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Game play notes 7



Justice has a couple of good perks for keeping your planet's crime in check as well as giving some important stability. The perks are

+5% happiness and monthly unity

-10% edict cost and +25% edict duration

-33% to piracy growth and -20% empire sprawl from pops

+5 to stability

+25% to influence output

The effect for finishing it, more unity when you have 750+ influence, will uh... basically not apply for this playthrough



The galactic community will open communications with all empires who join. For the most part every one does minus the genocidal empires. Empires will nominate proposals and at the start this is mostly going to be stuff that gives some bonuses and penalties but are meant to influence how much weight gain you get from certain things, which effects how much your vote is worth in the senate.

For example, "Cooperative Research Channels" will increase research station output by 10% and increase starbase upkeep by 5%. It will also increase diplomatic weight from tech by +20%. Eventually there will be stuff like no slaves on the galactic market, banning slavery, protecting certain space creatures, that kind of stuff.



This is the final created empire and d'aw look at dat fukken slime I was incredibly worried that they were taken out.



These are the kinder hive mind, and if that one mod wasn't incompatible they would be ones who can do megacorp stuff. But it didn't so here are the civics I used instead

Subspace Ephapse gives +15% naval capacity and +20% sublight speed

One Mind gives +15% monthly unity and their leaders are less likely to get negative traits.

Empath reduces the opinion penalty they get from biological empires. They also get +2 envoys and +10% diplomatic weight.

Their traits include fleeting, which reduces leader life span by 10 years

Rooted, which gives -25% pop growth from immigration and increases resettlement cost by 50%

Energy Slimes reduces army health by 30% but increases energy credits by 15% and +0.50 credits are earned from livestock. If you're a god damn monster

Boneless reduces army health by another 15% but reduces pop food usage by 7.50%. Also you get another 0.50 food off them for livestock YOU MONSTER

Self-replicating gives +12% pop growth speed

So yeah, they're slimes. Their origin is Megaflora Tree of Life which starts them on a megaflora world and makes it so any planets they settle will slowly turn into a megaflora world. Counter to the Gurite's turning all planets into a hive world.



Edicts are a thing I often forget even exist. There are some that require influence to enact but (usually) stay active until you turn it off. Then there are a bunch that require a resource of some kind (explosive motes for this one) that will give a perk for a certain amount of time. There is an edict cap that gives penalties if you go over it but that only seems to be for the ones that last until cancelled.



I believe this is the only prebuilt gateway in the entire galaxy, and its in a wild space sector in the most southeastern part of space. Discovering this will greatly increase the chance it will show up as a research option, which it did! Its just a shame it took forever for mega-engineering to finally show up despite having a ring world for so long. But that isn't even the worst case of a tech not showing up in this run...



The galactic market is a useful thing to get in your sector as it knocks off 10% of the market fee, making it cheaper to buy stuff and you get more selling stuff on it. You have to pay influence and credits to nominate a planet to host it and then you can pay more influence and credits to boost the nomination. As I didn't have a lot of influence I couldn't boost it, and I wasn't exactly going hard on trade so I didn't win. But for the hive mind to get it, hive mind. Who don't generate any trade.



Oooh this is an interesting fallen empire to get. They have three ring worlds in their district, some broken, some with a bunch of organic pops. This galaxy really seems to enjoy ring worlds. I'm surprised Sanctuary wasn't in this game.



When you get enough bonuses you can get silly stuff like this where stuff doesn't cost anything to build. I've had some games where I had enough reductions that it went negative for build cost and I was paid to build stuff.



Academy is all about buffing your leaders. The perks are

Increasing leader pool size by 3

Army and ship starting experience increased by 200 and admirals and generals getting their max skill level increased by 1

Starting level of all leaders increased by 1, this is also retroactive.

Leader experience gain increased by 33%

1 researcher job on every planet.

When finished your leaders will upgrade one of their traits at level 5 which doubles the effect. For example, Sler'vus ship weapons range perk now increases range by 40%



Full bio ascension unlocks a tech that gives you more traits when biomodding. This new version of Hisa, after I get transcendence, all have:

Psionic, which gives +10% research to all jobs and energy credits and +5% happiness. Leaders will have psionic traits, I'll explain below.

Robust gives +30% habitability, +5% from jobs and expands leader lifespan by 50 years.

