Toggle Background Color
Update 3 Notes
Factions are... there. They give influence based on their approval rating but in basically all my games I ignore them.
Alloys and consumer goods are always in demand. Well, as long as you're pulling a positive on consumer goods you don't want to be producing a whole lot of them. But you can never have too many alloys. In the past you had to use up building slots to build alloy factories or consumer good factories which meant that for the most part your building slots were just alloy factories with the odd consumer good. These districts give one of each job but by designating the planet as either an alloy or consumer goods planet the district will swap one of those jobs to the other.
There is a ship designer that allows us to set up our ship's loadouts. People normally don't go with missiles as they have some disadvantages, notably that they can be intercepted by point defense guns. This early in the game though, that isn't going to be a big issue. They also get a bonus to damaging enemy hulls, which nothing we have offers (well, until the plasma weapons are researched). They also penetrate shields so work can be done on the armor on enemy ships while the interceptors work on the shields.
Ships have 3 health bars: Shields, armor and hull. Normally you need to strip down the shields, then the armor then finally to the hull. With the Defenders of Nature civic our armor and hull regenerates, normally you need to put a certain auxiliary piece on your ships for that bonus, otherwise only shields regenerate normally. Different weapons have bonuses and penalties to shield and armor damage, but here is the thing: AI generally goes completely even on their weapons. This means by going all in on armor half their weapons will be significantly weakened. Not only that but shields require power, armor will save on power so we wont have to worry about spreading power usage between shields and weapons. Not only that but when a ship has extra power that is unused it will increase their speed and their evasion.
The majority of the AI empires we will see are ones that I made myself. Whenever I had the game make random empires there would be this problem where like 5 empires would be carbon copies of one another, so even having the same batch of empires show up every game was more variety than the game being random. Also this means they will have civics that work better together (well, until they decide to reform their government every 5 god damn years)
In this case the Qwe'Pulci are xenophobic isolationists that basically shuts itself off from all forms of diplomacy. No federations, no open borders, no rivals, no unrestricted, nothing. They just want to be left alone.
I fucking knew this was gonna happen, I had a construction ship heading up to that sector just in case they popped out and its like the AI knew I was doing that and sent their own constructor in when mine was a single sector away.
The Kelbrid are rogue servitors, they are robots that take organic species as "bio trophies" and pamper them. Their civics are meant to make those biological pops happier
Ground combat... isn't exactly the greatest. For the most part if you have a higher combat number you win, thats it. And if you don't, just bomb the planet until the combat number goes down. One of the trait mods I have puts in like 200 traits and the majority of their bonuses are stuff relating to army stats which makes them pretty pointless. But eh, I guess its more for flavor
Naff'Tiss has a Fractal Mountains modifier that gives a +15% engineering research bonus
Most geology on this world has formed into fractal formations, resulting in large landscapes that appear similar but in varying size
Periodic Meteor Showers, which will just have some random events happen
A reoccurring celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate, or originate, from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering the gravitational pull of the world at extremely high speeds on parallel trajectories. Most meteors are smaller than a grain of sand, on atmospheric rich worlds they almost never reach the surface due to burning up. Intense or unusual meteor showers are known as meteor outbursts and meteor storms. These displays can sometimes be very beautiful to observe.
Single Biome, which provides a +1 to society research for every researcher
This world has a single, global biome within which very simple fauna and flora have evolved. The surface is teeming with all sorts of lifeforms waiting to be studied. Their biology offers significant research opportunities.
Then there is the Stellar Culture Shock modifier that lasts 11 years after conquering primitives. This gives a whopping -33% penalty to resources from jobs and -20 stability. On the upside the pops contribute half as much to empire sprawl?
This formerly primitive world is undergoing a chaotic upheaval as it adapts to the abrupt introduction of advanced technology. There are still significant and disruptive holdouts in many isolated regions
The new district introduced is the Eco Garden which provides a farmer job and a gardener job, which provides unity and amenities.
Trade value comes from planets and some space resources provide trade value. To get the value you need to build trade ports in starbases, each one extends how far you can collect trade value. Your home planet's starbase will directly collect trade, but further off starbases with trade ports will need to have their reach extend to your homeworld.
Then there is trade protection, the further out and more valuable it is the more likely you'll have pirates popping up. You can have military fleets patrol around sectors to keep piracy down. Building defense modules on your starbases will also give trade protection and protection range... but only if its from the station the trade station is coming from. For some reason a nearby starbase with a bunch of defenses wont do jack to suppress the pirates, unless its in the same sector.
