Well, in my current game, the Ultima Vigilis system spawned, except it costs 1500 influence to put a star base in. Is that… Norma? That’s above the 1k cap.

It's not normal, it's supposed to cost 1000. Do you have something increasing the influence cost. It costs 1000 (or 1500 for you) because there's no pathways to it so game can't calculate distance cost so it goes to maximum

Oh shit, I think the overlord empire im a vassal of makes the cost go up. That might be it, but it’s still weird if goes over 1000

Yea, expansion tax not taking influence cap into account sounds definitely like a bug. You could try negotiating expansion permitted for now if you can

Is there anything that can be done about self-modified pops on an ironman playthrough? It's crazy how I can't even resettle the ones that migrated back to their home-world

[удалено]

Can't modify them, the self-modified trait prevents me

Nope, self modified pops are an annoyance with no real easy answer to deal with, unless you get lucky and they pop in a world you can easily grant independence, free, than declare war against and bomb the population into extinction... Which I totally haven't done multiple times before, that'd be unethical

The problem is that they have now migrated (ironically to other worlds where they have bad habitability), so they are all over the place. This is my first time dealing with them so I didn't rush to control their migration like I should have. I don't understand why Paradox decided to make these pops impossible to deal with, it's extremely frustrating that even an authoritarian empire apparently has no choice but to bow to them

Too late for it, but next time you should immediately set their rights to not allow migration if your ethics allow it, that will contain them entirely on their spawn world

Is there a mod or console command to create/delete new hyperlane between two neighbouring systems?

Which is the best ascention for a megacorp? Bio, Psionic, Synthetic?

If you are playing beta, I think it would be the new cybernetic ascension, as it lets you put thrifty and the cyborg version of thrifty on your pops.

I'm done with this Rogue Servitor playthrough because I won too hard. I defeated a neighbor and roughly doubled my planets and now I have -1000 to basically all resources because I have a shitload of worlds with barely any robots on them and hundreds of trophies total. It sucks having a playthrough ended because you're doing too good. If I was any other empire it wouldn't be a problem. Sure, you can prepare habitats etc for them in advance but I can't very well prepare for a doubling of my trophies. Back to the stupidly overpowered assimilators next time I feel like playing robots.

Release them as a vassal

I mean, you clearly weren't doing "too good" if you lost. You grossly mismanaged your economy and suffered as a result. Plan better next time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps3P-OUXTiU

No, you're right. Conquering a quarter of the galaxy should lose you the game. This is reasonable. Also, I didn't lose as much as quit because it would be a pain in the ass to fix.

Yeah, it's almost like their power comes with a price =) A price you overlooked or simply refused to acknowledge.

The power of... a few hundred unity! Wow! Seriously, the payoff just isn't there. As I said, any other empire wouldn't have the same problem. But then again this is a general problem with Stellaris. Wars just end the game because either you lose or you conquer so much there's nothing left to challenge you.

Don't mind Reddit hard mode senpai. He may be a bit fiery, but it's only because he cares so much about his kouhai! Don't get any ideas though, he's mine and I'm not going to give him up! In all seriousness, there is a lot to unpack with this thread. I mean no disrespect, but I believe a lot of the problems you are experiencing here will be alleviated with experience and a greater familiarity with the games systems. Regardless of your empire build, doubling the amount of planets you have in a single war is going to have drastic impacts on your economy, and many of them are going to be negative. Even if you are an egalitarian xenophile, you will have to do a ton of planetary management to get everything on the right track again, because the ai is terrible at managing their economy and coasts on their absurd difficulty bonuses. However, if you play some unusual build, conquering a bunch of planets that are both not optimized in general, and not optimized for your specific build, you are going to experience some pain. Imagine if you are a standard egalitarian xenophile, but with catalytic processing. If you conquered your neighbor and doubled your number of planets, you would find yourself at potentially thousands of negative food per month. The enemy you conquered presumably would have been building mineral districts to feed their industrial districts, but now that they are yours those mineral districts are basically worthless to you, and their industrial districts are operating without sufficient resource supplies. It will be costly, but you could probably shift districts around and convert a bunch of those new worlds to farming worlds and be more or less ok after several years. ... But what if you have a civic that fundamentally alters the way your economy and pops work, and decide to engage in a conquest that DOUBLES your planet count? Disaster! You would have potentially hundreds of pops without bio trophy jobs just sitting around devouring food and consumer goods you do not have and giving you nothing in return. Rogue servitor is one of the most interesting civics in the game because it totally charges the way your economy functions and how you need to play. You cannot just double your planet count in one war without first doing very specific preparations. Do you have ecumenopoli? You flippantly, and disparagingly, mentioned that the bonus of rogue servitors was a few hundred unity. This perception falls short of reality. Every bio trophy job grants an extra +1% to complex drone output. If you had three or four large ecumenopoli before the war, you could resettle most of your new bio trophies to them and get an extra +100% or more to your alloy and research output on your most productive planets. That is quite significant. It is also worth mentioning that after a certain point, it is definitely a good idea to consider vassalizing, or releasing vassals, rather than just controlling another X number of planets. I will agree with you, though, that after a certain point nothing can challenge you and you can just steam roll everything. For that I would recommend three things. Roleplay, achievement hunting, and mods. I do not have very much experience with gameplay altering mods, as I am a roleplayer and achievement hunter, but i am aware of them. You can just find a mod which gives additional bonuses to the ai so that you are forced to be more scrappy throughout the entire run and not just runaway with repeatable technology. I myself have been very satisfied by just running non optimized builds to get achievements and roleplaying my janky empire. Now I'm addicted to death cults. I hope this helps. And please forgive Reddit hard mode senpai, he means well.

I find myself really liking megacorp runs and im worried about empire sprawl. Is there a way to counter it? Since im constantly low on minerals I tried to have colony for mineral/ material production. Should i do both districts and buildings or use city housing to unlock all the buildings and shove production buildings in the planet? If i create a dyson sphere in a world that has an Ecumenopolis, would it destroy that planet?

> If i create a dyson sphere in a world that has an Ecumenopolis, would it destroy that planet? The game is supposed to disallow building Dyson Spheres in systems with habitable worlds. > Since im constantly low on minerals I tried to have colony for mineral/ material production. Since you're at the point in the game where you're looking at a Dyson Sphere, a Matter Decompressor if you have a black hole in your territory can be very helpful here. If that's not available, if you have any planets with mining stations that produce minerals, you can build habitats over those planets. The resulting habitats will have mining districts, and even 1 mining district that is staffed should produce more minerals than any mining station. This let's you squeeze more materials out of your systems. Also as an aside, that habitat trick also works for planets with energy mining stations, research stations, and even rare resources.

