Stellaris Dev Diary #143 - Changes to megastructures

[LayZboy]

Powerful mega-structures and ring worlds? bit of an oxymoron there.
Well I hope your gonna give them proper districts to reflect that rather than just the bog standard 2/2 ones you find on planets everywhere else.

Changes look good! But what's this "Doctrine: Strange loop" tech that gives "Future glimpse: Omega Theory"? Haven't seen that before. Is it something I've missed, or is it new?

It's part of the worm in waiting quest line.

 

[V-Metamorph]

I'm rather sceptic about this change. Galactic wonder isn't that good of a perk, it's just that a lot of ascension perk are quite bad.
What seems like a nerf to an "ok" perk seems unnescessary. If you want a better galactic wonder perk, make it like colossus when you have to do a special project, unlock half through one megastructure, and gives said structure a buff compared to the others. And most importantly, buff and create new Ascension perk.

Also ... yeah, dyson and Ringworld are underwhelming, thanks ecu.

Also also, out of topic but important, nerf technocracy unity output

 

[Methone]

Maybe consider buffing Ringworlds if you'll describe them as 'incredibly powerful'.

 

[Tech Noir Synth]

After looking at it again, I think this change is a big step in the wrong direction. Here is why:

• You still need mega engineering to show up
• The new situation forces you to spend science and time to research a megastructure even after you picked galactic wonders
• This narrows the options you have greatly
• Players will prefer to research important, or the best megastructures first, neglecting niche ones even more
• Relying on research also relies on more randomness. Overall the ascension perk lots a ton of value since you will have to rely on rng to unlock what you want

We’ve recently felt that the Galactic Wonders ascension perk feels a little bloated when it unlocked up to 8 different things, in addition to it being a little awkward that you suddenly got access to so many vastly more powerful structures.

We didn’t like that Galactic Wonders became so much of a non-choice due to unlocking so many things, so it will now be possible to unlock most of the megastructures without having to dedicate an ascension perk for it.

So in your opinion the Ascension perks feels bloated. Yet having the option to choose between 8 different structures doesn't mean you will build all of them. Instead you build the most powerful ones first and you have to be very picky since they take a long time to build.

With this change, we have to be even more picky because we also have to spend science and even more time to unlock megastructures. This will obviously result in everyone neglecting niche megastructures.

On a side note, this makes science even more important. Science rush is already incredibly powerful, while playing wide does not seem to be as viable in comparison (also due to the fact that micromanagement is too tedious and sectors don't work.)

I heavily disagree with this approach and I hope you will reconsider. Otherwise we will be seeing a lot of dyson spheres and matter decompressors build first and not much else. In my opinion Ring Worlds are not as powerful as they used to be.

And don't forget the big Elephant in the room: Ecumenopolis surpass all other megastructures.
They are in dire need of a nerf. The combination of a flat 20% bonus output and saving tons of strategic ressources with alloy and consumer goods districts is too strong. In my opion the ressource output bonus should atleast be cut down to 10%, to bring them more in line with Hive Worlds and Machine worlds.

 

[Diezy]

That'll worsen the situation for a lot of the megastructures still, if the odds and timing are any similar to Mega-Engineering.

Arcology Project and Voidborne are paths that I personally enjoy much more. One requires City District tech upgraded to max, and the other requires Starport upgraded to max, neither of which are uncommon techs that you can get reasonably early, I can plan to save up for building them.
But for Mega Engineering I can go for quite a while with no dice, and some stuff like the Art Installation and Science Nexus come at too late of a stage to matter.


There needs to be a degree of control for having those critical technologies pop, maybe by the way a political effort/Situation Log, using influence and other stuff to kickstart the research project after a certain more basic tech requirement was met. Nudge your science team towards stuff like Psionics and harvesting a certain strategic, or work on a practical use for a strategic that you own if you invest that resource for it.

 

[Alastor]

Please no ecumenopolis nerf.

