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Author Topic: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE  (Read 1740011 times)

Criptfeind

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #5550 on: November 29, 2017, 04:54:45 pm »

Criptfeind: Sounds like Robots trade a gigantic early game advantage for a late game penalty compared to Synths. What about the other paths? Do they compare?

The other paths are okay. Synths get +20% to everything, and synth leaders get +5% to most things. You can also customize each pop for what resource you want it to make, like robots can (once you get synth though, the pop before synth are probably going to be stuck in some general path because it'd be micromangement hell to try to change them). Psi is okay, they get +10% to research and energy, and +5% happiness, and leaders get +10% to most things (except energy and minerals, but they do give bonuses to unity, which synths don't). Bio path... Well, depends on what you do. I don't think it's nearly as good as the other two. Realistically the bonuses are I think enough to wipe out whatever bad traits you picked, pick up a new general trait, and pick up a super trait. Since you don't get more picks you can't super minmax your race. I think the best super trait is probably +20% to science. My Alpha T'shalan get +20% to research, +20% to minerals, +15% to energy, and +20 years lifespan. The lifespan is just for roleplaying, and would be better off as something else. But really only the +20% research and +15% energy came from the ascension path. So that's the only real bonus there. Your leaders don't get any bonuses from the bio path. Which is a shame. You could try to like, gene engineer your dudes for their specific jobs with the bio path but since you can only do it world by world that sounds like absolute hellish amounts of micromanagement to me.

And you're right that the ascension bonuses are probably irrelevant in that they come too late into the game and you snowball. But the happiness bonuses come in very early, maybe not the +20%, but even at the start you'll have a at least relevant bonus to production from happiness and bonus influence to allow you to run more edicts or have more orbitals. I do think robots are probably just worse then organics 1 for 1, just that the ability to go super wide like you say is the strongest ability because the game super rewards going wide (with some exceptions). I think so long as you balance it okay (like obviously not doing extra colonies when you should be waring) it is a really big advantage. To be clear I dunno what is actually better with full minmax and all that. And I've not played robots nearly as much as I've played organics. I just don't think it's as overwhelming of a difference as I seemed to read from you at first since organics have a LOT of bonus over robots (or certain bonuses that robots get like immortal leaders don't actually matter very much) that might not be immediately obvious at first. I also find myself extremely crunched on every resource in almost every game until after the first war or two, and my feeling is robots let you spend more resources for development, whereas organics will probably actually get you more per pop. Eventually developing more will overwhelm when the returns come in. But I'm not actually sure if they'll come in early enough to be worth the costs you pay, assuming you have you know, a pretty typical couple thousand fleet power early war.

That said with the food stuff:
About the food thing, it's not that simple because power is super easy to get and not only do they come from planets, but asteroid bases as well. I can tell you power is not a concern as robots. They barely use any. It's minerals that are a huge issue. So every planet starts maxing for minerals and you end up with a gigantic mineral production line. Not to mention for organics you actually have to build food buildings and thus, "waste" the tile space for them. Robots get to optimize it.

You can sorta just replace power with food and robots with organics in the highlighted line. Organics don't need much food. You just get by with a few tiles for upkeep and maybe a bit extra for growth (just like robots would with power... And yes, orbital power is a thing, but that just means that organics need even fewer power plants on their planets) and minerals (and research) are the main thing you actually want to build.

There's also probably a big thing with start location. If you start in a big open area and can just expand expand expand I'd certainly rather be robots. But I've had starts (my current game in fact, although it's almost over) where I start in between two hostile powers with like 8 planets, 6 of which are 60% or more habitable.... Really glad I'm not robots in that one. Although I do play on hyperlanes and often with galaxies that have arms, which makes that sorta thing way more common then it probably is in most games.

Multiplayer sounds fun. Although I think it'd probably come down to player skill more then actual mechanical advantage. :P I assume I'd get fucking crushed because I'm pretty bad at most games like this.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2017, 04:59:05 pm by Criptfeind »
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forsaken1111

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #5551 on: November 29, 2017, 05:05:25 pm »

I think this problem can easily be tested and resolved in MP.

