Stellaris

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Jozu

Jozu

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Thats what Im not understanding. I think I am too quick to just throw my hands up and quit a game as soon as I see such a threat. When the Great Khan shit happened I managed to build 40k fleet but got raped and they had many more fleets. I had all star fortresses with defense units. Should I just hang in even if I lose multiple star systems and my economy is fucked?

This game has a huge learning curve, or I am just retarded. Probably a bit of both.
 
Burns

Burns

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Jozu said:
Thats what Im not understanding. I think I am too quick to just throw my hands up and quit a game as soon as I see such a threat. When the Great Khan shit happened I managed to build 40k fleet but got raped and they had many more fleets. I had all star fortresses with defense units. Should I just hang in even if I lose multiple star systems and my economy is fucked?

This game has a huge learning curve, or I am just retarded. Probably a bit of both.
Click to expand...

The great Khan is a bitch if he comes at you too early, I think most people end up submitting and becoming a Vassal until that Khan dies and throws everything into turmoil.

The players that play un-modded vanilla on the hardest two difficulties may have better advice, but my border defense stations go toward this:
​
Placements​
  • 1 missile battery to get the enemy fleets into combat at a long range
  • <if it is an L-Gate defense station, at least 1 point defense battery>
  • Otherwise, the rest are gun batteries of some kind (in my last modded game, they had small, medium, large, and X-large gun batteries, tied to tech; dunno if that is how it works in vanilla, though)
Building:​
  • Enemy shield debuff
  • Enemy armor debuff
  • Defense reinforcement upgrade line (adds station shields/armor/hull)
  • Fleet repair buff
  • Fleet DPS upgrades
When attacked, I send my fleet to the closest choke-point (with a decked out station), and let it sit there to help fight off the invaders. If you are still heavily outmatched, sometimes you can sacrifice your station, pull back to the next choke point, and build up the station there. The computer will usually split up and send various fleets to different systems, allowing you to pick them off, if they get too far separated, or pulling them into combat, 1 by 1 as they enter the new choke point station.

For the L-Gate in particular, the Grey Goo will attack in every direction it has fleets for, so, if you have one on the border, you can pull back to the closest choke point, and half thier power will head toward the closest neighbor.

You can also turn space lanes down to 0.75 to make more choke points.
 
sakkath

sakkath

Trakanon Raider
1,775
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Play 4 arm spiral galaxy type, that makes there be a lot more chokepoints.
I think it might be worthwhile playing total war for a bunch of games, with high AI density on small-medium sized maps, on as high difficulty as you can stand. You will die and restart a bunch of times (at least that was my experience) but you quickly learn how to handle early game economy, micromanage fleet engagements to your advantage, recognise threats etc.

If you're having that much trouble with mid game crisis like khan and l-gates then you probably need to work on your economy, tech and/or fleet strategy. Managing your planets economies is a learning curve but once you figure out how to do it efficiently you can rapidly overpower high difficulty AIs and Crisis.

Don't be afraid to lose some star systems to get the fleet engagements into the right place so you can win the fight. Far better to lose 5 systems and then win the fleet engagement than to go the fleet engagement at your border and dying.
 
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Furry

Furry

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sakkath said:
Play ring galaxy type, that makes there be a lot more chokepoints.
I think it might be worthwhile playing total war for a bunch of games, with high AI density on small-medium sized maps, on as high difficulty as you can stand. You will die and restart a bunch of times (at least that was my experience) but you quickly learn how to handle early game economy, micromanage fleet engagements to your advantage, recognise threats etc.

If you're having that much trouble with mid game crisis like khan and l-gates then you probably need to work on your economy, tech and/or fleet strategy. Managing your planets economies is a learning curve but once you figure out how to do it efficiently you can rapidly overpower high difficulty AIs and Crisis.

Don't be afraid to lose some star systems to get the fleet engagements into the right place so you can win the fight. Far better to lose 5 systems and then win the fleet engagement than to go the fleet engagement at your border and dying.
Click to expand...
I already recommended the same. Total war civ, crank tech cost up to 3-5x and focus on nothing but building the shit out of your navy. I personally prefer spiral galaxies as you get weird areas.

