Stellaris - Paradox new sci-fi grand strategy game

[Sranchammer]

They could have just said 'reworking the AI to create more problems'

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Honestly do you guys use all that armor? I have found simply maxing shields then as soon as possible grabbing capaciters, end game battleships regen shields so fast it becomes a damage threshold type thing where the regen value is simply negated as damage to the ship, then power comes in and lets you jam more shields for more regen.

I'd say having armor is a thing that you do on battleships and to a lesser extent with cruisers because they have more space than power and they aren't going to be hit with plasma alone so they'll last longer after the shields are down.

Should always take Capacitor tho, with battleships you should use the other A slot for the self-healing hull tho since that saves on running back to base.

 

[Average Manatee]

Corvettes are indeed much, much more useful than destroyers and also more useful than cruisers. However, battleships start to become a bit of a problem because of how much more range they possess, particularly after Arc Emitters come around which completely ignore evasion. Corvettes are also weak against missiles and carrier wings which they are also vulnerable against because of their low durability and limited point defence.

Not really true. It's true that in an ideal setup (with stacked evasion boosters) Corvettes murder any other single shiptype, but against the AI which just builds some of anything Destroyers and Cruisers are both better than Corvettes because they'll murder non-corvettes quickly and the few corvettes left are weaksauce that just warp out. And Arc Emitters are useless trash.

Weapon tech's damage increase I think is in a decent place, it dodges the problem that (for example) Europa Universalis games have where a single tech can have way, way, wayyyyyyy too much impact and older weapons become completely obsolete. But it is true that weapon tech is not top priority for ship improvement, as far as I can figure out the priority is power>AI>sensors>shields/armor>weapons for ships (size+spaceport upgrades aside, obviously). Improvements to everything else come after improvements to power, with effective value of each fleet cap point used also costing more (but one can obviously make sure they can afford their fancy new boats).

Nooooooooooooooooooo. Power is the worst upgrade in the game. T2+ power sources have some of the worst price/performance scaling available. The main problem with weapons is not only do they cost more, the increase in power costs required to run them is even greater.

Honestly do you guys use all that armor? I have found simply maxing shields then as soon as possible grabbing capaciters, end game battleships regen shields so fast it becomes a damage threshold type thing where the regen value is simply negated as damage to the ship, then power comes in and lets you jam more shields for more regen.

I'd say having armor is a thing that you do on battleships and to a lesser extent with cruisers because they have more space than power and they aren't going to be hit with plasma alone so they'll last longer after the shields are down.

Should always take Capacitor tho, with battleships you should use the other A slot for the self-healing hull tho since that saves on running back to base.

This is mostly good advice. But I'd point out that early game shields are SHIT. Shields are the one technology that scales well, don't use more than one on a ship until T4/5. Early game the ideal strat is to rush cruisers and make them T1 weapons/power with the rest armor. You'll have a ship with 70%+ damage reduction and cruiser firepower that costs barely more than a pimped up destroyer. You can easily conquer the universe with these. Similar setups with Battleships are ideal as well until the lategame.

 

[whatevername]

I'd assume he's just cheesing his spaceport - AI loves to rush into your sistem, get half-killed by it, then escape back. Rince and repeat until the warscore is high enough for it to lose. You also don't want to have any fleet as actually having it might repel them - it's the weak fleet that attracts them the most. Also generates a ton of debris in the process which leads to lots of nice study.

I've also built a military station with FTL inhibitor near the spaceport (withing its gun range) so AI ships don't retreat too fast. And don't build mining stations outside of home system or they'll attack those first.

Is the AI doing that from across the galaxy though?

I know if you build a military station in the AI's home system it will continually bum rush it with equal forces, not realizing that the range advantage of the station lets it win every time and quickly autorepair. If the AI doesn't have missiles then you can even gun down their spaceport with L-size slots on your station built just out of their range.

I send 1 ship to enemy territory so it arrives directly opposite their capital, wait till the enemy fleet shows up and flies close to the star, then order my ship to go back. Yes, the AI is chasing after 1 corvette from across half the galaxy.

 

[Average Manatee]

I send 1 ship to enemy territory so it arrives directly opposite their capital, wait till the enemy fleet shows up and flies close to the star, then order my ship to go back. Yes, the AI is chasing after 1 corvette from across half the galaxy.

Sounds micro intensive and annoying if you have to do it multiple times. Should just do it once, then set up two stations in the AI system and they'll suicide for years until you have however much warscore you want. Don't have to hold off on stations and expanding either.

 

[Grotesque]

 

[Inf0mercial]

Once you learn to colonize you can win like this,

Robots make 40% planet win way too easy, also AI can't deal with 4 arm spiral galaxies, stick to the big ball one i guess.

I really like this UI mod.

 

[Average Manatee]

Learn something new every day. Even if it's been a year since the game's release, there's always neat tricks like this to figure out.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

neat tricks like what? o_O

 

[Average Manatee]

How to colonize a planet.

