Robots seem unplayable

[gogonuts]

Is anyone else having an impossible time using any robot race after Le Guin?

I find that starting the game I'm often at an energy deficit and it's nearly impossible to reach an equilibrium much less a surplus of energy for any robots, be they exterminators or something friendlier.

I ran at a -50 per month energy deficit for one hundred years and quit when I got frustrated at having to sell off all other resources to just break even. The need to have farms just to produce biofuels I find a bit frustrating as well. Why are Farms a requirement for Robots? Shouldn't they enhance your power energy base rather than be a necessity no matter what since robots don't need to eat?


Am I just bad at managing their particular economy or are robots actually broken?

 

[Danny Pockets]

It depends who you ask. I played ME (murder machines) for the first time post Le Guin and I did not have much of a problem with growth or energy, which is the main complaint. I'm not saying you don't have to do specific things to manage those problems, but I considered that to be part of the robot play style so it didn't bother me. (I also wasn't playing with Glavius AI mod).

However, if you dig through these forums you'll find a number of threads where people are apoplectic about robots being severely nerfed since Le Guin, so you are in good company if that's what you think. Rogue Servitors are meant to be particularly bad post Le Guin.

During my play through, I was playing tall to start with, so that may have been why I was able to manage my energy problems, and I purposefully targeted every possible thing I could to increase growth rates. Also, playing with post 2.2 AI (not with Glavius AI mod) my neighbours were never threatening, so make of that what you will.

 

[Derp]

they're not unplayable but they're extremely weak compared to every other type of empire (normal, megacorp, hive mind)

your economy is balanced on a rail during the early game and it's far more dangerous to REX

it's kind of ironic that a regular empire can colonize a bunch of 20% worlds and still not be as economically pressed as something with 100% on every world

During my play through, I was playing tall to start with,

yeah, and it sucks because stellaris is more REX oriented than ever. pops are power and the more planets you have the more pops you can grow in parallel

I haven't played machines long enough to learn if their unique economic position gives them some kind of sleeper potential, but their early game definitely seems rough

 

[Kunae]

ME currently borked. Worse in the beta branch, but still f'd in the 2.2.3 build.

The problem, currently, is that all conquered pops are default set to exterminate purge rather than chemical processing, ignoring your species settings entirely. That means that the only viable post leGuin strat, doesn't work anymore because your energy production is nuked to oblivion.

 

[Relwin]

Had a game online i had to call for early restart when i figured out on pimitive rush that captial building is not changing, basically making machine empires completely useless for conquest.
The only playable machine empire right now is driven assimilator cause cyborgs.

 

[GonDragon]

They are also unplayable for the CPU. There is a ME I made that I really love, a Rouge Servitors one. I love to have it on my games even when I'm not playing with it. The sad thing is, that it's absolutely clueless about how to manage it's own planets. Generally, a few decades after it's start, the Biotrophys on it's capital rebels. A few years after it conquers a planet (or after I gift it one planet), the planet rebels.

Same thing happens when other ME conquer new planets. It seems that they don know how to delete useless buildings and how to deal with low stability. Also, Rouge Servitors don't know how to manage it's Biotrophys.

 

[Chthon]

2.2.4 has improved the Robot Balance a bit, but you still have to play greedy early on, and hope you don't get into wars. (Talking normal robots, not robot extremists)

By Greedy, I mean colonizing planets, and shuffling populations around to push them to 10 pop only to follow by colonizing another planet, and do this as fast as you can. If you can reach 12 planets by about year 75, you will start to out grow other races, and your economy will really start rolling. Problem is if you get caught up in any real war, it can set you back by decades.

 

[Nakkivene]

I don't find robots unplayable in SP, just take any combination of +energy/-upkeep/-housing/+build cost/+assembly speed and perhaps rockbreakers. Nothing about them is better than organic empires, but you can play a bad empire and make it work.