Don’t overextend early. That last game I lost, my major mistake was going for too much territory and ending up needing 10 star bases to defend myself, which is a big resource hog. A start with two or three strong points is ideal. You can aim to grab more land, but at more than 3 hard points you might want to defend a planet island or small space pocket rather than trying to hold the territory. Individual systems are rarely very valuable in the grand scheme of things. Good planets are huge, though.

All combat star bases should have 6 hangars. Hangars have way higher fleet power than the other types. They are super strong, and how you end up with starbases pushing 160k+ fleet power late game. Strike craft is a must get first chance tech if you expect any threat early game in admiral+.
 
Burns

Burns

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Furry said:
I already recommended the same. Total war civ, crank tech cost up to 3-5x and focus on nothing but building the shit out of your navy. I personally prefer spiral galaxies as you get weird areas.

Don’t overextend early. That last game I lost, my major mistake was going for too much territory and ending up needing 10 star bases to defend myself, which is a big resource hog. A start with two or three strong points is ideal. You can aim to grab more land, but at more than 3 hard points you might want to defend a planet island or small space pocket rather than trying to hold the territory. Individual systems are rarely very valuable in the grand scheme of things. Good planets are huge, though.

All combat star bases should have 6 hangars. Hangars have way higher fleet power than the other types. They are super strong, and how you end up with starbases pushing 160k+ fleet power late game. Strike craft is a must get first chance tech if you expect any threat early game in admiral+.
Click to expand...

I thought Hangers were a one and done, or had a really slow replenishment rate. So when the strike craft got killed, you were basically SoL.

How do you build your fleets then, and what traits do you fish for on Admirals?
 
sakkath

sakkath

Trakanon Raider
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I do full kinetic weapons for corvettes and destroyers, maximum shields my power can support. Cruisers I might do full kinetic or hangers depending on my tech and mood.

Battleships mostly tachyon lance+neutron launchers, with some hanger battleships mixed in, and a bunch of corvettes in the fleet to keep the movement speed high. Make sure to set the engage range appropriately, like carrier range for battleships.

Against crisis I might tailor a design for them if I need to, like full corvette torpedo swarms against awakened empires for example.
 
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Furry

Furry

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Burns said:
I thought Hangers were a one and done, or had a really slow replenishment rate. So when the strike craft got killed, you were basically SoL.

How do you build your fleets then, and what traits do you fish for on Admirals?
Click to expand...
I consider star bases to mostly serve as intimidation factor. Since the only intimidation factor the AI looks at is the number on FP, I always go hangars. To answer the one and done or replenishment question, honestly no idea. The star base keeps enemies early/mid game from going places, but late game it makes sure they have to put a reasonable effort into coming in, which helps concentrate losses or give me time to respond, but they are really not much more than a speed bump.

How I build my fleets seems like such a vague question. Depends really. I break my fleets down into two groups as it gets late game. Fast groups that are responding to nonsense that are usually 1 titan+corvettes. I usually roll a titan + bazillion battleship fleets that serves as my door knocking fleets where speed isn't important, but rather holding a presence. I'd say that's a general idea, but there's more to it than that.

My favorite standard admiral trait is trickster by far, but there's reasons to have other picks. If your ships are surviving fights more often the enemies, especially if its a lot more often, it's easier to punch above your level in my opinion. Other than that, I'd say gale speed has a lot of merit in some fleets, especially if you can get him one of the levi speed boosts to stack with it.
 
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Gavinmad

Gavinmad

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late game starbases are worthless, but the AI doesnt know that so if you can stack enough power on them they'll be discouraged from attacking.
 
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Burns

Burns

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Furry said:
I consider star bases to mostly serve as intimidation factor. Since the only intimidation factor the AI looks at is the number on FP, I always go hangars. To answer the one and done or replenishment question, honestly no idea. The star base keeps enemies early/mid game from going places, but late game it makes sure they have to put a reasonable effort into coming in, which helps concentrate losses or give me time to respond, but they are really not much more than a speed bump.

