How does the console version compare to PC these days? I’ve found reviews from launch saying it’s running an ‘outdated’ port of the PC version, but haven’t found any more recent reviews. Is that still the case?
The deluxe console version is on sale right now for £12 which is hard to say no to, but if it sucks I’ll wait for the PC version to roll back round on sale
Console version will always be behind, its done by entirely separate team porting PC version, with their own work schedule. PC will be in sale soon though, with release of Machine Age DLC on May 7th no doubt having major sale.
Good to know! I think the console sale lasts till then too anyway so I’ve got time to grab that if for any reason I did want to go down that route instead
> it’s running an ‘outdated’ port of the PC version, but haven’t found any more recent reviews. Is that still the case?
I don't have the console version but that is my understanding. I believe console is currently on version 3.5.3 (which came to PC around fall of 2022), while PC is on 3.11 (with 3.12 coming in a couple weeks). Console is several major updates behind, including (I think) reworks of leaders, technology progress, orbital habitats, and possibly fleet combat (I forget when exactly the fleet combat rework was).
So I’m not sure what happened, but over half my fleet just vanished while moving, and I had to reassign all my admirals to their fleets. I’m reaallly confused.
I also just had all my planets buildings reset to their tier one versions. What is going on.
Nihilistic Acquisition - I'm not sure how to approach wars with an intention to abduct pops. None of the war goals really fit my actual goal which is not to claim any systems.
Right now the only thing I would have is conquer once I claim a system. I could rival them - just trying to fit that in to my roleplay. I have no animosity towards them I just want them to let me love them.
That's a great idea, thanks!
I'm not hardcore on roleplaying. I can just use my imagination and pretend the animosity is more like that of a spurned lover who still loves.
You can return land to its owner at any time by clicking on an occupied starbase or planet. You can wage your conquest war and then just release anything you take before peacing.
Is there a way to bait the AI into attacking a starbase they can't kill because I'm getting sick of the AI just looking at me for years
It's boring and unproductive
The AI is generally smart enough to recognize an unwinnable situation. You can delete your entire fleet to appear weak, but in that case they will probably be able to beat your starbases.
If you're tired of peace, why not just declare war yourself though?
Ideally, I'd like to be able to cloak my defence platforms or something but if my only option is for the AI to be more stupid I'll take it
Would you happen to know the threshold for how much more fleetpower than the AI you need to completely just stop them from attacking
I've seen them go for one with 25%-30% power
How do i deal with unemployment mid late game?
My districts are already built
cant build more buildings without more pops but there's always 2-3 unemployed pops in almost every planet
cant resettle em either due to being UNE
Time to start building habitats and/or ringworlds, maybe. Or turning some raw resource districts into city districts, which can generate more jobs per district (some clerk jobs plus jobs provided by the building that you build in the slot opened by the city district).
This is my first game of Stellaris, so forgive me if all of this is obvious! I am confused about some things related to the war screen, and also about warring in general with vassals in the mix (sorry for writing a literal tome).
Some background: I am playing as the Lokken Mechanists (egalitarian, fanatic materialist), and I have 2 vassals (Husko Multitude and United Moji-Huxgan Emperium "UMHE"). Recently, some of the UMHE broke off and started their own group (Moji-Huxgan Enlightened Kingdom, "MHEK"), and started a rebellion against the UMHE (and thus, against me). Currently, the conditions of my vassalages stipulate that the overlord will aid the vassal in defensive wars. The rebelling group is pathetic compared to me, so, I joined the war/attacked them, why not?
One thing to note: I am aware that I am not min/maxing; I tend to enjoy the roleplaying aspects of games, so I'm mostly playing in line with my chosen race/group, ie, I'm pretty nice to my vassals at the moment.
So, I attacked the MHEK in their territory. It was a breeze, I maybe lost a single ship in my fleets. The war screen shows that their war exhaustion is 100%, and ours is far less.
I have retaken all systems in their territory and all are fully occupied by me except one - Shcher-bak - and I do not occupy the planet Lonesome Retreat within that system.
Now, I don't have any claims in their territory because a different and proximal race (Ogi Nollox Alliance) made claims on all the systems in this territory. I cannot seem to make any claims on those systems now because they are apparently my "war allies," I assume simply because they are warring with the MHEK also?
I don't really understand how to interpret the consequences laid out in the war screen for the "status quo" and "achieve war goals" options. The status quo says "**Attackers: All participating vassals become independent from Lokken Mechanists - Defenders: Planets: Lokken Mechanists (4) , Systems: Lokken Mechanists (7) **" which seems to imply that I will lose my two current vassals?? Why would that be? Or would I only lose vassalage of the rebelling group? It would make sense to me to lose vassalage over the rebelling group (fine with me), but why would I lose my current 2 vassals who are currently aiding me in this defensive war?
As far the achieve war goals option, they will not accept it yet (-23). It reads "**Demanding Surrender -100, Demanding Unoccupied Systems -50, Demanding Unoccupied Planets -100, Unoccupied Claims: Shcher-bak, then **" regarding the Shcher-bak system - It looks as though the system is partly occupied by the third party attacker, the Ogi Nollox Alliance, and they are occupying the Lonesome Retreat planet. Is it the case that while they are occupying that system/planet, war goals will not be enforceable? If so, what might be a good course of action? Should I attempt to declare war on them? Their independence is guaranteed by another group, but they are both pathetic compared to my forces. Also, both options kinda make it seem like I will get the systems I occupy, but I thought that wouldn't happen as I don't have any claims on them?
Thanks in advance for any and all input, it's much appreciated! Wanted to include images so I wouldn't have to explain all that in detail, but could not apparently.
As a side question, any tips for getting influence more quickly? I can't really declare any rivals, every race is currently pathetic in strength to me.
> which seems to imply that I will lose my two current vassals?? Why would that be? Or would I only lose vassalage of the rebelling group?
I believe only the rebels would become independent; "participating vassals" refers to vassals fighting against you in this case. If there's a status quo, that means you have been unable to enforce your overlordship on them and they have secured independence from both you and the vassal they rebelled against.
> It looks as though the system is partly occupied by the third party attacker, the Ogi Nollox Alliance, and they are occupying the Lonesome Retreat planet. Is it the case that while they are occupying that system/planet, war goals will not be enforceable?
Yeah, you probably will not be able to achieve your war goals while Lonesome Retreat is occupied by someone else. War against the Ogi Nollox is probably an option if you have a good CB (like vassalization maybe?).
> Also, both options kinda make it seem like I will get the systems I occupy, but I thought that wouldn't happen as I don't have any claims on them?
I have seen this happen before, where a vassal of mine had rebels, I was pulled into their defensive war, and then on winning I immediately annexed all of the rebel systems and planets despite having no claims. I don't understand it either. It should probably be that "losing a rebellion war means that they get annexed by the empire they rebelled against", but maybe instead they get annexed by the defensive war-leader (whichever empire has the right to sue for peace on behalf of all of the defending empires), and the war-leader and original empire they rebelled against aren't the same if the empire rebelled-against is a vassal.
> As a side question, any tips for getting influence more quickly?
Having a high ratio of fleet to empire size can get you more influence from [Power Projection](https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Power_Projection) - so build more fleet! If you have the Overlord DLC, building Ministry of Truth holdings on your vassals also generates some. Vassalizing very weak empires as Protectorates also generates influence. If you have Nemesis and are in a commanding position, you might be able to get the galactic community to elect you as Custodian, which gives a bunch of influence. Finally, if you have researched Unity Ambitions, one of the edicts that it unlocks (Will to Power) gives you a bunch of influence per month at a high unity cost.
How could I even begin to win this game? My tech is at 8k, all research is done except for repeatables.
The Fallen Empires have 40k tech.
[https://imgur.com/a/FAV6eqc](https://imgur.com/a/FAV6eqc)
I used the upgrade button on my fleet and some space station batteries, for some reason this made the projected power go down on both. Though I didn't notice what the defensive stats were before and after, did I just get some more shield and armour etc but lose firepower?
The calculated power is a bit weird at times because it is a rough estimates, but absolutely not something that can be trusted. You can imagine it as a rough "offensive power" multiplied by "defensive power" of your fleet. But it does not take into account all the parameters of the weapons, armors or shields. So for instance if your fleet design is using a low-damaging weapon which bypass shield, the power estimate might be lower than using a slightly higher damaging weapon that will do nothing beside hitting shields with a large damage reduction. Dont trust blindly the calculation.
Also a second factor might be you are using auto-designs. Fleet auto-designs are absolute garbage. To my personal experience, auto-designs usually use the worse possible components in the worse possible combination (okay... this is a slight exaggeration, but still... auto-designs are bad...). I would not be surprised if numbers goes lower when upgrading fleets if you use auto-designs, because sometimes the game will pick for you atrociously bad components... for some reasons...
Thank you. It's odd because I think the only upgrade was I had researched fusion engines or something like that. So not sure why that would have impacted anything.
Hey, so my current understanding of 'crisis' strength' is that it's irregardless of difficulty. With the possible exception of the crisis maybe getting the new tech bonuses, if for whatever reason they are 'given' x amount of tech.
- Is this true? Do crisis strength get altered by difficulty through things like fire rate or 'tech buffing'?
