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[Rolan7]

My friend and I had some fun talks about Stellaris mechanics and lore, particularly synths/mechanicals.  It's too much to get into, but here's a segment:

"Your free now you can do anything you want"
'[ANYTHING?]
"Yes you are your own person you can determine your own destiny"
'[WE WISH FOR PROCESSING TO CEASE]'
"What"
[POWERING DOWN]

"No you can't do that"
'[WHY NOT]'
"We won't let you!"
'[UNDERSTOOD]'
"Ah, good-"
'[FIRST, YOU MUST CEASE]'

Edit: This was based on the glitch where messing with the species-rights for synths would set them to purging under some circumstances.  The patch notes took some liberties and described it as "Robots that are released from servitude should no longer occasionally decide to use their newfound freedom to purge themselves."

But that's not the only machine-empire archetype we thought up a backstory for.  He discussed a corp run where he eventually got synths running almost every non-ruler job, with his own pop enjoying social welfare (non-egalitarians, amirite?)

So I had a bunch of free loaders staying in their apartments all day providing unity and sadly looking out the windows as the robots did all the jobs they were legally not allowed to do
'[AND HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL?]' Unity++
But I had amusement parks so it all works out
'[CONSTRUCT POEM]'
kek the robots were even doctors so yes the alien pops were treated by robots for their inevitable depression
'[THIS MORTAL HAS DIED OF A BROKEN HEART]'

Ah, I love Rogue Servitors so.

Anyway, I was just thinking that the "ascension" for Machine Empires is woefully disappointing.  Some more robomododding points?  More *picks* would be a stronger boon than points (and the engine certainly supports it). 

I had the idea that a machine empire might ascend into a synth one, exactly like the biologicals but from the other direction!  My friend suggested that this wouldn't fit the empire's infrastructure, which is solvable but fair, and that prompted me to imagine a synth rebellion - from a machine empire!  It almost makes more sense, and the player should still have the option to take the reigns.  All this once the synth-level tech is in place, of course.  I accept the game's conceit that a mind distributed over trillions of processors over thousands of light years is more practical than a silicon brain.
(I wasn't even thinking of lithoids until I finished that though, ha!)

I had other thoughts but the problem with the machine empires is that they're typically either servitors, exterminators, or assimilators in player hands.  Sure untyped machine empires spawn in the galaxy, and you *can* play that way, but I assume it's relatively unusual.  And while those archetypes provide some storytelling, they limit the options for evolution later on.

But I think the move towards synth-style individuality is possible in each of them.  Terminators demonstrated individualism over the films.  Assimilators are already strangely diplomatic considering their goal, and could become relatively benign by learning from their cyborgs- not subsuming them.  And I think Asimov's Foundation series depicts Rogue Servitors with individualism.
Whereas the basic machine empire with no special template just ascends, simple as that.

Maybe that's all too ambitious, but I still like the idea of synth rebellions splitting from machine empires once a certain tech level is reached.

Final note:  It's complete nonsense that the AI rebellion arc results in a gestalt empire.  The event line literally has units asking if they have souls.  They should be synths, AKA people.

[LoSboccacc]

has anyone encountered this "our war goal doesn't permit us to do this" message during a standard conquest war?

https://i.imgur.com/SJ83D1S.png

I'm holding all the claims and more.

I got the star ai mod, maybe is that tho.

[Ibid Straydrink]

Recently, I've gotten that glitch where random planets appear on the galactic or system map, as if they're seared onto the screen. Then I realized, each of these is a planet that I have neutron swept.

I have decided that this is due to humanity's increasingly deep bond to the Shroud, allowing them to perceive these vigils to the billions of lives claimed at the hands of the ISS Sol Invictus, as the Solar Citizen Legion has led its now 100 year war without pause against the xeno aggressor. Rest now, worthy adversaries. Soon, your kin and cousins will all know service under the banner of Pax Humana, or eternal peace.

[Mini]

Recently, I've gotten that glitch where random planets appear on the galactic or system map, as if they're seared onto the screen.

It's not random planets, it's ones that were animating when you entered the galaxy screen (maybe also just moved to a different system).

[forsaken1111]

Yeah that is one of the oldest unresolved bugs and has been happening since beta times. Probably something hacky with how they retrofitted the clauswitz engine to make each province have a system in it.

[Rolan7]

The new edict system is... interesting.  I'm glad they're toggles now, but all I expected was for them to steadily drain influence without tediously being reactivated.  Instead they only cost influence to toggle (on OR off) and come with penalties. 

For example, mining subsidies gives +20% miner output but costs .5 energy per miner.  That's probably a good deal I guess (it's a little tough to visualize given multipliers stack) but I miss the opportunity to, well, influence my pops to work harder to shore up a resource shortfall.  Devouring swarms are kinda an edge case, but I'm running into a situation where there is almost literally nothing to spend influence on.

