Paradox(the company) Games

[autumn owl]

they have two ATTACK MOONs

i dont seem to be able to select myself as custodian

and other nominees get this msg

[spice idol]

oh right, crisis path

can't rule the community if you plan on mass genocide on that scale

[autumn owl]

anyways, new empire cuz that save was laggy af

ayo??

[autumn owl]

fairly secure lil enclave

[humble belfry]

ayo lad got a good start

now are you boxed in by the marauders?

[autumn owl]

theres a fallen empire slightly to my left

and some sort of hostile first contact north

[abstract hull]

free tech! if you survive.

[autumn owl]

yeah

removed gigas so hopefully no 5million fleets raiding me

[abstract hull]

one can dream

[autumn owl]

(TWO ATTACK MOONS AAAA)

[abstract hull]

at least it wasn't an attack system

[autumn owl]

heh

Aint that one from the tetrastructures mod or something

[abstract hull]

face systemcraft.

this is from gigastructural

[autumn owl]

i do NOT wanna know what the gravity well on that thang looks like

[abstract hull]

this thing is built OUT OF attack moons.

and it has the firepower to back that up

[autumn owl]

what the sam hells do you even need that for

[abstract hull]

oh you know.

reasons.

[autumn owl]

Uhu

[abstract hull]

specifically the blokkats.

[autumn owl]

Do these reasons include galactic domination

[abstract hull]

they include surviving the Blokkats if the Blokkats spawn

did you ever get to meet the Blokkats?

if not, dont worry about it!

everything is fine!

semi spoilery TLDR if you care for it ||given literally nothing in the base game could ya know, survive GSE, the GSE devs invented their own personal absolute NIGHTMARE of an endgame crisis that literally plows through everything smaller than an attack moon, and attack moons are just speedbumps. the Blokkats are abominations. they're also adorable. so. its all worth it.||

[autumn owl]

no i hanvet yet

first contact made.., criminal syndicate megacorp

Theyre one of my customs actually.. Arasaka Corporation

[abstract hull]

welp

[autumn owl]

wait thats actually a scary amount of fleets

[autumn owl]

I have formed a defensive pact with the Overwhelming fleets empire to protect myself from the Superior fleets empire

Politik

hmm... genetic or cybernetic ascension

[spice idol]

At least they made it so you can have commercial pacts with criminal syndicates for reduced crime from their stuff

[autumn owl]

oh really?

good 2 know

I havent had them put an outpost on my planets yet

but I build enforcer drones just in case

[spice idol]

Yeah, it was a semi recent update they did

I believe that instead of the +60 crime or whatever it does, it makes each building something like +10 minimum crime on planet, meaning you'll always have a bit you can't remove, but highly preferable, especially with how it's still a megacorp that boosts the economy somewhat

[autumn owl]

That's a nice improvement..

Got any tips for my ascension choice?

[spice idol]

What're your ethics?

And civics

[autumn owl]

Lithoid Gestalt, focus on friend making

oh wait

Is that why the criminals cant put branch offices

LOL

cuz they cant do trade

goofy

[spice idol]

I'd probably pick cibernetic ascension, although I do not think it matters all too much with that build

Also I am pretty unfamiliar with the specifics between genetic and cybernetic given the newer changes, and I've not really touched stellaris all too much

[autumn owl]

fair nuff

cybernetic rock people it is

[spice idol]

If you were robots, I would've 100% recommended virtual path if you're a Diplo focused nation though

[autumn owl]

virtual is good for that ay?

[spice idol]

It's good for "I don't plan on having many planets" builds

Which for diplo where you don't plan on any personal hostile expansion, works well

Since you get a huge buff that diminishes with more planets

150% buff with -25% per planet owned iirc

Also infinite population

So great way to effectively circumvent that is by using vassal swarm

[jolly breach]

Which of course means at max value, it's actually a 125% buff, since the homeworld counts.

[spice idol]

Yeah, but that's still over double with just the homeworld, and if you have 3 worlds (from the 2 guaranteed you normally have) you have 75% on 3 planets which is still insane

[jolly breach]

Only really stops being useful at 5, where it's just a 25% buff on 5 planets.
Still technically a buff, but no longer a big enough one to be truly significant.

[little fox]

It's terrifyingly spooky with the shattered ringworld start, though. Especially with giga engineering, because you can build the outer rings, colonize one segment at a time, and de-colonize the inner rings as you expand outwards

Not having to wait for pops production means you can minmax your infrastructure construction speed instead

[autumn owl]

Can organics reach virtual ascending?

or do I have to start as machines

[autumn owl]

look at all these Crisis options

[gentle otter]

Ooooh

[spice idol]

Start as machines

[autumn owl]

beeeeewwhh

there's no way to Transcend from decaying mortal flesh to digital paradise?

[spice idol]

It's a missed opportunity

[jolly breach]

Yeah. Mortal Flesh are forced into a different ascension route when going to pure machine, that precludes them from digitization.

[little fox]

There's a sort of similar thing you can get with synthetic ascension, there's even a way to do the "synthetic fertility" origin that ends with a digital paradise building

[autumn owl]

The Psionic Ascendancy is putting Zro in the damn water!! Turning your pops spiritualist!

[little fox]

...oh hey, a cassus belli
machine empire "saves" the galaxy

[real isle]

Looking at the ck3 patch notes for the Coronation stuff, you can commission Artifact Bows now, not just the usual artifact weaponry.

Wonder how silly those can get

[cyan acorn]

I have come with questions for stellaris

should I worry about this

I am also using void worms and the like as fleets due to capturing behaviours :whistle:

[abstract hull]

nah its probably fine

[cyan acorn]

is this fine too?

[abstract hull]

Ive seen worse

remember Dawn, it can always get worse.

[cyan acorn]

you know why I'm doing it, correct

?

[abstract hull]

no I have zero context on whats going on at all from the two messages you sent other than its some event in stellaris that probably has a big downside at first before having an enormous upside that snaps the game in half.

[cyan acorn]

the void stuff is scary but nah that's not it

this image is showing you how I'm grabbing specific stars to block pathways aka I am ensuring I have as many star systems for myself as possible

[spice idol]

I feel like you could've just expanded normally, since the influence cost scales so two away is the same as two starbases that are adjacent

[cyan acorn]

I 100% could've this run

seens like only two alien races are around me and even then I have such a big sector all for myself

regardless, I like ensuring I have more systems for myself :>

[jolly breach]

Always a good idea, though you want to blob normally first, for the Influence costs to stay down, and only after getting a decent size start rushing bottleneck systems.

[cyan acorn]

It should be fine honestly

I've already started settling down

[jolly breach]

Just remember to prioritize connecting your claimed systems together into one big claim.
Separated claim areas make the game punish you.

[cyan acorn]

Yep I'm doing that atm

Connecting all the disconnected blobs

Once that's done I'll claim all that's left

I'm running void forged machines with space fauna fleets

It's been a ride so far

[jolly breach]

For that step, claim all the stuff closest to the bottlenecks first. The AI has to pay scaling Influence costs too, so you want to make it as expensive as possible for them to claim any of the systems inside your claimed sector.

