Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[gimlet]

This looks *kinda* promising, but I'll give (and follow) my usual Paradox advice - wait for at least a few months of patches, and by then there will probably be a decent sale.  NFW I'm gonna pay $40+ again to be a beta tester, although they seem to have really stepped up their QA recently, it's improved to only "abysmal" on release :p   And kudos modders for your efforts to repair and extend their games.

Reading the threads and watching some play videos did give me an itch for a sf 4x though - I'll post a request in the "recommend me a game" thread to not derail this one.

[Majestic7]

If you are willing to pay a lot, Distant Worlds is pretty good.

[LoSboccacc]

If you are willing to pay a lot, Distant Worlds is pretty good.

it's helluvalot good I'm playing with the picard era mod, automated everything out of everything, designed a large capital ship, named it enterprise and boldly went researching anomalies, destroying super weapons before they fell in wrong hands, blockading planets, destroying refueling stations, fighting pirates and generally having the time of my life XD

[Flying Dice]

Beta patch fixes sectors.

I was playing with sectors even before it since, honestly, I hate micro. If I had to manually take care of a dozen planets, I'd never get a dozen planets. I tend to neglect even the five planets I have. Usually I just choose four homeworlds of other species so I have more options for colony ships, but forget to build their infrastructure very well. I'm supposed to be a space emperor, not a space municipal engineer, dammit. If I want to build infrastructure, I'll play Cities Skylines.

Plus if the AI uses the sector AI to manage its planets, optimizing all your planets by hand gives you undue advantage in single player.

The AI doesn't use sectors AFAIK.

[Descan]

... Why would the AI use sectors when both the sectors and the AI empires use the same AI, supposedly? "You can't control those planets, AI! You'll have to give it to yourself to control, in a sector!" The only reasoning I can see to give the AI sectors would be for sector governors.

That's his point. That the AI has control over your sector planets AND the planets of the AI empires, because they're both AI, and it'd be weird to program two different types of planetary control AI (not only is that a bit unbalanced if they're different [which one would be better, the sector AI, or the empire AI? Why that one and not the other? If they're not differing in quality, why have two different AI schemes?] but it's also more places for coding errors, which are apparently rife in Stellaris)

[umiman]

If you are willing to pay a lot, Distant Worlds is pretty good.

it's helluvalot good I'm playing with the picard era mod, automated everything out of everything, designed a large capital ship, named it enterprise and boldly went researching anomalies, destroying super weapons before they fell in wrong hands, blockading planets, destroying refueling stations, fighting pirates and generally having the time of my life XD

Yeah, Distant Worlds is amazing. Especially the automation so you can personally choose what you want to do.

[lastverb]

Because sectors and AI empires DO NOT use same AI and I have no idea what lies behind that decision. I can only be sure for simplest things, because there are different sets of variables for sector and empire in defines file (like your sector AI will making shitton of defensive armies, while AI empire will not). But i bet it goes further, especially since empire has to take care of fleets etc.

[Loud Whispers]

Although frontier clinics and that tech that increases habitability by 5% will both help on the happiness front.

Well if you were still settling on one planet down the habitability scale with a frontier clinic, you'd still be capped at 65%. If you can bump that and happiness with social welfare up to 80-89%, you'd be getting half your money back. With the two habitability boosting techs you'd be capped at 75% happiness, basically requiring your planet to either have a paradise dome, your species to be adaptable or the planet to be lush to get half your money back. If your 1st tier colonized worlds are outnumbered by your 2nd tier colonized worlds, then you should just stick with content pops and not bother with social welfare, as you won't be able to make them joyous and will take a fifth of your economy out of work :D
Notably, extremely adaptive species will be able to run social welfare on tier 2 planets without much issue at all, pretty much just needing the habitability techs to reach the +20% productivity

[Flying Dice]

... Why would the AI use sectors when both the sectors and the AI empires use the same AI, supposedly? "You can't control those planets, AI! You'll have to give it to yourself to control, in a sector!" The only reasoning I can see to give the AI sectors would be for sector governors.

