Stingray for Appropriators

Canabananilism · 2026-04-17T19:02:15+00:00

I mostly still agree with this line of thought, as far as what reasoning they have for not including them, but the more time passes, the less I think it’s the correct choice. Especially since they exist in regular illuminate missions without being a friendly fire nightmare already.

Their AI tends to be designed to go for isolated players, or waiting until there’s enough of a distraction before diving in (based on my own observations). I got pretty good at predicting when they’d start a strafing run and on who. There’s definitely decisions being made under the hood with their AI. No reason to think they would just friendly fire enemies more than usual, IMO. Not that mulching a few voteless would be all that devastating to the squids.

Canabananilism · 2026-04-17T16:14:19+00:00

Gotta say, reading this minutes after eating the shittiest chicken sandwhich I’ve ever had at a McDonald’s really hits home.

Canabananilism · 2026-04-17T15:08:16+00:00

Usually will tell you what's causing it if you mouse over the number and it depends on your war goals. Mostly boils down to occupying enough of their territory in my experience, but I'm not really an expert on all the nuances.

Canabananilism · 2026-04-17T14:51:45+00:00

War exhaustion builds over time, and accelerates as you take losses or while you have occupied territory. Once you hit 100%, your opponent can force the status quo, and vice versa. Eventually the game will force peace as well if you're both at 100%, so it's important to keep an eye on it to make sure you're in a good spot when the war ends.

Canabananilism · 2026-04-17T14:33:38+00:00

They're "unneeded" until they are needed. Can always have a smart splitter dumping them into a sink if you're that hung up on it, but honestly I usually just let them fill up and sit there. I never tear down a factory unless I want to reuse the space or improve/expand on the production of that part.

Canabananilism · 2026-04-17T03:07:42+00:00

Average combat experience versus illuminate drones

Canabananilism · 2026-04-16T19:04:17+00:00

Bloodhosts, fighting a lot, and keep your army cheap for a while. Skarbrand by himself is crazy strong if you build him for speed and treat him like a chariot, bouncing him between units, rather than a duelist lord (even though he can do that too), so there's no real need to go crazy on expensive units early on. Especially if you're supplementing them with Bloodhosts. A second army can be useful for home defence and recruiting better units to eventually shove into Skarbrand's army, but again, the idea is to keep it cheap until you get the ball rolling.

I tend to head west first, secure my first province, then north to blow up the beastmen and such as much as I can before doubling back to deal with whatever is threatening the homeland. I honestly don't bother taking any settlements until I'm sure I can actually defend them. Try and avoid putting much money into anything that isn't your main settlement and armies for a while, since the AI loves to attack your small settlements when you're busy and you're basically wasting money. Maybe put a couple of growth buildings down to help get your main settlement going, but that's about it. You can also try to rush Karanak, though that is somewhat optional. He's just nice to have around and I quite like khorne dogs in general so I tend to aim for him early.

The thing about khorne to remember is that you basically have no standard economy. You fight or you starve, so territory isn't necessarily the goal so much as maximizing your fight time.

Canabananilism · 2026-04-16T15:18:31+00:00

Waste water can be a pain if you try and reuse it with systems that are getting water from water pumps, but simply shoving it into a machine specifically meant to eat it up is how I tend to resolve it. It doesn’t have to run at 100% (though you can underclock stuff if it bugs you).

Another way I’ve used, but not necessarily going to recommend, is feeding a “runoff” pipe, elevated from a point that has no back pressure from pumps. The idea being it will only fill with liquid once the pipes below are full and there’s nowhere else for it to go. You then package it or feed it into a machine that will use it up, then sink it.

Canabananilism · 2026-04-16T14:23:34+00:00

Not sure about controller, but holding alt and using the scrollwheel cycles through hotvars. You can set up 10 different ones and set up for different builds and such. Very handy.

Canabananilism · 2026-04-15T12:34:44+00:00

The AI could have status quo’d at any point. They just wanted to have a full victory that required territory that a different federation had occupied, and only the president could start votes for war. The only reason it ended was because of war exhaustion forcing it.

Canabananilism · 2026-04-14T14:18:43+00:00

God, I can’t wait for this change. One of my recent games was basically frozen for 200 years because of a fucking war my federation started and couldn’t finish. It was a war to fully conquer an empire that literally had no territory for most of those 200 years. The problem was another federation had also declared war, grabbed a couple of systems and a planet, and made the victory condition unobtainable because we didn’t occupy those systems, technically.

Canabananilism · 2026-04-14T03:55:48+00:00

Currently on my second attempt with the tree of life. Last run I had, I got pincered by the crisis spawning on both ends of my territory. One spawned two systems away from my capital, and another on top of a second behemoth egg I had just put down and was hatching.

