Stellaris II: I, For One, Welcome Our New Robot Fungus Hivemind Overlords

[GloatingSwine]

My concern is early-game expansion and needing to build an outpost before building any stations in the early game, which is going to cripple early expansion as well as early resource gains.

Depends on the cost of outposts.

Also starting systems will have more balanced resources which start with mining stations on them, so higher starting income.

[BannedInSchool]

I don't think it is going to cap the amount of absorption shielding has, so much as having a metric for showing you definitively what percentage of 'shield penetration' or 'ignoring shielding' is actually going on.

Oh, that was just my own "if I were doing it from scratch" thoughts on shields and armor, not commenting on the actual game changes. It was clear in my head that's what I saying.

[boomwolf]

WAR SYSTEM IS CHANGING!

Feth the spaceport-THIS is the important news!

[ShneekeyTheLost]

WAR SYSTEM IS CHANGING!

Feth the spaceport-THIS is the important news!

The fact that it is changing does not necessarily mean it is changing for the better. And before you say something unfortunate like 'it can't possibly get worse', permit me to remind you that it can ALWAYS get worse somehow.

[Olinser]

The fact that it is changing does not necessarily mean it is changing for the better. And before you say something unfortunate like 'it can't possibly get worse', permit me to remind you that it can ALWAYS get worse somehow.

Yeah I'm firmly in the camp of, "Show me concrete information on what you're changing and maybe I'll be excited".

[Olinser]

New Dev Diary on changes to Spaceports, looks pretty exciting!

Where did you find this? I searched for it and the last one I see is the dumb one talking about the Sound Track with vague details and a couple screenshots about things they're thinking about.

[The Glyphstone]

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...bases.1052064/

[GloatingSwine]

Where did you find this? I searched for it and the last one I see is the dumb one talking about the Sound Track with vague details and a couple screenshots about things they're thinking about.

New dev diaries are always on thursdays. Sometimes they appear on the actual forum before they get linked on the front page.

[Sian]

they always appear on the forum before the front page links to them ... the linking is just sometimes happening faster or slower than others :)

[Kaptin Keen]

Interesting.

Someone on the Paradox forum mentioned changes to FTL. And he has a point, making huge starbases is a little pointless if they can be bypassed - although the bases themselves will be objectives, so bypassing them might also be pointless.

Regardless, with bases and assumed limitations to FTL, Stellaris is about to become MoO without the turn based. Which I feel is the best outcome all-round.

[GloatingSwine]

AFAIK Hyperspace will be the starter FTL for all empires, Warp and Jump Drive will be researchable later, and Wormholes will be a map feature rather than an FTL type.

At least in the early game that means that stations can form a chokepoint, and removes one of the main problems for them having a map radius inhibitor (it could reasonably only affect certain FTL types now).

[Sian]

IIRC, Wiz has said that he's leaning towards the opinion that while Warp and Wormhole is iconic enough that they would have been missed is never made, in the greater scheme of things it was probably a unwise decision to have more 'default' FTL types than Hyperlane, and that time would probably have been better spent at only developing Hyperlanes and then throwing a lot more effort into making the AI recognize how such a map should be played (in terms of strategic defensive placement and blocking off opponents), having the other FTL types be consolidated to a certain extent and primarily use that for special cases

[GloatingSwine]

It doesn't help that no matter what they've done with them FTL has never been slightly balanced.

[Kaptin Keen]

Sometimes this game is just so weird.

Earlier, looking at the map, I spotted an anomaly in one of my systems that I had apparently never researched (highly unlikely). When I clicked it - to send someone to research - it brought up the scientist who was currently researching the Infinity Engine, for some reason. When I clicked this away, the anomaly simply disappeared.

And just now, another empire called me to say they could no longer prioritize guaranteeing my indepence. I'm pretty sure they never were - and I know for a fact they called me with the same message once before.

[factotum]

It doesn't help that no matter what they've done with them FTL has never been slightly balanced.

They're impossible to balance, is the problem there--they're just so different. They included all three so that people could "roleplay" any of the myriad SF races out there, but having all of them in the same universe at the same time never made much sense.