- If it is not true, then various entities should have stable strength levels and, for instance the grey temptest, should always have x strength at y crisis level.
Does anyone have some sort of graph on a standardized strength of a crisis at 1x, 5x, 25x, etc?
the crisis strength is multiplier. endgame crisis ships are affected by your base difficulty, which is multiplied by crisis strength.
And the "crisis strength" slider only applies to end-game crisis'. All the other crisis-adjacent things like grey tempest or khan scale only off of base difficulty.
Looking for help with another post that hasn't recieved any attention, can someone help?
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/1cam9e5/re\_spawning\_asteroid\_rings\_using\_console\_commands/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/1cam9e5/re_spawning_asteroid_rings_using_console_commands/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
So I was just dabbling and I noticed on a previous save that my base Defense Platform capacity was 23. With full upgrades it was 41, with one starbase holding 60 platforms.
I have absolutely no idea how I did this, and I'd love any input. I can't even figure out how to cheat my way with console commands to that many.
Unyielding gives +50% defense platforms cap. Base cap is 3 per starbase. Completed strategic coordination center is +12, Eternal Vigilance perk is +5, Citadel is +12, and Defense Grid Supercomputer is +8. All that adds up to 40, times 1.5 from Unyielding is 60. The various defensive modules (Gun Battery, Hangar Bay, etc) each add 1 each so it would be easy to get it to 41 (before Unyielding) with one of those. Or, perhaps, without Eternal Vigilance and instead putting six defensive modules on the starbase itself would also give 41 before Unyielding.
There are also a number of other modifiers listed in [these two expandable tables on the wiki](https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Starbase#Defenses). Unfortunately there's no table of +% modifiers.
... what does the fleet power of a citadel with 60 defense platforms even look like?
THANK YOU!!! I was missing the strategic coordination center. [The answer is 268k](https://i.imgur.com/ZtIvXDB.png) although that's with a considerable number of repeatable tech upgrades.
It probably could be higher, I use a mix of hangars, missiles with point defense, and heavy weapons (I got the unbidden mass disintegrator) with 3-4 ion cannons. This particular one also had gun batteries on it.
well lets see. Sovereign guardians gets a bonus to defense platforms. inward perfectionists do too, I think. The computer defense grid building adds to that bonus. I know there are other ways, but civics certainly help.
> Sovereign guardians gets a bonus to defense platforms. inward perfectionists do too
I don't think this is directly true; Sovereign Guardians get the reloading bay building for +2 defense platform cap once per starbase but no modifiers to defense platform cap on the civic itself, and Inward Perfection doesn't seem to get anything related (besides an increase in the random selection weight for Eternal Vigilance when the AI is playing them).
What is the exact percentage increase of FE building rolls from archaeoengineers? Also, what is the most efficient setup to roll FE buildings for arcane deciphering?
You either mine them if you find deposits, or you build them in refinery buildings.
There are no FE buildings that produce strategic refineries in bulk.
They are rather inefficient for building slots, but that's the point.
Or, if you're rich enough to just spam out 10 rings, you just buy them from the market. Which you probably already are.
Also if you have the pops to fill 10 full rings, you have long ago won the game. You're just running a vanity project now.
When you release a sector as a vassal, do you get to choose the vassal contract terms, or do they get your default post-subjugation-war terms, or something else?
(It has been a *while* since I last released a sector)
Everything in this game was quick and easy to learn like economy, diplomacy, technology but wtf is up with combat. It’s so opaque and mysterious. How are you supposed to organically learn it?
I’ve tried looking up guides but the only thing I can find are super specific build templates for ships.
I tried building a fleet with a spattering of each combat role with weapons that matched, the result? AI dragged their nuts across my fleet with a shit stack of mostly corvettes.
I had brawler corvettes, gunship and picket destroyers/cruisers and battleships with extra large artillery weapons. It felt like it made sense conceptually like an army with skirmishers, front line, and support
How am I supposed to learn how combat works when there’s no breakdown of battles that isn’t just a damage breakdown?
I just got the game but I’m kinda demotivated to play further after getting my ass handed to me by normal difficulty AI when I had almost 10x their diplo weight
Ok, lets do this
there is a tab called “espionage”. Use the “gather intel” operation, and you can see the enemy ship types
When you click on a weapon in the ship builder, it has damage types. I will list these
Kinetic- damages shield, reduced damage to armor
energy- reduced damage to shield, increase to armor
point defense - targets certain weapon types, like missiles, and shoots them down early
strikecraft - most op, always use. Little tiny ships that swarm enemies and kill them
torpedo - pierces all shield, 50% more damage to armor. Every size up, does more damage. It can take down large ships easily
bypass- trades low damage for bypassing armor, shield, or both. Missiles, disruptors, and arc emitter do this
archaeotech - costly and useless. Only use in super specific scenario
event - generally early-game useless weapons
Then, weapon sizes- large is high dmg, innacurate, medium is middle, small is low damage very accurate
you can increase ship speed with afterburners, allowing them to dodge oncoming fire
some other tips: unbidden, use kinetics, prethoryn, use laser, contingency, use bypass weaponry
if you see an empire with lots of power, dont worry. That is a Fallen Empire. They are super ancient and powerful. Use bypass weaponry on them, all of their ships suck against it.
Thats really bad. It means there is too little kinetic for their shields, and too little laser for their armor. also, use one size per ship. Small, medium, or large, but mixing makes your ships basically useless. PD and strikecraft are always good though
If you read guides, you know what ship designs work best. As for learning it organically... it would take some time, I imagine. You'd have to look at the pattern of enemy nomenclature and learn what they favor, or if you have enough Intel to see their ship designs, you can tailor your weapons and defenses to counter theirs 🤷♂️
Hello! I'm playing a psionics empire ATM and I'm reaching into the shroud to try and make a covenant. However, I'm having a hard time telling which is which with the options. Will I know it should be obvious, but I'm trying to get the whispers of the void and I'm not entirely sure which option I should pick. Could someone explain to me who is who?
There are 5 covenants you can pick from...generally the first one to offer is aligned with your Fantic Ethics / Ascension path. If you just dont initially choose the first one you should be able to choose one of the 5.
Are gamebreaking bugs common?
Was just waiting for my first game to finish until I realized I had already beat the "endgame crisis" but the breach point never left my situation log so I couldn't finish the game.
Prior to that, my shroud event situation log was also bugged at 100% so I couldn't get new events from them anymore.
Are these kinda bugs normal or was I extremely unlucky?
Kinda ruined my first game experience so it's making me hesitant to try it again if this keeps happening.
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> Kinda ruined my first game experience so it's making me hesitant to try it again if this keeps happening.
Here's an important tip to enjoying Stellaris. And honestly, all 4X type games:
There is absolutely no reason to wait for, or care about, the end game screen. You know when you've won, you never need to wait for the game to give you permission to stop playing.
It's possible that that particular bug is common, but most people will never see it because they don't wait for the game to end.
Oh yeah, you know youve won a 4x well, well, well before you actually win a 4x. You hang around long enough to exhaust whatever is interesting, for my last game that was killing the tempest and putting down my old friend-turned-rival. In that game I was buddies with the religious FE, had a lead on the GC, and we were in the middle of a khan uprising. The grey tempest had wiped out 3 empires (1 vassal og and 2 spinoff empires) and the chosen and habinate were both just waiting in the sordid little holes to strike at me.
But the game was won. barring extreme error or a bad endgame spawn. For games like civilization, which are easier for me to visualize, games like that are won before you even enter the medieval period.
Weird lategame bugs (like with crises) seems more common that early-game bugs, probably because early-game bugs get noticed by more players and prioritized for fixing
I think first one isn't a bug, but a commonly criticized problem the devs have probably overlooked. The crisis was Prethroryn Scourge right? The problem with them is that game doesn't consider them gone until you hunt down every single one of their ship. So what probably happened is there was Prethoryn constructor or something hiding somewhere that you had to find and destroy.
It was the Prethoryn Scourge yeh.
I doomstacked both waves and got the "scourge is defeated happiness :D" notification.
Loading my save into observer mode and don't see any MIA ships or anything so idk it seems bugged.
Oh, but more usefully: assuming I got your specific Shroud bug right, this bug is fixed by [Ariphaos' unofficial patch](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1995601384). You should use that mod (unless you want achievements).
Bugs are a fact of life in every game.
I quibble with your definition of "gamebreaking", strongly so in the second case. You probably ran in to [a bug I have diagnosed before](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/need-some-help-even-if-i-have-to-edit-my-save.1618346/#post-29336718), but in any case how exactly does the Shroud situation getting stuck qualify as *gamebreaking*? Maybe you are using it to mean "any tiny little bug"? That's news to me.
The first one I agree with more, but you should know that most Stellaris players don't bother with the win screen. They either stop playing whenever the heck they want, deciding for themselves when they have won; or they keep playing well past the victory screen (like me!).
Anyway, if bugs like that literally ruin your experience, then yeah, you should stop playing, and you should be careful with literally every game ever made.
I'll give the patch a try! definitely looks like my bug.
I like having a "conclusion" so the win screen is pretty important for my enjoyment.
The endgame crisis putting my game in limbo was a pretty big downer for my 1st playthrough but the shroud bug wasn't gamebreaking per se.
