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Game play notes 5
Autocannons and plasma throwers are specialized versions of coil guns and lasers, respectively. Coil guns and lasers get a -50% and +50% damage to shields and armor, with kinetic weapons favoring shields and energy for armor. Autocannons get an extra -75% penalty to armor but gains +25% hull damage. Plasma throwers get a bigger -75% penalty shields but gets a whopping 100% bonus damage to armor AND +50% hull damage. The autocannon has less range than the coil gun, but considering corvettes are meant to get close and swarm anyway its not an issue.
I've talked about evasion, with the amoeba flagella and afterburners. Ships (by which I mean corvettes cause you aint getting that on anything bigger) cap out at 90%, currently we are hitting 75%. For defense we have tier 4, out of 5 (maybe, maybe a mod adds another tier but I know I explicitly didn't get a ship mod because I don't feel like ships need to be more complicated), armor. I made a comment about crystallines and how they can improve hull health, the crystal hull doesn't have any tiers and is comparable to tier 3 shields and armor. If you got it early and had a rare crystal income though? Its an amazing boost that can also reduce alloy costs for a comparatively smaller amount of crystals.
To establish a federation you need to burn some unity going down this tree. I'm not quite sure what is changed up by mods and what is vanilla, but the perks here are:
+1 envoy and the ability to form a federation
Federation naval capacity that we contribute will be doubled
Embassies giving 3 unity a month
+50 to the trust cap and +33% to trust growth
A +5 to acceptance in trade deals which just might push an empire into accepting a deal and every month an envoy sent to improve relations will have a 1% chance to get a favor from that empire, up to the cap of 10. Favors are something you can use in trade deals to make an empire more likely to accept a trade offer or pacts. Well, maybe don't use them on pacts. I've used favors to get a megacorp to have a commercial pact so they'll build their buildings on my planets just for them to instantly cancel the pact.
Completing it will give an extra envoy and +10% to your diplomatic weight
I'd like to mention the penalties here are just reverting the bonuses that ultimate ascension provided. Now that we have this we can fully ascend in all 3 ascension lines, though I'll be leaving the synthetic one alone.
These assholes seriously worried me when they first popped in, I thought it was some other mod delivering a "fuck you" event with an OP OC race. What is surprising is how long it took for them to show up, usually caravaners show up pretty early. They occasionally make you trade offers, most are usually bad, sometimes you'll get ones you just can't get (zro if you don't have any psionic research) but there are a few good ones, like the food replicator.
This is a gigastructure addition, an entire attack moon. Since its in wild space I'm not sure if we can claim it, I'll try building a wild space outpost when the research comes around and see.
I thought this would give a pop of the hive but sadly that is not the case. The scientist did come with a librarian trait though, so even though I'm not switching out scientists she still contributes to our research.
These are added by a mod and I almost want to say the wild space mod, simply because every time I find these guys its in the middle of a bunch of wild sectors
Finally we have achieved our first relic, since the game is being a complete cock in giving me precursor anomalies (2 out of 6 at 2245!). This one's passive isn't too shabby, I guess its active use can be useful if I need to build a bunch of stuff on starbases... if I had a ton of alloys laying around.
Mechanicum has a lot of neat bonuses not just for robopops but construction in general. The perks are:
-50% upkeep costs for construction ships and -20% building costs for mining stations. Like a quarter of our space still don't have mining stations as I'm focusing on claiming sectors ASAP, so this will still be useful. If I wasn't flooding in minerals 
+1 robot modification points
Unlocks 2 army types: Titans and mechanical knights. You thought I was joking about mechas huh? There is also a +10% buff to army damage
A generous +33% buff to starbase hull points. I swear this tree had something that increased hull and armor to your ship too, maybe that got rolled over to perseverance?
Unlocking the building Engineers Guildhall, which provides master engineer, technician and roboticists jobs. This is good cause the robotics factory doesn't get any upgrades (though I believe I got a mod that gives it one) so there is no way to further increase robopop assembly on a planet.
For finishing the tree all of our technicians will generate another energy credit
Look at that fleet power! Its more than the other 2 fleets combined and doubled! She has the aggressive trait which gives +5% ship firing speed AND +10% sublight speed. She absolutely tears ass through space, and all those shooting bonuses dramatically shot up the fleet strength. I got surprised when I sent her from that northern void cloud to the southern one, she got there so quickly.
Both options are the same result, but I still appreciate the option to RP being a fan.
Naff'Dwith has the EXACT same coral world and bleak planetary modifiers. Now to address that cracked egg modifier, that is Resilience which makes bombardments do 60% less damage. It would be wholly unremarkable except it has the odd factory on it, which provides alloys for a worker strata job.