Force them to need to use war claims, if they want stuff within your claimed sector.

[cyan acorn]

It's pretty chill tbh

The bot to the bottom right of me is an ally

The top one is a neutral one

And below my ally is a faction that's warring with them nonstop

[cyan acorn]

Yep, been doing that, thanks though

[little fox]

those are some strange ways to spell "future biotrophies"

[autumn owl]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7HF4JG1pOg

"So this is how liberty dies..."

[jolly breach]

“With thunderous applause.”

[autumn owl]

the reform options are cool as heck

[abstract hull]

I love democracy

[little fox]

brace for imminent political power doubling, with no reason. they'll magically have more voting power than you and all your favors combined. even if only one nation objects

whups, sorry for ping

[gentle otter]

https://tenor.com/view/impeachment-love-democracy-i-love-democracy-gif-15723806

[autumn owl]

Decided that declaring empire was a win, am gonna start a new run

[abstract hull]

nice

[autumn owl]

anyway what the heck do i even pick

[jolly breach]

Technological Ascendancy, Transcendant Learning, and One Vision are always safe first picks.

No matter your empire, those 3 are always useful.

[abstract hull]

lithovore.

[jolly breach]

Even for them, the three Ascension Perks I listed are always useful.

[autumn owl]

psionic shipset looks niiice

[abstract hull]

oh yeah absolutely. I just want para to see the might and glory of eating rock.

Master of Orion taught me one thing and one thing only.

[autumn owl]

mMMmmm maybe next run I will be rock

[abstract hull]

if you can just consume rock instead of having to grow food, you have much better time.

now I've also never WON a game of MOO2 but thats besides the point.

[jolly breach]

Counterpoint: Consume money instead of Food or Rock.

[abstract hull]

Counterpoint: the money in that game is called "dust"

dust is just small rock.

conclusion: broken lords are lithovores.

wait damnit now I have to like the Broken Lords!

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[jolly breach]

Dust is actually magic, not rock.

[autumn owl]

man.

[abstract hull]

magic, rock, close ennough.

[autumn owl]

So many red worlds

[abstract hull]

oh dear.

that. that seems bad.

thats bad right?

[autumn owl]

like 5 or 6 tomb worlds

[jolly breach]

Red means low habitability.

[abstract hull]

oh dear.

[jolly breach]

What Origin did you pick, Para?

[autumn owl]

Under one rule

but my galaxy settings are 2x habitable, no guaranteed

[abstract hull]

oh. ohhhhhnoooooooo.

[abstract hull]

[jolly breach]

Even with No Guaranteeds, that's still extremely bad luck getting that many tomb worlds on an Origin that doesn't force Uninhabitable Worlds nearby.

[autumn owl]

yep

[abstract hull]

well. uhhh. good luck now!

wait dont tomb worlds make for great mining outposts?

or am I just lying to myself.

[jolly breach]

Triple Tomb World at least makes this system worth colonizing.

Especially since one of them's Size 22.

Also, you'll probably want to colonize Kannam and build a Fortress World there.

Due to the Wormhole.

[autumn owl]

theres also this star

right below it

[jolly breach]

Beyond that... What are the sizes of Fijjon, Unif?

Alassia's pretty good too, Size 23.

[abstract hull]

well if nothing else I have some great news for you Para: no one is ever gonna want to invade you. theres nothing for them to take. its all tombs.

[jolly breach]

Oh wait.
Those are named...

[autumn owl]

15 volcanic, 22 tomb

[jolly breach]

Oh shit. Uh... You got a special spawn. A big one. And very high danger potential.

[autumn owl]

huh?!

[jolly breach]

Colonizeable Worlds that have names that aren't just [System] [Numerals] are special worlds, tied to events.

[abstract hull]

oh

ohno

those are fallen empires aint they?

[jolly breach]

Related to FEs.

[autumn owl]

theyre next to a black hole called the eye of bal

[jolly breach]

Which mods are you running?

[abstract hull]

good god I think your spawn is just cursed.

[autumn owl]

also i have FE disabled, no mods this time

except UI

[jolly breach]

So yeah, you got a special spawn. Very rare. Very dangerous. Ignore Alpha Canis for as long as you can.

[autumn owl]

oh so I shouldnt put an outpost there

[jolly breach]

Correct. And ignore the First Contact there too.

[abstract hull]

I mean. it could be fun. but yeah probably not.

[jolly breach]

Build up your fleets. You're gonna need them.

Iirc, it's Flak and Missiles that you want for weapons, and high Armor rather than Shields for your defenses.

(Make one with Shields instead of Armor anyway just in case I'm remembering wrong so you can do a rapid retrofit just in case.)

Remaining Best advice I can give?

Good luck.

[autumn owl]

e.e

first time ive played without mods in years XD

[jolly breach]

Probably also helps that you don't need to play on Ironman anymore for most achievements.

A couple still require it, but most don't.

[autumn owl]

yes that also

my previous achieve

[jolly breach]

My most recent.

[autumn owl]

wow

[abstract hull]

Im sorry stelaris achivements required you to play on a mode where you COULDNT SAVE SCUM?!

[autumn owl]

until very recently yes

[jolly breach]

Yes. All Paradox games do (or used to, in the case of most of Stellaris').

[abstract hull]

but 90% of paradox games is save scumming!

the company not you Para.

[autumn owl]

I know :P

[abstract hull]

look the discussion is named such a way for a reason.

[autumn owl]

Ah yes

hang on

"But Theyre Cute" event chain

idk what this is gonna turn out to be but

cute alien catthing

[abstract hull]

well

honestly

since its stelaris 50/50 chance of them turning into some horrifically overpowered ship upgrade in 10-70 hours of events

whats the other 50?

them eating your planet.

[jolly breach]

It’s a very nice and wholesome chain as long as your Empire Ethics aren’t Xenophobe.

[abstract hull]

yeah that sounds about right

good god that sounds like a traumatizing experience. your civics forcing you to slaughter the adorable flufferkin.

[jolly breach]

Welcome to Stellaris.

[abstract hull]

it do be like that.

[autumn owl]

edicts to brrt

[autumn owl]

tsk tsk

[autumn owl]

purge the xenos

fleet ded

[abstract hull]

be nice to Xenos. they've been through a lot.

[autumn owl]

no not friend Xenos, xeno aliens

[abstract hull]

I see. carry on then.

[autumn owl]

those fools

[abstract hull]

I dunno I think they have a chance.

non zero chance that the game crashes before they all die

[autumn owl]

An enemy neighbour guaranteed the independance of the stupid bots who started this war in order to join on their side
I am truely oppressed

pft. How'd that go for ya

[autumn owl]

AHAHAAHAHAHAHHA

GET REKT

[abstract hull]

nice

[autumn owl]

THREE achievements at once, DAMN

[abstract hull]

hoooh!

[autumn owl]

I conquered one of the enemy homeworlds

[autumn owl]

oh hellooooooo there

[autumn owl]

lets colonize the strange gaia world why not

[abstract hull]

yeah ittle be fine

[autumn owl]

psyker plants

[autumn owl]

Dont worry there were just some drones that said dont industrialize too hard

so i was like w/e I planned to make this a tech/unity world anyway

eee, tough choice

[abstract hull]

oh thats not so bad.