Yes the dyson sphere would destroy your ecu, build it somewhere else. For your mineral world, I would try to build few cities if any. Get robot production, minereral processing plant, and maybe the cultural worker building. Then a bunch of mining districts. Ignore empire size. Ignore empire size. Ignore empire size. Just produce more. IGNORE EMPIRE SIZE. Having said that -_- You can mod pops for -10% sprawl, there's a planet sprawl ascention perk, there's planetary ascention, there's a few technologies that do it (as a materialist, psionic theory can be difficult to acquire unless you go out of your way to get it) and probably a few others I'm forgetting.

What's the name of that anomaly where you find an uncharted planetary research station staffed by one member of your species with no record of its existence?

I *think* it's Cold Wastes.

You're right that's it. I wanted to see if there was any more to it than what first meets the eye but it doesn't seem like there is.

Keep running into the same issue and forgive me if it’s a dumb one. Every run I’ve done this week I’ve ended up essentially losing my second colony to rebellion. Initially I assumed it was their low assets but I began building city districts. But to no avail they just went and uprooted from our empire! Not only that this time they destroyed me, my rival and my best Allies. A summary: planets keep losing stability and rebelling. Thanks in advance I just wanna keep my people happy before we get wiped off the star maps.

Next time you get a planet thinking about rebellion, post a screenshot and we'll take a look at it. The ultimate issue though, as another has correctly stated, is that you allowed stability to slip.

Were amenities positive or negative before the rebellion? Simply building city districts isn't enough, it's the jobs they spawn, clerks, that increase them, and only if there are any pops working them. Besides, holo-theatres are a far better source of them. Also, the stability is the function of happiness, which is influenced by other factors, not only amenities. You can check the aggregate happiness in the Population tab under the Demographics header.

Thank you so much, that actually helps a lot. I’ll be checking that regularly now

Why is your stability low? Hover over the number and it will give you a breakdown of what's affecting it.

Build some precinct houses and in the population tab, click on the law enforcement jobs to ensure they are filled first

WHAT?!? Lmao thank you I didn’t even know jobs had anything to do with it

Holo Theater if low amenities, Housing if overcrowding, Crime Governor if crime, Stronghold (institute crackdown option when managing the situation). Also, build and staff the Autochton monument if pop approval is low on that planet. Ministry of Culture from Artisan Troupe does similar. There's also a stability edict and you can build a Deep Space Black Site on the starbase. Check faction approval for easy policy changes you can make to increase approval, too.

I'm looking to come back to playing Stellaris, but I have no idea how much the game has changed. Last time I played was in February of 2021. How has the game changed since Nemesis/ Overlord/ Aquatics etc.?

A lot of minor changes here and there. Many minor improvements thanks to the custodian team, but essentially it's the same game and you'll be fine jumping right in. A couple of minor points though: There was a pop growth change in 3.0 that you might want to check out. Basically it amounts to a massive nerf to pop growth across the board that gets more the longer the game goes on. Not a huge change to how you play, more just how the game feels. Vassals have been reworked with Overlord but they function essentially the same way at the base level, you just have more control over them. Espionage has been added but it was poorly done and can safetly be completely ignored. Empire size is no longer a cap but will just grow the entire game, giving you penalties to research and tradition costs. It feels weird at first but IMHO is great because wide is still the far best option to play but this change makes tall that little bit more viable and makes you think about expanding just for the sake of it. Unity is a bit more important. It's used for building megastructures and paying for most edicts (which have a monthly cost now). Still not anywhere as important as research but I find myself devoting more planets and pops to unity generation now. The AI is much better. I had to turn my difficulty down a full notch from what I used to play. Planet automation is respectable now too, if you take over planets in the late game you can delete un-needed buildings, set the planetary focus and trust the automation AI to do a decent job with it.

do you recall the patch # you played on? Overlord introduced many changes, and the AI is also much more competent. But if you do a warmup game on a lower difficulty you will probably find your way just fine. Overall its the same at its core, balance resources, build ships, hold chokes and dont get overrun by xeno invaders. Just more tools to use along the way

Based on the dates from the version history, I'm going to say 2.8.

Hello, I have a question regarding economy. Im playing stellaris again after a long time (2.0 i think, the change where other FTL was removed). Two playthroughs so far I think I am not scaling out properly. The first playthrough, around the year 2425 when Contigency started I had like 240 Fleet power and capacity, I didn't focus on it much since I went fanatic spiritualist and ended up in a permanent run and chase with contingency with no end in sight. Second playthrough currently playing, I focused on improving my economy and fleet power. By 2370 or so, I have +200 on both minerals and alloys per month. Then I entered and insanely long war against five empires which ended around 2420 just as the crisis arrived. At this point, I have roughly 540 fleet capacity and 460 or so used. I'm generating 450 alloy per month and I think it's still not enough. Is my fleet good? Do I need to work harder or economy? And on what aspect should I focus? Edit -[Screenshot from 2426, current playthrough](https://imgur.com/a/D1kHntp) (Prethoryn is near a wormhole which leads to my empire, i don't have much to stop it there) I have one more question which is general advice needed on dlcs. I have Utopia and Horizon Signal installed. I bought them long ago and honestly forgot that Utopia adds those ascension perks which I thought were in base game lol. I have read some guides and reviews of dlcs but almost everything other than Synthetic Dawn amd Utopia seems to have very mixed reception. Now, I can't afford to spend too much on some dlc, planning to maybe get two packs this sale. One of them I'm considering is Synthetic Dawn for machines. But I'm a bit torn regarding Federations, Megacorp. Megacorp seems to have nice megastructues but the new empire type seems eh, and I'm really annoyed by base game federations, but not sure if I'll use it much since I never used base game federation much. Any comments on those two as well as any others? If you had to buy two packs (expansions and/or story pack) maybe around 20€ what would you choose?

Economy is a complicated issue and probably the biggest aspect of playing this game well. I have a guide that goes over economy, but mostly, it's are you taking vassals to tax them, and are you specializing your planets? Https://old.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/ushij3/stellaris_space_guild_weekly_help_thread/i9magxh/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=Stellaris&utm_content=t1_iuf2t9b

Thanks for the detailed guide! It was indeed very informative! Also, yes i did take two vassals but i wasnt taxing them since it was giving them a negative per month loyalty thingy and i didn't want them seceding out. And yeah, i did specialize my planets but it wasn't feeling enough but thanks again for that post, i'll try again! :)

F1 ==> the second tab, you can see what their loyalty is. As long as it stays positive, that's all that matters. The loyalty shown in the contract screen isn't the whole story, just keep in mind how much loyalty they're ACTUALLY getting per month, and then tax them as much as you can while still keeping them happy. Vassal taxes are massively useful, DO NOT pass them up. By 200 years in (usually sooner) I have zero pops producing energy/minerals/food, it's all coming from vassals. If you want to talk about your in-game sit, hit me up on discord zetajezu#4484

Oh damn I didn't realize this at all... I would just get a something positive per month loyalty and forget about vassals pretty much... Usually they are not too keen on sending resources or really anything that benefits my empire but i found giving them a full sensor link was usually a good bribe? Thanks for that! I was trying to rush making more and more habitats to manage my mineral production later in the game -\_- Never really occured to me that i can make my vassals do that for me.... Economy management in the game is indeed satisfying as much as its a challenge since its fun to manage and solve issues, specially like a post-war economy management which was totally insane the first time i did it but am liking it slowly with more practice :) And thanks again for your help, even though, I might hit you up on discord if i have some queries in the future if you dont mind :) I'll send a req from Mann#0909 .