How I build my fleets seems like such a vague question. Depends really. I break my fleets down into two groups as it gets late game. Fast groups that are responding to nonsense that are usually 1 titan+corvettes. I usually roll a titan + bazillion battleship fleets that serves as my door knocking fleets where speed isn't important, but rather holding a presence. I'd say that's a general idea, but there's more to it than that.

My favorite standard admiral trait is trickster by far, but there's reasons to have other picks. If your ships are surviving fights more often the enemies, especially if its a lot more often, it's easier to punch above your level in my opinion. Other than that, I'd say gale speed has a lot of merit in some fleets, especially if you can get him one of the levi speed boosts to stack with it.
Click to expand...

I mostly meant how the ships are loaded out, like if you use hangers, in your fleets, as well. Outside of fighting the Grey Host with PD, I just switched between Laser and Kinetic, depending on tech levels, and always ignored hangers.

As for star bases, I assumed that they weren't counted (or counted for very little), as it seemed like I have had more fleet power, just in bases than other empires, and they would still be listed as overwhelming (or the next level under that), and attack me. Only to be obliterated at my choke point bases.
 
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Furry

Furry

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Burns said:
I mostly meant how the ships are loaded out, like if you use hangers, in your fleets, as well. Outside of fighting the Grey Host with PD, I just switched between Laser and Kinetic, depending on tech levels, and always ignored hangers.

As for star bases, I assumed that they weren't counted (or counted for very little), as it seemed like I have had more fleet power, just in bases than other empires, and they would still be listed as overwhelming (or the next level under that), and attack me. Only to be obliterated at my choke point bases.
Click to expand...
I don't think they're counted in score, but the AI usually dances around a base with huge fleet power on the map if there's an inhibitor on it. That's why they're so good for choke points early/mid. For early game nonsense If there's no inhibitor, the AI will ignore it and suicide fleets into a star base that it has no chance of killing, while trying to get at your juicy core. If the jump points don't let them bypass the base or you have a long range ship or two to start fights...
 
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Kirun

Kirun

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Goddamn, they changed so much about planetary management since I last played in 2018. Anyone have any good guide videos or tips? Should you specialize a planet in Minerals, Goods, Energy, etc. based on the available districts of the planet, or is there more to it then that? I mean, my economy is mostly balanced right now, but I feel like just making sure all my resources are in the positive isn't totally as efficient as possible.
 
Kirun

Kirun

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Well, I was playing as a Rogue AI who went through the galaxy exterminating any and all organic lifeforms. Ended up getting turbofucked when the Khan's showed up, as I had just entered into a war about a year earlier with the largest border threat to my north. Lost around 40k worth of fleet just a few months prior to the Khan's appearing and just couldn't spin up a response in time. They ended up taking my homeworld and at that point it was pretty clear I wasn't going to be able to recover in any meaningful way - feelsbadman.

Do the Khan's always appear at a particular year or is it just random with them?
 
Gavinmad

Gavinmad

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Kirun said:
Well, I was playing as a Rogue AI who went through the galaxy exterminating any and all organic lifeforms. Ended up getting turbofucked when the Khan's showed up, as I had just entered into a war about a year earlier with the largest border threat to my north. Lost around 40k worth of fleet just a few months prior to the Khan's appearing and just couldn't spin up a response in time. They ended up taking my homeworld and at that point it was pretty clear I wasn't going to be able to recover in any meaningful way - feelsbadman.

Do the Khan's always appear at a particular year or is it just random with them?
Click to expand...
It's a random non-cumulative chance during the midgame period, if you make it to endgame without it happening then they'll just stay a marauder.

If you don't have a total war civic you can temporarily submit to them as a satrapy.
 
Kirun

Kirun

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Gavinmad said:
It's a random non-cumulative chance during the midgame period, if you make it to endgame without it happening then they'll just stay a marauder.

