Stellaris

[endersblade]

One way I've found to really boost yourself quickly is after you take a couple planets and build them up properly (caring about power/food/materals/etc), take a 20+ sized planet and put nothing but fucking research buildings on it. Crank up the Engineering research. You'll easily overpower your enemies in no time at all. At one point in my last game I had a 20, 22 and 25 planet with all research stations. SO MUCH RESEARCH. Two stations dedicated to spitting out ships, three planets researching everything, I had 4 fleets of 90k points each in no time flat. Easily steamrolled everything I ran across. Though I'm playing a Hive custom class, so Happiness isn't a thing for me, I dunno how that works for others. Maybe my build with a non-hive would cause riots lol. Dunno.

[XDurionX]

One way I've found to really boost yourself quickly is after you take a couple planets and build them up properly (caring about power/food/materals/etc), take a 20+ sized planet and put nothing but fucking research buildings on it. Crank up the Engineering research. You'll easily overpower your enemies in no time at all. At one point in my last game I had a 20, 22 and 25 planet with all research stations. SO MUCH RESEARCH. Two stations dedicated to spitting out ships, three planets researching everything, I had 4 fleets of 90k points each in no time flat. Easily steamrolled everything I ran across. Though I'm playing a Hive custom class, so Happiness isn't a thing for me, I dunno how that works for others. Maybe my build with a non-hive would cause riots lol. Dunno.

While a lot of research is great and having a lot of base tech before expanding is also good, it's not necessarily true that you can easily overpower your opponents with advanced tech, since the cost of your advanced ships climbs just as fast as your firepower. After skimming over some techs and sizes, the cost per (damage/day) ratio is almost always ~4.

That is (what i think) is so great about Stellaris, there are only very, very few universal truths about the game (aka "missiles suck"). There is always an "This is good, BUT". There are so many valid strategies and ways to play the game, be it in research, diplomacy, peaceful expansion, or war. And it never gets boring, even at controlling 1/3 of the universe you can still make bad decisions that can cause your downfall.

[Puupi]

And it never gets boring, even at controlling 1/3 of the universe you can still make bad decisions that can cause your downfall.

You must be new to Paradox games.

Leading a huge empire is just a disaster waiting to happen.

[XDurionX]

You must be new to Paradox games.

Leading a huge empire is just a disaster waiting to happen.

Nah, i played Crusader Kings II a lot, but i think Stellaris is so much more satisfying.

[endersblade]

(aka "missiles suck")

In what game are YOU playing that missiles suck? Missiles are by far the best weapon to start with because they get through shields and such. They aren't as good by endgame, but they dominate at the start. Most of the websites I've been to all recommend starting with missiles.

Also, that video is absolutely amazing. I never really thought about it that way. Going to test it out my next way through!

[XDurionX]

In what game are YOU playing that missiles suck? Missiles are by far the best weapon to start with because they get through shields and such. They aren't as good by endgame, but they dominate at the start. Most of the websites I've been to all recommend starting with missiles.

They are the least terrible at the beginning, but in the long run, they are inferior to every other family of weapons. Unless you use misslies only, you'll have to punch through shields anyway. They can't retarget, so once they are fired and their target is destroyed, the damage is wasted. They have a long cooldown, so they are very unflexible. They are vulnerable to Point Defense. Kinetic and plasma weapons are so much better.

[Deleted]

Missiles don't go through shields, Torpedoes do.

As soon as you get to Point Defense, missiles become utterly pointless, including Torpedoes.

The only reason to go for Missiles as a starting tech is if you plan to do a really quick rush to Torps as they one of the best weapons to bring down Space Stations early on, but they quickly get surpassed by other better weapons.

I'm not sure what websites you're looking at that are recommending Missiles endersblade, but I would never go to them again, Missiles are so far behind every other weapon type in the game that it is laughable to attempt to compare them.

[Mifuyne]

Love it!
Tho pretty much impossible to win if you don't go dominance route and take over other empires.