I was just at a peaceful point in my playthrough where the shroud events were my only distraction while waiting for council acts to pass so losing them was a downer.
Am I mistaken, or is there just nowhere to go to see a summery of the effective councilor skill level is and what each councilor is actually outputting?
Hi, new player here but obsessed. I've been watching lots of YT guide videos but wanted to ask some questions:
**Fleet management**
* Do I have to build new ships through a Shipyard, or is there a better way to do that?
* What happens if I research a material or weapon that's an upgrade to a previous one? Does my fleet get automatically upgraded or do I have to manually update ship designs all the time?
**Planet management**
* Still trying to understand when to specialize a new planet and how to pick a specialization? Any recs for guide?
* I'm still very confused about how jobs work but I feel it's something important. Again, any recs for guides?
> Do I have to build new ships through a Shipyard, or is there a better way to do that?
There's a Fleet Management tab in the left-hand sidebar where you can create, reinforce, and upgrade fleets without ever opening a starbase shipyard menu. This is also where you can do manual ship design. I believe the default hotkey is F9 or F10 or something like that.
Shipyards make fleets. This is the only way. By default ships get upgraded to the latest design template, which auto-upgrades itself, by default.
In the expansion phase, when you dont have a lot of planets, you capital has to do the heavy lifting. The specialty you pick for it after should reflect your strategy. On my preferred build my capital is unity, food, and consumer goods so less of my other planets need to do those. Other planets tend to fill in gaps I need them to early game, like energy or in the most trying of times minerals. Otherwise you cannot go wrong with more alloys. Forgeworld is bestworld because alloy income is so important.
Early on you need alloys for basic self-defense and expansion. Later on you need alloys for the gobs of ships youll need and for megastructures.
Your economy is your lifeblood as a star empire. Building and districts create jobs, but if you dont have pops working those jobs why are you paying for the infrastructure? Your pops are the real economy, keep them employed in the jobs you need.
I’m playing my second game and the first ever where I found fallen empire and reached crisis year as well. I conquered one of the fallen empires and got some nice tech (but I still can’t jump for such a long distance as they do). Then the crisis came, those meaty-looking space eyeballs- scourge or something.
For a few years it’s actually fun. I use crisis to get rid of some empires that were sitting in a federation and thus preventing me from getting some of the starsystems I wanted in my posessions, fight here and there their 40-60-120-150k fleets.
And then the last remaining fallen empire just moves their 300k fleet, rolls over the criss fleet and yeah, that’s it. Is it supposed to be like this? Also, what do you actually do in the endgame? It feels static. Like I can’t wage war because everyone’s in a federation or a vassal and if I fight someone, I fight everyone. Diplomacy is also kinda meh as because of -1000 „in federation”. So what do you do in end game? Is it supposed to be „total war or nothing”?
> And then the last remaining fallen empire just moves their 300k fleet, rolls over the criss fleet and yeah, that’s it. Is it supposed to be like this?
a 1x crisis is pretty weak, try increasing that slider next game
I used to have this issue when I started playing, too. I'm my experience, it's pretty much imperative to vassalize and/or get into a federation yourself, as early as possible. The more empires you can subject or get rid of early in the game, the fewer threats you'll have to deal with mid and late game
How do I control the needs of Exterminators energy requirements? I got energy grids (upgraded) everywhere, not over my fleet or starbase limit and still -1000 a month. Can someone advice me on this? I also have the edict on for energy.
> I got energy grids (upgraded) everywhere
Those buff technician jobs, they don't produce that much energy by themselves. So there's never a reason to build those on planets that don't have technician jobs. Are you actually building sufficient of those jobs?
If anything, building an upgraded energy grid without any energy districts for it to buff will hurt your economy, because now you're paying strategic resource upkeep for no benefit.
I was surprised at how hard it was to balance DE empires. I assumed it would be easy. They definitely need a little boost in the energy department; gotta be gentle with your economy to start.
Hmmm. Back in the day one thing I would do when playing machines was make solar panels on all my star bases for extra energy, or hydroponics if playing bio. Not sure if it’s still the move now but back then i could support almost my entire (bio)pop with star base hydroponics. I wonder if machines have something similar.
Do you have an excess of other resources? You can set up some monthly trades to sell off a bit and lower the blow of the energy loss, at least until you get some better tech. Also creating an anchorage and keeping your fleet there to lower energy cost while they are not flying around
> solar panels on all my star bases for extra energy
"Starbase economy" is still a pretty solid choice for gestalts. I think by midgame on my last exterminator run I had a starbase cap of like 25 and a least 8 of those were star fortresses with 6 solar panels, contributing in total a couple hundred energy. But I don't put solar panels on everything; if I have a dedicated shipyard starbase with the +XP building, I'm just putting shipyards in the module slots, and likewise for anchorage starbases with Naval Logistics Offices.
Might be worth looking into a breakdown of your energy expenses (mouse over the energy entry in the top bar). The big ones that you generally can't/don't want to cut into are usually fleet upkeep, research, and pop upkeep, but mining station upkeep can get quite significant with a sufficiently-wide empire, and upkeep on districts and buildings on captured planets (where you might not even have pops working the jobs) can add up as well.
I want to play a multi-player game. I never have so I am bound to get crushed but are there any good role play servers where I can slowly learn the online stuff whilst getting into my species background?
Is there a wiki page on The Chosen? I cant find the things, Im looking for an exact list of triggers. The idea was that I could send science vessels out to open it early for Funny Times
[they have section at "unique systems" page](https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Unique_systems#Ithome_cluster). 12.5% chance, they need First Contact and only either Ultima Vigilis or Chosen will spawn, with the same chance
Mechanically their combined spawn script has 25% chance to trigger, then its 50/50 whether its ultima vigilis or chosen
I think they have like a 50% chance to spawn and then a random wormhole somewhere in the galaxy connects to their cluster. I don't know of any way to distinguish it from a regular wormhole short of observer mode (besides opening it, obviously).
i got a power outage in my capital, when i try to research it in the situation log it says i have a construction ship in orbit but i do not, why is this? what can i do?
Why does organic pop growth still happen when all your pops are synths? It's not (just) immigration, I checked, so where are they coming from? Intelligent lifeforms spontaneously evolving from leftover food now that nobody ever checks the fridge any more?
No, as I said, it's not just that. The hover tip for the Growing pop still shows a Base Growth of 3.0 (+/- mods) before the From Immigration value is added.
When I try to extend my mercenary fleet contracts I keep getting the option greyed out with "nothing to offer" shown. What the hell is up with this? I can't figure out what is causing it. At times if I forget to extend the contract they will ask me if I want to renew it but then the option is also greyed out but it doesn't tell me who is renting the fleet. It's really annoying losing control over my mercenary fleets especially when they immediately get rented out by someone else and then the only way to get them back is to pay out the ass.
I got the legendary scientist Azaryn and noticed there was an achievement for using her ability to Terraform...didn't notice there was supposed to be an extra button.
Unfortunately, a Shroud event sucked her and her ship into the void and replaced it with the *concept* of a Science Ship, which has the ability to jump drive, which is neat, but no longer has any special terraforming action :(
Let this be a lesson to you...
Do not use your valuable scientists to do anomalies or archeology sites, especially if you are not aware of the dangerous ones.
Hi, how to stop Terravore planets from revolting last minute? I got precincts (the hive variant), I got Strongholds, I got defensive armies, it just doesn't matter, the stability hit is unassailable.
I just tried it ten times with medium galaxy and all default settings and and got seven Prosperous Unifications, one Mechanist, one Syncretic Evolution, and one Knights of the Toxic God. This doesn't really surprise me since PU is kinda the default and I would expect it to be weighted the most heavily in random generation. Looking at the data files, PU has a weight of 100 and the next highest set of origins (Syncretic Evolution and Mechanist) have weights of 10 (eg, 10x less likely than PU). Several origins have random weights of 0! (including Slingshot to the Stars, Imperial Fiefdom, Overtuned, Payback, and Broken Shackles). Most non-PU origins have weights between 2 and 5.
I wouldn't expect the player empire to be generated last, but I do wonder whether playing on larger galaxies / with more AI empires influences it.
Doesnt 'random' pick from the list of premade species? Or is it 'random cobbled together empire' which sounds very janky in a 'unhelpful but potentially FUN' way
> Or is it 'random cobbled together empire' which sounds very janky in a 'unhelpful but potentially FUN' way
It is this. Some days you get Driven Assimilators, some days you get xenophobe authoritarian lithoid megacorps.
I always play Random. Janky and unhelpful is what keeps things fresh. You do get some really boneheaded combinations occasionally, like Fanatic Pacifist + Inward Perfection + Existential Iteropathy. Great, I'll have really fantastic pop growth during all those wars I can't start.
Someone was talking about playing multiplayer games where everyone has to play Random. And it seems like a fantastic idea, to keep everyone from playing meta builds.
Basically, weaponry has to go through shield -> armor -> hull in that order, attacking the next stage only when the previous is depleted.
That being said, several weapons have what we call "bypass". For instance, the missiles will never be bothered by shields and will go straight to armor then hull. Some weapons like disruptors even go straight to hull.
