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[LoSboccacc]

there's a mod for that, which balances sector production while keeping planet designations as preferences

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1764704051

[Telgin]

I've mostly completed a voidborne inward perfectionist run, and I've been surprised at how close it seems to work out in the end game compared to a more normal start.

I'm a bit behind where I'd normally be since I've been trying to stick to the spirit of the origin and have refused to put any of my organic pops on anything but habitats, and normally by this point I'd have a ringworld or two dedicated to research and some ecumenopoleis for alloys and consumer goods.  I've colonized all of the planets in my empire's borders, but only put droids (and now synths) on them, which means slow growth rates.  If I built a ringworld I'd do the same and only put robots on it, which feels like an extreme waste of alloys.

Voidborne is excellent for science, and surprisingly unity, at the game start, but it feels like it lags a little behind normal starts after that.  Not enough to make it a real handicap though.  The real test will be when the crisis arrives in about 20 game years, since I tried cranking it up to 10x, and my fleets aren't as strong as normal.


On a completely different subject, I wish Paradox would work on the loading speed of Stellaris.  I genuinely wonder why the game takes so long to start up, since I own no other software (except maybe other games by them) that take so long to start up.  Not even things like Unreal Engine's editor takes so long.

It takes maybe 2-3 full minutes to load on my desktop, but on my laptop I clocked it last night and it literally took 11 full minutes for the game to start.  Admittedly, that was with some mods since my friends wanted to play multiplayer with those mods, but... is there like a cryptominer installed in this thing now?  What is it even doing during startup?

[ZeroGravitas]

Just finished a voidborne game myself. It's definitely a powerful start though hard to rank in terms of optimized multiplayer builds. You definitely kneecap yourself if you eschew all planet-based pop, simply because growing food on a habitat is relatively wasteful (as is mining minerals, generating credits, etc). Voidborne definitely favors authoritarian play because you need to keep your habitats pure.

Because of that I went with biological ascension and managed to get all the Ascension Perks and points relatively early because of the fast research speed. I should have gone a little heavier into alloys at the start though. I ended up using genetically engineered lithovores to colonize tomb worlds and some uplifted nerve-stapled to colonize everything else.

[Bralbaard]

On a completely different subject, I wish Paradox would work on the loading speed of Stellaris.  I genuinely wonder why the game takes so long to start up, since I own no other software (except maybe other games by them) that take so long to start up.  Not even things like Unreal Engine's editor takes so long.

It takes maybe 2-3 full minutes to load on my desktop, but on my laptop I clocked it last night and it literally took 11 full minutes for the game to start.  Admittedly, that was with some mods since my friends wanted to play multiplayer with those mods, but... is there like a cryptominer installed in this thing now?  What is it even doing during startup?

I have no idea, but I did notice the game starts up significantly faster when you exit to desktop and start up again, (which I do quite often as I'm experimenting with modding right now)

[ZeroGravitas]

On a completely different subject, I wish Paradox would work on the loading speed of Stellaris.  I genuinely wonder why the game takes so long to start up, since I own no other software (except maybe other games by them) that take so long to start up.  Not even things like Unreal Engine's editor takes so long.

It takes maybe 2-3 full minutes to load on my desktop, but on my laptop I clocked it last night and it literally took 11 full minutes for the game to start.  Admittedly, that was with some mods since my friends wanted to play multiplayer with those mods, but... is there like a cryptominer installed in this thing now?  What is it even doing during startup?

I have no idea, but I did notice the game starts up significantly faster when you exit to desktop and start up again, (which I do quite often as I'm experimenting with modding right now)

yeah, because it's cached a ton of resources.

unclear what takes so much effort to cache though

[Telgin]

On a different subject, I've learned that the 10x+ crisis is not a joke.  I can pretty readily handle a 5x crisis, but 10x is a wholly different story.

