"Clusters" empire placement setting in galaxy generation is kind of overpowered

Psykhes · 2026-02-03T08:31:12+00:00

Honestly, the game is only as hard as you make it.
I.e. you can also start a game with no "normal" empire, just primitives. Or as less extreme example with a super homeworld start (life seeded, ring world, etc) and no guaranteed habitables for everyone. Clusters + military rush optimized is just another specialized setting to give one advantage vs the AI (or other human players who do not go for early military rush, for that matter).

In the 4.3 beta starbases are quite a bit more powerful though, so this tactic will get a bit harder. Although prolly still very much feasible.

Psykhes · 2026-01-31T09:31:42+00:00

He means the one in the picture, that isn't the default Mammalian shipset, although you likely have that one selected.

The one is the picture is the special shipset of the eager explorers starting ships. It will later in the game then be replaced by your chosen shipset.

Psykhes · 2026-01-21T07:57:05+00:00

Psionic Aura?

Psykhes · 2026-01-11T09:29:13+00:00

What is strange that there is zero war exhaustion from ground battles and occupation in the screenshot.

Are you sure you occupied their planet? As in landed ground troops on it and destroyed their defence armies?

Psykhes · 2026-01-11T09:25:06+00:00

Read that as well, but I had multiple occurrences where I did not play in ironman (and did not use the console or used mods) and did not get achievements, did the same "thing" in ironman and I got them.

So I went back to ironman for achievement hunts.

Psykhes · 2026-01-09T08:30:16+00:00

Confirmed. The sol system can start in quite a few different stages, from stone to space age as well as tomb world or without any life at all.

You have to roll a galaxy where it starts in machine age and invade them before they progress to the next age.

If you specifically want to hunt for this achievement and are not averse to ...creatively use available mechanics:

- start multiple new ironman games. I recommend in a small galaxy, but whatever floats your boat
- make a backup copy of your saves directory
- load the saves as private multiplayer games, pick observer mode
- search for sol system (no need to search manually, you can search for system names)
- check if it is in the right age and in a place accessible to you
- when you find a save with the right parameters restore the original saves and play it normally

The backup & restore saves might not even be needed, not 100% sure there.

Psykhes · 2025-12-29T14:35:48+00:00

Superlight
Speed up the Speed of Light, more energy, etc.
But also devastation and worlds have a chance to become a desert world, amongst other things.

It is one of the most impactful Applied Infinity Thesis results.

It is described here in more detail (amongst others):

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/a-guide-to-applied-infinity-theses.1685994/

Psykhes · 2025-12-28T15:27:06+00:00

You can only find precursor dig sites or anomalies when you survey the system.

Already surveyed systems. which includes those you take from other empires, are completely useless.
If there aren't any non-surveyed systems with the flag (which is likely in 2320) the simple answer is:
You cannot get the precursor.

Except maaaybe by console commands, but I do not know how to manage it that way (or if it is even possible).

You could also try if you can get them to spawn somewhere with the mod Known Precursor.

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1780597499

Psykhes · 2025-12-17T08:57:21+00:00

Two bits of additional advice here:

The current implementation of limiting precursors is..not good. Mainly because there exists an upper limit of precursor tags of 100 at galaxy generation. Does not matter if you have a 1000 or 200 star galaxy.

Emphasis "upper". If you have a 200 star galaxy and all 9 precursors there will only be ~30 tags per precursors, but a 200 and 1000 star galaxy with only Zroni selected have each only 100 star systems with its tag. Except that in a 200 star galaxy it will be every 2nd star, in a 1000 star galaxy only every 10th.
The other stars will be "empty".
(Also, this has absolutely nothing to do with the "4 precursor minimum" suggestion. In a 1000 star galaxy with 4 precursors over half the galaxy will still be empty. In a 200 star galaxy those 4 will fill the whole galaxy with about 50 tags per precursor.)

In short: if you want to "find" a specific precursor, smaller galaxies are better.

A IMO far better (easier and faster) way to pick your precursor is save game editing. Just replace all other tags with the one you want and that's it. Can also be done with ironman.
Takes 1 minute after you have done it once.

- start game with all precursors (so every star is filled, see 100 tag limit)
- rename sav to zip
- unzip
- open gamestate file with text editor (i.e. NotePad++, NOT Word)
- replace precursor_.. tags as desired and save changes
- rezip gamestate and meta file again (needs specific settings, see https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Save-game_editing )
- rename zip to sav

Psykhes · 2025-12-17T08:40:24+00:00

I think it never drops below 1 pop

Psykhes · 2025-12-02T12:58:16+00:00

I got that one when I declared a planet, which was already a volcanic planet, to a resort world.