[autumn owl]

oh boye

[autumn owl]

Heheheheh.

That used to be a tropical world

[autumn owl]

I just sacrificed two entire empires to the chaos gods

I am very much the bad guy this time

hehehehe

[autumn owl]

There's way too many of these, I get another one every two seconds

the aura

[jolly breach]

I personally like turning Wenkwort into a Resort world, myself.

[autumn owl]

Really grubby meme... But it's too funny

[autumn owl]

Thats way too real, stellaris.

[jolly breach]

Megacorps do be like that. At least the Shareholder Megacorps are honest about the end result.

[autumn owl]

yep

btw, whats an ideal build for Overtuned?

[jolly breach]

Ideal build is “Yes.”.

[autumn owl]

?

[jolly breach]

Overtuned handles itself for the most part. As long as the build isn’t actively detrimental, you’ll be fine.

[autumn owl]

less lifespan seems... very detrimental

[jolly breach]

It’s actually really not. It just means you’re cycling leaders a little bit more in the early game.

[autumn owl]

this anything?

[jolly breach]

Instead of replacing a leader every 40-60 years, you replace them every 30-50.

Those are good picks, yeah.

[autumn owl]

hmm

[jolly breach]

Deviants is just a free -1 trait for any build.

Solitary as well for most builds.

Housing is only really a problem in the late game, but by that point you can gene mod off Solitary.

[autumn owl]

anyways, rate the build

[jolly breach]

5/10, you’re Egalitarian instead of Fanatic Materialist.

[autumn owl]

serious what is this luck

[jolly breach]

System name bearing size 24 Gaia is a truly blessed spawn.

Probably the game apologizing for the swathe of Special Named Tomb Worlds.

[spice idol]

I remember the one time I did overtuned, I went all in on the traits and I literally couldn't get leaders, leader lifespan so low they died in a month

[tribal kernel]

France

[autumn owl]

What. What's that meant to mean

[tribal kernel]

They’ve had a bunch of PMs only last a few days-weeks recently

[autumn owl]

Damn

[autumn owl]

Aaaand fanatic purifiers to my east

Also... pyromanic instinct/devastators to my south? Which seems like the fire version of Fanatic Purifier, but because im infernals, they dont care

[abstract hull]

neat.

all hail the flaming throne.

[autumn owl]

Screencap from another server...
Evolutionary Predator origin go brrt

[autumn owl]

well there goes my planet, lol

nevermind, neat

[jolly breach]

Very powerful. Normally you can only get reliable Dark Matter from Black Holes.

[autumn owl]

wth are theeese

[jolly breach]

Egalitarian faction, presumably, given the icon next to the name.

[jolly breach]

Some really weird variant of Egalitarian Militarist Spiritualist, I guess?

[autumn owl]

you know the rise of the manifesti event chain?

this came from that

[spice idol]

Oh yeah, manifesti, that's gonna be a fun like 10 years

and I mean that to say, it's highly temporary @autumn owl

[autumn owl]

lol

[spice idol]

I just shut it down every time I see it at this point

[autumn owl]

yeaaa

Im gona

[spice idol]

because it's just such a "nothing" event

[autumn owl]

next time

[spice idol]

a lot of civics also just have an option to shut it down without cost, and with differing gains too

[autumn owl]

TEN THOUSAND

[spice idol]

8

[autumn owl]

yeah they like the cold idk why theyre here

[gentle otter]

Isn’t Pops a unit of measurement, like 1 pop is a million or billion?

[autumn owl]

something like that, except they rebalanced the scales recently

I estimate 1k pops in the new system to be a billion

[gentle otter]

So 10 Billion, that’s not unreasonable for a capital planet

[autumn owl]

indeed

27 billion throughout my empire

[autumn owl]

I love arc furnaces

Anyway, finally wiping out that fanatic purifier on my border

yummy

My fleets are due for so many upgrades once they return home, tech has been going BRRT

[autumn owl]

And the fanatic purifiers are completely wiped out

[autumn owl]

tonight we slay a dragon

[autumn owl]

almost able to challenge even FEs

[autumn owl]

beautiful

heh

[autumn owl]

I see EVERYTHING

huh...

[spice idol]

Yeah yeah, the center of the galaxy

It's a decent event

[autumn owl]

damnit, i cant experimental navigation my way there

my southern neighbours got exterminated, RIP

the fallen empire has attacked one of my other neighbours

interesting

[tribal kernel]

Quantum Catapult can if you really want to get something there

[autumn owl]

how am I meant to unlock it?

[tribal kernel]

research

its one of the mega-projects

[autumn owl]

no

i mean the system

its the astral rift at the center of the galaxy

[tribal kernel]

oh that

wait for it to kick you in the nuts

[autumn owl]

lol

i mean its fleets are kinda sad

[tribal kernel]

just you wait

[autumn owl]

This might be the most opposition ive seen this galaxy...

lol, the other council member called a favour he has against us for THIS of all bills

slaver scum

FOOLS

[autumn owl]

Surprising amount of support for this one

[humble belfry]

so i just got cooked. the funny FE of the holy worlds people and the fractured (now unified) hivemind started war in heaven. and EVERYONE JOINED the hivemind. i went non aligned and now im fighting the galaxy ffs

i hate my life when this shite happens

[abstract hull]

Oh dear

[humble belfry]

also the war in heaven happens almost every single game i play without fail

[abstract hull]

Shoulda joined the hivemind.

[abstract hull]

That is normal as far as I know

[humble belfry]

prob shoulda but i can slug out a victory its just gonna suck ass

[jolly breach]

Very strange for everyone to join the AEs during WiH.
99% of the time it does trigger, at least 10% of the non AE/FE empires will stay Non aligned.

[humble belfry]

im leading the non aligned but then again i beleive 3/4 of the galaxy was vasalized under one guy

[jolly breach]

Nah. WiH is actually fairly rare, due to all the extremely precise requirements it has.

[abstract hull]

Huh

Wacky

[humble belfry]

how do i keep doing it in about 90% of my games?

[abstract hull]

I feel like every playthrough I’ve watched has had it

[humble belfry]

do i just build up too muich?

[jolly breach]

It becomes a bit more common if you consistently play with 1000 Star Galaxies with all 5 FEs, since at that point it's way more likely for 2 of them with opposing Ethics to survive to midgame without having been poked prior (the not having been poked prior to midgame being the big one. Any FE that gets involved in the galaxy prior to midgame beyond the random "ask empires for things" events (i.e.: the Xenophiles asking for pops for their "preservation" project, or the Robo Gestalt asking for permission to distribute a vaccine) becomes ineligible for proccing the start of WiH.)

[humble belfry]

ah bugger so im just not fast enough before i mess with them

anyways i stopped that game cause i crashed tf out over it

i jsut hate a full fight the galaxy

[jolly breach]

Yeah. You can consistently block WiH by setting up situations where the FEs go to war with someone, whether that be an AI Empire or your own.

