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[Neonivek]

Ring worlds?

Yes

[Dostoevsky]

That is far more partially off-topic yet relevant info than I ever could've hoped for. I thank you, sir.

Happy to help. U.S. budgeting practice is a rather awkward edifice that could probably do with some reform, but that's a discussion for a different sub-forum.

If I was the Joker, I'd be Joker Venom bombing you right now for ruining my entertainment.

Apologies. I just can't resist a chance to engage in some glorious pedagoguery.

You can actually mod that in. There is even a mod for it I think?

And yes, several of the tech mods out there provide various ways to inhabit worlds that are uninhabitable in vanilla, either through terraforming or things like dome-colonies.

Additionally - the true solution to all your spacesuit-wearing bird problems is to download the Preussens Gloria! Avian clothes mod (and, while you're at it, other mods made by Ofaloaf). Now your spacesuit birds will become diving suit birds, regardless of their actual tech level. Much better, yes?

[Sprin]

Anyone have any advice on building warships?

[Putnam]

Anyone have any advice on building warships?

1. Build based on your enemy. This essentially ends up meaning pick either point defense-heavy builds or damage-heavy builds.
2. If you're going to use weapons that pierce 100% of shield, only use weapons that pierce 100% of shield. Efficiency is key.
3. If you have crystal plating, it's basically better than shield in almost all cases. Shields take up power and any enemy that uses missiles or bombers will pierce them whenever they hit anyway.
4. Endgame, tachyon lances are the best damaging weapon in the game bar none. Even after being nerfed, their range and armor piercing makes them outclass everything else. This means that, in the endgame, shield-ignoring weapons are basically worthless and.

My current game, all my hostile neighbors use missiles nigh-exclusively, so I'm completely ignoring shields and focusing quite a bit on point defense. It's a rare day where any damage is done to my ships at all since tachyon lances from the battleships tear through them and fighters shoot down missiles as they pass by. I also have ion disruptors on my corvettes, but I think that may be a bad idea since tachyon lances are liable to tear away all of an enemy's shield before the corvettes even get in range. Seriously, those things are bonkers, I think just using corvettes as point defense platforms might be more efficient.

In general, shields have way too many counters to be worth it. A lot of weapons and bombers go right through them, disruptors do double damage to them, and in general armor's a better bet. Armor may be diminishing returns, but crystal plating is not. Notably, I don't have crystal plating in my game, but I still usually don't use shields.

[IronyOwl]

Is armor actually diminishing returns or you know what lemme just look it up.

Armor provides a linear damage reduction against incoming attacks. Every 60 points of armor increase the "Effective Hull Points" (EHP) by 100%. For example, a 60 Armor Battleship would be able to take 4800 (2400 + 2400) damage before being destroyed, and a 120 Armor Battleship would be able to take 7200 damage before being destroyed (2400 + 2400 + 2400) This means that despite the misleading "% Damage Reduction" listed in the ship designer, Armor does not suffer from diminishing returns.

Right, figured it was something like that. Remember that percentages build off themselves, so it's often hard to tell if the actual benefits are slowing down just because the numerical values are.

[Sprin]

Thanks brah

[Retropunch]

Anyone have any advice on building warships?

I've been playing a game with very aggressive AI on, and I've been actually having quite a lot of fun with the combat. The key is to have forces that complement each other - get some very heavily armoured battleships that engage at close range and pull the fire whilst you have long range strikers sitting at the back giving out damage (and a few carriers as well). I also have a floating anti-missile fleet which I merge with my main battle force(s) if going against a missile based enemy.

As an aside, sub space snares on fortresses work a treat. I got so annoyed with the AI jumping in and jumping straight out, making it an endless game of cat and mouse which just ends up getting way too micromanage-y for my liking. Subspace snares just drag them in and at about 6k of force do a hell of a lot of damage to most forces even if they're not able to take them out.

[Retropunch]

The great thing about the snares too is that it doesn't matter WHERE the station is in the system. If anyone tries to get into there, they're being pulled into the fortress.

It's
Yeah!! They're great for setting ambushes, and a few times against numerically superior forces I've managed to win by just waiting for them to come to my snared fortress (or baiting them there!)

The AI isn't too clever though with how they handle fleets - most tend to have one or two major fleets so once you've wiped that out they're easy pickings. They also just throw anything at you once you're attacking stuff, so after you've destroyed the main fleet you get just one or two ships coming in at a time that are about 200 strength. I realised that you can basically just stay in one place and just wait for them to throw those at you (and get a few percent warscore each time) until the war is won.

[EnigmaticHat]

The snare seems like a stupid mechanic to me.  Just means you have to send one ship ahead of the rest of the fleet all the time.  Added layer of tedium and all that.

[Retropunch]

The snare seems like a stupid mechanic to me.  Just means you have to send one ship ahead of the rest of the fleet all the time.  Added layer of tedium and all that.

I'm not sure what you mean - do you mean when you're attacking? I guess that never really bothers me, because I just sort of treat it like fighting another fleet that happens to be stationary. I normally don't attack unless I have overwhelming odds anyway, and instead draw the attackers to my front lines where I can fight them on my terms if I don't think I can beat a big fleet + fortress.

For me, any tedium it causes is far outweighed by the tedium of having to do endless cat and mouse with the enemy.

[PTTG??]

Man I want to have real lithovores. As in eats 1 mineral per pop.

The only mod which appears to add it does so in a really limited way.

[Sirus]

The snare seems like a stupid mechanic to me.  Just means you have to send one ship ahead of the rest of the fleet all the time.  Added layer of tedium and all that.

I'm not sure what you mean - do you mean when you're attacking? I guess that never really bothers me, because I just sort of treat it like fighting another fleet that happens to be stationary. I normally don't attack unless I have overwhelming odds anyway, and instead draw the attackers to my front lines where I can fight them on my terms if I don't think I can beat a big fleet + fortress.

For me, any tedium it causes is far outweighed by the tedium of having to do endless cat and mouse with the enemy.

I mean...when you have nearly infinite space to play around in, space warfare probably would end up being one massive cat-and-mouse game. The only time that would be an exception is when the objective is a large, relatively stationary object that fleets could condense around.

[Rolan7]

Heck, it would even need to be a *small* objective.  Establishing a defensive perimeter around a planet would be many orders of magnitude harder than building a ringworld.

There's not really much defense against hi-v asteroids or tungsten rods.  Most space combat is really just naval combat with shiny toys, because realistically it's just MAD.

[Sirus]

You wouldn't want to use weapons like those if you wanted to take a planet for yourself, though. Even a barrage of conventional WMDs would render much of the place uninhabitable.

And since you can't seem to destroy planets in Stellaris, we can assume that even the most warlike species with the most liberal bombardment policies avoids the use of God Rods and the like.

[Neonivek]

You wouldn't want to use weapons like those if you wanted to take a planet for yourself, though. Even a barrage of conventional WMDs would render much of the place uninhabitable.

And since you can't seem to destroy planets in Stellaris, we can assume that even the most warlike species with the most liberal bombardment policies avoids the use of God Rods and the like.

I do find it funny that the blockers created by weapon fire are... ordinary blockers (like Toxic Kelp, mountains, or Icebergs)

It makes me wonder if that was an oversight or a shortcut... Since it is really funny : 3