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[Telgin]

Very cool looking stuff, as expected, although it still leaves many questions unanswered.  One thing that's going to be kind of frustrating, and which Wiz confirmed, is that researching synth technology and giving them citizen rights will cause a massive increase in housing demands.  If your planet is already built up and doesn't have room for them, then too bad, you're going to get major overcrowding and attendant issues with happiness and stability.  If you build up lots of housing before you grant them rights, then that housing may just be eaten up by normal populations.  If your planet's maxed out on city districts then too bad.  Synths don't emigrate, but I guess the other populations could if overcrowding gets bad. 

I'm actually fine with that being something you should have to prepare for, but I'd really prefer the option to have droids and synths be separate populations you could maintain simultaneously.  Droids are for menial labor, but synths are people.  If you had the option to keep existing droids as droids, then this is no longer a problem, and I wouldn't feel bad building robots to work the mines when I know down the line they're going to be replaced with intelligent synths.  It never made a lot of sense to me that droids should automatically and without option be upgraded to synths, except as a way to keep game mechanics simpler.

I guess with modding this will be possible, anyway.  And with the new system the synths will probably move out of mining to specialist jobs, so the economic waste isn't as bad.

I usually manage to get at least the capital ships get up to high levels of skill (Veteran but never elite) over the course of one or two wars, though for smaller ships it seems to be more difficult since they aren't as survivable. I don't know if it's just my design strategy is off or what but I always seem to lose almost my entire corvette fleet and most of the destroyers unless the balance of power is completely lopsided, while the big guys come out practically undamaged. This snowballs, and the capital ships get even tougher and more survivable while the escorts are coming out as experienced as they can be with a Fleet Academy. So I try to redesign them to make them tougher and better at dodging, and sometimes it helps a little, but it seems like massive escort losses is just the price of admission.

But either way from what I've seen ship XP seems to depend solely on time spent in combat, with actions during that combat being irrelevant, so if things are being resolved quickly in either direction that might be causing the problems.

Yeah, pretty much, and this is why I tend toward homogeneous battleship fleets by the end game.  Everything else is destroyed too readily, and I don't like having to replace things.  Corvettes still have their place because they're much faster than battleships, but I still hate building them because I know I'll be rebuilding them.  At least when the crisis hits, which is my primary source of combat.

Speaking of capital ship survivability though, it sucks that titans seem to be more of a liability than anything when fighting the crises (or Contingency anyway, since it's the only one I've seen).  As I said before, I managed to get two titans up to Veteran status, but I lost a titan roughly every other battle against the Contingency and got sick of rebuilding them.  That was with me stacking dark matter deflectors and shield capacitors as much as I could, alongside 7 levels of repeatable shield harmonics, to counter the energy weapons.  14K shields isn't enough when the titan flies out ahead of the fleet and draws almost all of the fire.  The time and resource cost just wasn't worth it compared to battleships.

[Nelia Hawk]

i think the contingency also uses some form of arc XL lasers that ignore shields+ armor... and that titans are giant targets they probably get hit a lot first by them and get murderized...

in previous games i noticed a lot that all my "big ships" (cruisers/battleships) got killed first every fight... from big shipclass to small one. not sure if stuff like this is still happening or if its based on weapon size... like XL/L shoot battleships first then cruisers... S shoot corvettes first then destroyers...
but back then (dont rememebr when i noticed that exactly its soem months ago) it was so weird that always the 5 battleships died first and the 20 corvettes survived teh fight.

and i like to build more balanced fleets... not "just highest shipclass" stuff like in so many games that seems to be the best strategy... maybe like 2-3 battleships, 5 cruisers, 10 destroyers, 30 corvettes... and not 15 battleships... cause that just feels way wrong for me somehow hah.

[Telgin]

I tried to do mixed fleet builds too, and still do early and mid game, but they're frustratingly suboptimal.  One big drawback to them is that they move at the speed of the slowest ship, so the speed bonus for corvettes is lost, which are arguably much better used in interceptor fleets by themselves.