Substance Abuser removes 20 years off the leader's lifespan 
Again, I'd like to mention how lucky I am to have gotten droids so soon after getting robotics. There is a problem where what you can research is random when you set up your empire and plan to ascend certain ways and the game just never gives you the damn tech!
The Ekwynian are a war faction. Xenophobic and fanatically militarist, they may be a future problem.
Good ol' Technological Ascendancy, the boring yet always taken perk. There are some perks that will require this one however, its a safe take while waiting for more research to come in so I can do the perfect ascendancy.
Foundation is a pretty good tradition to grab, just make sure to keep an eye on your sprawl. The perks this tree gives are:
+15% unity from jobs
+10 base intel on other empires and +20% survey speed
An increase to energy credits, engineering, physics, society and trade value on your capital by 10%. Increases to 20% if you have the colonial centralization tech and again to +30% if you have the galatic administration technology. Pretty good deal cause usually capital planets are good to set up as a research planet.
A +10% bonus to all specialists jobs. Remember that we have specialists jobs out the ass thanks to our civics, this is really good. Hell, your alloys and consumer good output increasing 10% is good by itself
Finally you get a flat +1 to your monthly influence. Right now 5 influence is being brought in per month, not bad.
Once its maxed bureaucrats will generate 2 energy. Thats a pretty good deal, your army of paper pushers can generate revenue while keeping your sprawl in check.
I should talk about sprawl. Sprawl increases from every district, sector, planets and pops in your empire. Your capacity can be increased from research and having bureaucrats. When you go over your sprawl it takes longer to get new traditions and research will cost more. Edicts will also become more expensive. We are currently at 126 sprawl... to our 94 capacity. The problem is setting valuable pops to push papers instead of literally anything else. However these primitive planets have a lot of people in them that can start pushing papers...
Naff'Soao simply has the Wondrous Planet modifier which increases its immigration pull by 50% and gives +5% happiness.
This world is home to a unique planetary wonder. Something so out of this world it borderlines on the impossible.
What is this mind blowing feature? It is a collapsed habitat that provides 2 living metal per month
Large wreckages cover extensive regions of the planet. Formerly a xeno habitat, it's origins are unknown and it's technology is unlike any feasible habitat project. Regions surrounding the most significant debris locations have a significant spread of a strange liquid metal.
Living metal is mostly used for an edict to speed up megastructure building. For now though, it fetches a pretty penny on the galactic market. Now for the districts introduced:
Deep Mines give two deep core engineer jobs which provides minerals, energy and engineering research. How much? I don't know, the tool tip isn't telling me.
Fungi Farms give three fungi farmer jobs that give 28 food and 8 society research.
Naff'Usmzara has Very Low Gravity which gives a 30% price reduction on buildings, +3% habitability and +3 max districts
This world has an unusually low density and therefore much lower gravity than most worlds of comparable size
Great Temperature Variation which gives a +30% consumer good and food upkeep and -6 mas agriculture districts
This world suffers from extreme variations in temperatures. Unusually strong weather fronts shift seemingly in random patterns across this world resulting in sudden sub-zero temperature drops or excruciating boiling hot winds
Then there is the Stellar Culture Shock modifier and because of how many pops are on here, I had to enact Martial Law which reduces resources from jobs by an additional 33% (so 66% at this point), pop growth speed is reduced by 50%, pop growth from immigration is reduced 50% and pop assembly (robots) is reduced by 50% but it provides 2 soldier jobs, and each soldier adds stability to the planet.
This planet has been placed under martial law
It is interesting that it has a sprawling slum blocker, once I clear it it'll give an extra pop.
Naff'Flevith has Subterranean Eco Systems which provides... nothing!
Deep under the surface of this planetary body are miles of crisscrossing caverns with a near perfectly sealed environment. Who knows what else lives down there.
Frequent Thunderstorms which is nearly identical to Naff'Oblal's Global Thunderstorms. It shares the -15% habitability and +6 generator districts, but only gives a +30% to physics research and energy credits.
Planetary sectors reach out to 4 sectors from the sector capital, Naff'Flevith is just outside the starting sector. Sectors get their own governors and could be set to have the AI autobuild... which you shouldn't do, ever. EVER. You can also release a sector as a vassal if you don't want to deal with it for now.
That'll be all for this update!