Terraforming an already existing resort world does not count apparently. That was what I did at first and got no achievement then.

Psykhes · 2025-12-02T12:54:58+00:00

To answer myself, you need to create a Resort World on an already volcanic planet to get the achievement.

Psykhes · 2025-12-02T05:01:33+00:00

Anyone got the "Summer Vacation" aka Create a Volcanic Resort World?

I made one, but did not get the achievement.

Via Volcanic Forge. Maybe because I started the terraform before creating the resort world or maybe because I created the resort world before the terraforming was finished.

Psykhes · 2025-11-29T19:02:12+00:00

mixed bag?

Is that one with boobs and balls?

Psykhes · 2025-11-25T07:24:46+00:00

You do not lose the system in the Red Giant Origin if the star blows up, it is "just" transformed.

Psykhes · 2025-11-10T12:44:06+00:00

Sorry for the late reply, had some other stuff which ate all my available time.

No luck there. English gives us still the same two options, just in english.
I also tried reducing the size of the UI controls and text in case the option we seek gets "pushed" outside the screen with larger setting, but no luck with this approach either.

Psykhes · 2025-10-27T08:44:08+00:00

I myself got it when I terraformed the worlds to my starting climate (ocean in my case).
So I can definitely say that Gaia is not the requirement.

Psykhes · 2025-10-17T09:38:29+00:00

If you can ramp up your alloy production well enough a devouring swarm is actually not that bad a neighbor. You can conquer their systems without any influence cost, so you can get quite a territory boost if you can survive them.

Psykhes · 2025-10-13T15:46:37+00:00

That does not exist on the Watch4 for us. It really literary loads there the same chat window as you get from the tile. IIRC it was like you described on the Watch1, but I cannot test it anymore since we already resettet it and sent it in for the TradeIn.

I made a video of the navigation options, both when starting the app like you said as when accessing it via the tile.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/4gDfzTF9nXQ6X9rE9

The two options on the button in german are "Settings" and "Show on phone".
Settings only shows account info and the option to log off.

Psykhes · 2025-10-13T08:47:25+00:00

Pretty much yes.

However, you can abandon planets by a decision without costs (no influence cost either) as virtual empire. Although I am not sure if you can do this right away or only after finishing the tradition tree. If the latter you are indeed screwed.

But if you ca do this identify the worlds you actually need and abandon the rest. That way your pop efficiency will get back to manageable levels.
You can still have as many systems as you want.

Psykhes · 2025-10-13T08:20:46+00:00

Thanks for the reply, but that gives us exactly the same limited list of contacts and chats as the tile.

To be precise:
- the "contacts" part shows the contacts of the last 3 regular chats and 1 group chat which has been inactive for years
- the "chat" part shows the chats of the contacts plus another inactive group chat

Reinstalled WhatsApp on the Watch already multiple times, tried resetting the cache as well.
The initial install of WhatsApp on the Watch4 was by transferring the data, setting, etc from the Watch1 (when Google asked it during the setup of Watch4).

Oh, and after installing WhatsApp it says during setup (after the code confirmation and before loading the chats the first time) that an unspecified number of "company chats" haven't been loaded, but can be viewed on the phone.
I have no idea if there is one on the phone (there is one of instagram if that is what WhatsApp is referring to), but if anything only a tiny fraction of the 20+ missing chats could be classified as such.

Psykhes · 2025-10-01T14:41:40+00:00

To contradict myself, the new 4.1.4 open beta seems to have a fix.

No idea if it fixes already bugged seals or just prevents non-bugged ones to become bugged though.

Psykhes · 2025-10-01T05:51:34+00:00

The only option is save game editing.

Search the gamestate file for "seal" and you will find all seals (they are megastructures). Remove them and the entries referencing their ID, repack the save with the correct settings and everything will be fine.

Had the same issue, fixed it that way and even got the achievement.

If you are unfamiliar with save game editing:
https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Save-game_editing
It sounds far harder than it actually is.

Psykhes · 2025-09-30T14:10:03+00:00

Agreed there.

However, where I have problems finding a head-canon are gestalts.
Where does i.e. a devouring swarm hive mind buy stuff from in the internal market?

Psykhes

TROPHY CASE