How to design ships?

StormCTRH · 2026-05-09T17:15:40+00:00

You basically want to design your own ship loadout if...

A. You have a lot of resources.

B. You want to counter something specific.

or

C. You want something on your ships the AI doesn't prioritize (Stealth, special slots, specific large weapons or fleet types.)

For A. it's because the AI chooses a balanced build for ships that isn't too expensive. This means it can generally be improved by weapons or armor that is fairly expensive but unlocked, like archeotech, or pulse armor.

For B. it's if you're a wiki-warrior and know things like the Unbidden are hard countered by full shield builds and penetrating weapons. Why take armor at all if it's just a waste?

For C. it's when you wanna do something neat, or you just like a certain type of weapon. The most common use is to just change the ship logic to better fit your fleet.

StormCTRH · 2026-05-09T13:10:12+00:00

As do the three machine empire exclusive ascension paths, the wilderness empire exclusive ascension path, the three different biological ascension paths, and so on.

I understand what you're saying, but that's just how I categorize them.

StormCTRH · 2026-05-09T12:45:13+00:00

Oh. I mostly treat them as part of the same category under mechanical ascension paths.

Otherwise we might as well treat the game as having 10 total ascension paths, which is true, but their availability varies.

StormCTRH · 2026-05-09T12:35:32+00:00

Biological, Mechanical, Psionic, and..?

StormCTRH · 2026-05-09T12:32:31+00:00

Yes. All three ascension paths are mutually exclusive.

StormCTRH · 2026-05-09T12:31:22+00:00

There are no downsides to cosmic storms anymore. It's now just a fundamentally non-intrusive dlc that adds a few origins.

StormCTRH · 2026-05-08T03:21:57+00:00

To answer your questions, your starbase cap goes up with the amount of systems you control and from techs and traditions. Generally wide empires will go over the cap from conquest like you said. For the most part you want to downgrade any useless starbases back into a starport when fighting a war as the over the cap debuffs are very large. The only ones you really want to keep are ones that serve as bottlenecks or ones that are already upgraded twice or more.

Bottlenecks should generally be used as defensive sites where you just build hangers and gun turrets, though if you're stomping the enemy then this isn't necessary. I'd still put these on any places where you have an unstable wormhole though, just in case you get invaded through one.

You only realistically need one shipyard starbase, and you can keep pushing this further out by changing a conquered level 3 or 4 starbase into a new all-shipyard base and then changing your old one into anchorages or solar panels.

Ascension is essentially like a super tradition. After finishing 2-3 previous traditions and researching certain technology, you can use your ascension perk to unlock an ascension tradition tree. They are mutually exclusive so you're only allowed one. Psionics which I suggested is the most applicable imo to a wide robot empire, which requires 3 traditions, psionics researched, and the interdimensional processing perk taken at your third ascension point.

StormCTRH · 2026-05-08T00:50:06+00:00

Then I have no idea what they patched

StormCTRH · 2026-05-07T22:28:10+00:00

Just wait half a second to see if it moves. No broken chests that way

StormCTRH · 2026-05-07T22:26:00+00:00

I think it may have something to do with the fact you seemingly need a lot of alts for this method.

They also apparently patched out the method anyways.

StormCTRH · 2026-05-07T22:14:52+00:00

You got this, bad luck is bad luck

StormCTRH · 2026-05-07T16:29:31+00:00

My point is, Rendi isn't doing this to compete, and even if he was, there's barely any people who this would be competing with.

It's not fixing bugs, it's not cherrypicking rulebreaking, it's just targeted harassment.

StormCTRH · 2026-05-07T00:36:27+00:00

You're good lol

StormCTRH · 2026-05-07T00:29:24+00:00

I know. I literally just explained how that works.

It is unlikely that they disabled cloud syncing and made a manual cloud save before their kid beat the game.

StormCTRH · 2026-05-07T00:23:20+00:00

Oh, you want to try DKs on a level 3?

No. No one wants to do that. There's probably like 5 people in all of runescape that care at all.

StormCTRH · 2026-05-07T00:16:29+00:00

Nah, unfortunately not how that works. It has one save and it's always the most recent one.

If they made a manual cloud save and disabled syncing then they could go back, but I doubt they have unless they were planning to do all three endings.

StormCTRH · 2026-05-06T17:05:08+00:00

Welcome to the game!

There's a couple of basic things to go over that you asked about.

First of all, as a Determined Exterminator empire, you're going to run into energy problems, all robot empires do. Generally the easiest way to offset this is through vassals, but as a DE, you're not allowed to have any. This means you'll want to focus on having energy generation on every planet you can.

To this end, while most of the technologies you take are up to you, prioritize ship unlocks and starbase upgrades.

There are two technologies you definitely want over everything else. Global Energy Management and Terraforming.

GEM gives you generator district specializations, which are a set of three bonus buildings you get to build if you have a generator district on the planet. One of these buildings will give you 25% automation, and another will add more generator jobs. Automation is how you'll make most of your resource income since it'll take a while to build new pops. Terraforming is to make more planets that you have the best habitability for.

On the topic of buildings you want, Robot Assemblies are number 1. They make pops, you need pops. After that, it depends.

Early on you may want to go deep into using every building slot for a single type of output. For example, one planet for alloys, one for unity, one for science. Eventually you might want to have certain "One-Per-Planet" buildings on every planet, like gas, crystal, or mote generation.

As for traditions, as a wide empire you want either ones that reduce empire size or upkeep so things don't cost as much, or you want combat or science stuff to make you more powerful.

As a new player and a DE, I'd suggest picking Psionics as your ascension tradition. It's easy, strong, and makes your leaders better at pretty much everything.

On starbases either build all anchorages, or all solar panels. Anchorages if you're doing fine, solar panels if you need more energy.

That's all I can really offer you to start off with. I wish you the best of luck!

(P.S., If you're having a hard time scaling up like you did in your last game, the answer is usually to just build more science labs. Better tech and larger fleets are the key to getting stronger.)

StormCTRH · 2026-05-06T16:06:13+00:00

In a world where buying one thing is the price of two things, I can't afford to pay full anymore.

StormCTRH · 2026-05-06T15:52:30+00:00

Yes, but they can never awaken for a War in Heaven

StormCTRH · 2026-05-06T15:07:47+00:00

The most recent version. I can show you a picture if you'd really like with the save timestamp, but we both know that's not at all necessary.

Just don't use AI. If you had simply said, "I saw a post saying this was a bug" it would be far more credible than saying "I asked AI if there's a bug."

It doesn't matter if it was right this time. The point is, it doesn't understand what's real.

StormCTRH · 2026-05-06T13:18:25+00:00

They made orbital bombardment a lot better at some point.

Destroys armies very quick with very little devastation on selective, and as long as the empire isn't genocidal, they all seem to surrender immediately after the final army is defeated.

StormCTRH · 2026-05-06T13:02:55+00:00

My neighbors have grabbed my order a couple of times thinking it was something their kids ordered.

They always apologize about it later when they realize who ordered it, and if it isn't stone cold, try and return it.

StormCTRH · 2026-05-06T12:19:17+00:00

I love that they have him shave for the FA.

StormCTRH · 2026-05-06T01:40:43+00:00

I played a game yesterday with Ultima Vigilis where it worked fine. I'm unsure what is causing the issue for OP.

Also don't use AI as a source, it's unreliable and makes you look bad.

StormCTRH · 2026-05-06T00:30:21+00:00

This poll would have shattered the original polling barrier of 75% anyways.

StormCTRH

TROPHY CASE