Author Topic: Stellaris  (Read 24913 times)

Offline Aklyon

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Re: Stellaris
« Reply #75 on: May 11, 2016, 01:28:47 am »
Turn on detail map mode, madcow. Shows lots of things, lots of the time.

Offline eRe4s3r

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Re: Stellaris
« Reply #76 on: May 11, 2016, 06:55:00 am »
Well, what if you kept your major shipbuilders out of sectors?

Its not a pretty idea, but I bet it'd work until you need to build a lot of ships simultaneously.

You probably could do this.

I don't think the game FORCES you to stick everything into sectors or even use them at all.   And for more "important" areas you might be best retaining all control anyway.

Well I installed the no limits mod and am happy ;)
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Offline madcow

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Re: Stellaris
« Reply #77 on: May 11, 2016, 08:49:18 am »
Turn on detail map mode, madcow. Shows lots of things, lots of the time.

What. How do you even do this? I didn't see it in the game settings.

Offline Aklyon

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Re: Stellaris
« Reply #78 on: May 11, 2016, 09:30:42 am »
Turn on detail map mode, madcow. Shows lots of things, lots of the time.

What. How do you even do this? I didn't see it in the game settings.
Either hold alt or click the box in the bottom right corner.

Offline madcow

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Re: Stellaris
« Reply #79 on: May 11, 2016, 10:51:09 am »
Nice. I'll have to check it out then, thanks!

I do think a manual or otherwise a place that had a bunch of info actually written out would have been nice. Civ really has that nailed as I recall. Something Paradox could really learn from.

I'm sort of surprised by smooth (so far) the game had run. CK2 brings my laptop to its knees, even just loading times are bad. It really overheats my computer bad too - no issues with Stellaris performance wise for me (yet). Maybe because I'm still just early game but that really surprised me.

Offline crazyroosterman

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Re: Stellaris
« Reply #80 on: May 11, 2016, 01:07:35 pm »
Well, what if you kept your major shipbuilders out of sectors?

Its not a pretty idea, but I bet it'd work until you need to build a lot of ships simultaneously.

You probably could do this.

I don't think the game FORCES you to stick everything into sectors or even use them at all.   And for more "important" areas you might be best retaining all control anyway.

Well I installed the no limits mod and am happy ;)
so does that allow to automate planet production stuff? is so I think I'm going to buy into this game in like the next day or so although I probably won't get round to playing it for a while.
c.r

Offline eRe4s3r

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Re: Stellaris
« Reply #81 on: May 11, 2016, 01:29:14 pm »
Well, what if you kept your major shipbuilders out of sectors?

Its not a pretty idea, but I bet it'd work until you need to build a lot of ships simultaneously.

You probably could do this.

I don't think the game FORCES you to stick everything into sectors or even use them at all.   And for more "important" areas you might be best retaining all control anyway.

Well I installed the no limits mod and am happy ;)
so does that allow to automate planet production stuff? is so I think I'm going to buy into this game in like the next day or so although I probably won't get round to playing it for a while.

Eh.. no. You either have Sector = planet gov or manual all the way, removing a "system" from a sector costs a ton of influence in-game. I modded the cost of removing planets from sectors to 0 and that fixes this issue kinda (along with half a dozen other ones like not being able to build any colony ships on those sector planet (the sector controls them and doesn't use them, not you)...

Like any Paradox game you should wait a few weeks for patches.. there are quite a few bugs, some potentially very annoying ;p
« Last Edit: May 11, 2016, 01:31:29 pm by eRe4s3r »
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Offline crazyroosterman

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Re: Stellaris
« Reply #82 on: May 11, 2016, 01:36:07 pm »
Well, what if you kept your major shipbuilders out of sectors?

Its not a pretty idea, but I bet it'd work until you need to build a lot of ships simultaneously.

You probably could do this.

I don't think the game FORCES you to stick everything into sectors or even use them at all.   And for more "important" areas you might be best retaining all control anyway.

Well I installed the no limits mod and am happy ;)
so does that allow to automate planet production stuff? is so I think I'm going to buy into this game in like the next day or so although I probably won't get round to playing it for a while.