Erudite gives +20% researcher output, +1 to leader level cap and leaders will have an additional trait

Microscopic Sight gives +5% to all research from jobs

Now for the leader bonuses, psionics/erudite give:

Governor: +5 stability and +10% unity from jobs/+5% to all research from jobs

Scientists: +10% research speed, an additional +10% to psionics research, +25% survey speed and +1 archaeology skill/+5% research speed

Admirals: +10% weapons damage and +15% evasion/+5% ship fire rate and +10% combat disengagement chance

Generals: +15% army morale and morale damage/+5% army damage and +10% disengagement chance.

Don't forget they all also have the cybernetics trait!



Dussewal has gale speed AND aggressive, which gives a total +30% speed Gale speed also gives an evasion boost



Whats cool is that this didn't just give some generic battleships, it gave a mix of both of the battleship classes I made. It was also cheaper to rebuild these from the debris.

There are supposed to be 2 other ship classes inbetween corvette and battleship, but honestly its better to just go all in on corvettes until battleships come around. The other classes are destroyers and cruisers. I did have a cruiser class set up and ready to build, but alloy shortages made me ignore them and then hey, battleship tech showed up.

For the carrier battleship, strike crafts rip ass, there is a reason I put hangers on every border station. When combat is engage they just keep deploying. From combat start to end the hangers are constantly throwing out strike craft. Strike craft gets shot down? If the mother ship is still going it will be replaced. And since battleships stick to the back, they wont be getting shot down any time soon as they continue swarming the enemy with strike craft. The primary defense against strike craft are point defense systems but here is the thing: Point defense will prioritize strike craft and leave missiles alone. This makes them perfect to pair off with bomber corvettes.

A mod I have adds more different strike craft. Pretty much a strike craft set for the different weapons like autocannons and plasma throwers, there is also the "fighter" class which I think is meant to fight with other strike craft and intercept missiles.

For the artillery class, right now I'm rather light on offensive options. But they can still stay far back and lay down the hurt while the corvettes keep the enemy away. The meta currently is to have only battleships with neutron launchers, which has enough range for a battleship to immediately fire upon any hostile as soon as they enter the sector. But I'm not playing multiplayer so shhhh its ok, let me play with stuff besides neutron battleships. We are completely blowing the AI out of the water anyways, don't think they can even manage to bring much point defense.



Mind Over Matter will give some leaders the psionic trait and gives your pops a weaker version of the trait. Transcendence gives every leader the trait and pops get the more powerful version of the trait. This only effects the primary pop however. You can assimilate other pops into having psionics as well... except it is strictly mutual between cybernetics or psionics, you can't assimilate them into one then the other. But getting the trait from unlocking the perk bypasses that.

Let me tell you about how fun it was having to go over the like 40 colonies and manually changing the pop growth to ensure this ultimate form of Hisa are generated instead of the previous generation



The Shroud is the perk that the psionics ascension gets, on top of stronger armies/ships. However due to its RNG nature it isn't considered a great ascension. Synthetic gives you uber robots! Biology lets you make uber pops! Psionics.. might give you some bonuses if the RNG is kind

You have to pay 1k credits to access the shroud, and you can only access it every 5 years. You can already see how this is an issue with RNG. Once you go in you will be presented with options, usually access to 3 different choices with varying levels of success.

Or you can get one of the better options right at the start and can make a covenant with a shroud entity. Note that you can only make 1 pact, its permanent and there are drawbacks. And the one we got is the one that I think is best, the other entities are:

Composer of Strands which gives +20 leader lifespan and +20% pop growth. The drawback is that any species with the psionics trait will lose or gain another trait.

Eater of Worlds provides +15% fire rate and +30% army morale. The drawback is that you may lose 1 pop and get -20% happiness, lose 3 and get -40% happiness or for a world to turn into a shroud world and get -30% happiness.

Whisperers in the Void gives +15% research speed and influence gain on top of +2 to codebreaking. The drawback is leaders with the psionic trait can get the substance abuser trait or commits suicide and psionic pops can get -30 or even -100 stability for 10 years

End of the Cycle gives +100% resources from jobs and orbital stations, +100% naval capacity, +5 monthly influence and +10 starbase capacity. The drawback is that it summons a crisis in 50 years, it also takes over all your planets and spawns fleets above each planet while you get exiled to another planet.

What we got is Instrument of Desire, which gives +10% bonus to all jobs. The downside is that a planet may need +200% more consumer goods or for a planet to have -50% or even -100% governing ethics attraction. Not really that bad of a downside.



