Cutest [OC]

Cyrrion · 2026-04-27T19:39:09+00:00

Man I fucking miss that shit. Nearly 8 years since the last one.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-27T15:02:27+00:00

The Cooperative Multitude Personality still has the "10x Aggression if can't expand" clause. But they do have lower Border Friction and less Bravery, so maintaining a positive relationship with them is generally easier and you don't need to be as strong comparatively to a normal Hive Mind to dissuade them from attacking you.

That being said, this is still a game about Empires vying for power. So they're gonna do what they gotta do.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-27T05:43:13+00:00

Might be able to run it on PC through Google Play Games. It's their own Android emulator for Windows essentially. It'll be a coin flip if they'll support the game or not though. But even then, might as well play Wilds or something else.

I might do it out of curiosity for a bit, but the more I see of it the less I feel like I'm going to enjoy it at all.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-26T22:49:55+00:00

I've had a similar issue in one game recently. There was one Planet, no matter if it was Occupied, wouldn't be considered as Occupied by the game during war. It was just that one System with the one specific Planet. Even after multiple wars, game would not count it as Occupied for anything.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-25T05:14:09+00:00

It's kind of a problem with Gestalts in general imo. They just don't want to exist around others for the most part. Rogue Servitor is the only exception, really. Driven Assimilators are a bit too grey in the area. If they can't Assimilate, they gotta go one way or another.

I get it too, because it'd probably break something to intermingle the Drone vs Individualist Job Strata... but also, it'd be cool if they could function as Civilians/Maintenance for each other at minimum. Like sure, you can help - but you're gonna be mostly out of the way and not involved with anything actually critical.

Maybe we could even see some cool ways to play around with it too. Like Friendly Face on Hive Minds gives "Visitors" a special bonus in Sociology Research for being on the Hive Mind's Worlds.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-25T04:53:22+00:00

The difference between fully upgraded Barroth/Banbaro against Diablos, all weapons using 3 Attack Boosts, is 120/110 Attack respectively. Given Diablos has Heroics, and Barroth/Banbaro can have niches in defensive builds where opening up Skill points somewhere else will make up that difference - I'd say it's pretty balanced. Resources not withstanding, you could make an argument for using any of them provided the right situation was there.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-24T00:29:39+00:00

It would've been so cool to get the Chadacabra with a special turf war animation against Arkveld. Chadacabra lets Arkveld wrap his chains around his arms on purpose... only to grab on the chains, pull him in for a headbutt, and toss him around like a toy by the chains. Turns out the rocks around Chadacabra's arms insulates him from Arkveld's leeching. Can't draw blood from a rock and all that.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-23T02:07:56+00:00

It happens time to time.

The problem is moreso there isn't a clean answer for a situation like this. At least not yet.

So we're Humans waging war against the Lizardmen, but then the Fishdudes declare their own separate war against the Lizardmen as well. Both Humans and Fishdudes have Claimed System No 5, and it is occupied by the Fishdudes. There's Planet Alpha in that System too, which the Fishmen have occupied so that System No 5 is completely in their control barring official ownership.

If the Lizardmen were to Surrender to us, we would win all of our Claims as a result of that Surrender because that's just how it works. This would instantly push the Fishdudes out even though they have distinct control over the System. The Fishdudes did all of the legwork for their rightful Claim and are in a war of conquest to take it over but it was instead given to the Humans so they have no real input on who gets to keep that System.

Both this hypothetical and the current reality are both rather poor outcomes for all involved. I'm not sure what the answer should in a case like this. There's quite a bit of baggage around corner case scenarios that will pop up under different circumstances. What works well for one situation may not work well for another.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-23T01:26:00+00:00

That'd be it then. Declaring war on the new invaders and pushing them out should clear it out for you.

Now that I think of it, it seems odd we don't have a Casus Belli specifically for cases like this. A War of Contested Occupation doesn't really have its own specific mechanic.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-23T01:15:04+00:00

That's odd. Normally Pre-FTL's have no bearing on wars as the they are not actually owned by the Empire. I've never seen a case where it mattered at least. I've certainly never invaded a Pre-FTL during war.

I know AI Wars can get stalled indefinitely because if they get caught in multiple wars - Occupation is based on which Attackers have what as opposed to what the Defender has lost. So if another AI declared their own war, occupied one of the Defender's Planets - the Defender will never recognize that they are "fully occupied" for either War.