Seems to be a very powerful strat

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

learn to use the right tags guys. [sarcasm][/sarcasm]

 

[thesheeep]

Damn, no wonder the late game crisis hit me like a truck. Always wondered what the planet list is for since you only have one planet.
Next time, I'm gonna colonize another lump of rock!
Those AI fuckers won't know what's happening!

 

[thesheeep]

Fuck, man. This game is complicated!

 

[Average Manatee]

Damn, no wonder the late game crisis hit me like a truck. Always wondered what the planet list is for since you only have one planet.
Next time, I'm gonna colonize another lump of rock!
Those AI fuckers won't know what's happening!

The funny part is that lots of Stellaris players seem to be doing this intentionally. Cases of "It's 2400 and I've stayed on 3 planets in order to not slow down my tech rate, how do I deal with Awakened Empires?"

 

[thesheeep]

In the end, I solved the FE/AE problem by.... growing. By the time the crisis hit (Unbidden again), I had a 100K/600 limit fleet and both the ascension perks that do extra damage vs Unbidden and vs FE/AE.
This time, the FEs did not even awaken. Though one did declare war on me when I settled on one of their holy planets. They didn't stand much of a chance.

But the Unbidden put up quite a fight.
They of course spawned on the other end of the universe so it took me quite a while to get to them. Had to clear 3 50k fleets before I could move to their portal.
Of course, they were still able to magically summon another 150k of defenders.
I destroyed the portal with 10K of my fleet remaining - the 20K federation fleet served as welcome cannon fodder.
Had I not picked that +50% damage perk, I would've been annihilated as well.

Honestly, while I like the idea of an end game crisis and the fallen empires that awaken... it is handled in a terribly bad and unfun way. There is exactly one way to defeat the Unbidden, and it is having more firepower than them as a single player. The AI won't do shit, not even your own federation partners. It is infuriating.
If you have a strong enough fleet when the Unbidden spawn, you win. If you don't, you lose. It is as simple as that, since again, the AI is utterly helpless.

And that is from the perspective of a pacifist player. As a military/aggressive one, it must be even easier.


Also: Missiles suck.
I didn't believe all of the naysayers, and started using missiles but... boy, are they bad. By the time the first missiles reached the enemy, one third of my fleet was already gone from the enemies superior range and instant damage. I thought "well, if they get shot down so easily, I just need MOAR MISSILES".
So I went all in with them. My fleets started performing even worse.
Changed to complete kinetic/laser/disruptor layout and the result is so much better, it isn't even funny.
Missiles really are some kind of "noob filter".

 

[Norfleet]

If you have a strong enough fleet when the Unbidden spawn, you win. If you don't, you lose. It is as simple as that, since again, the AI is utterly helpless.

That isn't really true at all. You're also seeing the Unbidden as a PROBLEM rather than an opportunity. An alien menace that eats all the filthy Xenos and leave their planets open for the taking? YES PLEASE. They're not hard to keep contained as they aren't really that aggressive, and I tend to just leave them be while pushing them in the direction of the enemy.

Also: Missiles suck.
I didn't believe all of the naysayers, and started using missiles but... boy, are they bad. By the time the first missiles reached the enemy, one third of my fleet was already gone from the enemies superior range and instant damage.

Yeah, the really terribad thing about missiles is that they lose everything which would have made missiles useful realistically: The fact that a missile has effectively infinite range as, unlike unguided projectiles, they are capable of terminal attack maneuvers so that moving between the time the shots are fired and the time the shots arrive doesn't force a miss. The fact that missiles can be trivially outranged at any tech level makes them worthless: In any kind of realistic setting, even the most primitive missiles will outrange the most advanced direct-fire weapons.

Getting shot down so easily is just the final nail in the coffin. If they weren't so easily outranged and your ships didn't insist on closing despite their superior range, they'd be awesome.

 

[Raapys]

Never seen the big appeal of missiles in a realistic space setting. Turtle-like velocity compared to tiny relativistic projectiles that travel many kilometers a second, easy to detect and shoot down with either projectile weapons or lasers, easy to jam if remote-controlled, susceptible to countermeasures if not, limited explosive power in space due to the lack of an atmosphere, expensive to make, heavy to carry... What's the point?

 

[thesheeep]

They're not hard to keep contained as they aren't really that aggressive, and I tend to just leave them be while pushing them in the direction of the enemy.

That's what I did the first time around. In the end, they had eaten everyone besides me (including the awakened empires).
Even if I had not sucked hard in that game, I would have never been able to deal with thousands of fleet power. When I made my suicide run to their portal at that point, they immediately called in their closest defenders, which alone were about 400k

So I assume you suggest some kind of sweet spot between them eating your enemies and killing their portal.
Could be done, I guess. But I don't really see the point. If you are strong enough to deal with them, you can stop playing as nobody can stand in your way any more.
Sure, I could have continued then, but for me, the game is over if you survive the end-game crisis. The game doesn't really have an end date, so I find there is no point in blobbing for the sake of blobbing.

