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[Telgin]

Your capital starbase won't generate any piracy ever, and its collection radius seems to have priority over other starbases - EXCEPT in their systems!

This is the problem I'm having, I think.  I have two systems two jumps away from my home system with colonies, and I built trade posts there thinking they were necessary to collect the trade value from those worlds.  This ended up nullifying the collection from my home system star base, which I'm pretty sure has two trade modules, and ended up creating trade routes back to that system that converged in an unoccupied system, creating a huge amount of flowing trade and thus maximum piracy.

Kind of amusing to think that if I delete those star bases, the piracy will go away.  I'll have to test that when I get home.

[EnigmaticHat]

In theory I think you could use trade protection fleets as sort of a "levy"; in wartime send them out and just accept the trade value loss.  In practice... AFAIK they only protect one system and I've always had somewhere else I'd rather put my ships.  If you do go that route corvettes are not only cheaper but provide more protection than larger hulls.

[ZeroGravitas]

I'm talking about the original research labs that upgraded into versions that would produce more of one or the other.  It was pointlessly micro intensive and it didn't matter because tech is a global resource and unlike the other global resources, you get no feedback when you run low.  So it was just... not rewarding or interesting.  There's little point to any tech modifiers that are local because they add up to either a lot of work for little effort, or forcing the player to do a bunch of mental math to achieve balanced research (which is broadly better than specialized because of how tech cost works).

I guess space deposits sort of matter, because in the extreme earlygame if you find 10 physics in neighboring systems that can be a huge spike (+33% I believe).  But again in the long term those are going to come out about average.  Ditto for the titanic lifeforms society research.

Edit: In edition to what Dunamisdeos said, if a starbase is in a system only it will collect from that system.  This doesn't really matter unless its within your homeworld's collection range, as all that trade is collected with no need for protection.  The trade collection range of a station is the number of trade hubs on it, so potentially 6 per starbase.  Also small ships are better for patrolling, hangars on starbases are really good (and protect at long range), and the max piracy value of a system is simply the amount of trade passing through it.  Finally, all pops produce trade value based on their social status (and possibly happiness?), so expect any populous world to become a trade hub eventually.

gotcha. yeah, definitely not like that with the upgrade paths. more things that were like the buildings i mentioned, but a greater variety, and more tie-ins to research projects (like an actual zoo building with society research and amenity jobs that unlocks when you finish the specimen collection quest for example.)

[EnigmaticHat]

Yeah that's fair.  So if you spam monuments and gene clinics you get a bunch of society research, if you spam some other thing that doesn't exist yet you get engineering research.  Makes sense.

[forsaken1111]

Okay. My new start with 'bigger colonies', 'planet view + 36 building slots' and 'crowded world' as UNE looks promising.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If this works out well I may do another try at a forum LP.

[ZeroGravitas]

Okay. My new start with 'bigger colonies', 'planet view + 36 building slots' and 'crowded world' as UNE looks promising.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If this works out well I may do another try at a forum LP.

this is already looking a lot better than the normal UI. keep it up.

[Cruxador]

In theory I think you could use trade protection fleets as sort of a "levy"; in wartime send them out and just accept the trade value loss.  In practice... AFAIK they only protect one system and I've always had somewhere else I'd rather put my ships.  If you do go that route corvettes are not only cheaper but provide more protection than larger hulls.

I think corvettes are mostly better for combat as well.

[ZeroGravitas]

Yeah that's fair.  So if you spam monuments and gene clinics you get a bunch of society research, if you spam some other thing that doesn't exist yet you get engineering research.  Makes sense.

ideally it would depend less on spamming buildings generally and more on things like, say, choosing to upgrade Alloy Forges into experimental metallurgy plants that don't produce (more) alloys but produce engineering research, or choosing to upgrade them into megaforges (as now)

[forsaken1111]

I'm actually thinking of making a mod full of 'side-grade' buildings that let you do stuff like that.

Like a food processing plant that also grants society research.

I'm also thinking of doing planetary decisions similar to the 'resort world' and 'penal world' that allow you to designate a world as a 'brain trust' for a science bonus and follow-on events that let you establish a research center dedicated to one of the science types.

