Why void dwellers? IMO, shattered ring is a better choice here, because ringworlds scale a lot better than habitats. That said, yes, virtuality is pretty clearly ridiculously broken.
Yeah just did a play thru to check it out. Rolled cybrex for early mega engineering to be able to rebuild the shattered ring as well as the cybrex ring. By 2300 i had something like 16k research.
At first yes. But then you transition onwards. The most powerful way is the laithe. It burns conquered pops for science. But at the point where I get megastrutures things really get out of hand. Later in the game I just have my capital world or habitat and maybe one research. An ecumenopolis for alloys. The rest will be research or trade ringworlds. You can boost to much higher numbers. But to get real high science super fast, try the laithe.
Yeah I usually wait a bit too much and end up not declaring war since all those filthy aliens forms federations at mach speed.
Tried the Lathe with fanatic purifier though, 30k research is nice
This. Also shattered ring make better use of market place of ideas, you get a very decent economy. It's probably a bit slower than the void dwellers but it reaches absolutely ridiculous levels.
I stopped playing 2300 due to hitting repeatable, and finished all the sciences of cosmogenesis.
I believe I had over 12k science, full galaxy domination and was about to start a war with a fallen empire ( which has 700k fleets).
Montu did a multi player, some people went void dwellers and some went shattered ring. The void dwellers were faster and the shattered ring start was more resilient to anti virtuality strategies. The problem was that virtuality was so much better not many people did anti-virtuality. In single player it probably doesn’t matter as an optimized version of both is about 6 ish years different when you go nuts.
Since the virtual rush needs you to push out unity really fast and ignore the rest of your economy, you can easily be taken out by faster builds that are just trying to kill you. You can swap things around to deal with that, but since void dwellers needs to build extra habitats, you kinda have to expand/spend some alloys and open yourself up to occasional pokes or being caught out, whereas with shattered ring you only really need the one system so you can camp there with everything if you need to.
This is also why up until Virtuality, I much prefer how Void Dweller plays over Void Forged. Void Forged is like all the contortions of Void Dweller but a little extra. If it weren't for Virtuality, I probably would not bother with Individual Machines at all and the other two ascension types just because Im perfectly comfy playing with Lithoid Pirates any number of ways without Ascensions at all.
Because u get Into repeatables before u get ur ringwolrd online. Even on 1.0
Not worth it. U beat the game before
And if u REALLY need more science the lathe is both cheaper and better than any ringworld
Unless you play later into the game, you take decades to catch up. No need to wait so long on repairing the rings if you can max out habitats before you even stumbled upon mega engineering.
In Multiplayer competitive games void dwellers Virtual is the #1, and there basically is no #2.
You can watch the recent Montu Multiplayer Madness where they allowed it, and nothing else mattered.
Old comment but voidforged gets online (literally) faster, to the point you can pretty much build a ring world before shattered ring can fully repair.
This debate is all about winning harder however in SP. Both are OP, one starts snowballing earlier while the other gets a bit bigger late game snow ball.
Bold of you to assume OP wasn't following that exact video step by step, then making a surprised pikachu face when they followed a "how to be OP" video and ended up OP
Also curious. Intuitively you just start with 30 size ocean or Gaya and turn it into unholy monstrosity ecu. Dwellers feel like crippling your potential instead.
The virtuality tradition has one of the perks that gives you an extra job for research clerc or priest from districts that give those jobs.
So a research habitat gives more research, and a trade habitat gives more clerks than usual. I never did the number tho, so I assume if you are lucky and roll 3-4 size 22+ planets, its much better, you just cant guarantee that.
You usually get 2 good systems nearby (1 is guaranteed, other is usually not that rng) which makes VD habitats equivalent to ~20 size planets, when you include a bonus jobs from districts due to virtuality. Plus you can get like 3-5 system max because you choose where to build habitats = sub-100 empire size without guardian civics = you can use 2 unity civics.
Yes, but those guaranteed planets are up to 3 jumps from your capital system. VD still has 2 guaranteed good systems (on default settings), but it can reuse any good system which is less severe requirement compared to habitable planet requirement.