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah, choose one at the start and be locked in forever was never a good way of dealing with FTL types unless you put serious effort into handcrafting them.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Yea, I figure there should be a better way of doing FTL. Starting with Hyperdrive kind of sort of but not really makes sense. But really, I kinda liked how MoO2 did things, with range limitations and ways of extending that range limitation, so kinda like how Wormhole Dive work now, only with sufficient research to make your range be effectively infinite.

In other news, watching a LP, words spoken by the player:

"Ghost signal, eh? Well, I guess if it becomes a problem later, we'll just crush them. In the meantime, Sentient AI unlocked! Now my ships are that much more powerful!"

My thought...

"Oh boy... he's gonna REALLY regret that decision shortly..."

[Silverraptor]

Yea, I figure there should be a better way of doing FTL. Starting with Hyperdrive kind of sort of but not really makes sense. But really, I kinda liked how MoO2 did things, with range limitations and ways of extending that range limitation, so kinda like how Wormhole Dive work now, only with sufficient research to make your range be effectively infinite.

In other news, watching a LP, words spoken by the player:

"Ghost signal, eh? Well, I guess if it becomes a problem later, we'll just crush them. In the meantime, Sentient AI unlocked! Now my ships are that much more powerful!"

My thought...

"Oh boy... he's gonna REALLY regret that decision shortly..."

That is hilarious!

[Caelestion]

Classic MoO used Warp Drive, so I was a bit sad that they changed to Hyperlanes in New-MoO. Wormholes are interesting, but they're either overpowered compared to the other drives or underpowered if you start losing and enemy fleets start taking out your generators.

[Olinser]

Yea, I figure there should be a better way of doing FTL. Starting with Hyperdrive kind of sort of but not really makes sense. But really, I kinda liked how MoO2 did things, with range limitations and ways of extending that range limitation, so kinda like how Wormhole Dive work now, only with sufficient research to make your range be effectively infinite.

In other news, watching a LP, words spoken by the player:

"Ghost signal, eh? Well, I guess if it becomes a problem later, we'll just crush them. In the meantime, Sentient AI unlocked! Now my ships are that much more powerful!"

My thought...

"Oh boy... he's gonna REALLY regret that decision shortly..."

I hate the Hyperlane crap because its just lazy.

Warp and Wormholes are superior despite multiple nerfs because Hyperlanes artificially limit your exploration and strategic options.

They've essentially acknowledged that they can't balance the 3 types of FTL with each other, so they picked the easiest one to balance so they can turn it into EU IN SPACE. That plus the whole space fortress is basically trying to force you to allow turtling on chokepoints in space.

[Sholos]

Anyone have any tips on playing Exterminators?

Edit: I actually prefer hyperlanes for the strategic value.

[Sian]

See if you can find Primitives near-by, on a half-decent sized planet, and invade them, turning them into batteries that cover your energy needs for the initial expansion phase (meaning that you can focus on getting enough Minerals to push).

Also, Given your ability to push all kinds of planets, Mastery of Nature is a quite strong first pick

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Anyone have any tips on playing Exterminators?

Edit: I actually prefer hyperlanes for the strategic value.

Quick expansion is a must, because everyone is going to automatically hate you, and you WILL get into war sooner rather than later.

Energy mining stations are a must because energy is effectively your food. Mining stations are a must because it's an X4 game and your economy has to come first. You can skip research stations until later as long as you have every energy and mineral station going within your sphere of influence.

Abuse the heck out of the fact that all planets are effectively 'perfect' for you. All you care about is size.

Abuse the heck out of the fact that you can modify your species significantly and have specialized robots for various resources. Getting this unlocked early can be very strong. Starting race has all leader bonuses. Then as you specialize, you want 'leader' bots that retain their bonuses on Unity squares, 'miner' bots that have bonus minerals on your mines, 'power' bots on all your Energy squares, and 'research' bots on all your science squares across your empire. So Synthetic Age is actually a pretty strong pick for your Ascension perk.

Kill your enemies slowly and painfully, reaping energy from their bodies, turning the hated biologicals into copper-tops. It takes longer to kill them, but the energy is worth it.