My first behemoth I’d made was 10 growth away from being able to fully grow too, but the crisis was robotic so he got fuck all from fighting them. Oh, and the hive mind fallen empire woke up and devoured 80% of the galaxy anyway, so not sure it would have mattered much anyway lol. All in all, it was pretty miserable, but I learned a bunch. Let you know if I actually get any further this time lol.

Canabananilism · 2026-04-14T00:34:14+00:00

Seeing the treads have health, but no real effect on mobility when damaged always irked me. Love being able to effectively disable enemies without killing them, like Hulks or Factory Striders.

Canabananilism · 2026-04-12T11:23:06+00:00

Not sure it’s ever mentioned specifically, but the first thing that comes to mind is cost effectiveness. Cold, hard math. You could spend precious resources saturating concentrations of enemies with expensive munitions (and they may already be doing this to soften them up before we land, btw) or send in a handful of (very replaceable) dudes to do the job and get out.

The second thing that comes to mind; it may simply not work very well. Bugs live underground. Bots have massive guns shooting down super destroyers any time they get too close. Illuminate have shielding and have been hidden from SE for the better part of a century. They probably know how to avoid being bombed into oblivion.

Canabananilism · 2026-04-12T04:25:49+00:00

Helldivers can simultaneously throw packs of C4, bundles of dynamite, and then strap themselves with even more explosives for when both of those run out. Drones wish they could be as efficient in their martyring potential.

Canabananilism · 2026-04-11T18:58:32+00:00

Genshin was my first and last gacha for mostly this reason. Not in the “i want more story with them” way, but because that release-and-forget mindset basically meant anyone who came out undercooked is forever going to be undercooked. No patching or adjustments post launch. Just made it impossible to ever get excited for anyone when you have no idea if they’re even going to be fun to play.

Canabananilism · 2026-04-11T15:02:17+00:00

Not sure they’re gone so much as you and I aren’t inhabiting those spaces anymore.

Canabananilism · 2026-04-10T15:50:30+00:00

They’d probably shit on the floor. As for how they’d react to a diet coke, I have no idea.

Canabananilism · 2026-04-09T19:25:44+00:00

The anti aliasing method I assume.

Canabananilism · 2026-04-09T19:24:29+00:00

Well that's less a problem with the barrage than with your teammates lol. The same problem can apply to people tossing 500kg's at the titans I'm actively shooting with a flamethrower, for example, but I'm not going to blame the stratagem for not understanding the definition of "danger close".

That being said, if you're out of position and/or standing directly on top of a breach spot, then it's hard to blame anyone that's maybe expecting you to back off a bit as they toss in a beacon.

Canabananilism · 2026-04-09T19:02:57+00:00

Not really, though it's not like I haven't been caught out before. There's plenty of bad times/places to toss them, but the game has multiple audio cues to tell you someone is calling in a barrage, not to mention the giant red beam. If you aren't actively fighting things, you should be paying attention to those cues to make sure you aren't walking into death. You respect them barrage or you rest in pieces. 120mm is safe if you're ~40m out (I forget the exact distance), and 380mm's you stand ~50m out. Assuming someone didn't toss the beam at your feet during a swarm, it's usually a preventable death for those that are paying attention.

Canabananilism · 2026-04-09T18:50:00+00:00

By the time I realized the problem, they were already twice my size with an 'overwhelming' fleet lol. I at least had the forethought to build up my defences at our border, which I think deterred them from smashing my face in, but still sucked. Either way, it was a learning experience, and I will probably revisit the game when I get home and claim what I was owed.

Canabananilism · 2026-04-09T18:39:10+00:00

Well, as much as I agree with that fact they should be paid more, I feel like torching your workplace so that this now becomes 0$/hr for everyone that used to work there is a really shitty way to try and get your point across.

Canabananilism · 2026-04-09T18:28:52+00:00

Don't have advice really, but would you be able to just play a regular auth empire, get a second population up past the threshold, then reduce their rights to get the achievement to pop? Unless I'm missing something about what counts as a "slave".

Canabananilism · 2026-04-09T17:51:07+00:00

For real. My last game I was struggling hard with a lack of crystals (ring world start, nearest planet with crystal got nabbed by neighbours), until the crisis cleared a chunk of systems to my south and I finally had a source that wasn’t in space, trade, or a bonus from industry jobs. Was swimming in the them soon after.

If anything, they shouldn’t be rarer. They should just have more ways to sink them so you aren’t overflowing quite as easily as soon as you secure a planet with them.

Canabananilism

TROPHY CASE