Eh.. no. You either have Sector = planet gov or manual all the way, removing a "system" from a sector costs a ton of influence in-game. I modded the cost of removing planets from sectors to 0 and that fixes this issue kinda (along with half a dozen other ones like not being able to build any colony ships on those sector planet (the sector controls them and doesn't use them, not you)...

Like any Paradox game you should wait a few weeks for patches.. there are quite a few bugs, some potentially very annoying ;p
sigh okay then its just the selling point for me really is the fact that you can encounter species of creatures without space tech and do things like enslave them that to me just sounds fascinating.
c.r

Offline Aklyon

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Re: Stellaris
« Reply #83 on: May 11, 2016, 01:47:22 pm »
You can't do all that much with them unless you meet one you can uplift.

Offline Toranth

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Re: Stellaris
« Reply #84 on: May 11, 2016, 06:37:57 pm »
The mess is not that it's too much micro management, the mess is that you get a system, called "sectors" that takes away "quick" control of planets from you... this is usually not a problem, except that to build ships in these sectors you have to manually select these planets by zooming in carefully, since these planets are no longer listed anywhere (no that is not a typo, you can no longer find or click on these planets easily when they are in a sector, clicking on the planets from the galaxy map takes you.. to your homeworld... );/
Actually, I discovered that under the Empire screen, if you click on a Sector bar, it will expand and list each planet in that sector, with all the normal data that screen shows.  You can click on each planet there to go directly to it, just like planets you own.
Similarly, when the Sectors build Colony Ships or Constructors (or you force them to build 'em) you can still give them orders, and use them to colonize normal (non-sector) planets and build non-sector stuff.
I couldn't get the Sector Science ships to work correctly though.

But in general, I find sector AI to be very dumb.  Some planets don't upgrade, some get stuck in no-growth situations, none of them build stuff that requires influence...  I find it easier to build planets up to a decent level, then add them to a sector.  Which means I'm always running 1-2 planets short of my control max, or over the max.  Although if you feed them lots of energy and minerals, they can create some decent planets.  Just... don't try to switch directions.

Turn on detail map mode, madcow. Shows lots of things, lots of the time.
Oh!  How nice!  I'd been clicking on Constructors or Colony ships to get the appropriate numbers to appear, which was annoying.  This is so much nicer.

Yeah, the UI (and Tutorials) could use improvement.  It took me WAY too long to figure out that you used the Contacts screen, Species tab to perform Uplifts.  I kept trying to use Science ships, or click on the planet, or something.

Offline Cyborg

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Re: Stellaris fail
« Reply #85 on: May 13, 2016, 06:41:13 pm »
An interesting thing I learned about this game last night is that the retreat button does not work like the repair fleet button. Actually, this cost me a game in Ironman mode.

I had a neighbor with a very hostile opinion of me for whatever reason, and it got to the point where we were in competition over the same shared system. Just as I was about to drop down a frontier outpost, the influence of this neighbor overtook the sun of the system and canceled my frontier outpost that was 80% done! Wouldn't let me do anything else in the system. So I thought, why not make something of it, and I brought my fleet (with upgrades) to the border and decided to start a short little war that had just this system on the war score negotiation list. Well, I forgot to put a leader in the fleet, and I started to lose what was supposed to be a fight slanted in my favor.

So I clicked the retreat button.

And what actually happened was that my ship would go to the previous system, which just so happened to be one system deeper into enemy territory. After retreat, you are on FTL cooldown, and my cooldown seems to last longer than the enemy's. So I clicked retreat again, and I go back to the contested system. But by the time my cooldown finishes, the enemy fleet is attacking me again. I can't get out of range to click on repair and leave, I can't retreat because I keep ping-pong balling between enemy systems, and I end up losing the entire fleet for almost nothing. The AI soon takes all of its ships and rolls me one by one. Finally landing the last transports onto my capital planet, the game is over.

I'm not too bent out of shape about it, it's my fault, but I feel like this is a mechanic that could have been explained better. But now I know.

