Stellaris

[Arakhor]

You should do. There's a moderately good chance that you start a new crisis by opening the L-Gates and that was determined when you started the game (so save-scumming won't help).

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Is there any indication whether or not it's going to be A Bad Thing from flavor text etc?

Spoiler :

Many anomalies seem to be nanotech related, and I've found a few grey goo infested planets. I think I have a pretty good idea what's going on....

 

[Arakhor]

You know as soon as you open it whether it's a terrible idea or not.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

It was a terrible idea...
And when I built my fleet up to deal with it the isolationist FE awakened because I was becoming too strong...
I don't save scum, I play ironman and ragequit.

Anyway, trying a Rogue Servitor game out for the first time.
If you allow the stupid pets honored creators to breed you really need some planning and micromanagement to keep them from spamming themselves over valuable tiles. Habitats can't come soon enough.

 

[Arakhor]

With the L-Gates, I think you should be allowed a reset to just before opening it. Better than rage-quitting at any rate.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Anyone got a favorite new anomaly ?
I just had basically a Solaris reference.
At the end of the chain I got

Spoiler :

The Psionic Theory tech for free. As Fanatic Materialists

Broken Union is also very cool. The first time I stumbled upon it I had to ignore it because of my empire's xenophobia.
Now I have

Spoiler :

Basically converted some of my pops into Trill. After completing The Flesh is Weak my entire species gained the symbiont in addition to the Cyborg trait. Might be a bug. A good bug.

 

[Arakhor]

Is Broken Union the one with the super-intelligent symbionts whom you can have infest your leaders or your entire species? That one's pretty memorable.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Is Broken Union the one with the super-intelligent symbionts whom you can have infest your leaders or your entire species? That one's pretty memorable.

Yes, that's the one !
I had a suspicion it could backfire horribly (and maybe there's a chance for that ?), but it went pretty well. Only downsides are that leaders with the symbiont gain experience 15% slower and population growth is reduced by 25% which seems like a fair tradeoff for the research and unity bonus.

 

[Ryika]

Wiz and company have been teasing some of the things that they're working on in recent weeks, apparently the planet construction system will be replaced with a more interesting and complex system.

Spoilers ahead of course, and keep in mind that there are internal dev test builds, not things that are likely to make it into a release build in that form.

Spoiler :

Can't wait for a Dev Diary on that topic, because so far it looks really good!

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Wiz and company have been teasing some of the things that they're working on in recent weeks, apparently the planet construction system will be replaced with a more interesting and complex system.

Spoilers ahead of course, and keep in mind that there are internal dev test builds, not things that are likely to make it into a release build in that form.

Spoiler :

Can't wait for a Dev Diary on that topic, because so far it looks really good!

That looks pretty interesting, but I don't know if I like how they keep completely overhauling basic game systems.
International markets and manufactured luxuries are something I've wanted in Civ for years, but I fear adding more resources to food/minerals/energy will make the game needlessly complicated without adding much depth, and if they're already making such huge changes to the game they should finally get around to implementing new victory condotions.

 

[Ryika]

To be honest, I don't I think I would really get too much out of new victory conditions. That's not really why most people play Grand Strategy.

The building system that exists now is just boring and lacks the complexity to allow for actual choices, it's just a mini puzzle game where you fit the right building in the right spot at the right time.

The new system seems to fix that, which I think is great.

 

[tesb]

i like what i see with the planet overhaul; however, my main issue is the boring mid to endgame. the biggest issue i encounter is that once you surpass your neighbours you become unstoppable. i would like to see mechanics that allow for civil wars, collapse of empires, similar to how in eu4 even larger countries can disintegrate from within. after conquering 2-4 enemy empires the game is basically over and i don't even have cruisers yet

 

[Colon]

I remember reading in a distant about separatism or rebellions based on ethics diverging in parts of empires. Isn't there any of that? That's pretty curious for a Paradox game.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Oh, the latest patch added new outcomes for the L-Gate chain.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Stellaris is the only game I've played this month, so instead of polluting the what games are you playing thread with "(still) Stellaris (again)", I'll just post stuff about my latest games here.

The Contingency was ridiculously easy to defeat in my last game as they had to deal with two Awakened Fallen Empires.