Rogue Servitors are the worst thing you can possibly do, bio-trophies are ultra-terrible. Just compare the input and output of a system conflux and an organic paradise.

 

[Danny Pockets]

yeah, and it sucks because stellaris is more REX oriented than ever. pops are power and the more planets you have the more pops you can grow in parallel

I haven't played machines long enough to learn if their unique economic position gives them some kind of sleeper potential, but their early game definitely seems rough

I don't agree that it sucks at all. I'm happy to have a different kind of challenge, and see if I can make it work. In fact, that idea of a "sleeper" ME that only becomes powerful later is kind of exactly what I was going for, because what I had in was the return of the intelligent machines in the Dune series (or I guess the Cylons in Battlestar).

For the complaints I've seen about Me, they seem to boil down to people wanting every race to be perfectly balanced with every other race, and for every play style to be available to every race. But why should this be? Why shouldn't empires play differently, and why shouldn't some be harder to play than others?

I don't know what REX means (something something EXpansion I suppose), but playing tall has been emphasised with the latest expansion. It's a perfectly valid play style, so I don't see why it would be a problem for ME to have to pursue that strategy early game.

I feel like so much of these arguments amongst players just boils down to different people wanting Stellaris to be different things, which fall roughly into two camps. You've got your players who just want a 4X (with multiplayer players falling into this camp), and I think they are the ones who want everything to be perfectly balanced because what they care about is figuring out the best min/max strategies etc, i.e. for them the fun is figuring out the optimal strategies and executing them in game.

The other camp are the people who see Stellaris as a way to "role play" (so to speak) through their favourite science fiction settings, who really see Stellaris as the big sci-fi simulator of their dreams. For these players, the more differentiation between empires the better, and balancing and competitiveness be damned!

These two types of players can't be both satisfied by the same things, but Paradox has to try to keep them both happy. And most of these types of arguments, to me, just boil down to these two different types of players shouting passed each other.

 

[Derp]

I don't agree that it sucks at all. I'm happy to have a different kind of challenge, and see if I can make it work. In fact, that idea of a "sleeper" ME that only becomes powerful later is kind of exactly what I was going for, because what I had in was the return of the intelligent machines in the Dune series (or I guess the Cylons in Battlestar).

For the complaints I've seen about Me, they seem to boil down to people wanting every race to be perfectly balanced with every other race, and for every play style to be available to every race. But why should this be? Why shouldn't empires play differently, and why shouldn't some be harder to play than others?

I don't know what REX means (something something EXpansion I suppose), but playing tall has been emphasised with the latest expansion. It's a perfectly valid play style, so I don't see why it would be a problem for ME to have to pursue that strategy early game.

I feel like so much of these arguments amongst players just boils down to different people wanting Stellaris to be different things, which fall roughly into two camps. You've got your players who just want a 4X (with multiplayer players falling into this camp), and I think they are the ones who want everything to be perfectly balanced because what they care about is figuring out the best min/max strategies etc, i.e. for them the fun is figuring out the optimal strategies and executing them in game.

The other camp are the people who see Stellaris as a way to "role play" (so to speak) through their favourite science fiction settings, who really see Stellaris as the big sci-fi simulator of their dreams. For these players, the more differentiation between empires the better, and balancing and competitiveness be damned!

These two types of players can't be both satisfied by the same things, but Paradox has to try to keep them both happy. And most of these types of arguments, to me, just boil down to these two different types of players shouting passed each other.

REX means rapid expansion. it's an old 4x term.

look, no offense, i'm not saying it's bad to play it, but if you need to "see if you can make it work" then it sounds pretty sucky. every other empire type works out-of-the-box, so to speak.

tall play if anything has been de-emphasized in 2.2. expansion penalties are more irrelevant than ever and the expanded economy means you need more minerals, and more pops/buildings to convert them into alloys to convert into ships, to reach the same amount of power that you could easily get in prior editions with a fraction of the effort.

i don't agree at all that those two groups are divided and irreconcilable, or even a meaningful distinction outside of forum threads. i imagine most people play the way I do: they play an empire they like thematically, but they still want to play the game well, and not be hobbled by poor balance and design.

