Stellaris Dev Diary #132 - Ecumenopolis and Megastructures

[Devanor]

the Slave Market.

Bandit Kingdom opinion modifier:
Mentioned slave market +100

 

[AaronArx]

I agree only about the organic gestalts, machine hive minds alraedy have machine worlds (maybe assimilators could build ecumenpolises though since they can't do machine worlds).

For the organics, a nice idea would be a variant of the ecumenpolis, like a sort of planetary hive.

 

[Etrutian]

Will there be any malus to Agrarian Idyll for the City-planets?

 

[jalopy]

seems like some of the megastructures should have pops that work jobs - scientists, diplomats, officers, engineers.

 

[Spidee]

Please introduce some sort of possibility to build multiple megastructures at the same time (say a rule at the beginning). Multiplayer can switch it off if they want balance, singleplayer, who just wants to have a nice corner of the galaxy can have it on and build away. This would be also possible for number of Spheres.

Alternatively have a scaling like with titans. With population of X you can start building a second megastructure.
Please.
Pretty pretty Hak Hak Hak?

 

[Xephos Demonslayer]

These new megastructures will be unlocked by the Galactic Wonders Ascension Perk.

So GW is now the best AP without a doubt. Edit: Do these come in ruined varieties?

It has 4 levels which provide:
Minerals: 250/500/750/1000

So a Dyson Sphere, but for minerals.

It has 3 levels and provide the following effects:
Naval Capacity: 75/150/225
Starbase Capacity: 5/10/15
Defense Platforms: 8/16/24
Sublight Speed: 5%/10%/15%

Holy cow. 225 Nav Cap? FIFTEEN extra starbases?!? Is that 24 DP's for ALL starbases?!?!? I could hit 150k fleet power on a bastion with that! That's insane!!! You'd be nigh impregnable! Extra sublight too. Wow that's amazing.

 

[Kukumarro]

I wonder what is more efficient, extract and decompress matter from a singularity, or just scrap a planet.

I fear the Megastructures are getting way too OP. I mean, you just need one Ecumenopolis supplied by one farm planet, one Dyson Sphere and one Matter decompressor, and you are all set. I hope the Megastructures cost as many alloys as they did before minerals, so what before was 50K minerals is now 50K alloys, not less.

 

[WhapXI]

Megastructures absolutely did not need another buff. It's already pretty much vital. Remains to be seen just how prohibitive costing alloys will be.

It's a shame really. Ecumenopoli seem really cool, but given the option of the best place to settle pops, going Megastructures and Ringworlds now seems a better option than ever.

Would much rather the "terraforming" ascension perks be locked behind rare lategame techs.

 

[Xephos Demonslayer]

I understand that Habitats changes would have their own dev-diary?

Already did. Go back and find it.
Edit: Dev Diary 124. Somewhat out of date due to the removal of infrastructure, among other things.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

Is there anything for the foolhardy race that destroys their homeworld's ecosystem by converting it into an ecumenopolis? Losing access to the library of biological creatures using the same chemistry and general makeup as themselves should make colonizing new worlds and reacting to new diseases and biological problems on old ones much more difficult. There should be a similar permanent penalty for races who's homeworlds are outright destroyed.

EDIT: Apparently this isn't a terribly popular idea, might have to be a mod only feature than or something that's only enabled on game start.

 

[Skyhunteren]

Badly? The districts agrarian idyll gives bonuses to, are not available to ecumenpolis. Which sounds right to me.

I think are wrong here. Agrarian idyll would allow you to make world that is super good at producing basic resources, while the ecumenpolis would be super good at making these basic resources into more complex stuff.

Because the “city” districts in a ecumenpolis is not real city districts, then you wouldn’t have to suffere the negative consequenses of agrarian idyll, which is worse city districts.

Wiz have said on twitter that the two are mutual exclusive though, so we will never know.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Will there be any malus to Agrarian Idyll for the City-planets?

They've just shown what Agrarian Idyll is in the teasers thread.

