Paradox Grand Strat meets Sci-Fi 4X; Boners Explode

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Wed May 11, 2016 2:41 pm #175703

Bottom post of the previous page:

The problem with doing something like this is that unless we all install the custom files as well, the game will not let you join our games.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Wed May 11, 2016 3:35 pm #175712

Steelpoint wrote:I've started to mix up my battle fleets to create a more versitile war machine.

My big problem I found early on was adapting to different empires weapons and defenses, just me stacking my main weapon type and one defense option was not good enough as oft I could run into my hard counter.

So I'm going more so with having half my fleet running my empires main weapon (missiles in my current game), with the other half running a variation of weapons, with each ship dedicated to a single weapon type. So some ships purely used Point Defense and Kinetic Weapons while others use torpedoes and the such.

I've also seen not to neglect using lower level ships in your fleets. Small ships like the Corvette and the like are special in that they are very hard to hit. Whereas larger ships like Cruisers and Battleships are all but guaranteed to get hit by a weapon.

In this aspect playing EVE online actually kinda helped. FITTIN SHIPS BAYBEE.

I don't want to give specific fits because people will counter pick them but I've found that basically you want to split your weapons between two types and omnitank it.
Trying to stack it all in one so that you can blow an empire out is not worth the risk of getting blown out yourself. If you are getting your shit pushed in by an empire, by all means draft up the counter-pick corvette and spam that shit out of your spacedocks until they've been repelled.

Outside of that the only concrete tech I've found that actually works is researching up bigass subspace engines to GO FAST and then loading your ship up with ballistic weapons. Ballistic weapons have the highest DPS out of all three trees but the problem with them is they have the shortest range. They shred through shields, which a lot of empires seem to prefer because of the innate regeneration and massive HP buffs they give.

Remember kids:

Shields are countered by Torpedoes, Ballistics, and special Disruptors
Armor is countered by Beam Weapons and Plasma Weapons

Missiles don't really seem to counter anything, they just have the advantage of a disgustingly long range allowing you to get a bunch of volleys in before anyone packing other stuff gets a chance to start firing.

In turn Missiles get fucked over by Point Defense. Beam Weapons by Shields, and Ballistic Weapons by Armor.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Wed May 11, 2016 3:46 pm #175714

Whatever you go with the core of my theory is that each ship should only predominantly use one weapon type. So you have a Missile ship or a Ballistic ship. At best I've mixed in some higher tier weapons with the higher level ships such as throwing a Torpedo on my Cruiser or mixing point defence with my autocannon Destroyers and such.

When it comes to armour or shields you can play it safe by mixing it up with half armour and half shields. If you know your nearby enemies are committing to one weapon type then by all means stack up their counter armour/defence. But I don't want to take a chance with my weapons and so I spread them out.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Wed May 11, 2016 4:03 pm #175717

I'd need to test out the DPS comparison but it seems like splitting your attack between two types is more optimal. I've caught the AI fleets doing it, and learned to do it from fighting with them.

Two guns and a beam, for example, lets you burn down the shields very quickly and then the beam goes to work on their armor where the guns are less effective.

Testing is required to see which configuration can take down a mixed shield/armor ship faster, that setup or something that is triple gun/triple beam. What I've learned from watching every AI I battle and my experiences fighting mixed configurations is that splitting it is better.

MORE FUN GUN STUFF:

Size relationships in weapons are not simply "bigger is better". The size of a weapon correlates to what it is best against. Small weapons are good against small ships. Medium weapons against medium sized ships, etc. Don't put medium turrets on corvettes unless you're trying to hunt bigger ships. Blobbing up a ton of corvettes with all small gun mounts on them stops being effective as soon as your opponents start fielding bigger ships (but until then, it's fuckin' great!). A handful of medium sized ships with small gun mounts on them can utterly decimate a 'vette blob that's been harassing the universe this way.

