TheCreamiestCook wrote:

Not sure how people missed this "on empire" effect when it's in the tooltip

It does disply this info only once you build it and hover over it in the galaxy view.

If you check it on the technology screen or build queue you get only this:

Well either way one thing should be perfectly clear.

These Singularities have to get nerfed ASAP. 

Riftborn got a huge amount of buffs already: They get 6 singularities max, they get +5 population slots on sterile and they benefit a lot from Behemots since their singularities cost strategic ressources. And since selling strategics ressources gets you so much money, the extra Dust is also easy to come by. 

In its current state I simply put down Rip Singularities regardless of what it does, just for the science bonus. Even if it were nerfed down to 5%, you would still be able to use 6 of them for a whopping 30% science bonus on your empire. 

I see no options other than to either remove the bonuses on empire alltogether, or drastically nerf them to not more than 5%. I haven't even looked at the very last singularity. Who knows? Maybe its a +25% FIDSI bonus on empire? One thing I know is there is no info about these "on empire bonuses" in the tech tree, and that is a bug. 

Agreed. I have one proposal which I'm gonna preface first.

Problem with pre-buff Singularities

Only the starting Compression singularity was ever worth using due to its positive system FIDSI bonuses: it's never really worthwhile to hinder one enemy system with time slow or other later unlocked negative singularities if you have multiple foes to deal with, which is going to be most of the match. Result was that you only ever used the starting Compression singularity for the duration of the whole game.

Problem with post-buff Singularities

Thus other singularities were given various FIDSI-related empire empire bonuses in addition to their original effects to make them useful. The major problems with them are that they're

• Way too powerful, especially with increased singularity slots that were patched in later.
• Not thematically fitting with their effect. The new buffs don't make the situational effects any better.
• Gameplay wise their normal effect directly clashes with the new empire wide effect in one case.

As worst offender the time stopping Stasis singularity also gives an empire wide positive effect of +25% Influence (if I'm remembering right since the tooltip is bugged and I don't have a late game Riftborn save at hand): thus if you're using it against an enemy system you're also somehow giving them an empire wide Influence bonus, whereas if you want to benefit from the empire wide bonus yourself you have to freeze one of your own systems. It's completely counter-intuitive.

Solution

Both sides have their issues. Pre-buff later unlocked singularities were too bad to see use, whereas current post-buff singularities are too powerful and come with a plethora of other problems as well. The underlying issue is that the original pre-buff effects (stop a system, replay a battle, regain movement points) of the later unlocked singularities just aren't good or they're way too situational to make you want to waste valuable singularity slots that would better serve strengthening your own empire. 

What I suggest is first removing the new unthematic and overpowered empire wide affects, but making singularity slot limitations apply BY TYPE rather than globally. What I mean is that instead of having 3-6 slots to work with that you can use across any and all singularity types, limit them separately so that you can use a certain number of system buff singularities, certain number of battle repeat singularites, certain number of stasis singularities and so on. I'm just throwing numbers in the air but for example, instead of being able to field 6 singularities of any type make it so you can field a max of 4 Compression singularities, 3 Dilation Singularities, 2 Stasis Singularities, you get the drift.

What this achieves is that other situational singularities (Dilation, Rip, Fold, Stasis) don't take valuable slots from the always useful system buff singularity (Compression), so Riftborn are actually incentivized to use the former for their original effects to hinder enemy systems, help the movement and battles of their fleets, or turn one system into a chokepoint to buy you time.

It seems pretty clear Riftborn gameplay was at least a bit inspired by EL's Ardent Mages. Why Ardent Mages' pillars and spells worked while Riftborn's singularities don't is because in the former case bonus granting pillars (always useful) and battle spells (situational) weren't mutually exclusive; fielding a many city buffing pillars didn't make you any less capable of casting spells or vice versa, resource costs notwithstanding. Riftborn Singularities on the other hand are mutually exclusive: buffing your systems with Compression (always useful) means you can't use Dilation, Rip, Fold or Stasis (situational) to hinder your enemies or vice versa, hence why the last four are almost never worth using. The goal is to remedy this issue.

I started a game with the balance mod last night and my explorers weren't waking up after replenishing a probe any more.

hera35 wrote:

As worst offender the time stopping Stasis singularity also gives an empire wide positive effect of +25% Influence (if I'm remembering right since the tooltip is bugged and I don't have a late game Riftborn save at hand): thus if you're using it against an enemy system you're also somehow giving them an empire wide Influence bonus, whereas if you want to benefit from the empire wide bonus yourself you have to freeze one of your own systems. It's completely counter-intuitive.

