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

[The Glyphstone]

Is there an option somewhere for reviewing event logs, to know when things happened? My Benevolent Interventionists woke up and locked the entire galaxy under peace treaties. I can't fight their doomstack, so my only option is to wait until Decadence sets in and they start suffering attrition. Having an idea of when I became a Signatory/when they awakened will let me know when the 20-year clock starts.

[Olinser]

Is there an option somewhere for reviewing event logs, to know when things happened? My Benevolent Interventionists woke up and locked the entire galaxy under peace treaties. I can't fight their doomstack, so my only option is to wait until Decadence sets in and they start suffering attrition. Having an idea of when I became a Signatory/when they awakened will let me know when the 20-year clock starts.

I'm sure there's probably a mod for it but in the base game there is not.

If you go to the diplomatic panel with the empire you might be able to hover over 'Declare War', I believe becoming a signatory starts the 10 year time for no war and it ought to give you a date (10 years after you signed), if you're within that window.

[boomwolf]

Sad but expected. I had discovered Megastructure Engineering as a rare tech, but after researching it I got nothing. Turns out megastructures are in a DLC.

There isn't a further tech, building megas is unlocked by the unity mechanic in utopia.

The tech let's you repair broken megas you might encounter though.

[The Glyphstone]

There isn't a further tech, building megas is unlocked by the unity mechanic in utopia.

The tech let's you repair broken megas you might encounter though.

Do broken megas exist outside of Utopia?

[Silverraptor]

So I finished my dyson Sphere and this is the first game where with the merchant curators I'm trading energy for minerals (1.6k energy a month). Now something interesting is happening since I moved on from that. When I first constructed the dyson sphere frame, I got the achievement for constructing a Dyson Sphere. But now I've built the frame for both a sentry array and a super research lab and a step up on each and still haven't gotten the achievement. Is the dyson sphere achievement bugged that a frame will get you it when it was supposed to be completing the whole thing? (In case you hadn't guessed already, I'm achievement hunting.)

[Grytorm]

Ah hello again. Havent played more of the last game I mentioned but for once I disnt delete it. So Ive been playing different premade groups. Latest game I chose a group that starts with bots.

I like robots because they add another complication to the whole early game not having enough minerals, now I need more energy.

But I was wondering. Is it possible to upgrade individual bots without having to upgrade everyone on a planet?

[boomwolf]

Do broken megas exist outside of Utopia?

Yea, but these things are rare, regardless of utopia.

As in, around one per 1000 systems rare. even less maybe.
Never encountered more than one in a game, and went through several games without seeing any at all.

[LuckGuy]

My current game has 2 broken rings and a broken sphere at least, but I hadn't seen any in several previous games.

[tonberrian]

You'll always find broken ring sections in fallen empires, at least.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Sanctuary, if it spawns in your universe, is a guaranteed fully in-tact ring world... all four sections.

[Silverraptor]

Well, just confirmed that the Dyson Sphere achievement is in fact bugged. You can get the achievement early by building it's frame and not the complete thing. Just built the Sentry Array Fully and got that achievement, now I'm working on the Science Nexus.

Also, it has begun! Playing as my robotic evolved race, the contingency has awaken. And it happened when I was in the middle of a hostile war with me and my federation friends invading our inward perfection neighbors that hate our guts servo-motors a lot. All the while when the warning pop-ups were occurring, we wiped out the main fleet and I let my ally go their own way as we invaded and controlled different planets under their control. And then the machine worlds started appearing, and the location couldn't be any better! 2 of the machine worlds have popped up in the super power in the southern eastern portion of the galaxy (Which are authoritarian and hates my robotic, egalitarian shiny and waxed butts) and 1 appeared in the middle of the xenophile Awaken Empire neighboring him and the machine Fallen Empire has also awaken, seemingly to the ghost signal. And the last machine world appeared in the northern half of the galaxy with me and my Federation friend, right in the middle of the empire we were invading, essentually culling a few straggler fleets they had in reserve and then invading planets we had not hit yet. I had been building up fleets, going 1300/864 ship slots available (which thanks to the Dyson Sphere, I could absorb that high maintenance cost) and charging straight at this machine world before it could get going. I thought my 204K fleet would be able to handle the Contingency fleet, but they had fleet power of 244K so I began to get worried as the fight began. It was so close, with no clear winner as both our fleet powers were steadily declining in power each, turning into a huge slug fest when the contingency fleet was just about to gain the upper hand, and then my Federation buddy jumped in at the last minute immediately in range of the contingency fleet. His 48K reinforcements turned the fight the other way and his matter disruptors bonus damage to shields broken down the contingencies shields enough for my plasma and Tacheon Lances to cut through any remaining armor and completely destroy the defending fleet, allowing our combined fleets to quickly start bombarding the machine world. The other 2 fleets that spawned didn't return to defend the machine world. They were still being used to invade the planets of the other empire we were initially at war with, taking one of the planets as I destroyed the contingencies only machine world in the galactic north that threatened me or any of my federation friends! We then mopped those fleets up after and after I "Liberated" the world that was invaded by the contingency by invading myself, I won the war against the empire as well can just claimed a huge swath of their territory. Now we can sit back and let the Contingency and the Awaken Machine Empire in the south clear out the super power who really hated us as well while preparing a huge fleet to replace the contingency with my federation. And given how far the contingency is, the Cybrex are likely to spawn before they come even close to threatening us at all. What a great day to add to the history books!

