That Broken Megacorp Voidborne Empire Setup

[MordridBlack]

I'm hoping someone knows what I'm talking about. With Megacorp coming to consoles soon, this popped into my head as I remember it being all kinds of broken. The main issue I'm having is the fact that I can't remember how to go about setting it up anymore.

If anyone remembers what it was please feel free to share [make sure any traits/civics existed in 2.2.7 otherwise the information will be a bit useless]

 

[Darth.]

Ehhh the broken Megacorp build was set on the Shattered Ring iirc. And I'm sure they'd have patched it out before release in console edition, by setting all your pops to Ringworld preference (this is being done/has been done in pc - not entirely positive, the DD was recently and I'm not sure if it made it into 2.8 or if it's coming in 2.9).

The broken Voidborne build is Lithoid Technocracy + Slaver Guilds >> Synthetic Ascension, since you can just skip building hydroponics on the Habitats completely and use those building slots for research and alloys.

Edit: Thinking back, I'm fairly sure it was not a Megacorp Authority build, but a normal empire with the Merchant Guilds civic + Shattered Ring. I think.

 

[OnyxAbussos]

Megacorps with Void Dweller is very powerful though.

With ALL builds, Ringworld is stronger than Voiddweller, but VD is still great (teehee). Any specifics you give it are just the cherry in top.

IIRC, people were enjoying Authoritarian, indentured assets, Materialist, and... uh... private prosperpectors, and... xenophobic, maybe?

 

[Less2]

With ALL builds, Ringworld is stronger than Voiddweller, but VD is still great (teehee).

Untrue. Void Dwellers will have more growth, which is the essential factor.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

Untrue. Void Dwellers will have more growth, which is the essential factor.

That's only true until the guaranteed habitable worlds are settled and up to 10 pops. At that point, the growth penalty of VD means you will fall far behind other empires in growth, since getting a 4th habitat up takes ages, even considering the 10% growth penalty on the 80% habitability guaranteed worlds. That's especially true when you remember that new colonies give extra pops if you go Expansion first.

VD gets a bit of a head start in population against non-hives and non-Prosperous-Unification empires, but you'll probably never overtake a PU empire in terms of total population in the very early game (everything goes out the window once conquest comes into play) and you won't overtake a ringworld for long if it's quick to settle planets.

Of course, all of the above is based on the legacy design of Shattered Ring, where pops didn't end up with RW habitability. Under the new design, they will definitely grow slower than VD until they can find a way to get around the crappy habitability.

 

[Mastikator]

I tend to force spawn an AI empire with fanatical xenophile pacifist megacorp, pops have the thrifty and charismatic traits. It adds up to a very powerful mega corp empire that is also a force for good in the galaxy. Really helps to have them as trading partners.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

Ringworld is definitely the stronger start. Even with ringworld preference most likely.

Getting the fourth habitat up and running isn't so difficult. I think I managed to get it done with 10-15 years. Stacking all those buffs to slaves / workers can get you so much income Boni it's insane.

 

[Less2]

That's only true until the guaranteed habitable worlds are settled and up to 10 pops. At that point, the growth penalty of VD means you will fall far behind other empires in growth, since getting a 4th habitat up takes ages, even considering the 10% growth penalty on the 80% habitability guaranteed worlds. That's especially true when you remember that new colonies give extra pops if you go Expansion first.

VD gets a bit of a head start in population against non-hives and non-Prosperous-Unification empires, but you'll probably never overtake a PU empire in terms of total population in the very early game (everything goes out the window once conquest comes into play) and you won't overtake a ringworld for long if it's quick to settle planets.

Of course, all of the above is based on the legacy design of Shattered Ring, where pops didn't end up with RW habitability. Under the new design, they will definitely grow slower than VD until they can find a way to get around the crappy habitability.

Void Dwellers can settle habitable worlds just fine. Just explore the galaxy and make a migration treaty. It's rare that they are behind much at all. Even if you don't get one immediately you can colonize with a void dweller and force growth of the -10% race rather than the -60% version which gives you a total penalty of only -30%. That's comparable with the penalty lithoids get everywhere (better if you have rapid breeders, which you should). From then build robots and resettle off planet until you migrate in pops with good habitability. Void dweller is especially advantaged by Expansion ideas, after all they settle the most colonies AND their habitats don't need a lot of expensive resettlement and capital upgrading, they just put the two pops straight to work and already have a building slot to make a robot assembly plant.

