Getting Zroni as machine empire... urgh

[Beagá]

So first game on this patch, I usually go either machine or spiritualistic aquatic race. Went machine.

Guess what happens.

So I can´t use Zro, no psionics, no Shroud, what the hell are the advantages of that precursor for me if any?

 

[CrazyJ]

So first game on this patch, I usually go either machine or spiritualistic aquatic race. Went machine.

Guess what happens.

So I can´t use Zro, no psionics, no Shroud, what the hell are the advantages of that precursor for me if any?

The only thing is that if you colonize their former worlds you can get quite a bit of zro, enough to prop up your economy throughout the early game.

other than that you get pretty much nothing of value as a machine.

 

[SirBlackAxe]

The relic does now give you a Zro edict, which according to the wiki gives your leaders -50% accident chance, so you'll at least get something to spend Zro on. Their special project might also give you access to the Psionic Theory tech for -10% empire size from pops. And I think you'll be able to get use out of the triumph effect, which is a choice between 5 years of +20% ship famage or 5 years of +5% stability & -10% edict upkeep.

 

[Nefezer]

So first game on this patch, I usually go either machine or spiritualistic aquatic race. Went machine.

Guess what happens.

So I can´t use Zro, no psionics, no Shroud, what the hell are the advantages of that precursor for me if any?

If you want to have access to the solution to your problem, click on the image:

​

 

[OnyxAbussos]

This is why I never play Gestalts.
I mean I'd love to some time.
But Zroni is so rare that I cant afford to.
Ive got like 5k hours. Zroni has shown up 3 times. One of those I was a Machine and wasnt able to finish the chain. Once I was Biological but couldnt complete the chain. The third time I WAS able to finish it, but it was my very first time playing Knights of Toxic God, and so I was horribly weak and died soon after the first crisis showed up.... but get this, that run I had already started Bio ascending BEFORE the first Zroni find showed up.

So... that's a thing.

 

[Foromar]

The relic does now give you a Zro edict, which according to the wiki gives your leaders -50% accident chance, so you'll at least get something to spend Zro on. Their special project might also give you access to the Psionic Theory tech for -10% empire size from pops. And I think you'll be able to get use out of the triumph effect, which is a choice between 5 years of +20% ship famage or 5 years of +5% stability & -10% edict upkeep.

The edict only gives you, what you should have had from the beginning. The accident chance is so stupid, considering for something the game claims as "immortal".

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

This is why I never play Gestalts.
I mean I'd love to some time.
But Zroni is so rare that I cant afford to.
Ive got like 5k hours. Zroni has shown up 3 times. One of those I was a Machine and wasnt able to finish the chain. Once I was Biological but couldnt complete the chain. The third time I WAS able to finish it, but it was my very first time playing Knights of Toxic God, and so I was horribly weak and died soon after the first crisis showed up.... but get this, that run I had already started Bio ascending BEFORE the first Zroni find showed up.

So... that's a thing.

Just to be sure, you are aware of how to maximize your odds of getting the Zroni precursor: Only survey systems with habitable planets until you get a precursor, and if you want to be borderline obsessive, only survey habitable planets until you get a precursor (...or give up).

That doesn't give you good odds, mind you, but much better than any normal surveying approach gives you.

Spoiler: Reason

• Precursor tags are assigned to systems on galaxy creation; You can only start a precursor in a system with its tag (and for the five original precursors, ALL of their anomaly sites are found only in systems with their tags). You can only see these tags in debug mode.
• There is an equidistribution of tags, nicely parceled out in regions. Systems bordering two regions are often assigned both tags. (And in a few cases I've seen three tags at a triple intersection.) So all else being equal, a system is as likely to have the Zroni tag as any other specific precursor.
• But all else is definitely unequal when it comes to finding the first Zroni digsite.
• Whenever you survey an object in a system that has one or more precursor tags, and you don't have a precursor assigned yet, you have a chance of being assigned the tag's precursor if the object you surveyed is valid for that precursor
• Zroni has by far the most restrictive choice - it can ONLY be activated when surveying a habitable planet (without preexisting anomaly or archaeological site)

In other words, if you do a normal efficient surveying:

a) If you start in a region where there are no Zroni tags nearby, you won't get the Zroni precursor, obviously. No different from any other precursor.

b) If your starting neighbourhood has Zroni tags nearby and some other precursor tags (the most common situation that could conceivably give you Zroni), odds are that you'll find the other precursor first unless you both a) get lucky and search the Zroni tagged systems first, and b) are lucky that the Zroni tagged systems have planets, and c) get lucky when searching the planets.

c) If your starting neighbourhood has Zroni tags for 2-3 jumps in every direction, and no or minimal overlap with other border regions, you have a pretty good chance of getting Zroni. This is not a common situation, and even then, you'll only have a handful of eligible survey objects, the habitable planets, and the further away your survey the more likely you are moving out of the Zroni region.

