Paradox have put out the latest free update to their grand space strategy game Stellaris, the 3.6 "Orion" update is less about new content and more about improving the game.
It does still have a small sprinkle of new content though like the new Galaxy Shapes including a 3 Arm Spiral Galaxy, 6 Arm Spiral Galaxy, Barred Galaxy, Starburst Galaxy, Cartwheel Galaxy and a Spoked Galaxy.
Pictured - the new Spoked Galaxy type.
Other changes include new textures and shaders for Reanimated Leviathans, the ability for Hive Minds to choose a variation on the Reanimators Civic from the Necroids Species Pack and a fleet combat rebalance to address these issues:
- Artillery Battleships dominate the late-game
- Disengagement mechanics favor artillery battleships
- Destroyers and Cruisers have extremely limited uses once the next ship size is unlocked
- Command Limits are ineffective
- Doomstacks aren’t fun
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They also reworked how the Ascension Paths from Utopia work, as well as added a new ascension path. There's a new Spiritualist Federation type to the specialized federation types from Federations, and added a new “Politics” tradition tree, which also requires Federations.
Additionally they added in new Orbital Ring buildings, which are included with the Overlord expansion.
For the base game they've added a new relic, accessibility improvements, new first contact events, included terraforming candidates on the galaxy map, added a new event chain, and tweaked some empire modifiers.
There's more that you can see in the full details.
Stellaris is available from GOG, Humble Store and Steam.
Quoting: slaapliedjeI need to play it again, last time I started getting into it, some space pirates took over my colony and a giant space monster ate my space ship. Clearly I need to build up more stuff before I explore more!Explore tons, IMO.
Giant space monsters are gonna eat the occasional exploration ship; it happens. I usually have like four, sometimes maybe five, exploration science ships going at a time. Worth it just for the research boosts when you find anomalies IMO. And then if one of them gets eaten, my exploration doesn't grind to a halt. Crawling behind them I have a few construction ships making mining/research stations as fast as my Influence will let me take systems.
Pirates showing up early at your core colony, though, that's just weirdly bad luck. I've never seen that. Nearby enough to be annoying and make me have to suddenly build up a little navy to take them out with when I wanted to be doing other stuff, yeah, occasionally. But there's always a cushion, they start a few systems away. Maybe you're not expanding your territory fast enough, so there's nowhere to put pirates except right close to home.
Quoting: Purple Library GuySo I was expanding really fast, pretty much like you said, but didn't have much military. Had an colony world out further away from my main planet, discovered the pirates, and then tried getting my one or three little military ships over to the pirates, and that's when a space monster ate them, then the pirates captured my colony and sold them off for slaves.Quoting: slaapliedjeI need to play it again, last time I started getting into it, some space pirates took over my colony and a giant space monster ate my space ship. Clearly I need to build up more stuff before I explore more!Explore tons, IMO.
Giant space monsters are gonna eat the occasional exploration ship; it happens. I usually have like four, sometimes maybe five, exploration science ships going at a time. Worth it just for the research boosts when you find anomalies IMO. And then if one of them gets eaten, my exploration doesn't grind to a halt. Crawling behind them I have a few construction ships making mining/research stations as fast as my Influence will let me take systems.
Pirates showing up early at your core colony, though, that's just weirdly bad luck. I've never seen that. Nearby enough to be annoying and make me have to suddenly build up a little navy to take them out with when I wanted to be doing other stuff, yeah, occasionally. But there's always a cushion, they start a few systems away. Maybe you're not expanding your territory fast enough, so there's nowhere to put pirates except right close to home.
Been quite a few updates / DLC since then though! Actually now that I think about it, last time I played was about January of 2020...
Quoting: slaapliedjeWhoa. Yeah, that's a pretty sucky development. When something goes very wrong for me most often it's, I'll be merrily expanding away, run into a couple of alien races too dashed soon, and then one of them declares war on me, and I realize I haven't built much of a navy and have been going for nothing but economically and scientifically strategic tech, so my ships suck.Quoting: Purple Library GuySo I was expanding really fast, pretty much like you said, but didn't have much military. Had an colony world out further away from my main planet, discovered the pirates, and then tried getting my one or three little military ships over to the pirates, and that's when a space monster ate them, then the pirates captured my colony and sold them off for slaves.Quoting: slaapliedjeI need to play it again, last time I started getting into it, some space pirates took over my colony and a giant space monster ate my space ship. Clearly I need to build up more stuff before I explore more!Explore tons, IMO.
Giant space monsters are gonna eat the occasional exploration ship; it happens. I usually have like four, sometimes maybe five, exploration science ships going at a time. Worth it just for the research boosts when you find anomalies IMO. And then if one of them gets eaten, my exploration doesn't grind to a halt. Crawling behind them I have a few construction ships making mining/research stations as fast as my Influence will let me take systems.
Pirates showing up early at your core colony, though, that's just weirdly bad luck. I've never seen that. Nearby enough to be annoying and make me have to suddenly build up a little navy to take them out with when I wanted to be doing other stuff, yeah, occasionally. But there's always a cushion, they start a few systems away. Maybe you're not expanding your territory fast enough, so there's nowhere to put pirates except right close to home.
Been quite a few updates / DLC since then though! Actually now that I think about it, last time I played was about January of 2020...
When that happens in the early game I tend to just start again. Although it seems a bit rarer with the new contact/diplomacy/espionage system--info on other races is so crappy it takes a while for a newly contacted alien race to even figure out whether you're vulnerable.
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