If you don't have a total war civic you can temporarily submit to them as a satrapy.
Click to expand...
How often does it roll for a chance to spawn? Is it yearly?
 
Furry

Furry

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Khan is very hard to deal with if he comes face first into your empire at an inopportune time. Why I usually focus on preemptive action against marauders in or near my territory if I have them. You risk spawning the great khan doing that, so come prepared to roll them fast.

This is also why I favor hit and run war policy most of the time early and mid game. I really like to avoid big losses at that stage. It’s often better to lose some territory or fail to kill more ships than it is to have a fleet shattered. Keeping ships alive is a big deal when your ability to pump out ships is neutered IMO.
 
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Kirun

Kirun

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Furry said:
Khan is very hard to deal with if he comes face first into your empire at an inopportune time. Why I usually focus on preemptive action against marauders in or near my territory if I have them. You risk spawning the great khan doing that, so come prepared to roll them fast.

This is also why I favor hit and run war policy most of the time early and mid game. I really like to avoid big losses at that stage. It’s often better to lose some territory or fail to kill more ships than it is to have a fleet shattered. Keeping ships alive is a big deal when your ability to pump out ships is neutered IMO.
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Yeah, I don't think Khans existed the last time I played. Or if they did, I completely forgot about the mechanic. The marauders were right on my eastern border and I figured I'd use them as a natural "barrier" the whole game, so neglected to trick out a Starbase on my eastern choke. Well, mid-game hits and when I saw them flip colors and pop a 32k fleet into my system, I literally uttered, "Well, that's probably fucking GG" as soon as it happened. Just really bad fucking timing and not being prepared at all for it to happen.

I realized how useful fleet disengagement was around year 2200, when the trickster admiral I had was taking minimal losses each engagement. I wish I had known about it earlier, but it'll definitely be useful next game.
 
Furry

Furry

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Kirun said:
Yeah, I don't think Khans existed the last time I played. Or if they did, I completely forgot about the mechanic. The marauders were right on my eastern border and I figured I'd use them as a natural "barrier" the whole game, so neglected to trick out a Starbase on my eastern choke. Well, mid-game hits and when I saw them flip colors and pop a 32k fleet into my system, I literally uttered, "Well, that's probably fucking GG" as soon as it happened. Just really bad fucking timing and not being prepared at all for it to happen.

I realized how useful fleet disengagement was around year 2200, when the trickster admiral I had was taking minimal losses each engagement. I wish I had known about it earlier, but it'll definitely be useful next game.
Click to expand...
I’m aggressive about buffing up every checkpoint. If you’re short on money, make your defense platforms amoeba strike craft with no shields or armor. Very cheap comparatively and a lot of fleet power/ intimidation that you can get early game.

when you expand, turn old choke points into anchorage farms.
 
Xequecal

Xequecal

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Furry said:
Dropping a tip, since I didn't know this myself until now and I've played a lot. Precursors are based on the object type that you scan. Habitable planets spawn Zroni, so if you do nothing but survey habitable planets you greatly increase your chance of getting them. Baol can start on any planet/moon that isn't molten or gas giant I believe, and the other precursors are random on any object. I almost never got zroni and wondered why, so looked into that.
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This is only very superficially true. At galaxy generation most of the systems near your homeworld get the same precursor flag. You can only discover a precursor in a system with that precursor's flag, so in most games which precursors you will get is essentially predetermined. If you're flagged for zroni you'll never get a different one even if you avoid scanning habitable planets, if you're not flagged for them you'll never get them.

The only exception is if another empire spawns very close to you, in that case some of the overlapping systems will get both flags and you could get either.

If you want to know what precursors you're going to get you can open the gamestate file from your savegame in notepad, search for the system name of systems around your homeworld, and it will tell you their precursor flags.
 
Downhammer

Downhammer

Vyemm Raider
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debugtooltip also works and shows system precursors in-game. I think you can still enable debugtooltip prior to starting ironman and it will be on once the game starts.
 
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