritarian seem totally wasted; the caste system already produces less overall slaves/unrest, so you don't need further modifiers. And even if unrest was a problem, it's better handled by simply building defensive armies so why waste a ethics bonus on something that's only meaningful until your army build queue finishes?
Meanwhile, the -10/20% cost to consumer goods from Egalitarian is very powerful the entire game and applies across all species in your empire, making it trivial to hit maximum happiness and maximum production bonuses without worrying about all the associated costs of slavery or xenophobia.
The problem gets even weirder once you factor in Mechanist/Syncretic Evolution. Mechanist already seems way better than Syncretic Evolution because it has no hit to population growth, allows for colonization of any planet type, gives free technologies, etc. But even if you chose syncretic evolution, egalitarians actually get more short and long-term benefits out of it than slavers would, and slavers would actually benefit more from using a single-species caste system in the first place for reduced unrest and greater flexibility. Slavers feel like they already have to take slaver guilds, so with only 1 government trait to work with you can't really afford to waste it on Syncretic Evolution.
I feel like I have to be missing something or maybe it's just that the Mechanist/Energy or Egalitarian/Happiness focused builds are just too good relative to everything else.
Plus, the unrest bonuses you get from authoritarian seem totally wasted; the caste system already produces less overall slaves/unrest, so you don't need further modifiers. And even if unrest was a problem, it's better handled by simply building defensive armies so why waste a ethics bonus on something that's only meaningful until your army build queue finishes?
Meanwhile, the -10/20% cost to consumer goods from Egalitarian is very powerful the entire game and applies across all species in your empire, making it trivial to hit maximum happiness and maximum production bonuses without worrying about all the associated costs of slavery or xenophobia.
The problem gets even weirder once you factor in Mechanist/Syncretic Evolution. Mechanist already seems way better than Syncretic Evolution because it has no hit to population growth, allows for colonization of any planet type, gives free technologies, etc. But even if you chose syncretic evolution, egalitarians actually get more short and long-term benefits out of it than slavers would, and slavers would actually benefit more from using a single-species caste system in the first place for reduced unrest and greater flexibility. Slavers feel like they already have to take slaver guilds, so with only 1 government trait to work with you can't really afford to waste it on Syncretic Evolution.
I feel like I have to be missing something or maybe it's just that the Mechanist/Energy or Egalitarian/Happiness focused builds are just too good relative to everything else.
Common culprits for swinging income:
-ordering your fleets around, they take less maintenance while they're parked at your space ports
-happiness changed and your power workers give more/less income
-leader changed and their new traits swung the balance
-edicts that boosted your income or dropped your costs ran out
-you went over planet cap, which takes a heavy cut for each extra planet
-you went over your fleet cap, which increases the maintenance costs the more you are over the cap
The Hamburglar
Banned
how are these total conversion mods? Does it feel like stellaris with a star wars skin or actually feel different?
It is still very much stellaris at its base. Its nice having Star Wars ships. They added a ton of star wars specific stuff to the tech for research like turbolasers etc. All proper movie sounds etc. Mod maker has made sure to put in events specific to star wars etc.
The Empire can build anything from a tie fighter sized ship up to a 7km long Bellator Class Super Star Destroyer. However an event can trigger where the Empire if you approve it begins construction over the course of like 10 game years to build an even larger Super Star Destroyer that is like 81k Fleet power alone and its a massive ship.
Currently in the process of researching the tech line for the Death Star as the cards show up.
Psychoward
Banned
Any Questions
Member
Give in. Resistance is past
Besides some of the half-assed or unfinished mechanics this is my biggest gripe with the game. I get what they were going for, a system which is more unpredictable, like real science. But to me it feels just unnecessarily constrained. I would love if they added a custom gamemode where you have a regular tech tree.
The Star Wars mod is pretty much focused on keeping existing Stellaris functionality and behaviours with a Star Wars skin. They've done a good job.
The Star Trek mod (which I'm a lead on) is more focused on the story experience, with lots of events etc, and entirely new systems. We added espionage, mercenaries, religion, etc, while making some fundamental changes to ship balance.
I'd recommend just giving the mods you're interested in a download though.
I get what they are going for too: "research is not always linear, science makes its biggest leaps when radical new ideas emerge". The thing is, for many things research is linear, with a few lucky (or unlucky) sidesteps here and there. On top of this you have the nice big achievements once in a while. The present system basically eliminated all planing (the linear part of research) in favour of "big ideas".
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
For tech, I'd like to see the introduction of something like an "epoch" or "breakthrough" system whereby you have a few different decks of technology entirely, and accessing the later ones requires the completion of event chains and special projects. These would be revolutionary changes in each field. For example in physics, you discover Tachyons through a long special project where you build orbital arrays to detect tachyons and run experiments. This would give you large society buffs (like +20% energy production, +20% research speed) and unlock new powerful technologies that really put some distance between you and people in older epochs.
