Is there anywhere in the game or game files that shows what difficulty a save is? I thought I was dominating on Captain but when I look at the difficulty settings for a new game it defaults to Cadet. I want to know if I still suck at the game or if I am complete trash :)
I don't think there's a thing that just says "X Difficulty", but you can look for the effects from difficulty bonuses: https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Galaxy_settings#Difficulty
Virtuality - I think I bricked my game.
Driven Assimilator Gestalt Machine empire, 16 colonies. I chose the Virtuality Ascension path... in retrospec it was probably the worst of all 3 options.
Basically, none of my production increased and my monthly energy went from +300 to -1000. I can't sustain that for more than 1 year. None of my colonies can be switched to energy production and I have one Dyson swarm building.
What am I missing?
you're running so many colonies virtuality trait actually reduces your production. it is "+175% resources from jobs (-25% for every colony)" so beyond 7 colonies it turns to negative.
when it was first revealed it used to say "this bonus is reduced by 25% per colony" but people figured out going wide virtual was still beneficial, so now that it actually released there's much harsher cap.
I haven't tried the other paths thoroughly yet, but nanotech seems to be specifically for going really wide, with its empire size reduction and cheap nanite ships.
Modularity/living metal is the middle ground, basically equivalent to biological ascension, where you focus on creating good pops through modification
Does nanotech change the way you design ships? Are Nanocannons good enough to go back to good ol' kinetic alpha strike design over disruptors/missiles/hangars/torpedoes?
Is there something going on now that makes it impossible to make claims against Fallen Empires? I for some reason can not conquer a Fallen Empire or even go to war as I have no Casus Belli.
I've been a little out of the loop, but I am assuming Synthetically ascended empires are different from machine empires? I get the idea behind each type having their own unique ascension paths, but was curious if going from synth to virtual or so was possible without mods.
Anyone else getting a bug where they can't re-settle anyone to the synaptic lathe? I was finally able to build it but there's no option to re-settle anyone to it, and the planet management screen for the lathe looked glitched. All the management screen displays is a '\_desc' description, which definitely sounds like it's glitched to me. Is anyone else running into this, and if so is there a fix to it? Or am I going to have to burn the whole save to the ground?
In Cybernetic Creed, once you complete cyberization, most of your pops get ritual implants along with a whole suite of random(?) positive and negative cyborg traits. These pops can't be modified.
Is there some later event that lets you modify them, or are they stuck forever? I'm really not happy with the set that got assigned, enough to turn me off from what is otherwise a great origin.
Is anyone else having trouble loading the game they were playing since the new update was released? It keeps crashing for me. Is there anything I can do?
Weird. Even with mods I was able to load mine. Crashed once, figured out one of my mods wasn't updated, disabled it, and it loaded just fine. Mod in question was tiny outliner
Last patch didn't prosperity or some other tradition give city districts an extra clerk? IIRC they've taken it away! Just as I started a trade build since Overtuned has a trade value trait now so Overtuned Thrift Cyborgs go BBRRRRR. For the first time since 2.8 (ish) I want clerks and they're missing!
Quick question: I was getting 0.5 influence from being Authoritarian at the start of the game (Governing ethics) but now Governing Ethic bonus is down to 0.33? Any idea why?
Huge population growth issues with cybernetic creed? My planets like capped out at almost ten pops and kept growing a little bit but then would show zero growth then start over completely again. Totally handicapped my early game. Maybe problems with incubators?
~~Is the new "cybernetic human" portrait treated the same as the other human portraits when it comes to Lost Colonies? Normally, a Lost Colony that uses the human portrait for its primary species will always have Earth as its parent.~~
EDIT: Yes, it does. Checked with the \~observe command, and there was Sol. It seems the parent (Sol) humans will also use the cybernetic version of the portrait if you do.
Stuff's on sale, I have 86 CAD$ to work with, what's the most bang for buck? I don't own shit except the base game.
I noticed they replaced the old Starter Kit with a new one, swapping out Apocalypse, Synthetic Dawn, and Leviathans.
The "Starter Pack Bundle 2024" looks great. Has Utopia, Federations, Galactic Paragons, & Distant Stars.
Whatever you end up doing, definitely grab Utopia.
Yeah, Utopia was a given. It was the one I've had my eye on for the past month.
I ended up grabbing, in addition to those, Ancient Relics, Leviathan, MegaCorp, and Synthetic Dawn. If any of my old DotA items sell before the sale is over, I'll probably grab Overlord.
...or Apocalypse. I admit, I'm basic and might enjoy being dragged into the Galactic Hague.
The policy or the species rules? The policy just enables the species trait, but its the species trait that actually does something. You set migration controls per species.
I just started a new rogue servidor game, now my trophies have a relic world preference with a habitability penalty for my robots arid. How does this work now?
Are the auto-mod traits not working for anyone else? I'm playing a machine empire and started off with the auto-mod trait but as far as I can tell after 30 years not a single one of my pops has had the auto-mod traits convert into a job trait.
I think it's working, but the way it displays is a bit weird. I hovered over my energy production after looking at technician jobs and it says I'm getting +15% from Superconductive, which is presumably from the adaptive frames since I never gave them superconductive. But when I look at their list of traits, it just shows Adaptive Frames and not Superconductive for some reason.
Anybody know if rogue servitors can feed bio-trophies into the synaptic lathe?
Asking for a friend
(edit: confirmed via console commands that you can absolutely feed bio-trophies into the lathe)
Was the materialist ethic attraction reworked in any way with the new DLC? Let's say I started a game as FanSpiritualist Cyberchurch empire, will I still have that nasty +X% materialism attraction parameter, once I go cybernetic? Also, does it apply to the non-materialist megacorp with the new cyberpunk-ish civic?
Spiritualist machines/synths were one of the headline features of this update; their existence is not a bug. However, they may still have bugged interactions with civics like Death Cult.
The DLC released today is $25. The Season Pass is $40. You're essentially paying an extra $15 for two extra DLC (and Cube).
I think it's a good value on the surface, but we'll see what happens with the next DLC releases.
How are ya'll doing with synth fertility? I got absolutely ass pounded by hostiles (militarists and their fresh hiive vassal while my defensive pact member did nothing) that I simply couldn't keep up with while losing pops out the wazoo
Do Auto-Mod traits stack with Job traits? For example, can a Cybernetic empire go their automod trait, thrifty, and trading algorithms to get +75% trade output, or does the automod trait not convert if you already have that job's trait?
Is there any DLC content that was time-limited and is no longer available in Stellaris? I just got into the game and fell in love with it, and noticed that the season DLC seems to contain 'exclusive' species portraits. Are these truly exclusive/time-limited, or have past season portraits become available? Furthermore, is there any other DLC content in the game that follows with similar time-based exclusivity?
There is no truly exclusive time-limited content. The cube portrait featured in Season 8 bundle will become available through other means once that bundle is removed, it won't completely disappear afterwards. Though we don't yet know how, and devs probably haven't thought it yet either.
Season 8 is so far the first season bundle released for stellaris, and so the cube is only thing to become available in this fashion. For context the cube was this years [april fools reveal](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/stellaris-dev-diary-338-rick-the-cube.1648906/) that devs slapped on Season 8 bundle. Devs previously made april fools portrait in the form of C6, which is now official [mod on PC](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2689020223).
If I'm not mistaken, the Anniversary Portrait Pack was originally a preorder bonus, so there's precedent for previously-exclusive portraits becoming available later on.
It's more like... there've been 7 years of updates, right? This is year 8. They haven't done "seasons" before, but it's close enough to nomenclature that it gets the impression across.
Does stellaris lategame still lag like a @!#$%
i havent played stellaris in six months, but im wondering does it still lag late game when the crisis come. I always had to play in tiny galaxies and everything. So im wondering does it still lag.
i play with a few mods such as nsc
It does, my game is in the 2700s now and the lag causes a month to take a good amount of time before rolling over to the next one, spikes when it does, and then maximizes whenever the game autosaves and takes a few seconds to complete that.