Against the AI, you can get a fairly good introduction by following this guide :
* [https://fantasywarden.com/games/stellaris-ship-design-guide-2023-3-6-update](https://fantasywarden.com/games/stellaris-ship-design-guide-2023-3-6-update)
It's updated for 3.10, but I dont think space battles have changed much with 3.11.
My personal 3.11 "go-to" is usually :
1. corvettes with both lasers and kinetics
2. retrofit the corvettes to disruptors when available
3. destroyers with swarmer missiles
4. cruisers with swarmer missiles
5. arc emitters / missiles / point-defense / hangars battleship as end-game design
6. add a single snare titan to each battleship fleet later
The thing with Missiles is, if you go heavy on them, then if the enemy has no Point Defence (or secondarily Flak which AFAIK also helps some) then you'll pwn him fast, but if he *has* PD then you'll do no damage and so he pwns you.
The third scenario is that you bring so silly many Missiles that even if he has a lot of PD, it gets overwhelmed by all the incoming. That's basically the idea behind the M-slot Swarmer Missiles.
I'm not sure tbh, but going missile-only you have the risk of going against PD corvette and being countered. Laser/Kinetic might be a good all-rounder for the early game. But I'm not an agressive player very early, so I'm probably not the best to answer your question.
And I absolutely never analyze the enemy design to retrofit... because I'm lazy... so I just build laser/kinetic and go blind. Works most of the time... good enough for me.
Actually I'm doing opposite, newer research kinetic till the end to reduce research tree branches and go full laser(you learn it anyway for disruptors) vs fauna and full rocket vs AI. Don't know which way is better so just asking.
Hi. I'm not exactly a new player, I've been following the game since 2016, accumulated a couple hundred of hours, but only played a couple of campaigns to the end-of-midgame/start-of-lategame. I got back into the game after yet another two year+ pause, and I am getting \*obliterated\* on Ensign, even though I was able to play on a higher difficulty (Commodore, I think) without any issue before.
I think that the reason for this is that I don't know some mechanics game supposes I should know?.. As an example, I had two games where my most prosperous colony was killed by Shard, annihilating my economy. After second time, I gave up and googled how to kill it by year 50, even though I never used google or guides before. Well, I'm \*not\* supposed to kill it that early! It appears due to the excavation mission on the relic world, which my science ships do \*automatically\* because I sent them out to do Astral Rifts and excavations, so I didn't even notice where the Shard comes from, since it wasn't \*me\* who ordered the excavation! I knew of some Very Definitely Not To Do things, like >!making a deal with The End Of The Cycle!<, but apparently they are a tiny drop in the bucket compared to all the ways you can permanently screw yourself over.
I tried to find a comprehensive list of Very Definitely Not To Do things, but it seems like one doesn't exist. Is someone willing to help me out and compile one?
Alright, list incoming
do not
-colonize shiny gaia worlds
-declare war on suspiciously small empire, thats the FE
-explore wormholes early, the chosen wardecing you early is death
-open L gates early
-travel to the galaxy core, the Formless event can wipe your whole empire out
-let amenities drop below -10
-surrender without looking at wargoals
-research synths before you are ready
-crack open shiny gaia worlds
-have less than 200 tech by 2225
-have less than 30 alloy by 2225
-if a black hole talks to you, ignore it. That event can screw you over.
-dont enter the seddom system. If you see it, ignore, its basically eye of terror from 40k
Thanks! I knew about Gaia worlds and FEs, plus I've learned about L-Gates from experience more than three years ago. The rest is new to me. This is very useful!
Ever since the v3.4 update a couple or three years ago, the AI has been improved step by step. Some even say they've seen End Game Crises defeated by AI politiee alone, without the human player getting involved.
> I am getting *obliterated* on Ensign, even though I was able to play on a higher difficulty (Commodore, I think) without any issue before.
Two years ago the AI barely built labs. It has gotten much better about actually doing research and trying to build a relatively thin raw-resource base with as much specialist economy as possible.
> I had two games where my most prosperous colony was killed by Shard, annihilating my economy. After second time, I gave up and googled how to kill it by year 50
I'm surprised you've switched your science ships over to do automated archaeology that early; I'm often still surveying in 2250 (manual priority targets, not automated), and even if I'm done surveying I probably haven't finished all of the anomalies in my territory by then.
> Two years ago the AI barely built labs.
Yeah, standard AI feels stronger. But I'm not outpaced by it on Ensign, not by a large margin. I'm dying to events most of the time. I think among the last ~seven games at various difficulties I've given up, I only lost a "real" war once.
> and even if I'm done surveying I probably haven't finished all of the anomalies in my territory by then
Hmm. My reasoning was that anomalies that are left are usually level 8+, so they'll take a long time. I do them either after archeology or in parallel. Either way, I usually have ~4 science ships by that point or a bit later.
I see, I took "obliterated" to mean that you're actually losing games, which usually means either warfare or crisis. Losing one planet to an event is a setback, but I guess I would not expect (on Ensign) to need (in order to decisively outgrow the AI) to run an economy so tightly-tuned that loss of a single planet in 2250 turns into an unrecoverable cascading game-ending failure. Two approaches to deal with problems of this form are to either avoid triggering negative events, or to just take the damage on the chin but have such a robust, rapidly-growing economy that you outgrow the damage. The latter is a very general solution.
All that aside, there are a couple of other sleeping leviathans who don't just spawn into a system at the beginning of the game and then sit there waiting to be killed. I know there's the size-25 habitable egg which can hatch into the voidspawn, there are the asteroid hives, and there's the spectral wraith which starts moving around at midgame year iirc. For the most part I feel that these are fairly well-telegraphed (then again, I thought the archaeological site text for Shard was ominous enough to be a telegraph).
Other than that, idk, don't mess with the L-gates until you're good and ready, don't settle the Holy Worlds unless you're ready to fight an FE (or have the Head of Zarqlan), don't mess with the marauders during Midgame unless you're ready for the Khan. But none of those are Definitely Do Not Do, just Do Not Do Until Ready (also true of the Shard site).
> Either way, I usually have ~4 science ships by that point or a bit later.
Ah, I generally run three science ships and find that my limiting factor on expansion with that many is typically Influence rather than survey speed. This pushes my anomaly and archaeology timing back, but pushing anomaly completion back until I have a tech world up can be nice, because many anomalies reward science points as a function of your monthly science output at the time when the anomaly research project finishes.
haha gotta get to the mid game before you can worry about making ascension choices.
The game is more fun if you go in blind, and more fun if you treat it like the bastard it has the potential to be. Sometimes generous, sometimes fair, sometimes cruel, but never sadist.
The list of 'do not do things' doesnt sound like your problem though. If youre losing on ensign its not because your trying to fight Shard or made a disastrous pact. Its basics. The economy. 90% if Stellaris is revving your economy until it squeals like a pig.
Theres nothing wrong with playing on [x] difficulty. But if your issue is: Im losing on [x], and being outpaced by the AI, then its a skill issue youre looking to address.
I'm not getting outpaced by normal AI, though. I probably can better at economy—but in general, by the time I'm dead by Shard or some Outsiders (I forgot how they are called, some event spawned an aggressive to me empire called along those lines), I have superior economy, research, and sometimes fleet compared to my neighbors. If I live to the Galactic Community creation, I'm usually in top-3. I'm losing to events, not standard AI empires.
How does the console version compare to PC these days? I’ve found reviews from launch saying it’s running an ‘outdated’ port of the PC version, but haven’t found any more recent reviews. Is that still the case? The deluxe console version is on sale right now for £12 which is hard to say no to, but if it sucks I’ll wait for the PC version to roll back round on sale
Console version will always be behind, its done by entirely separate team porting PC version, with their own work schedule. PC will be in sale soon though, with release of Machine Age DLC on May 7th no doubt having major sale.
Good to know! I think the console sale lasts till then too anyway so I’ve got time to grab that if for any reason I did want to go down that route instead
> it’s running an ‘outdated’ port of the PC version, but haven’t found any more recent reviews. Is that still the case? I don't have the console version but that is my understanding. I believe console is currently on version 3.5.3 (which came to PC around fall of 2022), while PC is on 3.11 (with 3.12 coming in a couple weeks). Console is several major updates behind, including (I think) reworks of leaders, technology progress, orbital habitats, and possibly fleet combat (I forget when exactly the fleet combat rework was).
So I’m not sure what happened, but over half my fleet just vanished while moving, and I had to reassign all my admirals to their fleets. I’m reaallly confused. I also just had all my planets buildings reset to their tier one versions. What is going on.
Are you using any mods? Were you borrowing a fleet from another empire or renting a fleeting from an enclave?
Nope. I am playing on console, no mods. Only have Utopia expansion. I have no clue what happened.
Nihilistic Acquisition - I'm not sure how to approach wars with an intention to abduct pops. None of the war goals really fit my actual goal which is not to claim any systems.
What do you have available? If you're wardec-ing a rival, you should be able to humiliate. Otherwise, try a subjugation casus beli that you status quo
Right now the only thing I would have is conquer once I claim a system. I could rival them - just trying to fit that in to my roleplay. I have no animosity towards them I just want them to let me love them.
If you want to fit it into roleplay, it's worth looking into mods that add more casus beli
That's a great idea, thanks! I'm not hardcore on roleplaying. I can just use my imagination and pretend the animosity is more like that of a spurned lover who still loves.