[humble belfry]

probably i should poke them and take the humiliation early ngl

[jolly breach]

That's usually a good idea, yeah. Even with the maluses from the Humiliation, you come out ahead in the long run because you don't have to worry about WiH.

[humble belfry]

oh well i was half learning the game again before i go back to admrial diff. so it was fun, playing a wilderness body snatcher

i like the idea of it so i made a full on sbody snatcher empire

[spice idol]

I just did an infernal run of the game, managed to bake the galaxy alive, really wasn't that hard to defend, only two empires even attempted to stop me, and one of them could barely even fight the conduits, the other had a lot, but I had beeg fleet

[autumn owl]

The new crisis?

[spice idol]

yeah

[autumn owl]

Nice

Cook em

[spice idol]

It definitely helps being a megacorp, since one of the edicts is "technicians produce the crisis resource instead of energy" and I had a full generator world while also producing 2k energy excess already

[autumn owl]

Ha

Is that a megacorp exclusive edict?

[spice idol]

Like, I was playing multiplayer with a friend, they started the entire crisis chain before me, and once I started, I basically speedran the entire thing, only being blocked behind the research and megastructure building

[autumn owl]

Xd

[spice idol]

nah, just megacorp = economy, so easier to run

[autumn owl]

Btw shroud, or any of y'all, I'd be keen for a 2p Co op run sometime

[autumn owl]

Ahh trade covered the energy deficit

[jolly breach]

Megacorps can make money more easily without needing Technicians (or Dyson Swarms/Sphere).

[spice idol]

Not even, I just had a strong enough economy that even with my technicians being nerfed in the energy department, I still produced an excess

[jolly breach]

So things that completely obliterate your Technician production of EC in exchange for them producing something else are much more viable for Megacorps.

[autumn owl]

new meme empire

[autumn owl]

haha, nom nom

[humble belfry]

Last night. Cook the Galaxy alive. Now I'm doing a shroud - forged run. And so far it's going good.

[autumn owl]

is fair trade yes

I just need alloys for fleets

[jolly breach]

I'd say so. You're giving them Rare Crystals.

[autumn owl]

as you can see, I have lots of those to spare

boutta rinse them dry

hehehehehe

[jolly breach]

The Art of the Deal, but actually good business.

Instead of bankrupt casinos.

[autumn owl]

stupid idiot fallen empire spiritualists must have dementia, I havent even touched them

theyre on the other side of the galaxy

[jolly breach]

What're your ethics? They might be doing this simply on principle.

[autumn owl]

wowee

[jolly breach]

Free Spiritualist FE Holy World colonizing.

[autumn owl]

problem

[jolly breach]

Surely you can just L-Gate over. :P

Distant Stars is a cheap and very powerful DLC.

[autumn owl]

how do L Gates work even

I have them somewhere around here

oh yeah I do have one

[jolly breach]

Once they’re opened by someone, they lead to a place called the L-Cluster, which is a small cluster of systems that is otherwise disconnected from the galaxy that always spawns in the top right of the map. From Terminal Egress, the entry system, you can exit to any L-Gate in the galaxy.

It is absurdly powerful to control which makes the AI go bananas for it.

[autumn owl]

its... friendly?

[autumn owl]

@jolly breach why is the dragon friendly

anyways, soon we will be powerful

[autumn owl]

huh, attack moons fit in hyper relays

and thus my energy woes are solved

[autumn owl]

Do you think im ready for the surprisingly delayed Great Khan @jolly breach ? XD

[autumn owl]

https://tenor.com/RfTq.gif

[autumn owl]

hehehehehhe

[jolly breach]

No clue. Normally they attack on sight.

[abstract hull]

Because the dragon is lonely I guess.

[autumn owl]

We're dragon slayers now

[jolly breach]

Congrats.

[abstract hull]

Harvest the corpse for immense technological gain

[jolly breach]

Parade the head.

[autumn owl]

The enemy let their capital fall (and its about to get world crackered) in order to send their fleets to harass my border systems...

[jolly breach]

Classic idiot AI.

[abstract hull]

ingenious

[autumn owl]

stoopid

[autumn owl]

minerallls

[autumn owl]

new game time cuz the last one was getting too laggy

build OK?

[autumn owl]

having fun @sick kraken ?

[gentle otter]

I’m going to have to play it myself

[autumn owl]

yes do eet

[humble belfry]

Ok doing wilderness as this body snatched will never work. Reason being is that all pops on your planets besides one become biomass resource. Which you need for building, colonizing, etc.

I found out the hard way on this

[autumn owl]

ah.. lame

[humble belfry]

I will say though that stealing pops does bolster your low growth rate tho

But let me be honest. You need at min 2 cradle of rebirth on every planet

To keep your economy growing.

[gentle otter]

Saw these guys on Reddit

80% habitability on everything

But Extremely Adaptable is wasted

[autumn owl]

3 civics? So many expensive positive traits?

Thats modded to get more points

[abstract hull]

Those are all T1 civics

You have 3 civic points, just most grab a T2 I was thinking of ethnics

The traits are a bit suspicious though

[jolly breach]

Subterranean forces Cave Dweller which iirc doesn’t eat a trait pick.

[abstract hull]

Might be legit. Who knows

They don’t show the full trait list

[spice idol]

Natural design also gives a bunch of extra trait stuff, although it's still definitely pushing the limit, even ignoring the obvious 3rd civic pick

[abstract hull]

the third civic is clearly modded. thats legitimately not possible from what I know.

the traits though.

I mean

they could have taken a TON of negatives that can be later disabled through events and gameplay

[jolly breach]

I mean, at the very least they almost certainly have a -1 from the "+Empire Size from Pops" trait that's literally just a free grab for any build.

[abstract hull]

likely

[tribal kernel]

after playing ME

i think a cool change to federations/galactic community

would be you have to designate a system as the capital

would be interesting way to play with geography more

closer you are to the galactic hub, more trade but much higher chance of espionage, further you get out, it flips

[jolly breach]

And that the current President of the Federation/GalCom gets control of that system?

[tribal kernel]

add some cool war goals/concepts through other empires taking systems so you can't access the capital and reduce your diplomacy power

who knows

i just thought it would be a neat way to make it more interesting

[autumn owl]

Spare Organs 2pt
Noxious 1Pt
Incubators is 2 or 3 pt

And look at the scrollbar. I already dont think you can get enough trait picks to balance that many positives

without mods

also uh

yknow

3 civics at start

[jolly breach]

To be fair, there are quite a lot of civics that feel like they shouldn't eat a Civic Pick, so I can completely understand them installing a mod to allow 3 Civic Picks.

[tribal kernel]

Goddamnit

i picked Xenophobe-authoritarian

and my research director embezzeled a starship and fucked off

[jolly breach]

Pretty sure those are unrelated to each other. I think the research director embezzling a starship is just an event that can happen to any empire.

[humble belfry]

Yes it can. It's a semi interesting event chain

[jolly breach]

Yeah, it's a fun event chain (annoying as it's happening, but fun afterwards).

[jolly breach]

Weird to see no other empire voting at all.