Spoilers because some people on the forum only got Stellaris relatively recently.

Spoiler :

The Enigmatic Observers awakened shortly after I conquered the Holy Guardians, but before they could become aggressively expansionist (and after I upgraded my fleets with Dark Matter tech) the Contingency showed up and the Custodians had their good awakening. One of the Sterilization Hubs spawned in my territory and pretty close to the Custodians. Their fleets wreaked only a little bit of havoc before they were destroyed and I brought all of my fleets to destroy the Machine world.
Two other hubs were quite close but their expansion was slowed down significantly by the Awakened Empires until I replaced my losses and gained control over a poorly designed but still pretty strong federation fleet.
The last hub was relatively far away (other side of the galaxy, but I controlled the L-Cluster and had an extensive Gateway network of my own). Again, the bottleneck was ship replacement because of minerals cap and excrutiatingly slow Titan build speed, but victory was only a matter of time.
There was one thing that slightly annoyed me. My federation gained the necassary planets for a Federation Victory. You can only get a Federation Victory while you hold the presidency and you can't get a victory during a crisis. The crisis was defeated a few months after I lost the presidency.

 

[sherbz]

So i too have been playing a bit of stellaris recently. I picked up all the DLC's in the recent steam promotion. And i do enjoy it a lot more now what with star lanes and stuff (i only played vanilla, but not very much). And i think the galaxy plays a lot better as a result.

Im a bit of a noob, so forgive my basic questions. One thing im struggling with though, is fleets:

- What ship composition should i go for? Corvettes to destroyer to cruiser ratio? At the moment im going with something like 20/30 corvettes, 10/20 destroyers and 5/10 cruisers. Is this optimal or should i only have one type for each fleet.
- And as for loadouts, i have tended to equip my primary fleet with all shield stripping weapons, and have another secondary fleet equipped with torpedos/missiles and large mounted weapons on destroyers and cruisers that damage armour and/or hull. This doesnt feel quite right though.
- Defence ships - is it worth putting at least one hangar ship in all your fleets with strike craft and flak/point defence?
- At the moment i put shields on all my hull slots until i run out of power, and then i put on armour. Is this optimal or should i go full armour or shields by being a bit more selective on my tech choices.
- And as for tech, is it best to tech everything, or concentrate almost exclusively on one particular type of weapon class?

I get that you are supposed to tailor your fleets to your opponent, but as a noob i dont really know what it is im supposed to be looking for and it also seems a bit of a faff to find out your enemy weapons, then design a ship to counter it, then refit your fleets, then attack.

Finally, what sort of fleet size do you need to take on monsters?

 

[Arakhor]

If you have access to the scientist enclave, they can tell you how well your fleets stack up to specific monsters. I think you'll need at least 5 to 10,000 fleet power though.

There's all sorts of advice on ship-building, including plenty of the cheesy kind, but I've always build my fleets in a pyramidal fashion, with more corvettes than destroyers, more than destroyers than cruisers etc.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

- What ship composition should i go for? Corvettes to destroyer to cruiser ratio? At the moment im going with something like 20/30 corvettes, 10/20 destroyers and 5/10 cruisers. Is this optimal or should i only have one type for each fleet.

Half of my ships are usually corvettes, the rest mostly destroyers and maybe one cruiser for every 3-4 destroyers and a few batleships.

- And as for loadouts, i have tended to equip my primary fleet with all shield stripping weapons, and have another secondary fleet equipped with torpedos/missiles and large mounted weapons on destroyers and cruisers that damage armour and/or hull. This doesnt feel quite right though.

I don't think it's a good idea to specialize too much. I tend to keep my fleets more or less balanced in terms of damage types.
Half my corvettes usually have torpedos and kinetic weapons or disruptors, the other half either two energy and one kinetic weapon or the other way around.
I equip my destroyers with a large kinetic weapon and medium sized plasma.
I prefer cruisers with all medium weapons. A few token kinetics, but mostly energy.
The destroyers strip the shields at lond range until the cruisers and corvettes come in and destroy the armor. Torpedo corvettes can take out a couple of enemy ships early in the battle.
Battleships are mostly there to deal with larger enemy ships.