 

[Xephos Demonslayer]

In the latest dev Clash Wiz said that we're all apparently wrong and machine intelligences are balanced. He then proceeded to provide no reasoning behind that claim.

 

[KingAlamar]

My second playthough under 2.2.x was with a vanilla ME Gestault. I seem to recall it was much more difficult than playing an organic megacorp [first playthrough] with the economy never tanking but always balanced on a razor's edge.

Against the vanilla AI you CAN ignore bio-energy and work with traditional energy & mineral districts. I did take bonuses to mining & energy production with my bots so they were adapted to that style of play.

If I recall properly the ME playthrough was my weakest in many tracking stats in early & mid-game and it only wound up being stronger than my first playthrough because I didn't know what I was doing

 

[Subcomandante]

In the latest dev Clash Wiz said that we're all apparently wrong and machine intelligences are balanced. He then proceeded to provide no reasoning behind that claim.

Because he knows it is just the usual gaming hyperbole and hysteria. Everything that is not strictly "the best" is treated as worthless, useless, "hobbled" and should never be used because opportunity cost.

 

[Agamemnic]

I play on grand admiral with no scaling. This setting really exposes which builds shine and those that fail. Without a doubt MEs always end up at the bottom and their economic power is always rock bottom even vs the player.

Hive minds on the other hand are OP. Even when they go wide they're miles ahead on tech

 

[Mastikator]

ME generally don't get access to the awesome agriculture district that produces 50% more raw resources than mining and generator districts do. Giving ME a base +1 energy and mineral production from menial drone jobs would probably cover the difference.

 

[Doomjoon]

In the latest dev Clash Wiz said that we're all apparently wrong and machine intelligences are balanced. He then proceeded to provide no reasoning behind that claim.

I thought he was being ironic? He also claimed that the game is clear of bugs, which he obviously knows is not true.

Besides, AFAIK he did previously on the forum admit that Machine/Synth empires need buffing. (Or I could be wrong and he only said synths.)

 

[Volapyk]

I'm in the middle of a ME playthrough right now on the newest beta patch, and they certainly aren't unplayable but weaker than organics, yup for sure.

The early game energy needs can be met, you just really have to be careful and you will fall behind on something else if you want to REX, I didn't build a second research lab for the first 50 years or so in my game, with the new mineral deposits you can get away with far fewer mining districts and more alloy forges allowing you to somewhat keep up on fleets, starbases and colonization.

But where my organic empires would start to snowball from the early REX and massively outgrow any AI empires coming into the mid game my ME is only slightly ahead, where I would otherwise have everyone else be inferior to me in navy strength, I'm actually only the second strongest empire in the galaxy, with most other empires being only slightly weaker to me. So again unplayable? Not at all. Weaker? Yup for sure.

It isn't only the early game that has energy problems though, I have had to manually stop robot assembly on a bunch of my planets (mostly because I'm too lazy to keep resettling them), because the growth was unsustainable, every single planet has maxed out their energy districts and I was running into energy problems in the early midgame. Once machineworlds stared coming only I have been doing a massive restructuring of quite a few planets, turning them into pure energy generators with building slots only used for Drone Storage, Maintenance Networks, Sentinel Posts and ressource buildings.

I'm in the unique position of actually not wanting more alloy or research production, as I just can't afford the energy requirements, I can't spend my alloys as I can't pay the maintenance for the fleets, despite only having 2 ~40k fleets, hopefully a Dyson Sphere will carry me into the late game and allow me to build up the fleets strong enough to beat the FE and eventual AE and endgame crisis.

