[Mod] ST: New Horizons: A Stellaris Total Conversion

[Mojo1987]

There seem to be something off with the building habits of the AI.
In my game, all AI are in big negatives regarding Consumer Goods. The UFP especially got over -1000 per month in Consumer goods.
But they build the replication buildings like crazy. Something is wrong with build priority.

The other thing is, that the AI is not building sufficient fleets, even at admiral difficulty, possibly related to the build priority problems, because there is mostly no alloy production on anyone.

Save in attachemts, iam the Borg btw.

 

[Darasuum]

Recently updated from 2.6 to the new 2.7. After that started a new game and been having the same experience.

The AI seems to be building Neutron Enrichers and synthetic dilithium manufacturing plants as if they really need it, even when they have the raw resource available via other means. For example: Earth has 4 neutron enrichers even though it has Jupiter to supply it. The fleet power of the AI is neglectable as well due to, I presume, lack of resources.

Attached my save if it is any help (playing as the Vulcans).

PS: Really love the mod!

 

[steampvnc1880]

Just thought I'd copy paste my hour long experiment from the steam thread to here where It'll get more exposure:

I've just done some experiments. In a fleet of eight Crossfields Every. Single. Time I jump I get one navigation failure, two drive failures and a system failure. In two fleets of four Crossfields each fleet has one drive failure. In four fleets of two... zero failures. So..... if you want to get anywhere without problems just split the fleet down to two ships each, jump together and reform when you get there. Probably not developer intended behavior.

There is a technology called Advanced Containment System on the tech tree that you can get after researching spore drive and extendable shield emitters. It says it makes the spore drive safer. I "finish_technology"d until I got it and based on the cost and how long after spore drive until it popped up I think Extendable Shield Emitters has been moved on the tech tree to much later in the game making getting the Advanced Containment System technology much less likely before you reach the Movie Era and Transwarp. It hardly matters anyway. I did my above test again. With a fleet of eight crossfields the number of disasters per jump was reduced from four... to three. One navigation, one system and one drive... A fleet of five got a system failure and a drive failure... A fleet of three no failures.

I've yet to get the transwarp drive but if it has issues too I'll be pretty disappointed. I used to love using the jump drives as the federation. They were very useful as my territory got larger. The problems the spore drive has may be justified by the story but it's no fun at all. It's a pretty garbage thing to tack on top of the jump drive charge debuff.

PS. speaking of the jump drive charge debuff, the Excess Energy Cavitation thingy on the Crossfield sounds like it's supposed to make the jump drive recharge faster but I've tested it alongside another Crossfield that didn't have it and it did absolutely nothing as far as I can tell.

PPS. Science ships can also fit experimental drives and with them I've NEVER had a failure popup with them so maybe their only viable use case now is exploration. Bah.

PPPS. To the developers: if you're going to have drive failure popups like this please consider removing or severely reducing the current automatic -50% damage and speed you get after a jump, assuming it's not hard coded.

 

[Grinsel]

It may have missed your attention, but ST:NH has completed its 4th birthday. This means the mod is now one of the old rabbits, but not yet one of the old iron.


For this year we have come up with something very special, a wish the community has already wanted from the beginning, 4 years ago. For a long time we didn’t have a chance, because steam exclusivity was mandatory. But now we have a solution in accordance with the paradox rules, which allows us to make the ST: New Horizons mod available for download outside of Steam. But not only that. It was important to us to leave a Legacy for the people involved and for the ST:NH project itself.


So we made all relevant milestones of the mod freely available on Gitlab and in memory of those years, we gave everyone involved the opportunity to share some thoughts about it.


It was a great time. But when you see all the other projects that have come out of this one, I look forward to seeing new legacies presented soon.


So now everyone pay tribute to the voices of the mod and have fun with the all versions in this new Legacy – that will always be up to date with Steam.

I grew up watching The Next Generation on syndicated television, it’s bright, optimistic, philosophical and of course carpeted vision of the future ingrained in me a deep love and fascination with science fiction, greatly coloring who I am. Decades later, amid new heights in the advancement of our own space travel, Stellaris provides one of the best platforms for the depth and width of my beloved universe to be realized in full technicolor. Upon this platform, New Horizons was built, a mod that dared to take on that immense dream and turn in to reality. For over two years I have been lucky to have been a part of that dream. I have worked with many talented people, made new friends, debated moral issues, explored Star Trek in new lights and spent countless hours and long nights building models and crafting iconography. It has been an experience I will soon not forget; I look forward to boldly stepping into the future with our team, whatever wonders it may hold.