[Grytorm]

Okay, figured out the information I need for templating robots. For upgrades I think I should use irrelevant negatives for completed bots along with multiple perks even if I am not using all of them for all of them. And for new stuff custom build them.

Wait, it takes lots of research to upgrade, and it scales with number of traits modded. So, math, and questions like how much do I want +10% food. Is it worth it to upgrade with two different templates and spend the influence to migrate them? Probably not. Not yet at least... Checking math, using two different templates might be a bit cheaper. Mostly I have to think about it on planets which I am not building more robots on.

[mythmonster2]

So, I'm hearing conflicting information on the matter, so I may as well ask here. Is it worth using Swarmer Missiles to try to get past Point Defense, or should missiles be mostly abandoned after enemies start getting PD on their ships? I've been throwing my missile ships into the enemy's PD and winning in my current game, but I am also usually engaging with a 3:2 numbers advantage and a full tier (in some cases, two) of tech advantage, so it's not exactly an even fight in the first place.

[Olinser]

Yea, but these things are rare, regardless of utopia.

As in, around one per 1000 systems rare. even less maybe.
Never encountered more than one in a game, and went through several games without seeing any at all.

And about half of them are bugged.

There's a broken sensor array in my game but I can't repair it because 'you can't build more than 1 sensor array' (despite the fact I haven't built a single mega structure of ANY type.

[boomwolf]

Well, 1.8.1 has it fixed, and there are mod fixes in the meantime.

That's why pc is important, mods to fix bugs. Not unique to paradox games.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Playing around a bit, I've found some interesting combinations for robots of any stripe:

Bulky is a pretty good deal, you will rarely be moving things around to different planets, so it's a good deal.
Uncanny is a really good deal for Determined Exterminators, as everyone will hate you regardless. Effectively no down-sides other than a pick being taken.

By that same token, Mass Produced seems pretty much essential to play any of the robot types, as it is the only way to increase population in any sort of economic manner. Recycled is also nice for the same reason, at least early game.

But it's when you start unlocking things that it gets interesting.

Obviously, when you get a +1 to customization packets, you want to make two templates, one with Power Drills for minerals, one with Supercharged for energy production. Which is pretty dang huge, because you can effectively get the benefit of both traits for 'free'. Propaganda Machines give more Unity, to put on those few unity-producing buildings, since it costs you effectively nothing to do it.

However, Logic Engines is two trait points, which would be nice to put on research labs, but would require more fiddling around with.

So, base race starts off Bulky, Uncanny, Mass Produced, and Recycled? This gives you a good base expansion capability, and you can later on get rid of Bulky to get the trait pick back so you can do custom robots with Drills/Superchargers/Propaganda?

[Sian]

Playing around a bit, I've found some interesting combinations for robots of any stripe:

Bulky is a pretty good deal, you will rarely be moving things around to different planets, so it's a good deal.
Uncanny is a really good deal for Determined Exterminators, as everyone will hate you regardless. Effectively no down-sides other than a pick being taken.

I'm running double-jointed because its so strong on exterminators ... with limited effort you can get -100% resettlement cost which means that you can always work the best tiles completely disregarding where they are in your empire, another thing you can do is move pops to newly settled planets and build the second tier capital right away, and keep building robots even on your old planets by shipping them to new planets as they finish, which means that you can keep producing more robots at the same time.

Uncanny is not quite that simple ... Yes, it's good but you'd be able to work just fine with other robots and the Caretaker FE despite of you being exterminator

Propaganda Machines give more Unity, to put on those few unity-producing buildings, since it costs you effectively nothing to do it.

AFAIK Propaganda Machines can only be added to Synths, not Machine Intelligences

[GloatingSwine]

Other robot empires will still get Threat off you for conquering the squishies, and are likely to join up with them, traitorous toasters that they are.