Lack of energy production is the main bottleneck for a ME, and it ought to be your primary focus, there are many ways I can see this change, increasing base energy production for ME to 5 or 6 per job would be good, another possibility would be to change all Trade Value deposits to energy deposits for a ME could really help them in the early game, and finally the solar panels for starbases needs a serious buff, 3 energy per module is just a joke it barely covers the cost of the starbase, they need to be at least 5 energy per module, or even more, and they could use a building that increases their effect ala the offworld trade station organics get.

 

[Balamut2227]

ME generally don't get access to the awesome agriculture district that produces 50% more raw resources than mining and generator districts do. Giving ME a base +1 energy and mineral production from menial drone jobs would probably cover the difference.

ME can have bioreactor to convert food into energy in early game.
ME can have Grid Amalgamation slavery type

 

[Attitude Adjuster]

In my current betabranch playthrough at year 2500, the organic empires have 1500+ pops, one has about 3000.

Both of the machine empires have sub 600,

Both of them have access to comparable planet quantity and territory as their organic neighbors, and neither has been overpressed by wars (one actually consumed a fanatical purifier).

I've tried machine starts 3 times in leguinn, each time I've quit because there's much less reward for effort put in, they have no late game to look forward to and their pop growth is like watching paint dry.

Stellaris is about waiting for pops to grow, with organic empires it's easy to get monthly growth of 7.5 and above.

With robots you're still on 3.5 at 2300 and it's not free.

 

[Black_Shade]

They are't unplayable (or weren't until 2.2.4 broke purging), but they are significantly weaker than organic empires.

Things you should do:

1) Take exploration first. This is required. Don't colonize anything until you get the +2 pops on new colonies from exploration. Get to 5 pops on newly colonized worlds immediately by transferring from your home world and other colonized planets.

As an example, if you colonize 3 planets at similar times in the early game, resettle one pop each from your homeworld and 2 of the colonies to the 3rd colony- this will get you to 5 pops on that colony immediately and double the growth rate on that planet. This is why the additional pop from exploration is so important. Then wait for the next pop growth cycle, and transfer to the next colony to get to 5 pops. Then finish up the last colony to 5 pops. Do the same thing to 10 pops, where you resettle all pop growth from all colonies to a single planet to get it to 10 as quickly as possible. A pop 10 planet has triple the growth rate compared to a new colony. You do not want to let the colonies grow to 10 pops naturally without resettling. Getting to 10 pop ASAP is imperative, as the base growth rate for robots is abysmal.

As an aside, I generally don't colonize anything until my homeworld has reached 35-40 pops- that will let you have 2-3 alloy foundries and enough energy districts to have a good surplus, which is necessary for all the resettling you're going to do at the start. 40 pops also means that the planetary administration tech is good to take if it pops up early, as that will also boost your pop growth rate even further.

2) Turn off coordinator and hunter drone jobs on new colonies until they reach ~10 pops. The hunter drones aren't needed until then, and the coordinators a big energy sink that makes colonies an economic blackhole at the start if you don't disable them. If you do this and make your first couple districts energy on new colonies they will be energy neutral/slightly positive from the start! Once you hit 10 pops you can reenable those jobs and it will be fine, but you need a few pops working as technicians first or your economy will tank early on.

3) Try and only have one dedicated shipyard starbase, and make every other starbase filled with solar panels early on. You need those solar panels. Unless you have a scary enemy nearby, try and avoid wasting any starbases on defenses at a chokepoint, because you don't have the energy to spare. Every starbase that isn't on solar panels is costing you a ton of energy. Organic empires have a lot more flexability with their starbases, and can afford to waste a few on things like anchorages or defenses at key areas, but you can't. You need more solar panels. Always more solar panels.

4) Only play with 2.2.3. Patch 2.2.4 breaks pop displacement and gives you the genocide penalties for any type of purging, which means all ME play like exterminators, but without the bonuses. This is... not good.

Sadly, what you should really do though is #5:

5) Play an organic empire. They're just way better. Against the AI it doesn't matter, even on the higher difficulties you can play ME just fine. It's just you'd be twice as strong if you were an organic empire instead of ME.