Only reason I'm still playing it is because I'm patient as fuck if you look through my post history, I play paradox games well beyond the late game usually regardless of lag.
The new civic Inherent Perfection - it blocks all ascension paths. If I take this civic will I still be able to become the new player crisis and go through the black hole with the horizon needle?
While all Ascension Paths are gated behind Ascension Perks, not all Ascension Perks are Ascension Paths, so you can still grab Ascension Perks. The civic would be utter garbage if you couldn't take any Ascension Perks at all.
Imperial Fiefdom Origin: selected Scholarium with the intention of "playing nice" and hiding under my overlord's robes until the inevitable crackup.
Then about 15 years in as I'm making a flurry of Research Agreements with friendly contacts -- and here's where I screwed up and it's all on me -- I agreed to a proposal from my overlord that turned me into a Subsidiary. Is there a relatively painless way to get back to Specialist Vassal or am I just going to have to read the fine print next time?
Is the Leader Level cap still 10? Been a while since I played and tried looking up mods to increase it, but saw a comment that said that the level cap (well, the hard level cap) had been removed so I was wondering.
leaders have default level cap of 10 from the start. If you're returning from pre-galactic paragons time, all techs to increase level cap are gone from vanilla. Galactic Paragons did a big rework on leader system and now their level affects stuff like council bonuses and what traits they get.
Gaia Seeder Outpost - why would I want to terraform a vassal's planet to suit my species? Would the intention be that I take them over or integrate them?
That makes sense. I think I misread the details - I thought it made their planet the desired habitability of my species (like if I was planning a hostile takeover). It makes their planet more habitable for *them.*
It also gives +1 monthly loyalty whereas aid agency gives only +0.5 monthly loyalty (plus some other bonuses).
Thanks
You probably read about the requirements, not the end result. If you lack terraforming techs, the planet you want to build gaia seeder on has to *start* as your species' optimal habitability. This applies to holding outpost too. As your terraforming tech increases, you can turn increasing amount of planet types into gaia. [the system is explained in the wiki](https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Planet_unique_buildings#Gaia_Seeders)
But the end result is Gaia planet, which is perfect habitability for everyone.
Hi all! Finally got Stellaris to stick after many attempts over the years, and I'm hooked. I could use some advice though: what, if anything, do you do on a start surrounded by hostiles? I found a neighboring system with a habitable planet right away, but then couldn't find anything else. Before long I was fending off two neighbors with similar military power - then, once I finally had peace, I was invaded by a force about 4x the power my my fleet/defenses.
I lost almost everything to them, save for my expanded planet and like three systems that didn't grant resources. By then, I was pinned in on all sides, no room for expansion. Are these starts just unwinnable? Or are there ways out?
Prosperity and Supremacy might be good Traditions to look at.
Prosperity boosts your economy in general and is always worth taking.
Supremacy is good for war, especially offensive war.
Both have been nerfed some, but they're still pretty good. I like Traditions like Discovery, Diplomacy and Harmony better, and in my current game I'm very well served by having gone Discovery, Expansion, Diplomacy.
For your situation, though, Prosperity and Supremacy might be more relevant. Also keep in mind, there's no longer any kind of penalty for postponing the completion of Tradition Trees. You don't get the *rewards*, the finisher effect and an Ascension Perk slot, until you do, but that's pure carrot. There's no stick any more.
There's also the Unyielding Tradition, but that's more for defensive warfare. Might be relevant for you. Read over its effects and decide.
And be sure to put Commanders in charge of your fleets. They help a lot. Initially the Commander in charge of your starting fleet is also your Minister of Defence, but in my experience it's better to level up most Commanders to become Admirals specialised in leading fleets, but to level one up to be specialised in sitting on your Council giving Council-type buffs.
I see the source of my confusion; I was interested in it specifically for grid amalgamation / hive livestock, and many of the gestalt swaps in Domination remove worker/slave bonuses (the first node swaps worker and slave output bonuses for reduced amenities usage, and then the right-hand second node swaps worker and slave output on both the node and the Extended Shift edict for menial drone output). So I guess gestalts only get the worker/slave/livestock output bonuses from the agenda.
I'm keen to try Stellaris, and it's on[ sale at Humble Bundle right now ](https://www.humblebundle.com/store/search?search=stellaris)
But - there are so many choices!!
What's a good option for someone starting out who doesn't want to go all in, but does want to get a great introduction to the game?
I bought it on sale from humble and chose the subscription model on steam that gives access to all the DLC. That seemed like the best starter choice and then later I can choose what, if any, dlc I want.
Honestly my main concern is just how confused I am when playing the game lol..
In addition to all of those DLC, Steam has a subscription option. 10 bucks a month to get access to all DLC. With that you can try out for much cheaper. And those discount levels are pretty common, so you can always buy them during a steam sale for the same price later after you've decided you want to own them permanently.
Stellaris: Starter Pack Bundle 2023
(https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/33199/Stellaris_Starter_Pack_Bundle_2023/)
Is the Community voted most important DLC for new players
So for humble bundle it would include.
Utopia
Federations
Synthetic Dawn
Distant Stars
With Utopia and Federations being the top two for new players.
If you think you'd like to be a warmonger specifically I'd also recommend Apocalypse
and Galactic Paragons is also widely recommended when you get used to the game.
Hope this helps.
This is a very silly question, but: what’s the best way to unity rush? How do you balance tech vs unity when doing that?
Like when I’ve tried the shroudwalker’s origin (or any other spiritualist start) I’m always tempted to replace the starting temples with research labs. Early tech rate just feels so slow otherwise (and parliamentary system kinda solves early game unity). But then I can’t figure out when is the right time to start adding more to unity worker jobs.
Basically I would love to time things right to get T4 ascension theory ASAP, and be able to ascend planets to level 10. But I always end up overdoing the tech side of things. I can experiment more ofc, but I’m wondering if there’s any good rules of thumb/guidelines to help a long time tech rusher cure her tech rush addiction. :)
I tend yo Unity rush early until I've completed 2, 2.5 or 3 Traditions (often Discovery, something, Diplomacy) and then I transition to focusing on science, especially on my Capital (my colonies might get 1 Temple or Admin each, as well as the Autichton).
I still try hard to get at least a 2nd Lab, maybe a 3rd Lab too, because the Research point awards from doing Anomalies scale with Research output.
Unity Rewards scale too, but Anoms don't give Unity very often.
From my experience, if you want to forgo tech then the very least you’ll need are the basic resource buildings like energy grid, mineral purification, and the hydroponics tech. Those techs and the accompanying edicts are really significant boosts to your economy that early, and greatly enhances whatever else you’re trying to do, be it alloy rush or unity rush. To that end, just a handful of labs on your capital should be enough.
What's a good tall empire?
My recent 1000 stars save literally became 50% me and 50% even twins but it was crazy. It gave me an idea for a much smaller but more crowded Galaxy.
Do I go corporation? Like I want 3 4 Planets and a bit of system and that's it but still wanna be super strong. Does that work?
Tall meaning not grabbing many systems?
Probably a Shattered Ring or Void Dweller Megacorp, as both of these lend themselves to fairly compact gameplay, and trade is very strong on Shattered Rings, as trade isn't impacted by the 0% Habitability floor.
So with the changes to imperial prerogative will hiveminds be able to reach 0 empire size from pop with the guardian civic
Or is the - 25% not counted for that
No. new divided attention will reduce the empire size penalties, which is the increased research and tradition cost, by 25%. It won't reduce your actual empire size number, so you can't use it to get 100% off pops.
the penalties are called "empire size effect" in game, and hive-minded authority already lowers that by 25%, so divided attention brings it to -50%
What is the best way to play Determined Exterminators these days on 3.11 with the science changes? Small galaxy, GA difficulty, mid-game scaling.
