Stellaris - Paradox new sci-fi grand strategy game

[Riel]

Honestly I coulв but this DLC for relays only. Endlessly moving fleets to some shitholes on a fringes of your empire drove me crazy to the point where I stated playing shattered rings to concentrate my empire in as few systems as possible.

Nice of Paradox to sell us DLC to fix problems they created (fleets being so slow that it takes years to get anywhere). Kind of annoying that they created the problem *checks calender* 4 years ago and are only now fixing it.

I can understand you being frustrated about it, but they certainly did it for a reason and not just to get some money from you 4 years later. Amazing as it was, the 3 original different star travel modes were awfully unbalanced and also overcoming the long distances of space travel is supposed to be a challenge. Actually being able to bear all you power into a single spot at will as you could so very easily do from day 1 with the gate travel system is the perfect recipe for murder-balling, a very stale game play if you ask me.

 

[Average Manatee]

Space RTS games aren't meant to be balanced, and certainly current Stellaris is massively imbalanced. There are infinitely many better ways to deal with the different FTL types than removing 2 of them.

Everyone playing currently still doomstacks because it's the only way to win. Nothing was gained except making wars more tedious as it takes a year of time to get your doomstack to where the enemy doomstack is attacking.

Furthermore even the slow fleet speed is unrelated to the FTL change to begin with, because forcing hyperspace to move in sublight speed for 95% of the time was a separate change. Hyperspace was much, much faster in 1.0 Stellaris. This change on its own also makes hyperspace drive improvements useless since it only applies to the 5% of time you are in hyperspace.

 

[Space Satan]

I remember "three diferent FTL types". It was wormholes raping every other FTL and waging war against wormhole player was a nightmare because he can attack EVERYWHERE, there were no safe spaces. And dropping 100k fleet on your systems, blasting every building and then retreating back to jump again was a routine. Fucking thank you I will do with hyperlanes. At least now I can specialize my worlds instead of turning every world into Cadia.

 

[Average Manatee]

I recall wormholes actually being by far the weakest lategame because your fleets took more and more time to create their wormhole portals. If you were fighting the crisis (or another player with a crisis-level fleet) then your fleet of comparable strength took half a year per jump, and if any strategic condition changed and you needed to order a new jump then you restarted the countdown. Then it's a half year to jump back and a half year to jump to the next system to attack.

There was some kind of exploit attached to this. I think you could start summoning a portal with a small fleet and merge a larger fleet into it or something. If Paradox has just fixed that then wormholes would have been almost completely defenseless in lategame fights. From there it'd be possible to balance it out by making the base warp time longer and the increase with fleet size smaller.

 

[curry]

Is this game still shit?

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Is this game still shit?

it's good for what it is, but I don't think there've been any dramatic improvements.

 

[Ravielsk]

I remember "three diferent FTL types". It was wormholes raping every other FTL and waging war against wormhole player was a nightmare because he can attack EVERYWHERE, there were no safe spaces. And dropping 100k fleet on your systems, blasting every building and then retreating back to jump again was a routine. Fucking thank you I will do with hyperlanes. At least now I can specialize my worlds instead of turning every world into Cadia.

Thing is that its still in the game. Jump drives do the exact same thing and eventually you will either have to squish your empire into a couple systems or turn them into Cadia(which you technically cannot do because defensive options have been gutted). The problem is still there it was just moved to a later stage of the game.

 

[Riel]

Everyone playing currently still doomstacks because it's the only way to win. Nothing was gained except making wars more tedious as it takes a year of time to get your doomstack to where the enemy doomstack is attacking.

Doom stack is only as good as you say it is if you can achieve a decisive blow quickly, that's very difficult to pull out except in the early game when empires are very small, later defeated enemy fleets we'll always have somewhere safe to retreat to to repair and if your doom stack is busy grabbing territory and bombing planets to make land invasion easier chances are that "defeated" enemy doom stack will slip past your own into your home lands.