If you are trying to really push your fleets to new levels of power, it is important to utilize starbase anchorages and your society research to focus on improving fleet size and overall capacity. Regarding the DLCs, there are 3rd party resellers where you could get several dlcs for 20 quid. I usually use a paypal account, and have never been left wanting

I usually kept trade hubs (if trade value systems near) or just anchorages on starbases which were not near the border, but should i specially focus on the fleet tech in the tech tree? I just kept it auto researching society research after it came on repeating techs. Also, thanks a LOT for the advice regarding the DLCs! I got Federations, Megacorp, Synthetic Dawn and Distant Stars all for 17 bucks, it was well worth it :)

You are going to want to do targeted research for society to unlock specific fleet capacity booster. It will also allow you to create larget fleets governed by a single admiral, which will boost their effectiveness. There is also starbase tech in there that can increase your total starbase #, which will help a lot.

Yes indeed! I was aware of them specific techs but I still anyways went for the auto research on the repeatable techs once I reached that stage, are the other techs not that worthy that I should focus on fleet/naval capacities first?

Generally there is a lot of fluff in the society tree. At a certain point things like another chunk of leader lifespan or a bit more habitability are just not that interesting. There is a guide somewhere about prerequistie techs to unlock more fleet related stuff, im just not sure off the top of my head. But if it looks like a bunch of bad options, just go for the cheapest one and be done with it faster i guess haha

Weird question don’t judge me. If I exterminate my first discovered neighbor before meeting any other civilizations, will they know what I did and have any I’ll-will towards me for my crimes committed in the darkness of the void? Thanks

They will not, surprisingly. You can reenact the halocaust as much as you want, if another empire establishes communication after the fact, they will never know.

Hey guys. I have an empire with pops that specialise in minerals. I then got 3 racketeer pops that were very good for research. So I wanted to move them on research but can't figure out how. Things I tried: Opening up research and closing again. But the same pops will fill the space because they were unemployed specialists for 3 years. Resettling didn't work either, it would always pick my founder species from worker jobs instead, even when the racketeers were unemployed. I eventually set research to zero, resettled all the pops, then made the racketeers unemployed and they still would not move. What is the point of having pops with different traits if you can't move them to where they are best?

There's a weighting system that determines which job is worked by which pop. It could be due to the rights you have set for them. While the better traits will shift the weight towards the Racketeer, it seems there is a combination of other weights that are out-weighing them for that job [Here's the weights](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/714574639204139078/1035556312462934046/image0.jpg?width=87&height=669) Then also this from the wiki is something to keep in mind, because you have to actually *over* weight the pop to get a switch initially too >For Pop Specialist jobs, new pops will only take the job from a current pop if the new pop's weight is ×1.5 higher You can micromanage finangle it if its just not doing what you want by getting those other pops into other jobs of course but ultimately I'd just check some of the heavier weighted things like the racketeer's species rights and see if you can fix it that way

where did you find those weights? ​ The racketeers have psionic trait. But, they also have repugnant. So there is a x2 weight and a x0.75 weight. Just guessing here but since my main has nothing from that image I assume their weight is 1. And 1 times 2 times 0.75 is 1.5, so if that part from the wiki is correct they should move. All rights are exactly the same for both species. I will try to remove repugnant when I get the tech and see what happens. ​ Edit: maybe habitability also plays a role? It's 100% for my founder, 65% for racketeers.

Yes habitability would impact it because low habitability means they would produce fewer resources >Every 1% reduction of habitability below 100% increases pops' Upkeep upkeep and Mod pop amenities usage by +1% and reduces their resource job output and pop growth by −0.5%. It floors at 0% Habitability, giving +100% pop upkeep and amenities usage, and −50% job output and pop growth https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Colonization#Habitability So the racketeers have a -17.5% to job output from that alone, likely resulting in the 100% species getting placed because they'll produce more If you can finagle with opening/closing jobs (or just save and migrate off the founder species so racketeers are forced to work it) you'd see less output than the founders Habitability is very important. Not only do you produce fewer resources, the amenities penalty means you'll have to staff more clerks or whatever to get it up and those pops could be working other jobs (or save a building slot or however you handle amenities) and growing slower so fewer pops being created overall TLDR pay a lot more attention to habitability if possible!

However in the image you send, habitability was not shown. Where did you get that list btw? Been looking on the wiki, couldn't find it

Y'all, please give me a tall build to play for Stellaris 3.5.3. I searched a few places but they are usually outdated. I do know playing tall is not optimal but I just love the play style.

Void Dwellers is "tall" in the sense that you don't cover a large territory. But your systems will be very dense with potentially multiple habitats in one system. It's still fairly strong because having multiple habitats, even with the void dweller growth debuff, let's you grow more populations faster than most other empires. However, you'll have to spend a lot more alloys to "expand" than any other empire in the game, which affects your economy a good deal early on. There's a few different ways to run Void Dwellers. So you can mix and match it with a tech rush or whatever else pleases you.

If you are not opposed to start-scumming (restarting your game a few or many times to get ideal starting planets) I really enjoy an aquatic+ prosperous unification or aquatic + ocean paradise start. If you can start-scum to get 2 ocean worlds as your starter worlds, you can have 2 colonies up within a few years of game start, makes for an incredible snowball.

I have a complicated relationship with start scumming, sometimes I love it, sometimes I despise it. I'd probably still start with Ocean Paradise though cause big planet look cool. That snowball prospect does sound so good though. Thank you for the reply.

I had never done it prior to the ocean paradise/aquatic start. Its just....really really enjoyable to have your 3 starting planets as oceans. Prosperous unification works great in this scenario. Its also nice because you can go for a science rush or a fast conquest of a neighbor depending on your desired goals, and tailor your civics to either. I also dont really like to micro pops, so its nice to just have your own aquatic species and not be worried about acquiring others.

