Octopus Overlords

Hey guys I upgraded to a spaceport that could build destroyers. I built three. They were all in one fleet, which kept flickering in and out. I assigned a leader to it and now it's gone altogether. Help please, thanks.

Lorini wrote: ↑Tue Dec 26, 2017 4:48 pm Hey guys I upgraded to a spaceport that could build destroyers. I built three. They were all in one fleet, which kept flickering in and out. I assigned a leader to it and now it's gone altogether. Help please, thanks.

Uh oh. You didn't happen to notice if the combined fleet power was 182, did you?

It could have been, why?

It's just that I haven't heard from Blink-182 in a long time either.

I was scratching my head too. I think it was meant to be a "Blink 182" joke. But I could be wrong.

Unfortunately I haven't played in a while. And with my computer D.O.A., I can't fire it up to check. But I don't recall ever having an issue with fleets disappearing.

Especially with a leader assigned. You should be able to find the fleet either via the fleet management options, or via the leader screens. So I have nothing useful.

Are you part of an empire/confederacy with other races. If you create a Imperial fleet it will transfer ownership when the ruler changes. That was the first thought that came to my mind.

Here's what I left on Reddit, I think it sums it up properly, sorry guys I am/was super mad.

I had two fleets in my home planet, I had 19 out of 26 naval capacity, I built three destroyers, the ships were built in my home planet. They appeared, disappeared, re-appeared so I assigned them an admiral, then the ships as one fleet disappeared entirely and the admirable is listed as available. Can someone explain what happened?

Are the fleets merging?

Any hostiles? Fleets can be set to retreat from danger which causes them to disappear for a few turns until they reach safety.

Not at war. And they had just been built in my home world.

OK what happened was that they had gone into one of the existing armadas after I assigned them an admiral.

I don't get this game though. The Let's Play guy I was watching suggested a Spiral for a start, but now my science ships have nothing to do because they can't reach anywhere. I got ion thrusters thinking that might help but no good. My two new colonies are in a separate sector so nothing to do there. I'm bleeding energy credits but I can't upgrade anything except the home planet because it keeps saying I don't have planetary administration, whatever that is.

Quite frustrating really.

How many planets do you have? You shouldn't be creating a Sector until you have maxed out your planets. You then take some of the older, better developed planets, and put them in a Sector. This frees up slots for you to settle some new planets. If you only have 3 planets settled, and you put the 2nd and 3rd into a Sector already... yeah, you are going to have some problems.

I put the new planets into a sector. I have five total, I should put the old ones into a sector?

Lorini wrote: ↑Wed Dec 27, 2017 1:53 pm OK what happened was that they had gone into one of the existing armadas after I assigned them an admiral.

I don't get this game though. The Let's Play guy I was watching suggested a Spiral for a start, but now my science ships have nothing to do because they can't reach anywhere. I got ion thrusters thinking that might help but no good. My two new colonies are in a separate sector so nothing to do there. I'm bleeding energy credits but I can't upgrade anything except the home planet because it keeps saying I don't have planetary administration, whatever that is.

It sounds like you're using hyperspace lanes as your FTL method? They have their upsides, but can lead to very difficult strategic situations like what you describe there. Warpdrives are a little more forgiving for new players IMHO.

Energy income can be a big limiter on expansion, and you kind of have to tailor your speed of expansion with available energy. Note that colony ships and new colonies each take 8 energy maintenance which can add up quickly in the early game, making multiple colony ships at once tricky.

Planetary administration is an upgrade of the temporary colony administration building new colonies start with. Once your new colony has a population of 5 you can upgrade it for 350 minerals to a planetary administration which will unlock upgrades for all the basic buildings, and unlock most other special buildings.

Lorini wrote: ↑Wed Dec 27, 2017 6:06 pm I put the new planets into a sector. I have five total, I should put the old ones into a sector?

At the top of the screen there's an indicator with a little green planet and a fraction after it, i.e. 5/3. That's the number of core planets you are allowed, and if you go over this limit your mineral and energy income increasingly penalized. Planets in sectors don't count toward that limit, so when you go over that limit your goal should be to put as many planets as you need into sectors to get back at or below your cap.

A common strategy is to build up your new planets by hand as part of your core sector, and then hand over more mature planets to a sector and let the governor take care of it from there. In practice the sector AI is generally good enough you can also hand them new planets and they'll get along fine, but that's a bit of the background for how sectors work and the strategy that goes into using them.

Happy to answer any other questions you have about it if I missed anything.

Definitely.

Or, possibly, not at all.