They are the one habitat megaproject that actually feels powerful and rewarding. Instead tune habitats to make them a bit more useful than they currently are and more importantly greatly buff ring worlds, perhaps by giving them also unique districts, to make them better reflect the enormity of the accomplishment that is its creation.

 

[hxu04]

Any change to ring world? They are so mediocre that nobody is using them

 

[V-Metamorph]

Please no ecumenopolis nerf.

They are the one habitat megaproject that actually feels powerful and rewarding. Instead tune habitats to make them a bit more useful than they currently are and more importantly greatly buff ring worlds, perhaps by giving them also unique districts, to make them better reflect the enormity of the accomplishment that is its creation.

They're the one habitat project that makes all others irrelevant*

 

[MateuszS]

I like these changes.
Wouldnt it be also cool if megastructure mastery perk would unlock policy which would allow us to set higher limit to parallel building of megastructures at cost of increased cost?

for example:
1 -> 100% build cost
2 -> 120% build cost
3 -> 160% build cost

Also, continuous drain of resources while building instead of up-front cost would be so cool

Or maybe just constant drain of resources? This way galaxy-spanning empire could build Dyson cube, Mega-Art Installation and ringworld at once, while smaller entities would have to rely on galactic market to get resources to sustain building Matter Decomposer.

 

[Alastor]

They're the one habitat project that makes all others irrelevant*

Not to my experience. I always build everything. Habitats for extra room, ring world in systems with no planets etc.

But to be clear I'm not disputing ecumenopolis are powerful, I'm saying they should be. They are an enormous achievement for a civilizaiton, so they should feel like one.

But on the other hand a ring world is an even greater accomplishment. And currently it is very very meh in comparison.

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

IMO, the first thing you need to do with megastructures is to abolish the "rule of one": being limited to constructing single ringworld at a time for half a century is noting but annoyance when you're swimming in alloys and control the entire galaxy. Same goes for "only one per empire": currently, megastructures are too weak to justify that. Unless the plan is to considerably buff megastructures, restrictions make them available too late to matter.

 

[NemoRow]

So would it be possible to connect mega-structure technologies to finished traditions? For most of those mega-structures traditions are really natural. What I like about it, that mega-structure would require both technological and cultural component to be unlocked adding more flavor to the game.

I agree that some of the megastructures should be locked by ascension perk.

 

[Mardols]

Not sure how i feel about this one. But one thing is for sure that you guys should remove a lot of limitations on megastructures. So that u could build multiple same type megs and different ones at the same time. Doesnt make sense that theyre so limited.

 

[Peko?]

Sounds like a fine idea to me. If you can't find mega engineering tech, atleast you can start constructing a strategic coordination center earlier.

All of these new technologies have mega-engineering as their prerequisite.

 

[jose2534]

I like the new changes, it should help the AI to build then and make the megaestructures more accecible to players that dont want to expend an ascension perk

 

[MaP_Prime]

This is a little disappointing. To me these changes don't really do much, Galactic Wonders is still an automatic choice. I think it would be better if Galactic Wonders was removed and all megastructures were obtained through rare tech research. Oh, and remove void born and make habitats also a rare tech as well.

 

[Tech Noir Synth]

Please no ecumenopolis nerf.

They are the one habitat megaproject that actually feels powerful and rewarding. Instead tune habitats to make them a bit more useful than they currently are and more importantly greatly buff ring worlds, perhaps by giving them also unique districts, to make them better reflect the enormity of the accomplishment that is its creation.

Of course they feel powerful and rewarding, they are literally the most powerful project in the game. You can start your first Arcology project in 2270. It offers you 20% flat ressource output to everything, 50% increased pop growth, allows you to almost entirely disregard 2 out of 3 strategic ressources, namely volatile motes and chrystals, tons of immigration pull and 100% habitability. Since Arcology project exists, the only limiting factor in the lategame are minerals. You can get tons of trade from your empire which is enough for energy and consumer goods. When you amass a huge amount of pops, suddenly clerks become viable as they allow you to save precious minerals.