Kharak – PDG STNH 2D Lead


###

I remember this one moment forever, 10 days after the release of stellaris. I was deep into the game, when shaggo asked me if i knew about image editing, gimp or photoshop. I replied that I had, “no idea, I’ve never done that before”.
In retrospect, this was the moment that STNH was founded.
It’s been an incredible journey, from the idea, just to have a star trek game, to a mod that is many times bigger than the basic game that regularly uses our developments. it’s just a joy to see how the mod has evolved over the years, from a small spark that has become the greatest star trek game ever played.
So many people said to us in the first year, “what we imagine, we can never realize”. “There’s no way we could have built such an idea of a game from scratch.”
I’m so proud of our pdg group that has formed around the development of stnh, hundreds of helpers who have been involved over the years. true to the motto, everyone can help, it doesn’t end in chaos, no, it ends in what ST:NH is today: a homage to the idea behind Star Trek.
I am looking forward to the future, and no matter what shaggo and I do, the internet will do its thing and we will make sure that everyone can participate in the future of stnh.
So I would like to introduce you all to the ST:NH Legacy, a Git Repo, with all relevant versions of ST:NH released on Steam.

Grinsel/G-man – PDG STNH 3D & Sound Lead (and co-founder of STNH)


###

I’ve watched “Star Trek : The Next Generation” as a kid and I was immediately hooked. This “forced” me to play a lot of Star Trek games in the Star Trek golden age back then.Birth of the Federation, Armada, Bridge Commander, just to name a few.
When I discovered Stellaris, my first thought was: This would be awesome with a Star Trek mod!
I wouldn’t have bought it otherwise.
I had no idea how to mod the UI back then, and I was actually hoping that someone else would create a Star Trek UI. But that didn’t happen, so I gave it a try and ended up creating 8 different UI submods.
One last thing: The ST:NH community with all its contributors is simply amazing. It has so many helpful and skilled modders, who are working together to create something great.
So answer the call, if you want to be part of the best Stellaris/Star Trek mod out there!

Cutter Slade – PDG STNH UI Lead


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STNH and me? STNH was one of the only projects that meant so much to me, I wouldn’t lie if I said that many others joined NH but it will always be the first one, Star Trek but mainly NH brought me friends, a community but mostly NH brought me a goal.
How and Why? Almost four years ago I wanted to deepen my knowledge of the Star Trek lore, after having discovered it thanks to Star Trek Enterprise, after discovering Stellaris not so long ago I discovered STNH after a few months of existence in the workshop. I played it and spent a lot of time there despite the content that some could judge to be limited compared to today’s but nevertheless I enjoyed it until a detail strikes me, the Mod was in English, hating English — or at least having difficulties — I joined the Discord with the idea of translating the Mod into French. At the time, there was only a madman wanting to do the work of a dozen people, but after nearly four years and various titles acquired over time, I’m still here and the Mod has never stopped growing.
Whether in difficult times or just for fun I thank all of you for being part of our community.

-Ael – PDG STNH French Translator & Public Moderator


###

Star Trek has always meant so much to me, I remember watching TNG with my dad on BBC2 on weekday evenings when I was a young child. It’s been a world of heroes, wonder and escapism that has stuck with me throughout my life
I was introduced to STNH whilst looking for a spiritual successor to Birth of the Federation, which I loved playing. I was very much a lurker on the Discord until I saw a recruitment add to join the team as part of the localilsation team – sometimes you just have to take a gamble and put yourself out there! Working under the wing of former dev Harel and learning how the code worked was a challenging experience as PDX code seems to have a mind of its own, but I love a challenge, and having always worked in IT I was determined not to let this mysterious code get the better of me.
Getting the chance to lead the Events team has been a real privilege, getting the chance to tell the stories that I hope our fans want to play is a massive thrill and getting to be creative after working a day job that involves fixing issues and following process is a great way of unwinding.
I am so excited to see where Star Trek will go in the future & I know that STNH will be along with it, PDG has provided an excellent community and it’s been a joy to help shape, train & guide the members here and see the genuinely fantastic ideas the SW, ST & SG teams come up with. Nothing beats the thrill of waiting whilst that publish button is hit, it is the closest I will get to sitting in that chair on the bridge of the Enterprise

Russ – PDG STNH Events Lead





###

One day Shaggo came to me and asked if I was interested in modding. “sure why not could be fun” AND NOW I HAVE TO WRITE LOCALISATION in terrible english