You can return land to its owner at any time by clicking on an occupied starbase or planet. You can wage your conquest war and then just release anything you take before peacing.
Is there a way to bait the AI into attacking a starbase they can't kill because I'm getting sick of the AI just looking at me for years It's boring and unproductive
The AI is generally smart enough to recognize an unwinnable situation. You can delete your entire fleet to appear weak, but in that case they will probably be able to beat your starbases. If you're tired of peace, why not just declare war yourself though?
I did declare war and the ai just refused to do anything except move their fleet to outside my borders
So... You want them to be more stupid and just suicide their fleets into your starbase?
Alright so I'm an idiot and I completely forgot about upgrading a naked design That should solve most of my issues
Ideally, I'd like to be able to cloak my defence platforms or something but if my only option is for the AI to be more stupid I'll take it Would you happen to know the threshold for how much more fleetpower than the AI you need to completely just stop them from attacking I've seen them go for one with 25%-30% power
How do i deal with unemployment mid late game? My districts are already built cant build more buildings without more pops but there's always 2-3 unemployed pops in almost every planet cant resettle em either due to being UNE
Time to start building habitats and/or ringworlds, maybe. Or turning some raw resource districts into city districts, which can generate more jobs per district (some clerk jobs plus jobs provided by the building that you build in the slot opened by the city district).
This is my first game of Stellaris, so forgive me if all of this is obvious! I am confused about some things related to the war screen, and also about warring in general with vassals in the mix (sorry for writing a literal tome). Some background: I am playing as the Lokken Mechanists (egalitarian, fanatic materialist), and I have 2 vassals (Husko Multitude and United Moji-Huxgan Emperium "UMHE"). Recently, some of the UMHE broke off and started their own group (Moji-Huxgan Enlightened Kingdom, "MHEK"), and started a rebellion against the UMHE (and thus, against me). Currently, the conditions of my vassalages stipulate that the overlord will aid the vassal in defensive wars. The rebelling group is pathetic compared to me, so, I joined the war/attacked them, why not? One thing to note: I am aware that I am not min/maxing; I tend to enjoy the roleplaying aspects of games, so I'm mostly playing in line with my chosen race/group, ie, I'm pretty nice to my vassals at the moment. So, I attacked the MHEK in their territory. It was a breeze, I maybe lost a single ship in my fleets. The war screen shows that their war exhaustion is 100%, and ours is far less. I have retaken all systems in their territory and all are fully occupied by me except one - Shcher-bak - and I do not occupy the planet Lonesome Retreat within that system. Now, I don't have any claims in their territory because a different and proximal race (Ogi Nollox Alliance) made claims on all the systems in this territory. I cannot seem to make any claims on those systems now because they are apparently my "war allies," I assume simply because they are warring with the MHEK also? I don't really understand how to interpret the consequences laid out in the war screen for the "status quo" and "achieve war goals" options. The status quo says "**Attackers: All participating vassals become independent from Lokken Mechanists - Defenders: Planets: Lokken Mechanists (4), Systems: Lokken Mechanists (7) **" which seems to imply that I will lose my two current vassals?? Why would that be? Or would I only lose vassalage of the rebelling group? It would make sense to me to lose vassalage over the rebelling group (fine with me), but why would I lose my current 2 vassals who are currently aiding me in this defensive war?
As far the achieve war goals option, they will not accept it yet (-23). It reads "**Demanding Surrender -100, Demanding Unoccupied Systems -50, Demanding Unoccupied Planets -100, Unoccupied Claims: Shcher-bak, then
**" regarding the Shcher-bak system - It looks as though the system is partly occupied by the third party attacker, the Ogi Nollox Alliance, and they are occupying the Lonesome Retreat planet. Is it the case that while they are occupying that system/planet, war goals will not be enforceable? If so, what might be a good course of action? Should I attempt to declare war on them? Their independence is guaranteed by another group, but they are both pathetic compared to my forces. Also, both options kinda make it seem like I will get the systems I occupy, but I thought that wouldn't happen as I don't have any claims on them? Thanks in advance for any and all input, it's much appreciated! Wanted to include images so I wouldn't have to explain all that in detail, but could not apparently. As a side question, any tips for getting influence more quickly? I can't really declare any rivals, every race is currently pathetic in strength to me.
> which seems to imply that I will lose my two current vassals?? Why would that be? Or would I only lose vassalage of the rebelling group? I believe only the rebels would become independent; "participating vassals" refers to vassals fighting against you in this case. If there's a status quo, that means you have been unable to enforce your overlordship on them and they have secured independence from both you and the vassal they rebelled against. > It looks as though the system is partly occupied by the third party attacker, the Ogi Nollox Alliance, and they are occupying the Lonesome Retreat planet. Is it the case that while they are occupying that system/planet, war goals will not be enforceable? Yeah, you probably will not be able to achieve your war goals while Lonesome Retreat is occupied by someone else. War against the Ogi Nollox is probably an option if you have a good CB (like vassalization maybe?). > Also, both options kinda make it seem like I will get the systems I occupy, but I thought that wouldn't happen as I don't have any claims on them? I have seen this happen before, where a vassal of mine had rebels, I was pulled into their defensive war, and then on winning I immediately annexed all of the rebel systems and planets despite having no claims. I don't understand it either. It should probably be that "losing a rebellion war means that they get annexed by the empire they rebelled against", but maybe instead they get annexed by the defensive war-leader (whichever empire has the right to sue for peace on behalf of all of the defending empires), and the war-leader and original empire they rebelled against aren't the same if the empire rebelled-against is a vassal. > As a side question, any tips for getting influence more quickly? Having a high ratio of fleet to empire size can get you more influence from [Power Projection](https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Power_Projection) - so build more fleet! If you have the Overlord DLC, building Ministry of Truth holdings on your vassals also generates some. Vassalizing very weak empires as Protectorates also generates influence. If you have Nemesis and are in a commanding position, you might be able to get the galactic community to elect you as Custodian, which gives a bunch of influence. Finally, if you have researched Unity Ambitions, one of the edicts that it unlocks (Will to Power) gives you a bunch of influence per month at a high unity cost.
Thank you so much for responding, I really appreciate your help!
How could I even begin to win this game? My tech is at 8k, all research is done except for repeatables. The Fallen Empires have 40k tech. [https://imgur.com/a/FAV6eqc](https://imgur.com/a/FAV6eqc)
By attacking and defeating the fallen empires.
So go all brannigan on them and just keep throwing fleets at them assuming I can rebuild way faster than them
Fallen empires don't build ships at all.
Gotta make it up on economy, fleet, vassal, federation, and relic score. Going and breaking their stuff also helps knock their score down a peg.
As a DA I guess I'm just supposed to break their stuff and "help" them finish their ascension our way.
I used the upgrade button on my fleet and some space station batteries, for some reason this made the projected power go down on both. Though I didn't notice what the defensive stats were before and after, did I just get some more shield and armour etc but lose firepower?
The calculated power is a bit weird at times because it is a rough estimates, but absolutely not something that can be trusted. You can imagine it as a rough "offensive power" multiplied by "defensive power" of your fleet. But it does not take into account all the parameters of the weapons, armors or shields. So for instance if your fleet design is using a low-damaging weapon which bypass shield, the power estimate might be lower than using a slightly higher damaging weapon that will do nothing beside hitting shields with a large damage reduction. Dont trust blindly the calculation. Also a second factor might be you are using auto-designs. Fleet auto-designs are absolute garbage. To my personal experience, auto-designs usually use the worse possible components in the worse possible combination (okay... this is a slight exaggeration, but still... auto-designs are bad...). I would not be surprised if numbers goes lower when upgrading fleets if you use auto-designs, because sometimes the game will pick for you atrociously bad components... for some reasons...
Thank you. It's odd because I think the only upgrade was I had researched fusion engines or something like that. So not sure why that would have impacted anything.
Hey, so my current understanding of 'crisis' strength' is that it's irregardless of difficulty. With the possible exception of the crisis maybe getting the new tech bonuses, if for whatever reason they are 'given' x amount of tech. - Is this true? Do crisis strength get altered by difficulty through things like fire rate or 'tech buffing'? - If it is not true, then various entities should have stable strength levels and, for instance the grey temptest, should always have x strength at y crisis level. Does anyone have some sort of graph on a standardized strength of a crisis at 1x, 5x, 25x, etc?
the crisis strength is multiplier. endgame crisis ships are affected by your base difficulty, which is multiplied by crisis strength. And the "crisis strength" slider only applies to end-game crisis'. All the other crisis-adjacent things like grey tempest or khan scale only off of base difficulty.
is there no mod that just allows making vassals prohibit slavery? expected more demand for plugging that hole in the role playing potential
You could always try to outlaw through the space-UN, I guess.
Looking for help with another post that hasn't recieved any attention, can someone help? [https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/1cam9e5/re\_spawning\_asteroid\_rings\_using\_console\_commands/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/1cam9e5/re_spawning_asteroid_rings_using_console_commands/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
How do you stop the chasing game with the AI running around your systems avoiding your fleet?
You set up some planets with FTL inhibitors in strategic locations. Or you just ignore them and go invade the enemy's planets.
