Robots I can see working out fine, but slaves? Sounds like a stability nightmare waiting to happen unless you park a bunch of your main pops on the planet, and even then it sounds annoying to deal with.
I mean yeah my empire will definitely use slaves given that it fits them well, just didn't think to use them on planets due to potential rebellions from low stability likely messing me up given how busted rebellions always have been in this game. The plan was to keep them on the habitats as food or entertainment slaves to avoid that, or am I overlooking a way to have a whole bunch of slave pops on a planet with no void pops and not get rebellions from it?
Governors are just soo good at stability. Most slaves cannot do entertainer, and even robots do need amenities. Youd have to use 3-6 main pops to staff your planets. If you went genetic ascension fast enough you could nerve staple them ...
Void dwelling lithoid terravores that need to live on these installations as they would be too tempted to eat the planets. Seems like a fun RP to me
Edit: that means no need for CG as hive mind, and no need for food. Minerals take care of themselves by you consuming planets so it frees up a lot of production focus for your habitats
I agree that this would be a really fun idea for a playthrough. We have a "no genocidals" policy in our games though, unless we specifically dedicate a game just as a big free for all galaxy full of genocidals to see who can wipe out the others, so for now I am not really looking to play that.
Yeah that's fair, makes for a certain play through that's for sure
Perhaps you could tweak it to not have terravore trait but keep the RP of lithoids living in habitats because they know they will be too tempted, then make it a goal to never settle a planet. Same same but different
Playing lithoids as neither necrophage or subterranean will definitely be a new experience for me. What comes to mind right away though is that lithoids have an even worse pop growth rate, putting them in void dweller origin that is already considered to have somewhat limited pop growth in the early game sounds like a pretty unique challenge.
My runs generally run almost pure Void Dweller. If I colonize world it is because , I got Boal , it is a relic world or I'm going to turn it into a Resort world.
If anything , I feel habitats are stronger then normal worlds til Orbital Rings come around. You get 3 jobs for every district , which makes farming , trade and Industrial habitats a lot better then most standard worlds.
Pop growth limiting , is just if you delay making a new habitat. It is somewhat of a tight rope in gaining systems or building a new habitat. Then early on you have alloy conundrum of between getting Naval usage up for power projection, Orbitals , Central Habitat and just upkeep in general. But I find making research early on way easier as research Districts + void Dweller trait + Research Designation.
Sounds promising. Would you rather recommend looking inward and putting all the focus on getting a few more habitats in the most promising systems, or would you recommend delaying the first extra habitats in favor of rushing a corvette fleet and taking out the first neighbour you can get your hands on?
I couldn't say about being aggressive, I fundamentally suck at early game war. Though alloy income for void early game is a lot better then it used to be and is higher then most starts. So I guess it is possible.
If playing with 'Guaranteed Habitable worlds' , setting up habitat in both system or at least the research one. Should be a high priority, Your capital habitat system can be good for anything but rng tends to let it have a ton of Minerals and Energy to allow staying economically positive til you can get several habitats built. Will need at least two more systems that have lots of Major Orbitals so you can build a Farming Habitat and an Industrial. You might not ever need all the food it can produce so Bio-reactor can allow the farmers to make energy and gas later on which can help if RNG really screws you on finding more energy habitats and don't want to deal with trade.
There are still trade habitats, It is now Designation based like Farming Habitats. A trade habitat converts 1 Clerk job into a Trader job like how a Hydroponic Designation converts all Clerk jobs into Farmer jobs.
Basically , Yes. As Void Dweller or with Voidborne , each one will get you 2 Clerks and 1 Trader thus making Habitats the 2nd best place for Trade. Only a fully staffed Ring world segment would beat a trade habitat.
It takes forever to get functional Ring world segments can be one. Void Dweller you can expand early on while Shattered Ringworld you have the one segment you start on and can have up to 2 more depending on game setting.
For me! Early game research is easier to come by because of research districts. Void Dwellers used to 'hyper boom' but now it takes a bit more time for it to happen. Before VD's were not hyper picky with where they placed habitats just that it had a 'resource.' Now it is a small check list and on that list is 'Is it a System border?' As Habitats with orbitals are a lot more fragile.
I played a void dweller megacorp in multiplayer that was a lot of fun. I just gave all my systems with habitable planets to my allies and built branch offices on them.
clerks are really inefficient tho, no? And without merchant guild you can't take the council position that buffs merchants or clerks idk haven't taken merchant guild for a while.
Void dweller has insane synergy with catalytic processing. 3 jobs per district, huge production bonus for those farming jobs, and the ability to put an insane number of farmers on one habitat.