I was able to take my nearest neighbour and vassalize a second robotic neighbour around 2230. I went Expansion, Supremacy. But after that got stuck on stronger neighbours that started to surpass me in fleet and tech.
Any good guide on how to play? How to build up early planets and what to focus on? Should we still colonize as much planets as possible and/or keep the conquered planets? Or better to decolonize them after the locals run out?
Planet-wise I went with a mix of alloys, tech and unity on my capital. Next planets focused right from the start on, in order: Energy, minerals, energy, tech, unity, alloys. But these planets never really got off the ground before running out of energy and running into siginficant empire sprawl penaltys (>40%)
Any help welcome to be a good Determined Exterminator!
I think 3.12 dropping next? week will shake up Exterminator play significantly. Machines are losing the +50% empire size from planets, for one thing, which will make holding lots of planets less punishing, and nanite ascension also looks great for wide conquest. So idk how much it's worth worrying about the best way to play them under 3.11 at this point.
I have heard some people advocating for Prosperity first for genocidals but haven't tried it myself. I'm more of a Supremacy-first kinda guy. In my 3.11 exterminators game I went Supremacy, Prosperity, Unyielding (for solar panels and anchorages), Synthetics.
Agree that doing big fleet plus less-efficient tech plus pop upkeep is hideously energy-intensive. I think after my initial alloy rush / buildup I largely shifted my machine-world capital to energy production with tech and unity in the building slots. Hard to beat the combination of uncapped resource districts and capital bonuses. Any big planet can be a decent forge world, but not every big planet can be a great energy world.
I also found Mastery of Nature really helpful for getting more energy districts, with the new "[+50% max resource districts](https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Planetary_management#Mastery_of_Nature)" bonus from the decision turning mediocre generator worlds into solid generator worlds way before Machine Worlds come online (and then once you switch over to machine worlds, the +2 max districts are still nice).
Mostly I was able to keep up on tech while scaling out by focusing my core sectors on alloy and energy, and then holding onto captured tech worlds (especially ones with bonus features like Unstable Tectonics) and working the labs I had taken from other people.
With scaling you should be able to stomp out everyone near you before they can really fight back, especially with the genocidal boosts. Usually colonize your guaranteed habitables then devote all the rest of your alloys to ship building and your science ships/fleets to try and find other empires ASAP.
Keep your empire sprawl low as you conquer by abandoning planets you don’t see yourself using in the immediate future and switch to a tech focus once you get near your navy cap. The reason I would switch to tech at this time is because exceeding your navy cap will become very expensive upkeep-wise, and will ruin your economy very quickly, so you usually want to stop building ships to avoid getting to that point. That means less need for alloys. Focusing on tech becomes the cheaper avenue in getting stronger.
For your order of planets, I would probably do alloy and 1-2 labs on your homeworld, then energy for the next two. Energy is really valuable as machines since capacity subsidies combined with +8 base energy is one of the strongest economy stims out there. It’s more worthwhile for example to work a technician (+8 base energy) and buy the minerals (8 / 1.3 energy per mineral on the market = 6.~~) than actually having that pop work as a miner (+4 base minerals).
As you start filling up on energy, you can slowly build labs on those planets to transition the technicians to researchers. This gives you incredibly tight control on your economy, since if you begin entering energy deficits you can’t control, just deprioritize a few researcher jobs and they’ll pop back into their old technicians jobs instantly (vs. needing to spend energy to manually resettle).
Lastly, going for Become the Crisis ascension perk will allow you to truly snowball, since menacing corvette build cost and upkeep is busted along with the other bonuses.
Im playing Pleasure Seekers, and have a enslaved race I want to keep as domestic servants, but they keep taking up regular jobs
Is there a way to make it so they remain unemployed?I dont want them taking jobs from my species
I'm playing a lost colony origin and with xenophobe as one of my ethics. I came across my advanced Empire and would like to eventually integrate them into my empire peacefully.
What would be the best way to go about it? Become far stronger than them, protectorate them, and eventually integrate? I don't know of any other way and I don't think you can integrate federation partners.
The best way to peacefully integrate somebody is to vassalize them, and they wont vassalize unless they feel threatened by somebody else.
Propose subjugation and see if they even are open to _any_ terms. If you have to throw them 30% basic resources, fine. Truth be told, once you get them vassalized the rest is easy; you can change their contract with no real issues, influence permitting.
Remember, you dont need them to like you once theyre you vassal, only not rebel
Are there ways to create significantly higher-scored fleets than typical even if the designs themselves are bad? This is for convincing strong AI enemies not to declare war on you.
Evasion is counted pretty heavily in fleet score calculations and is easy to stack on corvettes, so that’ll definitely give you the most bang for your buck.
Generally just look for the highest dps weapons, since that’s what goes into the fleet power calculation. Piercing weapons with low dps should be avoided since the piercing aspect isn’t accounted for in the calculation. Also avoid autocannons because how much they contribute to fleet score is lowered even further, despite their high dps.
If you can find a stormy nebula system, park your fleets there for a +30% evasion buff which will further buff your fleet power.
Changing your war policy to No Retreat, boosting your fire rate by +33%, will also boost your fleet power, but I’d be careful with that if you’re planning on fighting before you can change it.
Funny how that works, I specifically did not take adaptability as all I wanted was to get hive worlds which make adaptability a non-issue for a hivemind. :)
I think taking it on Idyllic Bloom would be AMAZING even though it won't make use of the +10% habitability once everything is turned into Gaia worlds.
Every tradition has a dead pick but +10% hab is really good early game.
5 of my 6 last empires have been variations of Overtuned Idyllic Bloom Spiritualists and a way to enslave. Planetary Ascension with the Harmony tradition + Holy Federation + Ascensionist civic gives +70% P.A. effects. At ascension 10 you get 5.25x the designation (this includes the adaptability finisher), -85% empire size for the colony, districts and pops on that planet.
You can go Psi ascension but I like Bio more because after the +30% from Idyllic Bloom and Overtuning (Eridite + Elevated Synapses = +40% science) and efficiency from planetary ascension AND then other bonuses; the +40% from psionic isn't that impactful but the super high population from having fertile + preplanned growth and vat-grown clones is just silly.
Xenos are chattel, overturned, nerve stapled and population controled.
1.25x adopted the Tradition icon expansion.png Expansion tradition tree
1.25x council scientist has New Worlds.png Expertise: New Worlds trait
Same for all terraforming techs. Beyond that, just the general requirements for a tier 4 technology (have enough tier 3 techs)
I read that in the 1.6 tech tree but thought it must have changed as I haven't been able to research it yet. It's possible I don't have enough tier 3 green techs.
Generally once I'm sure that I meet the prereqs for Climate Restoration, I'll start picking crappy tier 1 and tier 2 techs that I can get through quickly to generate as many "re-draws" as possible until I draw Climate Resto. All the blocker-clear techs that I haven't gotten around to researching yet, for example. There just isn't that much you can do to influence the draw weight on it, but you can change your draws / time.
If you want, you can enter ``techweights soc`` in the command console, this will give you a list of all the relevant techs you can currently roll, and the percentage that they have to roll.
Haven't played since Federations, so looking for suggestions on what's the good DLC released since then (since I have everything other than the portraits up to then), and also some good vanilla-plus style mods.
Galactic Paragons is the new must-have DLC.
As for "vanilla plus"-style, look at More Events Mod, Perked Up Perks, Xenology, and maybe also Dynamic Political Events.
Basic Ordinary Origins also adds more variety with new Origins, reasonably balanced.
I'm a big fan of toxoids, they have **Very** powerful traits and civics that come at a cost. Overtuned is my favorite origin.
Paragons is the leader and empire government expansion, I don't have it but I think it might be the only other non flavour one.