Furthermore even the slow fleet speed is unrelated to the FTL change to begin with, because forcing hyperspace to move in sub-light speed for 95% of the time was a separate change. Hyperspace was much, much faster in 1.0 Stellaris. This change on its own also makes hyperspace drive improvements useless since it only applies to the 5% of time you are in hyperspace.

While sub-light speed is more important than hyper engines early in the game this is a lot more balanced later in the game, when traversing a star system is fast and hyper charging takes longer due to big fleets then the hyper upgrade is a lot more important, anyway it's not like you have to chose between upgrading sub-light and hyper so it's pretty much irrelevant.

Also do remember there's Warp Jump Engines and Star Gates, both very relevant for latish game, though not without its drawbacks.

And in this patch we will get Hyper Relays which I understand will allow you to build "star roads" that link contiguous stars so travel between them behaves like Hyperspace used to behave in 1.0, that is jump without having to traverse the star well.

 

[Ibn Sina]

No matter how many layers of sprinkles and cream they try to add to this turd, it will always remain shit and stinks of shit. The game has been in a downward spiral the moment Wiz got his fat disgusting hands on it and has not recovered since then.

 

[Axioms]

Was it ever that great though? Paradox fell into the trap of "story based gameplay" but without history to back them up.

 

[Average Manatee]

Is this game still shit?

Yes but patches have made it a weird kaleidoscope of different flavors of shit.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

waging war against wormhole player was a nightmare because he can attack EVERYWHERE

all they had to do was attaching an area of influence to ftl inhibitors, forcing any ftl targeting another system under that influence to be rerouted to the closest inhibited system. but no, they instead chopped off two thirds of the available engines and soon off system defenses were gone too. damn, i loved so much to stuff my systems with minefields and such (modded, vanilla were absolutely useless).

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

defensive options have been gutted

Yeah, not being able to mine chokepoint systems with a half dozen military starbases really sucks. At best, you have the one in the center that you have to hope the AI can't find its way around.

waging war against wormhole player was a nightmare because he can attack EVERYWHERE

all they had to do was attaching an area of influence to ftl inhibitors, forcing any ftl targeting another system under that influence to be rerouted to the closest inhibited system. but no, they instead chopped off two thirds of the available engines and soon off system defenses were gone too. damn, i loved so much to stuff my systems with minefields and such (modded, vanilla were absolutely useless).

And this was what the game should have been. There should have been techs that were so diverse no player could possibly defend against all of them from the start. You should be able to dig in and turn a single system into Space Normandy.

That's sci fi. I want my fleet to get wrecked by a cloaked minefield because I haven't researched the tech to detect them, or to be able to wipe out enemy fleets who don't have the shields to defend against my new lasers.

What I don't want is what the game is always in danger of being watered down into, which is dozens of techs which are basically just +1 to the same handful of techs you get at the start.

 

[Storyfag]

defensive options have been gutted

Yeah, not being able to mine chokepoint systems with a half dozen military starbases really sucks. At best, you have the one in the center that you have to hope the AI can't find its way around.

To be fair, once you research FTL inhibitors, the AI *cannot* go around that central starbase. It has to wreck it to be able to proceed to other systems. Not that it's any good. MAYBE the changes to defence platforms will make fortifications work, but I kinda doubt it.

 

[Riel]

defensive options have been gutted

Yeah, not being able to mine chokepoint systems with a half dozen military starbases really sucks. At best, you have the one in the center that you have to hope the AI can't find its way around.

To be fair, once you research FTL inhibitors, the AI *cannot* go around that central starbase. It has to wreck it to be able to proceed to other systems. Not that it's any good. MAYBE the changes to defence platforms will make fortifications work, but I kinda doubt it.

With Unyielding tradition starbases become quite strong, if you add some weapon platform (at a discount btw) they actually have the upper hand against fleets. Unyielding also offers some extra advantages such as extra starbase capacity which can be used for extra forts or other very interesting investments such as mooring stations to get more naval capacity.