[Slaughty8]

So, for the past few months that I've had this game, I would get to the point where I had researched literally everything I could, just doing the repeatable research at that point. I'd be surrounded on all sides, so I couldn't expand anymore. If I declared war on someone, half the map would turn on me, and I can't defend against that many enemies at once. On top of that, the way wars are done in this game irritates the shit out of me. Declare war, ask them to cede X, Y, Z planets, go kick their asses around for a while until they give in and give up their planets. Then wait X years before doing it again. And again. And again. Until all of their planets are gone and they are defeated. I had one game with almost 20 fucking hours in it and had only defeated 1 of EIGHT factions.

So I found a mod that lets you nuke a planet after bombarding it to smithereens. You can either 'glass' it, making the planet worthless, or 'nuke' it, which just destroys all the buildings and population and turn it into a tomb world, making it eventually colonizable again. This allowed me to just go in, clean off their planets, boom, faction defeated. I barely got my first Dyson sphere up when I killed the last faction this time. Game only took me 8 hours. MUCH more enjoyable. WIthout this mod I basically just get to the point I know I can win and then give up and start over. Now, I can actually complete a game without getting bored of it. Thank god for mods.

Good Sir, what is the name of that mod You've mentioned here? I would love to have it, as indeed it helps with this kind of playstyle.

[endersblade]

Good Sir, what is the name of that mod You've mentioned here? I would love to have it, as indeed it helps with this kind of playstyle.

It's called "Glassing the Planet", and it's on the workshop on steam.

[Nazrark]

Expanded Traditions and New Ship 5.0 are good mods for the game.

[endersblade]

Expanded Traditions and New Ship 5.0 are good mods for the game.

Have both of those too :-) I have a list of about 30 mods that I'm running, all of them quality of life types, or new species with portraits and such.

So I just tried out that 'naked corvette' run like that video suggested. I tweaked my ships just a little bit, not much at all, but running around with so many cheapo ships just dominates lol. By the time I colonized my 5th system I had a group of about 200 ships. I was able to defeat any pirates or lesser alien beings I ran across. I even had one faction become space faring and started a fucking war with me right off the bat, I took out his shoddy little singular planet and removed him from the game lol.

The fact that there are so many targets for your enemies to hit and so many individual weapons allows you to take on groups that are bigger than yours, which isn't something I'm used to. Once my group broke about the 4k mark, I took out 3 2k groups and a 3k pirate base at once. Sure, I lost about half my ships, but I still won. I went the energy weapon route instead of missiles this time since everyone seems to be pissing on missiles so much. I found that energy weapons cost more than missiles, which set me back a bit.

[Nazrark]

People go missiles because they have a longer engagement range.

[zealo]

Go missiles right at the start of the game if you want, but they suck later on because they aren't hitscan that does instant damage like the other two types, but are rather projectiles, but lack the ability to retarget once fired. This means any missile fired upon a target is wasted damage if that target dies before it reaches it, and that no damage is dealt until the missile gets to the other ship.

Plus there's weird things going on with point defense and missiles were point defense/flak becomes more effective the faster the missile is rather than less.

Bottom line being, missiles are not worth using until paradox sorts them out because they are mechanically broken at this point. Any fleet running loads of flak artillery with plasma and disruptor thrown in will completely butcher a missile based opponent. Flak is so strong it can effectively reach 0% evasion against missiles.

[deepr]

I don't like the idea of sectors. Can I play without making sectors or would that be crippling to gameplay?

[Dezerte]

I don't like the idea of sectors. Can I play without making sectors or would that be crippling to gameplay?

It would limit you to making "tall" empires. Or you could get a mod to increase the planet capacity to infinity.

[ThrashMetalFtw]

In what game are YOU playing that missiles suck? Missiles are by far the best weapon to start with because they get through shields and such. They aren't as good by endgame, but they dominate at the start. Most of the websites I've been to all recommend starting with missiles.

Also, that video is absolutely amazing. I never really thought about it that way. Going to test it out my next way through!

Missiles are useless, because they have a long traveltime (vs lasers and kinetics that are instant dmg) and they have a tendency of firing 50 missiles on the same target, and seeing how missiles can't retarget once their original target has been destroyed, the rest of them, just keep blowing up the debris, wasting a huuuuge part of your firepower.