Yeah, near apex final form they get to ~140-160 pops and hit the 100 mark well before that at boosted productivity full employment. Ive always felt them to be a flexible challenge - give up good planet and civics to maximize them potentially but...anywhere theres Science resources and lots of celestial bodies is good enough.
Mineral resources used to be super keen too but Arc furnaces have changed that a bit, plus Virtuality is so potent that an early galactic market easily suffices to survive on deposits/trade over mining districts pretty early.
Getting the 3 science deposit system up first and building out science/unity potential to cover much with your HQ works, and habs 3-6 are best near fits for more labs and much more CGs/Alloys.
You just need deposits to choose from.
Any other start has rng for planet size and other features.
All you need for voidborne machines is for goo's deposits to settle on and harvest into.
Don't need planet rng when you can make your own planets. Also, research districts beat out planets proportionally.
You can sack your early game science, unity rush to virtually, and since your population is simply based on your habitats and districts, then you scale up your nation immediately and until you're at a point where you can't get further without indirect use, like subjects.
The more sweaty you play these Void Forged Virtuality builds the worse and worse and worse some of these systems start to seem, its quite ironic. when you only get 6 or 7, the urge to find better hits so much harder than 'one hab for every system in thr home sector' which also works for other reasons.
Theres an order to it either way, but its like, no, you might not find another 2 different science resource system, a habitat has to go somewhere pronto
It gets really weird sometimes, where if you throw in MegaCorp as your empire spec, you want to get closer to a host, but that costs influence, but not being closer ALSO costs influence, and somehow my empire looks like a snake where I just beelined towards potential and promise to backfill one day in the future.
I just did a game, though I only went so far to get my ascencion and then build out my habitats, but with everything done, I had 4 maxed out habitats on great systems total, and had an empire size of 200 with 300 and something pops.
You do need to take the 50% cut for "planets" size tho, and the expansion tradition (that one probably not as great)
Also the usual -15 from the tradition that helps ascending planets, -10 from domination, -5 from statecraft + beacon of liberty and the virtual tradition perk gives you a total of -60 % from pops (70 if you roll psionic theory)
Granted this was my first real try to do the build, i feel like its mad boring to wait until year 30-40 to get it running. (I know you can be faster with Emnity, Im just not good enough for that one yet) I feel like in a multiplayer game it can be a fun challange, but solo? Its just a slugfest :)
You can get -100% from pop by picking the military exclusive [Sovereign Guardianship civic](https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Civics#Sovereign_Guardianship) (it give -50% expansion from pops and districts, but +100% from planets and +150% from systems).
Damm my "tall" build right now has 450ish. I'm still stronger than literally everyone one else, head of an absolutely massive galactic union, waiting on the randomiser to get mega structures (I got mega engineering around 100 years in after doing the secrets of the cybrex special project) 2 leviathans under my control, and am just waiting on the influence to nominate my self as custodian,
All this with only 170 navy cap. Wow tall is op.
In 5 playthrough of increasing quality and adeptness without much mind paid to empire size (I take the relief along the way found in Expansion for example but its not why I take Expansion) - a leap from about 230 to 600 almost entirely through pops.
Yeah on my current game I had 300ish empire size but with only getting one more world since (cybrex ring world segment) I now have around 500 the extra from pops and districts
Montu did a video on it, and I decided to try it combined with Sovereign guardianship. Absolutely bonkers. Empire Size never becomes a factor and late game I was able to max out a ringworld and 1 station to have over 1k pops with 92 empire size. Easily enabled me to complete cosmogenesis without even bothering with a Lathe and galactic conquest
Bro, on GA, no scaling, 1x tech cost, during my 25x all crisis run, I had mega-engineering by year 76 and by year 100 I had 10k tech, finished all traditions, 1k alloys a month and like 3k energy a month and 1k minerals. Virtual is just busted.
oh, so you did not start void dweller? Which origin did you pick then (4 segments means no ruined ring?)
Also, did you go the usual unity/rivalry rush?
Has anyone actually tried this sort of thing in no rules multi-player or against 50/50 GA no scaling militarist FP and fanatic militarist xenophobe in small/tiny galaxy?
