Mega Engineering

[shandou]

Playing with a friend in MP with all expansions and trying to repair a broken megastructure within my empire.

For that however I need the Mega Engineering research. The research option however never shows up. I have researched all prerequisites (Zero Point Energy, Citadel and Battleship), have a broken megastructure in my empire and the researches has Voidcraft expertise. In theory it should show up really easily.

Now, in my previous games I picked Voidborne first, then Master Builders because I relied on having habitats. In this game I do not want any habitats, but it seems that Mega Engineering never shows up unless I pick Master Builders. But I can only pick Master Builders if I have either Galactic Wonders or Voidborne. Galactic Wonders requires Mega Engineering to be researched. See the problem here?

Is Mega Engineering supposed to be so damn rare? I even start to think that my game is bugged, in theory I should have a big chance for it to show up, yet I have completed ~15 technologies since I got the prerequisites and it never showed up

Anyone else having this problem?

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes I just cave and take voidborne.

 

[impspy]

My favorite Ascension pics are the mega-engineering ones. Forget Synth-, Bio-, or Psi-Ascendancy; who needs it when I can build a bunch of mega structures and use engineering to overcome my specie's limitations?

Voidborn fits into this by allowing you to construct habitats which, while not as good anymore, can be used as fortress worlds to boost Naval capacity and/or better lock down choke points.

 

[Justafan]

I had the same problem. Was playing a casual game, and Mega Engineering didn't appear until well after 2420. I was only a couple months away from unlocking the last ascention slot by the time it appeared, and I was saving two for megastructures and master builders, and had I not got the tech, I would have caved and gone voidborne, master builders, megastructures, just to get the tech.

 

[Zardnaar]

Habitats seem useful for fleet limits and forts for the border.

 

[sillyrobot]

Have you completed at least 6 tier 4 Engineering techs? Batttleship and citadel are 2, but you need 6 before the next tier can appear.

Based on your set up, it should appear about 5 times more frequently than a base tier 5 rare, which is to say moderately commonly.

 

[Longprao]

I think you are just unlucky, in one game I also got it very late (after 2400), in the next I got it so early I didn't have the AP slot for it (have only filled 4 slots).

 

[Foefaller]

Playing with a friend in MP with all expansions and trying to repair a broken megastructure within my empire.

For that however I need the Mega Engineering research. The research option however never shows up. I have researched all prerequisites (Zero Point Energy, Citadel and Battleship), have a broken megastructure in my empire and the researches has Voidcraft expertise. In theory it should show up really easily.

Now, in my previous games I picked Voidborne first, then Master Builders because I relied on having habitats. In this game I do not want any habitats, but it seems that Mega Engineering never shows up unless I pick Master Builders. But I can only pick Master Builders if I have either Galactic Wonders or Voidborne. Galactic Wonders requires Mega Engineering to be researched. See the problem here?

Is Mega Engineering supposed to be so damn rare? I even start to think that my game is bugged, in theory I should have a big chance for it to show up, yet I have completed ~15 technologies since I got the prerequisites and it never showed up

Anyone else having this problem?

Yeah, you are pretty much doing everything right. Just bad luck atm, or you haven't got enough tier 4 techs researched to start with tier 5 proper

 

[shandou]

You guys were right, just plain old bad luck, it finally popped up after around 7 more completed technologies. Thanks for the replies!

 

[SirAlexius]

Habitats seem useful for fleet limits and forts for the border.

I have been using habitats mostly for energy and science. What is the benefit of having them on the border? I think I probably missed something.

 

[sillyrobot]

I have been using habitats mostly for energy and science. What is the benefit of having them on the border? I think I probably missed something.

Build a habitat, fill it with fortresses and maybe a planetary shield. It gets a FTL inhibitor and is a right pain to invade. Until it is taken. all routes out of the system are locked.

 

[SirAlexius]

Build a habitat, fill it with fortresses and maybe a planetary shield. It gets a FTL inhibitor and is a right pain to invade. Until it is taken. all routes out of the system are locked.

Wow I did not know that. Would you say this is only useful if you are limited by starbase capacity, or is this even stronger than a fully upgraded starbase?

 

[semaphore]

Wow I did not know that. Would you say this is only useful if you are limited by starbase capacity, or is this even stronger than a fully upgraded starbase?

Fortress Habitats are a lot better than starbases at tying the enemy down. Even a fully decked out starbase gets steamrolled post midgame.

 

[Nin6]

You need a lot of engineering research. Curator researchers also increase chance of getting it.
You could also consider traits like natural engineers or logic engines and civics like introspective.

Fortress Habitats are a lot better than starbases at tying the enemy down. Even a fully decked out starbase gets steamrolled post midgame.

Yes unfortunately you can just bomb them to 50% devastation and the FTL inhibitor is disabled.

 

[Zardnaar]

Wow I did not know that. Would you say this is only useful if you are limited by starbase capacity, or is this even stronger than a fully upgraded starbase?

That and the habitat can add huge amounts of force limits yo your empire. IN 2.1 or whatever you needed 30 odd starbases with anchorages now you just have 2-3 habitats and they function as a fortress world.

 

[Incompetent]

I posted a thread about this problem; it did eventually resolve itself, even though I had no ruined megastructures.

Make sure to run repeatables in Physics and/or Society. Unless something has changed in 2.2, if you are researching a repeatable in one slot, it takes repeatables much less likely to appear in the other slots (and thus, in the late game, greatly improves your odds of getting whatever non-repeatable techs you are missing).

 

[mergele]

Since we are talking about bad luck: In my current game I went to 2400 without getting the building that boosts mineral production tech...

 

[Friedrich von Deutschland]

You need a lot of engineering research. Curator researchers also increase chance of getting it.
You could also consider traits like natural engineers or logic engines and civics like introspective.

Yes unfortunately you can just bomb them to 50% devastation and the FTL inhibitor is disabled.

Lol. Good luck if the habitat is running a dozen of the damn things. War exhaustion will force a peace before that happens.

 

[meiam89.]

It really should be much more common, ultimately megastructure are mostly just a resource sink, but it shows up so darn late that I usually end up with cap resource way before that, at least now we can sell it to buy rare resource which we can sell back when we finally get it, but were still limited by the arbitrary one at a time rule. I think it should be possible to build them without the technology, or at least let us take master builder before megastructure and make it give us guarantee access to the tech.

 

[Friedrich von Deutschland]

It really should be much more common, ultimately megastructure are mostly just a resource sink, but it shows up so darn late that I usually end up with cap resource way before that, at least now we can sell it to buy rare resource which we can sell back when we finally get it, but were still limited by the arbitrary one at a time rule. I think it should be possible to build them without the technology, or at least let us take master builder before megastructure and make it give us guarantee access to the tech.

I’d prefer if the ascension allowed you to build them infinitely, but everyone can build them a bit. Like, you can only build one at a time and they have an individual 5-50 year cool down, but if you are master builders you can start spamming them to your heart’s content.