 

[Ravielsk]

To be fair, once you research FTL inhibitors, the AI *cannot* go around that central starbase. It has to wreck it to be able to proceed to other systems. Not that it's any good. MAYBE the changes to defence platforms will make fortifications work, but I kinda doubt it.

It will not because the starbases on their own are far too weak and building defense stations takes too much time and resources which are always inevitably 100% lost in a battle because the cannot escape to another station like ships. The only time I was ever able to properly fortify a chokepoint in 2.0 was with a mod called starbases expanded that simply added a bunch of weapon platforms that made those starbases actually powerful enough to repel a moderately strong fleet but again due to sheer time investment I could never squeeze out more than one at a time.

To fix anything they would have to move defense platforms to the same tab as ships(so multiple could be deployed at once). Reduce cost and built time by about 50-75% and make them persistent(a.k.a they are just disabled after defeat). And even then they would be barely worth it outside of your capital.

 

[coldcrow]

It's only feasible if you play heavily modded games, which add plenty of modifiers helpful to a starbase turtling strategy. There is just too few weak ones of them in vanilla (- cost,- build time, + amount etc)

 

[what am i doing]

Was it ever that great though? Paradox fell into the trap of "story based gameplay" but without history to back them up.

Rather, without writing to back them up. Making a procgen galaxy instead of a hand-crafted one was their main mistake.

 

[Riel]

It's only feasible if you play heavily modded games, which add plenty of modifiers helpful to a starbase turtling strategy. There is just too few weak ones of them in vanilla (- cost,- build time, + amount etc)

Fake news: Unyielding tradition not only allows cheaper starbases and defences, allow for more to be built of both, reduces maintenance of both but it also increases damage by 33%

Spoiler

• +2 Starbase capacity
• +50% Starbase Upgrade Speed

• +25% Defense Army Health
• +3 Unity per Stronghold

• 
  +33% Starbase Health
• 
  +33% Starbase Damage
• +33% Defense platform damage
• +33% Defense platform hull points

• −25% Orbital Bombardment Damage Received
• −25% War exhaustion gain
• +25% Hostile claim influence cost

• +2 Starbase capacity
• −50% Starbase Upgrade Cost[2]
• +4 Hostile Operation Difficulty for Sabotage Starbase

• +15% Ship Fire Rate within the empire's borders
• +33% Ship Build Speed while in a defensive war

• +50% Defense platform cap
• 
  −20% Starbase Upkeep
• Can create Martial Alliance federations if Federations DLC is installed

And let's not forget a few techs that help them both in terms of cost and hitpoint

Finally I would like to note that doesn't mean they can withstand anything, but they are now quite cheaper than an equivalent fleet, but yes, and what is worse shall it be defeated you lose all platforms and the base becomes an enemy obstacle that is quickly repaired and for free. That said space forts without defence platforms are really cheap and offer an easy way to defend choke points, alone or with a supporting fleet, but obviously a lot smaller than you would need without the station. Weapon platforms are a lot less useful because they are easily destroyed and I only consider building them is desperate situations, with super discounts to cost, when at maximum fleet capacity and when fully upgraded, preferably all of the three at the same time.

Also the unyielding tradition is one of the best deals, it doesn't jsut make space bases and defence platforms better and cheaper, it provides bonuses to ships in defensive wars, allows for more space bases that can be used for many useful things and not just to be defensive forts, like mooring station, trade collectors.... but feel free to ignore them if that's your cup of tea, it's just not correct to say Space bases and Defence platform are as shitty as they once were.

 

[Average Manatee]

The problem with starbases is that they are 100% binary. Either they defeat enemy fleets, autorepair in a month, and the enemy will repeatedly throw fleets at it endlessly until they've lost ever ship available. Or they get steamrolled and 90% of the enemy fleet survives due to the retreat mechanic and is fully healed up next month. If you're playing on easy difficulties it's usually the former and if you're playing on harder difficulties its usually the latter.