Naff'Digo is a Lichen World with a modifier of the same name which gives +20% bonus to food from jobs, -10% penalty to minerals from jobs, +4 max agriculture districts, -2 max mining districts, +10% habitability and +20% upkeep to buildings and districts
The stable humidity and temperature have allowed the lichen forest to reach most of the surface of this world, which allows for great agricultural opportunities, but the lichen saps many nutrients from the surface and from any buildings built
Low Gravity that we've seen before and Perfect Seasons, which provides +7% habitability, +1 max agriculture districts and a flat +0.75 food from each farmer. This is definitely going to be a food planet
The weather is simply fabulous all year round, and hardly ever changes. This is truly paradise
The new district here is the Ocean Farm which provides 2 aquatic farmer jobs that produce 27 food and 3 society research
Showing off planetary habitats for the first time! This is from a mod, planetary habitats, that allows us to build habitats on celestial bodies. You start with asteroids and barren planet habitats and have to research to be able to build frozen, molten, gas, hothouse and toxic habitats. They also get increasingly more expensive to build, alloys and influence wise, in that order. This one has been built on a planet with no resources (Eye of Bal is a resource devoid sector, minus the EHOF) so I don't get any extra habitats. If I built it on a body that had minerals, energy or research I would get access to mining, reactor and research districts. Some celestial bodies will have modifiers on them like planets, for example "Predictable Jet Streams" which will give a habitat energy districts as well as an additional 2 districts.
So whats the deal with that top district? Its a bureaucratic district that comes from the mastery of districts mods. We've only seen naturally occurring districts from that mod, but this is the first time I've built one. You need research techs to be able to build these, you can only have one specialized district on a planet and it costs 50 alloys and influence to make one. This is really useful here as it isn't as easy to get new building slots in a habitat, making it difficult to get more bureaucrat jobs in here.
Don't think I've talked about planetary designations, have I? On the top left there text saying something like "generator world" or as seen here, "bureaucratic center". These specialize the planets, generally increasing output or reducing upkeep. In this case job upkeep is reduced by 10% for bureaucrats and each one produces an extra 2 administrative capacity. You can see why I made an entire habitat for them, keeps our planets from having to designate labor and building space building up administrative offices. And extra capacity per job!
In the past clone vats just gave a bonus to growth speed, now they work a lot like robot factories, just making more biological pops instead of robots. This is cool cause it means that not taking robots isn't as crippling, as people with robots would be getting 2 forms of population growth while non robo empires just got an extra 10% growth speed. This also means you can have 2 separate organic species growing at the same time. This does mean that they are now mutual however. I think I'll do like a 50/50 on cloning and robots. Maybe on primitive planets so we can have both Hisa and the locals grow at the same time.
Naff'Ujba is our first tomb world, a planet that basically had a nuclear holocaust. They're full of blockers that are not natural and have a bunch of automated guns around. Whats neat though is clearing those out will pay out in some alloys.
Now for the modifiers, its got Irradiated which gives -15% habitability, -30% biological and lithoid pop happiness, a whopping -75% to food from jobs AND -9 max agriculture districts, but hey you get an extra 3 mining districts out of it!
Some long-ago calamity rendered this planet rather heavily irradiated
And Lingering Pollution, which undoes the above bonus in mining districts by giving -3 max mining districts, along with -3 generator and agriculture districts. So yeah this planet cannot make a single agriculture district. But you do get a +30% bonus to physics research.
The biosphere of this world is slowly recovering from intense pollution and industrial contamination produced several eons ago by an unknown civilization
And yet despite being an irradiated polluted hell hole its the first planet where we can build Ocean Housing. This provides the same +5 housing, +1 building slot and +1 clerk jobs as regular housing districts, but it also provides +1 max district, meaning this is effectively a free district.
This planet also has a gateway floating over it and a dig site. Waiting for our scientists to actually finish the stuff they're digging up, or when I run out of space to survey and have all scientists go digging, which might actually happen.
Naff'Edemar is another tomb world located in the western sectors. This planet has Rugged Terrain which increases building costs by 30% but gives a +15% bonus to minerals from jobs and +3 max mining districts
This world's terrain is extremely uneven
Exceptional Quality Minerals which gives a flat +1.50 to minerals from each miner and an additional +3 max mining districts.
The exceptional Quality of the minerals in this planet's crust provides a truly staggering opportunity for mining
I still don't know how this planet can support ocean housing and a nature preserve.
And now for a proper habitat that I didn't even need to build! It even comes with some goodies prebuilt like an Extended Trade Docks which gives a +20% trade value
This habitat is very close to a busy trade route making it ideal as a trading stop or hub. As such the standard docks have been made larger and additional dock sections are installed for traders
Replicator Systems which reduces pop consumer goods upkeep by 10%
Instead of basic delivery systems for food and anything that might be needed, this habitat is equipped with small, but effecient, matter-energy replicators. Simply tell it what you need and it will be created righ tin front of you!