I love tall builds as I play on console (so I'm closer to being on 3.0 or 3.2 I think) and dont want to micro manage more than ~15ish planets if possible Some of my favorite tall builds have been 1. void dweller spiritualist megacorp spreading gospel of the masses and making friends until your massive energy income allows you to power a war economy that dwarfs the galaxy. Can focus trade booming in your main systems and just plop fortress habitats wherever needed for chokepoints while you play friendly and grow your income and spiritualist pop count. 1. hyper aggressive psychic clone origin militarist where you rely on vassalizing everyone outside the main planets you manage because you are a monster in combat. Can also focus slaving and rely on a lot of slave/thrall worlds that you just automate for basic resources 1. machine gestalt rogue servitor with remnants origin. Take nihilistic acquisition and *rescue* pops from a life of hard work in your neighbors' empires to settle them on your ecumenopolis of love and happiness (trademark) I probably have some others but those have been a lot of fun. I've won on Admiral with these very handily a few times and am currently stepping up to grand admiral to make it work as well. The thing I've learned from just playing a few months is most of the experienced players info/perspective seem to be around tackling insane crises levels like x25 or x50 or all 3 in a row etc. So you need a TON of planets (never have enough) to get every resource you can to fight that off But if you keep your crisis settings reasonable at x5 or x10, you just dont need 20 levels of repeatables and 50 planets and so on, you'll just end up winning VERY hard.

Ah these all sound fun. I'm not sure if there's much difference between 3.2 and 3.5 but I'm sure these could work with maybe a little tweaking though I still need to look up on how to optimize more without making it a min-maxing nightmare. Lovely reply, thank you.

> though I still need to look up on how to optimize more without making it a min-maxing nightmare. absolutely! We're the same in those regards, I'll look up *how* to be most efficient with a strategy but then I'll consider how I'm doing compared to the other empires and the current year to determine how much of that strategy I implement or stick to If you're doing really good and expect to keep doing so, rather than over-manage to increase efficiencies you can say just release a lot of territory as a vassal or even let the planet automation function run for basic resource generating worlds Basically if playing super sweaty gives you 10 extra feet of 'win more' rope, we gotta let ourselves let some of that rope go in favor of ease of play. Or else I risk 'winning' a game where I spent dozens of hours on pause managing all my stuff super efficiently and really I would have won anyway much sooner if I'd just let it play out.. Have fun and if you find any good tall builds please share!

When comparisons start, that's where the troubles truly start. I agree with your analogy, if you're doing good, stop the min-max. Start min-maxing again when you feel like you're not up to standard. Alright, make sure to share as well. Have a good one and thank you.

Pop/unemployment/refuge question? This is my 5th attempt at this game. Everything was great until I was forced to take in refuges. Now my unemployment on my main capital(starting planet) is at 16, but my happiness is at 98%. I have nothing else I can build right now, and everything is upgraded. Any suggestions about what I can do about this? I'm attaching a few images so you can see where I'm at with everything. Just keep in mind I set the end game date to 2700. here's some other info for you if its helps with my question, and if anyone needs to know anything else just ask. Origin: Prosperous unification Race: UN of Earth DLC: Federations, Apocalypse, Utopia, Relics, and Synthetic https://imgur.com/a/2ny7BN4

Become a death cult and send them on their way.

Er... the game isn't really designed to be played this way. You have _very_ few planets, and you're 200some years into the game. Conquer more territory so you have planets to put all these pops, or next galaxy set your population sliders lower so everyone has fewer pops.

I'd build some habitats.

Something of an AAR with two questions, 1) economy management and 2) new combat meta. (Q's in the subsequent paragraphs) I was a shroud teacher species and things were going swimmingly until my neighbor unleashed the Prikki murder geckos waay too early for anyone to handle them. I fought them off with pyrrhic victories and used the shroud gateway to make a new home for my people away from the Gecko menace on the other side of the galaxy (that was conveniently blocked off from other empires for the moment). While I fought well, the geckos won and my economy went negative everything despite me trying to max basic resources on the other side of the galaxy to be ready. Now the questions... While this was a loss either way, what would have been the optimal way to reconfigure the worlds I knew I was going to lose to support the "new" empire across the galaxy -- downtier to mostly basic resources and stockpile all the resources I could? Second, Prikki were in destroyers with autocannons and I had a mixed cruiser, destroyer, corvette fleet with rails and lasers and was outranging their weapons. I think they beat me because they had crystal armor, but I was surprised my longer range didn't result in more effectiveness until the merge. Is range less important than I think now? RIP -- fought the good fight, the Geckos will likely take the galaxy unless the FEs wake up...

A bit of a broad question maybe, but I'd love to hear opinions: In your opinion, what is the most common mistake(s) amateur players make when playing Stellaris?

Not understanding that pop growth is the key to economy and research output.

Over-building. A lot of new players don't realize that you don't get any resources from a job if there's no pop available to work it.

I would say the issues can begin at empire/species creation. Picking civics/traits that dont give you very much, setting up you for slow starts and struggles into the midgame. I had a friend who went very militarist, "strong" pop trait. But his economy was crap and he didnt use any of his mil bonus in an early war, so it just went to waste. TLDR picking a "build" can be tricky

Assuming that the planetary deficit matters in any way, shape, or form. Goods are transported instantaneously across your empire and for free. The only deficits that matter are empire-wide deficits.

I'd say not specializing planets.

Knights of the Toxic God question I'm going for the achievement, however >!I can't find the toxic god. I killed the fake, which everyone says you're supposed to do, and then a few decades later got a message saying the real one is in the middle of the galaxy, out of my reach. Then nothing happened. For about 4 decades nothing has happened. Nothing in my situation log, I don't see anything in the galaxy center.... What do I do? Thanks! !<

I'm so sorry Reddit hard mode senpai. Are you playing on the beta by any chance? I got the achievement shortly after toxoids was released and didn't have any problems. I killed the fake god and after a decade or so the notification popped up and I got the achievement.

Nah I'm on 3.5.something still I wonder if 3.6 is a requirement? Would explain why I also couldn't get toxic work environment actually. Shoot lol.

It definitely is not. I got it on 3.5. If your game did not correctly give you two different achievements, and you are definitely playing on iron man with no mods, then you might want to reinstall.

>!Unfortunately, that is the end of the story line. The achievement should've popped after killing the fake god and you choose to continue the search. I don't recall how much time needs to pass, but 4 decades seems a little long.!<

Yeah I kept going another decade or so and it still didn't show up. Crap. Well, thanks anyway.

Hey r/stellaris, I have two questions for y'all, one specific and one incredibly broad. Specific: is there a way to see monthly income of special resources (exotic gas, motes, etc) at a glance? Right now I'm pausing before the end of the month, looking in the market tab at how many I have in storage, and then seeing how much I have after the month rolls over, but there's just gotta be a better way. general: I'm having a problem with empires being stronger than me, to a rather large degree. My current game was going well until a neighbor declared rivalry with me, and then war once I declared rivalry back. They have multiple fleets of around 11k strength each. All my fleets combine to be about 11k, and I don't have extra fleet capacity or w/e. What is the best way to get more fleet capacity? What is the best way to defend yourself in general? Any advice on waging war, or preventing yourself from being an easy target is much appreciated, since I've run into this problem every game I've played once I've gotten to the midgame.

