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Game play notes 4



After finishing this project there is a new residency type, assimilation, that will put cybernetics on the species. It is a slow rate, like 1 pop every half year? Thankfully every species that is in the empire when it finishes will be given cybernetics, and all future pops of that species will be the cyber version. The species trait for cybernetics is +20% habitability, +10% army damage and +40 years to leader's lifespans. For the leaders bonuses:

Governors get +5% minerals from jobs which is ehh.... I prefer getting my minerals from space.

Scientists get +5% research speed

Admirals get +5% firing rate

Generals get +5% army damage

The next step for this ascension type has you turning your species into robots, but we wont be doing that. I never do that. The cybernetic bonus is pretty solid in itself and if you turn your pops into robots than they compete with your robotic pops.

[img]https://lpix.org/4146760/20211020212228_1.jpgp/img]

Various diplomatic agreements will cost influence to maintain, so don't go too crazy on accepting them all. Weirdly enough it seems the Kelbrid later broke our research agreement at some undefined point

Besides increasing relations for having various pacts with one another, each pact also increases the cap of trust between empires. An empire would be far more trusting of another empire they have defense pacts and trade pacts with over another that they only have a non aggression pact with



If you're wondering about the weird text, wondrous and precursor planets have different colors to differentiate them. Hilariously keeping the colored name makes any text after it turn that color.

Also *nerdy breathing*



I'm surprised a ruined ring section showed up, this isn't the cybrex one. And these lucky bastards hold it



Wild Space is a mod that makes some sectors you cannot claim. This helps in creating more open space, especially if there is a cluster of wild space. Annoyingly however, this is simply 1 single wild space sector in that southwestern cluster and it has a black hole in it, meaning we cannot really control that spot and means someone can come in from that direction. Later research will let us build a military installation in the sector.



This is added by the expanded ascension perk mod, this will allow us to take all 3 ascension trees. Of course this means we'll be burning 7 ascension perks



People who have played this game are surely going "wait, whats with all the modules and building slots? The hell is a ship disruptor?" I got 2 mods that both greatly expands the slots and even adds another tier of station to upgrade into. Another adds a bunch of buildings to the stations to use stations for something beyond defense, anchorages or shipyards. Besides more defensive options to make stations more formidable (in base game they fall off in usefulness REALLY quickly) you also get buildings that can give system wide modifiers like stasis vats for more pop growth, a security branch to reduce crime, research labs, etc.

If I were playing a void dweller game I'd fill my home sector with all the habitats and use these station buffs to break the game in half.



It took me a bit to decide what to go with, but seeing what this tree provides made me go with it for our immediate defense needs. The perks are:

+15% armor on ships, which is great considering I'm going all in on armor. It also reduces bombardment damage by 60%

+15% Sublight speed

+3 defense platforms on stations and +25% defense army health

-25% war exhaustion gain

+10% influence gain from rivals and for any war we lose we gain +10% resource output and ship fire rate for the next 20 years

Filling it all will give an additional 25 years to our leader's lifespans. Yeah don't think we need to worry about our leaders dying anytime soon at this point.



The incubation technology picked up from that one planet gives us a free xenomorph army every 7 years. An experienced Hisa brigade does 2.7-5.4 damage and morale damage, has 260 health and 240 morale. Xenomorphs do 4.65-9.30 damage, 9.30-18.60 morale damage, have 520 health and are not effected by morale. And this is at base rank. Not a bad bonus to passively increase our military cause I tend to forget they exist sometimes.



Naff'Ciacio has Unusual Formations which gives -40% planetary build speed.
On this planetary body are numerous amounts of odd but nevertheless natural geological shapes stretching for miles and miles

An event happened on the planet that I shifted over to the anomalies section as I feel there is a lot of "then this, but first this, then this other thing is happening, but now back to the first thing". This event gave Naff'Ciacio Tales of Wisdom which provides +25% migration and +10% to all three research types.
The rich history of this world makes it more appealing to our citizens, and the deciphered teachings of their greatest minds encourage scientific reasoning.

The new district here is the Stable Mine which is like a regular mine but also gives +2 stability to the planet. While I want to have space to get our minerals, increasing stability is worth the district slot.