Artificial Gravity Stadium which gives +10% happiness.
On popular request this habitat has been outfitted with a large stadium. Its artificial gravity generators allow for a wide variety of exciting games to be played
Habitats are a lot like the planetary ones (or vice versa, habitats are vanilla), but a habitat can be built above just about any planet. They have the same district rules in regards to building on bodies that have a resource on them. To expand them there is some research and you need to fill in all the district slots
This habitat has come with some presapients that have the strong trait and the Caretaker Drones trait that provides -75% pop growth speed, +5% worker pop output, +1 leader level cap, +25% leader experience gain, -30 years for their leaders lifespan and -40% army damage. We'll just let them chill in ignorance.
I didn't rename it Naff'<sector> because there are 4 planets in this sector. Anyways, this planet has Precursor Shipyards which reduces ship build cost by 5% and increases the shipyard capacity of the local starbase by +10. This sector will be able to turn out tons of ships once we get things going there.
Surrounding this world are several ancient and powerful shipyards. Some appear to be quite damaged while others look like they could still be functional. Deep within these vast space stations rests a powerful graviton power core, a technology not fully understood but which appears to be the source of both the its power and ability to stay in orbit for so long. Perhaps, one day, we can claim it for our own
Titanic Predators gives -10% pop growth speed and +20% pop food upkeep.
This world is home to gigantic monstrous creatures that soar through the sky and eat nearly everything in sight.
Artificial Core which gives a flat +1 engineer research to all researchers
This world should have died long ago after the core froze and the magnetic field died, but a massive installation in the planet's core, made by a particularly powerful precursor empire, somehow keeps the core spinning and the magnetic field active
The locals have Adaptive which gives +20% to habitability, slow breeders which lowers pop growth by 10% and repugnant which reduces amenities from jobs by 20%
I got all kinds of mods that adds buildings, I think this is one that kinda apes the wondrous buildings thing from Civ, just that you can only build 1 per empire rather than 1 in the entire universe. This is on the capital, as I usually have that be science focused this would be great there.
This is the upgrade I often stick with to the frontier settlement. You get an extra job out of this compared to the settlement and more housing.
Mastery of Districts adds a bunch of cool side things you can build on planets that don't use up your districts or building slots. Usually these are themed around building stuff underground or in orbit of the planet. This building right here is really good just for that -10% consumer goods upkeep. Just a heads up: Any planetary terraforming or changing it to an ecumonopolis will remove this and you cannot rebuild it! Make DAMN sure you are happy with your planet before building this. Since this LP's gimmick is to terraform as little as possible and no ecumonopolis (unless its a relic world), that wont be a problem.
There are also other nifty things like low orbit urbanization which adds some housing and clerk jobs, underground science cities, stuff like that. Though this was better before the pop revamp which means you're less likely to run out of spots for pops and need to use these features.
The Wulhubb League are a bunch of sentient mushroom anarcho capitalists. As a mega corp they can build office branches on planets that have a commercial pact with them. This feature... has its moments. After the branch is established they can build a few buildings that give some bonuses for the corp and jobs for the host planet. You could say build a research lab on their planet which gives the host a researcher job and the corp gets some passive research income.
There are a few issues with this if you are not playing multiplayer: The AI isn't the greatest with getting pops on their planets and you can only build so many buildings depending on how populous the planet is. Considering it costs credits and influence to establish a branch, you really don't want to put a branch down just for it only ever be able to produce 1 building on a planet with low trade values. Anyways the civics for the Wulhubb
Free Traders gives +15% trade value and +15% branch office value
Globalism gives them a boost to getting the galactic market on one of their planets and commercial pacts don't cost them any influence to maintain. They also get the unique building that gives an empire wide bonus to trade value, diplomatic weight from economy, starbase capacity and consumer goods production based on how many unique species are in the empire
Meritocratic Capitalism has their entrepreneurs produce unity and they get one for every 25 pops. They also get +10% trade value, +50% research speed for economic techs and +5% specialist pop output
Their traits are Thrifty, which gives a +25% bonus to trade value from jobs
Slow Breeders for -10% pop growth speed
Conservationist for -10% pop goods upkeep
Deviants which gives -15% governing ethics attraction
Ingenious which gives +15% energy credits from jobs
Their origin is Megacorp Unification. Like other unification origins they start with the planetary unification tech. They also get +10% trade value, a 10% decrease in the market fee, +10 stability on the homeworld and +2 merchant jobs
The Spuxulac Confederacy are a bunch of fanatic xenophiles. their civics are Diplomatic Corps which gives +2 envoys and +10% diplomatic weight
Parliamentary System which give +5% stability to planets with a planetary parliament. They also get +20% bonus influence from factions and +50% influence cost to electing their rulers
Societal Symbionts makes 12 of their pops a different species. In vanilla the equivalent of this is the syncretic evolution which has a species that are basically meant to be slaves. Unlike that, this species can actually have leaders and work specialists jobs. They also start with the genome mapping and epigenetic trigger techs, their clone vats improves unity output and they get a 10 year buff to unity and society research after uplifting a presapient species
Their traits are Natural Sociologists which gives +15% society research from jobs
Aerobatics which gives -5% amenities usage and pop housing, +5% habitability and +10% army morale
Twins which gives +2% pop growth speed and 2.5% unity from jobs
Arrested Learning gives a -1 leader level cap and =15% leader exp gain
Their origin in Massive Homeworld, which gives them a size 30 planet. Generally the upper limit of world size is 25
The Bakturian Divine Empire are a group of trade based evangelists Their civics include
Imperial Cult, which replaces some administrator jobs with high priest jobs. The sacred nexus and citadel of faith buildings also produce extra high priest jobs and their priests make 1 extra unity. They also get a special edict called God-Emperor which makes the empire leader immortal
Evangelism lets them build a Temple of Galactic Unity which gives an empire wide bonus to unity, diplomatic weights from pops, happiness, immigration attraction and xenophile ethics attraction depending on the number of unique species.