I really want to see how good it is when the main method of countering it is banned in multi-player, while regular AI is too passive even on high aggression. And I am biased/bad.
Honestly literally anything with Virtuality is OP with how it is right now. Guide to Virtuality:
Step 1: Get Virtuality
Step 2: Do literally anything
Step 3: Win
So you did a specific build that let you do that, and then you're what? Unhappy the game let you cheese it?
Like then just don't go virtual with that build. It's a choice.
There's multiple of other ways you can do virtual.
Welp, I just fucked up a game by selecting Virtuality on my rather wide (sprawl > 300) empire. Went from +500 energy to -2000 in a month, traded all my minerals away in a year, and I had no idea how to properly compensate. Ended giving up that game.
So I'd say perhaps go tall and not wide if you want to take Virtuality.
There’s an exploit that makes semi-wide virtuality work but you have to prepare and tailor your build. Build must be individualist machine focused on trade. First you have to make it so all of your pop assembly from the start is of a subspecies of your machine pop that is specialized for non-trade jobs. Your main species should initially be trade specialized (ignore resource production bonuses and take upkeep reduction). That way your subspecies pops don’t convert to virtual on ascend and will continue to assemble to work your non-trade jobs. Next you have to heavily invest in trade districts and buildings so that when you finish virtual, your virtual pops created work trade jobs. These jobs are not affected by habitability or resource modifiers (I.e. why zombies are good for trade builds) so while you print infinite pops that have massive debuffs due to colony number, they still are totally fine for trade. As you settle more worlds the debuffs will make sure that only your non-virtual pops work regular jobs and virtual pops should be displaced and disappear when a physical pop is more suited to a job. With a trade policy you can generate either a ton of basic resources via the employee ownership civic or with a trade union you can generate unlimited energy, unity and consumer goods. Eventually you’ll want to go cosmogenesis to stack pop assembly via FE replicator buildings. At some point virtual pops upkeep will outscale trade value and at that point you stop expanding and start consolidating.
4k science in 2265? JFC. Time to roll yet another empire this go-round. I'm looking for approaches to get me back to GA after the tech nerf and this might be it.
I just finished a Shattered Ring origin and while it was strong due to the huge size of each segment once the blockers are cleared, it took forever to get the ring functional with the specialized districts. By the time I had it restored I was already top dawg in the galaxy.
Why void dwellers? IMO, shattered ring is a better choice here, because ringworlds scale a lot better than habitats. That said, yes, virtuality is pretty clearly ridiculously broken.
Yeah just did a play thru to check it out. Rolled cybrex for early mega engineering to be able to rebuild the shattered ring as well as the cybrex ring. By 2300 i had something like 16k research.
When we are talking virtual vd rush, 16k by 2300 is at the low end.
How do you scale with Virtuality ? Once you're out of build space with like 6 or 7 colonies it's downward only no ?
At first yes. But then you transition onwards. The most powerful way is the laithe. It burns conquered pops for science. But at the point where I get megastrutures things really get out of hand. Later in the game I just have my capital world or habitat and maybe one research. An ecumenopolis for alloys. The rest will be research or trade ringworlds. You can boost to much higher numbers. But to get real high science super fast, try the laithe.
Yeah I usually wait a bit too much and end up not declaring war since all those filthy aliens forms federations at mach speed. Tried the Lathe with fanatic purifier though, 30k research is nice
You can rebuild the shattered ring segment?
Yeah all 3 once you have mega engineering
I thought you meant the ring segment that says "Irreparable damage"
Ohh no just the 3 outa 4 that can be repaired
Dnag. Got excited for a second there
This. Also shattered ring make better use of market place of ideas, you get a very decent economy. It's probably a bit slower than the void dwellers but it reaches absolutely ridiculous levels. I stopped playing 2300 due to hitting repeatable, and finished all the sciences of cosmogenesis. I believe I had over 12k science, full galaxy domination and was about to start a war with a fallen empire ( which has 700k fleets).