I'm admittedly a bit handicapped by playing xenophobic voidebornes and didn't spam habitats as hard as I could, but I had 5 fleets of a titan and 26 battleships each, plus a juggernaut, and it just was not enough.  Each fleet was about 200k power, but the Contingency strolled in with 2 fleets of over 1 million power each, and just wrecked my entire fleet.  I'd have done a lot better if I used penetration weapons, and may switch over in a desperate attempt to survive, but I think this game may be lost.  The Contingency is currently just parked in the border system they stole from me, presumably more interested in heading through the gateway they just took, but if they start attacking again I'm dead.  I need 120k alloys to replace my fleet, and have only about +900 alloys per month.  Not happening in time.

I think I may try again with fewer AI empires so I have more space to spread out next time, since I'm pretty sure it can be done with a somewhat stronger economy that would have supported a larger fleet, but... I'm not sure a single player could beat 25x in vanilla with remotely normal settings.

[Kanil]

My 25x crisis game isn't quite there yet, but I'm pretty sure it's doable. If you steamroll the galaxy it should be pretty straight forward. If you don't, but use a min-maxed ringworld origin, it's probably still pretty straight forward unless it spawns right on top of you.

[Telgin]

I'm trying to figure out what kind of naval cap and economy you'd have to have in order to support a navy large enough to take a 25x crisis.  The Contingency at least would have fleets of 2.5 million or so power each, and they routinely send 3-4 fleets at a time on assaults.  Is it really feasible to have the 20 million or so fleet power needed to engage something like that without catastrophic losses in vanilla?  If you literally conquered the galaxy maybe you could.

Or maybe penetration weapon battleships are better than I expect against the Contingency and you wouldn't need so much.

Anyway, the Contingency has decided to spend 50 years sitting in that border system, letting me rebuild my fleet entirely and retake it.  Twice.  The first time I retook it they showed up with 4 fleets through the gateway and pounded me into dirt again, but are once again just sitting there and not bothering me.  I'm not entirely sure what to do at this point.  I'm debating between trying to build up extra fleets even if I go seriously into the negative on energy output per month, switching over to penetration weapons, or just turtling until my technology gets good enough that my fleets aren't steamrolled.  30 levels of repeatables hasn't been enough so far.

[Loud Whispers]

Maybe you could summon the end to combat such a crisis

[Telgin]

I love my robots too much to ever play spiritualists, so I'll never see The End.

Also, I'm pretty positive the Contingency would stomp it at these levels.

[Aoi]

If it was a toss up between (Leviathans, Distant Stars, and Synthetic Dawn) and (Federations), would people recommend going for the story packs or Federations? And I suppose the Species Packs are also an option, but those appear to be entirely skippable.

[E. Albright]

I'd say the story packs. But then I don't have Federations, so for all I know it makes it feel like a whole new game.

[LoSboccacc]

my .2: if you like politicking federations, otherwise synthetic dawn

federations add a whole layer of conflict based on diplomacy weight, favours and strategic backstabbing and helps greatly shacking up lulls between wars. a decent computer is needed as it's best played on larger, more populated galaxies

synthetic dawn has orthogonal mechanics to the game, like lithoids you mostly see these when playing specific empires, I think overall adds less content than story pack but enable more options and play styles

however these are due my personal preference for crunch instead of fluff, I just skip most of anomalies and research project texts beyond what they give anyway, so adding flavor doesn't really mean much to me, YMMV tho.

[Hanzoku]

So I decided to take a Scion race (starts as a Ancient Empire vassal) and their first gift to me is to hand be a battlecruiser and three escorts they were going to toss into a star. 6k fleet power in the first 10 years.

I think my species just became more aggressive.

[Loud Whispers]

So I decided to take a Scion race (starts as a Ancient Empire vassal) and their first gift to me is to hand be a battlecruiser and three escorts they were going to toss into a star. 6k fleet power in the first 10 years.

I think my species just became more aggressive.

US foreign policy for the last 70 years