Sectors are more of a mid-game thing. They allow you to continue to colonize planets after you've reached your "limit".

Initially you start out with a limit on how many planets you can colonize (e.g. 5). You'll want to find 5 good planets to get going. Then focus on developing them. Eventually you'll reach a point where some of the planets don't need any more attention. i.e. You aren't using them for ships, and you don't have any additional development that you need to do. At that point, you create a Sector and stick one or more of those planets in it. You'll probably want to make sure to include some resources as well (you do want the Sectors to be mostly self-sufficient). Assigning a governor can be really helpful as well.

You'll notice that when you assign planets to the Sector, that the number you have colonized drops. This allows you to colonize some more planets. And the cycle repeats.

Ideally you don't want to assign planets that are still being developed to Sectors. At least not in the early game. Later on you'll probably have to do that... and then hope/trust that the Sector government develops the planets appropriately.

But in the early game you probably need to be able to control the development of all your colonies. So you only want to start a Sector when you have either 1) planets that you no longer want to manage - because they are "done", or 2) you really want to grab a new planet, but don't have the ability.

Though I believe you can colonize over your limit if you have to. But the penalties for doing so are steep. So you should try to avoid that.

Which is all a long way of saying "correct". In the early/mid game, you only want to put well developed planets into Sectors (with the exception of your "fleet building" planets - you need to retain control of those). In the late game, generally after you get a new tech that allows you to colonize previously hostile environments, you'll probably be adding newly colonized planets to Sectors. But that won't be as big a deal then.

You have to think of Sectors as resource generators. They are going to be sending you some of their excess resources. Be aware also that you may need to periodically give them certain resources to allow them to develop (I forget the names of the resources right now).

I would let my Sectors build up significant stockpiles, and then raid them. Very helpful later on.

I'm using warp, not hyperspace. I just don't understand how I'm supposed to get out of the spiral. Kill everyone I guess.

The spiral gives you limited avenues for attack and defense. You press to ally or conquer in one direction -- in or out -- of the spiral.

With alliances and pacts, wars can get really ugly in Stellaris. You might be trouncing Empire A but suddenly Collective B will decide you're now overextended and guaranty Empire A's independence so they can attack your underbelly.

I am playing the Borg in the Star Trek mod and my spiral arm is falling like wheat. I end a war on one side, then use the peace to send my battle fleet to the other side. If the Borg had ANY natural population growth, I would own the entire arm of the spiral already.

I restarted with a two spiral arm instead of a four spiral arm and already I’m happier. I really like to explore in space games.

With warp, if you want to get out to the other arms of a spiral, you'll need better warp drives to cross the gaps. Or take the long way -- usually through someone else's territory.

OK how do I get influence??? This is the situation:



I'm losing influence!!! Help requested, thanks all.

One way would be to start pleasing those factions. Do you have any actions you can carry out to bring them above the 50% threshold?

I am guessing you have too many outposts. They cost influence to upkeep and will quickly tank your influence generation if you over extend. The only way to get past this is to either dismantle one you do not need (perhaps one that your colonies are already covering with their radius) or to please factions to raise generation. Some techs give passive influence generation as well.

Also, do you have any decrees you can repeal? Those eat influence as well.

I can already see, if you have a colony on Alpha Centauri, you no longer need the frontier outpost there. That should prevent the influence drain.

You might also be able to dismantle the frontier outpost at Jomor(?), since the colony radii of Alpha Centauri, Sirius, and Niamba might be covering the same radius as the outpost. Save, dismantle it, and then see the effect on the control radius.

How do I please factions? And yes I'll look at overlaps to save on some influence.

This is the farthest I've ever gotten in this game, thanks everybody!

Lorini wrote: ↑Thu Dec 28, 2017 11:27 am How do I please factions? And yes I'll look at overlaps to save on some influence.

This is the farthest I've ever gotten in this game, thanks everybody!

Click on the faction and it should bring up a list of things that "please" them and things that anger them. Usually it is stuff like "Have Non-Aggression Pacts with 3 Alien Factions" or "Do not go to war for 25 years." The easiest way is to go for things like "Have Discovery Tradition" (or whatever tradition they want).

Influence is earned by appeasing the political factions, some bio technologies (very few), declaring rivalries.

Some factions are very easy to appease.

Another great way is if you are a democratic government, you get 250 influence by completing the mandate - which is a sweet deal every 10 years. ALWAYS make sure you leave at least 4 locations to build mineral mines and 4 locations to build research stations. It used to be you could destroy them and rebuild them, but now you get a -1 if you destroy one before fulfilling the mandate.