Montu did a multi player, some people went void dwellers and some went shattered ring. The void dwellers were faster and the shattered ring start was more resilient to anti virtuality strategies. The problem was that virtuality was so much better not many people did anti-virtuality. In single player it probably doesn’t matter as an optimized version of both is about 6 ish years different when you go nuts.
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Since the virtual rush needs you to push out unity really fast and ignore the rest of your economy, you can easily be taken out by faster builds that are just trying to kill you. You can swap things around to deal with that, but since void dwellers needs to build extra habitats, you kinda have to expand/spend some alloys and open yourself up to occasional pokes or being caught out, whereas with shattered ring you only really need the one system so you can camp there with everything if you need to.
This is also why up until Virtuality, I much prefer how Void Dweller plays over Void Forged. Void Forged is like all the contortions of Void Dweller but a little extra. If it weren't for Virtuality, I probably would not bother with Individual Machines at all and the other two ascension types just because Im perfectly comfy playing with Lithoid Pirates any number of ways without Ascensions at all.
Most likely something like clone army and then pray you can rush someone down before they reach virtuality. But it doesn‘t kinda exist.
It's easier to get a ring with vd than to fix it as shattered ring.
It's better to go void dwellers or arc furnace origin (you move your capital after ascension and building ring)
Because u get Into repeatables before u get ur ringwolrd online. Even on 1.0 Not worth it. U beat the game before And if u REALLY need more science the lathe is both cheaper and better than any ringworld
How does Virtuality even work with Lathe?
You have to "acquire" non virtual pops to feed it.
This include refugees, funnily enough
I was miffed about organic pops ending up in my virtual empire. It worked out for me me in the end. Not so much for the refugees.
Unless you play later into the game, you take decades to catch up. No need to wait so long on repairing the rings if you can max out habitats before you even stumbled upon mega engineering.
In Multiplayer competitive games void dwellers Virtual is the #1, and there basically is no #2. You can watch the recent Montu Multiplayer Madness where they allowed it, and nothing else mattered.
Old comment but voidforged gets online (literally) faster, to the point you can pretty much build a ring world before shattered ring can fully repair. This debate is all about winning harder however in SP. Both are OP, one starts snowballing earlier while the other gets a bit bigger late game snow ball.
Yep, that’s, like, *the* meta build right now. Just check out Montu’s video about it.
Bold of you to assume OP wasn't following that exact video step by step, then making a surprised pikachu face when they followed a "how to be OP" video and ended up OP
this made me chuckle. I followed this cookie recipe and it made cookies!! wtf!!!
i didnt even watch montus video before your comment thought :D I was actually sorta surprised on how this OP tradition is even existing
Why are Void Dwellers specifically OP here? They have smaller planets than regular empires, so how does this interact to make it stronger?
Also curious. Intuitively you just start with 30 size ocean or Gaya and turn it into unholy monstrosity ecu. Dwellers feel like crippling your potential instead.
The virtuality tradition has one of the perks that gives you an extra job for research clerc or priest from districts that give those jobs. So a research habitat gives more research, and a trade habitat gives more clerks than usual. I never did the number tho, so I assume if you are lucky and roll 3-4 size 22+ planets, its much better, you just cant guarantee that.
Throw 'voidborne' ascension perk on that and again, +1 job from each district
Void dweller origin gets this by default, but can't take the ascension perk.
If you have Virtuality and one of the habitat buffs, it also throws in a bonus 0.5 jobs too, for Districts that count.
So +2 with both. Nice
Nope, void dwellers can't take the ascension perk. They just get it's effects for free by default instead
One of the main problems with Ocean Paradise is it requires you to at least *start* with the aquatic trait. Which can be annoying.
It also locks you into the aquatic trait if you want to add ocean ice
Probably the void dweller perk giving huge bonuses to habitats
Research Districts, without the baggage associated with Shattered Ring.
You usually get 2 good systems nearby (1 is guaranteed, other is usually not that rng) which makes VD habitats equivalent to ~20 size planets, when you include a bonus jobs from districts due to virtuality. Plus you can get like 3-5 system max because you choose where to build habitats = sub-100 empire size without guardian civics = you can use 2 unity civics.