They have bonuses to housing from all the base resource extraction districts and less housing form city districts plus amenities from farmers, so Ecumenopolis will not be particularly good for them, giving them none of their bonuses but also their penalty.

Ringworlds, with their massive number of possible farming and energy districts, however, might be fantastic for them.

 

[DarwinPon_y]

Can't help but feel that 1000 minerals /month sound waaaay too little. I know these numbers aren't final yet which is why I sincerely hope that they don't end up BECOMING final.

Either that or maybe everything cost less minerals in the new version perhaps? Just putting this out there for the devs to consider when they start doing balancing and all that stuff.

 

[GloatingSwine]

I think are wrong here. Agrarian idyll would allow you to make world that is super good at producing basic resources, while the ecumenpolis would be super good at making these basic resources into more complex stuff.

With extra housing from base extraction districts, Agrarian Idyll might well have less need for city worlds.

Because they'll have enough pops to get more building slots on their extraction worlds, they won't need to specialise worlds as cities to get high pop counts to get the slots and efficiencies.

 

[Crussell83]

Ecumenopoli are the best way to play tall you say, but I just want to confirm: they cannot create their own food, no? It doesn't read like they can from your list of districts and it wouldn't make much sense for them to do so somehow but just checking.

Seconding the question about megastructure build times. Are they being shortened or are we allowed to build in parallel now? After all, if I am a huge empire, why wouldn't we be able to bulid multiple at once? Or is this being adjusted, now that pops actually have more jobs to fill, by having to have enough pops to devote to temporary "megastructure construction" jobs? If not, would you consider that? It'd provide even a smaller empire of the option of building in parallel, at a cost of course - those pops aren't doing anything else while they build the megastructure, of course.

I thought I heard Wiz say on the announcement stream that they will be able to produce food (although placeholder art etc etc may not show it)? May be wrong.......

 

[Druski]

I love new content and all, but I cant help feeling the new megastructures are a bit of a let-down. Rather than being crazy new structures that make one empire more unique from the others, they're just gatherers for 'the rest' of the resources. We had science and energy, now we get minerals, unity and naval capacity. (Though we have no way of knowing how powerful the new immigration-pull wonder is, at least it feels somewhat more original.) - also they look somewhat...small?

Now, for a moment there, on the naval capacity wonder, I thought that the sublight speed was a buff for the station itself, and that combined with the defense platforms and whatnot had me believe...just for a moment...that this thing was a mobile battle station. If they had made it into a type of megastructure-mothership NOW we're getting interesting. But no, it looks to be just a way to have 'the rest' of the resources. (speaking of the defense platforms, I assume it's for the station's own defense, but I wonder, is it empire-wide for all stations? going by the current values, that would be 3 more ion cannons on your citadels when maxed - which could be interesting)

 

[Ambereyed]

Release it already, please.

 

[Dr. Chaos]

The only thing I worry about is still the "must have options", and that the megastructure ascension still be one of them.

What about making these "galactic wonders" wonders like in other games, so only one can be built per game, not by empire, so its a race to build a megastructure (except for of course the non-limited ones) before anyone else.
Or if you conquer a second one from a limited megastructure, make the conquered one deactivate, or be demolished (but repairable if reconquered).
Or rebalance them and make it possible to build more than one, its more immersive, at least for me (but it could cause a balance problem with these new ones, like the coordination and assembly centers).

Anyway, we will see if it will be a balanced pick or not. I cant wait to get my hands on 2.2!

 

[Dr. Chaos]

Now, for a moment there, on the naval capacity wonder, I thought that the sublight speed was a buff for the station itself, and that combined with the defense platforms and whatnot had me believe...just for a moment...that this thing was a mobile battle station. If they had made it into a type of megastructure-mothership NOW we're getting interesting.

I did too! A mobile megastructure... PLEASE!

 

[ovceking]

It would make more sense for the Matter Decompressor to mine Neutron stars. A spoonful of their matter is worth a mountain, and Black holes already have special uses with the observatory and the L-gates.