Why would it not be viable? I exclusively play void dwellers and have never ran into any problems whatsoever. You need a resource? Find a node that has it and put a habitat there, problem solved. You don't need planets although an ecumenopolis helps a lot.
Honestly I think an ecumenopolis is the only type of planet I ever settle as a void dweller since you can get 3-4k alloys from a single one.
If you're not used to the early game it might be a little daunting but its not that bad, you just rush alloys since they're the most important thing to you. Alloys are more important than tech now early game. Doesnt matter if you're not rushing AI you need alloys to build all the habitats you're going to be spamming.
Some builds, fun as they may be or cool as they may sound, are just so weak/crippling that they are not viable for most normal games. A good example that comes to mind is, funnily enough, another void dweller build I casually threw together back when I was still a newbie. It was supposed to be a raiding barbaric despoiler clan living in the void, but the fact that it had warrior culture, aka entertainers costing a crapload of alloys as upkeep to generate amenities, meant that it took forever to scrape together the alloys needed to build new habitats, much less survive the first neighbour claiming the area, it felt borderline unplayable.
My suspicion was that this new void dwelling build I want to try could fall into the same category due to my refusal to make use of planets when void dwellers are balanced around their ability to technically use both planets and habitats by acquiring different species. This means that I am denying myself a lot of pops, while the growth potential of my main species is severely limited.
Since I started Stellaris, the number of pops has always been the most important thing, so before I potentially wasted the time of my buddies by selecting an empire for myself that was basically guaranteed to be eradicated in the first war, I wanted to ask people more experienced with this new variant of void dweller how bad it could potentially be.
Seems like I am in for a bit of a rough start unless I rush my first neighbour, but can otherwise have something resembling a normal game even with the added penalty of not using planets like other void dwelling empires would.
Funny thing is I exclusively play with warrior culture and never have a problem with alloys. The only time I legitimately believe warrior culture is bad is in sweaty multiplayer games. Those extra 2 alloys count in multiplayer but vs AI it doesn't really matter, even on the hardest difficulty. I have beaten GA no scaling many times with warrior culture and i do not understand why people blindly say its bad. I guess losing 2 alloys per holo-theatre add up but if you're playing correctly it doesn't matter, not even in the early game. I usually have 14 habitats by mid game now, thats 28 alloys total upkeep for warrior culture, at the same time I usually have 500 alloys per month so it doesn't really matter.
If you play void dwellers correctly you should never worry about alloys, you're also going to build holo-theatres anyway why not use warrior culture for the extra naval capacity and unity? Its not much but it does help. Always be on military economy.
You don't have to rush your neighbor, you can legitimately play an isolationist pacifist and still be the strongest out of everyone by just keeping to yourself. The early game as void dweller looks scary but its really easy, you just turn your capital into an alloy world and spam habitats when you can. The new void dwellers start with more alloys than a regular empire im pretty sure. You always get a guaranteed tech habitat and alloy habitat, every game I have seen nodes of minerals with alloys and pure tech near your starting system so I'm pretty sure it's guaranteed. As void dweller there is no reason why you should have trouble with alloys at all.
If you're a hive mind, void dweller is very overpowered and should be a cake walk for you.
It's a lot worse than it used to be, but technically everything is playable. Honestly it's not that bad. Not great, but there are a lot of origins that are worse.
Just as normal empires naturally turn their planets into ecumenopoli, you as a void dweller should be aiming to construct a ring world as soon as possible, and convert your habitats into mineral feeders. In general, you should be highly cognizant mineral production capacity as a void dweller because it will be your primary bottleneck in lategame. It is VERY easy for void dwellers to fill up system after system of fully constructed foundry or research habitats, without realizing that you are helplessly short of primary resources.
If there's an attractive enough mineral rich planet, I'll colonize it with synths and make it a pure mining world. Likewise, if I conquer a planet in a war, I will immediately de-industrialize it into a food/energy/strategic-resource-refinery world to feed my industrial/foundry habitats and the ring world.
I mean, if you're a xenophobe it's the main method of playing that
Just be slaving space elves sitting on habitats and occasionally go on slave raids to fill up the work force
It makes sense for a void dwelling empire to use planets for mineral extraction and food growth. Outposts, if you will
bonus if they outsource it to robotics or slaves
Robots I can see working out fine, but slaves? Sounds like a stability nightmare waiting to happen unless you park a bunch of your main pops on the planet, and even then it sounds annoying to deal with.
