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Bobble 05-15-2016 11:07 AM

What I think I think
 
Here's where I am with this game: It's fun but...

- Why in the world doesn't the research screen automatically pop up when I finished researching the last thing?
- I'm ~20 hours in and I still can't figure out which pop-ups have automatically paused my game and which haven't. I'm happily reading away thinking it's paused while time marches on. Either all pop-ups should pause or none should.
- Either 5 planets to be able to manage is too few or the penalty for going over is too large.
- Seems like the game wants to play in the individual star systems rather than on the strategic galaxy map. The "normal" view is within the star system and if you go to the galaxy map, there's a specific button to "close galaxy map" and get back to the "main view". When you double-click on a ship, it zooms into the star system map where that ship is. Seems backward to me. I'm running a galactic empire here. Most of the time, I want to command that ship to move from one system to another.
- No available planet list? I just have to poke around the somewhat clunky galactic map? One of the 4X's is still eXpand, right?
- In the Sector view (or whatever it's called), you should be able to expand/collapse your sectors so you can see what's going on in those sectors. A little too much autonomy in sectors, I think. I'm still the boss of this galactic autonomous collective.
- Agree with a little more automation on the research debris deal. Should work like construction ships where you can click on the system and have it schedule researching them all.

Anyway, fun game but some kinks to work out.

tarcone 05-15-2016 11:11 AM

Do I buy? Or do I wait?
Im about to be off work for awhile. And time will be on my side.
Decisions, decisions.

I do have Starbase Orion on my ipad. Fun little game and easy to play. May stick with that for awhile.

Brian Swartz 05-15-2016 11:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobble
- Why in the world doesn't the research screen automatically pop up when I finished researching the last thing?


I'm actually ok with this. You don't lose research points if you don't pick anything right away, it just gets stored and you use it later. The way it is right now lets me choose whether I want to deal with that now or after a while.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobble
When you double-click on a ship, it zooms into the star system map where that ship is. Seems backward to me. I'm running a galactic empire here. Most of the time, I want to command that ship to move from one system to another.


Stuff like this is probably just taste or whatever. Single-click selects it so you can move it to a different system, double-click takes you into the system, which is better than making you click on the system, then select the fleet once you are there, etc. I like the way this works.

I agree with you on most of the rest, esp. the pausing thing. There's definitely a lot to be done to make it better.

Peregrine 05-15-2016 03:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobble (Post 3100515)
- No available planet list? I just have to poke around the somewhat clunky galactic map? One of the 4X's is still eXpand, right?
-


You can see your planets from the empire screen - planets tab. It will show you all your planets, what they produce etc.

Abe Sargent 05-15-2016 03:30 PM

I think I'm about to walk into my first "LAte Game Crisis" We'll see, I was just told to prepare myself for the "Coming Storm"

Thomkal 05-15-2016 03:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tarcone (Post 3100517)
Do I buy? Or do I wait?
Im about to be off work for awhile. And time will be on my side.
Decisions, decisions.

I do have Starbase Orion on my ipad. Fun little game and easy to play. May stick with that for awhile.


well if you are going to be off work anyway, you should buy it :)

Abe Sargent 05-15-2016 04:40 PM

No secrets, but it's definitely a late game crisis

Eaglesfan27 05-15-2016 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz (Post 3100479)
I'll just drop this here. Some of my goals are not things that everyone is going to want to have, but this first version I wouldn't expect to raise many objections. RealTime v 0.1 is now up on the Steam Workshop: Steam Workshop :: RealTime v 0.1. Next up I plan to start getting into some changes relating to the timescale, but I will also be looking into the problem of energy hoarding which, aside from the planetary management AI that I can't touch, is enemy #1 at the moment.

Mod thread with a little more info: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...altime.929961/


v 0.1 CHANGELOG + REASONING

** Core planets limit set to 30. This is just a placeholder amount until I find a more elegant solution.

** AI will now build planetary capitals before having a full planet of pops. For some reason it was set not to do this. This has a considerable impact on development of new systems.

** AI hoarding tweak -- they will no longer save minerals for things they don't need, freeing them up for other costs. Default is for them to keep 1.4k in the reserve at startup, that amount increasing over time. They'll invest these now when not needed for something specific, aiding their economic growth. Similarly, reduced amount stored up by sectors so they will use what they have.

** AI leaders; they will recruit a bit more governors and a bit less scientists. Was set to always have six scientists, but never more than 2 science ships. In other words, to always have a scientist they couldn't use. They should now move that leader over to governor and administer their planets and sectors a hair better with the extra body.

** Tried to make the AI stop hoarding influence as well. The only thing I was really successful at making them do was to use it on planetary edicts. This is better than not using it at all. I also tweaked a couple things to make them hopefully build more frontier outposts.

** Experience gained by survey scientists is now a third of what it was. They level up ridiculously fast, so this was just an easy quick change. It is probably still too high but should be a lot closer to the right ballpark.


Great! I'm adding this to my game now :)

Brian Swartz 05-15-2016 06:34 PM

Cool. Make sure to read the notes on the latest version before you do, as I've changed/fixed some more things as of just a couple hours ago. Biggest thing you'd probably notice is a drop in your naval cap and some increased tech slowdown due to population.

tarcone 05-15-2016 06:39 PM

Brian, can I share your mod on another site? Its a wargamers site. They also have fallen in love with this game.