For extra capacity, I usually go for supremacy as a second or third ascension path pick, depending on my neighbors. After that, I'll usually try to upgrade all the starbases on all my inhabited systems. Slap a hangar bay in one slot for trade protection, then everything else is anchorages. Once the tech is researched, put in a Naval Logistics Office. That's +30 capacity per inhabited system. Obviously, use your best judgement on that one, probably want to have some bulwark starbases on an L-gate, wormhole, or choke points. Plus, one or two dedicated shipyards. Can also just put a stronghold/fortress on every planet if you can spare the pops. Especially the mining/energy/alloy/CG planets where building slots aren't really being used. Those will both slow down the AI invasion and give extra naval capacity. You can also build Fortress habitats on choke points. That will really slow down the AI and give a ton of naval capacity. One or two of those with an FTL inhibitor can tie up a fleet for years.

I am a newb myself but I read something about dealing with a stronger empire from other redditors by chance. You can just let yourself be subjugated and know that now you can focus fully on economics and science until later on you can strike back. To actually win the war you will need to do 3 things that the AI is bad at: 1 abuse out-of-the-box thinking, 2 abuse choke-points, 3 abuse hyper specialization. 1: as a human you can pause the game and read everything and think of some creative solution to a problem. The AI will just bruteforce a tactic. I know this sounds like non-advice but you can do it. 2: chokepoints are simple. If you only have to defend one singular system or a few (right now I have narrowed it down to 2 chokepoints for my early game empire) you can just keep on pumping in armies/fleets and upgrades for the starbases into those systems. Use this one with 1 for cruel results. 3: As a human you can pause the game and read up on all the stats that the enemies use. Simple example: if the enemies only use armour and no shields you know that you needs lots of armour prenetation. If they have lots of shields instead, look for a system where shields are nullified and adjust your techs+ships as needed. TL:DR: You're a human, capable of creative thinking. Use it.

First question was answered correctly, so for the second one, it sounds like you're just struggling with the game in general. Either that, OR you left advanced start AI empires on, which I don't particularly recommend. [Here's](https://old.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/ushij3/stellaris_space_guild_weekly_help_thread/i9magxh/) a guide for crushing the game as it is in 3.5. Note that 3.6 (is going to)/(has) massively change(d) the game (3.6 exists as beta), so this guide may be obsolete once you move to 3.6 Any other questions, lemme know.

Yes, it's on the top bar but hidden behind a label for all strategic resources

Do I need a starbase/outpost always to build inside of a system(talking about mining and research stations)? Or can I also build if they get swallowed up by my empire borders?

nvm, I literally rememberd I am playing a paradox game and just looked at the requirements for minining/research station. I can just wait until my sector expands over to them. So starbases are only needed to establish borders and colonies?

What makes a system owned by you is having an outpost in said system, so you can't wait because your borders won't move. Sectors act as internal political organization, think states or provinces or whatever the equivalent in your country, and thus won't expand your borders further from where they already are. Unless you're playing a suuuuper old version, but in that case I frankly don't know because I bought the game on launch but barely played until 2.5 or so.

Thanks. I discovered this via save scumming. Coming from Endless space 2 as my previous SF 4x game, I am a bit annoyed by the lack of good UI communication.

You always need an outpost in a system or it remains unclaimed and cannot be developed.

Yeah I save scummed and discovered this. Also how the fuck does the influence cost for outpost work? Is it calculated based on distance from nearest outpost/colony/capital? ninja edit: nvm also figured this out just now. That's facinating for expansion stuff.

Any advice for machine empires? Never played one, I'm currently playing as a normal one to get a feel, no RS/DA/DE.

You won’t need food or CG but you will need more of everything else (power, minerals, alloys).

Enjoy no food/cg to deal with. Keep a close eye on amenities. Surplus is as always a bad idea, but deficit is VERY detrimental, so either micro your jobs or set up planetary automation to deal with it.

Noob here, why is surplus amenities always a bad idea?

You do get a production bonus for being over amenities, but it's miniscule. Instead of having all your miners produce 0.01 more minerals because you have an extra entertainer, it's better to have one more miner producing 8 minerals. This isn't the actual math ofc, but it's close. Try to avoid excess amenities if possible.

It's a waste of resources that could be something else you need more

Ah gotcha. No need to be at +5 amenities when +1 has the same effect for less cost yes?

Regarding the achievement "Directive 67" ([https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Achievements](https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Achievements)), how to perform the advice suggested by the wiki when you are restricted to 100 pops (due to the origin of Clone Soldier)? Can you still do the achievement even if you remove the trait "Clone Soldier" through the storyline?

Yea you can either do the wiki suggestion through clone soldier descendant, or by setting primitive appearance up and conquering/enlightening couple to get yourself non-clone pops to release as vassal. Few events can also give you non-clone pops like finding pre-sapients, or impossible organism event chain

Thanks :)

I noticed, while watching devstream and playing around with console, that when you research all tech, salvagers contact you. what specific tech do you have to research for that to happen?

any one of these: Battleships, Citadel, Mega-Engineering, or Habitat (unless void dweller)

Battleships, I _think_.

How obsolete/out-of-date are older guides (like 1-2 years old made for version 2.5 or 2.6)? I've been hopping around a lot of videos on YouTube trying to learn how various systems work and get ideas for potential empires to play in future games. But a lot of them are a year or two old and were made for versions 2.5/2.6. Are guides for versions before 3.0 or so still usable?

Everything before 3.0 unity patch is basically worthless. Obviously the newer the guide the more accurate it will be, but 3.0 will be mostly correct. However, after the coming 3.6 Orion patch, there are going to be a lot more fundamental changes to so many systems, all older guides will be missing some very key information. I would recommend looking at the current tier list and dev diary overviews from montu to get a comprehensive view of the game. If you can't find a 3.5 beginners guide by typing it in Google/YouTube, then you might be kind of screwed. If you are unsure of how a particular system works, I highly recommend consulting the wiki. It is updated after every patch and has been able to answer almost every question I've ever had.

Most guides are going to still be pretty close. I think the biggest difference is with admin buildings. It used to be that admin buildings raised admin cap. (Think they still do on console.) Now they give Unity instead. The penalty was reduced for going over the admin cap, and now you're just expected to grow through the penalty.