There would be perhaps 4-5 total of these epochs or breakthroughs or something, but each gives you more of a feeling of climbing the scale. The final ones would put you on par with fallen empires / awakened empires, with dark matter mastery and living metal mastery and stuff like that. Technological advances would now feel like slow gradual increases punctuated by sudden dramatic breakthroughs that upend everything. It could also be an opportunity to add a lot of flavour to the setting by giving you events going into detail about the breakthroughs and how they impact things.
I think this could be accomplished entirely through modding, there wouldn't need to be any underlying code changes since you can add tech progress through special projects and events for technologies that otherwise have 0 chance of being drawn. It would be like if Crystal plating or had 30 technologies that came after it that required it as a precursor, or something like that. Although being able to see what epoch enemies were in would be important if the gameplay balance changes were quite big.
There would be perhaps 4-5 total of these epochs or breakthroughs or something, but each gives you more of a feeling of climbing the scale. The final ones would put you on par with fallen empires / awakened empires, with dark matter mastery and living metal mastery and stuff like that. Technological advances would now feel like slow gradual increases punctuated by sudden dramatic breakthroughs that upend everything. It could also be an opportunity to add a lot of flavour to the setting by giving you events going into detail about the breakthroughs and how they impact things.
I think this could be accomplished entirely through modding, there wouldn't need to be any underlying code changes since you can add tech progress through special projects and events for technologies that otherwise have 0 chance of being drawn. It would be like if Crystal plating or had 30 technologies that came after it that required it as a precursor, or something like that. Although being able to see what epoch enemies were in would be important if the gameplay balance changes were quite big.
Poodlestrike
Banned
I'd like more weird weapons and way fewer straight upgrades. Lots of lateral stuff.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Sure, the model of every weapon costing more than the last but basically being equal cost efficacy is odd
KarneeKarnay
Member
Taken a break from Stellaris since before the expansion. Have they made it so there is a real reason to build smaller ships and not just stack doomstacks of battleships?
IIRC Destroyer/Cruiser mix is the most optimal at the moment. Unless you want to melt your CPU and build nothing but Corvettes with no upgrades.
One Foul Note
Member
It is quite the opposite, the meta is focused around corvettes and destroyers right now. Corvettes with stacked evasion up to 90% and big shields with fast regen are really difficult for big weapons to destroy right now. Destroyers are solid due to their ability to take L sized weapons while still keeping a fairly reasonable accuracy and tracking with them. Their are perhaps roles for the cruiser as missile defence support roles or tanking damage but battleships are pretty much dead in the water currently.
Paradox nerfed batteship tachyon lance spamming in 1.3. That was a while ago now, although that's not saying the current meta doesn't have it's own balance issues.
One Foul Note
Member
Sorry if someone already mentioned this, but their is a beta for the new multiplayer systems in 1.7. If you opt in you get early access to a new shrimp-man species portrait.
Details here.
Details here.
LurkerPrime
Member
Oh my.
Their portrait game is on point.
Their portrait game is on point.
Lister
Banned
Can't find any details. did they say what these new systems are?
CertifiedFP
Member
And so it would appear we have another PC-centric publisher preparing their own Steam competitor.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Seems implausible given how heavily into steamworks they are. They're a small potatoes publisher and already get 100% profits through their own store (which registers on steam).
More likely it would be for mobile/tablet versions with cross platform multiplayer.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Tbh the anniversary portraits are waaaaay better than most of the ones the game launched with. Most of the newer ones are honestly.
LurkerPrime
Member
Over half of those portraits are from launch, lol. (They were formerly in the pre-order "Creatures of the Void" pack.)
Although I agree. Shadowy Arthropoid is GOAT-tier.
Just need a Shadowy ship appearance and I'll bet set.
Mantis Prawns are god damn delicious.
LurkerPrime
Member
Non-humanoid portraits look weird compared to others because they lack clothing and variation for the most part, just being shaded differently. Like, it's difficult to get a sense of individuality from a species that looks mostly the same. They all seem kinda menacing and monstrous because of this, I find.
They need another set of clothing--for non-humanoids--to bridge the gap between "humanoid" and "monstrous" portrait types. Or just more variation in general--the humanoid category has by far the most per portrait.
Poodlestrike
Banned
No, I was including Shadowy Anthropoid in that. It's a cool portrait, but some of the new Anniversary portraits are just so incredibly high-detail.
I do agree with the later point that the non-humanoids could use more variation, though. I get why having actual physical differences is a no-go (since they'd basically have to redraw the portraits), but there's gotta be something.
CertifiedFP
Member
Actually, I'd be down for Stellaris on tablets.
CK2 if it means a better scaling UI.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
They were doing market research last year, and that included some questions about whether people would like versions of their games on tablets with cross-saves and cross-play or whether they'd prefer like spinoffs. There's no guarantees they'll go down that path, but I can confirm that they have definitely thought about it.
LurkerPrime
Member
As if on demand: Paradox opens new studio focused on mobile titles
No mention of porting anything, though.
