Stellaris thread, reviews, and opinions!

# FTL Rework
* Every empire now starts with the Hyperdrive FTL.
* Wormhole Travel and Warp Travel are no longer available FTL types at the start of the game, and have been changed into additional (and very different from before) modes of travel detailed below.
* Pairs of Natural Wormholes can now be found scattered across the galaxy, connecting two star systems across vast distances. It is possible to pass through them for near-instantaneous travel, with the correct technology.
* Gateways are ancient megastructures connected in a network. Like the Wormholes, they allow instant travel across the galaxy. Gateways need to be activated before they can be used, and you are able to construct new Gateways once you have the technology to do so. Gateways do not require Utopia to restore or build.
* FTL Inhibitors prevent hostile fleets from advancing, they can only leave by the hyperlane they came from while any FTL Inhibitors in the system remain active. Starbases and planets get access to FTL Inhibitors if you have researched the associated technology.
* Jump Drives now allow fleets to make near-instantaneous point-to-point jumps that ignore hyperlanes. However, jumping has a long cooldown and significantly debuffs the fleet while the cooldown is in effect.
Click to expand...
Yes, just removed and dassit. The other changes in accord to that aren't even listed there.


Full patch notes here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ev-diary-105-2-0-cherryh-patch-notes.1069794/
 
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To put aside Paradox's controversial DLC practices, I'm actually really enjoying Stellaris now. Though, that's not to say I didn't enjoy the game already. There was a lot to it and in terms of being a space 4X, it had usurped Galactic Civilizations for me. That has changed with the 2.0 update.

However the game has shifted from being what was essentially a regular 4X into something more like a grand strategy in line with many of the other games that Paradox makes. I guess the first big one is that the different FTL types are gone, and the game is entirely hyperlanes only. Instead of having Wormholes, Warp, and Hyperdrive, you instead just have the hyperdrive and can change how many lanes connecting systems to others there are. I personally left this at 1.0x, but I was also playing hyperdrive only leading up to the update anyway. What I've found is that this means the actual layout of the galaxy has some level of consequence. Even individual systems can have a consequence, as different types of stars can have different effects on ships, such as disabling shields or lowering sublight movement speed. Speaking of sublight speed, to go to another system, ships no longer just go to the edge of the system and head off, they actually have to cross systems to enter the appropriate hyperlanes (barring some fairly late-game tech changing matters). This makes thrusters actually an important tech to consider upgrading.

If there's a good choke point nearby your borders, it is prudent to try to expand in that direction to secure and fortify that entrance into your territory. The FTL traps have changed as well. Now they aren't just going to pull incoming ships immediately into range of your station/planet, but will instead lock a hostile fleet out of any hyperlanes except the one they entered from. You can, in essence, entrench. With the way army combat has changed, with planets having a maximum combat width, you can even have planets more than capable of withstanding and even winning prolonged battles against a numerically superior foe.

Then we get to the new method of expanding borders. No longer do colonized planets simply generate passive border growth. Instead you get the much more deliberate building of starbases. For some influence and minerals, you set up an outpost claiming an uncontrolled system as yours, or you spend influence to make a claim on someone else's system, and in a war can take control of that starbase (once again, barring certain government types who can skip that process). To that end, influence is almost entirely spent on this system. You need influence for megastructures, but other than that it's almost entirely for claiming systems. Even colonization is simply about making the colony ship and maintaining the colonization effort, and so long as the planet is in a system you have claimed and control, no more influence is needed. Leaders being hired through energy credits is a nice change as well.



tl;dr: Only FTL available is hyperlanes now, fortresses both planetary and in space are now viable, and expansion is slower but much more deliberate instead of passive in 2.0, which does not require the Apocalypse DLC to have.
 
That's a pretty good overview. I tested a bit on vanilla and it seems like s general change for the better. Less crap and bloat, more intertwined systems, yadda yadda. Pretty cool to have been announced a Star Wars mod overhaul by the guys that made the Star Trek one. I'm gonna wait for some hot fixes before commiting to another run, though. While warfare has been vastly improved the diplomacy around it is kind of a mess with constant plinking of enemy territory via constant status quo victories, which in turn will make them not be a candidate of rivalry, generally screwing over the empires in need of the rivalry influence gain for the claims, bugs and such.
 
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So, after waiting for a few months, I have decided to play Stellaris again with 2.1 and my two DLCs (Leviathans and Utopia), after spending roughly six hours on it, I have decided to write my review on it. However, since that would take too much time, I am going to simply list all my reactions throughout the playthrough.

-So first of all, I hate this Achievement idiocy. You can’t use mods to get some of them and considering that many events are pure luck based, it takes countless games to get them. I don’t even know what does it accomplish. You could cheat and get all the achievements in Fallout New Vegas and somehow I don’t see that as problem. If someone wants to get those achievements through ‘official’ way, they can go ahead, me, I don’t really care.

-The travel system is the most stupid, moronic and tedious aspect of Trench Warfare in Space, aka Stellaris since 2.0. I am not sure, what the hell was Paradox or Wiz thinking when they created this abomination, but let me tell you, IT DOESN’T WORK. To get from one end of my empire to another (Not even from one side of the galaxy to the other) I needed 5 YEARS, 5!!!. IS THIS SOME KIND OF JOKE? Do you even know how boring, dull, tedious, Stellaris gets with this kind of travel time? There is nothing inside to keep us occupied, outside of Anomalies and building more starbases. And you know what, those two things are also terrible.

-Starbases, each bloody system needs influence which is a rare resource to get in the first place. Then you have to manually place every single bloody outpost, then click again to build all research and mining stations. RINSE AND BLOODY REPEAT. I lost count after certain point and just stopped giving a shit.

