Current Events > Dick's out for Stellaris

(+) Yeah! (+)

By which I mean, of course, the 3.0 "Philip K. "Dick" update is live. It brings a lot of changes, including a complete rework of how first-contact works: basically, you have an initial phase where you don't really know anything about the aliens you've met and have to pursue various efforts to translate their communications, or maybe sneak by their homeworld and abduct a few of them for interrogation and/or vivisection. Depending on how things go, they might like you much better or much worse(xeno governments frown on you vivisecting their citizens, for inscrutable xeno reasons). You might even wind up fighting them before you even know who they are or where they're from. Alloys and consumer goods are now produced via industrial districts, and the old foundry and factory buildings now simply tilt the job distribution of those districts one way(in addition to a small efficiency boost). You can also now engage in espionage, which I am sure will be dumb and/or terrible, like espionage in 90+% of similar games.

Full patch notes here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/dev-team-3-0-1-patch-released-checksum-c04b.1467165/
Dick is big.

The Nemesis expansion is mostly focused on espionage operations and letting you "Become the Crisis": you can basically dedicate yourself to being evil, conquering worlds, destroying stars, disrupting the Shroud, all for your own nefarious ends. The Galactic Community can also appoint a Galactic Custodian in response to any Galactic crisis. The Custodian has broad powers and military boosts, and can potentially seize control of the Galactic Community and convert it into a Galactic Empire.

I don't know anything about this particular seller, but these are way better deals than you'll find on Steam or the Paradox Store: https://www.wingamestore.com/showcase/Stellaris-Sale/
Including 33% off Nemesis, if you're that excited for it. I'm tempted to pick it up at that price, because it will be a while before it gets discounted that much elsewhere.
As for me...I'll wait for Gulli's Planet Modifiers and Features to update before I dive in. That mod is indispensable.

I thought I was clever, but obviously that is not the case.

On vacation as of Saturday and intend to do a few games.

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Oh yeah: they also reworked Crises a bit. Theyre a bit more random and can spawn early if there are no Fallen/Awakened Empires, neither the Khan nor Grey Tempest are active, and no empire has become the crisis(that doesnt block the Unbidden/Prethoryn/Contingency altogether, just bumps them back 50 years).
You can also choose your crisis in game options too, if you keep getting the same one and want to switch it up.

Does the game still crash because of population issue?

StarDestroyer posted...

Does the game still crash because of population issue?

I dont know that that ever caused crashes regularly, but slowdown is definitely a thing.
The reworked growth mechanics *should* mean there are slightly fewer pops late game, and theyre always making code optimizations and performance improvements, but I doubt theyll ever solve it 100%.

Well, outside of you playing a genocidal empire and solving the problem yourself.

I should really get back into it. I've missed the last few expansions and updates.

Feel like I got burnt out on it way back in the day so this might be a good chance to dive back in.

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I loved the look of this and it seems like something I would like.

Does it cost a couple hundred bucks to get the game and all its expansions?

Ive noticed that trend for games like this and have been sticking to the old stuff where I can grab the complete package for 20-60 bucks.

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Alteres posted...

Does it cost a couple hundred bucks to get the game and all its expansions?

It's the standard Paradox model, so it's not cheap to get every expansion/DLC since there's so much of it.

But it goes on sale pretty regularly and most people say the base game and one big expansion (Utopia is the one everyone mentions) is all that's necessary to start out.

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Base game is 75% off rn on Steam and most of the DLC is half off too btw

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Hmm, thanks for that.

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Doom_Art posted...

It's the standard Paradox model, so it's not cheap to get every expansion/DLC since there's so much of it.

But it goes on sale pretty regularly and most people say the base game and one big expansion (most people say Utopia) is all that's necessary to start out.

Fwiw I have the ps4 version and got both season pass type things on sale. Unlike cities skylines, it seems like there's no other dlc sets that'll be community creator based or whatever and thus not tied in with the season passes.

I'll reinstall when the next update for ps4 drops, I haven't touched it since Christmas when they were about to get a new race.

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I heard it ran poorly on PS4, also how is the control scheme?

I dont have a pc hooked up to the big tv and stellaris on that sounds kinda cool.

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Alteres posted...

I heard it ran poorly on PS4, also how is the control scheme?

I dont have a pc hooked up to the big tv and stellaris on that sounds kinda cool.

The controls are fine, the issues mostly have to do with how they had to dumb down, rework (usually by combining things), or remove stuff.

No galactic senate or slave trading so enslaving people is hands down an unviable build in single player. Traits for your empire/ race are modified slightly, like how you'll decide if you're a xenophobic religious one. And a few other things like that. Makes it so that a rush build is still good, but not overpowering, rush and trap neighbors on 2-3 sides of your empire in the first 20 years levels of effective.

Load times are fine though, only at the end of intervals of 50/100 years when major events are being calculated in the background does the game ever slow to a halt for a solid 30 seconds. Usually it might just stutter for 2-3 when you load up or you're trying to micro manage a bunch of ships in frozen time, then activate it and issue an order for the entire empire.

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Doom_Art posted...

Base game is 75% off rn on Steam and most of the DLC is half off too btw

The store I linked in the OP has even better deals(84% off base game and 75% off most DLC).
I did end up buying Nemesis off it. Got the key right away and it worked and everything. Doesn't look like it quite has everything though.

The good thing about Stellaris is that it's a more mature example of Paradox's new model: whereas CK2 and EU4 tend(ed) to lock a lot of crucial mechanics behind DLC, Stellaris tries to avoid doing that. Some that used to be locked behind expansions were later dumped into the base game. DLCs tend to just lock expansions on things or cool stuff. I can give a quick Stellaris DLC tier-list(this is partly subjective, of course):

Great - Apocalypse, Utopia, Leviathans
Good - Distant Stars, Ancient Relics
Decent - Megacorps, Federations, Synthetic Dawn
Meh - Lithoids, Plantoids, Humanoids, Necroids (Lithoids and Necroids at least have unique mechanics though)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRyuYSSTnCA
Listen to this damned banger and tell me it doesn't get you HYPED!
Just about the only consistently amazing thing about Stellaris is the music direction.