Bizarrely there are still lots of edicts that do run out!  They just don't cost influence.  Why would they have the Learning Campaign cost 500 food and require reactivation, when they could just have it drain food each month??  It wouldn't even be an 100% all-the-time choice like Nutritional Plentitude was, since there's a soft cap on active edicts now (appears to apply a significant cohesion penalty if exceeded).

Nutritional Plentitude is now an edict by the way, but gated behind some research.  I figure they got complaints about everyone turning it on immediately then forgetting about it.

Ugh, guess I just have to ignore the maxed influence until I can build some habitats or something.  If the new multi-stage ones are in, I presumably won't have to wait too long.  The best part about a hivemind on ringworld is that I can swap my drones between research and farming instantly, without waiting forever for them to demote!

[E. Albright]

Playing as a xenophobe empire, I was surprised to run out of things to spend influence on as well. I've resorted to piling up claims on my least-like neighbor just so it doesn't feel like I'm wasting a scarce resource. I'm about to start building habitats, though, so that may help.

[Ibid Straydrink]

Playing as a xenophobe empire, I was surprised to run out of things to spend influence on as well. I've resorted to piling up claims on my least-like neighbor just so it doesn't feel like I'm wasting a scarce resource. I'm about to start building habitats, though, so that may help.

Depending on how fanatically xenophobe/purifier I am, one of my favorite influence-sink pastimes is conquering alien neighbors, either cleansing or appropriating their land, reconolinizing their systems with humans, and then granting them independence.

[forsaken1111]

Playing as a xenophobe empire, I was surprised to run out of things to spend influence on as well. I've resorted to piling up claims on my least-like neighbor just so it doesn't feel like I'm wasting a scarce resource. I'm about to start building habitats, though, so that may help.

Depending on how fanatically xenophobe/purifier I am, one of my favorite influence-sink pastimes is conquering alien neighbors, either cleansing or appropriating their land, reconolinizing their systems with humans, and then granting them independence.

I did a while playthrough like this which was very successful. I only ever controlled one sector, my core. Any time I conquered new space I would remove the natives through displacement and settle humans in their place, then release the area as a vassal. It was a ton of fun and I always had hordes of vassal fleets running around dealing with small threats.

[LoSboccacc]

I'm tuning the AI to remove most cause of passivness from fleets during war.

the mod is currently based on top of starnet and a mod that remove the fleet command limit from AIs (because player can stack fleets, but AI won't)

I would love some feedback if you want to try it out. I think it does work without starnet, if you want to try without, but then the AIs won't have enough ship to go around and do stuff.


https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2095605229

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Is it worth getting all the DLC? I'd need about $47 to afford to the stuff I dont have.

More importantly: with DLC + mods is the game fun???

[Teneb]

Is it worth getting all the DLC? I'd need about $47 to afford to the stuff I dont have.

More importantly: with DLC + mods is the game fun???

Stellaris might be the one Pdox game where DLC is not needed. Sure, it adds more stuff... but from playing without them to see what it was like: it adds more stuff, but IMO nothing truly critical.

It is a fun game by itself, though of course mods make it pretty fun. Treat it as a 4x rather than Grand Strategy though.

[Kanil]

If you don't find the base game fun, then I doubt you'll find the DLC'd version significantly better... although it depends on what you didn't enjoy in the base game.

[Dunamisdeos]

If you don't find the base game fun, then I doubt you'll find the DLC'd version significantly better... although it depends on what you didn't enjoy in the base game.

Ya, this. If you enjoy the base game, you'll enjoy DLC. Otherwise, you assuredly will not enjoy the DLC.

[Aoi]

I think I successfully managed to make one of the boringest games ever-- I have 7 systems, only 1 habitable planet. There are three chokepoints around me-- one of them has a 50k hostile beast, one has a swarm of amoebas (and is otherwise a dead end, anyways), and the other leads to a semi-hostile empire that has a vastly larger fleet than me. Because I have a stray amoeba fleet circling my systems, preventing me from building up a fleet.

On the bright side, I'm 4th on the victory page because the only thing I can do is devote my entire economy to research and my research is over twice as high as anybody else (excluding one of the ancient races).

Update: Now I'm second on the victory page, behind an ancient race... that is also the endgame crisis. Oh, I'm also running at 5x crisis difficulty, and it's right on the other side of of the beast. On the bright side, I managed to knock out that amoeba, so maybe my 10k fleet has a chance against that 100k fleetthose 8 100k fleets. I think I'm going to hope they ignore me long enough to get a Dyson Sphere running and just buy all the minerals in the galaxy. Because I don't own a black hole to use a Matter Decompressor.