Brian Swartz 05-15-2016 06:42 PM

Sure. If you don't mind giving me the link, it could potentially be another source of feedback about what things to consider adding.

tarcone 05-15-2016 07:49 PM

Here you go

Main site
The Game Box - Index

Thread
Computer Games You're Playing Now - page 14 - General Gaming Discussion - The Game Box

Eaglesfan27 05-15-2016 08:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz (Post 3100555)
Cool. Make sure to read the notes on the latest version before you do, as I've changed/fixed some more things as of just a couple hours ago. Biggest thing you'd probably notice is a drop in your naval cap and some increased tech slowdown due to population.


I did. Love the changes in theory. I will tell you my impressions over time.

Abe Sargent 05-15-2016 09:52 PM

Well I won with 40% planets in 37 hours of play and 147 years in the game.


Gentle Spoiler on a way I did it:

Spoiler

Abe Sargent 05-15-2016 10:11 PM

One quick lil late game comment about the late game event.



If you read the pre-views, and reviews, you'll be told by the devs about one potential late game crisis that could emerge with rare and dangerous technology. You are given quite a bit fo detail about that LGC. Then another LGC was given at the ed of the interview for another idea/

So when I got an LGC of a 3rd type, I was pretty happy.

Afterwards I went and looked it up Want to know how many LGCs there are? Just three. Sad



We need more variety for the LGCs



EDIT -

Here are a few LGCs I'd like to see -

Mass Slave Rebellion
Major Shut Down of Hyperspace Movement
Major Disaster that does something crazy - (Like shuts down all power or something0
Clone Wars
Maybe a Civil War?
Disease Pandemic
Major Pirate Attack
Fallen Empire Civil War
Inter-Fallen Empire Conflict that wants you to choose sides

Thomkal 05-15-2016 10:11 PM

congrats Abe!

Abe Sargent 05-15-2016 10:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomkal (Post 3100579)
congrats Abe!


THanks!


Oh, and I came trhough still vague on some mechanics like migration and I never bothered to build any robots either nor slaves

Abe Sargent 05-15-2016 11:58 PM

Dola apparently


Time to create some races of different types to litter my next world. This time i had too many Diplos, and Federation builders and stuff like that. Let's create some havoc

EDIT -

First race I made:

The Rule of Juffo-Wup


Mycon, Fungoid
Collective, Military, Spiritual - Divine Mandate Government
Leader - The Speaker of the Way
Arid World Prefernce (opposite of ocean)
Epsilon Scorpi is home star, Shattered World name of home planet.
Traits - Repugnant, Sedentary, Industrious, Conformists

Fungoid Ships, Missile Weapons, Warp Travel,


Enjoy, if you get that reference. Let's hit that up again:

The VUX Empire

VUX, Molluscoid
Extreme Xenophobe, Militarist
Trait - Repugnant, Conformist, Natural Engineers
Beta Luyten, Tropical
Military Junta

Energy Weapons, Hyperspace,


I'm thinking of changing the Mycon from Conformist to Adaptive so the VUX can be the real conformists.

Bobble 05-16-2016 07:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz (Post 3100519)
Stuff like this is probably just taste or whatever. Single-click selects it so you can move it to a different system, double-click takes you into the system, which is better than making you click on the system, then select the fleet once you are there, etc. I like the way this works.


I wasn't fully clear. I meant as an example of the game wanting you to play in the star system view. Rather than centering on the ship in question in the galactic view, it jumps right back to system view where "you're supposed to be." Is there a way that I can select a ship on the outliner and have the game center on that unit in the galactic view?


Quote:

Originally Posted by Peregrine (Post 3100537)
You can see your planets from the empire screen - planets tab. It will show you all your planets, what they produce etc.


The 5 that I can control, right? Not any of the ones in "my" sectors and not any of the tons that I can colonize. I'm the boss. Need the info!

Thomkal 05-16-2016 08:39 AM

new dev diary up about future updates/expansions:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...yage.932668%2F

Brian Swartz 05-16-2016 09:44 AM

Looks good. I'm pretty impressed with that statement actually.

Brian Swartz 05-16-2016 09:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobble
The 5 that I can control, right? Not any of the ones in "my" sectors and not any of the tons that I can colonize. I'm the boss. Need the info!


Click on the sector itself in the planet list. The planets in that sector will appear indented underneath it. As far as colonizable ones, there isn't a list of those. If there was one, I'd still use the galactic map for it but I understand why some people wouldn't want to. For me, the color-coded icons for planets I've surveyed(green/yellow/red) is a better way to find what I want because by looking at those I can see not just the habitability but also where they are in the galaxy which is just as important. I'd be constantly going in and out of a list to see the locations.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobble
Is there a way that I can select a ship on the outliner and have the game center on that unit in the galactic view?


Not that I know of, though I don't know all of the hotkeys. If there isn't a way to do this, I agree that there should be. .

Bobble 05-16-2016 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz (Post 3100623)
Click on the sector itself in the planet list. The planets in that sector will appear indented underneath it.


The collapse/expand sectors that I was looking for. Thanks!

BTW, I started a new game with your mod. I'm enjoying it so far. :thumbsup:

Brian Swartz 05-16-2016 03:04 PM

Cool! Since there seems to be a fair amount of interest in it around here, let me float a couple trial balloons on what I'm working on for the next version, which will likely be the last one before the Clarke patch hits in a couple weeks.

** Increasing core planets cap via technology. Everybody always wants more tech to research, right? There's a lot I'd have to learn to do scripting/events for a more elegant solution -- I do have a background as an amateur coder so I'll get there, but it'll take time.