Akyla – PDG SWFR Events Lead


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I saw New Horizons in an early state, and noticed many of the races were using default names – so I created a ton of namelists using canon sources and sent them to the mod team, not expecting anything of it. I got a nice reply, asking did I want to join the team, as they needed more writing, so I did.
I then spent a ton of time working with Zoom and the other writers writing the names, descriptions and events for New Horizons. During that time, I learned how to cause numerous bugs, which proved invaluable as then it allowed me to find out how to fix said bugs! In this debugging role, I spent a lot of time looking at the scripts for events and other features, which then allowed me to create my own events. I generally didn’t want to pester other people for artwork, so I then started creating my own!
So basically I ended up as a jack of all trades for the team, and really enjoyed pushing out patches and talking with the fans on Steam, Facebook and Reddit. I am so happy when people play it and say it’s the best Trek game they’ve played, because there’s so much love put into it, from the inclusion of so many species, to the fantastic ships, to the special events that crop up when you’re playing certain races, to the relics you can come across as you are playing. If we as fans can create this, what a studio with real money behind it could do.
Please employ me.

Kodiak – PDG STNH Bug Buster


###

So I was since my childhood a star trek fan and one of my most beloved games was Birth of the Federation. I just loved the way it combined strategy and live action fights. It was just beautiful how my fleets clashed with an invading Borg Cube. Then came Armada and I loved the way the Borg could be played assembling fleets of assimilated enemy vessels. The way was clear when I saw a let’s-play of a young STNH on youtube. I saddled the horse and bought the game and looked into the mod.
Back then the title of the update was… Assimilation. And it was so only proper to start with the Borg. I was shocked how good the implementation was the Battle balance – only two spheres fought whole fleets down. It was just astounding how the Borg felt. Like in the series and the movies. Just right the whole way. I followed the mod for one or two years, if I remember right and shifted my focus from the Borg to the Federation and its Mirror Counterpart. It was then that I was approached by someone to work on something. And even due to a rocky start i still work on it and hopefully i can show my work soon. The last month when I became a real member of PDG was just amazing and I learned much from the big old ones that started the whole Ship.

Doco – PDG SGP Events Lead


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“Best Mod Ever, and I would love to see for this mod a sub mod that will add some of the features of the DLC into the mod like the ability to destroy planets I have brought this up many times. also maybe a sub/mod that will be cross universe like ST vs SW vs SG or the such also a Stargate mod”

Praetor Shinzon – ST:NH Closed Beta Tester


###

Bought Stellaris back in early 2018 simply because I was tired of an old and busted modded BOTF from years back. I had found Sins of a Solar Empire with its Star Trek mod but didn’t quite take care of the itch. Then I stumbled on STNH for Stellaris. Had to try it out. Back then the Stellaris game engine was a bit harsh and I even gave the game a poor review after 36 hours of gameplay. I left for a while and eventually came back to try again. Stellaris has matured and so has STNH and now I have 416.3 hours on record, more than just about every other game I have on Steam combined. By comparison, it took me 83 hours to platinum the FFVII Remake and put it down. I’m proud to say I’ve never once played the base Stellaris game nor do I have any desire to. Stellaris and STNH are endless and the community that supports it is awesome and I’ve been proud and humbled to be a member of the beta community. Cheers to 4+ more years of STNH!

KnightRdr – STNH Closed Beta Tester


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I started playing Stellaris three years ago and I was loving the game, the grand strategy, the freedom to control the fate of not just an empire but a galaxy with almost every game a different story. However, as I played more and more I began to recognize the same events, the same patterns, and the same end results. Sure I could just crank up the difficulty but that wouldn’t truly change the way I played the game or give me the original feeling of wonder as I explored and learned.
So I started looking to add mods into the game so I could just see what people had created and uploaded to the workshop. It was there I came across the STNH mod as it had just received a major update and so many people were talking about it. So being a huge sci-fi fan that I am, I downloaded the mod and was amazed at the level of detailing and redesign that this team from all over the world had dedicated themselves to developing for everyone for free, in their free time just blew me away. It was a sight to behold, the ability to recreate the Star Trek universe however I wanted.
Now I work in localization as an English writer and haven’t been on the team as long as many of the others but everyone has done an amazing job welcoming me and others onto the team and showing us how we can help. The work and dedication that has gone into STNH and the other mods just blows me away every day. I am honored to be a part of its community and have the opportunity to work alongside them. I know great things will continue to come from this community and I’m excited about what the future has in store for all of us.