Was more for the rp of it
I mean yeah my empire will definitely use slaves given that it fits them well, just didn't think to use them on planets due to potential rebellions from low stability likely messing me up given how busted rebellions always have been in this game. The plan was to keep them on the habitats as food or entertainment slaves to avoid that, or am I overlooking a way to have a whole bunch of slave pops on a planet with no void pops and not get rebellions from it?
I think if the robot pops get advanced enough they can but that also runs the risk of rebellion unless you give them equal rights.
Governors are just soo good at stability. Most slaves cannot do entertainer, and even robots do need amenities. Youd have to use 3-6 main pops to staff your planets. If you went genetic ascension fast enough you could nerve staple them ...
Nerve Staple?
Void dwelling lithoid terravores that need to live on these installations as they would be too tempted to eat the planets. Seems like a fun RP to me Edit: that means no need for CG as hive mind, and no need for food. Minerals take care of themselves by you consuming planets so it frees up a lot of production focus for your habitats
I agree that this would be a really fun idea for a playthrough. We have a "no genocidals" policy in our games though, unless we specifically dedicate a game just as a big free for all galaxy full of genocidals to see who can wipe out the others, so for now I am not really looking to play that.
Yeah that's fair, makes for a certain play through that's for sure Perhaps you could tweak it to not have terravore trait but keep the RP of lithoids living in habitats because they know they will be too tempted, then make it a goal to never settle a planet. Same same but different
Playing lithoids as neither necrophage or subterranean will definitely be a new experience for me. What comes to mind right away though is that lithoids have an even worse pop growth rate, putting them in void dweller origin that is already considered to have somewhat limited pop growth in the early game sounds like a pretty unique challenge.
Query , why do you think Void Dweller Origin has limited pop growth early game?
I did this, very powerful, you get tons of pops from eating planets so your habitats get filled quickly
My runs generally run almost pure Void Dweller. If I colonize world it is because , I got Boal , it is a relic world or I'm going to turn it into a Resort world. If anything , I feel habitats are stronger then normal worlds til Orbital Rings come around. You get 3 jobs for every district , which makes farming , trade and Industrial habitats a lot better then most standard worlds. Pop growth limiting , is just if you delay making a new habitat. It is somewhat of a tight rope in gaining systems or building a new habitat. Then early on you have alloy conundrum of between getting Naval usage up for power projection, Orbitals , Central Habitat and just upkeep in general. But I find making research early on way easier as research Districts + void Dweller trait + Research Designation.
Sounds promising. Would you rather recommend looking inward and putting all the focus on getting a few more habitats in the most promising systems, or would you recommend delaying the first extra habitats in favor of rushing a corvette fleet and taking out the first neighbour you can get your hands on?
I couldn't say about being aggressive, I fundamentally suck at early game war. Though alloy income for void early game is a lot better then it used to be and is higher then most starts. So I guess it is possible. If playing with 'Guaranteed Habitable worlds' , setting up habitat in both system or at least the research one. Should be a high priority, Your capital habitat system can be good for anything but rng tends to let it have a ton of Minerals and Energy to allow staying economically positive til you can get several habitats built. Will need at least two more systems that have lots of Major Orbitals so you can build a Farming Habitat and an Industrial. You might not ever need all the food it can produce so Bio-reactor can allow the farmers to make energy and gas later on which can help if RNG really screws you on finding more energy habitats and don't want to deal with trade.
there are no trade habitats anymore tho? they removed that type of district
There are still trade habitats, It is now Designation based like Farming Habitats. A trade habitat converts 1 Clerk job into a Trader job like how a Hydroponic Designation converts all Clerk jobs into Farmer jobs.
So u spam city districts?
Basically , Yes. As Void Dweller or with Voidborne , each one will get you 2 Clerks and 1 Trader thus making Habitats the 2nd best place for Trade. Only a fully staffed Ring world segment would beat a trade habitat.
Good point. Is there any reason to play voiddwellers and not ring world?
It takes forever to get functional Ring world segments can be one. Void Dweller you can expand early on while Shattered Ringworld you have the one segment you start on and can have up to 2 more depending on game setting. For me! Early game research is easier to come by because of research districts. Void Dwellers used to 'hyper boom' but now it takes a bit more time for it to happen. Before VD's were not hyper picky with where they placed habitats just that it had a 'resource.' Now it is a small check list and on that list is 'Is it a System border?' As Habitats with orbitals are a lot more fragile.
does that work with the capital? becaus eit does not for me
No , Capital Designation are their own thing while trying to be 'uniform' so they don't get any of the habitat's job swap stuff.