By having 5 players as robots and 5 organics, and watching the inevitable slaughter of useless molecules mass-murder of inferior creations obliteration of organics one-sided bloodbath, keyword being blood as the superior being doesn't have it extermination of the worthless meatbags conflict that would occur.
Sounds like a plan. Who's up for The End Of Flesh, Bay12 Multiplayer extravaganza?
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Loud Whispers

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #5552 on: November 29, 2017, 05:08:13 pm »

The genetic transcendence path is probably one of the most fun imo, it's the only one that lets you genetically engineer locust pops and unleash them within fellow Empires in vanilla

Criptfeind

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #5553 on: November 29, 2017, 05:11:56 pm »

It's sorta okay but it just mostly makes me sad that you can't individually modify a pop. I mean, late game I'm pretty much done with my sim citing, I'd appreciate the ability to go though and sometimes click some buttons on my planets to get some nice percentage bonuses.

Or you know, Nerve staple the egalitarians.
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umiman

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #5554 on: November 29, 2017, 05:24:27 pm »

I think this problem can easily be tested and resolved in MP.

By having 5 players as robots and 5 organics, and watching the inevitable slaughter of useless molecules mass-murder of inferior creations obliteration of organics one-sided bloodbath, keyword being blood as the superior being doesn't have it extermination of the worthless meatbags conflict that would occur.
Sounds like a plan. Who's up for The End Of Flesh, Bay12 Multiplayer extravaganza?
I'm totally in.

I actually want somehow to school me as I want to see robots be not as OP as I'm thinking. But I will be playing robots myself. Bring it on!

Twinwolf

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #5555 on: November 29, 2017, 05:25:21 pm »

-snips about aging-
Not in my experience, at least - in the one game that I've "completed" (i.e. beat the endgame crisis) I had to change out leaders far more frequently than that, and while I didn't have any life-extending traits I didn't have shortening ones either. Maybe it was because I never really cared about the lifespan boosting techs? But anyway, I certainly had to swap leaders several times.
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EnigmaticHat

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #5556 on: November 29, 2017, 05:26:27 pm »

It's sorta okay but it just mostly makes me sad that you can't individually modify a pop. I mean, late game I'm pretty much done with my sim citing, I'd appreciate the ability to go though and sometimes click some buttons on my planets to get some nice percentage bonuses.

Or you know, Nerve staple the egalitarians.
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Karnewarrior

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #5557 on: November 29, 2017, 05:46:35 pm »

It's sorta okay but it just mostly makes me sad that you can't individually modify a pop. I mean, late game I'm pretty much done with my sim citing, I'd appreciate the ability to go though and sometimes click some buttons on my planets to get some nice percentage bonuses.

Or you know, Nerve staple the egalitarians.
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forsaken1111

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #5558 on: November 29, 2017, 06:31:37 pm »

The biggest downside to machines is the hefty mineral investment in growing your population. They take a long time to grow and cost quite a lot. Each pop can cost as much as a destroyer, which early game is a hard trade off. Later the cost becomes trivial, and you can speed up growth with buildings. Influence can be a problem too, with no factions to feed you, but they also have very few uses for it other than spamming planet edicts
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ZeroGravitas

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #5559 on: November 30, 2017, 11:12:11 am »

Well, the new dev diary on doomstacks went up:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-96-doomstacks-and-ship-design.1058152/

Color me skeptical about the mechanics described here. I don't think they're going to add up to anything.
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USEC_OFFICER

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #5560 on: November 30, 2017, 11:45:49 am »

The Fleet Disparity bonus thing rubs me the wrong way but everything else looks okay. Not having all of your ships explode after losing a battle is nice, even if it'll make cleaning up enemies more tedious. Though with that said, I doubt that this'll really fix doomstacks. Having a ton of fleets following each other is functionally identical to having them together in a doomstack after all.