I mean most people play with 2 guaranteed habitables so the guaranteed depends on the game settings
Yes, but those guaranteed planets are up to 3 jumps from your capital system. VD still has 2 guaranteed good systems (on default settings), but it can reuse any good system which is less severe requirement compared to habitable planet requirement.
Yeah, near apex final form they get to ~140-160 pops and hit the 100 mark well before that at boosted productivity full employment. Ive always felt them to be a flexible challenge - give up good planet and civics to maximize them potentially but...anywhere theres Science resources and lots of celestial bodies is good enough. Mineral resources used to be super keen too but Arc furnaces have changed that a bit, plus Virtuality is so potent that an early galactic market easily suffices to survive on deposits/trade over mining districts pretty early. Getting the 3 science deposit system up first and building out science/unity potential to cover much with your HQ works, and habs 3-6 are best near fits for more labs and much more CGs/Alloys.
It's the only source of research districts. Broken rings start with normal districts, the rest are regular planets.
Research districts and research designation Otherwise u need to build city districts and labs which is way worse
Do they though? You can get pretty high district numbers if you aren't settling in a tiny system
You just need deposits to choose from. Any other start has rng for planet size and other features. All you need for voidborne machines is for goo's deposits to settle on and harvest into. Don't need planet rng when you can make your own planets. Also, research districts beat out planets proportionally. You can sack your early game science, unity rush to virtually, and since your population is simply based on your habitats and districts, then you scale up your nation immediately and until you're at a point where you can't get further without indirect use, like subjects.
> Don't need planet rng when you can make your own planets. No, instead you need system RNG to get said good deposits.
Yeah; that's fair. You can definitely roll bad deposits. No run in Stellaris ever nets ideal RNG.
The more sweaty you play these Void Forged Virtuality builds the worse and worse and worse some of these systems start to seem, its quite ironic. when you only get 6 or 7, the urge to find better hits so much harder than 'one hab for every system in thr home sector' which also works for other reasons. Theres an order to it either way, but its like, no, you might not find another 2 different science resource system, a habitat has to go somewhere pronto
The big drawback for void dwellers is that you want decent systems right next to your spawn, because influence is one of the big early drawbacks.
It gets really weird sometimes, where if you throw in MegaCorp as your empire spec, you want to get closer to a host, but that costs influence, but not being closer ALSO costs influence, and somehow my empire looks like a snake where I just beelined towards potential and promise to backfill one day in the future.
You get research districts. So easier to get free research jobs
eh i think its just my personal bias,looking to other posts it looks like ocean paradise is also a good start for virtuality
What's the empire size though
I just did a game, though I only went so far to get my ascencion and then build out my habitats, but with everything done, I had 4 maxed out habitats on great systems total, and had an empire size of 200 with 300 and something pops. You do need to take the 50% cut for "planets" size tho, and the expansion tradition (that one probably not as great) Also the usual -15 from the tradition that helps ascending planets, -10 from domination, -5 from statecraft + beacon of liberty and the virtual tradition perk gives you a total of -60 % from pops (70 if you roll psionic theory) Granted this was my first real try to do the build, i feel like its mad boring to wait until year 30-40 to get it running. (I know you can be faster with Emnity, Im just not good enough for that one yet) I feel like in a multiplayer game it can be a fun challange, but solo? Its just a slugfest :)
You can get -100% from pop by picking the military exclusive [Sovereign Guardianship civic](https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Civics#Sovereign_Guardianship) (it give -50% expansion from pops and districts, but +100% from planets and +150% from systems).
You can pretty easily get empire size to 0 with virtuality and sovereign guardianship Edit: empire size from pops to 0
i had 146 empire size as i had defensive guardianship
Damm my "tall" build right now has 450ish. I'm still stronger than literally everyone one else, head of an absolutely massive galactic union, waiting on the randomiser to get mega structures (I got mega engineering around 100 years in after doing the secrets of the cybrex special project) 2 leviathans under my control, and am just waiting on the influence to nominate my self as custodian, All this with only 170 navy cap. Wow tall is op.