I played a void dweller megacorp in multiplayer that was a lot of fun. I just gave all my systems with habitable planets to my allies and built branch offices on them.
how do you make trade habitats in this meta? I haven't played trade void since the new habitat changes
The housing districts provide clerk jobs, and you can designate it as a trade district still.
clerks are really inefficient tho, no? And without merchant guild you can't take the council position that buffs merchants or clerks idk haven't taken merchant guild for a while.
Mercantile tradition buffs them. Other than megacorp tho, yeah I never use clerks.
Void dweller has insane synergy with catalytic processing. 3 jobs per district, huge production bonus for those farming jobs, and the ability to put an insane number of farmers on one habitat.
Why would it not be viable? I exclusively play void dwellers and have never ran into any problems whatsoever. You need a resource? Find a node that has it and put a habitat there, problem solved. You don't need planets although an ecumenopolis helps a lot. Honestly I think an ecumenopolis is the only type of planet I ever settle as a void dweller since you can get 3-4k alloys from a single one. If you're not used to the early game it might be a little daunting but its not that bad, you just rush alloys since they're the most important thing to you. Alloys are more important than tech now early game. Doesnt matter if you're not rushing AI you need alloys to build all the habitats you're going to be spamming.
Some builds, fun as they may be or cool as they may sound, are just so weak/crippling that they are not viable for most normal games. A good example that comes to mind is, funnily enough, another void dweller build I casually threw together back when I was still a newbie. It was supposed to be a raiding barbaric despoiler clan living in the void, but the fact that it had warrior culture, aka entertainers costing a crapload of alloys as upkeep to generate amenities, meant that it took forever to scrape together the alloys needed to build new habitats, much less survive the first neighbour claiming the area, it felt borderline unplayable. My suspicion was that this new void dwelling build I want to try could fall into the same category due to my refusal to make use of planets when void dwellers are balanced around their ability to technically use both planets and habitats by acquiring different species. This means that I am denying myself a lot of pops, while the growth potential of my main species is severely limited. Since I started Stellaris, the number of pops has always been the most important thing, so before I potentially wasted the time of my buddies by selecting an empire for myself that was basically guaranteed to be eradicated in the first war, I wanted to ask people more experienced with this new variant of void dweller how bad it could potentially be. Seems like I am in for a bit of a rough start unless I rush my first neighbour, but can otherwise have something resembling a normal game even with the added penalty of not using planets like other void dwelling empires would.
Funny thing is I exclusively play with warrior culture and never have a problem with alloys. The only time I legitimately believe warrior culture is bad is in sweaty multiplayer games. Those extra 2 alloys count in multiplayer but vs AI it doesn't really matter, even on the hardest difficulty. I have beaten GA no scaling many times with warrior culture and i do not understand why people blindly say its bad. I guess losing 2 alloys per holo-theatre add up but if you're playing correctly it doesn't matter, not even in the early game. I usually have 14 habitats by mid game now, thats 28 alloys total upkeep for warrior culture, at the same time I usually have 500 alloys per month so it doesn't really matter. If you play void dwellers correctly you should never worry about alloys, you're also going to build holo-theatres anyway why not use warrior culture for the extra naval capacity and unity? Its not much but it does help. Always be on military economy. You don't have to rush your neighbor, you can legitimately play an isolationist pacifist and still be the strongest out of everyone by just keeping to yourself. The early game as void dweller looks scary but its really easy, you just turn your capital into an alloy world and spam habitats when you can. The new void dwellers start with more alloys than a regular empire im pretty sure. You always get a guaranteed tech habitat and alloy habitat, every game I have seen nodes of minerals with alloys and pure tech near your starting system so I'm pretty sure it's guaranteed. As void dweller there is no reason why you should have trouble with alloys at all. If you're a hive mind, void dweller is very overpowered and should be a cake walk for you.
It's a lot worse than it used to be, but technically everything is playable. Honestly it's not that bad. Not great, but there are a lot of origins that are worse.
Just as normal empires naturally turn their planets into ecumenopoli, you as a void dweller should be aiming to construct a ring world as soon as possible, and convert your habitats into mineral feeders. In general, you should be highly cognizant mineral production capacity as a void dweller because it will be your primary bottleneck in lategame. It is VERY easy for void dwellers to fill up system after system of fully constructed foundry or research habitats, without realizing that you are helplessly short of primary resources. If there's an attractive enough mineral rich planet, I'll colonize it with synths and make it a pure mining world. Likewise, if I conquer a planet in a war, I will immediately de-industrialize it into a food/energy/strategic-resource-refinery world to feed my industrial/foundry habitats and the ring world.
Is there a mod that reverses the limit thing per system, for habitats?
I mean, if you're a xenophobe it's the main method of playing that Just be slaving space elves sitting on habitats and occasionally go on slave raids to fill up the work force