I've managed to get a fully built Ring World and 2 other Megastructures (not habitats) built as a DE Machine by 2370, 2350 for the Ring World. That sound about right for anyone? Anyone got any tips for tech rushing as a Machine empire? I start the game only surveying choke points and systems with planets in them while focusing every build slot on unity until I have Supremacy complete and 3 in Expansion, then I turn them all to Alloys so I can fortify my chokepoints and crank out as many Colony ships as planets I have. I try and get 10 planets because I like to have my pop growth kept on normal planets, and I don't need more than 10+ per planet before it gets uncontrollable. Not only that but once I get into repeatables I don't need more than 10 planets for resources when I'm building Ring Worlds and Habitats. I colonise as many planets as possible to get as much pop growth as possible, then I start trying to build up my economy a bit so I can build loads and sustain research and alloy plants. Colonising 10 planets on a good run usually takes me to about 2220+, I don't think I've gotten quicker than that. Building up my economy to support loads of research on top of that usually takes me up to between 2340-2360 depending on how quickly I got all the planets. The reason it takes this long is because I want to have 1 Admin Cap building per planet (maybe 1 Alloy plant per planet) so not only am I below my cap but I can get more research plants on every planet, rather than have one planet with loads of Admin Cap buildings, this way I get a little bit more research once I get Planetary Computers. At this point I can get a lot of tech between 12-20 months, hopefully I'll have one Alloy Plant per planet so I can focus my Engineering tech on Void Craft so I can improve my Bastions, otherwise I'm going to get snowballed by the AI (I play on Grand Admiral with Advanced AI starts). I'll focus my Society research on New Worlds and Statecraft for higher Admin Cap buildings and try to rush Machine Worlds. I'll focus my Physics on energy improvements as well as Strategic resources (I'll also try and get as many as I can from Engineering). Once I have at least Star Fortresses, Cruisers (maybe Battleships), and Climate Restoration as well as all the upgraded Unity buildings, I'll replace all my research buildings with Unity buildings and unity rush all the traditions. I normally finish this early into 2300, before 2310 normally. It's never taken me longer than 2330 to finish terraforming all my planets into Machine Worlds. Once I've done that all my Unity buildings go back into Research buildings until I unlock Megatructures. I research them all and build a Mega Shipyard in a Ring World compatible system, then claim the Ascension perk and research Ring Worlds and build one in the system with the Mega Shipyard as soon as possible. As soon as possible after that I start to shift my energy economy onto that Ring World so the rest of my planets become mineral planets and all of my research buildings become Alloy Plants with a single Unity building on each so I can get 2 Ambitions per Ambition rotation (the amount I can consistently maintain at this stage). Then I build 2 Fortresses per planet for the Naval Cap and build as many megastructures as I can, including Ring Worlds in every viable system and while they are building, crank out my fleets at the Mega Shipyard, led by a Juggernaut. In my current save the year is 2396, I have 3 100K Battleship+Titan fleets led by a 55K Juggernaut with a fourth fleet under construction. The Unbidden on 5X difficulty are making their way across the galaxy and they are invading an empire near me. I want to try and save them but there's a wormhole with fleets pouring through. If I can get the range advantage with one fleet at a time I should be fine, but I don't think that's going to happen