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Wed May 11, 2016 4:38 pm #175724

What about fighters? They can only go in H mounts (so cruisers and up but military stations too) and I've seen you can even research some space amoeba fighters. Can't wait for battleships so I can make my own amoeba-battlestar

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Wed May 11, 2016 4:42 pm #175726

Amoeba fighters? Does this mean the fighters are organic/free?

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Wed May 11, 2016 4:50 pm #175730

Does this seem like a good approximation of Nanotrasen?
https://kaisersly.github.io/stellaris_r ... s=12,18,23

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Wed May 11, 2016 4:58 pm #175732

I think plutoligarchy is the one you can upgrade into megacorporation eventually, so yeah

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Wed May 11, 2016 5:01 pm #175733

Zilenan91 wrote:Amoeba fighters? Does this mean the fighters are organic/free?

I didn't get to try them yet but they look just like the wandering space amoebas in the preview pic. Also they deal 2x damage more than regular fighters

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Wed May 11, 2016 6:49 pm #175759

So for a NT civ... Centration as the home system star, and Centcomm as the capital planet?

Also I used repugnant for NT humans(They're meant to be humans) because Assistants and thrifty because Centcomm Shekel hunting.

And Militarist because Death Squads.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Wed May 11, 2016 6:55 pm #175763

I don't think Militarist fits NT. They're an undisciplined bunch of idiots. Just look at your average Sec Officer getting his ass kicked by a random Assistant. Xenophobic may be more fitting.

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Wed May 11, 2016 6:57 pm #175764

ThanatosRa wrote:Does this seem like a good approximation of Nanotrasen?
https://kaisersly.github.io/stellaris_r ... s=12,18,23

>nt
>not decadent

Also what anon said.
can't believe i'm justifying the enslavement of the glorious reptilian master race

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Wed May 11, 2016 6:58 pm #175765

NT isn't xenophobic, it's EarthGov that is. They forced NT to stop lizards from being in command.

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Wed May 11, 2016 7:02 pm #175767

Zilenan91 wrote:NT isn't xenophobic, it's EarthGov that is. They forced NT to stop lizards from being in command.

>>>/bay/

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Wed May 11, 2016 7:13 pm #175774

That's our lore on the wiki though, NT wanted lizards but they got forced to demote them out of command by Earth government

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Wed May 11, 2016 7:18 pm #175775

That's the point, the wiki is hella outdated and no one sticks to the lore, anyway.

Most players on the server treat NT as the government, period, and all of its employees are literally referred to as slaves in their employment contracts (a bit of hilarity when playing lawyer).
'sides, not often that a corporation gets deathsquads and military ships.

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Wed May 11, 2016 7:26 pm #175780

Hows this for a revising?
https://kaisersly.github.io/stellaris_r ... s=14,18,21

Decadent because NT, Rapid Breeders because Cloning? Xenophobe to facilitate enslavement.

starmute · Post by **starmute** » Wed May 11, 2016 7:44 pm #175782

An0n3 wrote:I'd need to test out the DPS comparison but it seems like splitting your attack between two types is more optimal. I've caught the AI fleets doing it, and learned to do it from fighting with them.

Two guns and a beam, for example, lets you burn down the shields very quickly and then the beam goes to work on their armor where the guns are less effective.

Testing is required to see which configuration can take down a mixed shield/armor ship faster, that setup or something that is triple gun/triple beam. What I've learned from watching every AI I battle and my experiences fighting mixed configurations is that splitting it is better.

MORE FUN GUN STUFF:

Size relationships in weapons are not simply "bigger is better". The size of a weapon correlates to what it is best against. Small weapons are good against small ships. Medium weapons against medium sized ships, etc. Don't put medium turrets on corvettes unless you're trying to hunt bigger ships. Blobbing up a ton of corvettes with all small gun mounts on them stops being effective as soon as your opponents start fielding bigger ships (but until then, it's fuckin' great!). A handful of medium sized ships with small gun mounts on them can utterly decimate a 'vette blob that's been harassing the universe this way.

