Stellaris: Paradoxian Space Stategy.

[Kaptin Keen]

The AI only declares wars it thinks it can win. And if you have the aggressiveness on default it wants a pretty big margin before it will try it on.

Which means that unless you deliberately lowball your power you can expect it to leave you alone.

Being completely honest with you, I don't particularly look for a game to challenge me - I look for a game to entertain me. So basically all settings are default. So in all likelyhood I was playing more aggressive than usual.

I still think they were being cheekier than usual.

[Olinser]

The AI only declares wars it thinks it can win. And if you have the aggressiveness on default it wants a pretty big margin before it will try it on.

Which means that unless you deliberately lowball your power you can expect it to leave you alone.

Yeah except for awakened FE I literally can't even remember the last time an AI actually declared war on me.

[BannedInSchool]

Yeah except for awakened FE I literally can't even remember the last time an AI actually declared war on me.

I had a rival Militarist Xenophobe neighbor do that to me yesterday. I am playing on Hard and they were "Superior" to me on the leaderboard even though Equivalent in every category. (Which looks like they could be just short of 2x me in all three. )

[Kaptin Keen]

When picking a new admiral, which skill do you pick over others? (could ask the same for all leaders)

I always go for the +8% firepower - but I always consider Cautious (+10% range) for a long time before sticking with what I know.

[GloatingSwine]

Generally for admirals I go:

Unyielding > Aggressive > Cautious > Gale Speed > Trickster

Engineer is sort of OK but hull regen isn't all that tactically useful and with only one significant battle per war it's easy to break damaged ships off for repair.

Logistician is likely to arrive by itself.

Admirals who pick up Scout are in danger of being fired.


For scientists, Industrial (power plants and mines), Voidcraft (new hulls/spaceport levels), Meticulous and Careful (early access to higher level anomalies) are best early. Maniacal and Genius later for all round research.

Don't care about Governor skills. Iron Fist if I'm a slaver I guess. Might change next patch with a core sector governor, early on probably look for Architectural Interest.

[Kaptin Keen]

Generally for admirals I go:

Unyielding > Aggressive > Cautious > Gale Speed > Trickster

Engineer is sort of OK but hull regen isn't all that tactically useful and with only one significant battle per war it's easy to break damaged ships off for repair.

Logistician is likely to arrive by itself.

Admirals who pick up Scout are in danger of being fired.


For scientists, Industrial (power plants and mines), Voidcraft (new hulls/spaceport levels), Meticulous and Careful (early access to higher level anomalies) are best early. Maniacal and Genius later for all round research.

Don't care about Governor skills. Iron Fist if I'm a slaver I guess. Might change next patch with a core sector governor, early on probably look for Architectural Interest.

I mostly agree on admirals, I guess - at least I consider the same skills useful, though I prioritise slightly differently.

For scientists, I pick Spark of Genius over everything else (except the even better AI Assistant).

For governors, I have two priorities: The research buff (for research planets, duh), or 'who ever survives the longest'.

Oh and ... generals seem to have a much wider range of awesome/useless skills. For instance I've never had even a single planet invasion, so any sort of bonus on defense is just ..... not relevalt =)

[GloatingSwine]

For scientists, I pick Spark of Genius over everything else (except the even better AI Assistant).

The reason to sometimes pick other traits in scientists is that you're more likely to get tech choices of that type if a scientist with that trait is leading that research when it rolls techs.

So having an Industrial researcher makes you more likely to get new mines/power plants, a Voidcraft researcher makes you more likely to get new spaceports and hulls, and a Military Theory researcher will make you more likely to get the fleet cap expansions. (Also Doctrine: Command Matrix, the -5% ship upkeep tech won't roll at all without a Military Theory researcher).

[Kaptin Keen]

The reason to sometimes pick other traits in scientists is that you're more likely to get tech choices of that type if a scientist with that trait is leading that research when it rolls techs.

So having an Industrial researcher makes you more likely to get new mines/power plants, a Voidcraft researcher makes you more likely to get new spaceports and hulls, and a Military Theory researcher will make you more likely to get the fleet cap expansions. (Also Doctrine: Command Matrix, the -5% ship upkeep tech won't roll at all without a Military Theory researcher).

Oh. I see.

I always considered them pointless - I mean, how often do you need an expert at energy weapons (no idea if that's one of the specialisations)?

[Grim Portent]

Oh. I see.

I always considered them pointless - I mean, how often do you need an expert at energy weapons (no idea if that's one of the specialisations)?

Weapon tech specialisation isn't a thing as such, all the weapons fall under things like Particles or Computing which have other applications.

I prefer flat research boosts personally since I'd rather have my tech just be higher overall than my competition, but I can see the advantages of loading the tech tree randomness in your favour.