Here's a picture from the disastrous battle that started out mostly equal in strength ratings. Although be it known, I think these ratings are very misleading, and you should scout the enemy forces and make a judgment yourself.

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Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Stellaris
« Reply #86 on: May 13, 2016, 06:52:37 pm »
Finally got to play it at last. Spent a few hours whizzing about on my own, and then another 5 or so hours in a multiplayer game with friends. It's solid, I'll give them that. It tends to grind to a bit of a halt by the midgame though, but things started loosening up when the pewpew started happening.
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Offline zespri

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Re: Stellaris
« Reply #87 on: May 14, 2016, 04:42:00 am »
This game looks similar to GalCiv, is it better? How is it better?

Offline eRe4s3r

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Re: Stellaris
« Reply #88 on: May 14, 2016, 05:36:54 am »
Any game is better than GalCiv *ducks*

Ehem, retreat button has a 25% chance to damage your (damaged) ships to 1% of their HP.. so if you use it a lot you will lose a lot ;P It's important to always have 2 fleets, never clump everything in 1 fleet. 2 Fleets occupy half the space in battle, meaning for a time twice the ranged firepower compared to 1 big fleet)

P.S..: Don't believe firepower readout, balance fleets properly, I use a 30/20/10/5 approach (Corvettes, Destroyers, Cruisers, Battleships) ^^ and most importantly, don't put strike-craft on your ship, they are totally bugged sadly.

Important to have corvettes upfront, they don't do much dmg so put point defense on em since missiles will target them first, but what they do is draw fire and evade (tachyon lance) shots ,p) shots that would otherwise go for your ships that do actual damage. And likely 1 hit kill them in late game.

And finally... to my greatest sadness I noticed that
# Race profile images are actual bone-IK things, meaning the sprites are animated via bones and keyframes, no way to edit that, I don't have Maya ~.~
# Many things hardcoded ~.~

Btw, at this point I am actually playing my "own" mod for Stellaris.. put building construction times (except for UNIQUES) to 45 days, put debris research time to 30 days, put leader limit to 24 (before it was 12) and reduced leader cost by 50%, increased ALL resource buildings yield increases, level 1 = 2, level 2 = 4.. no more +1 improvements. Increased weapon ranges by a good 15 for each weapon (except the ones already at long range) made ships move faster, but act slower in combat, increase all HP by 2, increased colony fortress level by 3, increased all cooldowns flat by 100%, decreased all sector creation costs to 1 influence, and increased the core sector limit to 20, research increases in steps of 5 (should you wish). Also since I am playing an Alien hive, put minimum age for leaders to 1

Also changed some weapon effects.. made plasma explosions way bigger, made missile explosions bigger... made ship explosions bigger ;P Now combat doesn't look like a spreadsheet collapses on a graphics designer (still believe Paradox does flat out not HAVE a (effect) graphics designer btw..) the effects in this game are abhorrently ugly, many effects actually have a 4x4 pixel sprite.. yeah, 4x4 pixels. Did no one ever tell paradox that SCALING effects is way more costly in shaders than rendering a full-sized effect ?

Oh well ;p (The above changes all apply for AI as well of course, I am not cheating, I am making the game go faster) last change that I still can't find is food.. I want food to be global.. but I don't really understand how to have pop consume food from a global pool..
« Last Edit: May 14, 2016, 09:19:45 am by eRe4s3r »
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Offline madcow

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Re: Stellaris
« Reply #89 on: May 14, 2016, 10:26:27 am »
So been playing a bit more and have got to the point where I've started making sectors. And I'm confused. I gave it the military focus - will it actually build ships for me? If so do I get control of it? Seems like it could be done better - made more like CK2.

One thing I've found incredibly lacking is the ability to spy/judge enemies in advance. Scouting ships that you can send in neutral territory would be great. Spies to check their actual strength/tech would be good as well. It feels like I'm missing the tools to judge what I'll be getting into before picking a fight. Would also pave the way for CK2 style messing with enemy factions etc. I get the impression this is going to end up as an expansion.

Also so want an "auto-build" mining/research in empire for construction ships, "auto-explore" for science ships, and "scan all debris in system" option for science ships.