[spice idol]

Well given there's none in the abstain area, that shows that the galactic community is a community of one

[gentle otter]

https://tenor.com/view/vodyani-endless-space2-core-cracker-orbital-cannon-gif-20109196

[humble belfry]

Galactic "community"

turns to see the secret society civic and shadow council

[tribal kernel]

yeah, i kinda wish it got a revamp like federations

were you could change/modify it/based on biggest empire at foundatio from galactic community, galactic hierarchy, anarchy, etc

[jolly breach]

So having the "Galactic Imperium" just be the state of the GalCom if the biggest empire was Imperial Leadership Authoritarian?

[tribal kernel]

something like that

[autumn owl]

it does make sense that the galcom would start as a reflection of its founders

[tribal kernel]

Something to make it varied

But that’s just me beating on the drum of “it’s time for stellaris 2”

There’s been enough massive overhauls of stellaris the past 10 years that going back to the drawing board is the only thing that makes sense to me

[jolly breach]

False. It's time for Stellaris 5.

Because in practice they've already done Stellaris 2-4, due to the sheer amount of reworking of the base game that happens at every X.0 release.

[tribal kernel]

Something like that

But also just performance and mechanic wise

Getting rid of all the dead ends, the unneeded checks, redundant systems and design it from the ground up again would be heavily appreciated

Cause at this point nothing of the launch title aside from the art and fundamental aspects of systems and building - is in the game

Rewriting the rules from step 1 with all the lessons learned would be fantastic

Archaeology, technology better tied together

Better economy

Functional diplomacy and fleets

In-depth galactic community

Games great don’t get me wrong, there’s a reason it’s my most played on steam

But they’ve modified the game so much, they just need to call it quits and restart

Also better galaxy generation - that would be awesome

Have a mass relay mode of mass effect, a dark side of the galaxy of Star Wars

[jolly breach]

A way to create your own hyperlanes.

[autumn owl]

1.0 stellaris had you choose what FTL tech your empire used at game start

[tribal kernel]

Yup

I was there!

[jolly breach]

Jump, Wormhole, or Hyperdrive.

[autumn owl]

yea

[tribal kernel]

I do like how they reworked jump

It’s pretty nifty

I just want more thoughtful expansion

And more varied builds of empires instead of just globes

[jolly breach]

When 2.0 came out, Jump was made a Late Game Tech exclusive, Wormhole was scrapped entirely, and Hyperdrive was made the default.
Then they reintroduced the Wormhole (sorta) at some point by readding the Warpgates.
Then they reintroduced it properly when the DLC that added the Quantum Catapult came out by adding the Eager Explorers civic, which was literally just 1.0 Wormhole FTL.

[tribal kernel]

A reason for exclaves aside from wormholes and gateways

[autumn owl]

what

Quantum catapult is way older than eager explorers

Eager Explorers is lowtech jump drives from First Contact pack

[jolly breach]

Look, the lesser DLCs merge together a bit.

Point is, Eager Explorers was just 1.0 Wormhole brought back in full.

[autumn owl]

Sure youre not mixing wormhole with jump drives???

[jolly breach]

I'm pretty sure it's not that high yet.

I think it's only 1k, currently.

[autumn owl]

not even half that. $670NZD which is probably a lot less in you ess dee

[tribal kernel]

It’s about 380 cad

[autumn owl]

give it two or three decades to reach the several grand mark

[jolly breach]

Unless they pull a Train Simulator to speed up the rate of increasing the price.

[autumn owl]

I hope not >.>

train sim is a bit ridiculous about it

[autumn owl]

You've got me wanting to make an eager explorers empire to add to my roster of NPCs now, but the AI doesnt know how to handle that civic

[humble belfry]

Honestly. I don't think we're gonna get a new stellar any time soon. We aren't even HALF WAY to the amount t of dlc eu4 had and we just got eu5

[autumn owl]

oh btw Tyson

you said bodysnatchers is no good for wilderness hive right

What would you suggest for it instead

Im gonna redesign my rocky horror planet show

[jolly breach]

Make one anyway. And maybe with the "Free Quantum Catapult" Origin too. Even if the AI can't handle it.

[tribal kernel]

so you're trans-stellar?

[autumn owl]

imma be honest this is not what I remember... whats the one with the plant thats like feed me seymour?

I swore it was rocky horror picture show but uh

lol

[tribal kernel]

Little Chinashop of Horrors

[autumn owl]

oh jeez

I got that completely mixed up

[tribal kernel]

Little shop of horrors*

yup

one is a queer/trans icon

one is about an evil plant

[autumn owl]

lmfao

wild

[jolly breach]

Both are [something something] horror [something]

[autumn owl]

I watched little shop of horrors with my family as a kid, I dont know how my brain got those wires so crossed

Anyways @humble belfry suggestions for Wildness hive civics?

[jolly breach]

Anything that can help with pop growth is never a bad idea.

This includes stuff for reducing housing usage or buidling costs, since more housing space=more pop growth.

[humble belfry]

Oh sorry doing studying. Uh honestly just a good old hivemind. The one I did was.... honestly it fits with whatever hivemind you wanna do. The whole point of it is to get to 2k pops stolen. And then assimilate them. Send the. Back as a prepare invasion. And watch as abput 1/3 of their e.pire including planets are instantly occupied for you. I bet it even wins a full war on a small enough nation

[autumn owl]

i specifically wanna do this guy tho

[tribal kernel]

i tried it, but it really really chugged my system

[humble belfry]

But for wilderness. Def pop growth. And depending if you want that achievement for the fallen empire I would do orga ic ships and the airepdynamic civic. Let's you take basically no upkeep in a war which is huge.

I like the roleplay aspect too so I sometimes would do a wild swarm (let's you do space fauna fleets).

The biggest thing is that all jobs are instantly full once they are built. So the thing that holds you back is pop growth as you don't get the scaling with more pops=more growth.

But it all depends on your vibe for the game that you wanna set.

Do you want to spread and protect all wilderness? I would get envoys so you can pass all the recycling reforms in GC. if you wanna consume and assimilate it all like a horrid parasite or green wave take subspace will (or whatever it is called) so you can grow the legion node faster and your fleet capacity faster

[autumn owl]

gotcha

[humble belfry]

Yee yee that one always is a good shout

[autumn owl]

I tend to really over or under estimate some civics

[jolly breach]

Lots of people do.

[humble belfry]

Like honestly I like my mappies games. So stacking buffs is easy enough to keep track of for me. What will combo well with devouring hunger and subspace once you get the third civic is the airedynamic for organic ships

[jolly breach]

Especially after they moved all the extremely powerful ones to being Origins.

(Looking at you, Gaia World Start.)

[humble belfry]

Truth nuke tbh.

Though playing with idyllic bloom and inviting everyone to move there works really well ngl

[spice idol]

I remember doing a machine start with spyware directives, immediately getting cloaking tech, and then the first war I declared, I was already standing on their home system on declaration and killed their everything before they could even react

but other than for quick cloaking, spyware directives is kinda not good

[jolly breach]

I remember back when they made the Tomb World Start one no longer give Tomb World Preference.