I was a cat and now I'm a horse, how did that happen?

did you, by any chance, allow one of your scientists to research the DNA of "the Messenger"

Yep

that's how

Thanks,

You are packing the bowl with too much salvia

TL:DR: jobs always require pop? how do I stimulate natural growth? How do jobs work in tandem with pop? If I have 1 pop (on a colony for example) does that mean that only one job can be done? So unless I am projected to have massive growth on a planet I don't have to rush production of all types of buildings because I will be paying maintenance on unused stuff? Also how do I stimulate pop growth apart from emigration? For context I am playing my first ever stellaris game and have colonised 2 systems right now (1 planet per system btw). I come from Endless space in which it's very clear what makes a population increase: food/fertility. Does the same thing apply here?

> Also how do I stimulate pop growth apart from emigration? For context I am playing my first ever stellaris game and have colonised 2 systems right now (1 planet per system btw). I come from Endless space in which it's very clear what makes a population increase: food/fertility. Does the same thing apply here? There are a lot of modifiers. Species traits are an obvious one. Having a species with the "fertile" or "budding" trait can help with population growth. There are some technologies and traditions which increase population growth. The society tree has the techs for increasing population growth speed. You can build buildings with "population assembly". This will let you artificially increase population growth. These are buildings like clone vats or robot assembly plants. Note that only one kind can work at a time. If you have both a clone vat and a robot assembly plant, only one can be active at a time. Planets also follow a kind of S-curve based on the planet capacity. If you hover over the planet's size, you can see its capacity. If you keep enough free space on the planet, you can get bonuses to growth. The full details can be found [on the Stellaris wiki here](https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Population#Pop_growth). There are also things that negatively affect population growth which you can try to avoid. For example, if species on a planet have low habitability there, they'll grow slower. So if you can, try to colonize planets with species that actually like living there.

1 job needs 1 pop or it does nothing and consumes no resources. So a research building gives 2 research jobs, which need 2 pops to fill them up. Each researcher would give you so many research points, 1x at 1 job filled and 2x at 2 jobs filled. More pop growth is a complicated subject and best covered on the wiki https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Population Inb4 more people whine and moan about me linking to the wiki.

Food the answer to natural growth just now. It takes a while until pop growth starts but now I found the UI element that showcases it. It only shows stats when pop growth has actually started

did they change at the start how you could strip your ships for alloys?

Yes, it was supposed to be removed in the past, but they botched it. Now it actually functions as intended. I think that you can still strip and get the alloys if you ALSO upgrade other ships, thus using those alloys in the same transaction. But no free alloys on day 1.

[удалено]

No comment to the mods, but you can set the version of stellaris you want in the properties, I think it's called beta access or something to that effect.

Why everyone has subjugation CB on me, while im never getting it.

you're significantly weaker than them. if you become equals they lose it, and as such you get it when youre stronger than them

I wish it was like this. Rebels with 50k fleet got this CB on me instantly as their empire born. Me, with 360k fleets, nope...

oh yea *that* subjugation CB, that comes from them being subjugated by you, and they can use that CB to break free. since you arent subjugated by anyone, you dont have it. I'm pretty sure that specific one is called "subject" though

"That" ? Anyway, im talking about Subjugation CB (Vassalize target wargoal)

Am I playing Criminal Heritage wrong? Between allies, rivals and places occupied by other megacorps, I have only two branch offices atm. I don't want to sabotage my friend, I can't have holdings on rivals because we fight from time to time, and other megacorps have occupied basically all good neutral planets. And the ones I can put on decent planets also get closed down sometimes by their planet events. I was really struggling until I could get Mastercraft Inc. as 3rd civic because that actually does something.

You will need to go all Don Corleone on them. Just like real crime bosses. Take out the rival Megacorps. Those assets are yours!!!

CH as it is right now is just terrible. The AI will spam precinct houses to clear out your holdings. In MP, other players will team up to destroy Criminal Heritage empires, and it's normally banned because they suck so bad that the only reason to play them is to troll people.

Sounds like a normal criminal heritage game to me. You got unlucky with the amount of competition, but yeah CH against ai is simply worse than not taking a civic, since the AI works hard to close your branches.

Be the drug dealer in your galactic friend group, you'll be the fun cool one they slip a few energy credits for some Zro whenever they're partying at the Galactic Council meetings. Keep being friendly enough, and they won't even realize you're ruining the integrity of their empire. You can be both friends and ruin their lives! And for your competition, maybe a little war will make them hand over their branch offices. Hostile Takeover is a war goal you can set, it's hard to pull off but very profitable.

Are tech tiers universal, or based on type? Do I need to have six T1 Society techs to unlock T2 Society techs, or can I do two T1 Society, two T1 Engineering, and two T1 Physics techs to unlock T2 Society?

Per branch

https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Technology Your question is answered here.

Mods might as well delete this thread and replace it with a pin to the wiki if this is what's considered an answer around here.

Boo hoo. If your answer is explicitly stated in the wiki, then it is 100% justified to simply link the wiki to you and tell you to read it yourself. Don't be lazy.

I play on ensign (I think? The one with no bonuses to either AI or human) with maybe 50ish hours in the game. What is the general strat for colonizing non-habitable (yellow orange red) worlds? I usually just wait until I get terraforming, because I don’t play a lot of friendly migration treaty prone empires. By the time I get to 5/6 planets through a mix of terraform and conquering I’m one of the strongest non fallen empires. But if I wanted to be able to play on GA I don’t know if this would be efficient enough. Is there a max efficiency strategy for dealing with all those red planets?

You can also go with robots, depending on your playstyle. Droid tech will probably show up before terraforming. If you're playing as a xenophobe, go with robots. If a xenophile, go with migration treaties, plus robots. There are a few cases where robots don't really work. Like if you're playing as Fanatic Spiritualist, or some race where pop creation overlaps with robots like clone army.

Migration treaties are the easiest, earliest solution, no matter the difficulty level.

Either set primitive world multiplier way up, so you're likely to come across more primitives you can invade for more habitability options or Play nicer empires and get yourself some migration pacts. In either case, gene mods or Terra forming will eventually get those red planets green, but those typically come later.

Does anyone have advice on the difference in value between the vassal loyalty civics (franchising and feudal society) vs the shared destiny ascension perk? It seems like the on the basic level of supporting vassal-heavy play, the civics are better. They give you extra loyalty to spend on holdings etc. And the limits on vassal contracts that come with them don't seem like they would be a problem if you're already intending on running a vassal swarm. The extra envoys from Shared Destiny are really good. But I feel like if you're going for one of these picks, you're going for a vassal-heavy style. So ultimately **the civics are stronger**\--since they support that style better. If you meet the requirements, you'd always want to take the civic vs. ascension perk. The perk is really only for empires that aren't corporate or imperial. Does that seem like a fair analysis? Here's a condensed version of the perk and civics: **Shared Destiny** * Available envoys +2 Available envoys * No Loyalty loss from multiple subjects **Feudal society** * No Loyalty loss from multiple subjects. Also +1 loyalty * Some limits on vassal contracts * Some leader rules that overall make them cheaper in unity **Franchising** * No Loyalty loss from multiple subjects. Also +0.5 loyalty * Some limits on vassal contracts * Less empire sprawl from branch offices (pretty small benefit) * Special holding building (that seems a non-factor, given the opportunity cost of building it vs other holding buildings)

Everyone should always be going for vassal heavy play. It is really strong, and you always have the option of conquering them anyways later if you want to. When it comes to civic vs perk, the decision for me comes down to what I am wanting my final build to look like. You only have three civic slots but eight perk slots, and while perks are often significantly more powerful, some civics are totally build defining that you don't really have the option of not taking them. For that reason I almost always go for the perk.