BattleFrontline – PDG STNH Localisation Team


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I’ve been playing Star Trek games since I had a computer that was fast enough to actually be able to run them. One of the series that stood out was Star Trek Armada and the sequel. After some time, I noticed that very few Star Trek games were coming out and the ones that did come out were not that good. When I saw that Star Trek: New Horizons came out as one of the top recommended mods for Stellaris, I knew I had to at least give it a go, since it combined the aspects of storytelling, strategic planning, and combat that I had missed since playing ST: Armada so long ago.
After some time of playing, I noticed that they consistently had a notice out there for anyone who wanted to help. I never worked on mod before, and I had no idea what I would be doing, but I decided to put my name out there and see if they need help with anything. I initially thought that I would work on events, and I did learn how to code them, but I ended up helping out with localisation. To make a long story short, I eventually became the head of localisation, something I never thought would happen. I’ve done what I can for streamlining the work, updating formulas, keeping the troops in line, recruiting more troops, updating the tools we use, keeping the events team happy, and more. I am pleased with the help that I contribute towards making a mod that is enjoyed by so many people.

Baahb – PDG STNH Localisation Lead

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oh boy where to begin, I was first introduce to Stellaris thru my brother who bought the game for me back a couple years ago (not sure what date I got it), but over time it became my favorite game downloading and trying different mods out, and then I saw a Star Trek mod. STNH mod was by far the most I ever played with this game both Vanilla and old mods combined, then I was approached by one of the Devs of STNH and was ask if I wanted to join the Beta team and I was not sure at first for it seemed like a job more than having fun with the mod. Then he convince me to try it out with no obligation on my part, if I didn’t like being a Beta team I could have always backed out, needless to say that I’m still a Beta tester and it has been great, if it wasn’t for my medical condition that has slowed me down with continuing testing for this awesome mod I would have been playing and testing everyday.

Zorrino STNH Beta Tester


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I guess my story is a bit different from most of the others, as it was New Horizons that got me into watching Star Trek and not the other way round. Naturally, I’ve watched some of it before, but it wasn’t such a big thing for me back then. Up until everything changed.
Early 2019 I was thinking about getting into Stellaris modding and learning how to make my own content for the game. And then it just happened to coincide with one of the New Horizons developers starting a workshop on how to create events for the game. Of course, it was too good of an opportunity to pass up, even though I had to wake up at 5am every Saturday to actually attend the workshop. So I signed up for the workshop and after a few months of training joined the dev team.
Since that moment I’ve been working on creating new stories for the mod, fixing bugs and occasionally causing new bugs. And of course I’ve binge watched most of Star Trek, not only for «professional» reasons, but also because I’ve realised how much I actually enjoy watching it.
What I like the most about the mod and PDG in general is the sense of community, this group of like-minded people striving to achieve a common goal. I don’t know what awaits PDG in the years to come. But seeing as it’s already 4 years old and has expanded well beyond the New Horizons project, I can’t imagine anything less than a bright future and new exciting prospects.

Felis – PDG STNH Events Team


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Star Trek sparked my interest from the very first minute I discovered it. It literally consumed me and I consumed it. I have been a Star Trek fan for only 5 years but it really has a special place in my heart.
When I discovered ST: New Horizons back in 2016 I instantly thought about helping the team. I loved Stellaris and I loved Star Trek. The perfect match. I started out as a german translator but quickly became the first person who had the official role of ‘Head of localisation’. Together with Oninoni, who is sadly not part of the team anymore, we built the foundations on which we still localize today, 4 years later. A lot of people have come and gone and we have gained a lot of experience.
I really liked my role but after about 3 years I had to take a break. Now I am back as a proofreader and german translator and doing the best I can!