Under this approach the core planets cap would start quite low. I'm thinking 3. Then in each field and tier there would be a tech with a fairly high -- exactly how high I'm not sure, I don't want it to be colony-ship level of automatic but a lot more likely than your average tech -- weight of showing up that would increase it. There are four tiers of technology the way it's set up, so you'd have a dozen new ones that would deal with this. Society/Engineering/Physics would each have a tier-1 tech that gave +1 core planet, a tier-2 that gave +2, and so on. If you researched them all, you'd have 33 at the end. If I wanted I could also put in a couple rare techs that would give +5 or +10 but you wouldn't normally get.

Best way I can think of right now to have the limit scale up with the size of an empire, yet still require the use of sectors for most of the empire.

** RealTime Lite. Ran into a couple issues here, which is why I'm calling it 'Lite'. One is that I don't want to cripple the AI -- it isn't great yet at fleet deployment and if I slow travel times down significantly without slowing down combat that already takes plenty long enough, they wouldn't be able to send reinforcements in time for it to matter. I think that would give the player too much of a wartime advantage. I thought about just slowing down the civilian ships in terms of their in-system travel, but this would hurt the early game. One of the best things about that aspect I think are the choices you have to make in terms of what you can afford -- do you build the mining station or the power plant or the colony ship or the frontier outpost, etc. Slow down the time it takes to explore/build stations much, and everyone ends with a backlog of resources, allowing them to just build too much of what they want. I can't just change the costs, partly because I don't think there's a way to to alter what mining or research stations are priced at.

Slowing down the pace of expansion is going to have to rely on Plan B. Well, plan C or D, more accurately. Slowing population growth will help, esp. reducing the impact of extra food since the AI is less than stellar in pumping out the pops. Secondly, I think the actual colonizing part(the year you spend waiting for the colony base to get set up) ought to take a lot longer.

Station-building and exploration would still take as long or close to it, may slow it down a bit but not very much. With population and developed colonies harder to come by though, and compounding that the tech slowdown already in place, I can get it a lot closer to where I'd like it to be. Then I'd make a couple other tweaks, wait for the Clarke patch which is supposed to have among other things some AI changes, and re-evaluate at that point.


I'd be interested in what those of you who are interested in the RealTime mod concept think of these ideas.

Abe Sargent 05-16-2016 09:41 PM

Race #3 -

THe Kilrathi iEmpire -

Kilrathi
Military Dictatorship
Feline Mammalian

Extreme Militaristic, Collectivist (The Pack Instinct)
Leader - Karga the Hunter
Energy Weapons, Hyperspace



Home Planet - Kilrah, Arid

Traits - Strong, Resilient




EDIT - Race #4 -


The Kreegan

Reptillian,

Traits - Slow Breeders, Enduring, Talented

Kreeg-Lar, HW, Continental

Ethos - Xenophobe, Militarist, Individualist

Military Junta

Missile, Wormhole

Brian Swartz 05-17-2016 02:41 AM

That sounds like fun! I'm going to add in a bunch of custom races the next game I play.

Shoveler 05-17-2016 06:49 AM

still in the testing phase of my first tiny galaxy game.. found out the hard way that when my starting planet is using buildings requiring special resources and you put those special resource systems into sectors those buildings stop functioning.. The joys of trial and error.

But, enjoying the game so far..

Abe Sargent 05-17-2016 08:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz (Post 3100724)
That sounds like fun! I'm going to add in a bunch of custom races the next game I play.


True, plus you can use other races for inspiration if you want. My favorite slate of races is from StarCon, I think they are the most believable, fleshed out, and intriguing races out there ,and there are counter examples that push things nicely Take the Spathi, a group of cowardly races. Yet there is the Black Spathi Squadron, one foo the most powerful, aggressive, and decidedly un-cowardly group of fleets out there. That's good wrting, when races aren't always seen in one thig.

Neon_Chaos 05-17-2016 09:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz (Post 3100664)
Cool! Since there seems to be a fair amount of interest in it around here, let me float a couple trial balloons on what I'm working on for the next version, which will likely be the last one before the Clarke patch hits in a couple weeks.

** Increasing core planets cap via technology. Everybody always wants more tech to research, right? There's a lot I'd have to learn to do scripting/events for a more elegant solution -- I do have a background as an amateur coder so I'll get there, but it'll take time.

Under this approach the core planets cap would start quite low. I'm thinking 3. Then in each field and tier there would be a tech with a fairly high -- exactly how high I'm not sure, I don't want it to be colony-ship level of automatic but a lot more likely than your average tech -- weight of showing up that would increase it. There are four tiers of technology the way it's set up, so you'd have a dozen new ones that would deal with this. Society/Engineering/Physics would each have a tier-1 tech that gave +1 core planet, a tier-2 that gave +2, and so on. If you researched them all, you'd have 33 at the end. If I wanted I could also put in a couple rare techs that would give +5 or +10 but you wouldn't normally get.

Best way I can think of right now to have the limit scale up with the size of an empire, yet still require the use of sectors for most of the empire.

** RealTime Lite. Ran into a couple issues here, which is why I'm calling it 'Lite'. One is that I don't want to cripple the AI -- it isn't great yet at fleet deployment and if I slow travel times down significantly without slowing down combat that already takes plenty long enough, they wouldn't be able to send reinforcements in time for it to matter. I think that would give the player too much of a wartime advantage. I thought about just slowing down the civilian ships in terms of their in-system travel, but this would hurt the early game. One of the best things about that aspect I think are the choices you have to make in terms of what you can afford -- do you build the mining station or the power plant or the colony ship or the frontier outpost, etc. Slow down the time it takes to explore/build stations much, and everyone ends with a backlog of resources, allowing them to just build too much of what they want. I can't just change the costs, partly because I don't think there's a way to to alter what mining or research stations are priced at.

