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[umiman]

It would be cool, but I don't think it's actually possible for them to do from a technical perspective. Considering that even their Mongols have home worlds, I'm pretty sure that the game requires a nation to always have a planet for technical reasons.

One of my traits mods has starts where you start without a planet. It can totally be done.

You can start on a habitat, start as a colony ship, start as a lost Fallen Empire colony, start as a colony with a working Dyson Sphere and disabled gateway but no hyperlanes out of the system, etc. etc. etc.

Hell, there's even tech I can research that will obliterate all my planets and give me a single colony ship. I'm not sure when I'll ever press that button but it is tempting.

Fun one to mess with: combine the start as a habitat in space with the start that gives you a dyson sphere.  You can get mineral production up really high by spamming the size 6 habitats around your starting system with the pool the dyson start gives you, then when you exit the system, you can spam those habitats along with gateways like crazy.  Will admitedly have very limited expansion space left, admitedly, but your economy can easily be strong enough to act like a mini-crisis out of nowhere.

That sounds pretty good actually. I might do that since one planet games are super boring.

I tried letting the AI play a habitat start but it didn't know how to play and never built any other habitats.

[BurnedToast]

After playing 2.0 for a while, I think it has potential but there's a number of problems that need to be solved. The biggest one that's killing the game for me right now is influence, which is way too tight

Either we need a reliable way to get more or it needs to be used for less things. Mid-late game it becomes the only resource that really matters, I'm capped out on minerals and energy constantly and my only limitation is influence. It's required for almost everything, and there's really not a whole lot you can do to get more of it.

It's really made the game a far more boring, tedious slog than 1.x ever was. I'm sitting here on fast-forward doing nothing most of the time just waiting for influence to collect enough that I can build a few outposts, or make some claims on an enemy system, or build some more habitats, or... anything, really.

I get that they wanted to slow the game down which is fine, but they forgot to add something else to do while you wait.

[Mephansteras]

I think that depends a lot on your particular empire. I've had games where influence grew faster than minerals/energy for me as far as how much I used vs needed.

[umiman]

I think that depends a lot on your particular empire. I've had games where influence grew faster than minerals/energy for me as far as how much I used vs needed.

Yeah. I played an authoritarian empire making gabillion tonnes of influence each second. I couldn't even use it fast enough.

[BurnedToast]

I think that depends a lot on your particular empire. I've had games where influence grew faster than minerals/energy for me as far as how much I used vs needed.

Yeah. I played an authoritarian empire making gabillion tonnes of influence each second. I couldn't even use it fast enough.

How much exactly is a "gabillion tonnes"?

I can't imagine getting more than +7 or so, even with fanatic authoritarian. You've got

+1 base
+2 planetary unification
+3 max from factions (I think? they changed living state chain and wiki is outdated)
+1 fanatic authoritarian
+0.5 per rival

which is ~7 - realistically you won't get the full faction bonus, but rivalries will make it up.

That's ~10 months per outpost, and ~50% - ~150% of that (depending on a lot of factors..) per enemy system claimed. I consider that to be, well, really damn slow... and that's also assuming you never want to do anything else with it like build megastructures, or change civics, or have any diplomatic agreements, or integrate a vassal, or....

Or am I missing some big source of influence income?

side note - I can't actually rival anyone for influence because everyone bordering me is "pathetic", but I can't gobble them up to get them out of the way because the new mechanics 

[Draignean]

I think that depends a lot on your particular empire. I've had games where influence grew faster than minerals/energy for me as far as how much I used vs needed.

Yeah. I played an authoritarian empire making gabillion tonnes of influence each second. I couldn't even use it fast enough.

How much exactly is a "gabillion tonnes"?

I can't imagine getting more than +7 or so, even with fanatic authoritarian. You've got

+1 base
+2 planetary unification
+3 max from factions (I think? they changed living state chain and wiki is outdated)
+1 fanatic authoritarian
+0.5 per rival

which is ~7 - realistically you won't get the full faction bonus, but rivalries will make it up.