You don't have to worry about shields that much early in the game. Focus more on beams. Missles have longer range and can rip through shields as well but are countered easily by PD weaponry. If you catch your opponent using lots of missles put a few corvettes with nothing but PD in there and it'll stop each missle 40% of the time + evasion.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Wed May 11, 2016 7:47 pm #175783

>NT aren't Xenophobic

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh did you just somehow happen to miss all the GAS THE LIZARDS RACE WAR NOW shit?

>m-muh lore

That's just the head-canon for a handful of people who wrote the wiki. Out of thousands of people who have played the game. Go by what actually happens in games on servers.

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Wed May 11, 2016 7:59 pm #175786

I'd say take Slow Learners (compare: average crew intelligence), drop Rapid Breeders and grab Adaptive (making fucking lavaland habitable).

Or maybe Conformists, because loyalty implants.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Wed May 11, 2016 8:00 pm #175787

Ayyy sorry cant host tonight. Going out and stuff.

starmute · Post by **starmute** » Wed May 11, 2016 8:00 pm #175788

Admins are a fallen empire

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Wed May 11, 2016 8:06 pm #175790

starmute wrote:Admins are a fallen empire

Admins are the Prethoryn Scourge.
Coders are the Unbidden.

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Wed May 11, 2016 8:09 pm #175792

DemonFiren wrote:
starmute wrote:Admins are a fallen empire
Admins are the Prethoryn Scourge.
Coders are the Unbidden.

https://kaisersly.github.io/stellaris_r ... s=19,23,26

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Wed May 11, 2016 8:16 pm #175794

What is coderbus, then?

What is singulo?

Incomptinence · Wed May 11, 2016 8:17 pm

Looks like all the "oversize" versions of things are just generated off one of your designs with a 50% bonus to all modules.

Looks like dictatorships got shafted I don't know if their heir gets any policies or bonuses but even then half a lifetime before that shit activates. Oligarchies get agendas that are basically an extra set of government modifiers and democracies get to make it rain influence and minerals if they keep swapping dudes with a discount to resource stations and quest for those.

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Wed May 11, 2016 8:33 pm #175796

at some point in the past a massive war destroyed most infrastructure and after that megacorporations seized control of space, without any influence from Earth to stop them

Nanotrasen used to be a small player but thanks to the discovery of plasma they quickly became the biggest, and the other megacorps banded together in the Syndicate to stop them

that is the "lore" as far as I understood it, with enough vagueness to let people fill it in as they need for their character/situation

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Wed May 11, 2016 8:43 pm #175797

the syndicate could be another materialist oligarchy. A pity that specific rivalries can't be forced.

and I guess NT would probably use plain old lasers and warp drive too.
First NT leader Hugh Griffin?

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Wed May 11, 2016 9:11 pm #175800

I think I've found a bug, sometimes trading just stops working, I set a trade with an AI empire and it was in the green, I click confirm, nothing happens. I try with different empires, it doesn't work. Reloading the save seems to fix it. Can be game breaking if you're relying on trade to keep your balance (eg. fucktons of minerals and -30 energy)

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Wed May 11, 2016 9:20 pm #175806

we still doin this today or nah

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Wed May 11, 2016 9:31 pm #175810

Ricotez wrote:we still doin this today or nah

Well An0n3 said he couldn't host. And I don't feel ready for online play yet. Dunno.

ThatSlyFox · Post by **ThatSlyFox** » Wed May 11, 2016 11:11 pm #175839

Is it possible to join mid-game while players are still playing? I won't be able to join at 6pm but I could hop in around 7pm.

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Wed May 11, 2016 11:19 pm #175841

Bought Stellaris, gonna purge purge purge purge purge purge purge purge purge purge

Edit : Gonna try making The Syndicate megacorp wish me luck

starmute · Post by **starmute** » Thu May 12, 2016 2:09 am #175880

We should start a game @4 pm est on saterday. Anon are you okay with this?