[spice idol]

All the civics definitely have a good purpose and build to have fun with

[jolly breach]

It was honestly a fair change. Tomb World Pref is insane.

[humble belfry]

They really really buffed the spy network stuff in the game now. It's pretty fun to just make the galaxy burn in proxy wars with Spyware directive and all thar

[autumn owl]

whats tomb world pref do?

[jolly breach]

80% for Tomb Worlds, 60% for every other world type.

[autumn owl]

damn..

[spice idol]

Yeah, that was an insane time

[jolly breach]

(And the normal 100% for Gaia, that's unchanged)

[humble belfry]

Tomb world habitiability. Basically bomb everyone into apocalyptic hellscape and colonize the world after your done

[autumn owl]

now it just gives you this

[jolly breach]

As it stands, the only ways to get TWP nowadays is either with Xenocompat and the pops you can sometimes get from passing Caravaneers, or from the Worm in Waiting event chain.

[humble belfry]

I remember the three drive choices and just dunking on ai with wormhole by just jumping on their fleets instantly

[spice idol]

One of the best civics of current stellaris is functional architecture, given it lets you build the district specialisations immediately, and they are good

[jolly breach]

Which is still really good, don't get me wrong, but it's nowhere near as strong as TWP.

[humble belfry]

Oh also to save lag and your sanity.

turn off xeno compatability

[autumn owl]

they fixed xenocompat

now its just pop growth rate bonuses when multiple species share a planet

[jolly breach]

Yeah. Xenocompat is no longer an FPS hole.

[autumn owl]

no more subspecies spam

[humble belfry]

Oh wait really?

[spice idol]

oh yeah, new pops don't cause nearly as many problems now

[humble belfry]

Damn I was aboutta side eye that hard as hell

[autumn owl]

yeah lol its actually good now

if ur a xenophile

[jolly breach]

You can still occasionally transfer traits around with it, but it's not a constant spamming of subspecies.

[spice idol]

That's why they made every pop 100 pops, just to really prove that the pops don't cause problems anymore

[jolly breach]

Still not worth playing Xenophile just for Xenocompat, though. Still way better off playing Xenophobe Authoritarian so you can have slave species you can nerve staple and delicious-ify.

[humble belfry]

True. Though xenophile is great for playing super wide cause you own all the planets. No terraforming required

[jolly breach]

You can do that with Authoritarian Xenophobe as well.

You gotta make either your main species able to do well on every planet type, or allow Robot Leaders, but you can just keep your slaves on worlds they like.

[tribal kernel]

creative name

[autumn owl]

very normal

yes-yes

[jolly breach]

It's right there in the name. Totally normal.

Hopefully you get a Sol 3 spawn in that game where the humans are still alive.

[autumn owl]

about that :P

[tribal kernel]

mortis sol is fucking rad

[jolly breach]

Ah, you chose Sol as your starting system.

(I personally usually only do that with Toxic God runs, because the Knights of the Toxic God variant of Sol is actually very strong.)

[autumn owl]

toxic god is weird

its some mechanically super OP origin

but thematically... I dont care for it at all

so ive never done it

why do I want to chase the god of stank around

[jolly breach]

It's one of the "Story" origins, which get balanced to have a bunch of OP stuff because you have to wait on event chains that can often take a very long time.

[autumn owl]

yeah but the story is like... not interesting to me at all?

[jolly breach]

As for why you want to chase the God of Stankiness around: Because you either want to know why it blessed your planet with its stank, or you want to kill it for blessing your planet with its stank.

[autumn owl]

it'd be more interesting without being pigeonholed into the toxoids theme

[tribal kernel]

I sent a planet 2 billionyears into the past

also nerve gassed some molemen

[jolly breach]

Sounds like a typical day in Stellaris.

[humble belfry]

i need to do the molemen acheivment

also the hell is the send a planet backwards?

[jolly breach]

A fairly rare event.

It's really funny when it happens.

[humble belfry]

damn and i got like 500hrs... still havent seen that

just like the GALATRON

FFS

i will never get that acheivment

[jolly breach]

I mean, I've only ever personally encountered a single natural War in Heaven.

Any other WiH has been force spawned because constant Khanate gets boring.

[humble belfry]

damn have i played this game too much?

no not enough yet cause i cant play grand adrmial

[jolly breach]

Grand Admiral is dumb anyway, since it just gives the AI a bunch of free resources rather than making them smarter.

[spice idol]

If you do a diplomacy focused game, grand admiral really changes nothing

[gentle otter]

I forgot, I put Stellaris on my hard drive so I wouldn’t have to wait ages for it to reinstall

This was back when I didn’t know/have gigabit

Now I have to see if Steam will actually move it to my SSD

Ah I last played it May 2023

[sick kraken]

yes

[gentle otter]

Here's the last thing I took a screenshot of

I don't remember what either of these are

Time to unsubscribe from all these old mods

[jolly breach]

This one looks like Gigastructural Engineering’s Event Horizon Offset Facility.

[gentle otter]

Okay, should have trimmed off the fat

Everything left has been updated in 2025

[gentle otter]

Thank you Discord, for covering my crash message

[autumn owl]

tyson's having fun with the Warp

oh shoot wait

@jolly breach

the tomb world origin

It gives you tomb world hab as a trait, AND you get a standard planet preference trait

thats really good actually?

[autumn owl]

First contact is a megacorp that declared war at year 22

second contact is

well

[autumn owl]

Third contact: also fucking hates me for some reason

There is not a single fucking friendly thing

and the AI can magically whip 50+ corvettes out of its arse by year 20

[autumn owl]

yeah thats fkin right, you invader scum

Time for a little payback

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/stellaris-dev-diary-407-the-4-3-cetus-open-beta.1887023/

Also, huge fleet balance changes

Theyre squishing fleet sizes and making individual ships more important (and expensive)

also complete meta weapon shakeup

and the PDX discord pointed out

Juggernauts have 21 L-size armour slots.

21 X -8 flat damage reduction means juggernauts equipped with full crystalforged plating are going to be nearly unstoppable

a true war machine

[humble belfry]

As long as they did not touch my beloved large slot kinetic battery reshaping. If they didn't touch that then meta is still the same

[jolly breach]

Yeah, it’s still quite strong, just not as strong as it used to be back when it gave TWP.

[abstract hull]

Oh good god.

[tribal kernel]

i've played a few runs to remember

and now i'm settling into a boring

but good ol

Annoyingly Good Guys

[abstract hull]

That’s fun

[abstract hull]

oh thats awesome

[gentle otter]

Keeps crashing when I try to run mods

[autumn owl]

Mods not updated for latest version?

Some still work, some won't

Trial and error time

[gentle otter]

https://tenor.com/view/hellfire-skeleton-magma-hell-inferno-gif-13228999402859807274

[gentle otter]

What should I run as my first race after so long

[tribal kernel]

OH NOW YOU WANT TO BE MY FREIND EMPIRE, AFTER THE SWARM ATTACKS ME

[abstract hull]

Yeah! Now you’re weak and pushable!

