Stellaris Dev Diary #143 - Changes to megastructures

[Many A True Nerd]

Interesting idea, but I'm not 100% on the separation there - I only really consider Strategic Coordination a must-build, because that's movement speed I literally can't get any other way, and that's now deemed to be a lower tier of megastructure.

The Dyson Sphere varies empire to empire, I guess, but for MegaCorps, the amount of energy you can make just with trade makes a Dyson Sphere seem somewhat insignificant, and I've never bothered with the matter decompressor in 2.2 because minerals always seem to stay pretty cheap in the galactic market. I feel like both could use a buff if they're going to be special gated structures.

Also, I really feel like the art installation needs a buff or possibly the rate of unity gain needs a rework - even when I'm not specifically going for a high-unity Empire, I find that by the end game point I could build that art installation, I already have every tradition, every ascension perk, and enough unity to have every useful unity ambition on at once.

Ring Worlds being gated makes sense, though, especially now habitats aren't as good.

 

[NoBrainFTL]

One queschn. Why is that you can build multiple ringworlds, but only one Dyson sphere?

 

[SelorKiith]

You'll see all the techs at one point. It may take a while, but so will building each megastructure one by one. Once you meet the requirements, you'll see it. Just research the next one the moment it pops up.

That's just not how it works... I've had entire games with a lot of techs missing because RNGesus saw it fit to throw repeatables at me instead of things like "Star Fortresses" or "Titans".
Also "Just research it when it pops up" is also not viable because it might just soft-lock me out of something else that might be more situationally useful.

 

[Coconut_Cookie]

Will the likeliness of these techs showing up also be influenced by your empire's ethics? For example a militarist empire having a higher chance to draw the strategic coordination centre.

 

[Captpolak]

An interesting idea. I rarely use Ring Worlds in my gameplays but the resource megas are always a must for me. The other megastructures were more of Lesser MegaStructures to me so having them as research was an excellent move.

 

[Tech Noir Synth]

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.

 

[Khunter]

How about a Mega shipyards tech? Limit of 1 in your empire, providing a full Star-base worth of shipyards (6) for the space of one.

 

[fatmanboozer]

There was a better Idea (IMO) in the forum: link the megastructure to others asciension perks (and in fact, delete the Galactic Wonders perk). So the Science Nexus would be linked to the Technology Ascendency perk, the ring world with Void Born, the Strategic Coordination to Eternal Vigilance (for instance) and so on.

This really is a better way of doing it, already playing with a mod that does this and it makes perks far better and if anything harder to choose between as a result. Stellaris really needs to promote unuqieness to empires especially in tech and perk picks.

Certain unuiqe tech options/brances should also be limited by perk choices further adding to diffieration of empires in the late game.

I also like the idea mentioned of master builders allowing more than 1 mega structure to be built at once.

 

[Ixal]

Good, but hopefully you also rework megastructures to be more special than just big resource generators. Currently the "Galactic Wonders" dont feel like wonders at all.

Maybe look at CK2s Great Works for inspiration?

 

[Koopatin]

galactic wonders should be special, yeah but ... somehow WHEN i build them they never seem to be a real game changer or important. by the time i do no one ever could be any threat. (doesn't matter the difficulty, as soon as you snowball out of reach of the AI its over and by the time you get to wonders you have snowballed away or already lost, always wanted a scaling difficulty that scales with players power rather than time for that reason) also when i build science nexus i am already in parts at least into the repeatables. mega art comes by a time its liek a15% boost to overall unity but i already have 5-7 unlocked. i have no solution to the problem but i always saw a problem with wonders. when you get them.. you are over the point you need them. get them earlier and they are tooo powerful maybe.

well... i do not know if that is helpful at all but... was on my mind

 

[Cynoid]

An approach which could satisfy both parties and avoid RNG associated with rare techs would be to add the option to some perks to permanently add an associated meagstructure (Grasp The Void for Coordination center, for example) research option, like Master Builders do for Megaengineering. This would both mean research is required, and make players have a degree of control over the Megastructures they can build.

 

[Darkspysrival]

Taking inspiration from Gigastructures, eh?

 

[Lord_Gong]

Sorry to say is this absolutely necessary. I like it sure but by the time you can afford a Megastructure they are practically worthless.
I do like now it is possible to start building them sooner.

 

[Kougar]

I like the change, and it makes sense logically. Most of those are equivalent to a giant space station just floating in space, not really the same level as building a dyson sphere or a ring world that requires a few trillion+ times more mass, extreme conditions close to a sun or event horizon, or restructuring the entire solar system.

 

[SnakeInATopHat]

nice

 

[Yagami913]

Hello everyone!

Galactic Wonders
We are making some changes to Galactic Wonders so that it no longer unlocks all megastructures, but rather only unlocks the most powerful megastructures.

​

I like the changes and the philosophy behind it, however i just want to relfect on that sentiment. Matter decompressor and dyson sphere is the worst megastructor for a very wide empire. For me at least late game 99% floating in thousends of mineral/energy and the bottleneck is building slots. I just wanna say 1k energy not to much if you have 20k/month. The problem is similar to the old science nexus, maybe some empire wide bonuses can make it viable just like the science nexus.​

 

[Spaceception]

PD1: Why not making habitats baseline tech with tier 4 starbases? With the current state of habs, they are a "niche" pick for encased empires rather a nice space colony development tool
Why not creating specialized habitats? Mining asteroids, researching near special stellar bodies, etc
And how about creating a new perk for artificial worlds? Reshaping a barren/cold with an habitable layer with special districts, could be so cool

Ditto

I've have read threads saying how much of a micro nightmare that could be, especially for a wide Empire. So one way to get around that, is forcing you to para-terraform barren/frozen worlds in systems you already have a regular colony in. As well as limiting you to 1 or 2 in a system.

This basically means you can, at most, double or triple your planets. Could be manageable for a tall Empire, and a wide Empire may still build some without worrying about micro too much down the line.

This could be locked behind the regular terraforming tech, cost alloys/energy to build, and take a few years to complete before you can colonize as normal, making them viable in the mid-game. All this being said, I'm not sure what kind of balance passes should be given to habitats, both right now, and in this idea.

 

[Red Death]

Have you considered leaving a larger time gap between the mega engineering tech and the techs for making megastructures yourself? That way, we could fix up megastructures long before we could build them ourselves, just like gateways right now. It would be nice if ruined megastructures were more valuable and worth fighting over if you find them.

 

[Rodahtnov]

This could be locked behind the regular terraforming tech, cost alloys/energy to build, and take a few years to complete before you can colonize as normal, making them viable in the mid-game. All this being said, I'm not sure what kind of balance passes should be given to habitats, both right now, and in this idea.

Just making it like other mega, but not capped to 1 at time
3 phases: Encasing the planet, creating districts, creating atmosphere
Mini ringworlds, somewhat an alternative/supplement to both ringworlds and arcologies, and bonus points if you can specialize those worlds with distinctive districts (Shipyard world, giving % bonus to starbase production or naval cap / Matrioshka world, research based / Refinery world) or just a regular 100% hab world with no special bonuses

 

[adil3tr]

I hope the techs unlock earlier to pad out the mid game, and the three powerful ones come with larger resource stores to help with late game gluts.