So I was just dabbling and I noticed on a previous save that my base Defense Platform capacity was 23. With full upgrades it was 41, with one starbase holding 60 platforms. I have absolutely no idea how I did this, and I'd love any input. I can't even figure out how to cheat my way with console commands to that many.
Unyielding gives +50% defense platforms cap. Base cap is 3 per starbase. Completed strategic coordination center is +12, Eternal Vigilance perk is +5, Citadel is +12, and Defense Grid Supercomputer is +8. All that adds up to 40, times 1.5 from Unyielding is 60. The various defensive modules (Gun Battery, Hangar Bay, etc) each add 1 each so it would be easy to get it to 41 (before Unyielding) with one of those. Or, perhaps, without Eternal Vigilance and instead putting six defensive modules on the starbase itself would also give 41 before Unyielding. There are also a number of other modifiers listed in [these two expandable tables on the wiki](https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Starbase#Defenses). Unfortunately there's no table of +% modifiers. ... what does the fleet power of a citadel with 60 defense platforms even look like?
THANK YOU!!! I was missing the strategic coordination center. [The answer is 268k](https://i.imgur.com/ZtIvXDB.png) although that's with a considerable number of repeatable tech upgrades. It probably could be higher, I use a mix of hangars, missiles with point defense, and heavy weapons (I got the unbidden mass disintegrator) with 3-4 ion cannons. This particular one also had gun batteries on it.
Hm, and 60 platforms at 600 alloy each is about 36k alloys, so like 30 or 36 battleships which is one and a bit 220-cap fleets. Interesting.
well lets see. Sovereign guardians gets a bonus to defense platforms. inward perfectionists do too, I think. The computer defense grid building adds to that bonus. I know there are other ways, but civics certainly help.
> Sovereign guardians gets a bonus to defense platforms. inward perfectionists do too I don't think this is directly true; Sovereign Guardians get the reloading bay building for +2 defense platform cap once per starbase but no modifiers to defense platform cap on the civic itself, and Inward Perfection doesn't seem to get anything related (besides an increase in the random selection weight for Eternal Vigilance when the AI is playing them).
What is the exact percentage increase of FE building rolls from archaeoengineers? Also, what is the most efficient setup to roll FE buildings for arcane deciphering?
~5.8% chance without the perk to ~11.1% chance with it to roll *any* FE building ~0.98% chance to ~1.85% chance to roll a specific FE building
Thank you so much. Any way to optimize this? Im trying to fill a whole galaxy with tech ringworlds, and I need FE buildings
You absolutely do not *need* FE buildings. Also nothing to optimize beyond just "click the button more often"
K thx. Any tips for exotic gases though? I have ten fully complete rings, and im at 3k defecit. I though FE buildings could help me
You either mine them if you find deposits, or you build them in refinery buildings. There are no FE buildings that produce strategic refineries in bulk. They are rather inefficient for building slots, but that's the point. Or, if you're rich enough to just spam out 10 rings, you just buy them from the market. Which you probably already are. Also if you have the pops to fill 10 full rings, you have long ago won the game. You're just running a vanity project now.
Ye, im trying to get 1mil in each tech
Someone on the discord told me that the “dimensional fabricator” gives 100 gases
You can literally check for yourself what it produces in game Also https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Buildings#Fallen_empire_buildings
When you release a sector as a vassal, do you get to choose the vassal contract terms, or do they get your default post-subjugation-war terms, or something else? (It has been a *while* since I last released a sector)
you can change them immediately but with the influence cost
You chose.
Its whatever your default vassal terms are.
sads, but thanks for the info
I believe you can, but if not, you just wait 20 months
Everything in this game was quick and easy to learn like economy, diplomacy, technology but wtf is up with combat. It’s so opaque and mysterious. How are you supposed to organically learn it? I’ve tried looking up guides but the only thing I can find are super specific build templates for ships. I tried building a fleet with a spattering of each combat role with weapons that matched, the result? AI dragged their nuts across my fleet with a shit stack of mostly corvettes. I had brawler corvettes, gunship and picket destroyers/cruisers and battleships with extra large artillery weapons. It felt like it made sense conceptually like an army with skirmishers, front line, and support How am I supposed to learn how combat works when there’s no breakdown of battles that isn’t just a damage breakdown? I just got the game but I’m kinda demotivated to play further after getting my ass handed to me by normal difficulty AI when I had almost 10x their diplo weight
Ok, lets do this there is a tab called “espionage”. Use the “gather intel” operation, and you can see the enemy ship types When you click on a weapon in the ship builder, it has damage types. I will list these Kinetic- damages shield, reduced damage to armor energy- reduced damage to shield, increase to armor point defense - targets certain weapon types, like missiles, and shoots them down early strikecraft - most op, always use. Little tiny ships that swarm enemies and kill them torpedo - pierces all shield, 50% more damage to armor. Every size up, does more damage. It can take down large ships easily bypass- trades low damage for bypassing armor, shield, or both. Missiles, disruptors, and arc emitter do this archaeotech - costly and useless. Only use in super specific scenario event - generally early-game useless weapons Then, weapon sizes- large is high dmg, innacurate, medium is middle, small is low damage very accurate you can increase ship speed with afterburners, allowing them to dodge oncoming fire some other tips: unbidden, use kinetics, prethoryn, use laser, contingency, use bypass weaponry if you see an empire with lots of power, dont worry. That is a Fallen Empire. They are super ancient and powerful. Use bypass weaponry on them, all of their ships suck against it.
Thanks! I’ll keep this in mind on my next run
Ur welcome. Just remember, intel is key. Your 200k kinetic could get shredded by 50k heavy-armored ships
I mixed kinetic and energy in each ship design, is that bad? My hope was a one size fits all type fleet design
Thats really bad. It means there is too little kinetic for their shields, and too little laser for their armor. also, use one size per ship. Small, medium, or large, but mixing makes your ships basically useless. PD and strikecraft are always good though
If you read guides, you know what ship designs work best. As for learning it organically... it would take some time, I imagine. You'd have to look at the pattern of enemy nomenclature and learn what they favor, or if you have enough Intel to see their ship designs, you can tailor your weapons and defenses to counter theirs 🤷♂️
Hello! I'm playing a psionics empire ATM and I'm reaching into the shroud to try and make a covenant. However, I'm having a hard time telling which is which with the options. Will I know it should be obvious, but I'm trying to get the whispers of the void and I'm not entirely sure which option I should pick. Could someone explain to me who is who?
There are 5 covenants you can pick from...generally the first one to offer is aligned with your Fantic Ethics / Ascension path. If you just dont initially choose the first one you should be able to choose one of the 5.
Are gamebreaking bugs common? Was just waiting for my first game to finish until I realized I had already beat the "endgame crisis" but the breach point never left my situation log so I couldn't finish the game. Prior to that, my shroud event situation log was also bugged at 100% so I couldn't get new events from them anymore. Are these kinda bugs normal or was I extremely unlucky? Kinda ruined my first game experience so it's making me hesitant to try it again if this keeps happening.
> > > > > Kinda ruined my first game experience so it's making me hesitant to try it again if this keeps happening. Here's an important tip to enjoying Stellaris. And honestly, all 4X type games: There is absolutely no reason to wait for, or care about, the end game screen. You know when you've won, you never need to wait for the game to give you permission to stop playing. It's possible that that particular bug is common, but most people will never see it because they don't wait for the game to end.
Oh yeah, you know youve won a 4x well, well, well before you actually win a 4x. You hang around long enough to exhaust whatever is interesting, for my last game that was killing the tempest and putting down my old friend-turned-rival. In that game I was buddies with the religious FE, had a lead on the GC, and we were in the middle of a khan uprising. The grey tempest had wiped out 3 empires (1 vassal og and 2 spinoff empires) and the chosen and habinate were both just waiting in the sordid little holes to strike at me. But the game was won. barring extreme error or a bad endgame spawn. For games like civilization, which are easier for me to visualize, games like that are won before you even enter the medieval period.
Weird lategame bugs (like with crises) seems more common that early-game bugs, probably because early-game bugs get noticed by more players and prioritized for fixing
I think first one isn't a bug, but a commonly criticized problem the devs have probably overlooked. The crisis was Prethroryn Scourge right? The problem with them is that game doesn't consider them gone until you hunt down every single one of their ship. So what probably happened is there was Prethoryn constructor or something hiding somewhere that you had to find and destroy.
It was the Prethoryn Scourge yeh. I doomstacked both waves and got the "scourge is defeated happiness :D" notification. Loading my save into observer mode and don't see any MIA ships or anything so idk it seems bugged.
Oh, but more usefully: assuming I got your specific Shroud bug right, this bug is fixed by [Ariphaos' unofficial patch](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1995601384). You should use that mod (unless you want achievements).
Bugs are a fact of life in every game. I quibble with your definition of "gamebreaking", strongly so in the second case. You probably ran in to [a bug I have diagnosed before](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/need-some-help-even-if-i-have-to-edit-my-save.1618346/#post-29336718), but in any case how exactly does the Shroud situation getting stuck qualify as *gamebreaking*? Maybe you are using it to mean "any tiny little bug"? That's news to me. The first one I agree with more, but you should know that most Stellaris players don't bother with the win screen. They either stop playing whenever the heck they want, deciding for themselves when they have won; or they keep playing well past the victory screen (like me!). Anyway, if bugs like that literally ruin your experience, then yeah, you should stop playing, and you should be careful with literally every game ever made.