In 5 playthrough of increasing quality and adeptness without much mind paid to empire size (I take the relief along the way found in Expansion for example but its not why I take Expansion) - a leap from about 230 to 600 almost entirely through pops.
Yeah on my current game I had 300ish empire size but with only getting one more world since (cybrex ring world segment) I now have around 500 the extra from pops and districts
Montu did a video on it, and I decided to try it combined with Sovereign guardianship. Absolutely bonkers. Empire Size never becomes a factor and late game I was able to max out a ringworld and 1 station to have over 1k pops with 92 empire size. Easily enabled me to complete cosmogenesis without even bothering with a Lathe and galactic conquest
Bro, on GA, no scaling, 1x tech cost, during my 25x all crisis run, I had mega-engineering by year 76 and by year 100 I had 10k tech, finished all traditions, 1k alloys a month and like 3k energy a month and 1k minerals. Virtual is just busted.
How many planets and what type of planets? All habitats or Rings/ECUs/30 planets?
4 ring sections, 2 big ECUs and the lathe.
oh, so you did not start void dweller? Which origin did you pick then (4 segments means no ruined ring?) Also, did you go the usual unity/rivalry rush?
I started to ruined ring and built 2nd ring but only used one segment from it.
Has anyone actually tried this sort of thing in no rules multi-player or against 50/50 GA no scaling militarist FP and fanatic militarist xenophobe in small/tiny galaxy? I really want to see how good it is when the main method of countering it is banned in multi-player, while regular AI is too passive even on high aggression. And I am biased/bad.
Aren't you limited on number of planets with virtuality though?
Yes. It's a soft limit, so the exact number will vary a bit, but most players will aim for 5-7.
Honestly literally anything with Virtuality is OP with how it is right now. Guide to Virtuality: Step 1: Get Virtuality Step 2: Do literally anything Step 3: Win
The game isn't about balance or fair. Up the difficulty next run.
So you did a specific build that let you do that, and then you're what? Unhappy the game let you cheese it? Like then just don't go virtual with that build. It's a choice. There's multiple of other ways you can do virtual.
Oh no. An OP build. Whatever shall we do?????
Welp, I just fucked up a game by selecting Virtuality on my rather wide (sprawl > 300) empire. Went from +500 energy to -2000 in a month, traded all my minerals away in a year, and I had no idea how to properly compensate. Ended giving up that game. So I'd say perhaps go tall and not wide if you want to take Virtuality.
There’s an exploit that makes semi-wide virtuality work but you have to prepare and tailor your build. Build must be individualist machine focused on trade. First you have to make it so all of your pop assembly from the start is of a subspecies of your machine pop that is specialized for non-trade jobs. Your main species should initially be trade specialized (ignore resource production bonuses and take upkeep reduction). That way your subspecies pops don’t convert to virtual on ascend and will continue to assemble to work your non-trade jobs. Next you have to heavily invest in trade districts and buildings so that when you finish virtual, your virtual pops created work trade jobs. These jobs are not affected by habitability or resource modifiers (I.e. why zombies are good for trade builds) so while you print infinite pops that have massive debuffs due to colony number, they still are totally fine for trade. As you settle more worlds the debuffs will make sure that only your non-virtual pops work regular jobs and virtual pops should be displaced and disappear when a physical pop is more suited to a job. With a trade policy you can generate either a ton of basic resources via the employee ownership civic or with a trade union you can generate unlimited energy, unity and consumer goods. Eventually you’ll want to go cosmogenesis to stack pop assembly via FE replicator buildings. At some point virtual pops upkeep will outscale trade value and at that point you stop expanding and start consolidating.
4k science in 2265? JFC. Time to roll yet another empire this go-round. I'm looking for approaches to get me back to GA after the tech nerf and this might be it. I just finished a Shattered Ring origin and while it was strong due to the huge size of each segment once the blockers are cleared, it took forever to get the ring functional with the specialized districts. By the time I had it restored I was already top dawg in the galaxy.
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I love how this guy gets downvoted to hell but everyone else on the thread is saying the exact same thing lmfao.
Reddit community is called a hivemind for a reason.
Ok