Lister
Banned
I don't think a lot of their games would work very well on tablets, at least not without some major UI overhauls. Would hate tring to work with the current UI on a tablet with my fingers. Even on my giant monitor it would be a pain, but on a small screen?
superdeluxe
Member
Paradox mobile games are lacking right now
Brawndo Addict
Banned
Holy crap the Unity based builds feel so broken, tradition perks are just so much better than any possible technology you could ever hope to research or benefit from. I tried playing as a Fanatic Pacifist Xenophobe with Agrarian Idyll / Inward Perfection. My leader rolled with +10% Unity output which meant I had +80% Unity Output from day one. It was absurd, I completed the first tradition tree before I even colonized another planet.
I went supremacy first which meant I was able to quickly grab the 10% unity output per rival bringing my total unity bonus to 110%. And grabbing the borders ascension perk meant I had a total of +60% border range before I could even research galactic ambitions which brought me to +80%. My construction/science ships couldn't even keep up ha ha.
Followed up with Prosperity/Expansion and was able to unlock the +200 naval capacity perk around the same time I'm feel like I'm normally just getting into my second tradition tree. It's basically a quadrupling of your fleet size that early in the game.
Now I figured I'd have problems being a fanatic pacifist, but the game has so many events that can help shift your empire's ethics immediately (Old Gods for example) and you can freely stack all the 'negative' attraction bonuses (including species trait) because you don't actually want to be pacifist long term. Once you clear your fourth or fifth tradition tree you're basically ready to transition away from unity.
I went supremacy first which meant I was able to quickly grab the 10% unity output per rival bringing my total unity bonus to 110%. And grabbing the borders ascension perk meant I had a total of +60% border range before I could even research galactic ambitions which brought me to +80%. My construction/science ships couldn't even keep up ha ha.
Followed up with Prosperity/Expansion and was able to unlock the +200 naval capacity perk around the same time I'm feel like I'm normally just getting into my second tradition tree. It's basically a quadrupling of your fleet size that early in the game.
Now I figured I'd have problems being a fanatic pacifist, but the game has so many events that can help shift your empire's ethics immediately (Old Gods for example) and you can freely stack all the 'negative' attraction bonuses (including species trait) because you don't actually want to be pacifist long term. Once you clear your fourth or fifth tradition tree you're basically ready to transition away from unity.
CertifiedFP
Member
Lister
Banned
This seems like a very interesting thing to retweet...
But look at that menu. I think my fat finger would click on new game and laod game simulataenously. Imagine selecting fleets in the Galaxy screen!
From an interview in February 2016:
http://www.gamereactor.eu/news/377213/Wester+Grand+strategy+on+tablets+hopefully+within+1-1.5+years/
TheVoidDragon
Member
Been playing some of this again recently and ended up doing better than usual so far...but it seems it just gets so slow and there's so little to do. Early game you have the rush for territory and research but then it gets to the point where it takes a massive amount of time for research, you've upgraded all the buildings you can and you're pretty boxed in so can't expand.
The game really needs more things to do. It's like there's no real point going for anything other than a Military focus, either.
Is there even a way to stop AI empires just taking all the territory around and surrounding you without declaring war on them, and then being hated by everyone?
The game really needs more things to do. It's like there's no real point going for anything other than a Military focus, either.
Is there even a way to stop AI empires just taking all the territory around and surrounding you without declaring war on them, and then being hated by everyone?
Psychoward
Banned
I can't imagine playing this on a mobile device would be anything other than a frustrating mess. Whatever, if it makes money and helps them make more content for their PC games I'm down.This seems like a very interesting thing to retweet...
Lister
Banned
Hmmm, this is just streaming it right? I'm going to try it on my google tablet.
Frozenprince
Banned
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...s-dev-diary-72-crises-the-contingency.1026439
Bothers me that they consider mid-game "fixed" when there is no mid-game right now. Diplomacy is still woeful, fleet combat is still too basic.
There's a ton more that needs fixing before adding in a new crisis (really replacing one that didn't work but still) that I don't feel confident in them doing anymore.
Diplomacy NEEDS to be addressed, there's just not enough there, there's no variance in playstyle.
Bothers me that they consider mid-game "fixed" when there is no mid-game right now. Diplomacy is still woeful, fleet combat is still too basic.
There's a ton more that needs fixing before adding in a new crisis (really replacing one that didn't work but still) that I don't feel confident in them doing anymore.
Diplomacy NEEDS to be addressed, there's just not enough there, there's no variance in playstyle.
TheVoidDragon
Member
I thought the same. The mid-game (and the Empire differentiation) are both things they think are "good enough" despite being extremely lacking and needing a lot more work. It's like they've set the bar extremely low for what's satisfactory.
This crisis change also seems to be a bad thing. They're changing it to be in line with the others because apparently it was bad because it was different...so now we'll have 3 end-game crisis that are basically the same but in slightly different flavours.
Wiz even said in that thread that they can't do incremental crisis stuff where it starts off fairly insignificant and gets bigger, because players would just deal with it right away...even though there are many ways to get around that being problem, i think that's a pretty poor attitude for a game designer to have, it suggests a lack of imagination. There are so many different and varied crisis types they could go for that didn't revolve around attacking one doomfleet with another - galaxy-wide research projects, searching for a solution, megastructures etc.
Not to mention it's also been 3 weeks since the last devblog and this it all they have to show.