What does stability do? Beyond planets rebelling if its too low, there is also a penalty or bonus for resources and trade value as well as immigration or emigration modifiers. At 42% stability Naff'Ciacio gets -8% to resources and trade value and +16 emigration push. Naff'Oblal is the most stable planet at 79% which is giving a +17% bonus to resources and trade value and an immigration pull of +11. You really should prioritize increasing stability on planets, the production bonuses are nothing to sneeze at.



This entire chain is added by Gigastructures and talk about lucky, I think this is the first time I had a ruined EHOF in the sector. Whats an EHOF? Maybe later. I do advise that you make a save before finishing this dig site, too many times it built a sector in a way that added an extra lane to a hostile empire. If you don't like the new sector placement you can reload and it will most likely appear elsewhere within your empire.

Let's take a closer look at the different empires:



The Que'Pulci are xenophobic spiritualists, they are focused solely on themselves and nothing else. Their civics are:

Isolationism, which means they cannot do any forms of diplomacy. No rivals, no commercial pacts, can't join federations, no unrestricted wars, nothing. They get +5% resources from jobs, +15% pop growth speed, +1 edict capacity, +20% colony development speed, +25% starbase damage, -25% bombardment damage, +0.5 monthly influence in defensive wars, +1 encryption, -1 codebreaking and -2 envoys

Ascended Meritocracy which makes their leaders far less likely to have negative traits, gives +2 to leader level cap, +10% specialist resource output, +50% specialist political power and +25% to leader costs.

Utopian Democracy which replaces some administrator jobs with Think jobs, which produce unity, society research and amenities. They also get +10% pop growth speed, +15% amenities, -25% crime and +25% war exhaustion gain.

Their traits are: Conservationist which reduces pop consumer goods upkeep by 10%

Traditional which gives +10% unity from jobs

Remote Telepathic which gives +15% to unity and +7.50% society research from jobs

Dimensional Absent which reduces pop growth by 7% and leader lifespan by 5 years

Their origin in the Fainhearted Backwater which gives +10% unity generation, -15% naval capacity, -5% research for the first 20 years and -2% for 20 years after that and they start with tier 3 sensor technology. More importantly: This will disable the Vazuran Menace, which is a classic mod feature creep where randomly uber fleets will fly in and fuck up your sector. I'm talking 40k fleet strength on year 10. Fuck this feature, I guess I should be happy there is an origin that completely turns them off but I'd rather not deal with it at all, I just want more events, not more "fuck you" mechanics!



The Kelbrid are rogue servitors which are machine that take in biological pops for pampering. Their civics are:

Rogue Servitor starts them with 5 organic pops and restricts all bio pops to bio trophy citizenship and a mandatory pampering living standard. They house these bio pops in organic sanctuaries that generate unity for the empire.

Organic Skin which provides +30 opinion with organic empires, replaces 1 energy cell with 1 food for robot upkeep, -15% pop upkeep, +15% infiltration speed and +40 food a month

Merchant Machine which gives them an edict to allow trade pact with other empires, normally machine empires cannot do trade. Though this relies on the AI to activate the trait and know it can do that... which I don't think it can.

They have the machine trait that all machine empires will have, which gives +200% habitability, makes their leaders immortal and not be effected by happiness.

Repurposed Hardware gives -25% leadership exp gain

Emotion Emulators gives +20% to amenities from jobs

Mass-Produced gives +15% pop assembly speed

Their origin is Mechanical Harmony which gives +20% biological and lithoid (if I had that DLC) happiness. It also gives xenophile ethic attraction but robots don't have factions so.. Also I am realizing that while this may be cool to play as, the ai may not really work well with this one. It may not realize it can trade nor acknowledge that the robot pops need food



Ekwynian Kingdom are an industrial military empire that is built to be more like a feudal space kingdom. Their civics is Patrimonial Aristocracy which replaces some of the administrators from capital buildings with nobles, lets them build noble estates that give more noble jobs, gives +4 governor level cap and a +15% increase to cost and upkeep of governors.

Warrior Culture which replaces entertainers with duelists. Instead of consumer goods entertainers use alloys and generate naval capacity on top of the typical amenities and unity. They also start with the centralized command tech, which lets them build military academies.

