Stellaris

[Huw the Poo]

, Maybe I'm the asshole here. I've asked before and I get answers like "watch "let's play on YouTube "but is there a manual or something? I can't figure out what the hell I'm supposed to be doing and there's no manual anywhere. Is it really an excuse for producing a game this big without a manual?

They would probably say that the game will evolve too much for a manual, which is at least somewhat fair, but yeah, it might have been nice.

SDR: What feedback do you think you aren't getting?  In my sectors I can look at any planet, see what they're producing, see what the sector as a whole is producing, etc.  I can see everything within a sector that I can with the planets I directly control.

[Rayfer]

Had a scientist disappear. It turned into a quest of sorts to find him (which I haven't yet succeeded in doing). He apparently developed a new space craft modification and flew off to somewhere I have yet to find. This game has all sorts of random events that pop up from time to time. Quite well done.

Lol.. I did a lil 'cheat' today.. My Science Ship was under attack by some aliens with no military fleets near by to come rescue. I hit Pause and boogied to my Research lab and replaced one of those scientist with the one in the ship. LOL lost the ship of course but averted total disaster (influence points are too precious)!

Brilliant...!

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

, Maybe I'm the asshole here. I've asked before and I get answers like "watch "let's play on YouTube "but is there a manual or something? I can't figure out what the hell I'm supposed to be doing and there's no manual anywhere. Is it really an excuse for producing a game this big without a manual?

They would probably say that the game will evolve too much for a manual, which is at least somewhat fair, but yeah, it might have been nice.

SDR: What feedback do you think you aren't getting?  In my sectors I can look at any planet, see what they're producing, see what the sector as a whole is producing, etc.  I can see everything within a sector that I can with the planets I directly control.

I want to know what they're going to produce next, where, in what order, and how each step is going to affect the economy.

[Huw the Poo]

but you only get 3 research options, so it's not like I can choose what I need

You can choose between those three! ;)

Currently, unless I've missed the obvious, you only get shown your 3 options.

True, you "only" get three options, out of three separate branches, remember.  Every option is always desirable, though, and since it seems to be randomised you can't really claim that you're missing out on anything.

If anything, it's a lot more interesting than the tech trees of games like Civ, where you'll follow the same basic pattern in every game.  Personally I find Stellaris's approach to be much more interesting.

[Huw the Poo]

I want to know what they're going to produce next, where, in what order, and how each step is going to affect the economy.

What?  Why?  Besides, you can see what's being built.  As to what they might build next, that depends on what you've told them to do.  I have one of my sectors focusing on research.  Lo and behold, I go check on them later and the worlds are all covered in research labs.  I really don't know what more you can expect of it...?

[Jarhead0331]

I don't really understand the logic behind PREVENTING the player from controlling production within sectors. I get the rationale behind automating it, but shouldn't the player be able to intervene if desired?

One thing I really like is the formation and management of alliances and then alliances into federations. Its a system with a lot of potential for usefulness, complexity and depth.

[tgb]

Re disappearing scientists - if you have some form of democracy, often at least one of the candidates in the next election is one of your scientists.  Better double-check before making a recommendation.

I find that enjoyment of the game is very much dependent on starting position, which is of course, random.  My last game I had plenty of energy to mine, but no materials anywhere.  The game before that had just the opposite - lots of material mines and research stations to be built, but not enough energy to support them.

GalCiv II had a hot key that let you generate a new map without having to create a new game again.  I wish there was one here.

[ghostryder]

If you go to paradox's forum and read the thread the main gripe on sectors is exactly not being able to intervene. Also you can give--but not take---credits--resources-ect---and setting up costs influence in every step--  again mods are out to deal with some issues-like the influence costs. The other gripe is the A.I. is very poor at developing planets and most players turtle because they want to fully develop planets before turning them over to sector management. There's mods that increase core control to say 10---which would help---as opposed to the ones that allow 995 that remove sectors altogether. Like diplomancy this needs DLC.

Above question on influence on elections---in my game with indirect democracy the leader will have a mandate---say research stations--and the mission may be build 5 research stations. If you DO NOT build them they'll lose the election for failing to fulfill their promise.. other forms of governments I'm not sure about.

Things to note---there's already a 40k mod---look at the "collections' section---as your choice in selecting is full conversion where you play 40k races or---choose the portraits/music where you can create a 40k race--like the imperials- to play along with the default races of stellaris. Lots of 40k fans here will like the mod I Imagine. I've played both versions--it's dome pretty well at this early stage.

Another mod I recommend is ring world start. On race creation you choose ringworld, destroyed ringworld or super ringworld or damaged ringworld---mostly the choices intale how many colonizable sectors the ringworld has--with Super having 8 or 9. Since these sectors are like Huge planets-with a lot of building blocks--it's certainly a cheat to get an early foothold.

The mass effect Asari mod is pretty good --but no other races have appeared as of yet except for a Mass effect music mod.

No star trek mods out there-there is some Star wars portraits mods and 1 race mode. Overall only the 40k mod is akin to being complete--though it is still being built upon.

I'm still too busy playing to start on a nakid vixens of Orion mod  O0

[OJsDad]

Below is a screenshot of my sectors from my current game.

1.  First, I have my mouse cursor over my minerals at the top of the screen.  As you can see, it me how much I'm producing and how much my sectors are producing.  Hovering over energy, and the three research indicators at the top provide the same information.