Slowing down the pace of expansion is going to have to rely on Plan B. Well, plan C or D, more accurately. Slowing population growth will help, esp. reducing the impact of extra food since the AI is less than stellar in pumping out the pops. Secondly, I think the actual colonizing part(the year you spend waiting for the colony base to get set up) ought to take a lot longer.

Station-building and exploration would still take as long or close to it, may slow it down a bit but not very much. With population and developed colonies harder to come by though, and compounding that the tech slowdown already in place, I can get it a lot closer to where I'd like it to be. Then I'd make a couple other tweaks, wait for the Clarke patch which is supposed to have among other things some AI changes, and re-evaluate at that point.


I'd be interested in what those of you who are interested in the RealTime mod concept think of these ideas.


There is a research project to add +1 to core planets. Via the social research.

Peregrine 05-17-2016 12:13 PM

I was talking to a friend about this game at lunch. We noticed that he was complaining about not understanding all the systems and options and felt like he was missing stuff. I (as a longtime veteran of CK2 and EU series) was complaining about the lack of more complex systems (trade, diplomacy, espionage, etc.) Seems to me Paradox made an obvious attempt to make this game more approachable to bring in more players, but could be it is losing some of its longtime fans in the process.

Abe Sargent 05-17-2016 12:34 PM

I thought it was rock-tastic, and I'm only tickled to see what's next for the game. It's immediately one of my top 5 favorite 4x Space Sims, and I'm not sure anything could ever push MOO2 off the perch, but it's got an up pointing arrow, you know?

Honolulu_Blue 05-17-2016 12:54 PM

I finally fired this up on Friday night. 10 hours later it was 5 am Saturday morning and I was still playing,

I haven't really gotten to any of the diplomacy stuff yet. I've really been enjoying the game so far. Very solid and pretty intuitive. I really like the UI, even if I struggled with some of it at times.

Brian Swartz 05-17-2016 01:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neon Chaos
There is a research project to add +1 to core planets. Via the social research.


Thanks. I was aware of that, I'm just looking for a way to have it scale up more. Having 5-7 at start and then getting only another 1-2 as you conquer a quarter of the galaxy just feels 'off' to a lot of people. I find it hard to come up with a good argument against their concerns.

Brian Swartz 05-17-2016 01:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peregrine
Seems to me Paradox made an obvious attempt to make this game more approachable to bring in more players, but could be it is losing some of its longtime fans in the process.


This is right on the nose. My guess is that they don't lose enough of the long-timers for long enough that it will really matter all that much, based on what sales have been so far. There's a lot of blustering going on at the Paradox forums right now but I'll seriously doubt the people who like the other games are going to leave in droves. They might shelve it till further down the patch and DLC train especially with HOI4 in the pipeline, but at the end of the day I don't see them walking away. Maybe I'm wrong and I just want it to be that way, but the evidence pushes in the direction of this being a good business move. Lots of stuff I wish was different of course, I already was a fan of HOI so I wasn't really their target here, but if they support like they say they are going to and with the modding community -- I think there are approaching a thousand mods up on Steam and it's been out a week -- I doubt they are feeling too many regrets about the approach taken. They really should have spent more time on UI and bugfixing, but so should every game when you come down to it.

tarcone 05-17-2016 03:20 PM

Paradox whiners, gonna whine

Groundhog 05-17-2016 06:17 PM

I was home with a cold yesterday, and took the plunge. Another one of those '...and then, 8 hours later, I was still playing...' moments that Paradox are pretty darn good at. I don't particularly like 4x games, so maybe that has something to do with why I enjoy this vs why some others don't.

I agree with what I've seen about combat - death stacks of 1k+ ships seems to reduce the depth of both combat and the ship builder. Outside of that, I'm really enjoying it, but concerned how well it's going to scale upward as empire sizes grow huge.

lungs 05-18-2016 08:50 AM

If I want to attack my ass hole neighbor and send them back to the stone age, how many assault armies should I have? I have defense armies on every colonized planet, but I haven't got a good sense of how many assault armies I should be keeping around.

Abe Sargent 05-18-2016 09:41 AM

You'll need a large assault army to win after soft bombardment denudes their defenses. Check out their garrison by clicking your target, and then the armies tab. Alternatively, you could have some bIG INFANTRY from the planets that have large species, and those you'll need one or two of, and then some fodder small stuff too, and you'll blow through defenses.

korme 05-18-2016 03:12 PM

I'm a disappointed that your team/leaders aren't fleshed out, just random meaningless names. Expected it to be much more like CK2

Abe Sargent 05-18-2016 03:57 PM

They each have some abilities, and level up. I find that aspect to be like Master of Magic/Orion in its simplicity but style. I also like being balanced my leaders with a limited pool, and wanting them for my army, navy, research and science vessels, and administration. I think the leader need is quite balanced overalll.

RomaGoth 05-18-2016 06:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz (Post 3100783)
...especially with HOI4 in the pipeline, but at the end of the day I don't see them walking away. Maybe I'm wrong and I just want it to be that way, but the evidence pushes in the direction of this being a good business move. Lots of stuff I wish was different of course, I already was a fan of HOI...


What is HOI and HOI4?

cuervo72 05-18-2016 06:47 PM

Hips of Indignation.

