Megastructures Expansion - Major Features

[RammaStardock]

New Quests

• A new, early game Quest Chain for Megastructures is kicked off starting with "A Distant Signal." These Events and Quests are designed to lead players through the new Megastructures Content.
  
• New events and quests involving Megastructures and Ringworlders

New Resources

• Gigamass - is important as a required resource for all Megastructure construction, as well as some new components, improvements, orbitals and more. This resource is acquired from dead planets via planet harvesters and is therefore both limited and highly valuable
  
• Energy - An important because it is required for Megastructure construction. Megastructures spend Energy once built and need a steady supply of Energy to operate.
  
  • Energy is a resource akin to food with Energy Generation and Consumption. This resource is generated by Dyson Spheres and Solar Farm improvements
    
  • Overspending Energy will trigger some dangerous Energy Crisis Events

New Ship Components

• Gigamass Lens & Gigamass Coils: Boost Beam Weapon Damage.
  
• Gigamass Shrapnel & Gigamass Grav-Pulse: Boost Missile Weapon Damage.
  
• Gigamass Spearheads & Gigamass Rods: Boost Kinetic Weapon Damage.
  
• Gigamass Stabilizers & Gigamass Field Anchors: Boost Shield Strength.
  
• Gigamass Microchips & Gigamass Phase Cards: Boost Evasion.
  
• Gigamass Lining & Gigamass Alloy: Boost Armor Strength.
  
• Gigamass Fuel Rod & Gigamass Manifolds: Boost Moves.
  
• Gigamass Reinforcement & Gigamass Core: Boost Hit Points.
  
• Gigamass Drop Pods & Gigamass Transport Vehicles: Boost Conquest Rating.

New Technologies

• There are Seven Total – Starting with Gigamass Theory and ending with Nexus Mastery.
  
  • Gigamass Theory
    
  • Gigamass Harvesting
    
  • Stellar Architecture
    
  • Megastructure Nexi
    
  • Advanced Nexus Augments
    
  • Habitable Rings
    
  • Nexus Mastery

Stellar Architects

• Stellar Architects are unlocked by the Stellar Architecture tech and are used to construct Megastructures.
  
  • Stellar Architects can be sent to Stars or Blackholes to build these Megastructures (A find Megastructure Site button is available for ease of use). When they arrive, players get the option to choose which Megastructure to build.

Dyson Spheres

• Dyson Spheres are the first Megastructure unlocked in the DLC and are the best way to generate Energy.
  
  • All stars provide the same amount of Energy, except white stars which provide extra.
    
    • White = 25 Energy
      
    • All Other Stars = 10 Energy

Stellar Nexus

• The Stellar Nexus is the foundation for dozens of different Megastructures which it can become when upgraded via Nexus Augments.
  
  • Nexus Augments work similar to Starbase Modules but take several turns to install or replace with only one being installed at a time.
    
  • The three tiers are unlocked over time and increase in power at each tier.
    
    • Tier 1: Mildly Powerful
      
    • Tier 2: Powerful
      
    • Tier 3: Overpowered
• Similar to Dyson Spheres, Stellar Nexuses are specialized based on the color of their host star:
  
  • Base Module: +5% Approval, +5% Manufacturing, +5% Research
    
  • Yellow: Growth/Food/Population
    
    • Nascent Garden +3 Farming, +30% Growth, +3 Pop cap
      
    • Flourishing Garden +6 Farming, +60% Growth, +6 Pop cap
      
    • Celestial Garden +10 Farming, +100% Growth, +10 Pop cap
      
    • Focus Origin +3 Unit Stats
      
    • Focus Amplifier +6 Unit Stats
      
    • Focus Generator +10 Unit Stats
      
    • Stratus Cycler -30% Pollution, +10% Approval
      
    • Nimbus Cycler -40% Pollution, +15% Approval Celestial
      
    • Cloud Cycler -75% Pollution, +25% Approval
      
    • Core Authority 5 Control per Turn, +3 Culture Points, -25% Crime
      
    • Unified Authority 10 Control per Turn, +5 Culture Points, -50% Crime
      
    • Central System Authority 20 Control per Turn, +7 Culture Points, -75% Crime
  • Red: Military
    
    • Daybreak Engine +50% Military, +2 Armor, +2 Shield Dawn Engine +75%
      
    • Military, +4 Armor, +4 Shield Eclipse Engine +100% Military, +8 Armor, +8 Shield
      
    • Impulse Matrix +25% Moves, +25% Tactical Speed
      
    • Surge Matrix +33% Moves, +33% Tactical Speed
      
    • Acceleration Matrix +50% Moves, +50% Tactical Speed
      
    • Shield Coordinator +35% Planetary Defenses Guardian Coordinator +50% Planetary Defenses
      