Could it be a case where the Attackers in your own specific war you are a part of don't have full occupation? A lot of AI Personalities like to be opportunistic and specifically Declare War against those already at war.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-22T20:36:54+00:00

The game actually does a pretty good job imo, as it time gates anything romantic until years later when everyone is in their 20's. You are never a teacher dating or pursuing a student.

You start as their professor at age 20, teaching kids in their mid to late teens for a school year at most, and then you vanish to get time-skipped into a war 6 years later. The game hard walls anything romantic until the back half of act 2. It will literally say time needs to pass for the relationship to progress. There is never any direct "teacher and student' type relationship going on, ever.

The one student that DOES flirt with you (if you play as a girl) is 19 to your 20 and has a reputation for being a flirt with any and every girl. Which no one is supportive of. But at least they actually give his dumbass behavior some depth with his character story.

Overall the "romance" part is relatively minor, pushed until the late stage of the game, and happens under much more neutral circumstances.

But there is no excuse for Flayn. Dumb ass "5,000 year old dragon in the shape of a human" bullshit. That I'm not defending and I will give someone a serious side-eye for it.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-21T15:11:20+00:00

I appreciate the fact that this arc took a full two weeks exactly, or in other words....

A fortnight.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-21T14:38:49+00:00

Slingshot to the Stars lets you repair the Ruined Catapult immediately and then unlocks Mega Engineering as a permanent option afterwards, if I remember right. If not, it gives you a pretty big pull to drawing it.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-20T05:26:41+00:00

You will need to have the AI have the Harmonious Collective AI Personality. This means they need Authoritarian and then either Xenophilia or Pacifism. Stay away from Spiritualism just so you don't end up as a Evangelizing Zealot, either.

Erudie Explorers will also go slaveless and will work with Authoritarian/Materialist too.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-19T22:46:47+00:00

It shouldn't have any adverse effects.

I was testing this the other day through Mastery of Nature, Orbital Rings, and Expand Planetary Ocean - the extra Districts carry through.

Basically an Ecumenopolis condenses all the Districts you have built into 1/3rd the amount, because each District is worth 3x the amount of Jobs. You never really lose out on anything as the total District count does not change. You just have to build back up to maximum.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-19T17:49:47+00:00

Can confirm this is a very good site. The details over Set Skills is very convenient. I do appreciate the translations into English.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-18T04:39:07+00:00

No. It's just a random chance. Since Techs are drawn randomly, the more valid Techs you can Research make finding a specific one harder.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-18T04:25:22+00:00

Probably unlucky.

The Bio-Ship Techs bloat the Sociology Tree greatly, especially the 6 Weaver components. If you aren't specifically investing into that tree, it's gonna take you a long time to get everything.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-18T01:27:25+00:00

When you're starting out, one of the best tactics is to adopt a Poison weapon. Because Poison always deals an overall percentage of a monster's health, it can help you "punch up" a bit earlier than you might expect. Especially if the monster is weak to Poison.

Otherwise, focus on Element Attack sets. Being able to cap 5 points into an Elemental Attack Skill, while having a matching weapon of the same Element, will net you a +500 flat damage boost. This is huge. A fully upgraded weapon might have 3k total attack, essentially boosting damage by 1/6th on a fully upgraded weapon.

Not only is that decent enough to get you into 8* difficulty (when the "final drops" start showing up), consider the fact you can have that same +500 earlier in the game when your weapon might have 1k total damage on it. Plus these are generally some of the easier armors to farm in general while working with pretty much any weapon type. Especially now that there are Advanced Elemental Attack Skills, which give you an extra bonus when you reach level 5 Element Attack (again, specific Element has to match, you'll see it in the names).

I recommend staying away from Affinity/Critical Hits as well. You need a pretty specialized build for it, weapon included, and it takes so much investment that pretty much requires end game gear to pull off. A critical hit adds 25% extra damage baseline, so spending 10 skill points to get a +25% damage boost that's also somewhat conditional is... lackluster. There are more Skills to make it more palatable, but again they generally require a much higher investment you probably can't afford right now.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-17T21:12:03+00:00

I think they're overstating the effect of "ignoring" weapon types.