 

[Raapys]

It's an improvement, but how would the missiles even target the enemy ship? If you make it heavier and more expensive by putting a set of advanced and big sensors on the missile, what's to prevent the targeted ship from just blinding or destroying those sensors using lasers? Better yet, fire drones that fly around on their own with a set of lasers that target and confuse the missiles. Alternatively, fire smaller and thus more agile missiles that target the engines of the bigger missiles...

There's just so many potential ways to counter long-distance missiles, especially when they're self-guided. And heck, the ships move too. Trying to hit an accelerating target with a big hunking missile traveling at a huge relative velocity is no mean feat. You might need to turn the missile horizontally towards the enemy just to try to compensate for his acceleration, thus exposing your missile's engine to him.

But I'm not convinced it would even become a problem in the first place; that chunk-of-metal warhead might stop lasers, but it's more than likely that simply hitting the missile with a few tiny projectiles that travel at relativistic speeds is enough to penetrate the whole thing and kill the electronics, engine or fuel tank, for any 'reasonable'(i.e. in terms of weight, acceleration and fuel usage) amount of armor you could put on them.

So yeah.. I think railguns with tiny projectiles traveling at absurd speeds will be king in space. The penetration power will be far greater than the defensive power of any armor you can put on your ship or missiles due to the weight cost, and you don't actually need to destroy/explode the enemy ship; you just need to turn him and his missiles into swiss cheese.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

you need to take with space missiles the same approach as the great emu war: they're BIG, they're mean, they do terrific damage once they hit and can take an unholy amount of punishment.
think of them as unmanned kamikaze planes.

but yes, missiles in stellaris suck, they should have double range, damage and rate of fire to be sort of useful.

 

[thesheeep]

As others said, it would already be a most significant improvement if the missile carriers would not for some weird reason move in closer.
The whole fleet behavior is bonkers. I mean, why won't a fleet focus on its target instead of being forced into "melee combat" when meeting an enemy fleet?
When I order my fleet on a suicide run on some target, I expect them to do just that and not dance with the enemy until they are dead.

Yeah... after playing for 50 hours, a few games, I can say that this game needs some more work. But it will be getting there, I think.

 

[Raghar]

Never seen the big appeal of missiles in a realistic space setting. Turtle-like velocity compared to tiny relativistic projectiles that travel many kilometers a second, easy to detect and shoot down with either projectile weapons or lasers, easy to jam if remote-controlled, susceptible to countermeasures if not, limited explosive power in space due to the lack of an atmosphere, expensive to make, heavy to carry... What's the point?

Realistic setting:

A heavy cruiser which outrun snail in 13 second. And has deltaV 20 km/s
vs a missile which can have 40 km/s, or superior acceleration, and can be hidden lying in waiting until ship come to range. And come to range can be even half AU.

Missile don't care if propulsion unit will melt during acceleration. It can be well shielded, but in light weight way, and it can lie dormant at temperature near absolute 0 until it gets signal to activate and receive target coordinates.

Kinda beats up dense projectiles which would by orbiting around for years and causing massive headaches after end of war, and can't hit crap above 20 km. Or 3000 km for snail can outaccelerate them like target.

Honorable mention gets to lasers which have divergence and are largely inefficient above 20000 km.

 

[Raapys]

Half an AU is 75 million kilometers away. Even at 40km/s relative velocity, that gives you a travel time of several weeks to target... At which point it's gonna struggle with even hitting a ship, because at a relative velocity of 40km/s the tiniest acceleration by the ship will cause the missile's course to be way off and it won't have time to correct it. Assuming the ship doesn't detect the missile's rocket flare and just shoots a projectile or laser on it, throwing it way off course or destroying it utterly. There's just no easy way to do long range combat in space, except against stationary targets.

 

[whatevername]

Weapon tech in Stellaris is pretty much useless.
For example I barely research any.
First high tier weapons are costly(minerals) and use more power but their damage or other stat increase is fairly low.
The most cost effective ship is corvette with basic components(excluding drive as its essential for strategic movement). Cheap to build, maintain(even at 2 or 3 times or navy limit) and still have its 300HP and guns.
If shields(deflectors) were flat damage reduction like in MoO and ships have different hull armor(as base for HP - treat its as separated component like engines), and different tiers of components actually offer more range of stats and bigger difference then yeah tech could serve as a bigger power multiplier.
But now?
Sometimes giving better weapons is counter productive for ships.
I just swarm enemy with cheap as corvettes and scavenge debris. No tech needed.

Yes, tech was useless before 1.3. But not anymore.
Check out what can you do with high-tech guns.

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See that 0 - 0 - 67? And 19k -6k -11k next to it? YEAAAAAAH

That's L Kinetic Batteries on all ships and some point defense and a X Mega Cannon on each battleship, which have 5% and 0% tracking.

In terms of navy capacity the AI had a slightly bigger fleet, I just get more fire rate from admiral lvl 5 and fanatic purifier. Oh and sweet +10% to gun RANGE from 'cautious'.

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[Average Manatee]

Not that impressive tbh. Enemy was 100% missiles and missiles are insanely horrible due to flight time and missiles instantly disappearing into nothing if either their target or their source is destroyed.