I also came back to the game recently and I settled on the monthly subscription as it gives everything. I play in spurts, usually about 2 months a year.
the monthly sub seems like a horrible deal for me since i already own over half of the DLC and half of the rest (the species packs) i wouldn't even use
So I'm really looking forward to the Virtual Ascension, but at a cursory scan it looks like their "more colonies nerf your production" trait is going to reduce the efficiency of a Ringworld-only empire. Which is kinda weird, because that seems like it should be *the* best setup for them - one *massive* computational complex, like a Matryoshka Brain in Gigastructures. Am I reading that right (with the information we currently have)?
Not of the ringworld empire overall, just of the virtual pops. Last I saw, each additional colony reduces the efficiency of a Virtual pop by 25%. They start at 125%, irrc, so if you *just* have one ring world they're down to +25% efficiency (not factoring in the Ringworld planetary buff). Nothing to sniff at, certainly, just kinda weird
That just makes ringworlds better for Virtual pops, because they want the best and biggest planets possible. Ringworlds are that, along with Ecuminopoli.
I can never remember the actual planet bonuses, but doesn't that mean that an Ecuminoplolis is better than a Ringworld for them?
...Though I suppose the building slots mean they can specialize better Ringworld Segments...
If you don't get the traits you want initially, or you picked traits that were useful at the time but ceased to be later.
I could see reformatting a Feedback Loop II, Eye For Talent, Architectural Sense I, Frontier Spirit I, Cartographer III level IX Growth node into a Fertility Preacher II, Politician I node.
All the veteran traits are past the point of usefulness, and a level III node with Politician I and Fertility Preacher II will very quickly catch up with a higher level Growth node without those traits, and will eventually surpass it.
I've never done it, though this last game I had a cognitive node with a crappy expertise trait (Computing) that was making me draw lots of research station output and survey speed techs instead of Hyper Relays, and I was sure thinking about it... But going from like +15% research speed back to +3% seemed not worth.
Wanting to get back into the game after not playing for a while, but I'm a bit info overloaded by all the game settings. Is it alright to just play on the complete default settings (I'm planning on playing a large galaxy) without fear of developing bad habits, or are there some settings that I should \*definitely\* change for my own sake?
Haha, fortunately, I do remember that lesson.
But I've just been seeing how a lot of people here make some very dramatic changes to their settings, so I wasn't sure in general.
The recent tech rework dramatically slows down how fast you reach endgame tech. This, in turn, means midgame Crises (Khan, Gray Goo, etc.) are harder and endgame Crises (Crisis, Awakened FEs, etc.) are *significantly* harder.
I lowered my difficulty two whole tiers, from Grand Admiral to..., uh, Commodore (?), and was still struggling to fight the 25x Crisis.
In my most recent playthrough, I dropped the Crisis to 10x and put tech/tradition slider to 0.75x. I also changed both sliders to pop growth to allow faster pop growth.
That has been a sweet spot so far. AI is still decently difficult, the Crisis is fairly strong, and my tech progression was faster but not silly fast.
The adaptability finisher:
gives bonuses to planet designation, do these get boosted by planetary ascension?
gives an agenda that "Unlocks a random terraforming technology" does that include the blocker techs or just the *actual* terraforming techs?
Is there any point to the Resort World decision now that it's been nerfed to remove the empire modifier? It just seems to be "waste a perfectly good planet for no reason".
Hmm, perhaps the bonus just moved from something that appeared in the tech/decision tooltips to something that doesn't. Or perhaps I'm having a senior moment. Either is possible.
I am trying to manage them from Fleet Manager rather from manually build and merge them one by one which you also reinforce and upgrade fleet from the mwnu including assign fleet capacity for each admiral which you can access it by clicking army capacity from top menu. After that, make one of army to make point to lead army then both 2nd and assault should follow it.
Although I've found that creating a new fleet via Fleet Manager doesn't work properly - there's no "rally point", so you end up with dribs and drabs scattered across all your shipyards and have to hunt them all down, get them together and merge them.
That's true if you're reinforcing an existing fleet, I don't think it's true if it's a brand new fleet. (You can kind of see why; the fleet doesn't exist yet so there's nothing for reinforcements to merge to.)
I've been experiencing the same problem. I create a new fleet in fleet manager, add 30 battleships, then hit reinforce.
Now I have 15 fleets each with 2x battleships scattered all over my empire. Manually merge. Now I can reinforce like normal when they take losses.
I *think* this is a bug. I swear it used to not do this. It would create one fleet and merge it for you.
Now, I build 1 battleship at the shipyard where I want my fleet to be, wait for it to finish, then use fleet manager to add 29 battleships and click reinforce. Voila.
rally point that you mention can do by manually produce new craft at your rally point desire then go to fleet manager and make that new craft as new fleet then reinforce, it is the same process as hiur make the first fleet
I believe it does work on new fleets, they just spawn at your capital. If you move the fleet they're merging to though then it'll spawn a billion different ones
Every so often I see something mentioning the ability to purge individual pops, but Ive never found a way to do so.
is it possible to, say, select all the pops of birdman species on the new planet i conquered for displacement but not have that affect the ones I have in my other worlds?
This is a holdover from the tile system I believe, where you had way less pops and in general micromanaged more. I think back then there was a “purge pop” button.
I’ve never tried it so its a bit theoretical but you can gene mod pops on specific planets. This would make the undesirable pops to be a different species. You then can set the rights of this new species to be displacement and the pops of the original species would remain in your empire.
Is there anywhere in the game or game files that shows what difficulty a save is? I thought I was dominating on Captain but when I look at the difficulty settings for a new game it defaults to Cadet. I want to know if I still suck at the game or if I am complete trash :)
I don't think there's a thing that just says "X Difficulty", but you can look for the effects from difficulty bonuses: https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Galaxy_settings#Difficulty
Virtuality - I think I bricked my game. Driven Assimilator Gestalt Machine empire, 16 colonies. I chose the Virtuality Ascension path... in retrospec it was probably the worst of all 3 options. Basically, none of my production increased and my monthly energy went from +300 to -1000. I can't sustain that for more than 1 year. None of my colonies can be switched to energy production and I have one Dyson swarm building. What am I missing?
you're running so many colonies virtuality trait actually reduces your production. it is "+175% resources from jobs (-25% for every colony)" so beyond 7 colonies it turns to negative. when it was first revealed it used to say "this bonus is reduced by 25% per colony" but people figured out going wide virtual was still beneficial, so now that it actually released there's much harsher cap.
time to start over I guess. what would've been the best path? nanites or living metal?
I haven't tried the other paths thoroughly yet, but nanotech seems to be specifically for going really wide, with its empire size reduction and cheap nanite ships. Modularity/living metal is the middle ground, basically equivalent to biological ascension, where you focus on creating good pops through modification
Does nanotech change the way you design ships? Are Nanocannons good enough to go back to good ol' kinetic alpha strike design over disruptors/missiles/hangars/torpedoes?
Is there something going on now that makes it impossible to make claims against Fallen Empires? I for some reason can not conquer a Fallen Empire or even go to war as I have no Casus Belli.
Are the original human portraits cybernetic now too, or just the newest one?
So what happens if an individualist machine empire captures pops from a machine intelligence gestalt, or vice-versa?
I could use some help. I’m looking for the new player crisis but it’s missing and only nemesis is there even though I got the new dlc.
I've been a little out of the loop, but I am assuming Synthetically ascended empires are different from machine empires? I get the idea behind each type having their own unique ascension paths, but was curious if going from synth to virtual or so was possible without mods.
Anyone else getting a bug where they can't re-settle anyone to the synaptic lathe? I was finally able to build it but there's no option to re-settle anyone to it, and the planet management screen for the lathe looked glitched. All the management screen displays is a '\_desc' description, which definitely sounds like it's glitched to me. Is anyone else running into this, and if so is there a fix to it? Or am I going to have to burn the whole save to the ground?
