Modularity is powerful!

[tanny]

Modularity, the supposedly ”boring” one (compared to virtual pops and nanite swarm, that is), is quite powerful. Here is how.

You’re supposed to play it as a regular ascended trait-modifying machine just like bio-ascended pops. However, here’s where it gets amazing.

Let’s add the dark matter engine.

This was supposedly a very powerful trait that’s hard to maintain. +60% resource is nice, but how on earth are you going to get dark matter to support every pop?

Let’s add the dark consortium. The dark consortium got the councilor that allows you to produce dark matter from researchers.

Now, the fun begins!

 

[Skeletr0nKing]

I thought the same thing but haven't tried it.
Does it also boost researcher output to +60%? I mean, does it get you more dark matter from researchers when you use dark consortium?

 

[aadf97799c]

dark matter living metal and housing trait are too strong

 

[hart30]

All 3 machine ascensions are really strong. Nanotech grant upkeepfree swarmer ships, allowing to go over naval cap without repercussions. Infinite ships.
Virtuality is basically all jobs filled immeadely. Infinite pops.
Modularity is strong and fast assembled pops in comparison. Boring mechanic wise, but functionality wise it easily can keep up with the rest.

 

[Hansatron]

I would argue it's almost too powerful. Like when machines got access to synth ascension, that was a nice power boost, but these advanced traits are crazy. I would expect a hefty nerf to a few of them for being real overperformers.

I've attached snips of all of them. The robust variant is kind useless though, as you can make all worlds 100% hab either via techs or machine worlds, and 4 points buys you true immortality (eternal machine) anyways.

You can also get leviathan traits. I've only grabbed the scavenger bot's, but it's clearly inspired by polymelic. +50% assembly speed for 3 points. WOW.

The real juice here, imo, is one of the traditions gives your replicators +0.50 assembly, for a net 50% boost. You can get this pretty early; I actually ran out of places to put robots until i got machine worlds.

Spoiler: Screenshots of Traits

 

[Quinzal]

Dark Matter Engines honestly needs to be nerfed. 1 Dark Matter supports +60% resources for 100 pops? For 3 (EDIT: 2????) points? Insane.

I'm not one to think handing out nerfs is a good solution, but by itself it blows every organic ascension clean out of the water.

 

[Archael90]

Yeah. I too agree it's totally op.
But I really wish to play it once before nerf.

 

[tanny]

I'm not thinking of nerfing anything. Many OP builds already existed and at the end of the day Stellaris is a number-crunching game some really powerful stuff gonna be around every patch. I'd say that it's easy to find an extremely powerful build. (Just do some number crunching.) There have already also been really powerful traits combo before machine age (overtuned, for example). What I think should happen is that other features get added for other strategies to keep up in an arms race.

 

[Archael90]

other features get added for other strategies to keep up in an arms race.

This way we create power spiral and make all things getting out of hand.
Balance should be made from both sides to the designed middle.
Of course some things have to be stronger some weaker, but nothing should be as obvious as +60% resources (including alloys and science) for 0.01 dark matter that can be lowered by bonuses to pop upkeep reduction.

 

[Hansatron]

I'm not thinking of nerfing anything. Many OP builds already existed and at the end of the day Stellaris is a number-crunching game some really powerful stuff gonna be around every patch. I'd say that it's easy to find an extremely powerful build. (Just do some number crunching.) There have already also been really powerful traits combo before machine age (overtuned, for example). What I think should happen is that other features get added for other strategies to keep up in an arms race.

Modularity is already very strong just with the traditions; even if it had no advanced traits at all.

Dark matter engines are completely out of line. I included a screenshot of it in my earlier comment.

Efficient processors costs 3 trait points and gives 5% resources from jobs. That trait is good but not an automatic choice by any means.
Dark matter engines is 2 trait points for 60% resources at a 0.01 dark matter cost. (Or 1 dark matter for 100 pops.) Any modularity empire can get the virtual dark matter power plant building during Transformation situation, so they can assure the ability to buy on the market.

The absolute MOST EXPENSIVE dark matter can go is 120 credits for 1 dark matter. In other words, for just 1.2 energy upkeep before reductions you get +60% resources from jobs.
If this trait was +10% resources it would STILL be worth running. That's how out of line this is.

 

[tanny]

This way we create power spiral and make all things getting out of hand.

I'd say the dark matter engine trait is in line with being semi-realistic. Other things are the ones that are out of lines....
I mean... cats normally have 4-6 kittens in one litter. If you say that cats are rapid breeders, then rapid breeders would have at least +50% growth rate. (or more like +100% or even more)
Gameplay wise, maybe it doesn't make a lot of sense to go that extreme yet, but when there is an opportunity to do so, maybe it's a good idea.