So if you want to find Zroni, survey systems with habitable planets first, or even better but perhaps excessive micromanagement, survey habitable planets first. Fundamentally,

It is a completely wasted effort if you start in a region with no Zroni tags (i.e. most of the galaxy). But it will definitely increase your odds of getting the Zroni precursor in general.

ALTERNATIVELY, if you are willing to cheat and play on PC. On gamestart, activate the console. Type debugtooltip - then swipe the cursor over nearby systems and check which precursor initializer tags they have. Then decide whether to restart or proceed based on your new knowledge. Type debugtooltip again to disable.

 

[Pugmak]

So first game on this patch, I usually go either machine or spiritualistic aquatic race. Went machine.

Guess what happens.

So I can´t use Zro, no psionics, no Shroud, what the hell are the advantages of that precursor for me if any?

If you're not against using mods...

"Known Precursor"

Works by adding an option in Edicts. At game start, you can pick your precursor, or activate them all, or turn them all off, or you can just ignore it and let RNG decide as usual.

If you forget to make the choice, when your science ships run into the precursor the RNG originally set up for you to find, that's the one you'll get.

 

[Pugmak]

If you want to have access to the solution to your problem, click on the image:

​

Ha! you beat me to it. I know'd I shoulda aughta read the comments first.

 

[OnyxAbussos]

Just to be sure, you are aware of how to maximize your odds of getting the Zroni precursor: Only survey systems with habitable planets until you get a precursor, and if you want to be borderline obsessive, only survey habitable planets until you get a precursor (...or give up).

That doesn't give you good odds, mind you, but much better than any normal surveying approach gives you.

Spoiler: Reason

• Precursor tags are assigned to systems on galaxy creation; You can only start a precursor in a system with its tag (and for the five original precursors, ALL of their anomaly sites are found only in systems with their tags). You can only see these tags in debug mode.
• There is an equidistribution of tags, nicely parceled out in regions. Systems bordering two regions are often assigned both tags. (And in a few cases I've seen three tags at a triple intersection.) So all else being equal, a system is as likely to have the Zroni tag as any other specific precursor.
• But all else is definitely unequal when it comes to finding the first Zroni digsite.
• Whenever you survey an object in a system that has one or more precursor tags, and you don't have a precursor assigned yet, you have a chance of being assigned the tag's precursor if the object you surveyed is valid for that precursor
• Zroni has by far the most restrictive choice - it can ONLY be activated when surveying a habitable planet (without preexisting anomaly or archaeological site)

In other words, if you do a normal efficient surveying:

a) If you start in a region where there are no Zroni tags nearby, you won't get the Zroni precursor, obviously. No different from any other precursor.

b) If your starting neighbourhood has Zroni tags nearby and some other precursor tags (the most common situation that could conceivably give you Zroni), odds are that you'll find the other precursor first unless you both a) get lucky and search the Zroni tagged systems first, and b) are lucky that the Zroni tagged systems have planets, and c) get lucky when searching the planets.

c) If your starting neighbourhood has Zroni tags for 2-3 jumps in every direction, and no or minimal overlap with other border regions, you have a pretty good chance of getting Zroni. This is not a common situation, and even then, you'll only have a handful of eligible survey objects, the planets, and the further away your survey the more likely you are moving out of the Zroni region.

So if you want to find Zroni, survey systems with habitable planets first, or even better but perhaps excessive micromanagement, survey habitable planets first. Fundamentally,

It is a completely wasted effort if you start in a region with no Zroni tags (i.e. most of the galaxy). But it will definitely increase your odds of getting the Zroni precursor in general.