On the military side, no evasion really sucks and the additional military platforms are implemented completely retardedly since they are separate targets with very high DPS and very low HP that get targetted and killed because of no evasion. They are really not alloy-effective.

On the non-military side, there's a big problem IMO where only machines and hives can really benefit from starbases economically. Normal empire get trade, which is a very weak mechanic and you don't even need to build trade starbases if you have enough starbases to put on every planet. If you ARE a machine or hive then Unyielding is indeed blatantly overpowered, you can literally feed and power your whole early to midgame empire with 10-15 starbases.

 

[Tyrr]

The problem with starbases is that they are 100% binary. Either they defeat enemy fleets, autorepair in a month, and the enemy will repeatedly throw fleets at it endlessly until they've lost ever ship available. Or they get steamrolled and 90% of the enemy fleet survives due to the retreat mechanic and is fully healed up next month. If you're playing on easy difficulties it's usually the former and if you're playing on harder difficulties its usually the latter.

On the military side, no evasion really sucks and the additional military platforms are implemented completely retardedly since they are separate targets with very high DPS and very low HP that get targetted and killed because of no evasion. They are really not alloy-effective.

On the non-military side, there's a big problem IMO where only machines and hives can really benefit from starbases economically. Normal empire get trade, which is a very weak mechanic and you don't even need to build trade starbases if you have enough starbases to put on every planet. If you ARE a machine or hive then Unyielding is indeed blatantly overpowered, you can literally feed and power your whole early to midgame empire with 10-15 starbases.

Making defense platform more important would make starbase defense less binary. I read they already buffed them in the last patch (+100% hp & higher weapon bonuses), but I didn't tried it out myself.
Removing weapon slots on the starbase and in turn add more to the platforms could also be done. But you also had to lower the cost of the platform (at least the upkeep).

 

[Axioms]

Was it ever that great though? Paradox fell into the trap of "story based gameplay" but without history to back them up.

Rather, without writing to back them up. Making a procgen galaxy instead of a hand-crafted one was their main mistake.

No the opposite, just don't try to add stupid hand-crafted events in a procgen game. If I see that fucking teapot one more time... Well I don't play it anymore so I won't but you see my point.

 

[Ravielsk]

No the opposite, just don't try to add stupid hand-crafted events in a procgen game. If I see that fucking teapot one more time... Well I don't play it anymore so I won't but you see my point.

The problem is that the "hand-crafted" stuff is also entirely RNG so whatever story you get is usually hodgepodge of random events that do not connect into anything of substance.

 

[what am i doing]

No the opposite, just don't try to add stupid hand-crafted events in a procgen game.

Overall procgen worlds suck. Procedural generation can be a useful tool to speed up work or add minor variation to an overall handcrafted world (think Diablo 2 - procedural generation adds level variation but the overall Acts and general areas where dungeons are located are fixed) but having the world be entirely procedurally generated yields a world that is soulless and which feels artificial, because it is. That is the reason why 4X games are nowhere near as good as grand strategy games, and it is why making Stellaris a 4X instead of a GS was a mistake.

 

[Riel]

No the opposite, just don't try to add stupid hand-crafted events in a procgen game.

Overall procgen worlds suck. Procedural generation can be a useful tool to speed up work or add minor variation to an overall handcrafted world (think Diablo 2 - procedural generation adds level variation but the overall Acts and general areas where dungeons are located are fixed) but having the world be entirely procedurally generated yields a world that is soulless and which feels artificial, because it is. That is the reason why 4X games are nowhere near as good as grand strategy games, and it is why making Stellaris a 4X instead of a GS was a mistake.

This a 4X game, procedural generation of the world is almost a must in the genre. Another thing is that I agree that story driven and procedural generation do not mix well and that is probably the originall flaw in Stellaris design from the beginning. Anyway I never played it for the anomalies or the excavations, what I like about it is the Empire Design and enjoying the fantasy that it's going to actually matter. Sometimes it actually works for a time.