Zoom – PDG former Head of Localisation & current Proof-Reader


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Star Trek has been a major part of my childhood. I still remember my cousin and me role playing away team missions in the woods, we had so much fun. Captain Picard and the crew of TNG set a moral compass for us that we still uphold today. Re-watching the episodes as an adult made them even more interesting, properly understanding all the social issues it touched which are still relevant today.
As a longterm grand strategy player and occasional modder, I was overly hyped when Stellaris was announced. After playing the game for a week with fellow modder G-Man, it became obvious for us that this is the perfect framework for a star trek mod. So we searched the workshop and the paradox forums but didn’t find any star trek mods at that point. A bit frustrated, we remembered our prior modding work on hearts of iron 3. After having a quick look at the stellaris script, we began to see the great moddability and endless potential of the Clausewitz Engine. Even though we didn’t have any experience with 3d / 2d, we decided to just jump into it and make a star trek mod ourselves.
I never expected the mod to take off as it did. After a few days in the workshop, we discovered some other modders who were doing portraits and other artworks. When we all joined forces, I still remember the incredible pace the team was able to push out new content. In the early days we released a new species and shipset every week. STNH version 0.8 was a huge milestone, it was the patch where we finished revamping nearly every part of the base game. From that point onward, the mod just became bigger and better, introducing pioneering mechanics, narrative and a sheer amount of content, a lot of which eventually has found its way into the vanilla experience as well.
Birth of the federation was one of my first games on my own PC and I have been waiting for a spiritual successor ever since. Being part of creating this game myself has been a huge honor for me and definitely inspired me a lot. So many amazing people helped us on the road and I will be forever grateful for every contributor who helped realize our dream star trek game come to life. In that spirit, we will always boldly go where no one has gone before. Stay tuned for what the future holds

Shaggo PDG STNH Project Lead (and co-founder of STNH)




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Check all current 18 Versions of ST:NH Legacy here:
Download ST:NH Legacy

 

[Orinsul]

what if the mirror romulan republic could form the federation if it gets four allies?

 

[The Grumpy Buddha]

Is gene modding locked for some races? Playing the Ferengi, and long ago I got the rare "+1 Trait Points" tech, but still no actual tech to do it with. And it's year 2320, I'm making about 2600Society tech/month, no empire sprawl penalty, and I seem to be in repeatable techs-land.

 

[Orion88]

So here is a question for you all that might also benefit other player`s of the mod:


What have you found to be the most confusing part of the mod/race specific mechanics lately?

For me these have been:

1. The sector issue: Where you need to first make your homeworld the capital of your first sector and only after that are you able to create other sectors too.

2. Borg expansion: Apparently you should favor Unicomplexes/subcomplexes over planets when you expand as the Borg, as you can build more different sorts of buildings on those complexes than on planets.

3. Do not let some resources go to zero and to production deficit when at war: As this will drop the strength of your fleets/stations dramatically while the deficit continues. (One of these resources is crew/trained officers/drones and energy credits was probably one too.) Also notice that not all resources can be bought!

4. Giving Klingon houses planets: You can give your houses planets and make them happier (and probably stronger too) and you don`t loose the production of those planets. (Or at least this is how it was a little while ago).

5. The limits on the amount of type X building on planets/complexes: When you are about to place a building on a planet/unicomplex you can actually see in the buildings menu how many of that type of building you can place there. For example 3 Fusion reactors. (I know sounds probably silly, but didn`t notice it at first.)

6. The Borg slave (bug?): When playing as the Borg and after conquering, let`s say a planet, you need to click the set rights button with each new species you add to the Collective, since if you don`t you will have some weird assimilated slave populations. (You only have to click the set rights though and go back from there without changing anything.)

7. When choosing which ship systems to focus on choosing more armor requires Trellium-D special resource: And if your empire doesn`t have Trellium-D it cannot be traded from someone else either.

8. At least when playing as the Borg it can be faster to transfer suitable workers from other unimatrixes/planets than to try and adjust the job priorities on the planet/unimatrix in question to get a worker in the desirable job.

9. Instructions on how to fix broken trade routs as the United Federation of Planets by Ael's [FR|StarFleet] [●●] :

Open console with ² (or by pressing Shift + Alt + C)
write: debugtootip (shows id when over with your mouse on an Empire Flag)
write: play [Empire ID] (take over the Empire in question)
Fix the Trade Route (cut the trade rout, then set trade rout again)
write: play [Your Empire ID]

10. When the United Federation of Planets is formed notice that you might get a lot of extra science and construction ships + leaders that take up resources.

 

[Baldamundo]

Is there a list somewhere of what major events are included & which races have a lot of events?

Have got to 2340 in my federation game, and I think I've already unlocked most of the ships (not sure though), and I think have basically become unstoppable, and I'm wondering if there's any point continuing or if I should start a new game (and if so which race to pick).(player snowballing & static lategame is absolutely the biggest problem with Stellaris, vanilla or modded)

The galaxy's become depressingly static - there's only been one war in decades, which is a seemingly interminable one between the Cardassian/Breen vs Ferengia/Sheliak/Nyberrite/Deltan/Benzar. Why have the Borg stopped expanding? They've got an insane number of pops & planets, and are stronger than any of their neighbours, but they don't seem to have done anything in decades.