MrBug708 05-18-2016 06:50 PM

Hearts of Iron

cuervo72 05-18-2016 06:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrBug708 (Post 3101012)
Hearts of Iron


dammit we could have had fun with this

RomaGoth 05-18-2016 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cuervo72 (Post 3101011)
Hips of Indignation.


Quote:

Originally Posted by cuervo72 (Post 3101013)
dammit we could have had fun with this


lol

Critch 05-18-2016 06:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cuervo72 (Post 3101013)
dammit we could have had fun with this


When was it going to start?

cuervo72 05-18-2016 07:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Critch (Post 3101015)
When was it going to start?


haughty old immigrant...

Vince, Pt. II 05-18-2016 08:06 PM

Has anyone toyed around with getting their Science Leaders a few levels up out in the field on science ships, and then rotating them back into the research slots? I'm wondering if that isn't a viable / good strategy.

Also, friendly reminder that you can (and should) update the blueprints of your civilian ships when you get upgrades to scanners, thrusters, and drives.

MizzouRah 05-18-2016 09:52 PM

I wish you could choose (for your military fleets) do not fire unless fired upon instead of, do not fire unless they get too close.

I'm still very early in the game and these space jelly fish things are hanging around a little too close to my home world and I don't want to engage them yet so I've been keeping a safe distance, but I would like to do a fly by a la a Top Gun and give them the finger! :)

Shkspr 05-19-2016 12:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vince, Pt. II (Post 3101029)
Has anyone toyed around with getting their Science Leaders a few levels up out in the field on science ships, and then rotating them back into the research slots? I'm wondering if that isn't a viable / good strategy.



Yeah, that's actually one of the first things I tried. I've come to the conclusion that the only time it makes sense before mid-late game is when a science ship captain levels up and picks up a second trait that happens to be a research specialty that you want in-house. Some of the anomaly missions, for example, end up adding the potential for research stations that earn several points of research. A one-star vs a five-star researcher in-house adds 8% to all research. A five star ship captain probably solves 10-20% more anomalies, many of which add multiple points of research when stations get built on them. I'd say that until your research is in the triple digits per month, the ship captain is the better option for highly experienced scientists. The most important aspect, though, is almost certainly to match trait expertise to the lab or the field.

flere-imsaho 05-19-2016 07:17 AM

FWIW, this thread made me re-install Alpha Centauri.

Shkspr 05-19-2016 07:36 AM

For GOG's sake, it only takes up half a gig. I can't believe you ever uninstalled it. Cretin. :)

flere-imsaho 05-19-2016 07:41 AM

New computer.

Eaglesfan27 05-19-2016 03:36 PM

I was doing so well in my expansion plans with 12 planets colonized and a strong niche carved out... I didn't upgrade my military ships enough though (and didn't maximize the number of ships I could have had) and suddenly a 4 empire alliance came against me... wow. They are mopping me up. Too many ships for me to defend against.

RomaGoth 05-19-2016 03:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27 (Post 3101198)
I was doing so well in my expansion plans with 12 planets colonized and a strong niche carved out... I didn't upgrade my military ships enough though (and didn't maximize the number of ships I could have had) and suddenly a 4 empire alliance came against me... wow. They are mopping me up. Too many ships for me to defend against.


Is that cause for a game restart?

Vince, Pt. II 05-19-2016 05:02 PM

That's what I figured.

Eaglesfan27 05-19-2016 05:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RomaGoth (Post 3101202)
Is that cause for a game restart?


Maybe. I only got to play for a bit today. I'm going to try to salvage the situation this weekend.

NobodyHere 05-19-2016 07:44 PM

So I have colonizable planet in my rival's empire. It hasn't been colonized yet. What's the best way to get it? I declared war but the game won't let me colonize it. I end up vassalizing the enemy yet I can't get to the territory. Is there anything I can do?

MizzouRah 05-19-2016 11:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27 (Post 3101221)
Maybe. I only got to play for a bit today. I'm going to try to salvage the situation this weekend.


Atta boy!

Abe Sargent 05-20-2016 12:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NobodyHere (Post 3101237)
So I have colonizable planet in my rival's empire. It hasn't been colonized yet. What's the best way to get it? I declared war but the game won't let me colonize it. I end up vassalizing the enemy yet I can't get to the territory. Is there anything I can do?


One thing I've done is to build a outpost on an adjacent world outside, push your claim into the one you are discussing, and then colonize it. That works if it';s on the border, or not near anything that makes claims of their own (Outpost, Colony)

Vince, Pt. II 05-20-2016 05:28 PM

Once you have made your opponent your vassal, you're screwed.

Eaglesfan27 05-20-2016 06:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz (Post 3100664)
Cool! Since there seems to be a fair amount of interest in it around here, let me float a couple trial balloons on what I'm working on for the next version, which will likely be the last one before the Clarke patch hits in a couple weeks.

** Increasing core planets cap via technology. Everybody always wants more tech to research, right? There's a lot I'd have to learn to do scripting/events for a more elegant solution -- I do have a background as an amateur coder so I'll get there, but it'll take time.

Under this approach the core planets cap would start quite low. I'm thinking 3. Then in each field and tier there would be a tech with a fairly high -- exactly how high I'm not sure, I don't want it to be colony-ship level of automatic but a lot more likely than your average tech -- weight of showing up that would increase it. There are four tiers of technology the way it's set up, so you'd have a dozen new ones that would deal with this. Society/Engineering/Physics would each have a tier-1 tech that gave +1 core planet, a tier-2 that gave +2, and so on. If you researched them all, you'd have 33 at the end. If I wanted I could also put in a couple rare techs that would give +5 or +10 but you wouldn't normally get.