-Another Grievance is INCREASED RESEARCH COST PER BLOODY SYSTEM. I usually play on Large Galaxies where a lot of conflicts can happen and there is plenty of room to spread out without finding an alien five minutes into the game. Also, 160 systems, 160% more research cost. I HATE THIS THING SO DAMN MUCH. It punishes the player for expanding and you can’t get habitats early in the game, with your shitty production. In 1.9, I could use a Science Nexus, one planet and frontier outposts to keep my cost low and get technological advantage at the price of being weak and needing Galactic Force Projection. In 2.1, this playstyle is simply not viable.

-Well, something positive for once, Leaders. They are far more readable now, I can see their levels good improvement here. Also idle ships being yellow is a nice detail.

-Fleet Manager and Ship Design suck, as far as I am concerned, also the whole balancing thing, but we will get to that later. Fleet Manager, I can somehow use it, but I have to pretty much rely on it, in order to get the fleet I want, it’s not user friendly. Ship Design though takes the cake, it was dumbed down compared to 1.9. You had far more freedom in 1.9, allowing you to design different kinds of ships, now it’s all pretty much the same. Armour, Shields, Reactor. You don’t even have to balance it with appropriate number of generators.

-Balance, my god, this whole ship and starport balance should be thrown out of the window. You can’t get simpler than this. Each spaceship, starbase, etc has got three layers of Health. Replenishable Health (Shields), Secondary Health (Armour) and Primary Health (Hull Points). It’s so simple, it’s pathetic. So, while Armour in 1.9 used to be worth giving a damn (reducing damage from all sources by certain margin), now I would rather invest in hull points and shields than those things. Shields regenerate at least, and armour is basically second hull, which barely does anything.

-Another Positive thing is higher level anomalies, trouble is talented only lets your leaders get to level 6, so you have to invest heavily in them. Also LEADERS DIE TOO QUICKLY, BECAUSE HOW GOD DAMN SLOW THEY MOVE. Give me old Wormhole, Warpdrive and Jump Drive over those things anytime of the day. Time based anomalies are better than that bloody risk factor, I guess.

-Enviromental Hazards barely do anything, the galaxy is huge and if you really want to fight at disadvantage you have to try pretty much.

-Communications, why the hell does an empire share all it’s homeworlds and systems data? It’s retarded. Especially, if you play as PURIFIERS or xenophobes or something.

-At least civilian ships update automatically, less micro, I guess.

-Brain Dead AI, going through Ether Drake, I hate hyperlanes so damn much.

-Also the war in this version and hyperlane only gameplay. I know exactly where will enemy come from, what to expect, this is dumb, boring and completely different how the war should be like. AND NO setting HYPERLANE DENSITY TO 5 DOES NOT COMPENSATE FOR THE LACK OF OTHER FTL TYPES.

-Clicking on claims, doesn’t bring you to the one they claimed.

-Gaia World as a bloody Ascension Perk, nobody needs that when RINGWORLD exists.

-Also the whole radar and hyperlane system are terrible. I CAN SEE ALL THAT HAPPENS IN ADDJECT HYPERLANE SYSTEMS, BECAUSE…? Bloody Hell, the one in 1.9 made more sense.

-Also SCREW EXPLORING THROUGH SCIENCE SHIPS ONLY. I hate this more than anything else, in order to have send my fleet, I need to first send tiny, puny science ship to explore. Instead of you know, BATTLESHIP WITH TOP TIER RADAR??? It’s like I am playing some kind of medieval warfare game, where one side can only send army, after some scientists went to Africa and set the paths. Guess I know, what Paradox is going for here.

-Fleet Academy is worthless, 100 more exp, yeah no, I might as well build a bunch of ships. One hundred experience is pretty much nothing.

-Also, the whole WAR SYSTEM is terrible. THE WHOLE CLAIM BULLSHIT IS IDIOTIC. I claim a bunch of systems, then enemy decides to go to war with me, because they need Casus Beli for that, for some dumb reason. Then they blow up a bunch of my outposts and I lose territory. Then I reach WAR EXHAUSTION AND IF I DON’T RETAKE THEM, MY OPPONENT GETS THEM??? What kind of idiocy is this? Sure, war in 1.9 was not perfect, especially the war goal system, but I prefer it, since at least I know what I am fighting for and what do I get. Here the AI can take over half of my territory and they get it, because they took over a bunch of outposts. AWFUL.

-I didn’t know stations could rotate during fight

-ALSO SCREW THIS DISENGAGE BULLSHIT, THEY KEEP COMING BACK, HOW DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE??? HAVE YOU EVER READ SOME HISTORY, WHERE ENTIRE ARMIES WERE ROUTED AND 80% SURVIVED AND COME BACK MONTH LATER???

-Merchants were nerfed to the ground. 100 minerals per month for 100 energy. No Fun Allowed. NFA, that’s should be Stellaris nickname.

-Also, when I finally got subspace navigation (Which brings some semblance of warp to the game), I need to first explore the system, so I still have to rely on bloody hyperlanes. I hate it so much.

-And to end my review on some kind of positive note: The Galactic Wonders were finally combined, instead of separate ringworld and wonders + Curators Research Things are now effects, less micro.

So, to sum up, I am done with Stellaris. I lasted almost 80 years into the game, before I gave up on it. The 1.9 was not perfect, it had flaws, some of the improvements like Starbases being a thing instead of hundred spaceports are nice, but everything else is an exercise in frustration. Never again, a year after release to scrap mechanics and replace them like this.
 
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