[GloatingSwine]

Weapon tech specialisation isn't a thing as such, all the weapons fall under things like Particles or Computing which have other applications.

I prefer flat research boosts personally since I'd rather have my tech just be higher overall than my competition, but I can see the advantages of loading the tech tree randomness in your favour.

Tech is so generally crap in Stellaris that I don't really care about having it higher than the opposition.

If you make sure you get the right techs you maybe only need about 30% of the overall tech tree to beat fallen empires and endgame crises easily.

[Grim Portent]

Yeah, but if you want to avoid wars then having a higher general tech level contributes to keeping other empires intimidated by you. It's a utility benefit in addition to the actual use of the tech.

The only research branch that really gets clogged with useless junk is engineering because of all the weapon types it has, society stuff is mostly pretty handy and the same is true for physics though it does get a bit of weapon tech clog.

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah, but if you want to avoid wars then having a higher general tech level contributes to keeping other empires intimidated by you. It's a utility benefit in addition to the actual use of the tech.

Don't think of it as a war, think of it as some planets you didn't know you wanted.

The only research branch that really gets clogged with useless junk is engineering because of all the weapon types it has, society stuff is mostly pretty handy and the same is true for physics though it does get a bit of weapon tech clog.

That's why you never research missiles.

Ideally you scan some pirate debris to get tier 1 missiles out of the tech draw and you leave them there all game. That stops them from polluting your tech tree with repeatables. Sadly you can't do the same with the strike craft repeatables, so they always start gumming up your draws.

You'll probably have to grind through Autocannon and Flak eventually, but you can keep them around for relatively quick rerolls.

[Silverraptor]

I'd like to add my own input in leaders. Given the traits are luck of the draw, if I don't get the ones I want in high priority, my next considering factor is age. Generally younger is better because you keep the higher levels around longer.

[Olinser]

Don't think of it as a war, think of it as some planets you didn't know you wanted.



That's why you never research missiles.

Ideally you scan some pirate debris to get tier 1 missiles out of the tech draw and you leave them there all game. That stops them from polluting your tech tree with repeatables. Sadly you can't do the same with the strike craft repeatables, so they always start gumming up your draws.

You'll probably have to grind through Autocannon and Flak eventually, but you can keep them around for relatively quick rerolls.

You can do this with any level tech, actually, if you get tier 2 or tier 3 research of something you never plan on using then research the levels below it and they will be gone for good with the 2 or 3 holding on the bottom.

[Kaptin Keen]

That's why you never research missiles.

So because of all the hate towards missiles, in my current game I decided to go with .... missiles.

So far they honestly seem perfectly fine, perhaps even outperforming what I've otherwise been using (which has generally been projectile weapons, cause lasers are dumb).

[GloatingSwine]

The usefulness of missiles is inversely proportional to the number you have in your fleet. Though they do get a slight late game boost from the interaction of their overkill bug with shield switching. The ship will pick a new target when the shield on the current one goes down but all the missiles that haven't arrived yet keep going for the old one.

That said they have poor anti armour performance so as soon as cruisers arrive plasma is still just better.

[Kaptin Keen]

Still .... I just killed the enigmatic fortress with 23k battle strength, barely losing a ship.

Different topic, one I'm genuinely confused about:

I never manage to have the most research points on the map. No matter how hard I focus, I just ... always lag behind. So this game, I selected my leaders for this purpose, I bought the boost from the curators, I stacked built science ships to keep in orbit of my best reseach planets - all that jazz.

Now, it's 2350 or there abouts. I'm still nowhere near first in research. But I do have megastructure tech, something I quite simply never managed before (not until after endgame crisis, and then only because I killed a FE first).

Seriously .... is the game trolling me?

[GloatingSwine]

Seriously .... is the game trolling me?

Tech isn't about how many tech points you have, it's about the ratio of tech points to population/empire size.

If you want to be captain science, a smallish empire with lots of labs and using strategically placed frontier outposts to grab space research is your way to go.

Good for unity rushing as well. A tech/unity rush empire that blobs hard after a few decades can make for a fun game.

[Kaptin Keen]

Tech isn't about how many tech points you have, it's about the ratio of tech points to population/empire size.

If you want to be captain science, a smallish empire with lots of labs and using strategically placed frontier outposts to grab space research is your way to go.

Good for unity rushing as well. A tech/unity rush empire that blobs hard after a few decades can make for a fun game.

Hmm - I know. Kind of. I don't pay enough attention to detail, but I'm well aware it's not a 1-1 ratio.

However, it seems like it should be one .... or the other. It seems either diminishing returns should mean I can't substantially change when I get Megastructures available - or, when I do substantially change when late game tech becomes available, I should be ahead of the competition.

