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Author Topic: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE  (Read 1747524 times)

LoSboccacc

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #2325 on: May 18, 2016, 10:57:58 am »

One of my suggestions on the Paradox forum was that once you win, your victorious empire could later spawn as a fallen empire, implying that you are playing in distant future from your last victory. Perhaps we get that one day, at least they took my Sol suggestion. :P

is there a section for suggestion? I have a couple :P
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Dutrius

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #2326 on: May 18, 2016, 11:09:24 am »

I've spent far too long putting together a Dwarven name list for Stellaris.

Sadly, I didn't put in the compound last names / place names that DF has. I produced a file with a list of all possible names which ended up over 30MB in size. I'd have to include that more than once, so that's right out. Only single word last names and place names for now.

Dropbox link, in case you want Dwarven names: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ono0dwcq0k7s0kq/dsp.zip?dl=0
Please let me know if the link doesn't work. This link is just until I figure out how to use Steam Workshop Uploaded to Steam Workshop under the name Dwarven Space Program.

Just extract the .zip into your Stellaris mod directory, enable the mod in the launcher and start a new game.
« Last Edit: May 18, 2016, 11:33:05 am by Dutrius »
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ZeroGravitas

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #2327 on: May 18, 2016, 12:33:56 pm »

A pop with a lab will effectively produce about ~1.5 research points in each category (depending on bonuses/lab upgrades) and add 77.6 research cost.  That means if every blank tile has lab and every specialized tile gets its particular bonus, I would very very vaguely estimate that new pops would stop increasing the cost of guass cannons when the research is already taking 100 months.  That's... really bad, yeah.  And it gets worse because unmanaged sectors are likely not smart enough to devote the empty tiles to basic labs (which is clearly their most optimal use IMO).

A mere 1.5 multiplier in the lategame? Basic labs?

+50% only makes sense for Spiritualists without Intelligent. It's quite easy to go much, much higher:

Intelligent: +10% (either from start or genetic engineering)
Materialist: +5% (10% if Fanatic)
Neural Network Admin: +10% (materialist government)
Happiness: +10-20%
Spaceport Observatory: +10%
Research Institute: +10%
Scientist leader stars: +2-14%
Administrative AI: +5% (this is the low level tech, not the dangerous one)
Maniacal/Genius/matching field Scientist leader: +5%/+10%

And that's not counting your local governors (+10%) and Improved Assist Research from Science Vessels (10-50%). There's probably a few I've forgotten as well. And of course there's always the possibility for those insane-o planets with built-in multipliers or weird blocker-adjacency bonuses, but I think we can assume those are no-brainers. Sector management is an issue, but I think we get around that by setting the sectors up manually before we pass them off to the AI. Or waiting for Paradox to make sector AI more reasonable.

Anyway, you can probably get 65%-95% in multipliers by the late game, but let's figure 80% for basic Materialists.

A basic lab is 1/1/1, but a level 3 lab is 4/1/1. Thus each extra tile is 2 research per category on average (4+1+1 for each category, spread across 3 labs, averages out to 2). Since the average lab tile is producing 2, that's 3.6 per lab after bonuses. However we also have to power the labs, at 2.5 Energy per lab. More expensive, but each Power Plant 4 (not Betharian) can power ~2-2.5 labs, depending on native tile bonuses and adjacency bonuses. So that'll reduce our effective output by about 33-40%. We might only expect to actually get 2.8 or 3 "per lab" when you factor in Energy maintenance.

Sure, non-synth pops have to eat (nominally 1 food per pop, but again there are bonuses to reduce food consumption) but that's only 1-2 tiles per planet. Farm 4 adjacent to a Planetary Capital is already 11 food, plus 3 from Orbital Hydroponic Farms. And that's assuming there is no bonus food on a tile. Food is basically a non-issue. But including the 1 farm, the capital, a mandatory special building or two for Happiness/Habitability, let's just say 2.5 effective research per additional pop at the end of the day.

Note that this is marginal or additional pops. Your empire already has enough minerals and fleet to defend itself; we assume you did that first. The question is whether you should colonize bland additional planet purely for increased research purposes.

Maybe I've made some errors here so I'd appreciate any corrections people can make. I didn't bother doing the Energy analysis for sticking with Basic Labs. Maybe it's better and we should be coating the universe in Level 1 labs.
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EnigmaticHat

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #2328 on: May 18, 2016, 02:05:29 pm »

Its pretty simple: I'm not assuming materialist or a particularly optimal strategy.  I could go into detail but it doesn't really matter, it was a super vague estimate intentionally.  The takeaway is:

-if you play the game long enough eventually new pops will cause your research times to approach, with exponential decay, a very large research time.  Fortunately, research will become less and less useful per-cost in tandem with this.
-barring some shenanigans with debris techs, the primary determining factor of victory in war is fleet numbers with research only deciding fights that were already mostly even.
-research is rubber-banded by its nature.  Cheaper techs typically have a similar game impact compared to larger techs and larger techs are typically at least a little redundant.  This isn't EU; if you've got 30 military researches and your enemy only has 20, you're probably MOSTLY on par assuming similar luck/meta knowledge/player skill.
-upgraded labs are the worst way to increase research.  A lab IV costs 7x the minerals and 3x the energy credits compared to a basic lab.  If you have literally NO other options, then they are MAYBE worth it.  But until then there are far better uses of resources.  Not to mention that researching a lab tech costs research points in the same field its supposed to be providing them.