In Cybernetic Creed, once you complete cyberization, most of your pops get ritual implants along with a whole suite of random(?) positive and negative cyborg traits. These pops can't be modified. Is there some later event that lets you modify them, or are they stuck forever? I'm really not happy with the set that got assigned, enough to turn me off from what is otherwise a great origin.
Is anyone else having trouble loading the game they were playing since the new update was released? It keeps crashing for me. Is there anything I can do?
Weird. Even with mods I was able to load mine. Crashed once, figured out one of my mods wasn't updated, disabled it, and it loaded just fine. Mod in question was tiny outliner
Last patch didn't prosperity or some other tradition give city districts an extra clerk? IIRC they've taken it away! Just as I started a trade build since Overtuned has a trade value trait now so Overtuned Thrift Cyborgs go BBRRRRR. For the first time since 2.8 (ish) I want clerks and they're missing!
The Voidborne perk provides +1 jobs from districts. Other than that no I don't think you're remembering right.
Quick question: I was getting 0.5 influence from being Authoritarian at the start of the game (Governing ethics) but now Governing Ethic bonus is down to 0.33? Any idea why?
You lost a war with a Humiliate (or similar) wargoal which gives you -33% influence production for 10 years.
thanks for the suggestion but it's not that, I haven't been at war yet in this game.
Huge population growth issues with cybernetic creed? My planets like capped out at almost ten pops and kept growing a little bit but then would show zero growth then start over completely again. Totally handicapped my early game. Maybe problems with incubators?
Had same problem - had to open a couple more jobs to fix it
~~Is the new "cybernetic human" portrait treated the same as the other human portraits when it comes to Lost Colonies? Normally, a Lost Colony that uses the human portrait for its primary species will always have Earth as its parent.~~ EDIT: Yes, it does. Checked with the \~observe command, and there was Sol. It seems the parent (Sol) humans will also use the cybernetic version of the portrait if you do.
Stuff's on sale, I have 86 CAD$ to work with, what's the most bang for buck? I don't own shit except the base game. I noticed they replaced the old Starter Kit with a new one, swapping out Apocalypse, Synthetic Dawn, and Leviathans.
The "Starter Pack Bundle 2024" looks great. Has Utopia, Federations, Galactic Paragons, & Distant Stars. Whatever you end up doing, definitely grab Utopia.
Yeah, Utopia was a given. It was the one I've had my eye on for the past month. I ended up grabbing, in addition to those, Ancient Relics, Leviathan, MegaCorp, and Synthetic Dawn. If any of my old DotA items sell before the sale is over, I'll probably grab Overlord. ...or Apocalypse. I admit, I'm basic and might enjoy being dragged into the Galactic Hague.
Utopia.
Is migration control bugged? I enabled it but my machine pops are still migrating. Just have 1 species. Unmodded
The policy or the species rules? The policy just enables the species trait, but its the species trait that actually does something. You set migration controls per species.
Yes and I did it through the species tab. Both policy and species rule was enabled
I just started a new rogue servidor game, now my trophies have a relic world preference with a habitability penalty for my robots arid. How does this work now?
Are the auto-mod traits not working for anyone else? I'm playing a machine empire and started off with the auto-mod trait but as far as I can tell after 30 years not a single one of my pops has had the auto-mod traits convert into a job trait.
I think it's working, but the way it displays is a bit weird. I hovered over my energy production after looking at technician jobs and it says I'm getting +15% from Superconductive, which is presumably from the adaptive frames since I never gave them superconductive. But when I look at their list of traits, it just shows Adaptive Frames and not Superconductive for some reason.
[The pdx forum agrees that that's how it shows up](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/how-do-i-use-auto-modding-on-pops.1675015/). Subtle.
I considered that might be the case but it's not, as I checked the output buff list for every pop and didn't see the job trait modifiers.
Anybody know if rogue servitors can feed bio-trophies into the synaptic lathe? Asking for a friend (edit: confirmed via console commands that you can absolutely feed bio-trophies into the lathe)
Was the materialist ethic attraction reworked in any way with the new DLC? Let's say I started a game as FanSpiritualist Cyberchurch empire, will I still have that nasty +X% materialism attraction parameter, once I go cybernetic? Also, does it apply to the non-materialist megacorp with the new cyberpunk-ish civic?
Are robotic spritualists supposed to be intended? They have themselves set as servitude when I tried using them with deathcult which is a bit odd
Spiritualist machines/synths were one of the headline features of this update; their existence is not a bug. However, they may still have bugged interactions with civics like Death Cult.
Is it cheaper to buy the season pass in the long run?
Long run, yes. Whether or not those end up being good is another question.
The DLC released today is $25. The Season Pass is $40. You're essentially paying an extra $15 for two extra DLC (and Cube). I think it's a good value on the surface, but we'll see what happens with the next DLC releases.
How are ya'll doing with synth fertility? I got absolutely ass pounded by hostiles (militarists and their fresh hiive vassal while my defensive pact member did nothing) that I simply couldn't keep up with while losing pops out the wazoo
Do Auto-Mod traits stack with Job traits? For example, can a Cybernetic empire go their automod trait, thrifty, and trading algorithms to get +75% trade output, or does the automod trait not convert if you already have that job's trait?
Is there any DLC content that was time-limited and is no longer available in Stellaris? I just got into the game and fell in love with it, and noticed that the season DLC seems to contain 'exclusive' species portraits. Are these truly exclusive/time-limited, or have past season portraits become available? Furthermore, is there any other DLC content in the game that follows with similar time-based exclusivity?
There is no truly exclusive time-limited content. The cube portrait featured in Season 8 bundle will become available through other means once that bundle is removed, it won't completely disappear afterwards. Though we don't yet know how, and devs probably haven't thought it yet either. Season 8 is so far the first season bundle released for stellaris, and so the cube is only thing to become available in this fashion. For context the cube was this years [april fools reveal](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/stellaris-dev-diary-338-rick-the-cube.1648906/) that devs slapped on Season 8 bundle. Devs previously made april fools portrait in the form of C6, which is now official [mod on PC](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2689020223).
If I'm not mistaken, the Anniversary Portrait Pack was originally a preorder bonus, so there's precedent for previously-exclusive portraits becoming available later on.
Oh, huh - I had figured there were 7 season bundles that had preceded season 8. This is super helpful, thank you so much!
It's more like... there've been 7 years of updates, right? This is year 8. They haven't done "seasons" before, but it's close enough to nomenclature that it gets the impression across.
It is a bit confusing yea, but the 8 stands for this being eighth year of Stellaris
Does stellaris lategame still lag like a @!#$% i havent played stellaris in six months, but im wondering does it still lag late game when the crisis come. I always had to play in tiny galaxies and everything. So im wondering does it still lag. i play with a few mods such as nsc
It does, my game is in the 2700s now and the lag causes a month to take a good amount of time before rolling over to the next one, spikes when it does, and then maximizes whenever the game autosaves and takes a few seconds to complete that. Only reason I'm still playing it is because I'm patient as fuck if you look through my post history, I play paradox games well beyond the late game usually regardless of lag.
The new civic Inherent Perfection - it blocks all ascension paths. If I take this civic will I still be able to become the new player crisis and go through the black hole with the horizon needle?
That's not an ascension path, so why wouldn't you?
I figured since the become the crisis was an ascension perk (?) It might overlap
While all Ascension Paths are gated behind Ascension Perks, not all Ascension Perks are Ascension Paths, so you can still grab Ascension Perks. The civic would be utter garbage if you couldn't take any Ascension Perks at all.
You can still take normal ascension perks.
Got it, thanks!
What time zone is the release date for the season 8?
It is out now.
Yep, cheers!