ALTERNATIVELY, if you are willing to cheat and play on PC. On gamestart, activate the console. Type debugtooltip - then swipe the cursor over nearby systems and check which precursor initializer tags they have. Then decide whether to restart or proceed based on your new knowledge. Type debugtooltip again to disable.

I was unaware of ALL of this!
Mega gratitude. This is profoundly helpful.

Quick question -- Does the debugtooltip thing work on iron man games? I assume not, but just in case.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

I was unaware of ALL of this!
Mega gratitude. This is profoundly helpful.

Quick question -- Does the debugtooltip thing work on iron man games? I assume not, but just in case.

I would expect the console to be disabled in iron man games, but I don't know as I don't play that game mode.

 

[Anarcomu]

I would expect the console to be disabled in iron man games, but I don't know as I don't play that game mode.

I remember reading that this is the case for Ck3, and I think Stellaris is no different, so I'm pretty sure you can't use console on iron-man mode.

 

[Miesha]

I was unaware of ALL of this!
Mega gratitude. This is profoundly helpful.

Quick question -- Does the debugtooltip thing work on iron man games? I assume not, but just in case.

Can confirm that the console is completely disabled in Ironman, so any commands, debugtooltip included, are disabled. That said if you have time on your hands, it's still possible to search through the savefile itself for this data but that includes learning how to read the savefile You can make a save on day 1 and then open it to search up each system nearby your starting location by name and check what precursor tag it has in the save file, it'll take a few minutes, compared to the debugtooltip command being seconds to activate and sweep over systems, but even on ironman you can get the info you want.

 

[Nefezer]

Ha! you beat me to it. I know'd I shoulda aughta read the comments first.

Thanks for the info, I didn't know there was another mod that deals with the precursors. At least mine has the advantage that you won't forget it since it jumps to the screen as soon as the game starts. The downside is that it's not the only thing I tweak there, as I use that Mod mostly for Stellaris fixes.

 

[Starfire Breeze]

The Zroni are great, even as an empire that won't use psionics at all.

Remember that you can sell Zro on the internal market for 70EC/per *5* Zro, as much as you want, as long as you're careful not to oversell. That's an enormous economic boost. And if you have a large stockpile of Zro when the transition to the Galactic Market hits, Zro immediately jumps to a sky-high price and you're just printing more energy credits than you likely have storage capacity for until the price (finally) comes down if you start selling off your stockpile while the price is still crazy high.

Even then, AI empires highly value Zro for trades, which means you can trade Zro for enormous amounts of ECs, other strategic resources, favors, opinion (favorable trade), and so forth.

In short, having such a huge income of a top-tier value strategic resource makes a large number of economic and diplomatic situations much, much easier.

 

[Rooker75]

Honestly, it annoys me to get this one when I'm Materialist and obviously won't have any use for it. Why can't there be a flag that checks for these things?

 

[TrotBot]

they made it so gives more benefits to non-psionics, and as pointed out you can still get enormous amounts of zro and be set for life economically

 

[Losttruppen]

I would love a change to Precursors that lets you have the choice between two Precursors to investigate. I hate restarting a game every time I get a crap draw on this; this change would at least double your chances of something useful to your empire.

They could also make most of them useful to start, though I am not opposed to having ones that are great for some builds and bad/poorly themed for others like Zroni and Cybrex. As long as we have a choice.

 

[TrotBot]

I hate restarting a game every time I get a crap draw on this

i never play like this and usually never restart based on precursor, but last game i got the Yuht and well I just didn't feel like the Yuht. So I restarted, and got the Yuht, lol. Tbf there's a lot of rare resources there so it's not a bad precursor for my ringworld start. i just wanted something more shiny like cybrex or first league.

that being said, i don't think the game has enough precursors for it to be able to grant human players a choice between two AND make sure no two human players share a precursor, so i don't think that would work

 

[Losttruppen]

i never play like this and usually never restart based on precursor, but last game i got the Yuht and well I just didn't feel like the Yuht. So I restarted, and got the Yuht, lol. Tbf there's a lot of rare resources there so it's not a bad precursor for my ringworld start. i just wanted something more shiny like cybrex or first league.

that being said, i don't think the game has enough precursors for it to be able to grant human players a choice between two AND make sure no two human players share a precursor, so i don't think that would work

The Yuht crush my dreams.

If you are playing with 7 human players isn't it already a race to find the good ones? Having a choice doesn't really affect that.