In short, research matters but not so much that you need to be thinking about it that hard.  The only real rule is to take advantage of all "natural" researches and build a lab for, say, every 2.5 pops.  Much more important it is to be smart about WHICH researches you pick.  Remember, colonizing planets makes your research worse but it makes your everything else better.
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Xgamer4

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #2329 on: May 18, 2016, 04:05:13 pm »

-upgraded labs are the worst way to increase research.  A lab IV costs 7x the minerals and 3x the energy credits compared to a basic lab.  If you have literally NO other options, then they are MAYBE worth it.  But until then there are far better uses of resources.  Not to mention that researching a lab tech costs research points in the same field its supposed to be providing them.

Is that how the math shakes out? I've always gotten the sense that upgrading a lab to specialize is near the worst use of resources (including building time), so it's good to know the math bears that out. A single-point rise just never seemed high enough. I can match that by dropping a base lab on an empty square somewhere in my entire empire, and the basic lab gives me research in every category.
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NullForceOmega

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #2330 on: May 18, 2016, 04:10:03 pm »

When I have a vast heavily upgraded fleet and my income is hundreds of minerals and energy a month I care for efficiency why?
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ZeroGravitas

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #2331 on: May 18, 2016, 04:12:29 pm »

Its pretty simple: I'm not assuming materialist or a particularly optimal strategy.  I could go into detail but it doesn't really matter, it was a super vague estimate intentionally.  The takeaway is:

-if you play the game long enough eventually new pops will cause your research times to approach, with exponential decay, a very large research time.  Fortunately, research will become less and less useful per-cost in tandem with this.
-barring some shenanigans with debris techs, the primary determining factor of victory in war is fleet numbers with research only deciding fights that were already mostly even.
-research is rubber-banded by its nature.  Cheaper techs typically have a similar game impact compared to larger techs and larger techs are typically at least a little redundant.  This isn't EU; if you've got 30 military researches and your enemy only has 20, you're probably MOSTLY on par assuming similar luck/meta knowledge/player skill.

Uh... a 10 military tech advantage? I think you're overstating things there. Between 10 techs I can easily get:

20% larger naval capacity (2 techs, 10% each)
75% more damage (2 steps up any weapon tech tree)
better PD/triple the shield capacity (2 steps up the shield tree)

etc. While any one tech isn't a lot, I think it should be pretty obvious that 10 different techs is going to be a major advantage. Numbers are important, sure, but part of what dictates the numbers IS tech. There are a ton of early +naval capacity techs in the first place.

Quote
-upgraded labs are the worst way to increase research.  A lab IV costs 7x the minerals and 3x the energy credits compared to a basic lab.  If you have literally NO other options, then they are MAYBE worth it.  But until then there are far better uses of resources.  Not to mention that researching a lab tech costs research points in the same field its supposed to be providing them.

Wait, slow down. You've got a couple things mixed up here.

Lab IV can only be built where you have an Empire-Capital Complex (ie, your homeworld). So we're mostly not talking about lab IVs, but lab IIIs. The mineral costs are an issue, but one that we haven't addressed elsewhere. But we'll assume you have some kind of mineral budget for infrastructure, obviously. I addressed the Energy cost above (which, again, is 2.5x, not 3x, because we're not talking about Lab IVs). Also the Lab III/Lab IV techs (which are the same) are t3/cost 1 techs that only cost 2320 base. They're not expensive.

Anyway, sure, a new basic science lab (lab 0) seems vastly more mineral efficient than upgrading a lab I to a lab II. But eventually you run out of pops to employ. At that point you can hold your minerals until you have more pops, or you can spend them now to get more output out of existing pops. Mineral growth increases way faster than pops, so guess which strategy techs faster? Probably the one where you're increasing tech sooner rather than later.

You'll also eventually run out of unblocked tiles to build on. At that point you need to start adding the cost of clearing to the cost of the next basic lab. Upgrading labs tends to win here, too. A basic science lab is 60 minus discounts. The upgrade is 90 minus discounts. But typical blockers cost 100 minus discounts. It's thus generally cheaper to upgrade to Lab II than to clear the tile. Of course even when you do clear all the blockers eventually, you'll still run out of tiles, and be forced to build a colony ship for 350 minerals plus the ungodly Energy costs of new colonies. And once you're on the new planet, you're back to square 1 (literally), waiting for pops to grow, building the necessary new energy and food buildings, upgrading colony capitals, building a new spaceport, etc.

Sure, if you have an unemployed (or underemployed pop) to build a building under, a new basic lab is the best use. But you run out of those pretty quick.

Quote
In short, research matters but not so much that you need to be thinking about it that hard.  The only real rule is to take advantage of all "natural" researches and build a lab for, say, every 2.5 pops.  Much more important it is to be smart about WHICH researches you pick.  Remember, colonizing planets makes your research worse but it makes your everything else better.

