[Stellaris] Actual Universalis

I'm ready go tonight. There's a party, alright. We don't need the raisin for joy, oh yeah. Tick down to midnight.
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Delthazar
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Sat Apr 29, 2017 7:27 am

Deltron wrote:After that I just hit autocomplete to manage all the power stuff and update engines/sensors/etc.
Addendum: this gets really inefficient later on 'cause I don't think the autocomplete manages higher tier reactors properly, so it'll start gimping your weapon loadouts to equalize the power usage on tier II or III reactors instead of taking full advantage of the shiny new tier IV antimatter gear. Same deal with armour, for some raisin.

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John Layfield
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by John Layfield » Sat Apr 29, 2017 7:33 am

lookit these nerds

But yeah, the results window doesn't always give a good idea of what happened either. You can still brute force most anything if you build a big enough fleet, and there's enough damage bonuses that everything is fairly effective.

I can tell on higher tier stuff that the auto complete is borking to some extent but by that point, production is high enough to offset it with sheer numbers. I think ship customisation might be something I'd tinker with on hard difficulty but on normal it's not an issue.

Uh I installed the Warhammer ship mod so I have those Battlefleet Gothic ships now that only I and 12 year olds think are cool. There's a lot of decent mods out now. Including a pretty good Gundam one. And, of course, a million anime portraits. I'd actually be down for a mod that replaced all portraits with anime versions but not like this.

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Delthazar
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Sat Apr 29, 2017 7:44 am

I might look for a decent music mod since apparently those don't disable cheevos, or maybe I'll just look for a way to add new music to the existing list. I dig the new in-game player thing.

But once New Horizons is complete/near complete I'll probably just throw up my hands and jump right into that.

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John Layfield
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by John Layfield » Sat Apr 29, 2017 7:59 am

I've long since given up on figuring what disable achievements in Stellaris. The idea was that cosmetic mods wouldn't but other mods would modify the checksum and that would lock achievements. Now there are mods that don't change the checksum and still somehow turn them off, cosmetic or no. And though rawdog Stellaris is fun, I don't know if I can go back now.

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Falcon Critical
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Falcon Critical » Sun Apr 30, 2017 1:00 pm

After reading an article on RPS about space turtles, I realised that I had been looking at my first game all wrong. My militarist neighbour floated into my space with a navy larger than I could even build, so I threw myself at them and conceded. I hadn't realised that the game continues when you lose, that I could have built up again and regain my freedom. I've probably played too much Civ.

I unlocked the battleships for the first time, so I made an artillery piece and a hangar piece. I heard that one of the ships can fit the [X] sized weapons, but I couldn't see a ship part that matched that. I'm researching an X weapon now so perhaps that unlocks the module to mount it.

I also found some space amoebas, then after shooting them it gave me tech to turn their babies into fighter craft, that do like 16-24 damage or something. Not sure how that compares to regular fighter/bomber wings, and whether it's worth going for that.

Oh a query - can i double terraform? Like there's a red habitat planet, can I reform it to yellow, then again to green?

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Delthazar
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Sun Apr 30, 2017 1:32 pm

I think you can double-terraform, yeah. That would be the only way to get Gaia worlds I think. I just dunno if you can terraform, settle, and then terraform again, once a colony has already been established.

Researching X-sized weapons will unlock a new fore section for battleships called Spinal Mounts. I just got those myself and am looking forward to seeing how they perform.

War is looking inevitable in my game, just not from the angle I expected: the "kill all xeno filth!" fanatical purifiers to the southwest actually got smoked by their eastern neighbor, a bunch of religious evangelicals, who have since torn through every surrounding empire to their north and easily control half the galaxy as a result (me and my Fed have equal space on the other side.) I started a Federation partially to pregame against their power, and for a while it was working, but they're now roughly equal to my own forces. Annoyingly, my independent western neighbor is getting more and more agitated by border friction, so I can't rely on them to be of any help if war is declared. And a Fallen empire just awakened to the very far south... with the religious goofs surrounding them on all sides, it's looking like a huge three-pronged conflict is about to open up, before any of the crisis events even start.

e: heh, the newly awakened empire just declared war on those guys as expected. Good times.

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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Falcon Critical » Sun Apr 30, 2017 3:02 pm

My game is going kind of like that too. My neighbours to the galactic south remain roughly my equal and are my biggest detractors right now, though one of the 'advanced start' empires has been crushing their neighbours and aren't warming to me. I'm thoroughly in the middle of everything now, a bunch of the others are now inferior/pathetic compared to me, but the advanced starters are still significantly stronger.

I have a defensive pact with a peaceful civ to my north who has a peace treaty with this advanced empire, which means that I'm fine right now, but once that treaty expires I may be pulled into a war. I guess I need to keep upgrading my fleet, and potentially look into creating a scout ship to invade enemy space and try to figure out what their ship designs are so I can customise my fleet in response.

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Delthazar
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Sun Apr 30, 2017 3:51 pm

I just gained the ability to build megastructures. :getin

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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Falcon Critical » Sun Apr 30, 2017 6:42 pm

I feel like that's a long way off for me, though I did just build my first Battleship.

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John Layfield
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by John Layfield » Sun Apr 30, 2017 9:24 pm

Deltron wrote:I think you can double-terraform, yeah. That would be the only way to get Gaia worlds I think. I just dunno if you can terraform, settle, and then terraform again, once a colony has already been established.
You can not. So if you're playing an aggressive early expander be prepared to make some compromises on planet size and/or quality.

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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Falcon Critical » Mon May 01, 2017 1:20 pm

I've seen a good argument for afterburners. If you put them on Corvettes, then when the fleet engages in combat the corvettes will zip foward and engage first, which is pretty good since they're evasive and cheap to replace.