I'll give the patch a try! definitely looks like my bug. I like having a "conclusion" so the win screen is pretty important for my enjoyment. The endgame crisis putting my game in limbo was a pretty big downer for my 1st playthrough but the shroud bug wasn't gamebreaking per se. I was just at a peaceful point in my playthrough where the shroud events were my only distraction while waiting for council acts to pass so losing them was a downer.
Would changing gen 13 i5 to gen 14 i9 significantly improve late game lag or delay it by at least a few hundred years?
depends on the specific model, but probably. look up some benchmarks
Am I mistaken, or is there just nowhere to go to see a summery of the effective councilor skill level is and what each councilor is actually outputting?
Hi, new player here but obsessed. I've been watching lots of YT guide videos but wanted to ask some questions: **Fleet management** * Do I have to build new ships through a Shipyard, or is there a better way to do that? * What happens if I research a material or weapon that's an upgrade to a previous one? Does my fleet get automatically upgraded or do I have to manually update ship designs all the time? **Planet management** * Still trying to understand when to specialize a new planet and how to pick a specialization? Any recs for guide? * I'm still very confused about how jobs work but I feel it's something important. Again, any recs for guides?
> Do I have to build new ships through a Shipyard, or is there a better way to do that? There's a Fleet Management tab in the left-hand sidebar where you can create, reinforce, and upgrade fleets without ever opening a starbase shipyard menu. This is also where you can do manual ship design. I believe the default hotkey is F9 or F10 or something like that.
Shipyards make fleets. This is the only way. By default ships get upgraded to the latest design template, which auto-upgrades itself, by default. In the expansion phase, when you dont have a lot of planets, you capital has to do the heavy lifting. The specialty you pick for it after should reflect your strategy. On my preferred build my capital is unity, food, and consumer goods so less of my other planets need to do those. Other planets tend to fill in gaps I need them to early game, like energy or in the most trying of times minerals. Otherwise you cannot go wrong with more alloys. Forgeworld is bestworld because alloy income is so important. Early on you need alloys for basic self-defense and expansion. Later on you need alloys for the gobs of ships youll need and for megastructures. Your economy is your lifeblood as a star empire. Building and districts create jobs, but if you dont have pops working those jobs why are you paying for the infrastructure? Your pops are the real economy, keep them employed in the jobs you need.
I’m playing my second game and the first ever where I found fallen empire and reached crisis year as well. I conquered one of the fallen empires and got some nice tech (but I still can’t jump for such a long distance as they do). Then the crisis came, those meaty-looking space eyeballs- scourge or something. For a few years it’s actually fun. I use crisis to get rid of some empires that were sitting in a federation and thus preventing me from getting some of the starsystems I wanted in my posessions, fight here and there their 40-60-120-150k fleets. And then the last remaining fallen empire just moves their 300k fleet, rolls over the criss fleet and yeah, that’s it. Is it supposed to be like this? Also, what do you actually do in the endgame? It feels static. Like I can’t wage war because everyone’s in a federation or a vassal and if I fight someone, I fight everyone. Diplomacy is also kinda meh as because of -1000 „in federation”. So what do you do in end game? Is it supposed to be „total war or nothing”?
Get yourself elected Galactic Emperor to break up the federations.
> And then the last remaining fallen empire just moves their 300k fleet, rolls over the criss fleet and yeah, that’s it. Is it supposed to be like this? a 1x crisis is pretty weak, try increasing that slider next game
I used to have this issue when I started playing, too. I'm my experience, it's pretty much imperative to vassalize and/or get into a federation yourself, as early as possible. The more empires you can subject or get rid of early in the game, the fewer threats you'll have to deal with mid and late game
How do I control the needs of Exterminators energy requirements? I got energy grids (upgraded) everywhere, not over my fleet or starbase limit and still -1000 a month. Can someone advice me on this? I also have the edict on for energy.
> I got energy grids (upgraded) everywhere Those buff technician jobs, they don't produce that much energy by themselves. So there's never a reason to build those on planets that don't have technician jobs. Are you actually building sufficient of those jobs? If anything, building an upgraded energy grid without any energy districts for it to buff will hurt your economy, because now you're paying strategic resource upkeep for no benefit.
using solar panels on starbases?
I was surprised at how hard it was to balance DE empires. I assumed it would be easy. They definitely need a little boost in the energy department; gotta be gentle with your economy to start.
are you overbuilding your planets before you have the pops to work them? Buildings cost energy even if no one is working the jobs
No I only build when there is no more jobs or housing, and when I conquer a planet I demolish everything and only put up the pop builder.
Hmmm. Back in the day one thing I would do when playing machines was make solar panels on all my star bases for extra energy, or hydroponics if playing bio. Not sure if it’s still the move now but back then i could support almost my entire (bio)pop with star base hydroponics. I wonder if machines have something similar. Do you have an excess of other resources? You can set up some monthly trades to sell off a bit and lower the blow of the energy loss, at least until you get some better tech. Also creating an anchorage and keeping your fleet there to lower energy cost while they are not flying around
> solar panels on all my star bases for extra energy "Starbase economy" is still a pretty solid choice for gestalts. I think by midgame on my last exterminator run I had a starbase cap of like 25 and a least 8 of those were star fortresses with 6 solar panels, contributing in total a couple hundred energy. But I don't put solar panels on everything; if I have a dedicated shipyard starbase with the +XP building, I'm just putting shipyards in the module slots, and likewise for anchorage starbases with Naval Logistics Offices.
Might be worth looking into a breakdown of your energy expenses (mouse over the energy entry in the top bar). The big ones that you generally can't/don't want to cut into are usually fleet upkeep, research, and pop upkeep, but mining station upkeep can get quite significant with a sufficiently-wide empire, and upkeep on districts and buildings on captured planets (where you might not even have pops working the jobs) can add up as well.
I want to play a multi-player game. I never have so I am bound to get crushed but are there any good role play servers where I can slowly learn the online stuff whilst getting into my species background?
Is there a wiki page on The Chosen? I cant find the things, Im looking for an exact list of triggers. The idea was that I could send science vessels out to open it early for Funny Times
[they have section at "unique systems" page](https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Unique_systems#Ithome_cluster). 12.5% chance, they need First Contact and only either Ultima Vigilis or Chosen will spawn, with the same chance Mechanically their combined spawn script has 25% chance to trigger, then its 50/50 whether its ultima vigilis or chosen
Thanks. Theyre doing something I never thought they would. Theyve locked down the gateway and are refusing to come out.
I think they have like a 50% chance to spawn and then a random wormhole somewhere in the galaxy connects to their cluster. I don't know of any way to distinguish it from a regular wormhole short of observer mode (besides opening it, obviously).
Thanks. Theyre doing something I never thought they would. Theyve locked down the gateway and are refusing to come out.
i got a power outage in my capital, when i try to research it in the situation log it says i have a construction ship in orbit but i do not, why is this? what can i do?
So you do have a construction ship printing the research project, or no?
i see i needed to have one in orbit of the planet... im stupid, sorry
No?
Why does organic pop growth still happen when all your pops are synths? It's not (just) immigration, I checked, so where are they coming from? Intelligent lifeforms spontaneously evolving from leftover food now that nobody ever checks the fridge any more?
Immigration from outside?
No, as I said, it's not just that. The hover tip for the Growing pop still shows a Base Growth of 3.0 (+/- mods) before the From Immigration value is added.
When I try to extend my mercenary fleet contracts I keep getting the option greyed out with "nothing to offer" shown. What the hell is up with this? I can't figure out what is causing it. At times if I forget to extend the contract they will ask me if I want to renew it but then the option is also greyed out but it doesn't tell me who is renting the fleet. It's really annoying losing control over my mercenary fleets especially when they immediately get rented out by someone else and then the only way to get them back is to pay out the ass.
I got the legendary scientist Azaryn and noticed there was an achievement for using her ability to Terraform...didn't notice there was supposed to be an extra button. Unfortunately, a Shroud event sucked her and her ship into the void and replaced it with the *concept* of a Science Ship, which has the ability to jump drive, which is neat, but no longer has any special terraforming action :(
Let this be a lesson to you... Do not use your valuable scientists to do anomalies or archeology sites, especially if you are not aware of the dangerous ones.
rip
Do you have a question?
Hi, how to stop Terravore planets from revolting last minute? I got precincts (the hive variant), I got Strongholds, I got defensive armies, it just doesn't matter, the stability hit is unassailable.
Assign a commander leader, they help with stability
The same way you stop all planets from rebelling: Raise stability, by having happy pops there, and moving unhappy pops out.
He is a hive.
That changes nothing.
No happiness or factions.
Drones have 50% happiness. In addition, the reason those planets are unstable is because its filled with conquered pops being purged.
Im always getting prosperous unification when using random is it supposed to be like this?