If everything is "OP", nothing is.

 

[MadDemiurg]

I bet devs have some balancing formulas that overvalue strategic resources. Would explain why Inorganic Breath is so bad.

 

[Carl_Bar]

All 3 machine ascensions are really strong. Nanotech grant upkeepfree swarmer ships, allowing to go over naval cap without repercussions. Infinite ships.
Virtuality is basically all jobs filled immeadely. Infinite pops.
Modularity is strong and fast assembled pops in comparison. Boring mechanic wise, but functionality wise it easily can keep up with the rest.

I'm still working my way through Nanite on my solo save and haven't got to Virtuality on the co-op game i have going with my co-op buddy. But i'm not sure thats entirely true of the non-modularity ones.

Virtuality has a severe colony penalty that puts the ideal value at 6 colonies total and producing the equivalent of 9 worth of output, (i'm ignoring any other modifiers that may apply and mess with that calculation, so bear that in mind). Thats good, but even abusing Ringworlds and Emunucopolis theres a fairly hard upper limit on how many jobs you can actually have. And getting that many of those setup whilst having non-pop based supplies of minerals and energy credits to support them is a major ask to pull off.

Nanites, i don't consider the ships very valuable. Unless the last few perk pickups also somehow buff them they're just not very good, high firepower, but they're less than half as durable as a midgame corvette. Your going to lose them in job lots in any kind of fight, which is a huge issue as whilst you can get a lot of nanite income, they're nto THAT cheap.

So far the most powerful thing i've seen is the unique research building. It's a lot of output for it's size and upkeep. But so far everything else has felt very underwhelming. Still need the last tradition perk though to see what that does.

 

[MadDemiurg]

Virtuality's main power is pop growth, not pop efficiency. Arguably you can even go into negatives late game, since you're gonna have so many additive pop output modifiers -25% may not even matter that much. Being able to instantly fill the jobs for any building you build makes your eco explode though. You may hit a hard cap later on, but you can always manage that by releasing or subjugating vassals, small virtual vassals should be really strong. You just get an insane midgame power spike and win from there.

 

[currylambchop]

Dark Matter Engines upkeep is too little. It should be like 5 times or 10 times as much as it currently is. Because you only need a single dark matter to support 100 pops in the current state.

 

[Archael90]

I'd say the dark matter engine trait is in line with being semi-realistic. Other things are the ones that are out of lines....
I mean... cats normally have 4-6 kittens in one litter. If you say that cats are rapid breeders, then rapid breeders would have at least +50% growth rate. (or more like +100% or even more)
Gameplay wise, maybe it doesn't make a lot of sense to go that extreme yet, but when there is an opportunity to do so, maybe it's a good idea.

If everything is "OP", nothing is.

I disagree on so many levels...
I will ignore cat exaple since rl is irrelevant to this discussion. We can talk about traits balance according to rl, but now we are talking about trait balance towards other traits and in-game stuff.
So I will reply only to last statement:
If everything is OP, nothing is.
Generally it's true, but only if you manage to make EVERYTHING OP. Which would require total overhaul of lot of game mechanics, not only numbers.
But
Making everything op, means that game would be balanced (on op level comparing to current one, but all would be at same level after overhauls). And if we are going to balance regardless of means, much easier is to pick some lower point than "op" and balance towards it so that over performing stuff are getting nerfs, and underperforming ones are getting buffs (like death cult civic should. Or genetic ascension with gene modification in particular).

 

[Ikael]

I, for one, welcome racial traits being actually relevant and powerful even in the late game.

Fine-tuning and balancing them will be necessary, but I am certainly not opposed to a "high cost, high reward" type of traits (read: make Dark Matter Engines be more costly instead of weaker), nor against traits like those provided by space fauna being straight out superior to regular ascension traits.

Let people have their fun (as long as it offers a properly balanced "investment VS reward").

 

[Imp0815]

I just want to chime in and say that all these incremental stacking numbers are mostly overpowered as they feed into an endlessly scaling mechanic that is Fleetpower. Every increase in Research, Pops, and Resources is a direct or indirect way to scale up your Fleetpower, which in turn allows you to scale even more, one way or another. If we really care about balance in this regard, we should start talking about how the snowball rolls and why, and try to find different game loops besides stacking Fleetpower.

 

[LiZinckle]

Well, I guess we can enjoy them while we can, because it would probably not be long before a nerf.

But again. Are they balanced? No. Are they fun? Yes.

 

[tanny]

death cult civic should. Or genetic ascension with gene modification in particular

Death cult with the clone army origin or many other ways you gain pops for sacrifice (such as from migration, raiding, or subjects) and overtuned genetic ascension are already OP let alone playable.