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Delthazar
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Mon May 01, 2017 9:27 pm

Hmm, right now all my corvettes are fitted as torpedo boats, so maybe afterburners + rippers would make more sense with that "rush forward and evade" corvette AI. I'll have to play around with that later.

In my last war, I definitely took the heaviest losses among my corvette groups... and battleships, too. Maybe I should be leaning heavier on destroyers and cruisers, which are neither too small to survive for long or too big to be anything other than the biggest targets.

It'll be interesting to see how dreadnoughts and titans are handled when they get added to the mix.

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Delthazar
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Mon May 01, 2017 9:31 pm

Speaking of wars, I wonder how warscore is calculated per engagement. I spent the entirety of that last war taking apart my western neighbor's military piece by piece, destroyed their main fleet, destroyed all their starbases, blockaded and bombarded every major planet, yet none of that seemed to count much towards the warscore total compared to whatever it was my allies were doing on the southern front.

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John Layfield
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by John Layfield » Mon May 01, 2017 9:58 pm

Occupying a planet is the single biggest scoring thing you can do. So if you're baiting their main force, leaving your allies to skirt around on the other side, dropping drops on unprotected planets, they'll be the ones racking up the war score.

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Delthazar
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Tue May 02, 2017 3:57 pm

Just how dangerous are Dangerous technologies? I've got jump drives, but haven't updated my designs to them just yet. I think I might use corvettes as testbeds yet again, maybe throw together a small strike force of torpedo boats with jump drives and afterburners for quick hit-and-run strikes against soft targets.

I've also researched Sentient AI and androids are an option coming up. Those seem way more potentially dangerous than just the possibility of losing a few ships mid-jump, but

Also the awakened fallen empire to the far south has begun significantly eating away at my worst enemy's territory, and the Unbidden just appeared right between them, so that should be something to watch.

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John Layfield
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by John Layfield » Tue May 02, 2017 9:21 pm

If the Unbidden have spawned, you can go all in on "dangerous tech" without repercussion.
Spoiler :
The Unbidden usually trigger by jump drive research so someone else probably got there first.

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Delthazar
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Tue May 02, 2017 10:25 pm

Fun fact: Habitat Stations count towards the planet totals for Domination and Federation victories. Just won my game with the latter thanks to going hard on those habitats during peacetime.

I also SMOKED the Unbidden, thanks to outfitting everything I had with jump drives and assaulting the portal as quickly as possible. I barely even took any losses in that engagement, and their second fleet was intercepted by the awakened dudes and didn't last long either, so that was right neighbourly of them (but with the Unbidden gone they immediately declared war on my federation, pfft.)

Protip: have science ships standing by to scan the wreckage ASAP after battles like that. That's good practice at all times, but the Unbidden left behind some crazy stuff that I'm guessing you can't get otherwise, and with that much wreckage to scan, you'll probably unlock some tech immediately.

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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Falcon Critical » Wed May 03, 2017 12:29 pm

Yeah I saw your screenshot, does that mean you ran into the ME1 Reaper problem? Because you took care of it the rest of the galaxy can be like "what reapers, I don't owe you anything". That was a lot of ships you had there.

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Delthazar
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Wed May 03, 2017 12:40 pm

I was slightly over 100k fleet strength for that fight thanks to getting control over the Federation fleet just in time. It was enough ships and enough fire to drag my FPS down into the upper teens, which I've never seen before with Stellaris.

Thankfully it's sorta the opposite of the Reaper problem 'cause you get an opinion boost from every other empire if you're the one who gets the kill shot on the portal. It doesn't last very long though, and it's definitely not a big enough boost to counter any truly negative preexisting opinion from hostile empires. So it's more like the ME2 Reaper problem where you're a hero for a minute and two years later it's all :turian "Ah yes, 'Unbidden.' We have dismissed that claim." :turian

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Delthazar
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Fri May 05, 2017 4:25 pm

John Layfield wrote: You can not. So if you're playing an aggressive early expander be prepared to make some compromises on planet size and/or quality.
Looks like 1.6 is adding a new tech for terraforming inhabited planets.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/in ... 2.1019086/

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John Layfield
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by John Layfield » Fri May 05, 2017 5:29 pm

Nice. I hope it's pretty late game tech. There are also some events that can terraform an inhabited planet, with a random outcome.

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Delthazar
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Sat May 06, 2017 3:14 pm

I started a new game, this time in a tiny galaxy, and as a result of that (probably?) I'm having a pretty difficult time establishing a foothold beyond just a handful of systems. Already penned-in between a bunch of larger, more powerful empires. Wondering how easy it is to gain systems via trade rather than warfare.

Likely my fault for rolling tiny galaxy and pushing the empire number to the max, even if it'll probably result in a more interesting experience.

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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by John Layfield » Sat May 06, 2017 4:56 pm

Let me know how that works out! Large galaxies are what I tend to drift towards but it ends up with getting hemmed in anyway and having a bunch of empires you don't care about/remember yell at you all the time for raisins that don't matter.

Smaller maps may make me feel more towards individual AI empires, I think. But I also feel like the game might be too fast for my neighbours to be super meaningful outside of a fallen empire/fanatical purifier neighbour.

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Delthazar
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Sat May 06, 2017 5:16 pm

The fight does not go well, Enterprise. We're attempting to withdraw and regroup. Rendezvous with fleet—*bzzzt*

Rolling on a map like this will probably require me to play a long game with fleet growth, build tall, then storm outward when everyone else is distracted. Maybe I'll find out what it's like to be a Fallen empire. So far I've always gone wide though, so it'll take some getting used to.

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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Falcon Critical » Sun May 07, 2017 12:57 pm

I imagine that in that scenario fleet sizes will be a lot smaller in general - fewer systems means fewer planets and fewer space docks so it won't be so easy to push your cap up.