Xenophobic purifiers are a set race that may spawn in some galaxies, whether you get the Deneb or Sol sector (fun fact, the Celimy has Sol!) spawned in. I... never see them ever actually achieve anything. They never expand past the 2 sectors given to them. Either they just stay that way cause the AI can't be assed to invade or they are immediately invaded. As they are fanatic purifiers you get a war goal that you can use at any time to "contain the threat" and just eliminate them.



The techno-organic world is a great little world to get, and the fact it also got picked to be a precursor world so it also got a bunch of other bonuses added onto it is hilarious. The modifiers are Techno-Organic Planet which provides +10% engineering research and food from jobs and +6% max agriculture districts.
Between the synthetic lifeforms and the planet-wide irrigation canals, scientists have no shortage of projects to pursue

Precursor crashed orbital which gives +100% motes, gases and crystals from jobs
A colossal crater marks this otherwise unremarkable planet, containing the remains of an archaic space station. Due to the extensive damage, not much can be gleaned from examining the wreckage, though our scientists suspect it belonged to a time-lost empire

Precursor Prison Planet, which provides a -90% reduction to crime and +40 to the planet capacity. Planet capacity effects how much pop can be on a planet before the game starts lowering pop growth rate
Thousands upon thousands of barracks-like buildings littler the surface of this world, while beneath lie the remains of a vase planet-wide prison system. Built within the very bedrock are cells and containment fields, their purpose clear

A future event will also add Synthetic Pets, providing+10% planetary build speed and happiness
Embracing the synthetic lifeforms has helped the new colony a great deal.

The planet can also have an Archeology District. It provides 1 archaeologists job that uses 10 consumer goods to provide a minor artifact each month, along with some research. As artifacts are usually only gathered from dig sites its nice to have a steady income.

There is a series of events with this planet that all happen in the next update.



Cormaggas C IIIb's planetary wonder is an abandoned stargate that provides 4 researcher jobs, +50 trade value and 25 physics research. Beyond the titanic geo form the only modifier that is new is Otherworldly Colors which doesn't provide anything
This world's vegetation comes in all sorts of colors. The most remarkable thing is, the vegetation color depends on the latitude of theplanet. From bright yellow flowers and tress on the equator to deep purple grass near the arctic. This world feels truly alien



I'm gonna make a short list of what upgrades can be put onto the stations with the mods I got, starting with the module slots:

Security Branch which gives -15 crime to all planets in the sector as well as provide +25 trade protection and +2 protection range

Space Factory and Foundries will provide a few alloys/consumer goods for some minerals. Its not as effective as planetary jobs, but you don't need to use pops to get the resource and you see all those slots, you can fill them up with these modules. You can also add chain manufacturing buildings to buff these.

Orbital research labs which provides a few of each research type, but can also build support lab buildings to buff them.

There is also modules to get some food, minerals and energy.

Then there are several defensive options added, shield generators and armor protection provides +6k shield and +8k armor, respectively.

There is more going on in the building slots:

Reinforced Starbase Defenses gives a massive boost to the starbase; +6k shields and an additional +10%, +1 shield daily regen, +10k armor with another +10% and +1% daily armor regen.

Strategic Starbase defenses which gives +6k shield hit points with another +10%, +1% shield regen and +25% to firing rate. I'm sure there will be more when I upgrade to higher tier stations.

Experienced Crew Quarters gives ships built there an additional +100 experience

Navy Veterans Quarters gives a +7% fire rate and +20% evasion to ships built there.

There are several buildings for getting motes, crystals and gases

There are a few "chains" to synergize with modules. There is a support lab for each research type, and you can only build one of them. Besides buffing the research module they also give bonuses to that research type to both planets and research stations in the sector. Not only that but they have their own chains, for example the engineering one can then build a Navy Experts Sector which reduces costs to module, building and ships.

Then there are a multitude of colony benefits upgrades, we've seen stasis chambers and orbital assembly, but there is buildings to provide extra housing, amenities, stability, habitability, trade value, construction speed and blocker cost and speed. I almost want to do a one sector run now, where I stick to one sector and can only build more habitats in that sector. Would be a fun void dweller run.

There are several upgrades for ship building as well. Assembly yards for each class type that reduces costs and dramatically increases build speed, assembly yards for a general build speed increase, part replicators to increase speed even further. Currently my most upgraded shipyard can make a corvette every 17 days and a battleship every 177 days.