Long story short: Ecumenopoleis vastly outperform any megastructure aswell as Hive and Machine worlds and they work for everyone. Of course they need more investment but their return is great. They should be toned down atleast in regards to their flat bonuses to ressource output or pop growth. Its sad to see normal empires getting a 50% growth buff and being able to keep up with Hiveminds in terms of pop growth while growing Synthethics aswell.They casually add another 12 pop growth becoming the fastest growing empire type in the game.

I agree with your statements on Habitats. I did play a littlebit before 2.2 came around and I still remember research Habitat spam which was stupidly overpowered. But right now they seem to be too weak unless you do gimmicks with them: Putting them full of livestock slaves with tons of housing decrease options or adding homeless pops to make use of utopian abundance. The same goes for Ringworlds. The removal of mining districts was a mistake in my opinion. As we have already deduced, Minerals are precious in the lategame, which is what megastructures are for. However there is no reason to build a Ringworld if you can simply colonize planets instead. Even if you don't have planets to colonize, you are better off building other megastructures like a Matter Decompressor or a Dyson Sphere first. Their bonuses cost 0 empire sprawl and no pops to work.

 

[Alastor]

Long story short: Ecumenopoleis vastly outperform any megastructure aswell as Hive and Machine worlds and they work for everyone. Of course they need more investment but their return is great. They should be toned down atleast in regards to their flat bonuses to ressource output or pop growth. Its sad to see normal empires getting a 50% growth buff and being able to keep up with Hiveminds in terms of pop growth while growing Synthethics aswell.

So buff the other megaprojects. Instead of trying to cripple the one that works properly.

And an ecumenopolis is not the be all end all anyway. It has a specific use, namely manufacturing but it can't replace normal planets and gulps down primary resources like nothing else in the game. In one of my later games I went a bit crazy with ecus and build 5-6 of them. The end result was I could not use all of them. Trying to do that bankrupted my empire.

 

[durbal]

So you changed it but didn't change it.

Just remove the damn thing or do what Dunaedine suggested.

 

[Tech Noir Synth]

So buff the other megaprojects. Instead of trying to cripple the one that works properly.

And an ecumenopolis is not the be all end all anyway. It has a specific use, namely manufacturing but it can't replace normal planets and gulps down primary resources like nothing else in the game. In one of my later games I went a bit crazy with ecus and build 5-6 of them. The end result was I could not use all of them. Trying to do that bankrupted my empire.

Mismanagement of an empire is not an argument for an objective balance discussion. Since you gave no more information than 5-6 Ecumenopolis I will try to give you some general tips: As you can read from my earlier post, make use of clerk jobs and consumer benefits in the lategame. You should have a lot of pops so the Clerk job becomes attractive as a pop-inefficient, but ressource efficient job. Don't forget that Clerk jobs literally create energy and consumer goods out of nothing. When balancing your mineral economy you have to keep this in mind. Make sure to turn high mineral district planets into Gaia worlds and create Mineral Purification Plants on them. If you ascend into a Synthethic Empire, a mineral purification plant will grant you 4 additional mining districts. Essentially your Gaia worlds turn into budget- Hive worlds. You can easily get 17 or more mining districts depending on the size. Don't forget to make use of minerals bonuses from edicts and unity ambitions. The 33% mineral bonus from unity ambition even applies to a matter decompressor and this should be one of the first structures to buid. Also make use of the market. There can be times when Minerals are very valuable or there can be times when all prices drop heavily. Set your economy up so you benefit the most from the market. Selling excess strategic ressources is always a great way to generate energy.

Once you have your economy under control, you will realize the huge bonus of Ecumenopoleis and they are in fact the end all be all. No one is asking to "cripple" Ecumenopoleis. Their design will make sure they will always stay relevant. We are simply asking for a reasonable decrease to bonuses like flat ressource output and pop growth which put them way over the top compared to all other projects or megastructures.