That's his point. That the AI has control over your sector planets AND the planets of the AI empires, because they're both AI, and it'd be weird to program two different types of planetary control AI (not only is that a bit unbalanced if they're different [which one would be better, the sector AI, or the empire AI? Why that one and not the other? If they're not differing in quality, why have two different AI schemes?] but it's also more places for coding errors, which are apparently rife in Stellaris)

They don't use the same AI, as lastverb said. Sector AI is vastly more limited, and is defined pretty much solely by a limited set of priorities. The empire AI isn't great, but the personalities defined for the different ethos combinations still make it much more robust than sector AI. Sector AI will literally cripple the worlds it controls, but certain Hard+ AI personalities will roll over the galaxy in the right circumstances.

[PTTG??]

Hey, so I have some ideas for a few new traits. I'm not sure which if any can be done, but I'd like some thoughts on the prices and values.

Precocious FTL (+1 level of your engine tech at start) [2]
Precocious Thrusters (+1 level of sublight tech at start) [1]
Precocious Weapons (+1 level of your weapon tech at start) [3]
Innate Navigators (+5% range, +5% FTL speed) [3]
Subterranean (Resist bombardment by 50%, -50% blocker removal costs, increased building costs) [3]
Lithovore (Pops consume 1 mineral instead of 1 food) [1]
Biological Collectivists (Your race never gets less collectivist) [1]
Innate Adventurousness (+10% anomaly discovery chance, +10% anomaly failure rate) [1]
Innate Caution (-10% anomaly discovery chance, -10% anomaly failure rate) [1]
Efficient Tech (-5% upkeep costs) [2]
Dirty Tech (-5% upkeep costs, AND all structures reduce habitability by 1% each) [-2]
Uncreative (-2 research options) [-3]
Small (-50% food consumption) [2]
Large (+100% food consumption) [-3]
Toxic Biochemistry (Pops reduce habitability for other pops) [1]
Motherships (Start with Cruisers and Fighter Operations instead of Corvettes) [-1]
Sublight (Start with NO FTL method; Your selected drive tech starts with one research point invested and so will always be available) [-2]
Strip Mining (+1 mineral per mine, mines add a habitability penalty of -2% cumulatively) []
Bonus Habitability (Gain 1 planet type as a potential colony world) [3]
Natural Backstabbers (Leaders are occasionally assassinated by their underlings; a new, less-skilled leader will take their place; plus some effects from Strong and Resilient) [-2]

[Sirus]

I feel like that last one should be renamed "Natural Schemers" or "Natural Backstabbers".

[Cruxador]

That's his point. That the AI has control over your sector planets AND the planets of the AI empires, because they're both AI, and it'd be weird to program two different types of planetary control AI (not only is that a bit unbalanced if they're different [which one would be better, the sector AI, or the empire AI? Why that one and not the other? If they're not differing in quality, why have two different AI schemes?] but it's also more places for coding errors, which are apparently rife in Stellaris)

Not only does the AI use sectors, it uses them oddly. The weight is such that it only ever makes energy and mineral sectors, never defense or tech sectors.

[Xgamer4]

I'm not sure what I think of the Precocious ones... I like to think of Traits as things that help define a species, and that give some kind of impact throughout the game. The Precocious ones are just a buff that's going to be invalidated around the mid game, if not earlier depending on luck of the draw.

Sublight as well, for the same reasons.

They're also not really examples of a racial trait... That's more a problem of Stellaris being so adamant that everyone needs to start at exactly the same position - period. It wants to be a 4x, which seems to work and is why you can't start as a Fallen Empire, but I think Paradox went a bit too far with requiring everyone to start from exactly the same position.

I think they're interesting ideas, though

[PTTG??]

I know what you mean. I was considering that it's, instead, "Innate Navigators" that gives +10% range, +10% speed for everything. However, I went with the precocious tech option, though, because I think that, played well, that advantage can be turned into 50 years or so of having the fastest ships anywhere, giving you more colonies, more explored space, more everything. Played poorly, it does next to nothing...

Good point on the backstabbery.

[Xgamer4]

Yeah, I agree they'd be really fun to play with. I just don't think they really qualify as traits...

But when traits is the only place they can be applied, well, there's not much choice...

What would be interesting is a (possibly optional) scenario starter where you select starting position perks/penalties like you'd select traits. Things like your Precocious ideas, or maybe an extra colony, or negatives like reduced mineral gain on the capital world to balance it out. Just something to make each game feel a little different due to different starting positions.