Naff'Cauga is a Tidally Locked World with a modifier of the same name. It provides +10% energy and food from jobs and gives +2 districts to each type. There is a penalty of -20% housing, -10% habitability and -5% happiness to biological and lithoid pops.
The constant sunlight and strong winds make this planet an ideal place for power generation and for harvesting crops.

Next update it gets an Inconvenient Space Elevator. So yes it really is Kenshi



With tech all your space stations (not outposts) will have an FTL inhibitor that will prevent fleets from flying past your defenses. Stations do tend to fall off quick, and while I got mods that buff them, who knows how well that works in practice. The next best defense plan you can have is a world that is heavily militarized. Stronghold buildings will have your planet provide an FTL inhibitor, so the enemy HAS to take it to move on. I picked a molten habitat because the modifiers on it were fucking metal, though they do not actually have any game play effect.

Abundant Natural Radioactivity: Extensive natural nuclear reactions within this planet's crust combine with vigorous tectonic activity to produce massive volcanoes spewing fissile materials. As a result, the athmosphere of this world is saturated with radioactive particles

Lava Geysers: Spread across the flatter areas of this planet are a large number of lava geysers. These geysers allow most of the subsurface pressure to vent, keeping part of the landscape predominantly flat and solid. It is advisable to maintain a distance, however, as these geysers can be dengerous.



When you recruit armies it isn't just a generic army, you pick which species the army is composed of. So another perk to a military habitat is to then make a template with a bunch of army bonuses and keep them separated from the production template, as a bonus this means the defending armies will also be of that species. Then you can use your building slots to buff the military and not worry about not having a production building in that slot. So as to what I've got on the War Hisa

Electromagnet Armor: +15% army health, +10% energy credits from jobs and +5% physics research

Healing Factor: +40% army health, +10 years to leader lifespan, +0.50 food from livestock (wait, how does healing create more food? Unless... bits are cut off then healed back smile:

Pyrokinetic: +5% alloys from jobs and +30% army damage.

Phase Shift: +22% army health and +15% army morale

Then there is the War Synths that will be produced here

Heavy Bombers: +50% army damage and collateral

Plasma Weaponry: +25% army damage and collateral

Armored: +25% army health

Mil-Spec: +20% army damage



Finally, our first relic world! Relic worlds get several bonuses applied to them and unique blockers. Clearing the blockers will give some bonuses like extra research and artifacts. Once we clear all the blockers and have the right tech (zero g engineering?) we can spend 20k minerals and a decade to restore it to a ecumenopolis. This is a really good deal because building a ecumenopolis from scratch requires filling each and every single solitary district slot with housing. For particularly big planets you're looking at a decade or more on that alone. It also requires an ascension perk, while restoring a world doesn't.

The modifiers here are Lower City Levels which provides +1 building slot and +2 max districts
Part of the massive endless city has collapsed, revealing that the top layer of the city planet is built on a much older city

Archaeotech Generators, which gives +0.50 energy credits from technicians. But considering ecumenopolis don't get generator districts...



And hey, we got an already complete ecumenopolis from an event! The modifier here is Promised Land, which gives +10% unity from jobs and +15% resources from jobs
This world is a second chance the ancients have found

Then there is a flat bonus provided that all ecumenopolis have. +20% resources from jobs, +50% pop growth speed and all building slots are opened. Also they tend to be 100% habitable by every species.

There are no normal districts in an ecumenopolis, everything is a themed arcology.

Residential Arcologies give 21 housing and 3 clerk jobs

Foundry Arcologies give 10 housing and 6 metallurgist jobs. It does have an upkeep requirement of explosive motes, so keep that in mind.

Factory Arcologies are the above, except for artisan jobs and it requires rare crystals

Leisure Arcologies are the same, but instead gives 4 entertain jobs and 4 culture jobs and require exotic gas for upkeep

Planetary Shipyard, which is from a mod, gives 4 housing and 4 pilot jobs which increase naval capacity.

Industrial Sector Arcology, from a mod, gives 5 housing and 1 of each refiner job. One of these can maintain the rare materials needed for 2 each of the 3 other arcologies.


Of course this planet is going to be pumping out alloys! I can start modifying the local species to have all kinds of bonuses to alloy production. Oh, the locals. Sheer fluke it grabbed that portrait, they're reptilians.