Drynwyn · Post by **Drynwyn** » Thu May 12, 2016 2:17 am #175882

An0n3 wrote: THE GENOCIDE OF MY PEOPLE? NAH MAN I CALL THAT EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES OPENING UP
THIS AINT A WAR ITS A CAREER FAIR

i laughed so goddamn hard at this

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Thu May 12, 2016 2:39 am #175887

Damn, didn't let me use decadent for NT despite having Xenophobia. Weird. We'll just use Repugnant instead because Fuck NT.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Thu May 12, 2016 3:17 am #175894

ThanatosRa wrote:Damn, didn't let me use decadent for NT despite having Xenophobia. Weird. We'll just use Repugnant instead because Fuck NT.

Go with Slow Learner

"WITHOUT OXIGEN BLOB CANT EVUALOATE"
"What the fuck is Carbon Dioxide?"

starmute wrote:We should start a game @4 pm est on saterday. Anon are you okay with this?

Another new game? If that's what the majority want I'm just here to make everyone happy.
Hey wait a minute, I think I've said that before...long ago...

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Thu May 12, 2016 8:09 am #175920

Is there anything you can do with pre-sentient species? I colonized a planet and there is a bunch of those dumb bugs occupying my tiles, apparently I can recruit them in the army but they don't harvest resources... Purge time?

Incomptinence · Thu May 12, 2016 11:25 am

There is a tech called epigenetic triggers but you need genome mapping to get there. Look out for the little helix that gives tiny pointless bonuses you have probably skipped it a few times.

It's not great but it is a prerequisite for the full on genetic modification techs, fair warning for the sake of xenophobes if you genetically modify your entire race shit gets really broken because everyone is aliens for leadership purposes and there isn't a way to change what you founding race is. Try having a biology specialist on society research. Also leads up the clone/gene warrio line for militarists mainly if you wanna pretend to be spess mehrenes.

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Thu May 12, 2016 11:34 am #175945

I don't really want anther free game, because of my timezone I always have to leave right when the early game grind is over and things start to get interesting, and then return when suddenly shit is complicated and I have to figure out why I'm at war with these walking molds who live on the other side of the galaxy.

srifenbyxp · Post by **srifenbyxp** » Thu May 12, 2016 12:50 pm #175955

starmute wrote:We should start a game @4 pm est on saterday. Anon are you okay with this?

I sure am, mind making it 4:30 / 5PM ish? I wake up at 4pm from work so it'd take me about 10 - 15 minutes to get situated, I'm very punctual by the way. We should also have a tiny or small universe to enable a win-rar in a sit through.

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Thu May 12, 2016 2:36 pm #175975

Incomptinence wrote:There is a tech called epigenetic triggers but you need genome mapping to get there. Look out for the little helix that gives tiny pointless bonuses you have probably skipped it a few times.

It's not great but it is a prerequisite for the full on genetic modification techs, fair warning for the sake of xenophobes if you genetically modify your entire race shit gets really broken because everyone is aliens for leadership purposes and there isn't a way to change what you founding race is. Try having a biology specialist on society research. Also leads up the clone/gene warrio line for militarists mainly if you wanna pretend to be spess mehrenes.

Welp too late I already purged them. I've found the atomic wastelands of Earth and it's inhabited by radioactive cockroaches, I'll try to hold on them until I have the tech 'cause they have the rare tomb world preference

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Thu May 12, 2016 7:38 pm #176052

I'm up to host our game again at 4:30pm EST

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Fri May 13, 2016 2:06 am #176119

Slowly expanding my empire, became best buds with another empire that kicked my ass earlier but I forced them (?) into a draw by taking over the only planet I needed for my warscore. The system is weird but it's nice that an enemy cannot completely curbstomp you in a single go, total domination takes time.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Fri May 13, 2016 2:14 am #176120

Gobbled up a bunch of shit after figure out efficient ways to wardec people and consume them.

PRO-TIP you can avoid the 10 year cool down on kicking someone's ass by wardec'ing one of their allies, then putting more of their stuff in your prize pool.
I was able to entirely consume a neighbor to the north this way by first invading him, taking three of his planets, then declaring war on one of his buddies and claiming his last two as my prize.
I've fully integrated my two vassals and enslaved three (four?) other empires. I've researched a slave control chip I can implant into fuckers and then conscript them as chattels. It's fucking great.