This information is incorrect. You get the bonus for the singularity being active, not for where it is placed. You get the influence bonus even if you use the time-stop anomaly on an enemy.

That said, I do agree that the empire-wide bonuses are not a good solution to the problem.

Bug report: the battle tactic 'En Passant' appears in both 'Antimatter Chanelling' technology (4th tier) and Quadrinix Toroids (5th tier).

samsonazs wrote:

TheCreamiestCook wrote:

Not sure how people missed this "on empire" effect when it's in the tooltip

It does disply this info only once you build it and hover over it in the galaxy view.

If you check it on the technology screen or build queue you get only this:

Pretty sure I grabbed this screencap from the technology screen without having researched it because I usually skip the tech.  Including the date I made the screencap for reference.  I'm not denying it's bugged now.  I'm simply stating it should've been hard to miss if you've been around long enough.

Yeah, accelator stacking seriously needs to go and I think speed bonuses in general may need a nerf. Them and Seeker heroes remove all semblance of galactic geography when fleets zip near instantly from one system to another with free move. It's also one of the reasons why Special Node battle theater visuals and effects (asteroid fields, black holes etc.) go completely to waste because there's no chokepoints and no reason to camp on them. Aside from Supremacy adding Behemoth modules that can exploit them that is.

I'm still of the opinion that movement type unlocks should work like in ES1, i.e.

Lanes > Wormholes > Free Move

because that could possibly give galactic geography some staying power in mid-game as well. It's weird that you unlock the best movement type first, especially since wormholes are basically just an extension of normal lanes. In fact Wormholes can often be worse than both free move and normal lines since they drain the movement points of a fleet. I often choose to skip them altogether unless I have to connect trade routes, which doesn't directly have anything to do with their main effect.

Granted such change would likely need a more involved fix to work properly: map generation should probably receive an overhaul to prevent stuff like this and other hijinks where system clusters and their connections are generated in a non-pleasant way. Quests should also be taken into consideration, because currently a system like Vodyani faction quest's Tabernacle can spawn on the other side of the galaxy.

Further feedback on United Empire questline. Chapter 3. No Turning Back has some pretty big issues with how wildly different in difficulty each of the objectives are. This is the chapter where you finally decide whether to stay as United Empire or switch to Sheredyn or Mezari. The objectives are as follows:

- Sheredyn: Raise the number of command points across your empire to 15.

- United Empire: Set up 6 or more active trade routes.

- Mezari: Produce 416 or more Science / turn (for comparison I'm currently at 216 / turn)

Save in case

UE Chapter 3 No Turning Back.sav

Sheredyn

As you can see the Sheredyn objective is ludicrously difficult compared to UE and Mezari objectives. You begin with

- Free starting CP (+4)

To achieve 15 CP you have to research 

- Military T2 CP tech Coordinated Command (+3) 

- Military T3 CP tech Zero-Lag Command (+3) 

- Military T4 CP tech Integrated Theaters (+2 / unlocked hull type)

- Many additional military techs in between to unlock higher tech tiers to begin with 

Currently it costs a total of about 13k Science to reach that point, or about 60 turns with my current Science output assuming I research nothing else but the CP techs and extras for tier unlock requirements, and that's not even counting the increasing Science costs per researched tech! You have to invest in Science a LOT more than in Mezari path to be able to complete the Sheredyn objective. Suggested solution is to either reduce the number of CP required or change the whole objective so it actually has you do something militaristic.

United Empire

This requires you to set up several trade routes, which strictly doesn't have anything to do with Industry or Influence but alright. Regardless, to achieve this you have to

- Research Economic T3 tech Commercial Frameworks

- Build several Trade Company HQs (1120 Industry each) and Trade Company Subsidiaries (640 Industry each)

- Use diplomacy and spend Influence to get Peace and trade agreements with factions that also use trade routes.

- If other factions are in different constellations, you also have to research Science&Exploration T3 tech Autonomous materials

This objective seems a bit more thematic since at least it fits the "middle road" approach of UE and has you do several things with Industry and Influence, plus has you unlock techs from different quadrants. I can't be arsed to count how many turns it would take to achieve but I'm assuming it's somewhat easier than Sheredyn due to not pigeonholing you into researching one tech quadrant. However I think the number of trade routes is a bad measure for a quest objective because it can be very dependent on whether you have friendly AIs or players in the vicinity. If you don't, tough luck.

As a side note, if my memory serves me right Riftborn have a similarly badly designed quest in their Pacifist path of the faction quest but turned up to eleven, since it requires you to be in peace for a certain number of turns. That is COMPLETELY at the hands of other empires and not the Riftborn themselves: AI of course can be gamed and abused but against players I'd wager it would be even worse. Just declare war and prevent the Riftborn from advancing their quest. 