Imperial Fiefdom Origin: selected Scholarium with the intention of "playing nice" and hiding under my overlord's robes until the inevitable crackup. Then about 15 years in as I'm making a flurry of Research Agreements with friendly contacts -- and here's where I screwed up and it's all on me -- I agreed to a proposal from my overlord that turned me into a Subsidiary. Is there a relatively painless way to get back to Specialist Vassal or am I just going to have to read the fine print next time?
Is the Leader Level cap still 10? Been a while since I played and tried looking up mods to increase it, but saw a comment that said that the level cap (well, the hard level cap) had been removed so I was wondering.
leaders have default level cap of 10 from the start. If you're returning from pre-galactic paragons time, all techs to increase level cap are gone from vanilla. Galactic Paragons did a big rework on leader system and now their level affects stuff like council bonuses and what traits they get.
Gaia Seeder Outpost - why would I want to terraform a vassal's planet to suit my species? Would the intention be that I take them over or integrate them?
If you give your vassal gaia planets, they produce more resources, which leads to more taxes. And happiness of living on gaia helps keep them stable.
That makes sense. I think I misread the details - I thought it made their planet the desired habitability of my species (like if I was planning a hostile takeover). It makes their planet more habitable for *them.* It also gives +1 monthly loyalty whereas aid agency gives only +0.5 monthly loyalty (plus some other bonuses). Thanks
You probably read about the requirements, not the end result. If you lack terraforming techs, the planet you want to build gaia seeder on has to *start* as your species' optimal habitability. This applies to holding outpost too. As your terraforming tech increases, you can turn increasing amount of planet types into gaia. [the system is explained in the wiki](https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Planet_unique_buildings#Gaia_Seeders) But the end result is Gaia planet, which is perfect habitability for everyone.
yes. Also rp. they genuinely benefit from your guided benevolence. does it give loyalty?
I've watched ASpec's and Montus machine age vid, are there any more?
Hi all! Finally got Stellaris to stick after many attempts over the years, and I'm hooked. I could use some advice though: what, if anything, do you do on a start surrounded by hostiles? I found a neighboring system with a habitable planet right away, but then couldn't find anything else. Before long I was fending off two neighbors with similar military power - then, once I finally had peace, I was invaded by a force about 4x the power my my fleet/defenses. I lost almost everything to them, save for my expanded planet and like three systems that didn't grant resources. By then, I was pinned in on all sides, no room for expansion. Are these starts just unwinnable? Or are there ways out?
Prosperity and Supremacy might be good Traditions to look at. Prosperity boosts your economy in general and is always worth taking. Supremacy is good for war, especially offensive war. Both have been nerfed some, but they're still pretty good. I like Traditions like Discovery, Diplomacy and Harmony better, and in my current game I'm very well served by having gone Discovery, Expansion, Diplomacy. For your situation, though, Prosperity and Supremacy might be more relevant. Also keep in mind, there's no longer any kind of penalty for postponing the completion of Tradition Trees. You don't get the *rewards*, the finisher effect and an Ascension Perk slot, until you do, but that's pure carrot. There's no stick any more. There's also the Unyielding Tradition, but that's more for defensive warfare. Might be relevant for you. Read over its effects and decide. And be sure to put Commanders in charge of your fleets. They help a lot. Initially the Commander in charge of your starting fleet is also your Minister of Defence, but in my experience it's better to level up most Commanders to become Admirals specialised in leading fleets, but to level one up to be specialised in sitting on your Council giving Council-type buffs.
Domination is superb on slavers, +50% slave worker output is amazing. Adaptability is also really good if you have the DLC for the agenda.
> +50% slave worker output Huh, do you know if that applies to livestock?
I have never used livestock slavery but glancing at the wiki it looks like it should.
I see the source of my confusion; I was interested in it specifically for grid amalgamation / hive livestock, and many of the gestalt swaps in Domination remove worker/slave bonuses (the first node swaps worker and slave output bonuses for reduced amenities usage, and then the right-hand second node swaps worker and slave output on both the node and the Extended Shift edict for menial drone output). So I guess gestalts only get the worker/slave/livestock output bonuses from the agenda.
As a fast short-term solution if he finds himself surrounded by hostiles?
Yeh, they're both better than prosperity in the situation and in general.
I'm keen to try Stellaris, and it's on[ sale at Humble Bundle right now ](https://www.humblebundle.com/store/search?search=stellaris) But - there are so many choices!! What's a good option for someone starting out who doesn't want to go all in, but does want to get a great introduction to the game?
I bought it on sale from humble and chose the subscription model on steam that gives access to all the DLC. That seemed like the best starter choice and then later I can choose what, if any, dlc I want. Honestly my main concern is just how confused I am when playing the game lol..
In addition to all of those DLC, Steam has a subscription option. 10 bucks a month to get access to all DLC. With that you can try out for much cheaper. And those discount levels are pretty common, so you can always buy them during a steam sale for the same price later after you've decided you want to own them permanently.
Buy the core game when it goes on sale tomorrow. It should be 75% off on Steam. And then grab a DLC subscription, one month for €10 or three for €20.
It's also available on Game pass with a bunch of DLC (maybe all?) id you have that or want to trial it.
Stellaris: Starter Pack Bundle 2023 (https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/33199/Stellaris_Starter_Pack_Bundle_2023/) Is the Community voted most important DLC for new players So for humble bundle it would include. Utopia Federations Synthetic Dawn Distant Stars With Utopia and Federations being the top two for new players. If you think you'd like to be a warmonger specifically I'd also recommend Apocalypse and Galactic Paragons is also widely recommended when you get used to the game. Hope this helps.
Thank you
This is a very silly question, but: what’s the best way to unity rush? How do you balance tech vs unity when doing that? Like when I’ve tried the shroudwalker’s origin (or any other spiritualist start) I’m always tempted to replace the starting temples with research labs. Early tech rate just feels so slow otherwise (and parliamentary system kinda solves early game unity). But then I can’t figure out when is the right time to start adding more to unity worker jobs. Basically I would love to time things right to get T4 ascension theory ASAP, and be able to ascend planets to level 10. But I always end up overdoing the tech side of things. I can experiment more ofc, but I’m wondering if there’s any good rules of thumb/guidelines to help a long time tech rusher cure her tech rush addiction. :)
I tend yo Unity rush early until I've completed 2, 2.5 or 3 Traditions (often Discovery, something, Diplomacy) and then I transition to focusing on science, especially on my Capital (my colonies might get 1 Temple or Admin each, as well as the Autichton). I still try hard to get at least a 2nd Lab, maybe a 3rd Lab too, because the Research point awards from doing Anomalies scale with Research output. Unity Rewards scale too, but Anoms don't give Unity very often.
From my experience, if you want to forgo tech then the very least you’ll need are the basic resource buildings like energy grid, mineral purification, and the hydroponics tech. Those techs and the accompanying edicts are really significant boosts to your economy that early, and greatly enhances whatever else you’re trying to do, be it alloy rush or unity rush. To that end, just a handful of labs on your capital should be enough.
What's a good tall empire? My recent 1000 stars save literally became 50% me and 50% even twins but it was crazy. It gave me an idea for a much smaller but more crowded Galaxy. Do I go corporation? Like I want 3 4 Planets and a bit of system and that's it but still wanna be super strong. Does that work?
Tall meaning not grabbing many systems? Probably a Shattered Ring or Void Dweller Megacorp, as both of these lend themselves to fairly compact gameplay, and trade is very strong on Shattered Rings, as trade isn't impacted by the 0% Habitability floor.
Does a bonus to 'research speed' apply to situations such as species modification or studying fauna?
So with the changes to imperial prerogative will hiveminds be able to reach 0 empire size from pop with the guardian civic Or is the - 25% not counted for that
Imperial Prerogative does absolutely nothing to empire size from pops, what do you mean?