So you're going to have to conquer them, for their own good.

So yeah, Uncanny is just free points if you're a nasty boy.

I go for Uncanny/Power Drills/Mass Produced for a starter bot.

Then once you unlock robomodding add Efficient Processors and make a Superconductor variant and a Logic Engines variant and start building them on appropriate tiles.

You can disassemble your original pattern ones on energy/research tiles to replace them once you're up and running and won't mind the temporary loss.

[Grim Portent]

In my current game I went the Synthetic Ascension route as FanMaterialist/Pacifist in a galaxy divided between a materialist alliance and the spiritualist one and I found something kind of dumb.

One of my allies is a machine empire, the generic kind, I built it in empire builder and left it able to spawn. It gets the artificial lifeforms penalty towards me since I ascended. -20 rep because I became machines from machines. I would have thought they'd like people becoming synths.

[Silverraptor]

So I want people's opinions. Mainly on Tacheon Lances Vs Giga Cannons. On the one side, Tacheon Lances are so good. On the other, Giga Cannons do more damage to shields, which at the start of an engagement is really useful to have in taking out the enemy shields. What does everyone else think?

[factotum]

Depends entirely on the enemy you're fighting, surely? If your enemy has weak shields and strong armour then lance wins, strong shields and weak armour, giga cannon wins. There is no "one size fits all" gun in the game, which is one of the things I like about it.

[Olinser]

So I want people's opinions. Mainly on Tacheon Lances Vs Giga Cannons. On the one side, Tacheon Lances are so good. On the other, Giga Cannons do more damage to shields, which at the start of an engagement is really useful to have in taking out the enemy shields. What does everyone else think?

Endgame its 100% Giga Cannons.

Not because they're that much more efficient, but because Tachyon Lances absolutely kill the speed of the game when you start getting into fleets of 2k+ fleet power. I have a new computer built specifically for gaming and it slows to a crawl if you try and watch a fight between a 300k fleet power fleet with Lances and an Awakened Fallen Empire. Giga Cannons significantly reduce the graphical load.

The stupid UI on a big fleet still slows it way down if you select it late game but at least you can issue an order and deselect it to stop that.

For pure optimization both of them suck and lose to multiple other Large weapons.

[GloatingSwine]

So I want people's opinions. Mainly on Tacheon Lances Vs Giga Cannons. On the one side, Tacheon Lances are so good. On the other, Giga Cannons do more damage to shields, which at the start of an engagement is really useful to have in taking out the enemy shields. What does everyone else think?

Tachyon Lances are better against everything except the Unbidden.

You are, however, required by Space Law to sing the Space Battleship Yamato theme when engaging in combat when using them.

Pair them with two Kinetic Artillery for a hefty one-two punch to drop enemy shields and inflict massive hull damage in your opening salvoes, and two large plasma for followup damage.

10% AP nerf actually made one lance better than two large plasma now as well (plus the fact that cruisers traffic jam in front of fleets because they have the weirdest combat behaviour now, Orbit/Follow instead of their old Charge/Orbit).

[The Glyphstone]

So how do you maintain a steady rate of expansion as a Hive Minded race, which cuts the knees out from under your Influence generation?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

So how do you maintain a steady rate of expansion as a Hive Minded race, which cuts the knees out from under your Influence generation?

More core worlds and more sectors and fewer outposts

[The Glyphstone]

More core worlds and more sectors and fewer outposts

New colonies still costs them influence, though, doesn't it? Having a larger core-world cap doesn't help if you can't settle as fast.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

New colonies still costs them influence, though, doesn't it? Having a larger core-world cap doesn't help if you can't settle as fast.

Right, but outpost stations are going to be one of your biggest ongoing drains on influence. Basically, you are good enough you don't need to enact many policies, and you don't need outposts, you just settle as soon as you have the influence to do so.

Colonies are a static flat cost of influence, outpost stations drain a significant percentage of your influence gain.

The machine's advantage is that they can inhabit ANY world, so outpost stations become less necessary as long as there are habitable planets nearby.

Ultimately, it is harder to grow as a machine intelligence, however you can still do it pretty easily if you work for it.

[The Glyphstone]

What about organic hives? I might try a Devouring Swarm for my next playthrough, once I pick up Utopia.

[Grim Portent]

The Subsumed Will civic and quickly researching the Planetary Unification tech basically gets you set for your expansion period. You can't reach the peaks that a normal empire can reach, but your other benefits should help make up for it.

[Sian]

If possible I nearly always start off with Planetary Unification to boost the early Influence count, which might well be a bottleneck if your not careful