Regardless I'd like if both that Riftborn Pacifist objective and the current United Empire's UE path objective were somehow changed so they were more in hands of the playing faction rather than at the mercy of their neighbors. In UE quest's case, if you want to retain the Trade Route focus how about making the objective about establishing enough Trade Companies instead? One or at most two, maybe?

Mezari

The Science / turn requirement is way, way too low. I managed to achieve the objective in... 3 turns. Granted I did end up lucking out on Bluecap Mold luxury to quickly boost science output further, but I only leveled up two systems. Even without the luxury you're going to naturally increase your Science output through normal growth and gameplay sooner or later. IT'S NOT AN OBJECTIVE AT ALL when you raise your Science output regardless of what you're doing! I think this objective needs a complete rework than simple number changes.

For comparison's sake, if I could hypothetically try doing the Sheredyn objective now with Mezari Science bonuses that amount to 478 / turn, it would still take me about 15k Science to reach 15 CP, or about 30 turns if not taking further growth related bonuses and gradually increasing Science costs into account.

---

As additional complaint the faction quest in general seems too easy to do up until this point. It's only turn 32 on Normal speed and I'm already at chapter 3. I don't know if it's intended but the second chapter only had me maintain 1 scientist law for 10 turns and I'm assuming it's the same number of laws for other paths as well, which is way too easy to do as long as you get the party in question into senate even once in any form. For this playthrough's faction quest objectives I picked 

1. Industrialist (hoard 600 Dust) 

1. Scientist (produce 141 Science / turn, another "objective" in need of changing)  

2. Scientist (possess planets of every non-gas climate type), which automatically follows up with another Scientist objective for next part. I'm not sure if this part of the quest is bugged or if it just checks that I have every Fertility and Heat type covered, because I surely don't have every actual planet type like Arctic, Ice, Barren etc. colonized. It should definitely be the latter, because covering every Fertility and Heat type is way too easy to do.

3. Scientist (maintain 1 Scientist law for 10 turns)

hera35 wrote:

Further feedback on United Empire questline. Chapter 3. No Turning Back has some pretty big issues with how wildly different in difficulty each of the objectives are. This is the chapter where you finally decide whether to stay as United Empire or switch to Sheredyn or Mezari. The objectives are as follows:

- Sheredyn: Raise the number of command points across your empire to 15.

- United Empire: Set up 6 or more active trade routes.

- Mezari: Produce 416 or more Science / turn (for comparison I'm currently at 216 / turn)

Save in case

UE Chapter 3 No Turning Back.sav

Sheredyn

As you can see the Sheredyn objective is ludicrously difficult compared to UE and Mezari objectives. You begin with

- Free starting CP (+4)

To achieve 15 CP you have to research 

- Military T2 CP tech Coordinated Command (+3) 

- Military T3 CP tech Zero-Lag Command (+3) 

- Military T4 CP tech Integrated Theaters (+2 / unlocked hull type)

- Many additional military techs in between to unlock higher tech tiers to begin with 

Currently it costs a total of about 13k Science to reach that point, or about 60 turns with my current Science output assuming I research nothing else but the CP techs and extras for tier unlock requirements, and that's not even counting the increasing Science costs per researched tech! You have to invest in Science a LOT more than in Mezari path to be able to complete the Sheredyn objective. Suggested solution is to either reduce the number of CP required or change the whole objective so it actually has you do something militaristic.

United Empire

This requires you to set up several trade routes, which strictly doesn't have anything to do with Industry or Influence but alright. Regardless, to achieve this you have to

- Research Economic T3 tech Commercial Frameworks

- Build several Trade Company HQs (1120 Industry each) and Trade Company Subsidiaries (640 Industry each)

- Use diplomacy and spend Influence to get Peace and trade agreements with factions that also use trade routes.

- If other factions are in different constellations, you also have to research Science&Exploration T3 tech Autonomous materials

This objective seems a bit more thematic since at least it fits the "middle road" approach of UE and has you do several things with Industry and Influence, plus has you unlock techs from different quadrants. I can't be arsed to count how many turns it would take to achieve but I'm assuming it's somewhat easier than Sheredyn due to not pigeonholing you into researching one tech quadrant. However I think the number of trade routes is a bad measure for a quest objective because it can be very dependent on whether you have friendly AIs or players in the vicinity. If you don't, tough luck.