Habitats are very, very cheap, 1500 alloys is not much at all. Building a habitat every 5 years only requires a surplus of +25 alloy production. Depending on your production modifiers that means you need merely around 2 or 3 alloy foundaries to sustain this rate of construction. Checking a recent save, by 2240 I have 8 colonized worlds and 10 habitats finished and colonized with another 2 habitats in construction.

Spoiler

As you can see a very good research rate was still maintained, this wasn't me rushing alloys 100% (also of note, 100 per month of my minerals was being dumped into sectors to test how they worked). I doubt very highly that you're going to be able to find a pacifist gameplay style (not conquering pops) that can get 18 colonized planets on 1x habitability. And you're certainly not going to unlock habitats for a long time, by the time you do you won't catch up. By 2280 the count was 10 colonized worlds and 28 habitats, with habitats continually constructed at a rate as fast as influence allows, which was about one every year and a half with my influence gain.

To compare habitat tall play with conquest, normally on GA when I want to conquer my first empire I need to amass something like 60 corvettes along with making a lot of stations. That's probably ~7500 alloys just to get started with a conquest game, enough to build 5 habitats. Plus corvettes die constantly and need to be replaced.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

force growth of the -10% race rather than the -60% version which gives you a total penalty of only -30%

You forgot the habitability penalty (separate from the void dweller penalty!), which will be 50% unless you have bonuses to it.

1500 alloys is not much at all. Building a habitat every 5 years only requires a surplus of +25 alloy production

Huh, yeah, that's only about half of an early-game fleet, barely anything during the colonization rush</sarcasm>. +25 alloy surplus for five years... while building no military or even outposts or civvie ships whatsoever. Plus a huge whack of influence per hab as well (well, I guess you'll have that if you aren't building outposts, but it's not like you'll be able to Rival anybody). Also, each settled habitat costs alloys in upkeep.

Additionally, don't forget that there are more costs to such rapid expansion. You need to pay for the colony ships too, and also each colony will cause 5 empire sprawl. The starting jobs of habitats are better, but they still won't net positive resources for a little while.

 

[Less2]

You forgot the habitability penalty (separate from the void dweller penalty!), which will be 50% unless you have bonuses to it.

Everyone has those kinds of penalties. Except void dweller in habitats.

Huh, yeah, that's only about half of an early-game fleet, barely anything during the colonization rush</sarcasm>. +25 alloy surplus for five years... while building no military or even outposts or civvie ships whatsoever. Plus a huge whack of influence per hab as well (well, I guess you'll have that if you aren't building outposts, but it's not like you'll be able to Rival anybody). Also, each settled habitat costs alloys in upkeep.

Additionally, don't forget that there are more costs to such rapid expansion. You need to pay for the colony ships too, and also each colony will cause 5 empire sprawl. The starting jobs of habitats are better, but they still won't net positive resources for a little while.

If you are running slavery then you'll have like +80% or so alloy production so, yeah, it's pretty cheap actually. It also doesn't really matter whether you think it's expensive or cheap, because growth is king. Builds that have more early game growth easily stomp those without. If you have a ringworld game even approaching that amount of growth then please show it.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

you can colonize with a void dweller and force growth of the -10% race rather than the -60% version which gives you a total penalty of only -30%

Everyone has those kinds of penalties. Except void dweller in habitats.

Sure, if they settle Tomb Worlds. But guaranteed planets aren't Tomb Worlds, they're 80% habitable (+/- a bit for modifiers). To a void dweller, every planet (except Gaia, Ecu, and Relic) is as bad as a Tomb World even before the Void Dweller trait in particular affects anything. So no, you can't just colonize with void dwellers and reduce the growth penalty to only 30%.