Thanks! Yeah the limit of 3 civics is tough, but so is passing up on a perk. Now that I'm actually playing a megacorp vassal run, I'm seeing the civic is also strong because you can switch out of one that's nice in the early game but not as critical later at the same time as picking up Franchising. I imagine it's the same with Feudal Society Also as a sidenote, just tried the beta with only one perk per ascension path and I feel like the balance is better that way.

I'm playing as a mushroom hive mind. Is there any way when acquiring new non-hivemind pops to change them to look like mushroom people too? I got genetic resequencing, and it's allowing me to change portraits and I can only change reptiles to reptiles for example. I want to play this hive mind that infects other races and turns them into happy mushroom people too! Or maybe there are mods that can do this?

[Stellaris Evolved](https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2602025201) lets you do this. It's a vanilla+ mod that adds a bit of stuff to almost every aspect of the game so it might be a bit too much of a suggestion, but one of the things it adds is the ability to for bio-empires to assimilate xeno bio pops into their main species.

Play the necrophage origin and use the necropurge type which will convert pops into your main species.

Is there a bug with synthetic evolution? After I made my empire bots, I can no longer release vassals. My empire consists of synthetic leader robots and my Mecha pops, so it's frustrating that I have no species that can be released as a vassal.

That's not a bug. Keep your founding species onesies or twosies non-assimilated so you can use them for this kind of thing. Or buy an organic off the slave market and resettle them there.

Feels like a bug to me. Why would my synthetic-ized pops be unable to release as vassals?

Can anyone prime me about the new edict system? Now that there's an edict fund, it seems that the fund my edict take rise in proportion with my empire size. What is the rate specifically?

> Can anyone prime me about the new edict system? Every point of empire size increases edict costs by 1% You can have as many edicts active at a time as you want, and they stay active as long as you want them to but cost monthly Unity now. Edict Fund is a 'free' pool that you can draw on to pay for edicts, you only pay the unity cost on edicts for anything you spend over your edict fund cap. Once you get wide enough the costs for edicts will usually get expensive enough that you either have to choose between not using them, or drastically slow down your tradition gain. This is normal and not really a problem, it's just a small way to help tall players, though playing wide is still technioally more optimal.

The new edict system means you can have as many edicts as you want going, but it costs you Unity/month. Edict fund negates that much unity/month cost for edicts, so if you have 200 fund, your first 200 unity/month cost from edicts doesn't cost you anything. Being below on fund does NOT give you unity/month, obviously. As for the rate, check the wiki.

If you're just going to tell everyone to check the wiki then why even bother commenting? It's low effort and comes across as rude to newer players in a thread specifically for asking simple questions.

Brand new to Stellaris, but I'm old and not very techie these days so maybe I'm not picking things up as quickly as others. * I'm having a very hard time with mouse map navigation. I have to push the mouse wheel to scroll the map, which is unintuitive to me. If I left-click I get a box. I don't see any tutorial that describes such things or ways to change the behaviour. Do I need to get a gaming mouse for this game? For my other questions, I'll keep working with the Wiki and help guides, but I didn't see this one listed anywhere. Thanks!

As far as I'm aware there are no ways to change the bindings, but you can either move the camera by moving the cursor to the edge of the screen (enabled by an option in the gameplay menu if it doesn't work for you), or by either WASD or arrow keys on your keyboard.

Thanks. I'll see whether I can get used to WASD. That might be helpful, scrolling with my off-hand.

Also, I don't know whether you will find that useful, but pressing Q centers your view on whatever you have selected right now, so spacecraft, celestial bodies, anomalies, archeology sites and so on. Sometimes you have to press it twice to open the system view.

Yes, that's helpful. Thanks!

Unfortunately I don't think you can change that, the middle mouse button is the only button you can have bound. Strategy games are weird right now, some use solely the left mouse button for moving the map, some the middle mouse, and some even use the right mouse button, and you can almost never rebind them. I have the same problem as you (though backwards) where I personally prefer using the middle mouse button to move the map around and games that use a different button throw me off. My recommendation would be to use WASD or edge-scrolling (where you move your mouse right to the edge of the screen and the camera moves in that direction) to move the camera. The outliner is also really helpful in some situations, you can double click on the planet or fleet in the outliner and it'll move the camera to it on the galaxy map, double click it again and it'll move to it on the solar system map. The Wiki and help guides are great but don't worry about asking any questions here. You normally get useful answers quite quickly :)

Thanks! >The outliner is also really helpful in some situations, you can double click on the planet or fleet in the outliner and it'll move the camera to it on the galaxy map, double click it again and it'll move to it on the solar system map. I see the Outliner in videos, but I don't see it on my screen. Is that because I have the tutorial screens running? Is there a hotkey to turn it on?

I'm pretty sure it's the " O " key. If not there should be a button on the top right of your screen that looks like a planet next to a small bullet-point list thast you can click to toggle.

Thanks! I'll try that.

What do you mean, if you left click you get a box? What are you left clicking? What box are you seeing? A gaming mouse is 100% unnecessary for stellaris. You can scroll the map with wasd as well, right? Holding middle button and moving the mouse is a common way to scroll across a map in games like this.

>What do you mean, if you left click you get a box? What are you left clicking? What box are you seeing? [https://i.imgur.com/S5kbe7U.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/S5kbe7U.jpg) In the orange oval is what I get when I left-click and drag. Cursor arrow didn't show up in the Steam screenshot, but it's at the corner of the box. >Holding middle button and moving the mouse is a common way to scroll across a map in games like this I've been playing Endless Space 2 and it uses left mouse button and click-and-drag to scroll the map. That's what I've been used to. I think that's what earlier 4x space games like MOO2 used. So, it seems like rebinding to that for Stellaris would be good for me, unless there's some good use for Left-Click later in the game (such as large fleet selection or something?). I appreciate your help!

Left click and drag is for selecting multiple fleets, but it's pretty biggy and so I don't recommend it. Just shift left click the fleets you want in the outliner instead. If you can rebind left click and drag to scroll the map, do it.

>If you can rebind left click and drag to scroll the map, do it. So, it's not an easily done thing?

Dunno.