    • Defense Coordinator +75% Planetary Defenses
      
    • Hunter's Gaze +20% Weapon Attack Orion's Watch +33% Weapon Attack
      
    • Orion's Eye +50% Weapon Attack
  • Blue: Manufacturing/Research
    
    • Cosmic Mirror +3 Technology
      
    • Astral Mirror +5 Technology
      
    • Quantum Mirror +10 Technology
      
    • Stellar Smithy +3 Minerals
      
    • Astral Forge +5 Minerals
      
    • Cosmic Foundry +10 Minerals
      
    • Trust Engine +15% Recruit Discount, +15 Loyalty
      
    • Loyalty Engine +30% Recruit Discount, +30 Loyalty
      
    • Allegiance Engine +45% Recruit Discount, +45 Loyalty
      
    • Proto Spire +10% Random Tech Discount
      
    • Emergent Spire +15% Random Tech Discount
      
    • Neoteric Spire +20% Random Tech Discount
  • Purple: Econ/Influence/Tourism
    
    • Proto Lens +25 Planetary Influence, +20% Planetary Influence
      
    • Astral Lens +50 Planetary Influence, +30% Planetary Influence
      
    • Subspace Lens +75 Planetary Influence, +40% Planetary Influence
      
    • Starry Retreat +3 Tourism, +50% Tourism
      
    • Cosmic Getaway +4 Tourism, +75% Tourism
      
    • Galactic Resort +5 Tourism, +150% Tourism
      
    • Colossal Market +50% Trade Route Value, +3 Trade Licenses
      
    • Monumental Exchange +100% Trade Route Value, +6 Trade Licenses
      
    • Megalithic Trade Center +200% Trade Route Value, +9 Trade Licenses
      
    • Cosmic Courthouse +15 Diplomacy, +50 Diplomatic Capital Income
      
    • Interstellar Consulate +30 Diplomacy, +100 Diplomatic Capital Income
      
    • Galactic Embassy +45 Diplomacy, +200 Diplomatic Capital Income
  • White: CANNOT BE BUILT ON

Stellar Gateway

• Stellar Gateways are built by Stellar Architects on the edges of Blackholes.
  
  • Two Gateways are needed to make a pair and fleets can travel through one and out the other.
• Gateway pairings can be managed in the Automation screen.
  
• Gateways have a toggle that allows players to switch between sending fleets through and stationing fleets on these gateways.
  
• A Gateway's pair can be seen as a button over the context window and interacted with by being clicked on.
  
• The new Open Gateway Treaty allows Civs to utilize one-another's Gateways.

Ringworlds

• Ringworlds are built around stars, and, like Nexuses or Dyson Spheres, offer different tile bonuses depending on the color of their host star.
  
• All Ringworlds are Class 39 planets with a specific contiguous tile layout due to being Artificial Planets.
  
• Ringworlds are meant to be artificial paradise and thus are extremely powerful Core Worlds/Colonies.

Ringworlders

• Ringworlders are a new minor faction that players can meet. They live on a Ringworld that may be encountered far before the technology necessary to build them is unlocked and thus may provide a unique opportunity for players to obtain a powerful new planet.

Invasion and Capture

• Megastructures can be invaded and captured like colonies
  
• Megastructures can be defended by stationed fleets

[pesho_nt]

I play only multiplayer (LAN). We started on GalCiv 3 years ago and there were always some desynchronizing after about 60 turns(or more), but still after loading the autosave it was continuing for some turns. On GalCiv4 it was reduced to maybe about 40 turns. Still resume was possible after reload.
After this update we barely get to 20 turns and it brakes so bad that even with the 2 options for autosave it does not fix it, and we have to abandon a game, which we played for hours. It would be a great acheavment for us if multiplayer is finaly made stable!

[pesho_nt]

In case anyone doubts my claims:
Today we have reinstalled GalCiv4 on both computers.
We have more than enough HW resources and free disk space for this game.
Computers are connected via cable to $200 ASUS router to each other and we have 600 Mb/s stable connection to the Internet.
Once again the same thing happened. Just on turn 19 issues started right after 2nd players completed their turn.
We have started reloading the game and found some specific cases and many unidentified:

1.Immediately after a colony ship colonize a planet (same turn)
2.Immediately after spawning Corvette class ship via “Robotic Star Drone” (same turn)
3. Managed to end the turn when decommissioning all Probes or just skip movement for all ships, but once the 1st player started his moves soon it gave another desync.
4. On one of the retries, the game skipped a turn directly and replaced the autosaves.
5.Multiple times game hung on “Starting new turn”, where at least once it completely hung the game for the 2nd player for about a minute before reporting a dump file.
6. Few times it did not allow the 2nd player to end his turn.
7. In some cases to resume on the hung “Starting new turn” the 2nd player had to quit the game - we did this in hope to pass the turn and then to use the save/autosave to continue on clean connection (used to work in GalCiv3), but in this case the P2 had already been replaced by AI and when 2nd player joins the restored game, there is no rase for him to own. (see attached screenshots)
8. We have spent more than an hour retrying. Sometimes without restarting the game and sometimes with full computer restarts. Yet only in some of them we managed to pass 1 turn before complete failure.
9. For just less than 2 hours we managed to reload more than 15 times and yet only 2 dump events were created.

You can check the files from both computers. Hopefully this will help to finally introduce some solution to the desync issue which has been reported for years - back since GalCiv3, but after the “Megatructors” update it became a deal breaker to any multiplayer game.
Thank you and good luck !

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/lkjn0dfb9zlwcbwotkzk8/2024-dec-14.zip?rlkey=1wjn0mu2pv1c2apojkwcp9tz3&st=0nwv6p8t&dl=0

[Azamos]

The game has started to become more unstable with the most recent update. My game crashed the second I attempted to move a terrorstar.
There is not even close to enough gigamass available compared to its cost. To make a dyson sphere, it takes 30. I was able to take almost all of the gigamass in my entire game which was about 300. That seems pretty good except that after making a dyson star and stellar nexus with a single upgrade I used up an extremely large amount. The amount of research required to unlock the upgrades is way too high. Also, the AI opponents were also starting to make harvesters even though they hadn't unlocked the ability to create them yet.

[starmac]

I have the same issue with the game crashing constantly since the last update have not been able to play saved games without crashing,uninstalled reinstalled validated game files need some help advice if any one can.....

[rdouglass1]

LOL!! With the Addition of the Orbital Habitat Unit, Surplus Food is Hard to come by...

[ashbery76]

Originally posted by rdouglass1:

LOL!! With the Addition of the Orbital Habitat Unit, Surplus Food is Hard to come by...

Hmm no.Farmer pops.

[RammaStardock]

Hello all, we've added a hot fix to the game detailed here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1357210/discussions/0/4628106985313744331/

It should help resolve the terror star crash

[rdouglass1]

Originally posted by rdouglass1:

LOL!! With the Addition of the Orbital Habitat Unit, Surplus Food is Hard to come by...

Since I posted this comment, I see the Farming is WAY UP on many planets...
As well as the Upgrades on the Mega Structures Offering two options for that.

[rdouglass1]

Originally posted by ashbery76:

Hmm no.Farmer pops.

The Problem I see with that option is that many Surface Resources you may want from Colonies, can not be Harvested without Hydroponics... Can not be researched without Farming Trait.

[Draver]

Originally posted by rdouglass1:

Originally posted by ashbery76:

Hmm no.Farmer pops.

The Problem I see with that option is that many Surface Resources you may want from Colonies, can not be Harvested without Hydroponics... Can not be researched without Farming Trait.

Yeah, it's a common complaint. Sarellion made a mod that removes the Farming Trait requirement from Hydroponics. You can find it inside UP Bundle of Mods V1.9.24 under SAR-UnlockFarmResource at https://www.galciv4.com/mods/manager

[pesho_nt]

Thank you for the hotfix. You really made "improvements":
1. Now instead of breaking the multiplayer game on the 19th turn we reached only 17th.
2. Obviously it just stops on ending the turn, where no player can save, or do anything ?!?!
3. it does not report desynchronisation anymore - just stays like this without any options to progress - no more error messages !

I guess Christmass is not a time for significant investigations, already postponed for many christmas’.
Well, better luck next year to everybody!

[rdouglass1]

Originally posted by Draver:

Yeah, it's a common complaint. Sarellion made a mod that removes the Farming Trait requirement from Hydroponics. You can find it inside UP Bundle of Mods V1.9.24 under SAR-UnlockFarmResource at https://www.galciv4.com/mods/manager

I tried one Mod to Add More Research Items to stretch out the Research Tree, but could not get it to work. Not sure how to use them...

[rdouglass1]

Originally posted by Draver:

[...]

Got it. Thanks.

[Supply Side Jesus]

Artificial moon and habitable ring are too strong and available too early in the game. It is better than anything comparable from other trees at the same tech level.

[ghost88]

Originally posted by jshutich:

The S.S.S. Stellar Architect construction ship does not show up in the Ships view so you can't find your Architect ship you sent off to the other side of the sector.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3393114920

Please start a new thread as this thread is not really for reporting bugs