[Telgin]

Yeah that's fair.  So if you spam monuments and gene clinics you get a bunch of society research, if you spam some other thing that doesn't exist yet you get engineering research.  Makes sense.

ideally it would depend less on spamming buildings generally and more on things like, say, choosing to upgrade Alloy Forges into experimental metallurgy plants that don't produce (more) alloys but produce engineering research, or choosing to upgrade them into megaforges (as now)

I like this idea a lot.  Meaningful choices there.

[Dunamisdeos]

Yeah that's fair.  So if you spam monuments and gene clinics you get a bunch of society research, if you spam some other thing that doesn't exist yet you get engineering research.  Makes sense.

ideally it would depend less on spamming buildings generally and more on things like, say, choosing to upgrade Alloy Forges into experimental metallurgy plants that don't produce (more) alloys but produce engineering research, or choosing to upgrade them into megaforges (as now)

I like this idea a lot.  Meaningful choices there.

That's a really good idea, I agree. But then you'd have to rework quite a bit. As it is I can't really spare my alloy/consumer goods factories for anything extra, often quite late into the game.

To be fair society research has always had an extra bias, with things like observation posts and the like. I always justified it to myself by thinking about how they've sort of combined biological/societal/governmental concepts into a single tree. Naturally there are more sources of research income because of the diversity of "society" research. You'd almost have to create a 4th type of research to fully compensate.

[Orb]

Physics is pretty light as well. I start running into repeatables before midgame crisis now.

[Telgin]

Well, I had a victory screen upset last night, as much as that really matters.  I was beating the fallen empires by a few thousand points and the victory year was closing in, when suddenly... the butterfly people of the militant isolationists vassalized another fallen empire and added 12,000 points to their score.  Then they did it to another one!  Victory was stolen from me at the last moment. 

The only consolation is that the crisis finally triggered in 2480 and they can't actually win until it's over.  I'm tempted to let the Prethoryn Scourge eat them so I'll win anyway.

In seriousness though, I'm just happy to see the Scourge since this is my first time with them.  I'm not really sure what to expect, but I'd built my fleet up to counter the Contingency and I'm worried that a shield heavy fleet isn't going to fare well.  I've got about 600K fleet power with ~15 levels of repeatable military techs of every relevant kind, and the crisis difficulty is 2.5x.  I'm fairly sure I'll be okay, although the Scourge hit the galaxy in a spot where two hostile empires are currently preventing me from responding to it, so it might spread a lot before I can engage it, and unlike the Contingency, I'm led to believe that can make the Scourge substantially stronger.

Edit: I'm also unsure if I should bother with titans.  I left enough unused command limit in each fleet to add a titan, but my experience with the Contingency is that they don't last long enough to be worth it.  The Unbidden were a different story though, and I don't think I lost a single ship beating them back.  So... maybe they work for the Scourge?

[Imic]

I’m thinking of getting Stellaris, but I’m waiting for the christmas sales (Tomorrow).
Should I get any of the dlc? It’s a bit of an extra pileup in the monetary sense, and I was thinking of maybe skipping them, but I’d like some outside people making suggestions.

[Shooer]

Utopia is probably my favorite DLC, and the only one I would call nearly necessary.  It adds what can be called a secondary tech tree.  This new avenue isn't randomized like the original tech tree but allows some easy early game adjustments/bonuses to various play styles.  This DLC also allows mega structures which truly allow a "tall" playstyle.  I've had games where I could take over a galaxy of 600 systems from 2-5 systems because I built "tall" over "wide."  Not saying the features of utopia allowed that but that it made it a lot more fun.

If you want to play as robots with a uniqueish experience get Synthetic Dawn.  I like it cause robots.  The removal of some challenges is replaces with others becoming harder/more pronounced.  Maybe not a great choice to go with a first purchase.

Leviathans is great if you liked being the guy to get to take down the Guardian of Orion and reaping the rewards.  Except there are half a dozen of them and some may or may not roam around being a mobile hazard.  Also builds out some of the "history" of the galaxy by adding minor factions to buy bonuses or gain story info from.

Distant Stars adds some new exploration stuff and a kind'a majorish thingy to the galaxy.  I would grab this after playing a bit, since it was designed to put more into the game to flesh it out for people playing it a lot already.

Apocalypses builds out the military end.  Planet killers and a new larger ship class.  I'd lump this in with Distant starts and Synthetic dawn as something to grab to add to the experience but not something to grab right away.