If you are running slavery then you'll have like +80% or so alloy production

Hmm, checking the numbers at game start for the optimal, maximized case:
+15% Void Dweller, +10% Slaver Guilds, +10% Fanatic Authoritarian, +10% Slave Optimizations, +10% Iron Fist, +2% governor level.
That's +57%, of which 40% depends on your metallurgists being Indentured Laborers. 100% stability would bring it up to +87% but a more realistic (and still good, for early game in a slaver empire) 75% stability gives an additional 15%, for a total of 73%. Call it ~75% because it doesn't take long to level the governor once. It's also worth noting that every part of that except the Void Dweller trait is available to other origins (and some origins, like Prosperous Unification or Life-Seeded, get a similar-sized production bonus from the planet itself and a happiness bonus that gives a bit more stability).

So Void Dwellers get 15% (of base) more production than other non-PU non-LS empires but also need to pay alloy upkeep on their habitats (partially offset by the generator on the "homeworld"). Given how low base alloy production is, they're definitely not winning there until their population grows significantly. They start with lower total population than a planetary Megacorp (even if they are a megacorp themselves, last I checked) or Prosperous Unification, though faster population growth than even a Mechanist or Hive until the non-Void-Dwellers expand. Non-VD can expand twice much earlier than VD can expand once unless guaranteed worlds were turned off and possibly even then unless running very low habitable planets - you're just flat out not going to be able to even start building a new habitat, much less finish one, before the planet-dwellers have their colonies settled assuming half-competent exploration - and that's assuming you reserve no alloys for ships or stations AND you don't bother with staying under sprawl (which is a valid tactic for everybody; starting with bureaucrats is stupid).

Interactions with your neighbors are the real gamble, and depend on both how crowded of a galaxy you generate, how far away people spawn, and what kinds of neighbors you get. An expansion/boom focused VD will presumably retrofit and then scuttle their starting ships and not build any more; this is optimal for alloy production but makes you a sitting duck to anybody who can muster even a basic early-game fleet of 15 or so t1 corvettes (which cost exactly the same as a basic habitat) to knock over your starbase. A friendly neighbor who is willing to Guarantee you rather than pluck you like a ripe fruit could make things very easy, but anything else is a significant risk whereas an empire using those alloys for ships would just go conquer their planets, possibly including homeworld, and have both more population AND more population growth than the VD. Obviously this also depends on what you're playing against; normal AI difficulty (or GA but scaling) is a cakewalk even if you're a spiritualist Lithoid or something similarly stupid, but Starnet normal or GA no scaling will be more challenging (peaking at different times) and Starnet GA non-scaling will be a disaster for the build you describe.

If left alone for the first 20 years, Void Dwellers might conceivably have more colonies at the end of that time than a normal empire if the normal empire got really unlucky with habitable worlds, but even at 0.25x habitable it'd probably come out about a wash (though the VD might have more total population by then since they got a head start on growth... but also might not, against a PU or Mechanist or Hive or even lithoid using Calamitous Birth and digging up the hibernating ones).

 

[generalis Julius Caesar]

I tend to force spawn an AI empire with fanatical xenophile pacifist megacorp, pops have the thrifty and charismatic traits. It adds up to a very powerful mega corp empire that is also a force for good in the galaxy. Really helps to have them as trading partners.

Edit: Changed there to their

Same, and their named Paradox Interactive Fanatic xenophile, materialist, media conglomerate, brand loyalty

 

[Less2]

snip

You're assuming no migration treaties? That seems really silly. I've never had a problem getting migration with someone almost immediately and settling with them.

You also need to take into account trading base resources with AIs for alloys which is incredibly profitable early game, and you can use your pops better for it since you don't have to spend like 1000 energy and 500 minerals to resettle and upgrade capital and you have both perfect habitability and better base production to start with. All that adds up to around 250-500ish alloys you could have gotten through trade per habitat you set up vs. colonizing a planet.

Also we're comparing with a Ringworld going for a research opening. The idea of building a fleet isn't exactly on the cards. Both sides have the gameplan of diplomatizing the neighbors and either securing NAPs/federation or just keeping them happy. But if you DO want a fleet, the void dweller already has both comparable or better research than the ringworld AND significant alloy production that can be redirected into ships. Because it has more pops, and pops are king.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

There are even more boni in the domination tradition tree with worker and slave output +10 % and the extended shifts +10-20% (don't remember what it was).

