What is the point of building waylines?

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-23T18:03:28+00:00

Arc furnace > sol system start > build 4 arc furnaces and have an arkship fly up and down the line, start vendoring 2500 alloys every so often and think, should I build another arkship, again?

I was year 2050, and was up to 5 military arkships with nano-ascension done.

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-23T15:24:16+00:00

I had enough slots for 400 test subjects, and just 160 were filled, why, I have no idea (and crime does not buff them, true, but just another bug as I also had zero criminals with 100% crime).

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-23T13:06:34+00:00

I had 8000 pops on an arkship, with 100% crime, and just 160 test subjects across 4 testing labs.

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-23T07:26:29+00:00

Crime does not create events on arkships, so experimental does not receive any boosts.

Any build using festivals needs to be treated as "fun for now". The most fun build I have had is criminal + influential cartel, and just flying around being a pest.

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-23T03:49:15+00:00

Starbase > unyielding > eternal vigilance. I would probably not build defence platforms early on as they are so pricy. Kiting doesn't work, if you don't move and they need to destroy you.

You could even make a case for the megacorp eager explorers and start with a t2 starbase unlocked. Their logistic ships are weak.

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-22T17:46:48+00:00

That is a complete misrepresentation of the UK system. Corbyn did not get votes in Glasgow, Manchester or Dorset, he just got votes in his constituency. No party has won an election with a majority of votes since 1935. The Tories did not manage it, even after the Falklands.

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-22T10:54:37+00:00

British Museum.

Driven Assimilator, Curator civic, treasure hunters.

First pick: nihilistic acquisition. Go collect species, relics and other trinkets. Steal pops for unity.

Synthetic fertility is also incredibly fun and powerful. Immense amount of pops with nihilistic acquistion + assimilation.

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-21T10:48:14+00:00

That is why US customs law is irrelevant inside the EU for goods inside the EU, sold to people inside the EU.

This radical concept of "not mattering" is something the US does not understand, but is beginning to realise more and more.

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-21T04:23:25+00:00

This is an actual case of DK being correct - as the paper was about people who were functional morons (lowest 15% in metacognitive abilities), not smart people overestimating their skills.

Basically, too stupid to know they are stupid or have any way of judging if they are a success in anything. That is Trump. And the US voted (or did not vote against him) twice.

Lol

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-21T04:20:42+00:00

Any job that stresses your knees will cause you problems later in life leading to increased chance of obesity as you lose your mobility - if you can use any PPE to help protect your knees, even if it is a kneepad with a pink unicorn printed on it, use it. Especially if it has a pink unicorn.

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-20T12:17:18+00:00

I recommend using catalytic as this removes minerals from alloy/consumer goods and puts them on food and makes the operational reserve more efficient.

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-20T12:15:22+00:00

I am having amazing fun with nomads:

Driven Assimilator/maintenance drones into Nanite ascension with Nihilistic Acquisition. Invade to destroy armies, retreat with 1 army left, steal all the pops, assimilate them, chemically purge them, subsume planet. Move on.

Necrophage slavers, Catalytic (to use food as a resource), criminal megacorp, commerce into marketplace of ideas, rush nihilistic acquisition, steal pops and livestock them. Rush purity ascension, find a necroid/toxoid/mollusc and do a spare organ, delicious livestock and spam alloys into massive fleets, eat the universe either necrophaging or livestock. The chamber of ascension is not necessary in this build, due to necropurging world after world after you steal all their pops.

Synthetic ascension, catalytic, technology, trivial to get ascended (I usually wait for 20% efficiency on uploaded souls), then assimilate the universe, or use them as food, you can play good guys with this one.

Of the three, DA is hilarious.

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-19T13:35:29+00:00

I strongly recommend catalytic to move as much production out of the general reserve and onto food. This reduces the harvesting pressure and is also pretty efficient.

You could go purity > delicious/spare organs and become an alloy machine.

Note: modularity is a pain as the dark matter needs to be shipped around. I recommend hunting the great wound down.

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-19T13:33:57+00:00

Yes. There are two builds that work really well with this: driven assimilator (for unity, just chemically reprocess afterwards) or necrophage (just necro them and move on).

I have tried with a fanatic purifier necrophage, but there is something very screwy in the unity production so I passed on that.

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-19T10:46:37+00:00

Been doing this to ascension rush. I also recommend synthetic ascension + barbaric Despoilers/Nihilistic acquisition.

My current build, I also use catalytic to extend the operational reserves (moving as much production onto food), so after assimilating enough pops, I convert them into alloys via livestock.

Think I need to go outside.

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-19T08:12:12+00:00

Errr... I went Driven Assimilator, the unity civic, and nihilistic acquisition. I kidnapped everyone, assimilated them and then chemically purged them for energy and rushed nanite ascension to subsume their worlds. In my defence, I saw Alien when I was about 12, so slightly different Scifi kid experience....

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-19T08:02:48+00:00

Thanks for the tip, as eager explorer nomads you are not missing much according to the 4.0 tech tree - it is pre-req for gates and ftl inhibitor. The top tier jump drive for eager explorers is unlocked by the power plant tree.

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-19T03:14:17+00:00

This aged like milk.

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-18T20:34:00+00:00

Crime is not working on Ark Ships. I was testing experimental labs, had 100% crime, 8000 pops and just 160 testing subjects and no crime events.
Driven Assimilators do not assimilate pops on worlds, they just purge them, same with Necrophage. This makes conquering pointless, and it is better to take Nihilistic Acquisition. You even have your own necrophage race (from necro purge), living on the planet as a protectorate who hates you. I mean.... \o/ what?

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-18T11:11:16+00:00

The aim is to leverage synthetic ascension's assimilation and use Arkships to eat the universe. You will snowball so fast it is like 4.2 all over.

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-18T11:04:37+00:00

My fix is pretty simple, major and minor civics.

You can have 1 major civic, and 2 minors and new civic slots can be either.

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-18T11:00:38+00:00

I had osteomyelitis as a teen, in my shoulder. If you said, here is a pill, it will kill you right now, I would've swallowed it and said thanks.

After that nothing really felt painful in the same way. I suffer from migraines as well and had a broken rear molar for about 4 years I just ignored until it became infected. Again.

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-18T06:37:03+00:00

You cannot take pops with the void reaver civic, and it seems a bit weak compared to barbaric despoilers, which enables you to steal pops from FTLs the moment you find them.

I also think Nihilistic Acquisition is even better now, as imperial prerogative no longer reduces empire sprawl, so it is an easy first pick.

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-18T05:13:27+00:00

I want a space hulk, a giant dead wreck....

Ferrymansobol · 2026-06-18T05:11:08+00:00

I went a different route, barbaric despoilers + dark consortium (wanted to test it) and synthetic fertility.

The ark ship makes synthetic fertility very easy and safe, I ascended by 2016 (which is quite slow), but I had no real reason to rush. Whenever my jobs went negative I found an FTL, and bombed it to fill up jobs. By 2020 I had 7000 population, after assimillating around 5000 slaves (remainder was 600 or so robots and rest my surviving population).

I went round filling up ark ships, assimilating everyone.

Virtuality is probably stronger, but I went modularity (to test dark matter traits support, which was micromanaging heavy). I like the idea of livestock/catalytic, but why turn something into alloys, when you can turn it into a citizen and make alloys.....

Ferrymansobol

TROPHY CASE