That's ~10 months per outpost, and ~50% - ~150% of that (depending on a lot of factors..) per enemy system claimed. I consider that to be, well, really damn slow... and that's also assuming you never want to do anything else with it like build megastructures, or change civics, or have any diplomatic agreements, or integrate a vassal, or....

Or am I missing some big source of influence income?

side note - I can't actually rival anyone for influence because everyone bordering me is "pathetic", but I can't gobble them up to get them out of the way because the new mechanics 

I believe there's a planet unique structure that generates +1 influence, right?

[Telgin]

I only just started playing Stellaris, but I kind of got the same impression about influence.  I totally understand its purpose and why it works the way it does, but I never feel like I have enough, despite swimming in energy credits (minerals not quite so much, at least 40 years in).  I'm pretty much always at 0-74 influence, because the moment I get 75 it's time to set up another outpost before a neighboring empire takes the system.  I haven't yet got to the point of needing to lay claims, so I'm not sure how that impacts it.

I'm just surprised that there doesn't seem to be any way to generate emergency influence.  It feels like you should be able to do something like burn energy credits or minerals to either get a lump sum or to at least increase production for a period.  Like... propaganda or bribing the populace or something.  A cooldown on such an ability, or having it impose penalties to generation afterward would keep you from abusing it, but let you get enough to snatch a key system or lay a claim in an emergency.

[forsaken1111]

That would probably be a pretty easy mod. A simple empire policy to burn a few hundred credits for some influence gain.

That said, so long as you keep 1-2 factions happy you can get a good amount. Rival some annoying empire nearby and you get more. I've never had too much trouble with influence.

[BurnedToast]

I believe there's a planet unique structure that generates +1 influence, right?

You're probably thinking of the autochthon monument that generates unity - the "currency" used to buy traditions. AFAIK there is no building that generates influence.

That would probably be a pretty easy mod. A simple empire policy to burn a few hundred credits for some influence gain.

That said, so long as you keep 1-2 factions happy you can get a good amount. Rival some annoying empire nearby and you get more. I've never had too much trouble with influence.

Are you just not expanding ever? Never warring with your neighbors? Never playing past early game?

I don't mean that to sound confrontational, I'm just having a really hard time figuring out how anyone could not have influence problems when it costs 10+ months of influence gain per system on average to expand.

Even on max fast forward that's a lot of waiting around for something to happen.

[Draignean]

I believe there's a planet unique structure that generates +1 influence, right?

You're probably thinking of the autochthon monument that generates unity - the "currency" used to buy traditions. AFAIK there is no building that generates influence.

Ah no, it was a mod added Governor's mansion. Carry on.

[ChairmanPoo]

Ok, so I picked the psionic weapon as my choice of planetkiller... amd NOW I've found that it's not a psychic dominator at all, it just makes people more spiritual. Can I salvage this somehow and get some other PK weapon?

[forsaken1111]

That would probably be a pretty easy mod. A simple empire policy to burn a few hundred credits for some influence gain.

That said, so long as you keep 1-2 factions happy you can get a good amount. Rival some annoying empire nearby and you get more. I've never had too much trouble with influence.

Are you just not expanding ever? Never warring with your neighbors? Never playing past early game?

I don't mean that to sound confrontational, I'm just having a really hard time figuring out how anyone could not have influence problems when it costs 10+ months of influence gain per system on average to expand.

Even on max fast forward that's a lot of waiting around for something to happen.

The truces between wars give me plenty of time to make new claims on the enemy. Perhaps you're claiming too much each war?

[The Scout]

Base game I think I got outpost costs down to like ~20. Only really became a problem when I went to war and had to make claims, since I had to stop making outposts during that time.

[umiman]

Ok, so I picked the psionic weapon as my choice of planetkiller... amd NOW I've found that it's not a psychic dominator at all, it just makes people more spiritual. Can I salvage this somehow and get some other PK weapon?

I believe you can research the other ones.

[Dorsidwarf]

I guess influence might be more of a bottleneck if you play with a less densely populated galaxy so you’re constantly building outposts, rather than the early scramble to stake territory and take chokepoints before the borders solidify