Military Industry gives +5% alloys from jobs, +5% ship weapons damage, +10% armor hit points, +15% ship hull points, -15% upkeep on docked ships, +50% to ship build speed, +20% research speed, +10% materials research speed and +20% ship upkeep

Their traits include Decadent which gives -10% worker happiness and -10% slave happiness

Natural Engineers which gives +15% engineering research from jobs

Tradition with the +10% unity from jobs

Fleeting which gives -10 years to leaders lifespan

Conformists which gives +30% to ethics attraction

Yeah these guys were made before I got a big ol' trats mods

Their origin is Unification Wars which gives the Planetary Unification technology (+2 unity a month and access to certain edicts), +10% military ethics attraction and a homeworld modifier that gives +10 stability and +2 soldier jobs



The Conclave of Slerpactin are fanatically spiritualist eco-pacifists. I wanted them to be a less isolationist Qwe'Pulci

Their civics are Agrarian Idyll which has their farm districts provide an extra housing an an extra farmer and their farmers will produce amenities. They also get unity from food processing facilities and start with the Agricultural Consortium tech (farmers produce an extra +15% food and they get a trade policy that gives up some energy credits for food)

Theocracy has been mentioned

Spiritual Seekers has a special job called transcendant that provides unity, all 3 research types, increase administrative capacity and reduces crime. They get one of these jobs per 16 pops as well as getting some from their capital buildings and citadels of faith. Then they get +10% happiness, +100% speed on psionics (as well as an increased chance to draw it for research) and get a penalty of -75% to rivalry influence.

Their traits include Agrarian which gives +15% more food from farmers

Natural sociologists which gives +15% society research from jobs

Nonadaptive which gives -10% habitability

Repugnant which gives -20% amenities from jobs

Their origin is Storm Leviathan which starts them off on a storm world with a rare planetary feature and they get a series of events relating to the deep sea environment




The Se'ikh State are a group of robo cultists. Only through the power of mods as spiritualists do not like robots.

Theocracy starts them off with the Holographic Rituals tech, which allows them to build temples. Their sacred nexus' and citidels of faith will give additional high priest jobs and it replaces some of their administrators with more high priests

Machine Cult starts them with the robot workers technology and 4 robot pops, their home planet will also start with a robo assembly plant and a mecha monastery. They get techno priests instead of regular priests which provide unity, engineering research and reduces robot upkeep. They can build a colossal robot monument which increases happiness, unity and robot output. Also their spiritualist faction wont demand robots be outlawed

Engineering Mastery will have their city districts produce 5 amenities and get access to urban engineers, who produce unity, engineering research and reduces city and industrial district upkeep. They get 1 urban engineer every 25 pops. They also get +10% housing, +1 building slot, +2 starbase modules, +50% build speed to city, industrial and starbase modules. They get a +10% increase to buildings, districts and starbase module costs.

Their traits are Pseudo-cybernetics which gives +5% society research and +7.50% unity from jobs, +10% governing ethics attraction and -2.5% happiness.

Artificial Spirits, which our faction has

Electromagnetic Armor which gives +15% army health, +10% energy credits from jobs and +5% physics research from jobs.

They have the default prosperous unification origin which gives a +4 pops and +2 districts to the homeworld



The Divine Netraxi Mandate are a group of militarized spiritualists. How appropriate that we get such a faction while being materialists

They have the same Theocracy civic above

Caste System gives them the slave master job, which produce unity, slave output and stability. They get 1 slave master every 25 pops. They can also build the neo-coliseum which provides gladiator jobs which give trade value and boost army damage.They also get +10% ruler happiness, +5% worker pop output, +15% slave output, -15% price on the slave market, increases demotion time by 100% and reduces the leader pool size by 1. Oh and they are required to have 40% of their planetary pops as slave, this includes their own primary race.

Military Zealots will replace some priest jobs with templar jobs. When used with a unique planetary decision, witch hunt, the templars will provide more unity, stability and spiritualist ethics attraction at a penalty to research. They also get 1 templar every 25 pops. They get +25% influence from rivals, +25% damage, health and morale for their armies, -33% army disengagement chance and -50% trust growth.

Their traits are Strong, which gives +20% army damage and 2.5% worker pop output

Sedentary which gives -15% pop growth from immigration and +25% resettlement costs

They also have Decadent like the Ekwynians

Force Manipulation gives +5% alloys, +7.50% energy credits and +10% physics research from jobs

Their origin is Remnants, where they start on a relic world with blockers that will give them technologies when cleared out. A relic world has the bonus of having 100% habitability for everyone, suitable for them having slaves, and can be upgraded to an ecumonopolis with the right technologies.