Also not sure how you get problems with AIs. I have it set to aggressive and hardly get attacked. You can just place down a couple of starbases and use your envoys to secure a favourable alliance.

Will look for that savefile where I used the empire plus the additional challenge of not colonizing planets.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

You're assuming no migration treaties? That seems really silly. I've never had a problem getting migration with someone almost immediately and settling with them.

You also need to take into account trading base resources with AIs for alloys which is incredibly profitable early game, and you can use your pops better for it since you don't have to spend like 1000 energy and 500 minerals to resettle and upgrade capital and you have both perfect habitability and better base production to start with. All that adds up to around 250-500ish alloys you could have gotten through trade per habitat you set up vs. colonizing a planet.

Also we're comparing with a Ringworld going for a research opening. The idea of building a fleet isn't exactly on the cards. Both sides have the gameplan of diplomatizing the neighbors and either securing NAPs/federation or just keeping them happy. But if you DO want a fleet, the void dweller already has both comparable or better research than the ringworld AND significant alloy production that can be redirected into ships. Because it has more pops, and pops are king.

You don't need to resettle 10 pops (1000 energy if they're workers, or only 500 if they're slaves), resettling 8 (400 energy for a slaver empire) is enough to get started on the capital immediately, if that's your goal. As for trading, AIs value alloys much more than minerals or energy even after the 4:1 conversion ratio; unless they absolutely love you or are desperately short of what you're offering, you probably won't even get 250 alloys for 1000 energy + 500 minerals, and getting 500 alloys for that... the AI is amazingly dumb, sometimes, so I'm not going to say "impossible", but I've never seen an offer anywhere near that good.

If you can reliably get somebody to open a migration treaty with you in the first 20 years of the game when you don't even have a fleet, you're playing on WAY too easy of difficulty (which goes way beyond just the difficulty slider and scaling option, though probably those are relevant too). Lots of things are possible if you set the AI on "herp derp friends time" mode; basically none of them work against competent opponents (or even as close to competent as Starnet can manage, which isn't perfect). That's not to say they aren't a valid way to play the game, but this thread is about how overwhelmingly powerful a certain build is supposed to be, and that kind of claim falls very flat if you don't have serious opposition.

Who is "we" who were comparing research output in particular? The claim I responded to was purely about pop growth and how powerful of a bonus it was to Void Dwellers, to which I pointed out that VDs very rapidly fall behind population-wise unless they can conquer, which requires not spending the alloys on new habitats in the early game.

There are even more boni in the domination tradition tree with worker and slave output +10 % and the extended shifts +10-20% (don't remember what it was).

Also not sure how you get problems with AIs. I have it set to aggressive and hardly get attacked. You can just place down a couple of starbases and use your envoys to secure a favourable alliance.

Right, I guess if you're not settling planets or building a military and you're going all-in on slavery then going Domination first makes sense. It'll still take a while to unlock that stuff but VD do actually have unusually high Unity production in the early game (more Administrators than normal), so yeah, that's viable. It still takes a fair bit of luck to get *all* the relevant bonuses, and especially do so without crashing your happiness, and it still will take some time to unlock that many traditions (i.e. you won't have those bonuses at the actual start of the game), but you can get them quickly.

To "plop down" a couple starbases is a lot easier said than done when you're saving every alloy for new habitats. It's a viable strategy, but the enemy (if competent) will just go around the edge of the system out of range of the starbases unless you get interdiction up early, or will simply go around the systems entirely. Also, no amount of starbase can hold of concentrated fleets, and while a fleet that can take down an early-game bastion is indeed a lot of alloys, it's not hard to win an early offensive war against an enemy who isn't putting just as much focus into their fleet as you are into yours, much less one that isn't focusing on fleet at all.