Best way I can think of right now to have the limit scale up with the size of an empire, yet still require the use of sectors for most of the empire.

** RealTime Lite. Ran into a couple issues here, which is why I'm calling it 'Lite'. One is that I don't want to cripple the AI -- it isn't great yet at fleet deployment and if I slow travel times down significantly without slowing down combat that already takes plenty long enough, they wouldn't be able to send reinforcements in time for it to matter. I think that would give the player too much of a wartime advantage. I thought about just slowing down the civilian ships in terms of their in-system travel, but this would hurt the early game. One of the best things about that aspect I think are the choices you have to make in terms of what you can afford -- do you build the mining station or the power plant or the colony ship or the frontier outpost, etc. Slow down the time it takes to explore/build stations much, and everyone ends with a backlog of resources, allowing them to just build too much of what they want. I can't just change the costs, partly because I don't think there's a way to to alter what mining or research stations are priced at.

Slowing down the pace of expansion is going to have to rely on Plan B. Well, plan C or D, more accurately. Slowing population growth will help, esp. reducing the impact of extra food since the AI is less than stellar in pumping out the pops. Secondly, I think the actual colonizing part(the year you spend waiting for the colony base to get set up) ought to take a lot longer.

Station-building and exploration would still take as long or close to it, may slow it down a bit but not very much. With population and developed colonies harder to come by though, and compounding that the tech slowdown already in place, I can get it a lot closer to where I'd like it to be. Then I'd make a couple other tweaks, wait for the Clarke patch which is supposed to have among other things some AI changes, and re-evaluate at that point.


I'd be interested in what those of you who are interested in the RealTime mod concept think of these ideas.


Just curious. Is the mod going to be updated to support 1.03? I have some play time this weekend and love playing with your mod enabled.

edit: Nevermind, I just realized the warning doesn't stop me from using your mod with 1.03 :)

Eaglesfan27 05-20-2016 07:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MizzouRah (Post 3101258)
Atta boy!


I tried salvaging the situation, but I learned a valuable lesson. Get some allies onboard when I can. Also, I need to maximize my military earlier in the game. We just were facing overwhelming odds and you can't add allies once you are in a war. Those two things crushed me as their 3 fleets together obliterated my main fleet and I couldn't rally fast enough.

MizzouRah 05-20-2016 09:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27 (Post 3101382)
I tried salvaging the situation, but I learned a valuable lesson. Get some allies onboard when I can. Also, I need to maximize my military earlier in the game. We just were facing overwhelming odds and you can't add allies once you are in a war. Those two things crushed me as their 3 fleets together obliterated my main fleet and I couldn't rally fast enough.


Thanks for killing us! :)

Peregrine 05-20-2016 09:45 PM

Getting allies can be quite difficult on hard difficulty I've found - one of the modifiers you get is just a flat -25 on all other empires' desire to ally with you.

Lonnie 05-20-2016 10:24 PM

I had an allied war with me and my two allies vs three allied empires. My allies would just send all of their armies to where ever my largest army was. I didn't see anywhere they would attack the enemy on their own even when we had three fronts. Has anyone else seen the AI act the same way?

The part that sucked is that I wasn't getting any systems because one of the other Allies declared the war and I had to go capture the four systems that was going to my ally just to win the war. I even tried just sending my 10k stack to my home system and the ally stacks just followed me there and waited.

Brian Swartz 05-20-2016 11:28 PM

That's intended behavior, the allies will go with you to strike as one big group. I wish they'd allowed something more like the targets or whatever you can give in Hearts of Iron.

Eaglesfan27 05-21-2016 06:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz (Post 3101392)
That's intended behavior, the allies will go with you to strike as one big group. I wish they'd allowed something more like the targets or whatever you can give in Hearts of Iron.


Yeah, it was the one big group that obliterated my fleets when it was 3 vs 1.

Brian Swartz 05-24-2016 03:57 PM

New dev diary this morning with highlights on the upcoming patch(Clarke): https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...-patch.936898/

Eaglesfan27 05-24-2016 04:12 PM

Looks very good. I especially like the ability to adjust AI aggressiveness.

nilodor 05-24-2016 04:20 PM

I'm currently in an alliance proposed by the AI. I have another faction that I would like to ally with, but the other part of my current alliance isn't interested. Is there any way to sway them? I don't see it on the negotiations screen.

Also I'm in, what I think is the mid game. I've maxed out my fleet, most of my neighbours are at a pretty similar place to me. Most of the available space is colonized. What should I be looking to do? I have 10 planets or so, 5 in one area, 5 on the other side of two factions. I have two fleets, each in the 4K power range. The one neighbour I would want to attack is pretty similar in size and strength to me. Should I focus on colonizing more world in my home system now that I've researched how to do so? Is terraforming things a good option? Anything good to do with my science ships? They're pretty much stuck right now with nothing to scan. I'm leaning towards attack the nearest faction that doesn't like me, but I'm not sure if that's a great plan of action.

Lonnie 05-24-2016 05:08 PM

If you attack your neighbor make sure he's not allied with a bigger power first.

I would start colonizing the rest of your available systems in your planet. If you have access to teraforming gasses then teraforming is a good option. Also if you are not xenophonic then you can do some migration treaties with allies. That will get other species on your planets that you can use to settle planets that your primary species might not have access to.

For the science ships, pick your biggest science planet and "assist research."