Distributism has most of their specialists jobs also produce trade value. They also get access to wealth preachers who produce unity and increase trade value, 1 for every 25 pops. They get +10% happiness for specialists and +5% happiness for workers.
Their traits are Rapid Breeders for +10% pop growth speed
Remote Telepathic for +15% unity from jobs and +7.50% society research from jobs
Dimensional Absent gives -7% pop growth speed and -5 years to leaders lifepsans.
Their origin is Shroud Touched which makes their home world a shroud world, along with having the Psionic Theory tech researched. They can also create more shroud worlds if they get enough Zro.
The Gurite Hive is our first hive mind of the galaxy. They are somewhat like robots, they get the same benefits of pops being able to freely move between stratas and not dealing with happiness modifiers or consumer goods. The civics here are:
Natural Neural Network which gives +1 research alternative, +5% research speed and their unemployed drones produce research.
Strength of Legions provides +25% bonus to army damage, health and upkeep
Subspace Ephapse gives +15% naval capacity and +20 sublight speed.
They are required to have the Hive Minded trait which makes them not be affected by happiness
Slow Breeders giving -10% pop growth speed
Agraian gives +15% food from jobs
Tiny gives -30% army damage, -10% army health, -7.50% worker pop output and provide 1 less food from being livestock. In return they get -5% food upkeep on pops, -5% on consumer good upkeep, -12% housing usage and -15% resettlement costs
Parasite gives a +15 years to leader lifespan, +10% habitability and -15% army morale
Their origin is Planetary Infestation which starts them off on a hive world. Hive worlds provide bonuses to output but have one other unique feature: They are not restricted to district maximums. There is still the upper cap of how many districts in total that they have to follow, but they can build any combination of the 4 basic districts. Got a planet with really good food bonuses? Make every district an agriculture one. However hive planets wont have any of the unique districts that district overhaul adds. Would be kinda broken to be able to spam ocean housing
Now for some behind the scenes stuff, there is a mod that adds a lot to hive empires, it even had some stuff for machine empires. Unfortunately it isn't compatible with what I'm running and a few things didn't work. The mod is called Forgotten Queens and I had 2 hive empires planned out with the stuff added to it:
One was a more friendly hive who could form commercial pacts with other races and act like a megacorp in that they can establish branch offices. They would've been called the West Hive and yes this IS a Kenshi reference
The other was to be a hostile hive that would be able to necrophage other species. The reason I didn't go with devouring swarm is because they tend to get their asses kicked consistently in every game. With the necrophage hive they wouldn't have a total war CB with every empire, which is what would lead to them getting stomped because any empire could attack them at any time.
Another interesting feature of this mod would let hives be like rogue servitors and take other organic species as biotrophies
For robots they had a civic where you would make a secondary organic species that would be considered robots while the original robot race would vanish. Then you would need to necrophage other species to make more.
Unfortunately stuff broke. When I tried the organic robots they just ended up spawning in as regular organics and their species rights were utterly fucked: They were locked to exempt for military service, which meant I couldn't make any armies to invade other planets to get pops to necrophage. This also had problems where these organics needed food. Machine empires don't start with any food stockpiled and no agriculture districts, so I instantly had a shortage.
So alright, stick with hives right? Well unfortunately any secondary species that would spawn from civics would vanish on game start up. And I got a few of those, so that mod had to go unfortunately. Really disappointing.