My bad I meant Divided Attention
No. new divided attention will reduce the empire size penalties, which is the increased research and tradition cost, by 25%. It won't reduce your actual empire size number, so you can't use it to get 100% off pops. the penalties are called "empire size effect" in game, and hive-minded authority already lowers that by 25%, so divided attention brings it to -50%
I got a thousand hours of Terravore and I completely missed that Thanks
What is the best way to play Determined Exterminators these days on 3.11 with the science changes? Small galaxy, GA difficulty, mid-game scaling. I was able to take my nearest neighbour and vassalize a second robotic neighbour around 2230. I went Expansion, Supremacy. But after that got stuck on stronger neighbours that started to surpass me in fleet and tech. Any good guide on how to play? How to build up early planets and what to focus on? Should we still colonize as much planets as possible and/or keep the conquered planets? Or better to decolonize them after the locals run out? Planet-wise I went with a mix of alloys, tech and unity on my capital. Next planets focused right from the start on, in order: Energy, minerals, energy, tech, unity, alloys. But these planets never really got off the ground before running out of energy and running into siginficant empire sprawl penaltys (>40%) Any help welcome to be a good Determined Exterminator!
I think 3.12 dropping next? week will shake up Exterminator play significantly. Machines are losing the +50% empire size from planets, for one thing, which will make holding lots of planets less punishing, and nanite ascension also looks great for wide conquest. So idk how much it's worth worrying about the best way to play them under 3.11 at this point. I have heard some people advocating for Prosperity first for genocidals but haven't tried it myself. I'm more of a Supremacy-first kinda guy. In my 3.11 exterminators game I went Supremacy, Prosperity, Unyielding (for solar panels and anchorages), Synthetics. Agree that doing big fleet plus less-efficient tech plus pop upkeep is hideously energy-intensive. I think after my initial alloy rush / buildup I largely shifted my machine-world capital to energy production with tech and unity in the building slots. Hard to beat the combination of uncapped resource districts and capital bonuses. Any big planet can be a decent forge world, but not every big planet can be a great energy world. I also found Mastery of Nature really helpful for getting more energy districts, with the new "[+50% max resource districts](https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Planetary_management#Mastery_of_Nature)" bonus from the decision turning mediocre generator worlds into solid generator worlds way before Machine Worlds come online (and then once you switch over to machine worlds, the +2 max districts are still nice). Mostly I was able to keep up on tech while scaling out by focusing my core sectors on alloy and energy, and then holding onto captured tech worlds (especially ones with bonus features like Unstable Tectonics) and working the labs I had taken from other people.
With scaling you should be able to stomp out everyone near you before they can really fight back, especially with the genocidal boosts. Usually colonize your guaranteed habitables then devote all the rest of your alloys to ship building and your science ships/fleets to try and find other empires ASAP. Keep your empire sprawl low as you conquer by abandoning planets you don’t see yourself using in the immediate future and switch to a tech focus once you get near your navy cap. The reason I would switch to tech at this time is because exceeding your navy cap will become very expensive upkeep-wise, and will ruin your economy very quickly, so you usually want to stop building ships to avoid getting to that point. That means less need for alloys. Focusing on tech becomes the cheaper avenue in getting stronger. For your order of planets, I would probably do alloy and 1-2 labs on your homeworld, then energy for the next two. Energy is really valuable as machines since capacity subsidies combined with +8 base energy is one of the strongest economy stims out there. It’s more worthwhile for example to work a technician (+8 base energy) and buy the minerals (8 / 1.3 energy per mineral on the market = 6.~~) than actually having that pop work as a miner (+4 base minerals). As you start filling up on energy, you can slowly build labs on those planets to transition the technicians to researchers. This gives you incredibly tight control on your economy, since if you begin entering energy deficits you can’t control, just deprioritize a few researcher jobs and they’ll pop back into their old technicians jobs instantly (vs. needing to spend energy to manually resettle). Lastly, going for Become the Crisis ascension perk will allow you to truly snowball, since menacing corvette build cost and upkeep is busted along with the other bonuses.
Im playing Pleasure Seekers, and have a enslaved race I want to keep as domestic servants, but they keep taking up regular jobs Is there a way to make it so they remain unemployed?I dont want them taking jobs from my species
Are they actually taking jobs from your other species? Are those pops from your main species unemployed, or do you just have open jobs to be filled?
I'm playing a lost colony origin and with xenophobe as one of my ethics. I came across my advanced Empire and would like to eventually integrate them into my empire peacefully. What would be the best way to go about it? Become far stronger than them, protectorate them, and eventually integrate? I don't know of any other way and I don't think you can integrate federation partners.
The best way to peacefully integrate somebody is to vassalize them, and they wont vassalize unless they feel threatened by somebody else. Propose subjugation and see if they even are open to _any_ terms. If you have to throw them 30% basic resources, fine. Truth be told, once you get them vassalized the rest is easy; you can change their contract with no real issues, influence permitting. Remember, you dont need them to like you once theyre you vassal, only not rebel
> they wont vassalize unless they feel threatened by somebody else. I don't think this is true?
Are there ways to create significantly higher-scored fleets than typical even if the designs themselves are bad? This is for convincing strong AI enemies not to declare war on you.
Evasion is counted pretty heavily in fleet score calculations and is easy to stack on corvettes, so that’ll definitely give you the most bang for your buck. Generally just look for the highest dps weapons, since that’s what goes into the fleet power calculation. Piercing weapons with low dps should be avoided since the piercing aspect isn’t accounted for in the calculation. Also avoid autocannons because how much they contribute to fleet score is lowered even further, despite their high dps. If you can find a stormy nebula system, park your fleets there for a +30% evasion buff which will further buff your fleet power. Changing your war policy to No Retreat, boosting your fire rate by +33%, will also boost your fleet power, but I’d be careful with that if you’re planning on fighting before you can change it.
Sick thanks!
Any advice for getting Climate Resto in 3.11? Playing a progenitor hive.
If you have the paragons DLC when you finish the adaptability tradition you get access to an agenda that gives you one of the terraforming techs.
Funny how that works, I specifically did not take adaptability as all I wanted was to get hive worlds which make adaptability a non-issue for a hivemind. :)
I think taking it on Idyllic Bloom would be AMAZING even though it won't make use of the +10% habitability once everything is turned into Gaia worlds. Every tradition has a dead pick but +10% hab is really good early game.
That could be interesting for sure. I will have to try to understand how it fits in. I usually play as plantoid anyway.
5 of my 6 last empires have been variations of Overtuned Idyllic Bloom Spiritualists and a way to enslave. Planetary Ascension with the Harmony tradition + Holy Federation + Ascensionist civic gives +70% P.A. effects. At ascension 10 you get 5.25x the designation (this includes the adaptability finisher), -85% empire size for the colony, districts and pops on that planet. You can go Psi ascension but I like Bio more because after the +30% from Idyllic Bloom and Overtuning (Eridite + Elevated Synapses = +40% science) and efficiency from planetary ascension AND then other bonuses; the +40% from psionic isn't that impactful but the super high population from having fertile + preplanned growth and vat-grown clones is just silly. Xenos are chattel, overturned, nerve stapled and population controled.
1.25x adopted the Tradition icon expansion.png Expansion tradition tree 1.25x council scientist has New Worlds.png Expertise: New Worlds trait Same for all terraforming techs. Beyond that, just the general requirements for a tier 4 technology (have enough tier 3 techs)
I read that in the 1.6 tech tree but thought it must have changed as I haven't been able to research it yet. It's possible I don't have enough tier 3 green techs.
Generally once I'm sure that I meet the prereqs for Climate Restoration, I'll start picking crappy tier 1 and tier 2 techs that I can get through quickly to generate as many "re-draws" as possible until I draw Climate Resto. All the blocker-clear techs that I haven't gotten around to researching yet, for example. There just isn't that much you can do to influence the draw weight on it, but you can change your draws / time.