As a side note, if my memory serves me right Riftborn have a similarly badly designed quest in their Pacifist path of the faction quest but turned up to eleven, since it requires you to be in peace for a certain number of turns. That is COMPLETELY at the hands of other empires and not the Riftborn themselves: AI of course can be gamed and abused but against players I'd wager it would be even worse. Just declare war and prevent the Riftborn from advancing their quest. 

Regardless I'd like if both that Riftborn Pacifist objective and the current United Empire's UE path objective were somehow changed so they were more in hands of the playing faction rather than at the mercy of their neighbors. In UE quest's case, if you want to retain the Trade Route focus how about making the objective about establishing enough Trade Companies instead? One or at most two, maybe?

Mezari

The Science / turn requirement is way, way too low. I managed to achieve the objective in... 3 turns. Granted I did end up lucking out on Bluecap Mold luxury to quickly boost science output further, but I only leveled up two systems. Even without the luxury you're going to naturally increase your Science output through normal growth and gameplay sooner or later. IT'S NOT AN OBJECTIVE AT ALL when you raise your Science output regardless of what you're doing! I think this objective needs a complete rework than simple number changes.

For comparison's sake, if I could hypothetically try doing the Sheredyn objective now with Mezari Science bonuses that amount to 478 / turn, it would still take me about 15k Science to reach 15 CP, or about 30 turns if not taking further growth related bonuses and gradually increasing Science costs into account.

---

As additional complaint the faction quest in general seems too easy to do up until this point. It's only turn 32 on Normal speed and I'm already at chapter 3. I don't know if it's intended but the second chapter only had me maintain 1 scientist law for 10 turns and I'm assuming it's the same number of laws for other paths as well, which is way too easy to do as long as you get the party in question into senate even once in any form. For this playthrough's faction quest objectives I picked 

1. Industrialist (hoard 600 Dust) 

1. Scientist (produce 141 Science / turn, another "objective" in need of changing)  

2. Scientist (possess planets of every non-gas climate type), which automatically follows up with another Scientist objective for next part. I'm not sure if this part of the quest is bugged or if it just checks that I have every Fertility and Heat type covered, because I surely don't have every actual planet type like Arctic, Ice, Barren etc. colonized. It should definitely be the latter, because covering every Fertility and Heat type is way too easy to do.

3. Scientist (maintain 1 Scientist law for 10 turns)

Lol did you ever choose smth except Mezari in your games? It really feels you didn't from what I've just read. Also seems you don't understand trade routes mechanics at all, a trade route is NOT the same as trade company. It is a way from ANY HQ to ANY subsiduary. You do not rely on AIs and other players completely with this path. You can achieve it with just trade route tech and you can speed it up with 2 extra subsiduaries tech. 

On the Sheredyn part, it is basically an easy go if you pushed agressive playstyle right from the start. You basically pick it for quick progression and neat bonus rather than to have some lategane shenanigans like with mezari. Try and master all playstyles before giving balance suggestions, please. Ofc there are some things that are objectively in a need of a change (like silken diplomacy - simply a useless trate that achieved nothing), but not the ones you are pointing out.

hera35 wrote:

mamarider wrote:

Lol did you ever choose smth except Mezari in your games? It really feels you didn't from what I've just read. Also seems you don't understand trade routes mechanics at all, a trade route is NOT the same as trade company. It is a way from ANY HQ to ANY subsiduary. You do not rely on AIs and other players completely with this path. You can achieve it with just trade route tech and you can speed it up with 2 extra subsiduaries tech. 

I have, multiple times. I also know that for the quest objective it counts routes between subsidiaries and not the number of trading companies. That's why I specifically mentioned Trade Companies as an alternate objective to the current trade route objective. Let me reiterate: "In UE quest's case, if you want to retain the Trade Route focus how about making the objective about establishing enough Trade Companies instead? One or at most two, maybe? "

While I said that for Riftborn pacifist quest they are completely at the mercy of their opponents, for UE I meant that the quest's difficulty can be greatly affected by neighbors since they can possibly provide several more valuable quick trade route locations. It's not as bad as Riftborn, but its difficulty can be swayed by the cards they're dealt with in addition to concious choices the player has to make.

On the Sheredyn part, it is basically an easy go if you pushed agressive playstyle right from the start. You basically pick it for quick progression and neat bonus rather than to have some lategane shenanigans like with mezari. Try and master all playstyles before giving balance suggestions, please. Ofc there are some things that are objectively in a need of a change (like silken diplomacy - simply a useless trate that achieved nothing), but not the ones you are pointing out.

But it's NOT quick progression as I already demonstrated. Did you even read my post?