Colonic also declared war on someone I was already in a war with, but he vassalized them instead of just conquering them and also took a planet that was part of my war plan, totally fucking up my invasion plans.
Now if I want to finish them off and gobble up the rest of their crap I have to also go to war with Colonic.

Bro I got nearly 20k fleets and so much shit I've had to break my empire into six subsectors come at me bro.

OH ONE MORE THING: don't keep people enslaved. By that I don't mean release them, I mean purge them one at a time to free up a slot on the planet and migrate one of your native pops there until the entire planet has been subsumed by your people. If you're expanding fast enough that you have a lot of vacant room break up the slaves and spread them around the universe so you don't have entire planets of nothing but slaves.

If your liberated pops are getting unruly, don't just purge one as a show of force. It scares them but ultimately doesn't solve the problem. Either purge them all and repopulate the planet with your own species, or break them up again and spread them throughout the universe so they can't properly assemble. Don't let anatagonists be the majority pop on any planet and you'll be alright. Requires a bit of work to make it happen sometimes, make sure your policies afford forced migrations and shit.

I do wish you had just a little more control over your sectors, the ability to swoop in and override one of their decisions on a building or something for example. Some of my planets don't have my slave factories, I researched some other facilities that disperse all kinds of mind-fucking gas and propaganda to a planet to keep them in line and I'd love to put those on some planets I had conquered and sector'ed off ages ago. I could do the micromanagement to remove them from a sector singly, force through the changes, and then re-add them but it would cost a bit of influence per planet and be a lot of dumb clicking. A simple "pay some influence to over-ride a building" mechanic maybe.

Incomptinence · Fri May 13, 2016 2:37 am

Not gotten that far into the game yet solo been mostly doing early game shit. My strategy so far early game is beat the shit out of federation builders before they have a trillion buddies for just existing.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Fri May 13, 2016 2:40 am #176122

I have gobbled up to the north far enough to hit Giacom's decently sized empire. Then I ate all his neighbors.

The best part about slavery isn't forcing people into working their planets for you; it's definitely that conscription tech holy shit.

You get armies that have assault unit atk (230) but only basic def (200). What makes them so good is that they only cost 20 minerals a piece, very low maintenance, and build pretty damn quickly.
So you're getting a unit that has base atk stronger than the defensive unit, at 10 minerals LESS than what a defender usually costs. At increased build speed to boot.

So yeah the slavery strat for aggressive war-races is definitely top-tier. Slave revolts needed to be implemented STAT this is pretty fucking brutal.
Their biggest downside is the lack of tech boosts for fast research and the irony that you will expand your empire so big so fast that you will have trouble managing it.

Incomptinence · Fri May 13, 2016 2:59 am

Yeah expanding without slavery means actually keeping things stable. Enslave and purge should make the pop literally scream to try and get out.

While I want to think elite armies can work basically being a mild downgrade to the assault army at a third of the price with rapid production means that the top of the line gene warrior costs over 17 times more than the slave. Even if I can leverage his better stats in an engagement thats like 16 free slave armies to be used wherever.

Edit: Oh fuck never give fresh colonies to a sector they can't upgrade to planetary capitals.

srifenbyxp · Post by **srifenbyxp** » Fri May 13, 2016 8:50 am #176152

So I came across my first fallen empire and holy shit, these people are like kyoto from shogun total war. They have just stupidly retardedly strong fleets and the smallest I saw was like 21k and warp anywhere

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Fri May 13, 2016 12:09 pm #176170

Is there a way to prevent only specific species from migrating? I uplifted those nuclear cockroaches and they're fine and everything but they give -5 happiness to other pops on the same planet, so I'd rather only use them for tomb worlds and don't have them spread out

srifenbyxp · Post by **srifenbyxp** » Fri May 13, 2016 12:15 pm #176171

If you click on your flag you can set your policy like migration, as for a certain species I don't think you can, its either primary/xenos/all. If you by chance have purge or collectivism I think it's called you can purge XENOS SCUM population.