In theory, mixed fleets could be very good.  Destroyers with lots of point defense mixed with some other ships for attacking would be ideal against an enemy that uses lots of missiles and torpedoes, for example, but I don't think the AI ever does, except for the Prethoryn Swarm, which I've never faced.  For the Contingency (and probably the Unbidden) at least, it seems like having tougher ships is the best you can do, to minimize losses.  I don't think the Contingency does use any penetrating weapons, since I always watch the battles and always see shields evaporate before the ship does, but I think the Unbidden does, so crystal plating against them would be ideal.  Too bad there's no repeatable for extra ship hull points, but I guess engineering repeatables are already pretty crowded.

Anyway, as far as ship targeting goes, based on what I've read the ships prioritize targeting other ships of their size, and larger ships and weapons have a hard time hitting smaller ships.  So, depending on what you were facing, corvettes could have been targeted last in the fight, and their evasion might have spared them from what was left.  I can say with confidence that cruisers and destroyers at least are death traps against the Contingency, and I imagine corvettes would suffer lots of losses too, but maybe not as bad.  I think their smaller ships are destroyer sized, so they probably have decent tracking against corvettes.

[umiman]

Contingency uses almost exclusively anti-capital ship weapons (single target, massive damage). Unlike the other Crisis, they also have very balanced defenses. This is why the best way to fight them, and everything in the game, is torpedo corvette spam.

Sending large ships against them is suicide. It'll work given enough ships, but completely suboptimal since 1/2 the price amount in corvettes will achieve the same thing.

There's no "combat balance" in this game. If this was competitive MP, then every single tournament will just be corvette spam. The only reason to build anything else is just for RP reasons.

[Telgin]

From what I've read, battleships armed with penetration weapons are the best way to deal with the Contingency, which does seem to have some truth to it.  Admittedly, I haven't tried torpedo corvette spam, so it may do better, but with arc emitters I've seen battleships destroy half of a Contingency fleet before it can even return fire.  I oftentimes lost nothing in those engagements.

I was going to say that corvettes can only load out disruptors as penetration weapons, but missiles and torpedoes penetrate shields so they're almost as good.  If you send 700+ of those at a Contingency fleet then I'm sure their point defense will have almost no impact on the damage dealt.

[Broseph Stalin]

So I've already modded the game to deal with it but I don't see why the requirements to demand tribute or vassalization are so high. Like if my military vastly overpowers theirs but we have the same tech level and fleet capacity it's not even an option. Like mechanically why is it a problem for the player to start a fight they can't win or for the consequence of making threats you can't back up just be getting the absolute shit kicked out of you.

[Telgin]

I've seen others on the Paradox forums asking the same question, and the devs never gave an answer.  I think it's perfectly reasonable to try to demand vassalization or tribute even if the enemy is stronger than you.  If you win, you've proven that you deserve to be their overlord.  If you lose, you get what you asked for.

My guess is that it's an oversight, but it could also be to prevent players from conquering AI opponents too easily, since a player can generally beat a stronger AI because it plans poorly.  If you could demand tribute or vassalization of an empire that's comparable or stronger than you, then win, that would make you vastly stronger for little effort compared to claiming and conquering everything piece by piece.

That said, I'm kind of curious why the game weighs naval capacity and technology as heavily as fleet power.  They both factor indirectly into fleet power anyway, so it effectively double counts them for relative power.  Besides, if the enemy has a much weaker fleet than you now, but could theoretically have a much bigger fleet, then it doesn't matter all that much right now if you declare war.  Comparing your economies more directly would make more sense I think, but maybe that's not as simple as I'm thinking it is.

Edit: Actually, don't vassals try to rebel if they're too strong?  Maybe the devs thought it would just be frustrating if if you immediately entered a cycle of rebellion from your new, strong vassals, but then that seems like a realistic problem to have if you tried it...

[Cruxador]

I imagine it's meant to be a balance thing. If you manage to vassalize them, cool, but then you've got them vassalized, then what? You've got a vassal as powerful as you, and the internal politics of Stellaris aren't enough to make this a liability as it should be, which means it's purely a major asset.

[Rolan7]

Playing as a warmonger is weird...  Commonwealth of Man, so Fanatic Militarist Xenophobe.

Somewhat oddly, the Militarists are happy if I declare a lot of rivals, while the Xenophobes are happy if I'm at war.
Sorry, that just seems backwards.