Influence earn rate is reduced by frontier outposts, defensive pacts, and government policies.

baelthazar wrote: ↑Thu Dec 28, 2017 11:31 am

Lorini wrote: ↑Thu Dec 28, 2017 11:27 am How do I please factions? And yes I'll look at overlaps to save on some influence.

This is the farthest I've ever gotten in this game, thanks everybody!

Click on the faction and it should bring up a list of things that "please" them and things that anger them. Usually it is stuff like "Have Non-Aggression Pacts with 3 Alien Factions" or "Do not go to war for 25 years." The easiest way is to go for things like "Have Discovery Tradition" (or whatever tradition they want).

In the factions area, I think you mouseover the colored circles and it tells you what the desire is. Later on there are techs that increase the influence you earn from factions.

OK here is the faction situation



Thing is, fixing the reds won't get any of the factions to 65%. I got rid of the outpost on Alpha Centauri but nothing changed. Sigh. Guess i'll have to wait til the tech comes up. I had 65% on one faction but it's down to 52% and so I lost the influence, thus the current situation.

Lorini wrote: ↑Thu Dec 28, 2017 12:10 pm OK here is the faction situation



Thing is, fixing the reds won't get any of the factions to 65%. I got rid of the outpost on Alpha Centauri but nothing changed. Sigh. Guess i'll have to wait til the tech comes up. I had 65% on one faction but it's down to 52% and so I lost the influence, thus the current situation.

Just get as many of those red and yellow lights green as you can, and that should win some of those factions over. It's the happiness value that you need to get above 60% to get influence from them, and that should be easily doable for at least a couple of them.

Worst case you could also support one faction over the others. That should easily get one faction happy enough to give you influence, but will make the others pretty unhappy.

So the biggest faction wants 'free movement'. What is that? I looked under Policies and Edicts, no free movement there.

Speaking of moving though, I think I'm moving on. The game is pretty boring now, I'm sure it gets better at some point but when I can play whole board games on my IPad two or three times before anything happens, then it's not fun. I guess I could start a war or something but there's no reason in game to do that. Seriously my world seems to be self sustaining and I have the diplo I need to live, so what's the point?

I do really really appreciate you guys though, it's not your fault. People just like different games of course

Well, just like human history the reason for war is control over resources and territory. I view Stellaris as an RPG as much as a strategy game. So if my race is a group of Representative Cultural Owl People, I might declare war on a neighbor who is totalitarian to incorporate their populace into my sphere of influence and politically “liberate” them. If I am playing a xenophobic authoritarian human Imperium, I declare war to purge the heretic and exterminate the Xeno scum. It helps to play with a theme in mind. It does not have to make strategic “sense” as much as it fulfills your own personal goals. I also play Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis this way.

I always play the game at the fastest speed and then pause or slow down as needed. Any other speed makes the game feel like a crawl.

Well that makes sense, I just don't really feel comfortable with it. I like some hand holding

I am guessing free movement is e / immigration rights. This is under the species area. There are several parameters you can control there. You will have to fiddle to learn how it works. Save your game first. I think you can only change a specific parameter once every 10 years or so.

This game still pisses me off. Numerous Civs still have larger fleets than me even on normal difficulty. I even produced 100 ships over my cap and I was attacked by a civ with two fleets twice the size of mine. I was wiped out.

Lassr wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2018 2:55 pm This game still pisses me off. Numerous Civs still have larger fleets than me even on normal difficulty. I even produced 100 ships over my cap and I was attacked by a civ with two fleets twice the size of mine. I was wiped out.

So build more spaceports/colonies to up your naval capacity, pass the grand fleet edict to up your capacity, or make some allies so you won't be outnumbered. The random map generation can still screw you over from time to time, but most situations are recoverable with some careful planning.

The new update coming out later this year should make it easier to survive as a smaller, defensive empire, but with careful use of diplomacy you can survive just fine as a small empire currently.

Sepiche wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2018 3:58 pm

Lassr wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2018 2:55 pm This game still pisses me off. Numerous Civs still have larger fleets than me even on normal difficulty. I even produced 100 ships over my cap and I was attacked by a civ with two fleets twice the size of mine. I was wiped out.

So build more spaceports/colonies to up your naval capacity, pass the grand fleet edict to up your capacity, or make some allies so you won't be outnumbered. The random map generation can still screw you over from time to time, but most situations are recoverable with some careful planning.

The new update coming out later this year should make it easier to survive as a smaller, defensive empire, but with careful use of diplomacy you can survive just fine as a small empire currently.