This has nothing to do with PD or not. Missiles are useless from the very start of the game, until the very end. It's not the dmg, it's that they are mechanically broken.

One way I've found to really boost yourself quickly is after you take a couple planets and build them up properly (caring about power/food/materals/etc), take a 20+ sized planet and put nothing but fucking research buildings on it. Crank up the Engineering research. You'll easily overpower your enemies in no time at all. At one point in my last game I had a 20, 22 and 25 planet with all research stations. SO MUCH RESEARCH. Two stations dedicated to spitting out ships, three planets researching everything, I had 4 fleets of 90k points each in no time flat. Easily steamrolled everything I ran across. Though I'm playing a Hive custom class, so Happiness isn't a thing for me, I dunno how that works for others. Maybe my build with a non-hive would cause riots lol. Dunno.

It's never worth it to "rush" science like that. I mean, it's a different way to play if you want to try something new, but if you are talking about efficiency, simply colony spamming is the way to go. The additional energy/minerals -> bigger fleet is just so much stronger than any advantage you could ever get from science. Not to mention the fact that you will very quickly get the best ship techs anyway, from salvaging debris. In fact, I would do the opposite, always choosing techs that increase your resource output, and only researching ship techs if you don't have any other options.

Compared to many other 4x games, science in Stellaris, is very weak. It's simply not possible to win games by having a technologically superior fleet, since said fleet can easily be countered by higher numbers (which are limited by minerals/energy), and there is no "science victory". Minerals and energy on the other hand, is king, and will win you the game every time.

[endersblade]

Missiles are useless, because they have a long traveltime (vs lasers and kinetics that are instant dmg) and they have a tendency of firing 50 missiles on the same target, and seeing how missiles can't retarget once their original target has been destroyed, the rest of them, just keep blowing up the debris, wasting a huuuuge part of your firepower.

This has nothing to do with PD or not. Missiles are useless from the very start of the game, until the very end. It's not the dmg, it's that they are mechanically broken.




It's never worth it to "rush" science like that. I mean, it's a different way to play if you want to try something new, but if you are talking about efficiency, simply colony spamming is the way to go. The additional energy/minerals -> bigger fleet is just so much stronger than any advantage you could ever get from science. Not to mention the fact that you will very quickly get the best ship techs anyway, from salvaging debris. In fact, I would do the opposite, always choosing techs that increase your resource output, and only researching ship techs if you don't have any other options.

Compared to many other 4x games, science in Stellaris, is very weak. It's simply not possible to win games by having a technologically superior fleet, since said fleet can easily be countered by higher numbers (which are limited by minerals/energy), and there is no "science victory". Minerals and energy on the other hand, is king, and will win you the game every time.

I do spam colonies. Every time I up my count, I take over a new system. I usually look for ones with more than one planet in them. But what I do is dedicate an entire planet to one resource. One with nothing but food, nothing but power, nothing but mining, nothing but research. I've found that it's less micromanaging than having to balance out and occasionally replace buildings on each planet you have. I'm sure at some point it basically just balances out anyway.

As far as research goes, I have a priority system. Firstly, any tech that costs the least amount gets researched first. Then, anything that provides new buildings/building upgrades or upgrades to weapons (as opposed to researching new lines of weapons). I won't start researching the repeatable tech, or tech that just gives me bonuses to things (like +10% growth/damage/etc) until I've basically exhausted everything else. I used to try to tech into Megastructures as soon as possible, but they are largely just a waste of time and resources. Most games I end up winning before I even unlock them anyway. It's only the ones I drag out to make 'perfect' that I end up building any.

I would bet money that my strategies in this game would get me obliterated by a difficult AI or an actual real player in a heartbeat. I just leave it on normal difficulty and I never really have issues.

[cudomix]

Planet specialization is optimal because edicts, planet traits and assist research all stack. Fanatic materialist with discovery tradition can double research output of a planet. Resource edicts are also more effective on single resource planets.

[Nerraw]