Also: Did EUIV or Crusader Kings ever get this many changes with its combat system? Because I feel like every other major patch, Stellaris almost completely overhauls how it works. Not that I'm complaining so long as it improves with each iteration, but I would have thought that they'd have settled on something by now. I guess that the sci-fi setting means they aren't bound by simulationist concerns and can make broader changes or something.
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Cruxador

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #5561 on: November 30, 2017, 11:54:36 am »

Well, the new dev diary on doomstacks went up:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-96-doomstacks-and-ship-design.1058152/

Color me skeptical about the mechanics described here. I don't think they're going to add up to anything.
By themselves I agree, but with hyperlanes and slower movement, and with system stations adding meaningful targets, it could actually work.

Slower movement wasn't actually announced though.
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umiman

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #5562 on: November 30, 2017, 12:01:24 pm »

What the fuck is this nonsense balancing mechanic...

Loud Whispers

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #5563 on: November 30, 2017, 12:27:18 pm »

What the fuck is this nonsense balancing mechanic...
I am modding it out as soon as it rolls in. That's complete nonsense. They should've added organic pathways for players to conduct asymmetric warfare, like psionic invasion of enemy pops minds, synthetic infiltration of enemy pops & planets, covert agents, assassination, faction support, genetic viruses and one of the most obvious - viable hit and run fleet actions, so a small fleet is more capable of attacking and retreating quickly with little damage sustained in retreat. Punishing an Empire for devoting more of their industry to a larger fleet makes no sense, of course it yields non-linear benefits strategically because that's the bloody point. The Empire in question is taking the risk that they can turn that strategic advantage into a decisive short term gain or else suffer the consequences for not having devoted that material to research instead. With that dumb mechanic there is no downside to focusing on economy over defence, because your defence force will with its technology bonus AND an arbitrary increase to fire rate for having the weaker force, you will outpace your enemy whether in peace or war. That smaller ships can disengage easier also does not help the situation where large ships are useless and there is no reason not to simply spam the first ships you get. Would've thought that perhaps the command limit size would at the very least incentivize a unit of 30 battleships instead of 30 corvettes, but no it scales to ship size not number. The issue was not that a large fleet destroyed a small fleet, the issue was that upon losing your fleet the sheer uselessness of Fortresses meant that all of your planets were occupied before you could amass a challenging fleet.

I actually wanted to praise the decision to bring multiple role computers back but then:
Quote
As we still do not want one ship class to be able to fill every possible role, we have still restricted which computers are available to which classes (for example, Corvettes can choose Swarm or Picket) but there is always at least two choices available for your design.
Forcing this nonsense rather detracts from it all. Why can't I create maximum armoured battleships with no weapons that charge into the enemy while my firing line of sniper-destroyers does the real work? Why can I not have a unified fleet doctrine to remain at mid-range for all of my ships providing mutual missile support? Why must there be such limits to everything that only swarmvettes are viable in the end?
I just question why the design philosophy is not "how do we make useless ships useful" but "how do we restrict the useful ships" when it comes to incentivizing player fleet compositions

*EDIT
Lmao the mods are deleting critical comments. Still some funny ones remain
Quote
Belgium surely didn't get some magical firepower bonus when the Wehrmacht came a-knocking. They got Xeelee-stomped. And the "explanation" for the FDM ... is absolutely laughable. Space doesn't work this way.

Quote
Ok, this could work. Force Disparity's kinda "gamey" but there's no good way around it I suppose. A larger force does provide a target rich environment. Ship disengagement is probably the best part of this.
Why do you accept this?!! Why not use your imagination D:
It is saddening to see on the PI forums just how many people get flak for bringing up the arbitrariness of a lot of these mechanics and reasonings >_>
« Last Edit: November 30, 2017, 12:37:59 pm by Loud Whispers »
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Mephansteras

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #5564 on: November 30, 2017, 12:32:43 pm »

Lots of changes here. It might all work out, but my guess is that it'll just shift the meta on what's optimal to some other mode.

Eh. We'll see how it shakes out after people have a chance to play with it a bit. Be nice if Paradox played the hell out of there patches before releasing stuff like this, though.
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