Also, the Militaristists seem really needy.  Declaring rivals gives +2/+4/+6, *cumulatively*, with the goal being +10% to get influence.  In other words, I need three rivals to get the tacit support of my Fanatic faction. 
The +2% from "Traditional Supremacy" doesn't help in that base case, but it does unlock a +5% for having a vassal.  Which is a can of worms, but okay.
I guess the +10% for acquiring an alien planet is supposed to be the balancing factor, despite lasting only 10 years.  B-but I wanted to be ornery isolationist self-defense humans...

Also jeezum crow, I had left the difficulty on Commodore from when I was playing a Devouring Swarm (and had a laughably easy time, of course).  I thought I was just rusty, but suddenly I understand why everyone constantly has more fleet capacity than me.  Not to mention HALF AGAIN more mineral income, ha.

Doesn't matter, though, human ingenuity is winning out.  Expanding strategically, fighting in depth, and even accepting a little territory loss in one place while locking off a clean expansion zone.
Humanity survives.
Earth... didn't survive.  We made contact in 2251, and they were surrounded by fanatical "purifiers".  Their xeno ally bought them a few years of life, as did our unilateral pledge of support.  But they were murdered to the last, and their "ally" blocked our fleets from assisting.
We offered them refuge!  We did!  But they died for their ideals.

It was a turning point for The Commonwealth of Man.  We immediately freed our xeno servants, and "asked" them to leave.  We closed our borders to every xeno, even the tree-beings who had shown us kindness earlier.  And we set our sights inward, to science.
We unlocked the wormholes, securing unclaimed resources... and discovering new threats.  Zealots of alien religions, empires eager to enslave us, even a sector-spanning machine.

We must survive, for Earth.  We must remember their ideals, because no xeno will.
We must never sink to genocide.
Or ever trust a xeno not to.
One day, when only our starships roam the galaxy, when there are no more threats...  Maybe then, we can live alongside the alien.  As our progenitors wished.
And the Murderers will be there too, in OUR galaxy, because death is too good for them.

Edit:  Not sure how I messed up the link like that.  Also, current year (2349).

[Loud Whispers]

Commonwealth of Man aint free. Freedom gotta be littered with halls of xenos blood. Man digits save the Queen not xenos tentacled appendage save the Queen OK

[Rolan7]

It's more that we fear the xeno.  Literal xenophobes, with cause.

The solution isn't xeno blood, though.  Just military domination.
Civilians are not targets, and will be provided safe passage away.  Once we own the galaxy, they'll be relocated to the vassal states under our rule.

We don't genocide.  We allow the xeno to serve, or die off in obscurity.
The point is that we must establish dominance so that certain horrors are never repeated.

We are basically the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za, and I like it.

Edit:  My attempt at using the slavery mechanics resulted in an Egalitarian movement springing up and taking 25% marketshare somehow.  It's fading off since I disbanded xeno slavery.  I'm not going egalitarian again - if anything, I might embrace the significant Materialist faction.  Or, likely not.

Edit2:  To make it more explicit:  We follow The Path of Now and Forever.  Star Control 2 spoilers, sorta.  They don't spoil the game at all.

[Loud Whispers]

Just saying, going full USSR relocation to the Siberian frontier is totes magotes genocidal

[Karnewarrior]

Hitler also "Relocated" the Jews to ghettos, and then when he found out he didn't have enough space to have a GRORIOUS ARYAN EMPYRE and a subdued Jewish state, that's when he decided to start the genocidin'. At least, that's what I gathered from my history classes, which were American so I guess take this pile of salt?

[Teneb]

Hitler also "Relocated" the Jews to ghettos, and then when he found out he didn't have enough space to have a GRORIOUS ARYAN EMPYRE and a subdued Jewish state, that's when he decided to start the genocidin'. At least, that's what I gathered from my history classes, which were American so I guess take this pile of salt?

Hitler's Final Solution was called that because he had tried other ways to dispose of the jews and other minorities beforehand, but had to give up on them. The original plan was to deport them all to Madagascar. Mass deportation is still a form of genocide, going by the UN's definition of the term (and they invented it, so I think it's fair go by this one).

[ChairmanPoo]

Mass deportation is usually the first step towards mass elimination. Not least because a good chunk of the population you´re deporting might die off in the process, particularily if you relocate them somewhere shitty (see: Trail of Tears, Armenian Genocide)