- Defence ships - is it worth putting at least one hangar ship in all your fleets with strike craft and flak/point defence?

Not really. If your enemy uses a lot of missiles throw some picket destroyers in, otherwise don't bother with point defense. Fighters aren't that great and can be ignored.

- At the moment i put shields on all my hull slots until i run out of power, and then i put on armour. Is this optimal or should i go full armour or shields by being a bit more selective on my tech choices.

That depends on enemy loadouts, but as a general rule don't go all in on anything. I personally prefer a bit more shields than armor.

- And as for tech, is it best to tech everything, or concentrate almost exclusively on one particular type of weapon class?

I'm a damn min-maxer and concentrate on lasers, plasma weapons, torpedos and shields early on, because you can get coilguns, autocannons and the first armor tech from analysing pirate debris. You can get even more tech from marauders if you have Apocalypse, but it will take some time until you can beat one of their fleets. I generally focus more on economic techs and rely on starbases at chokepoints for defense. Once I have a high enough mineral income my fleet relies more on quantity than quality until I modernise it with analysed enemy tech.

I get that you are supposed to tailor your fleets to your opponent, but as a noob i dont really know what it is im supposed to be looking for and it also seems a bit of a faff to find out your enemy weapons, then design a ship to counter it, then refit your fleets, then attack.

That's why you build starbases at border systems with listening posts. Even if you can't see an enemy fleet, you can usually see a few starbases and get a good idea about the technology they're using. I use the same basic fleet template with minor alterations. There's usually more than one threatening empire and you don't want a military that is strong against one but too weak against the other.

Finally, what sort of fleet size do you need to take on monsters?

I would say between 15k and 25k, depending on the leviathan. You should have a bit more specialized fleets here. The Ether Drake for example has very strong armor but no shields, which means you should use a lot of plasma weapons. Don't forget to ask the Curators how to defeat one. They can sell you information which gives you a 25% damage bonus against a particular leviathan. DOn't attack them too soon. Even if you win, high losses and a sudden drop in military power could lead to a foreign invasion.

 

[sherbz]

Half of my ships are usually corvettes, the rest mostly destroyers and maybe one cruiser for every 3-4 destroyers and a few batleships.



I don't think it's a good idea to specialize too much. I tend to keep my fleets more or less balanced in terms of damage types.
Half my corvettes usually have torpedos and kinetic weapons or disruptors, the other half either two energy and one kinetic weapon or the other way around.
I equip my destroyers with a large kinetic weapon and medium sized plasma.
I prefer cruisers with all medium weapons. A few token kinetics, but mostly energy.
The destroyers strip the shields at lond range until the cruisers and corvettes come in and destroy the armor. Torpedo corvettes can take out a couple of enemy ships early in the battle.
Battleships are mostly there to deal with larger enemy ships.



Not really. If your enemy uses a lot of missiles throw some picket destroyers in, otherwise don't bother with point defense. Fighters aren't that great and can be ignored.



That depends on enemy loadouts, but as a general rule don't go all in on anything. I personally prefer a bit more shields than armor.



I'm a damn min-maxer and concentrate on lasers, plasma weapons, torpedos and shields early on, because you can get coilguns, autocannons and the first armor tech from analysing pirate debris. You can get even more tech from marauders if you have Apocalypse, but it will take some time until you can beat one of their fleets. I generally focus more on economic techs and rely on starbases at chokepoints for defense. Once I have a high enough mineral income my fleet relies more on quantity than quality until I modernise it with analysed enemy tech.



That's why you build starbases at border systems with listening posts. Even if you can't see an enemy fleet, you can usually see a few starbases and get a good idea about the technology they're using. I use the same basic fleet template with minor alterations. There's usually more than one threatening empire and you don't want a military that is strong against one but too weak against the other.



I would say between 15k and 25k, depending on the leviathan. You should have a bit more specialized fleets here. The Ether Drake for example has very strong armor but no shields, which means you should use a lot of plasma weapons. Don't forget to ask the Curators how to defeat one. They can sell you information which gives you a 25% damage bonus against a particular leviathan. DOn't attack them too soon. Even if you win, high losses and a sudden drop in military power could lead to a foreign invasion.

 

[Yeekim]

I only ever build torpedo corvettes.