Now it just feels like there's no winning combo. Anyways, now I'll start building ringworlds - just because I can.

(Actually, right now I have no idea how - all I've done previously is repair broken ones)

[GloatingSwine]

Hmm - I know. Kind of. I don't pay enough attention to detail, but I'm well aware it's not a 1-1 ratio.

However, it seems like it should be one .... or the other. It seems either diminishing returns should mean I can't substantially change when I get Megastructures available - or, when I do substantially change when late game tech becomes available, I should be ahead of the competition.

Every planet you colonise makes techs cost 10% more, and every pop in your empire past 10 makes them cost 1% more.

So if you want advanced science you want small population with lots of science.

[boomwolf]

Alternatively, a big empire with a ton of tech buildings also functions properly.

You need about 20-25% of your building to be tech centered in order to keep up the increasing costs from empire size, but if you can stack it up to 30% or even 40% of your buildings (totally doable) you start seeing a net gain.
Couple that with getting control over a large swat of space to get all them space research points, and it gets good.
And once you megastructures, if you have a mod that allows you to build multiple megas at once, building nexus will ramp you up really good. (if you can only build one at a time though, you might be better spending the competing time on building other stuff, personally I still like nexus even without mods.)

[Olinser]

So because of all the hate towards missiles, in my current game I decided to go with .... missiles.

So far they honestly seem perfectly fine, perhaps even outperforming what I've otherwise been using (which has generally been projectile weapons, cause lasers are dumb).

In the very early game with just a few ships they're the best weapon because in corvette combat they auto-hit. As soon as you get about 20+ ships they are unquestionably the worst weapon by a huge margin.

Pre-patch they are almost utterly USELESS after you have about 30+ ships because of the ungodly amount of missiles wasted on dead targets. A target will be dead when missiles impact and ships will continue to fire 1-4 more missiles (depending on range) at the same target that all disappear when they die.

Post-patch they're still incredibly weak because the travel time means 'dead' targets still get multiple shots off before missiles hit and the re-target takes time for the missiles to impact, and you still lose a certain amount of missiles.

Both other weapons massively out-perform missiles at any stage except extreme early game.

[Kaptin Keen]

utterly USELESS

Doesn't feel like it, honestly. But I've been in just a couple of wars - maybe no one is packing PD?

I'm not saying missiles are good. I'm just doing this for the hell of it, but for what it's worth, missiles feel ... just fine.

[factotum]

I think missiles *are* fine, so long as you're not min-maxing everything. Yes, there are reasons why they're generally not as good a choice as the other weapon types (unless you're facing the Unbidden, in which case they rock), but they still *work* against the AI. Against human opponents, probably not so much.

[Kaptin Keen]

Against human opponents, probably not so much.

I would never play against my fellow man. Mostly because I've never found a pvp community that isn't toxic AF.

So I only play story mode =)

[boomwolf]

Stellaris is far too long for multiplayer to be enjoyable anyways.

And Olinser, how I wish I had your divination abilities to know if the post-patch missiles would be good or not on a patch that literally CHANGES THE RULES OF HOW MISSILES AND TARGETING EVEN WORKS.

[Olinser]

Stellaris is far too long for multiplayer to be enjoyable anyways.

And Olinser, how I wish I had your divination abilities to know if the post-patch missiles would be good or not on a patch that literally CHANGES THE RULES OF HOW MISSILES AND TARGETING EVEN WORKS.

There's no divination, the exact numbers and stats are out there. Google is your friend.

Unless they further change numbers before release, they're still going to be the weakest end-game, but they're not going to be as completely useless as they are now.

[boomwolf]

The only thing out there is component costs, who were stated in a dev diary.

Just how the re-targeting algorithm works, or how missile chance at acquiring new targets is calculated nobody knows, they never said.

[GloatingSwine]

The only thing out there is component costs, who were stated in a dev diary.

Just how the re-targeting algorithm works, or how missile chance at acquiring new targets is calculated nobody knows, they never said.

The numbers aren't all available and if they've showed up in a stream they may not be final, but we do know that the new targeting has a significantly higher bias to keep same target, and that missiles will fly faster and can choose a new target if their current one dies, but that they have a limited range for doing so which increases with the tech level of missiles (tier 1 is range 10).

[Kaptin Keen]

I'll say this against the current generation of missiles: Holy junk I can have a lot of damage travelling towards the enemy - while their lasers strike at the speed of light. Honestly, I feel a deep pain in my soul when I gaze upon it. But otherwise I just carved an enemy fleet neatly asunder (honestly, it was rather a mess), losing only a few % of my own. And these were a strong, late-game, built-up empire.

They even had the god damned nerve to declare on me. Pffft ... really?! =)