2.  Then look at the sectors themselves.  Looking Girdwood Sector, third one down, you'll see my governor, Fabrizio Di Robilant.  Under his name, you'll see a planet icon with 1.  That is how many colonized planets are in that sector.  The next icon over is the total size of all of the colonized planets for that sector.  So the next sector down, Acropolis Sector, has 2 colonized planets with a total of 33 squares.  The third icon shows the total population in that sector, 10 for the Acropolis Sector.

3.  Then you can see the resource icons for the sector.  The numbers you see are what is being sent to the mother country.  If you add up the minerals, you'll see that it adds up to 41, which, when hovering over the empire minerals, says I'm getting 41.77 from my sectors.  One of the things that can be confusing, is that the numbers are whole numbers here, but as you can see, there is a two place decimal value.  In fact, when I added my sectors energy contribution, it's pretty short of what my empire says I'm getting from my sectors.

4.  The next two icons with the arrows going to the right, allow you to send resources from your empire stock to the sectors.  The numbers to the right are the total that each sector has and how much is going into the sectors bucket.  If you over the mouse over those numbers, you'll see the exact production, 3.12, etc.

5.  The next four icon on the top row allow you to tell your sectors what you want them to focus on building, military, industrial, research, and financial.  You don't have to pick any.  The first option below the icon tells the sector if they can replace existing buildings and the next one down says if they have to build according to the tile resources.

6.  The next icon with the arrow going to the left lets you adjust how much energy and mineral get sent to the empire.  This can be incremented by 25% increments.

7.  The button labeled Manage Sector allows you to adjust the systems that are part of the sector.

[OJsDad]

BTW, one thing I miss is the game log from the other Paradox games.  One you dismiss a message, there's no way to go back and find it.  Or am I missing something.

[Tuna]

BTW, one thing I miss is the game log from the other Paradox games.  One you dismiss a message, there's no way to go back and find it.  Or am I missing something.

There is a console. I got into it by mistake the other night.. maybe that has a command that can bring up the log.

[OJsDad]

Also, on research.  I've seen a research option that will give you 4 research projects to choose from.  I've also destroyed some crystal monsters.  When you destroy them, you can use a science ship to exam the remains.  This usually gives research points to other tech.  These techs are listed as available research in addition to the 3 standard ones. 

[Barthheart]

OJ, how many planets do you have in total? I ask because I'm curious why you have so many 1 and 2 planet sectors?

I have 7 total colonized planets. I have only one sector with my 2 newest planets in it and the my original 5 planets held outside of any sector.

And JH, I'm not sure what you mean but you can't intervene in sector production? I can got to a sector planet and order it to build ships, upgrade it's base. Have it build a constructor then order the constructor around to set up mines and research stations within the sector..... Do you mean individual planet squares? Haven't tried to screw with those yet but will give it a try.

[JudgeDredd]

but you only get 3 research options, so it's not like I can choose what I need

You can choose between those three! ;)

Currently, unless I've missed the obvious, you only get shown your 3 options.

True, you "only" get three options, out of three separate branches, remember.  Every option is always desirable, though, and since it seems to be randomised you can't really claim that you're missing out on anything.

If anything, it's a lot more interesting than the tech trees of games like Civ, where you'll follow the same basic pattern in every game.  Personally I find Stellaris's approach to be much more interesting.

Maybe - but imo it removes "control" from you. You're selecting from a path given to you by the game and, worse, you have no idea what route that is taking you. And as for following a basic pattern every game, that's just simply not the case (at least for me). I would never know or remember what path I followed, game to game. So there is no pre-determined path. You are probably more likely to follow a pre-determined path here...but it isn't your pre-determined path...it's the developers.


As an example, I want to upgrade my Spaceport to the second level, but hovering over it I'm informed I am "Missing Technology:Improved Spaceport". Now, it does not tell me what type of technology that comes under, and it doesn't tell me where abouts it is or will become available or indeed any pre-requisites. I'm just left thinking "I need the New Spaceport technology to build that"...that's it.

Another example is I hover over a planet and I want to Terraform it (whatever that does...I genuinely to not know - perhaps it removes the tiles you can't build on without you having to clear them individually??) and I'm told I need "Terrestrial Sculpting". Again, I have no idea where that is in the "chain" of technologies I can get to and no indication (visual or otherwise) of when I will get there. I just know it's under the Society Technology.

A lot of people might be ok with plodding along and selecting one of 3 options in each of the 3 research categories, but I am of the mind that if you are just clicking on options presented to you with no idea of what's ahead or what's important or how to get to those wanted technologies, then I'm not actually really in control of research...I'm just taking what they give me and making a very basic choice.

It's a minor issue, honestly. I don't have a huge problem with the way it's implemented. I would just like to see where I'm heading and that the thing I need to research is on it's way somewhere

QUESTION
I put that in bold so it didn't get lost in my little issue with research

How do I find out what I have already researched?


EDIT
Forget my question....sorry, there's a BIG RESEARCHED button when viewing your current research to show you what you have previously researched and you can click on each category to see what's already been researched

[JudgeDredd]

I now have a question I simply cannot find the answer to....how do I increase my borders?

My controlled area is now saturated and I want to start expanding. I've tried all the things I can think of...I have created Military Outposts, Frontier Stations, colonised planets where possible, created a sector all in the hope of seeing that big blue controlled area expand...and nothing has pushed the "blue boundary" any further out.

I have pushed my research ship out and surveyed the systems, but I have no idea what I need to do to allow those systems to be brought under my influence.


Nevermind. It's Frontier Outpost. I have already created a FO in another system and obviously forgot how that expanded the blue used to display my influence in the systems. Sorry. I've left my daft question up rather than remove all evidence of my stupidity...in case anyone else suffers a brain fart