Mezari objective is too easy to achieve because of two reasons:

- the required amount of science / turn is way too small

- unlike the other two paths, science output objective is something that's easy to achieve regardless of what you're doing, without having to shift your gameplay focus

You're focusing on military? Great, you get science from normal progression because of conquered systems and you also want to increase science output regardless to improve your military. You're focusing on trade? You get science from normal progression regardless and you probably need to up your science output to to get the relevant techs as well. Food focus? You both get and want more science. And so on.

What I'm trying to demonstrate here is that:

• Sheredyn path forces you to focus your SCIENTIFIC efforts towards accomplishing the specifc objective of researching key techs. You spend science that could've been spent somewhere else.
• United Empire path forces you to focus your SCIENTIFIC efforts, plus INDUSTRIAL efforts and possibly DIPLOMATIC efforts into accomplishing the specific objectives. You spend science on techs, industry on trade companies and subsidiaries and possibly influence + resource bribes for more foreign trade route locations. All of those resources could have been used on something else instead.
• Mezari path is basically a free reward for no effort since your science output will be growing regardless of what you're doing, as long as you're not actively losing systems or intentionally stagnating. You don't have to spend anything! Increasing your CP cap or the number of trade routes are actions that can be delayed depending on game state and require conscious gameplay focus to achieve + have costs, but increasing your science output is something you do all the time to achieve other gameplay goals.

I agree that the quests for Sheredyn and Imperial are generally a little more difficult, but they also have considerably better payoffs (IMHO) especially with the balance patch. For Sheredyn with Patriotic Shipyards and the first militarist law gives you a huge 35% bonus to ship construction (40% with Republic IIRC). Mount of Zelevas is great when stacked with the influence wonder, and keeping Imperials keeps up that influence upkeep for those extra buyouts. The Mezari pop bonuses just turn you into Sophons, but without the head start that Sophons have from being Sophons, and the final quest reward is pretty meh given how far away it is at the top the military line, and by that point approval isn't such a big issue anyway with AA and Terraformation.

So yeah, you get your Mezari switch over with a bit faster, but it doesn't have the better payoffs. That might just be a matter of playstyle preference, but I think it's worth taking into consideration.

I already made a thread with my thoughs on the matter of singularities. It's focused on their effects and costs only, and I don't go into empire-wide bonuses. I do think those should be removed, though: if you can't make a system-wide time manipulation effect interesting by itself, needing to attach huge free bonuses so people use them, then they are badly designed.

A link to my thread, for anyone curious. It's as short and straight-to-the-point as I could manage, but still too long for me to want to just paste here.

I like zoom zoom, If your going to nerf fleet accelerators at least let those of us who want to have fun with them be able to turn them back on LOL :D.

I'll make a counter deal on the fleet accelerators?

Why not add MORE to a single module, make it unique equip.  That way I could have a single ship with +3 to fleet speed on a single fleet on a small ship, if the accelerator is on a medium ship it would be +9 (assuming the yellow accelerator)?   I could live with that...    :(

plutar wrote:

I like zoom zoom, If your going to nerf fleet accelerators at least let those of us who want to have fun with them be able to turn them back on LOL :D.

I'll make a counter deal on the fleet accelerators?

Why not add MORE to a single module, make it unique equip.  That way I could have a single ship with +3 to fleet speed on a single fleet on a small ship, if the accelerator is on a medium ship it would be +9 (assuming the yellow accelerator)?   I could live with that...    :(

Thats a terrible idea. 

First of all, movement across non-starlanes is already a cakewalk later in the game. Special nodes with special effects are never coming into play, because all battles are on systems which people own. Creating strategic choke points is not a thing in this game. You want to inflate movement speed even more? You probably did not watch Koxsos video I linked. If you pay close attention, the Riftborn main army was out of vision range and had no trouble going straight to his home system with 40 movement speed. Another army had 91 movement speed.        

Your choice takes away most defensive bonuses such as vision, or time it takes for fleets to arrive. You should watch Koxsos video, where he had exactly 0 turns to react when he saw the enemy Riftborn fleet. He had no time to build any defensive ships. 

Your suggestion will turn the game into a "rush only" game because attacks will appear so fast they are impossible to react, forcing everyone into an arms race because your systems could be invaded anytime from anywhere on the map. You should probly play with mods, or cheats and really try out to see what this means before you make such a suggestion. We try to make the game more balanced, not less balanced just for some joke.

Here's your semi-regular reminder that while we like that everyone's getting involved, there's no need to snipe at one another, even if somebody said something you think is absolutely silly.

Unrelated to the above, but: if you are responding to a long post, please don't include the entire post in the quote. After you're done writing your reply, delete the quote itself, or just leave the first line. Just to make this easy to parse for everyone. Thanks. :)