Abe Sargent 05-24-2016 05:27 PM

You can get a lot of value from science ships helping in research. In an early war, I captured a planet that had a ton of natives, and the labs next to those natives got a bunch to tech research for each square next to it, I quickly moved it to making just food and labs, and it was making around 10-15% of my green biology tech, and then after introducing the science ship, that was boosted considerably.

Vince, Pt. II 05-27-2016 07:26 PM

Just got my crap kicked in when I thought I was doing really well. This game is amazing.

Playing as space tortoises with Hyperspace travel in a ring galaxy, we were a little crowded right off the bat with neighbors just north and east of me in the east/southeast sector of the ring. If I didn't expand quick, I was going to be boxed in immediately. I deemed the north avenue more important, and sent a construction ship out really early to establish a border outpost. Unfortunately, the Avians north of me beat me to it. So I used the extra resources to build up my navy and sent the construction ship out east instead to secure that lane. The Artrhopods on that side were much slower, and I easily established my lane while effectively boxing them in. They began slinging insults immediately, and I was certain that war was inevitable. So I changed my turtle (heh) strategy to a more offensive one, and started researching better missile weapons. After a quick, brutal war, the Arthropods were no more - unfortunately, I did not realize that taking out a capital world gave me the entire race and all its planets, and my economy was tanked for a few years there while I recovered.

Meanwhile, the Avians up north were trying to make nice with me, and I found a fallen empire to the southeast and some creepy looking fungal dudes to the southwest. Since I already had the navy handy, I decided on a quick war with the Avians to grab a few planets on their west edge - just enough to give me a path through the galaxy past their small empire, since the south was pretty well closed off to me. The war went well enough, and I actually managed to snag a little more than I bargained for, but in the end I had a nice pathway north, some new planets, and had carved out a nice little chunk of galaxy around myself.

I began a large expansion push to the empty space north and west of my Avian neighbors, who were much less friendly now, and managed to grab a huge bit of resource-rich space, and started meeting the neighbors all around - news in the galaxy was spreading fast, and I was being introduced to many new races who heard of me through some of their contacts. It looked like the big bullies around town were myself and the United Jogollwa Provinces - who had already vassalized two other races. Unbeknownst to me, my latest land grab to the north gave me a border with them when I colonized a planet in order to get a strategic resource. But our ethos seemed aligned, and I quickly sent in an embassy.

In the mean time, alliances are starting to pop up everywhere. The Mith-Fell State, my Avian neighbors who hate me, jump into the Bright League, which notably includes the fungal dudes to my southwest, among other non-adjacent races. But everyone seems cool. We enter a renaissance of science and development, mining everything in sight and feeling pretty fat and happy.

Until my Mith-Fell pops decide they really don't like Tortoidan rule. They're wreaking havoc everywhere - destroying buildings, demanding independence...I probably should have paid a little more attention after winning that war. Then the Jogollwa Provinces declare war out of the blue. Their technology allowed them to cross a quarter of the bloody galaxy directly to my home world, and suddenly I've got a 5k+ fleet on my capital planet's doorstep. I get my troops mustered, and things are looking bloody, but in my favor. Until a second 5k+ fleet hops right into my space! Now it's bloody murder, and none of it good. I immediately sue for peace, and have to give up ALL of my northern expansion, including about ten mineral rich systems that I had just finished mining. Frustrating, but I managed to get out of it with 2k worth of a fleet, and my economy was still in pretty good shape despite the hit, so I started immediately rebuilding our fleet.

The Mith Fell State, sensing weakness, declares war. I pause and go check out their military strength - Pathetic! This is perfect. I can use the remnants of my fleet to mop them up, then have a unified front to defend against Jogollwa when they come back. I roll in with my now almost 6k fleet and almost immediately take out their home world. I'm seriously wondering what the AI was thinking, picking this fight, when I hear "Planet Invasion underway" and "Station under attack." What the hell? My Mith-Fell pops are now in full military revolt, and my ground-based armies are under fire. We hold them off on three worlds, but they re-take one of the planets, and immediately have a 2k fleet in the air (?!?). We put them down, but not without some losses. Meanwhile my starbases are churning out ships as fast as they can.

And then comes the realization of why they joined the war - their alliance. I now have multiple 5k fleets just mopping up my south border; having pulled all my military to the north to defend against Jogollwa and then Mith Fell, I had nothing down there. I send my now ragged fleet down to try to defend, but despite a nearly 1k advantage in military might, they make short work of me, and now I have literally zero navy.

I have no idea if I'm going to go back to the game - I don't even know if I'll have a game to go back to, to be honest - but man, that was amazing. I got a little big for my britches early, and everyone noticed it. I didn't do a good enough job securing my borders, and expanded a bit too far to be able to take good care of my empire. I don't know if it was by design or happenstance, but the AI took complete advantage of it, and I got crushed.

I'm already looking forward to starting over.

Thomkal 05-27-2016 07:38 PM

great (and sad) story Vince, let us know what happens if you go back to that empire.

tarcone 05-28-2016 09:23 AM

Oh boy. I bought it last night. Oh boy. I was up until 4:30 playing it.
Interesting game. Some things I havent done. Some things Im not sure what Im doing (Tech).

Fun game. And will be a great diversion.

Abe Sargent 05-28-2016 10:18 AM

Welcome tarcone!

Bobble 05-31-2016 07:37 AM

With the update, I went back to vanilla (no mods). I'm enjoying it except for the 5 planet max. What is the point of that? Is it to force mismanagement of my sectors so the AI can catch up? I can't believe it would be to reduce micromanagement or they'd make it an option.