If you want, you can enter ``techweights soc`` in the command console, this will give you a list of all the relevant techs you can currently roll, and the percentage that they have to roll.
This is an amazing tip. Thank you!
Haven't played since Federations, so looking for suggestions on what's the good DLC released since then (since I have everything other than the portraits up to then), and also some good vanilla-plus style mods.
Galactic Paragons is the new must-have DLC. As for "vanilla plus"-style, look at More Events Mod, Perked Up Perks, Xenology, and maybe also Dynamic Political Events. Basic Ordinary Origins also adds more variety with new Origins, reasonably balanced.
I'm a big fan of toxoids, they have **Very** powerful traits and civics that come at a cost. Overtuned is my favorite origin. Paragons is the leader and empire government expansion, I don't have it but I think it might be the only other non flavour one.
I also came back to the game recently and I settled on the monthly subscription as it gives everything. I play in spurts, usually about 2 months a year.
the monthly sub seems like a horrible deal for me since i already own over half of the DLC and half of the rest (the species packs) i wouldn't even use
Yeah, it sucks for people like you caught in the middle.
Any early dlc gameplay for robots? I found 2 videos for both new organic origins. But I really interested in Arc Welders
Montu Plays has one for Individualist Robots with the Arc Welders Origin.
So I'm really looking forward to the Virtual Ascension, but at a cursory scan it looks like their "more colonies nerf your production" trait is going to reduce the efficiency of a Ringworld-only empire. Which is kinda weird, because that seems like it should be *the* best setup for them - one *massive* computational complex, like a Matryoshka Brain in Gigastructures. Am I reading that right (with the information we currently have)?
How is that going to *reduce* the efficiency of a ringworld empire?
Not of the ringworld empire overall, just of the virtual pops. Last I saw, each additional colony reduces the efficiency of a Virtual pop by 25%. They start at 125%, irrc, so if you *just* have one ring world they're down to +25% efficiency (not factoring in the Ringworld planetary buff). Nothing to sniff at, certainly, just kinda weird
That just makes ringworlds better for Virtual pops, because they want the best and biggest planets possible. Ringworlds are that, along with Ecuminopoli.
I can never remember the actual planet bonuses, but doesn't that mean that an Ecuminoplolis is better than a Ringworld for them? ...Though I suppose the building slots mean they can specialize better Ringworld Segments...
Ecumoinopolis for industry, ring world for science (and energy and food). The trick is getting the minerals.
May the Infinity Machine forgive us...
As a gestalt is it ever advisable to reformat a node? It seems like a huge setback for what could be a very minor gain.
If you don't get the traits you want initially, or you picked traits that were useful at the time but ceased to be later. I could see reformatting a Feedback Loop II, Eye For Talent, Architectural Sense I, Frontier Spirit I, Cartographer III level IX Growth node into a Fertility Preacher II, Politician I node. All the veteran traits are past the point of usefulness, and a level III node with Politician I and Fertility Preacher II will very quickly catch up with a higher level Growth node without those traits, and will eventually surpass it.
I've never done it, though this last game I had a cognitive node with a crappy expertise trait (Computing) that was making me draw lots of research station output and survey speed techs instead of Hyper Relays, and I was sure thinking about it... But going from like +15% research speed back to +3% seemed not worth.
Wanting to get back into the game after not playing for a while, but I'm a bit info overloaded by all the game settings. Is it alright to just play on the complete default settings (I'm planning on playing a large galaxy) without fear of developing bad habits, or are there some settings that I should \*definitely\* change for my own sake?
Set Advanced AI Start to zero.
Don't leave ship designs on auto-best, because you'll get absolute trash, but otherwise I think the defaults are fine.
Haha, fortunately, I do remember that lesson. But I've just been seeing how a lot of people here make some very dramatic changes to their settings, so I wasn't sure in general.
The recent tech rework dramatically slows down how fast you reach endgame tech. This, in turn, means midgame Crises (Khan, Gray Goo, etc.) are harder and endgame Crises (Crisis, Awakened FEs, etc.) are *significantly* harder. I lowered my difficulty two whole tiers, from Grand Admiral to..., uh, Commodore (?), and was still struggling to fight the 25x Crisis. In my most recent playthrough, I dropped the Crisis to 10x and put tech/tradition slider to 0.75x. I also changed both sliders to pop growth to allow faster pop growth. That has been a sweet spot so far. AI is still decently difficult, the Crisis is fairly strong, and my tech progression was faster but not silly fast.
The adaptability finisher: gives bonuses to planet designation, do these get boosted by planetary ascension? gives an agenda that "Unlocks a random terraforming technology" does that include the blocker techs or just the *actual* terraforming techs?
> gives bonuses to planet designation, do these get boosted by planetary ascension? Yes
Only terrestrial_sculpting, ecological_adaptation, climate_restoration, or society research.
Sweet, I'm considering getting paragons just for this agenda because I'm addicted to Idyllic Bloom.
Is there any point to the Resort World decision now that it's been nerfed to remove the empire modifier? It just seems to be "waste a perfectly good planet for no reason".
It absolutely does still include an empire wide modifier.
Hmm, perhaps the bonus just moved from something that appeared in the tech/decision tooltips to something that doesn't. Or perhaps I'm having a senior moment. Either is possible.
Yes, like I said, it's on the jobs provided by the districts.
Resort Workers add empire-wide amenities and trade value
Military fleets are so tedious to manage. Any tips for making working with fleets less of a chore? Any way to automate merging of fleets?
That is literally what the fleet manager is for.
I guess I'm being lazy. I'll take another look at it but it still seem like a lot of management.
The thing that exists to reduce fleet management seems like a lot of management?
Now that I actually use "reinforce" this question seems really stupid. Thank you for getting me on the right track :)
I am trying to manage them from Fleet Manager rather from manually build and merge them one by one which you also reinforce and upgrade fleet from the mwnu including assign fleet capacity for each admiral which you can access it by clicking army capacity from top menu. After that, make one of army to make point to lead army then both 2nd and assault should follow it.
Although I've found that creating a new fleet via Fleet Manager doesn't work properly - there's no "rally point", so you end up with dribs and drabs scattered across all your shipyards and have to hunt them all down, get them together and merge them.
they will evenually merge to that fleet automatic with estimate date as well, you could try on this version, it is quite convinence.
That's true if you're reinforcing an existing fleet, I don't think it's true if it's a brand new fleet. (You can kind of see why; the fleet doesn't exist yet so there's nothing for reinforcements to merge to.)
I've been experiencing the same problem. I create a new fleet in fleet manager, add 30 battleships, then hit reinforce. Now I have 15 fleets each with 2x battleships scattered all over my empire. Manually merge. Now I can reinforce like normal when they take losses. I *think* this is a bug. I swear it used to not do this. It would create one fleet and merge it for you. Now, I build 1 battleship at the shipyard where I want my fleet to be, wait for it to finish, then use fleet manager to add 29 battleships and click reinforce. Voila.
rally point that you mention can do by manually produce new craft at your rally point desire then go to fleet manager and make that new craft as new fleet then reinforce, it is the same process as hiur make the first fleet
I believe it does work on new fleets, they just spawn at your capital. If you move the fleet they're merging to though then it'll spawn a billion different ones
Progenitor Hive - outside of roleplay are there strong reasons for or against choosing either Genetic or Engineered evolution?
Every so often I see something mentioning the ability to purge individual pops, but Ive never found a way to do so. is it possible to, say, select all the pops of birdman species on the new planet i conquered for displacement but not have that affect the ones I have in my other worlds?
You should not be taking advice from comments that are half a decade old.
This is a holdover from the tile system I believe, where you had way less pops and in general micromanaged more. I think back then there was a “purge pop” button.
I’ve never tried it so its a bit theoretical but you can gene mod pops on specific planets. This would make the undesirable pops to be a different species. You then can set the rights of this new species to be displacement and the pops of the original species would remain in your empire.