I had colonized all the planets i could, I was terraforming to grow more. All planets spaceports were maxed out. I had a 48K fleet. He had two 50K fleets at least.

I was playing the Star Trek mod and having a ball smashing things as the Borg.

Lassr wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2018 11:17 pm

Sepiche wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2018 3:58 pm

Lassr wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2018 2:55 pm This game still pisses me off. Numerous Civs still have larger fleets than me even on normal difficulty. I even produced 100 ships over my cap and I was attacked by a civ with two fleets twice the size of mine. I was wiped out.

So build more spaceports/colonies to up your naval capacity, pass the grand fleet edict to up your capacity, or make some allies so you won't be outnumbered. The random map generation can still screw you over from time to time, but most situations are recoverable with some careful planning.

The new update coming out later this year should make it easier to survive as a smaller, defensive empire, but with careful use of diplomacy you can survive just fine as a small empire currently.

I had colonized all the planets i could, I was terraforming to grow more. All planets spaceports were maxed out. I had a 48K fleet. He had two 50K fleets at least.

Was this an advanced start or fallen empire?

Lassr wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2018 11:17 pm I had colonized all the planets i could, I was terraforming to grow more. All planets spaceports were maxed out. I had a 48K fleet. He had two 50K fleets at least.

Hmm, the AI is usually pretty good about massing it's fleets, so if he had two fleets that makes me think he had a vassal or ally helping him. If that's the case it means your fleet was comparable to his (48K vs 50K, which is winnable with the right load out), but he just had help.

Once the mid game hits and there are hostile nations all around it really helps to keep up on the state of alliances and make sure factions that are hostile toward you don't get together.

Montag wrote: ↑Thu Jan 18, 2018 11:10 am

Lassr wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2018 11:17 pm

Sepiche wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2018 3:58 pm

Lassr wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2018 2:55 pm This game still pisses me off. Numerous Civs still have larger fleets than me even on normal difficulty. I even produced 100 ships over my cap and I was attacked by a civ with two fleets twice the size of mine. I was wiped out.

So build more spaceports/colonies to up your naval capacity, pass the grand fleet edict to up your capacity, or make some allies so you won't be outnumbered. The random map generation can still screw you over from time to time, but most situations are recoverable with some careful planning.

The new update coming out later this year should make it easier to survive as a smaller, defensive empire, but with careful use of diplomacy you can survive just fine as a small empire currently.

I had colonized all the planets i could, I was terraforming to grow more. All planets spaceports were maxed out. I had a 48K fleet. He had two 50K fleets at least.

Was this an advanced start or fallen empire?

neither.

I'm on my 5th restart, this one is going better. My neighbors are friendly. My rivals have a buffer zone between us. That sure helps as I build my fleet.

F Me!

I never had these problems when the game first came out. S0 my 8th or so restart I went straight to concentrating on Minerals and Energy and nothing else, maximizing my # of planets and spaceports, building a huge fleet over my cap size (as mineral supply allows). I got up to a 50K+ fleet, then war was declared on me and the ai sweeps in with a 120K+ size fleet. Game over again. Fuck this game.

I don't want an open end game that has only one path to winning. No matter how well I get along with everyone and want to build up an empire, I have to totally concentrate on fleet size now because of that one bully empire, I even had an defensive pact with a few other empires but the one empires fleet devastated anything we could throw at it.

When this game first came out I had no problem rebuffing other races that started wars and surviving . Since I started back with patch 1.9 it seems impossible, seems to be a lot of luck involved now. I am no longer willing to invest 8 hrs into the game only to be wiped out.

The Apocalypse expansion along with patch 2.0 is coming out Feb 22. Developer Diaries have been interesting. Reddit List of Diaries

I am really looking forward to this one. I was late arrival to Stellaris and enjoyed it, but this patch seems like a big jump.

I know some people aren't liking the reduction to primarily hyperlanes, but if it makes the AI better I can accept it. The border changes look great. If I'm reading it correctly, borders will be determined by starbases, which got their own big changes. Leaving a gap in your borders will encourage pirates to settle in, but of course starbases cost influence.

Technology has been overhauled to make higher level items better than their previous version. So massing Level 1 ships should no longer be the best strategy. Wargoals have been overhauled, not sure I fully understand the new system, but that should come with playing. Supposedly they've reduced the doomstack strategy, but we'll see.

I've been trying to get into GalCiv3, but it's just not clicking. With this coming soon, I'll probably put aside my galactic ruler ambitions until Feb 22. It looks like the changes are going to create a game close to what I've wanted for a long time. But implementation is key and we'll see.