I think you're totally neglecting the role of tech bonuses, which are part of why upgrading to labs IIIs (and IVs on your capital) beats spamming basic labs everywhere. Bonuses will tend to be centralized, because of mechanics like Assist Research, leaders, etc. Even if you're not a Materialist, you can use an Intellectual governor and Assist Research to get up to 100% bonuses, easily. But only on a single planet or two. And it's not like you can make pops grow any faster as the game goes along. Your 20th new colony grows at pretty much the same rate as your 2nd new colony. You are always be able to build/upgrade faster than pops reproduce. The new basic labs will produce 1 science with low or no bonuses (you don't start at 100 happiness/100 habitability) while your homeworld will always have all the necessary bonuses available immediately.

The difference is basically going to be "build new basic labs on a young planet and get (1*1.2) per category as pops grow" or "upgrade labs on home planet for additional (2*2) per category right now."
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ZeroGravitas

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #2332 on: May 18, 2016, 04:15:28 pm »

A single-point rise just never seemed high enough. I can match that by dropping a base lab on an empty square somewhere in my entire empire, and the basic lab gives me research in every category.

the short version of my above post:

1. It's not a +1 in a single category, it's +1*bonuses
2. There are a finite number of empty squares, and buying new ones (colony ships+blocker costs) is expensive
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Sirus

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #2333 on: May 18, 2016, 05:23:58 pm »

...Am I the only one seeing space amoebas belonging to various primitive empires flying around? How the heck did a bronze-age civilization wrangle a giant space monster and use it to explore space?

I have to assume it's a bug because it makes no sense whatsoever.
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EnigmaticHat

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #2334 on: May 18, 2016, 05:32:23 pm »

You mostly restated what I said.  If you run out of space, upgrade labs.  Otherwise they suck.  Its the worst way to improve research.

As for local tech bonuses, aside from IIRC a certain unique building, there's 3: research assist, orbital bonus, and governor.  However, two of those bonuses use the same resource (leader slots), and two of them can made not local easily enough.  Yes, there are planet based bonuses but honestly they're only going to account for a drop in the bucket even if you focus on them.  This is coming from someone who filled a max sized world with the best physics labs available, and the unique lab, and then stacked every possible research bonus on that one planet (including the space mall for happiness).  I wasted so many minerals doing that and the gains felt very minor compared to what my generalized worlds were yielding for much less cost.

As for your point about the research bonus of tech, you're missing the point.  The game is designed so that you quickly fill out "core" techs like your main weapons path and basic utility upgrades and then past that you have to go after sidegrades and diminishing gains.  The fleet size modifiers are great, yeah, except that expanding empires tend to run way below their fleet limit and all those minerals and energy you've been dumping into upgraded labs a smart player would be buying corvettes and spaceports.  Sure, you can use your research to rush down a weapons path, but most smart players will quickly get decently far down 1 weapon, 1 defense and reactors.  On top of that improved weapons increase BOTH the cost and maintenance of a ship, which means that until you hit your fleet limit higher tech weapons = smaller fleet.

All of this means that, sure, a high tech empire has an advantage over a low tech empire.  But between the smaller fleet and the fact that many advantages that improve tech are trade offs with things that produce minerals and fleet limit (see: having a small empire, upgrading your labs instead of your starports), it all evens out close enough that it is a secondary deciding factor to fleet size, alliances, and rock paper scissors.  Sure, all things being even research will make the difference.  But honestly I would say the bigger advantage of research is the ability to shift your position on the rock paper scissors.
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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #2335 on: May 18, 2016, 05:56:01 pm »

...Am I the only one seeing space amoebas belonging to various primitive empires flying around? How the heck did a bronze-age civilization wrangle a giant space monster and use it to explore space?

I have to assume it's a bug because it makes no sense whatsoever.
Yeah that's a bug. I've also heard of them being owned by ftl races (including players), but much less frequently for some reason.
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Sirus

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #2336 on: May 18, 2016, 06:01:31 pm »

Speaking of primitive species, do they ever improve their tech level on their own? I've been wanting to infiltrate a species so I can (mostly peacefully) annex their world, but so far most of the primitives I've found are in Late Medieval or earlier. Can I uplift them just enough to make infiltration possible?
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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #2337 on: May 18, 2016, 06:04:02 pm »

They eventually increase in tech levels but it takes a long, long time. Unfortunately you can't uplift them just enough to infiltrate, so you either have to hope that the RNG smiles upon you or suck it up and make them a Protectorate.
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BFEL

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #2338 on: May 18, 2016, 06:15:20 pm »

...Am I the only one seeing space amoebas belonging to various primitive empires flying around? How the heck did a bronze-age civilization wrangle a giant space monster and use it to explore space?

I have to assume it's a bug because it makes no sense whatsoever.
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EnigmaticHat

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #2339 on: May 18, 2016, 06:24:39 pm »

I think its a display glitch because space amoebas have no valid faction?  So it just displays whichever one is position 0 on the factions list or whatever.

The real test, if you care, would be to keep the amoeba alive, uplift the civ, and then integrate it.  If the faction really does control the amoeba you should gain control of it.
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