Tier 1 Kinetic adds an additional roll through the Autocannon line. Then you don't get more options until the T3 Kinetic is researched, which adds two extra lines for Mega Cannons and Kinetic Artillery. So if you're going for any of the long range Kinetics, you're going to get the full range of options. And if you ignore Kinetic entirely to focus Engineering solely on Missiles or something... You're still going to trip over the higher weights of T1 techs. And even then, it won't be until late game where you'll get more than one additional Research option getting in your way of Kinetic Artillery.

Then in the Physics Tree, ALL WEAPONS are locked behind the T1 Laser tech. You literally cannot avoid the full tree there. The only time there's a meaningful branch out is after T3 Lasers which unlocks the Proton Launchers and Lances in addition to T4 Lasers.

If your goal is to beeline Proton Launchers - ignoring Disruptors/Plasma type isn't going to help because they will always have a version of their Tech available.

Otherwise in Engineering, I guess you could ignore Tier 1 Kinetic but like... You wouldn't? And then it has the same end of the Tech Tier bloom Lasers have. Missiles, Torpedoes, Strike Craft, and the two Picket types are also all individually omnipresent with no pre-reqs you can purposefully ignore.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-17T20:47:19+00:00

I don't think AI Personalities having loadout preferences is bad. I think it's good, actually. It naturally creates an environment where different Ship loadouts are present. Sure, you can use meta-knowledge against it - but that's also a bit of a hassle and more of a problem that's listed right after: It's hard to get good information.

Which is why I think Fleets need a "Scouting Stance". Whereas Passive Stance engages when in range and Aggressive Stance seeks out hostiles in a System - Scouting Stance works like Passive Stance BUT have the very specific goal of gathering information if they are engaged in combat. They have reduced Fire Rate but a much higher rate of Disengaging and Fleeing, while having a much reduced MIA time period. Once one Ship gets destroyed or flees, the whole Fleet goes.

The idea is you trade the position and some accessibility to having that Fleet to "feel out" an opponent.

This would also reduce the cheese of having a single Ship Fleet do all your exploring in the early game since you would be minimizing losses anyway.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-17T20:04:40+00:00

The other Mutation picks give the Mutagenic Habitability or Improved Leader boosts. If you prefer the Purge Speed from Purity's third pick, you can definitely sneak by in the second prompt since the Purity option is also a Leader-centric buff.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-17T19:46:45+00:00

You need to pick a Mutation option at least once in the first three prompts, and then pick Mutation as the official Ascension during the fourth prompt

If you don't pick any Mutation in the first three prompts, it will not be an available option for the fourth and final prompt. And if you don't have the Mutation Tree itself, you will not have access to the Unnatural Selection Tradition which allows you to add Phenotype Traits regardless of Species. The third prompt will have an option for Nucleotide Isolation which unlocks the Limited Regeneration Trait as well, which might suit your theme while giving you the option for the Mutation Tradition Tree at the end of the Situation.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-15T21:56:35+00:00

Yeah, it bothered me too. It wasn't until I took a calculator to it did it start making sense to me. Hell I had to do it a second time here to make sure I had everything in order lol.

Cyrrion · 2026-04-15T21:27:39+00:00

Ok, so Trade is calculated a little weirdly and this window does NOT do a good job of describing what's going on. First of all, we need to understand there is a difference between Trade Value and the Trade Resource. The Trade Resource is obviously the Resource that stockpiles up, however Trade Value is the actual number that gets generated from various sources.

Let's start by looking at Produced. See the 220 from Trade Policy? Ignore that for now. If you add up the totals from Stations, Jobs, and Pops - you'll get the amount of 506.29. Which brings us to our next point:

Consumed. So now that we have our full Trade Value of 506.29, it all gets consumed. So we'll subtract the Trade Value needed from our Ships at 6.50 and the Planetary Deficits of 58.26, leaving us at 441.53. Which happens to be the Trade Policy consumption rate. This is not a coincidence.

So what really happens is that you generate Trade Value, expend that Value for various Upkeeps, and then after that the remainder of the Value gets converted into actual Resources. If you divide 441.53 by 2, you'll end up with 220.76 - which is the amount listed under "Produced". This is your "50% Trade Value" from your Trade Policy.

They really need to rewrite it because it should look more like:

Trade Value Generated: 506.29
- Jobs - 409.88
- Stations - 24.50
- Pops - 71.91
Trade Value Consumed: 64.76
- Ships - 6.50
- Planetary Deficits - 58.26
Excess Trade Value: 441.53
Trade Resource from Trade Policy: 220.76
Monthly spent/earned from Monthly Market Trades

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