Grand Admiral, without scaling, will generally produce at least mildly opportunistic AIs. Genocidals in particular will usually attack extremely quickly. To really see a competent enemy, though, go for mods (stuff like Starnet), which can be very effective even without the higher difficulty's huge bonuses and also is just very, very opportunistic and will almost certainly attack somebody so weak. Human opponents with any skill at the game will also obviously not let somebody who is going such a boom-focused and relatively defenseless start get anywhere, not when they could just take over your whole empire and get those colonies and beautifully productive pops for so cheap.

 

[Less2]

You don't need to resettle 10 pops (1000 energy if they're workers, or only 500 if they're slaves), resettling 8 (400 energy for a slaver empire) is enough to get started on the capital immediately, if that's your goal. As for trading, AIs value alloys much more than minerals or energy even after the 4:1 conversion ratio; unless they absolutely love you or are desperately short of what you're offering, you probably won't even get 250 alloys for 1000 energy + 500 minerals, and getting 500 alloys for that... the AI is amazingly dumb, sometimes, so I'm not going to say "impossible", but I've never seen an offer anywhere near that good.

AIs constantly run short of stuff. Who knows why?

If you can reliably get somebody to open a migration treaty with you in the first 20 years of the game when you don't even have a fleet, you're playing on WAY too easy of difficulty (which goes way beyond just the difficulty slider and scaling option, though probably those are relevant too). Lots of things are possible if you set the AI on "herp derp friends time" mode; basically none of them work against competent opponents (or even as close to competent as Starnet can manage, which isn't perfect). That's not to say they aren't a valid way to play the game, but this thread is about how overwhelmingly powerful a certain build is supposed to be, and that kind of claim falls very flat if you don't have serious opposition.

What? Having a fleet has basically nothing to do with making the AI like you. That's almost entirely up to ethics (which is random, but at least you have a lot of AI empires to check your RNG with) and policies (which you do have under control). Difficulty doesn't substantially modify AI diplomacy either. Just build a dozen science vessels to explore and find someone who happens to like you.

Who is "we" who were comparing research output in particular? The claim I responded to was purely about pop growth and how powerful of a bonus it was to Void Dwellers, to which I pointed out that VDs very rapidly fall behind population-wise unless they can conquer, which requires not spending the alloys on new habitats in the early game.

"we", i.e. the thread.

If you have higher pop growth than I posted evidence of, please show it.

To "plop down" a couple starbases is a lot easier said than done when you're saving every alloy for new habitats. It's a viable strategy, but the enemy (if competent) will just go around the edge of the system out of range of the starbases unless you get interdiction up early, or will simply go around the systems entirely. Also, no amount of starbase can hold of concentrated fleets, and while a fleet that can take down an early-game bastion is indeed a lot of alloys, it's not hard to win an early offensive war against an enemy who isn't putting just as much focus into their fleet as you are into yours, much less one that isn't focusing on fleet at all.

Grand Admiral, without scaling, will generally produce at least mildly opportunistic AIs. Genocidals in particular will usually attack extremely quickly. To really see a competent enemy, though, go for mods (stuff like Starnet), which can be very effective even without the higher difficulty's huge bonuses and also is just very, very opportunistic and will almost certainly attack somebody so weak. Human opponents with any skill at the game will also obviously not let somebody who is going such a boom-focused and relatively defenseless start get anywhere, not when they could just take over your whole empire and get those colonies and beautifully productive pops for so cheap.

What are you talking about? Multiplayer? AIs being competent? This isn't the point of the thread and doesn't exist at all respectively.

Again anyone going for a ringworld research gambit isn't exactly producing alloys anyway. A Habitat player can delay a habitat to churn out a few starbases if needed, a ringworld player producing no alloys at all cannot without overhauling their economy, at which point they need to overhaul it back to research once they don't have a use for alloys. And yes, early game starbases with 4 hanger bays can pretty well bloody GA AIs. Against genocidals you'll want a decent fleet to soak up the first wave or two ontop of the habitat but past that you can hold them back indefinitely with just the starbase as they continually attack and are repelled.

 

[SaintD]

The only real hilarity I found with a Megacorp was a ludicrous habitability species with Private Prospectors. Just shit out Colony ships for no alloys cost and colonize everythiiiiiiiiiiiing.