Bobble 05-31-2016 09:27 AM

Dola, can researching debris be a net loss? If I only get +5 Society research out of the debris but my Society research team was tied up for a month, did I just lose out on all the research they would have been doing?

cuervo72 05-31-2016 10:06 AM

Judging by some playthroughs I've been watching, research is supposed to be banked during these periods. There seemed to be some evidence that it only banked correctly for the first month though - not sure if this is the case or if it has been fixed since.

Bobble 05-31-2016 11:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cuervo72 (Post 3102633)
Judging by some playthroughs I've been watching, research is supposed to be banked during these periods. There seemed to be some evidence that it only banked correctly for the first month though - not sure if this is the case or if it has been fixed since.


Thanks. I don't understand the design choice to also show the research team as occupied (as opposed to just the ship). Hey, team, you just keep researching Beryllium Spheres. Let Cpt. Janeway sift through the space garbage.

dzilla77 05-31-2016 08:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobble (Post 3102600)
With the update, I went back to vanilla (no mods). I'm enjoying it except for the 5 planet max. What is the point of that? Is it to force mismanagement of my sectors so the AI can catch up? I can't believe it would be to reduce micromanagement or they'd make it an option.


I think the intent is to model a vast galactic empire and the inherent inefficiencies that would be present. It is also a parallel to some of the other PDS titles' (EU/CK and Vichy) governmental/societal structures.

i personally don't have much of an issue with it. I micro the 5 most important planets and I am happy to let the AI manage the rest in sectors.

bhlloy 05-31-2016 10:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dzilla77 (Post 3102821)
I think the intent is to model a vast galactic empire and the inherent inefficiencies that would be present. It is also a parallel to some of the other PDS titles' (EU/CK and Vichy) governmental/societal structures.

i personally don't have much of an issue with it. I micro the 5 most important planets and I am happy to let the AI manage the rest in sectors.


I must have completely missed that part of CK and EU. I probably wouldn't have tried Paradox's other games if either of those put a crappy arbitrary 5 province limit in place.

Thomkal 06-01-2016 10:21 AM

update 1.1 now live

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...orts.940049%2F

Brian Swartz 06-01-2016 11:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobble
I don't understand the design choice to also show the research team as occupied (as opposed to just the ship). Hey, team, you just keep researching Beryllium Spheres. Let Cpt. Janeway sift through the space garbage.


I think the idea here is a science ship doesn't have the resources to properly analyze stuff like this. They collect the data and do basic experiments, the research teams back on your homeworld analyze it and do more advanced stuff. Ergo, a co-operative research project.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobble
If I only get +5 Society research out of the debris but my Society research team was tied up for a month, did I just lose out on all the research they would have been doing?


It can be, but it's rare. You store up some research(not exactly sure how much, haven't tested it) when one field is tied up on something like this.

SirFozzie 06-01-2016 05:48 PM

Here's the changelog for 1.1, spoilered for size.

Spoiler

Abe Sargent 06-01-2016 08:46 PM

That's definitively a Paradox sized update.

tarcone 06-02-2016 12:57 AM

And the game just crashed. Have to see if that becomes an issue.

Honolulu_Blue 06-02-2016 09:26 AM

I've played two games. Both times some other civ has declared war on me and both times I have been sorely, sorely out gunned. I've had the max number of ships I can in my navy, but still tend to get wiped out in the battles. I am not sure if it's a tech gap or just poor ship design on my part...

Thomkal 06-02-2016 10:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue (Post 3103005)
I've played two games. Both times some other civ has declared war on me and both times I have been sorely, sorely out gunned. I've had the max number of ships I can in my navy, but still tend to get wiped out in the battles. I am not sure if it's a tech gap or just poor ship design on my part...


were they fallen empires? also you can set it up so you start with some advanced civs. They would likely outgun you in the tech war if so.

Honolulu_Blue 06-02-2016 10:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomkal (Post 3103012)
were they fallen empires? also you can set it up so you start with some advanced civs. They would likely outgun you in the tech war if so.


No. Just regular old civs.

Brian Swartz 06-02-2016 02:09 PM

Possibly your naval capacity just isn't going up fast enough? Building and upgrading spaceports quickly can be important to make sure you don't get overrun.

Honolulu_Blue 06-02-2016 03:31 PM

I don't think I'm very good at this game yet....

tarcone 06-02-2016 03:49 PM

I play on a medium galaxy with about 6 or 8 opponents.
Then I get to explore. Take my time learning how the game interacts. See what Techs I need. Tech up. Exploring.
The only conflict is with locals hanging around.

tarcone 06-08-2016 03:37 PM

I put a frontier outpost in a galaxy with a low end civilization. I built an observation post and infiltrated the planet and annexed it. Can I disband my frontier outpost now?

NobodyHere 06-08-2016 03:49 PM

I would suggest just saving your game and trying it out to see what happens.

tarcone 06-08-2016 03:54 PM

Good idea. So much to this game I havent touched yet.

lungs 06-08-2016 03:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tarcone (Post 3103778)
I put a frontier outpost in a galaxy with a low end civilization. I built an observation post and infiltrated the planet and annexed it. Can I disband my frontier outpost now?


I think you should be all good. I've been taking frontier outposts down in systems that I eventually colonize without any ill effects.

Vince, Pt. II 06-08-2016 04:45 PM

I really wish they would give you a preview of where your borders would end before you build or disband a frontier outpost.

Coffee Warlord 06-08-2016 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vince, Pt. II (Post 3103788)
I really wish they would give you a preview of where your borders would end before you build or disband a frontier outpost.


A thousand times this.


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