Don't forget to make sure you have at least one robot overseeing the energy harvesting of biologicals so you don't lose control over the planets once your extermination is complete.

You will never have much in the way of Influence, so you have to be EXTREMELY careful about how you spend it and especially careful about recurring Influence costs, including outpost stations and recurring policies. You want as few outpost stations as you can get away with, and there aren't really any policies you need to set and forget, except maybe the fleet one later on. Periodically review your space to make sure you don't have outposts sitting around that are no longer relevant because you have colonies covering the space, and deconstruct them if you find any. Managing influence is going to be one of your biggest challenges, other than the fact that the rest of the galaxy hates your guts and will form federations for the express purpose of defeating you.

Beware the Ghost Signal. It will spell your doom if you are not ready.

[Silverraptor]

Abuse the heck out of the fact that you can modify your species significantly and have specialized robots for various resources. Getting this unlocked early can be very strong. Starting race has all leader bonuses. Then as you specialize, you want 'leader' bots that retain their bonuses on Unity squares, 'miner' bots that have bonus minerals on your mines, 'power' bots on all your Energy squares, and 'research' bots on all your science squares across your empire. So Synthetic Age is actually a pretty strong pick for your Ascension perk.

I actually disagree. You can research enough robot modification points on your own that the perk is not worth getting opposed to Mastery of Nature.

[Sholos]

Hmm, maybe I just got unlucky, then, as I tried rushing expansion and just felt crippled in every area, from minerals to energy to research.

[Sian]

As Exterminators, Double-Jointed is stupidly strong, since you have easy access to another -50% Resettlement cost, which means that you can move robots around completely freely, which means that you can insta-upgrade your planetary capital, and that you always can focus on your X strongest buildings depending on your exact situation, with little to no regard as of which planet they happen to be on.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I actually disagree. You can research enough robot modification points on your own that the perk is not worth getting opposed to Mastery of Nature.

The same can be said of Mastery of Nature. You can simply research all your blocker removers. Either way. Your first two perk choices are going to be weaker, simply because the later ones are so strong.

Also, what do you think of picking up Discovery just for the reduction of failure chance of anomalies, then go on to some actually useful Unity picks? Sure, it might slow you down to getting to Ringworlds or Dyson Spheres, but early-game science may well be worth it. Especially if you can get some extra mining stations going or something out of it.

[GloatingSwine]

The same can be said of Mastery of Nature. You can simply research all your blocker removers. Either way. Your first two perk choices are going to be weaker, simply because the later ones are so strong.

Ah, no.

The real strength of Mastery of Nature is that it removes rather a lot of techs from the tech pool. You should always pick it first, even nerfed, because it means you are more likely to draw techs you want by removing a huge glut from one tier of the social deck.

It removes about 1/3 of the tier 1 techs from Social, greatly increasing the draw chance of all the others (bearing in mind that no matter which hydrosphere you're on you're likely to encounter at least 5 out of the 9 blockers because three of them can spawn on any planet).

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Ah, no.

The real strength of Mastery of Nature is that it removes rather a lot of techs from the tech pool. You should always pick it first, even nerfed, because it means you are more likely to draw techs you want by removing a huge glut from one tier of the social deck.

It removes about 1/3 of the tier 1 techs from Social, greatly increasing the draw chance of all the others (bearing in mind that no matter which hydrosphere you're on you're likely to encounter at least 5 out of the 9 blockers because three of them can spawn on any planet).

And considering Social is the least important tech tree for robots, I don't see the big deal. Also, there's plenty of ways to get additional picks, making it irrelevant.

[GloatingSwine]

And considering Social is the least important tech tree for robots, I don't see the big deal. Also, there's plenty of ways to get additional picks, making it irrelevant.

Not that early in the game without sacrificing something actually useful like a civic slot.

If you focus down one tradition you can unlock your first ascension super early, at the point where stripping out all that tier 1 trash and giving you immediate access to every tile is still relevant, and that leaves your social deck much more likely to produce the two things it is actually useful for, +Influence and +Fleet cap.