[gentle otter]

Do you still need to be on Ironman mode to get achievements?

[jolly breach]

Only for some.

Most of the basic ones no longer require Ironman.

[gentle otter]

Oh that’s good

Just setting up my empire and galaxy then I’ll take a break and come back

[gentle otter]

I accidentally set my focus to militaristic

[jolly breach]

Time for you to kill some Xenos, I hear it’s really in this year.

[abstract hull]

Don’t kill Xenos. They haven’t done anything.

[gentle otter]

I just started

[jolly breach]

The other kind of Xenos.

[abstract hull]

Zenos from the critically acclaimed MMORPG FF14? With free trial now through stormblood?

[jolly breach]

Xenos from outer space.

[abstract hull]

We’re all from outer space.

[jolly breach]

The ones that are extra from outer space.

[abstract hull]

hmmmmmmmmmmmm

yeah alright you can stab em.

[gentle otter]

There’s a ruined mega shipyard right off my homeworld’s system

[abstract hull]

oh

well then

thats very nice.

[jolly breach]

The game is trying to tell you something.

[abstract hull]

destroy your foes.

consume their worlds.

[autumn owl]

???

[jolly breach]

It's the Star Mall Parking Service. What's there to be confused about?

[abstract hull]

NORMAL HUMAN

uhuhhh….

[jolly breach]

Perfectly normal and human. Very trust.

[autumn owl]

yes-yes, very normal

[jolly breach]

Totally completely normal.

[autumn owl]

of course they are

[abstract hull]

Yeah checks out

[autumn owl]

RIP blood forest, ganked by AI

[gentle otter]

Do Dyson Spheres still delete everything in the system?

I don’t remember how it works

I think I need to spam Dyson Swarms

[autumn owl]

I think thats just ringworlds

Dyson Swarms and Spheres keep the rest of the system intact

[gentle otter]

I feel like some planets freeze or go barren once you fully enclose the star though?

What about the new molten ones?

[autumn owl]

not that ive ever heard of

[jolly breach]

Dyson Spheres don’t delete the system. Only Ringworlds do that.

The planets do freeze over if you build a Dyson Sphere, though.

[gentle otter]

Yeah I’m not getting any achievements

I am also curious to know what mod added the Lego Batman theme

[autumn owl]

man, I love this mod

infinittyyyy

[jolly breach]

Galaxy’s shittiest calculator.

[abstract hull]

glorious

stab it

really hard

trust

[autumn owl]

uh oh

[jolly breach]

Helping it finish its calculations gives the overall better rewards.

[abstract hull]

hmmm

decisions

[jolly breach]

Did you install one of those visual improvement mods?

[autumn owl]

thats just a cosmic storm

[jolly breach]

Ah. I run the Storm VFX reducer mod, so I’ve never actually seen the vanilla visuals of the storms properly.

[autumn owl]

yeah theyre pretty full on

[gentle otter]

Unless you’re going Cosmogenesis

[gentle otter]

Oh I need that, it’s such a pain trying to find planets and stuff under the storm

[gentle otter]

I somehow scoured the tiyanki home system without attacking a single one

I might have kidnapped them all

[abstract hull]

Interesting

[little fox]

"I wanna be, the very best"

[jolly breach]

Letting a couple wild bulls and sows stay around is actually beneficial, as the Wild Tiyanki will go back to their home system to breed as long as they haven't all been wiped out/captured, which if you control the system, can be used to supplement the breeding you're doing in the Vivariums.

[gentle otter]

I didn’t tell them to do it, the automatic thing did it

[jolly breach]

I never turn on the Automatic Catching for that reason, unless I'm heading into systems with Void Worms where it's better to let them just catch the entire nest.

[humble belfry]

Ok I'm achievement hunting here. Fugging the wild civic and beat the crisis. God this is gonna suck so much balls

I can't build a single artifical ship. Has to be all fauna baby

[jolly breach]

So, tip for dealing with this: If you can find spawn points of the wild variants of the fauna (the home systems for the Tiyanki and the Energy Clouds, or one of the randomly spawned nests for the Worms), you can let them sort of fester in there to have an additional point for the rolling for better Genetic Rarities in the copies in the Vivarium that your Viviports will be cloning when making ships.

It's still going to be hell, but it'll be a slightly faster (on average) hell.

[humble belfry]

oh ive maxed out the genetics. they just suck really really bad as ships. thank god i can just reanimate my defeateed fleets and bloat my ship amounts like stupid

[gentle otter]

Why can’t I change my science ships design?

It doesn’t auto upgrade to the modded sensors

[autumn owl]

umm... Dunno, chief

Apparently that was a thing way back in 1.0 days

[gentle otter]

It was, I remember it

Need NSC just to modify them?

Hang on, let me search the workshop

Nope

[autumn owl]

Honestly I don't even know what NSC is

[gentle otter]

Adds a bunch of ship classes, including exploration cruisers

I left it out because it’s a lot of ship designing

But maybe I should’ve kept it in

Oh yeah and it breaks chipsets

[autumn owl]

quote from PDX discord

[autumn owl]

Sounds cool, can you link it? There are a million mods labelled NSC something or other

[gentle otter]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=683230077

It’s right at the top? I don’t know how you haven’t heard of it?

[autumn owl]

Like I said

I've heard of it

And seen a million different mods labelled NSC something or other

and had no idea what the main one was

New Save Game is Not Required (Unless your current save was started before 4.2 released, then you will need to start a new game now.)

oooooh~

wait

oh

Latest mod update

not

installing

im dumdum

[gentle otter]

Yeah, I’m turning it back on

When the game adds systems in the end game I’ve had exploration cruisers trundle in and nuke fleets while trying to survey the system

Good times

Hmm, it’s broken my frigate design

And it crashed when I tried to remake it

Okay, the vanilla frigate sections crash the game

https://tenor.com/view/batman-hmmm-thinking-one-second-let-me-think-gif-15838250914742163450

Nope, trying to redesign the frigate crashes the game

https://tenor.com/view/parks-and-recreation-tv-show-ron-swanson-nick-offerman-throwing-away-computer-gif-17541708

Frigates don’t exist

I’ve never heard of frigates

There have never been frigates

There are no frigates in Ba Sing Se

[spice idol]

Even when playing vanilla these days, I mostly forget frigates exist

They were added pretty recently, and I can still stack every other ship and do fine in wars, so they don't exist in my mindspace

[autumn owl]

Torps get up to like 40x damage multiplier based on targeted ship size

[spice idol]

My X slot weapon can deal quite well with big ships

[tribal kernel]

i had an idea the other day while playing

what if

Cosmic storms changed hyperlane layouts

[autumn owl]

fancy mod installed

[abstract hull]

Oooooh. Fancy.

[gentle otter]

I was scrolling through the megastructure list and suddenly the game is gone, taking Steam with it

https://tenor.com/view/tasty-pulp-fiction-beverage-drink-samuel-l-jackson-gif-15381845487398406049

[humble belfry]

its done

ive peaked again i can finally bump up to admrial

[abstract hull]

Yey

[autumn owl]

Ha ha, stoopid mindwardens

[little fox]

One day I'll be able to play a modded game all the way through before a major dlc breaks my save. One day...