Are there any late-game events to shake things up - like the vanilla end-game crises or war in heaven?

And a few unrelated questions:

• is the federation ship-builder disabled in this mod or am I just missing how to access it?
• what's the point of the Luna exploration cruiser? it's more expensive than the Galaxy but seems worse in every way?
• has anyone ever seen the AI Dominion become a major power? they seem really weak
• is it working-as-designed that I've never unlocked an upgrade to the shield generator? (the small one that goes in engineering slots)
• is there a list anywhere of mirror-universe empires?

 

[Orinsul]

I know theres a rule about no STO ships, but could STO species/planets/etc find their way into the mod? As some of them are cool and theres plenty fodder for late-game crises

 

[Baldamundo]

The other thing is, that the AI is not building sufficient fleets, even at admiral difficulty, possibly related to the build priority problems, because there is mostly no alloy production on anyone.

Finding this really badly late-game. Playing as the Dominion on Grand Admiral difficulty, by the time I get to about 2400, every other major power has got Overwhelming or Superior tech & economy compared to me, but they all have Inferior or Pathetic fleet. Tag-switching to see what's going on, they mostly have hundreds (if not thousands) of spare income on every resource, 3k+ alloys income, 1000+ spare naval capacity, but they're still not building ships. Very strange.

 

[Neoman]

Is there any development going on with this mod at the time or is the team waiting on the stellaris devs to return?

 

[Chilango2]

This mod has swallowed me alive for the last few weeks, my kudos. It like if BOTF got a sequel.

A question: As United Earth there's a tech you discover that's supposed to unlock a decision to help start terraforming Mars. I think the decision is locked behind an event.
I researched the tech quite some time ago (~10 years in game) the decision isn't there and the event hasn't unlocked. Am I missing something?

 

[Fulgrymm]

Did you build the verteron array or whatever it's called? You need to build that on Mars first before the decision appears.

 

[Chilango2]

Did you build the verteron array or whatever it's called? You need to build that on Mars first before the decision appears.

Well, don't I just feel like a genius now? As soon as I built it the event and decisions were unlocked. Thanks!

 

[Orion88]

Is there any development going on with this mod at the time or is the team waiting on the stellaris devs to return?

There might be something new that has just come out.

Spoiler

Like a new version: NHV 2010 ST: Picard Expansion - (4f224a3e)

 

[robomax]

Did you build the verteron array or whatever it's called? You need to build that on Mars first before the decision appears.

Some of the issue I think is sometimes the AI spams multiple events. I Got Babale One, Bombing at Earth's embassy on Vulcan and Demons all at once.

 

[Tyon]

Sorry for the perhaps stupid question.
Is any Tiny Outliner version compatible with the game and UI mods?

I am 2 fleets, a constructor and 3 science vessels in and I am already annoyed by it.

 

[vonSonnenschein]

Hello there. I am used to New Horizons.. but not to the DLC Federations yet.

I was used to form the UFP due to coalition and waiting for 15 years. With Federations DLC there is no coalition to form. Instead stellaris wiki told me, "A federation can only be created by an empire that adopts the Federation tradition from the Diplomacy tree".

In New Horizons, there is no tradition named or discriped like that. Federation tradition of cause, but also with that adopted, there is no diplomatic option to ally.

How is it meant to be played? Or just to disable Federations DLC?

 

[Tarne]

Hello there. I am used to New Horizons.. but not to the DLC Federations yet.

I was used to form the UFP due to coalition and waiting for 15 years. With Federations DLC there is no coalition to form. Instead stellaris wiki told me, "A federation can only be created by an empire that adopts the Federation tradition from the Diplomacy tree".

In New Horizons, there is no tradition named or discriped like that. Federation tradition of cause, but also with that adopted, there is no diplomatic option to ally.

How is it meant to be played? Or just to disable Federations DLC?

Just keep playing. As long as you are in the Coalition of Planets with the Andorians, Tellarites and/or Vulcans (2 of the three) eventually the Babel conference will occur and then shortly afterwards the UFP will form.

 

[Tarne]

Some of the issue I think is sometimes the AI spams multiple events. I Got Babale One, Bombing at Earth's embassy on Vulcan and Demons all at once.

It's kind of intended to be pretty intensive at the start - you might fail some! It gets easier on repeat playthroughs due to RNG being more forgiving, and you knowing what's coming