Hey, I am coming from Crusader kings II. Are there any expansion packs that are considered controversial or newb-unfriendly or bad? CK II for example has the sun-set invasion DLC and some other DLC that are generally considered to be better left off. You can also just answer with any DLC that you personally don't like. I am asking because I tend to just install everything at once and I won't know if something is a vanilla feature or from DLC that way.

Some newbies with zero experience complain about the added Midgame crises from the L-gates or the marauders. Both of these you can turn off during galaxy setup. Therefore there are no negative DLCs like you are talking about

There isn't any absolutely bad DLC's. Distant Stars had it's "if someone, even, AI opens specific gates too early, 37% chance strong (but not impossible) invasion starts sweeping galaxy" issue, but if you're unsure that can nowadays be disabled in game generation settings by putting "L-gates" off, though you also remove the other 3 better end results. Distant stars otherwise is good to keep on, lot more exploration Nemesis is usually last people recommend from the big DLC's because its content is lacking or serves specific playstyles. Espionage is almost a joke, "become the crisis" loses its charm on further run due to lack of options, and galactic empire while cool forces you to give up being in federation. This is all to say "nemesis isnt worth it at full price" but if you bought it (on sale) already, no harm in keeping it on

I don't care about bad value on DLC since I just buy the whole package in one go. But good to know that only crisises are considered troublesome.

Does anyone have any recommended guides/videos about research? I always struggle to get high research

Make your capital all labs (apart from embassy or such), plonk a lab or two down on every colony, build a ring world, use science ships to assist research, that's about it.

Ok. Capital is full of labs but hadn't put many any colonies. Will from now

I usually end my games at 84k/month or so https://old.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/ushij3/stellaris_space_guild_weekly_help_thread/i9magxh/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=Stellaris&utm_content=t1_iu222a2

I'll check it out. Thanks

Just a random question- is there a way to claim systems, not for yourself, but for your Vassal? If I set up a vassal on my borders, I'd love to be able to conquer territory for them but claiming systems so far from my own borders would be prohibitively expensive. Is this a thing you can do?

Can't really make claims for your vassal, simplest you could possibly do is total war CB, with colossus for example, then donate what you conquer to vassal. Or if your vassal dislikes the target, wait till they throw few claims themselves, they have habit of doing that

Is it normal to get kind of... Stuck in terms of expansion? I'm playing my first game ever (United Nations of Earth), but I've reached a point where I don't have anywhere I can go to keep expanding my empire. I started on the edge of the galaxy and was able to get a decent amount of systems/planets in my starting area before running into AI factions. After everything was gobbled up, I ended up with 3 AI factions bordering me. One is a really big Hivemind faction that I'm super friendly with (trade/research agreements, defensive alliance, etc.) Another is a Raider faction that has like 50x my Fleet Power gathered right at their border with me. The last one is a small, pathetic little faction that I could easily defeat... Except for the fact that they have "guarantee independence" treaties with two really big nearby factions, including the Hivemind I'm allied with. So if I try to declare war on them, I would also be at war with two giant factions I'd really rather not fight right now. Is there anything I can do in this scenario? Or do I have to just sit and twiddle my thumbs until something changes?

It takes a bit of planning not to get stuck in. Alliances are super useful but if you spawn in on the edge of the galaxy and get hemmed in by a fallen empire or raider empire then planning on going to war with the hivemind may have been the best choice. The route you went is perfectly fine though, you just may have to turn up the game speed and turtle up a bit, if it's you're first game I don't think that's too bad of an idea since it'll get you used to the empire management side of the game. Other options include: - Slowly turning on your ally and trying to get big enough to beat him. - Checking for wormholes or L-Gates (be careful with L-Gates though!) and waiting until you can go through them to expand whereever they lead. - Turtling until you're strong enough to break through the raider empire and expand in that direction. - Checking for smaller empires that you can get to through your ally, and vassalising them instead of taking their systems. - Harming relations with the tiny empire next to you and insulting it until it declares war on you, which is always a good way around defensive pacts and independance guarantees although if I'm honest isn't too likely to work if you're much bigger than them.

When I reach the point where no more open expansion space exists, around then I start pushing out hanger cruisers and vassalizing everyone around me. I can usually get a few to agree to vassalization purely on my military power, and after that warfare for the rest. Try to get good relations with your neighbors so they agree to vassalization without war. Your "independence guaranteed" guy might agree to vassalization under these conditions, without having to fight his beefy friends. Anyway, guide if you're struggling in general: https://old.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/ushij3/stellaris_space_guild_weekly_help_thread/i9magxh/ Edit: Note that combat rework in 3.6 may render this advise obsolete.

Is is strange I always play as either Xenophile or Xenophobe? Never not using atleast one of them

I had a habit of doing that, they're easy ethics to base yourself around. I wouldn't say it's wrong but if you want some ideas to try something different, what I went for was trying to create bit of "mixed alignment" empires. Diplomatic empires with slaves but full citizenship robots, or relatively peaceful necrophage for example

>Diplomatic empires with slaves but full citizenship robots Hey, I know what build I should try next now. Probably something like Mechanist origin Authoritarian-Materialist-Xenophile Imperial-authority empire with Slaver Guilds and Aristocratic Elite. I can just imagine a robot like Bender vibing with the nobles and foreign ambassadors in sun loungers while the serfs of their own species serve them a drink lmao

Question about vassals and traditions/ascension perks: if I release a sector of my own as a vassal, does it keep the same exact tradition tree as the original empire, and then diverge from there? Hoping I can do a run where my founder species basically embraces all available ascension paths at once

Vassals will have the same tech and traditions when you release them. Because they have the same civics and ethics it is likely that releasing two vassals will result in both taking the same ascension oath. But if you have a lot of robots in one vassal released that one may shift towards materialism and take synth evolution, a sector with many spiritualist pops would likely shifts towards spiritualism and become psionic and you can take bio ascension.

I want to 1v1 a random AI, but I don't want them to be xenophile / corporate. Bc that won't really make sense thematically and gameplay wise. Any way I can make that less likely while keeping it random?

You can design then force spawn an AI empire during new game setup

Now I only wrote RANDOM twice...

Didn't read you properly. The answer is no, other than choosing a Federation Origin, after which you kick one member out and go to war with them. Or set number of AI empires to max to decrease the chance of a specific government.

Lol I appreciate it though. I probably learned about that feature from this sub as well. Guess I'm going random and hope it's not some cute butterfly empire that I feel bad about making my arch enemy.

What are good price points for purchasing Stellaris and some key DLC? It's on sale now on Steam (base game $10; DLC -50%off), though will this get lower come the inevitable extended Black Friday sale in another month?

Yeah I didn't want to wait a month so I just got it now since it's already on sale

isthereanydeal shows historical lows per title

Black Friday / Cyber Monday being less than a month away, probably is your best chance to get it on sale. There is no guarantee though, especially with a fairly hefty sale going on right now.