[gentle otter]

There wasn’t another one was there?

Didn’t Infernals just come out?

[little fox]

Yup. Broke my mid 2500s giga engineering+acot save. I had several ringworlds with modular ascension...

I think that save was even rogue servitors, too.

[autumn owl]

I mean you can rollback the game version

and just keep playing like nuthing happened

[little fox]

oh no, I mean I didn't notice, ran the save with all the mods trying to run, and it corrupted said save

[abstract hull]

Yowch

[autumn owl]

oh, ouch

[gentle otter]

Uh

I launched the game like normal, and my screens lost input

Is this because I updated my drivers?

Yeah, completely borked

Ctrl + Alt + Del does nothing

Alt + F4 nothing

My screens just keep flickering on and off

Yeah, I’m pressing The Button

Could be because I only updated the chipset drivers and not the graphics

Nope graphics is updated

[autumn owl]

running any mods?

[gentle otter]

And now it’s fine

[autumn owl]

I... usually with skyrim, have had issues like that randomly on modded games

If it's just a one-off, I guess its fine? wack

[gentle otter]

Yeah, it’s probably the mods

[autumn owl]

Idk, maybe some little thing bent the wrong way while loading

[gentle otter]

Hmmmm

Got them from an event, don't think this is right

They're an organic, so I'm not sure if they're immortal

Nope

[autumn owl]

huh

I think I got that guy once, too, and he had some kind of immortality trait?

or maybe not

but mine didnt die instantly

weird

[autumn owl]

uh oh

I'm about to get zhlorped into a second paradox game whirlpool

I am getting tempted to try CK3

[tribal kernel]

Bye bye wallet

[humble belfry]

the truth. oyu wallet will be thanos snapped

[autumn owl]

its on a big sale rn...

$50 nzd for the starter pack

not bad

resisting the urge to buy it until I get paid wednesday

[tribal kernel]

Para para para

It never ends with “just” the starter pack

[autumn owl]

I know this

But for a starting point,,

also weeg

I've been looking up mods

and I could do something very funny again

[autumn owl]

i caved..

[autumn owl]

the tutorial starts off strong XD

[autumn owl]

good lords

[gentle otter]

The Border Gore

https://tenor.com/view/reaction-my-eyes-cant-unsee-burn-gif-7225082

[spice idol]

r/MapsWithoutNewZealand

[autumn owl]

Maps without amerika

[jolly breach]

Back in CK2 it was even Maps Without China.

[humble belfry]

Maps without South Africa

[tribal kernel]

BLESS THE RAINS DOWN IN AFRICA

[plain stream]

Back in CK3 about 2 months ago it was maps Without China

[autumn owl]

yt is recommending me OLLLLD content

[abstract hull]

Dayum

[autumn owl]

Ok, turns out trying to assassinate the leaders of three nations isnt the wisest idea

[abstract hull]

you think?

[autumn owl]

these nations

vs me

[abstract hull]

Paraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[autumn owl]

dont worrrrryyyyy

three hundred and sixty of these can take care of anything trust

[abstract hull]

uhuh

[autumn owl]

And if that doesnt work...

NSC3 is a funny mod

[abstract hull]

fair

[autumn owl]

SIX THOUSAND ALLOYS per ship

its nearly 8k fleet power on its own

a single one..

[abstract hull]

and how many did you build?

[autumn owl]

i mean

I can make more

[abstract hull]

fair enough

[autumn owl]

heh

anyway im bombing their capital

[abstract hull]

Fun!

[autumn owl]

heheh

THE SWAAAARM

[abstract hull]

CONSUMEEEEEEE

[autumn owl]

tough choice

heh

[autumn owl]

glorious

[abstract hull]

Dayum

[autumn owl]

also see @abstract hull its going fine

[abstract hull]

Seems legit

[autumn owl]

also love to see the AI only galcom nerf eachother by voting all the crappy resolutions

[gentle otter]

What ship set are you using?

[gentle otter]

Huh, I’ll have to check if I have that

[autumn owl]

Cybernetic set, from machine age dlc

[gentle otter]

I designed a fleet like that with nanite ships, but I haven’t built it yet

[gentle otter]

Ah, I went with the machine one

Not sure if it was a good idea

[autumn owl]

i much prefer cybernetic

[gentle otter]

Yeah I probably should’ve done that, or thown logic to the wind and went Mindwarden

Also researching with minor artifacts is a hell of a drug, reduces most techs to single digits month wise

[autumn owl]

oh yea?

how are you researching with em?

[gentle otter]

It’s an edict

[autumn owl]

ooh

What unlocks it?

[gentle otter]

I don’t know if it’s from a mod or not

Oh it’s the archivism tradition

It stands out from the other edicts, it’s the only one with a minor artifact symbol

[gentle otter]

Or is it?

I’m going to have to boot up the game just to look at this

[plain stream]

I'm a Machine set fan

Luv me cooling fins
Luv me curves
Simple as

[autumn owl]

Fair enough, im just not a fan of them. The small ships feel too thin and spindly, the stations are Just 2d, and the big ships are giant bricks

[gentle otter]

I have a few mods

[autumn owl]

haha

[autumn owl]

Im gonna ask the stellaris cord if thats vanilla or what mod it is

[gentle otter]

I want to say it's from Ancient Cache of Technologies

[autumn owl]

ooh

[gentle otter]

It burns through your minor artifacts, but if you're at max, it doesn't really matter

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1419304439

That or it's addon mod Aquisition of Technology

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2178603631

Or it’s something else entirely that it didn’t occur to me to think of

[autumn owl]

ive nearly doubled my playtime in the past two months

[autumn owl]

found a system with no hyperlanes, a shroud avatar, and a gaia world

unfortunately its the other side of the galaxy

[autumn owl]

cant believe the space commies are the second biggest AI

[gentle otter]

I think my game is broken, anytime any of my fleets enter battle, the game crashes

Or it’s just the stupid astral fleet the game keeps making me summon

[humble belfry]

astral kinda sucks. i avoided buying that dlc and the storms one since one can just game ruin instantly. the other just imo isnt worth the price. but, i know that with the little love astral got its prob still has game breaking bugs like that

[humble belfry]

hey your halfway to admrial!

[spice idol]

You're behind yourself

[humble belfry]

https://tenor.com/view/flashlight-disintegrate-animation-ncs-ncs-artist-gif-6527691708689323852

their 40hrs off finishing the tutorial. im gonna get smeared on the floor!

[spice idol]

I know how to play most of the game, fear me!

I will say, with the amount of time I spend on the wiki, you could say I have another few hundred hours of playtime just from wiki scrounging

[gentle otter]

Okayyyy it wasn’t the battle crashing the game

[humble belfry]

Was it Astro like I thought?

[gentle otter]

I disbanded the fleet and the game still crashed a few seconds later

[autumn owl]

hey pnad

youre running ACOT mod right?

are you on the latest game version?

because ACOT isnt updated

[gentle otter]

Ah

[little fox]

Yeahhh... ACOT isn't up to date yet