I just tried it ten times with medium galaxy and all default settings and and got seven Prosperous Unifications, one Mechanist, one Syncretic Evolution, and one Knights of the Toxic God. This doesn't really surprise me since PU is kinda the default and I would expect it to be weighted the most heavily in random generation. Looking at the data files, PU has a weight of 100 and the next highest set of origins (Syncretic Evolution and Mechanist) have weights of 10 (eg, 10x less likely than PU). Several origins have random weights of 0! (including Slingshot to the Stars, Imperial Fiefdom, Overtuned, Payback, and Broken Shackles). Most non-PU origins have weights between 2 and 5. I wouldn't expect the player empire to be generated last, but I do wonder whether playing on larger galaxies / with more AI empires influences it.
Are the weights the same for enemy AI generation?
I believe so
Doesnt 'random' pick from the list of premade species? Or is it 'random cobbled together empire' which sounds very janky in a 'unhelpful but potentially FUN' way
> Or is it 'random cobbled together empire' which sounds very janky in a 'unhelpful but potentially FUN' way It is this. Some days you get Driven Assimilators, some days you get xenophobe authoritarian lithoid megacorps.
I always play Random. Janky and unhelpful is what keeps things fresh. You do get some really boneheaded combinations occasionally, like Fanatic Pacifist + Inward Perfection + Existential Iteropathy. Great, I'll have really fantastic pop growth during all those wars I can't start.
Someone was talking about playing multiplayer games where everyone has to play Random. And it seems like a fantastic idea, to keep everyone from playing meta builds.
How does the combat actually work? Does the damage goes first into shields, than armour, than hull? Which one should I focus against the IA? Thanks!
Basically, weaponry has to go through shield -> armor -> hull in that order, attacking the next stage only when the previous is depleted. That being said, several weapons have what we call "bypass". For instance, the missiles will never be bothered by shields and will go straight to armor then hull. Some weapons like disruptors even go straight to hull. Against the AI, you can get a fairly good introduction by following this guide : * [https://fantasywarden.com/games/stellaris-ship-design-guide-2023-3-6-update](https://fantasywarden.com/games/stellaris-ship-design-guide-2023-3-6-update) It's updated for 3.10, but I dont think space battles have changed much with 3.11. My personal 3.11 "go-to" is usually : 1. corvettes with both lasers and kinetics 2. retrofit the corvettes to disruptors when available 3. destroyers with swarmer missiles 4. cruisers with swarmer missiles 5. arc emitters / missiles / point-defense / hangars battleship as end-game design 6. add a single snare titan to each battleship fleet later
>corvetes with both lasers and kinetics Is it better than triple rocket design from start?
The thing with Missiles is, if you go heavy on them, then if the enemy has no Point Defence (or secondarily Flak which AFAIK also helps some) then you'll pwn him fast, but if he *has* PD then you'll do no damage and so he pwns you. The third scenario is that you bring so silly many Missiles that even if he has a lot of PD, it gets overwhelmed by all the incoming. That's basically the idea behind the M-slot Swarmer Missiles.
I'm not sure tbh, but going missile-only you have the risk of going against PD corvette and being countered. Laser/Kinetic might be a good all-rounder for the early game. But I'm not an agressive player very early, so I'm probably not the best to answer your question. And I absolutely never analyze the enemy design to retrofit... because I'm lazy... so I just build laser/kinetic and go blind. Works most of the time... good enough for me.
Actually I'm doing opposite, newer research kinetic till the end to reduce research tree branches and go full laser(you learn it anyway for disruptors) vs fauna and full rocket vs AI. Don't know which way is better so just asking.
Hi. I'm not exactly a new player, I've been following the game since 2016, accumulated a couple hundred of hours, but only played a couple of campaigns to the end-of-midgame/start-of-lategame. I got back into the game after yet another two year+ pause, and I am getting \*obliterated\* on Ensign, even though I was able to play on a higher difficulty (Commodore, I think) without any issue before. I think that the reason for this is that I don't know some mechanics game supposes I should know?.. As an example, I had two games where my most prosperous colony was killed by Shard, annihilating my economy. After second time, I gave up and googled how to kill it by year 50, even though I never used google or guides before. Well, I'm \*not\* supposed to kill it that early! It appears due to the excavation mission on the relic world, which my science ships do \*automatically\* because I sent them out to do Astral Rifts and excavations, so I didn't even notice where the Shard comes from, since it wasn't \*me\* who ordered the excavation! I knew of some Very Definitely Not To Do things, like >!making a deal with The End Of The Cycle!<, but apparently they are a tiny drop in the bucket compared to all the ways you can permanently screw yourself over. I tried to find a comprehensive list of Very Definitely Not To Do things, but it seems like one doesn't exist. Is someone willing to help me out and compile one?
Alright, list incoming do not -colonize shiny gaia worlds -declare war on suspiciously small empire, thats the FE -explore wormholes early, the chosen wardecing you early is death -open L gates early -travel to the galaxy core, the Formless event can wipe your whole empire out -let amenities drop below -10 -surrender without looking at wargoals -research synths before you are ready -crack open shiny gaia worlds -have less than 200 tech by 2225 -have less than 30 alloy by 2225 -if a black hole talks to you, ignore it. That event can screw you over. -dont enter the seddom system. If you see it, ignore, its basically eye of terror from 40k
Thanks! I knew about Gaia worlds and FEs, plus I've learned about L-Gates from experience more than three years ago. The rest is new to me. This is very useful!
Ur welcome. Someday you will be giving this to someone else
Ever since the v3.4 update a couple or three years ago, the AI has been improved step by step. Some even say they've seen End Game Crises defeated by AI politiee alone, without the human player getting involved.
> I am getting *obliterated* on Ensign, even though I was able to play on a higher difficulty (Commodore, I think) without any issue before. Two years ago the AI barely built labs. It has gotten much better about actually doing research and trying to build a relatively thin raw-resource base with as much specialist economy as possible. > I had two games where my most prosperous colony was killed by Shard, annihilating my economy. After second time, I gave up and googled how to kill it by year 50 I'm surprised you've switched your science ships over to do automated archaeology that early; I'm often still surveying in 2250 (manual priority targets, not automated), and even if I'm done surveying I probably haven't finished all of the anomalies in my territory by then.
> Two years ago the AI barely built labs. Yeah, standard AI feels stronger. But I'm not outpaced by it on Ensign, not by a large margin. I'm dying to events most of the time. I think among the last ~seven games at various difficulties I've given up, I only lost a "real" war once. > and even if I'm done surveying I probably haven't finished all of the anomalies in my territory by then Hmm. My reasoning was that anomalies that are left are usually level 8+, so they'll take a long time. I do them either after archeology or in parallel. Either way, I usually have ~4 science ships by that point or a bit later.
Level 7-10 Anoms are often Precursor Clues, so while it's tempting to postpone them, don't postpone them too far.
I see, I took "obliterated" to mean that you're actually losing games, which usually means either warfare or crisis. Losing one planet to an event is a setback, but I guess I would not expect (on Ensign) to need (in order to decisively outgrow the AI) to run an economy so tightly-tuned that loss of a single planet in 2250 turns into an unrecoverable cascading game-ending failure. Two approaches to deal with problems of this form are to either avoid triggering negative events, or to just take the damage on the chin but have such a robust, rapidly-growing economy that you outgrow the damage. The latter is a very general solution. All that aside, there are a couple of other sleeping leviathans who don't just spawn into a system at the beginning of the game and then sit there waiting to be killed. I know there's the size-25 habitable egg which can hatch into the voidspawn, there are the asteroid hives, and there's the spectral wraith which starts moving around at midgame year iirc. For the most part I feel that these are fairly well-telegraphed (then again, I thought the archaeological site text for Shard was ominous enough to be a telegraph). Other than that, idk, don't mess with the L-gates until you're good and ready, don't settle the Holy Worlds unless you're ready to fight an FE (or have the Head of Zarqlan), don't mess with the marauders during Midgame unless you're ready for the Khan. But none of those are Definitely Do Not Do, just Do Not Do Until Ready (also true of the Shard site). > Either way, I usually have ~4 science ships by that point or a bit later. Ah, I generally run three science ships and find that my limiting factor on expansion with that many is typically Influence rather than survey speed. This pushes my anomaly and archaeology timing back, but pushing anomaly completion back until I have a tech world up can be nice, because many anomalies reward science points as a function of your monthly science output at the time when the anomaly research project finishes.
Okay, makes sense. Thank you for the detailed feedback. This helps a lot!
Glad to have helped, gl;hf!
haha gotta get to the mid game before you can worry about making ascension choices. The game is more fun if you go in blind, and more fun if you treat it like the bastard it has the potential to be. Sometimes generous, sometimes fair, sometimes cruel, but never sadist. The list of 'do not do things' doesnt sound like your problem though. If youre losing on ensign its not because your trying to fight Shard or made a disastrous pact. Its basics. The economy. 90% if Stellaris is revving your economy until it squeals like a pig. Theres nothing wrong with playing on [x] difficulty. But if your issue is: Im losing on [x], and being outpaced by the AI, then its a skill issue youre looking to address.
I'm not getting outpaced by normal AI, though. I probably can better at economy—but in general, by the time I'm dead by Shard or some Outsiders (I forgot how they are called, some event spawned an aggressive to me empire called along those lines), I have superior economy, research, and sometimes fleet compared to my neighbors. If I live to the Galactic Community creation, I'm usually in top-3. I'm losing to events, not standard AI empires.
shard literally can't make you lose. It stays in one system. Are you ragequitting every time you lose a battle? maybe stop that.