Galactic Wonders without Voidborne

[Incompetent]

In my current game, I want Galactic Wonders, but it seems it will take a long time for the Mega-Engineering tech to spawn naturally (no ruined megastructures available, not even gateways :'( ), even with the usual tricks of having a Voidcraft expert and running repeatables in Physics and Society. This also means I can't get Gateways, it seems.

I've noticed a lot of players in the past suggested going Voidborne -> Master Builders -> Galactic Wonders just to make sure. But three perks is a very heavy investment, even for megastructures. What if you don't actually want to build any Habitats? This would seem to be a common situation in 2.2 given how population works, and especially the massive number of people you can put on Ecumenopolises instead. In that case, Voidborne is a dead perk. But if you don't take Voidborne, then you get into a chicken-and-egg problem where Master Builders cannot grant the Mega-Engineering research option, because you must already have Galactic Wonders, which in turn requires Mega-Engineering. It's also debatable whether you really want to spend a perk on Master Builders; sure, the base megastructure build speed is terrible and you need to boost it, but there are other ways to get that boost.

Any ideas? Should there be an alternative pathway for forcing Mega-Engineering tech to appear early, that doesn't go through Voidborne?

 

[Sinister2202]

You can get mega-engineering without voidborne. 50% build speed from living metal empire campaign is enough for me tbh, so I don't have to waste perk slot for master builders. I usually leave perk slots open until I get mega-engineering. Usually get most of the voidcraft research out of the way until I see mega-engineering, which seem to have appeared before the voidcraft repeatables for several games now. Can't guarantee that's the case though.

 

[Losttruppen]

Habitats are not dead, they just aren't used for the same things as they were before 2.2. They are excellent for trade, specialist production, unity, and science hubs to fill niches in your economy.

I do understand the frustration of not getting mega-engineering to roll but this is the same problem faced by habitats if you don't get Star Fortress tech or any of a number of big important technologies. Maybe have mega-engineering be easier to find but only allow it to build the frame, then you need additional tech for each stage beyond that for each megastructure? This sounds awful when all 8 are under one ascension perk(AP) though.

Mega-structures are in a hard place for balance, as if they aim for small galaxy quick games they will be pretty lacklustre compared to alternatives, but balanced around large, long games, they will never be seen in anything but 1000 star galaxies. I suppose this is why they come in stages, but it's still often too late or just not needed by the time you get there.

Ultimately, I think the feature creep needs to be addressed soon with regards to all APs, as some are absolute jokes but Galactic Wonders gives you 8 of the best things in the game. Would personally like to see some of the megastructures doled out to some other APs like Science Nexus on Technological Ascendancy, and keep the big ones like Ringworlds and Dyson Spheres in their separate, ultimate pick. Would open access to adding more without further bloating Galactic Wonders, such as a Psionic Beacon, Gene-factory, or Robot Assembly Plant.

 

[Incompetent]

Habitats are not dead, they just aren't used for the same things as they were before 2.2. They are excellent for trade, specialist production, unity, and science hubs to fill niches in your economy.

Oh I know, they're not useless, they just seem a bit redundant until you get to the stage where your planets run out of room. They don't get the blanket efficiency bonus that Ecumenopolises get, so you don't drastically improve production per pop.

I suppose the strength of Habitats is the same as the weakness of Ecumenopolises and Ringworld sections: 16 buildings and one build queue per planet. On an Ecumenopolis that leaves very limited room for specialization through buildings, whereas on a Habitat, 16 buildings is a lot, and it's somewhat efficient to put low-employment buildings there, such as strategic resource refineries.

Habitats are indeed good for trade, or if you want to do the unity spam thing, but Ecumenopolises can also do this on a larger scale.

I'm not especially impressed by Habitats for tech. You get 3 researchers per district (so 24 per habitat?) but then you can't make any lab buildings. I think I'd prefer to just pack a regular planet with labs (ideally with some planetary modifier that boosts research) to get 80+ researchers in the same place, and then put a scientist in orbit assisting research. I suppose the main efficiency issue here is that the tech-world needs a bunch of exotic gases to fuel it, whereas the labs on the habitat don't.

Ultimately, I think the feature creep needs to be addressed soon with regards to all APs, as some are absolute jokes but Galactic Wonders gives you 8 of the best things in the game. Would personally like to see some of the megastructures doled out to some other APs like Science Nexus on Technological Ascendancy, and keep the big ones like Ringworlds and Dyson Spheres in their separate, ultimate pick. Would open access to adding more without further bloating Galactic Wonders, such as a Psionic Beacon, Gene-factory, or Robot Assembly Plant.

Definitely - Galactic Wonders is a massively overloaded perk, and Mega-Engineering is an overloaded tech (although as you say, there are plenty of other must-have techs). Megastructures are now such a common focus of the mid-to-late game that it would make sense to spread them out a bit across APs. You could then maybe change the restriction on building megastructures in parallel so it only applies to ringworlds: if you've invested several perks in getting various different 'one per empire' megastructures, you should at least be allowed to build them all.

I think it's a good idea for Mega-Engineering itself (which lets you restore ruined megastructures) to come somewhat earlier, but for each megastructure to have an associated tech if you want to build it from scratch. One tech per stage is going a bit far, but if you want to build a brand-new megastructure of a kind you have never seen before, it seems logical that some specific research is required.

 

[Losttruppen]

Habitats can also build science administrations(forget the real name) but yeah a full planet for tech with a habitat for the gas refining might be more efficient.

The reason I think one tech per stage isn't that bad is you get quite a bit for each stage, +250 energy for Spheres, huge amount of sensor date from the Array. Doesn't make any sense for ringworlds though, one section is probably much like the others, though it would be cool if they could be focused on something other than energy, trade, or farms, as Spheres cover energy, and 4 50 district farms is absurd unless you like cheesing the market.