Mega-Structures too tedious

[Endymion]

I finally got the ascension perks for ringworlds, dyson spheres, etc, and now I'm told I can only build one at a time. And it takes decades! I have purposely hobbled my empire, purposely not won the game for a very very long time, just so I could build these mega structures, and now I have to sit here for hours waiting for them to build. I'm about to quit this game from sheer boredom and I haven't even finished the first habitable section of my ringworld, which is my first mega structure other than habitats. This tedium is ridiculous.

And that's not even getting into how stupid some of these structures are... Habitats can only orbit "planets" but not moon? That's not how it would work... the moons themselves should become habitats. And a dyson sphere is silly - it would be a dyson swarm, not a solid sphere. And where the hell are the space elevators?

Pdx, fix this crap. At least fix the late-game tedium of building a megastructure. Who has the patience for this?

[flow]

Habitats are overpowered as hell already, being able to build even more of them around moons really isn't necessary.

I agree that the other megastructures take too long to research and build though. If you haven't already won by that point, they're probably not gonna make a difference for you either.

[Darrenb209]

The only Megastructures I use are the Sensor Array and habitats.

In the time it takes to make one ringworld, I could terraform 4 Gaia's easily. In the time it takes to make one Dyson Sphere, I could make enough Habitats specialized to Energy to outperform that Sphere many times over. Same with the Science Nexus.

[Endymion]

Originally posted by flow:

Habitats are overpowered as hell already, being able to build even more of them around moons really isn't necessary.

I agree that the other megastructures take too long to research and build though. If you haven't already won by that point, they're probably not gonna make a difference for you either.

Oh I agree, habitats are overpowered for sure. But what I meant was that from the perspective of immersion and sci-fi believability, that's just not how habitats would be built. More likely you would honeycomb a moon than make a giant tin can from scratch. And the artwork for it would look cooler.

[Mansen]

Originally posted by flow:

Habitats are overpowered as hell already

This - You can build super size 12 planets back to back in practically every location in your empire. That alone is enough to turn any tiny empire into a galactic superpower in no time at all...

Also - Superstructures are such a lategame thing that you've won the game already if you're not playing intentionally bad, or at the least reached a point where you could faceroll the remaining empires with ease.

[Azunai]

space elevators don't make much sense in stellaris. their job is to get stuff into orbit. that's pretty much a free action in the game anyway. you don't pay an energy tax to get stuff from planets to space.

of course that's highly unrealistic, but nerfing that just to give space elevators a purpose doesn't make much sense either.

i agree that the megastructures are underwhelming for the amount of time and resources you have to invest.

habitats are ok, but they aren't as great as some people seem to believe. they are essentially tiny planets that you wouldn't even colonize if they were normal planets. the only thing they have going for them is that 2 of their buildings are a lot better than the equivalent planetary buildings.
and of course the fact that you can build them pretty much anywhere, so you can still expand after there is no more room to expand normally.

they still have the same drawbacks that every added colony has - they increase the research and tradition costs like any other colony and they also increase the consumer good costs for every pop in your empire (like any other colony).

[starrynite120]

Some simple changes makes Megastructures a lot more viable, and there a mods which do so. For example, I make mega-engineering easier to get (increased weight and lowered tier to 3 so it will appear earlier), remove the one at a time restriction, reduced build time a bit (but only on Dyson Sphere's and Ring worlds, the others are fine), and increased the yields of Dyson Sphere and Science Nexus, as well as allowing Fallen Empire Buildings on Ring worlds. That pretty much makes them entirely viable, and you don't have to wait forever to start building them or to finish them.

[Endymion]

Originally posted by Azunai:

space elevators don't make much sense in stellaris. their job is to get stuff into orbit. that's pretty much a free action in the game anyway. you don't pay an energy tax to get stuff from planets to space.

of course that's highly unrealistic, but nerfing that just to give space elevators a purpose doesn't make much sense either.

Having space elevators would allow a cool new art that I would love to see on my planets. Some benefits off the top of my head could be 1. cheaper to build ships or orbital stations in that system, 2. cheaper consumer goods on that planet, 3. faster migration, 4. increased unity output, 5. a percent increase in mineral production on that planet ... etc.

[Mansen]

Originally posted by starrynite120:

Some simple changes makes Megastructures a lot more viable, and there a mods which do so. For example, I make mega-engineering easier to get (increased weight and lowered tier to 3 so it will appear earlier), remove the one at a time restriction, reduced build time a bit (but only on Dyson Sphere's and Ring worlds, the others are fine), and increased the yields of Dyson Sphere and Science Nexus, as well as allowing Fallen Empire Buildings on Ring worlds. That pretty much makes them entirely viable, and you don't have to wait forever to start building them or to finish them.

I think you confused viable with "lol so overpowered".

[starrynite120]

Originally posted by Mansen:

Originally posted by starrynite120:

Some simple changes makes Megastructures a lot more viable, and there a mods which do so. For example, I make mega-engineering easier to get (increased weight and lowered tier to 3 so it will appear earlier), remove the one at a time restriction, reduced build time a bit (but only on Dyson Sphere's and Ring worlds, the others are fine), and increased the yields of Dyson Sphere and Science Nexus, as well as allowing Fallen Empire Buildings on Ring worlds. That pretty much makes them entirely viable, and you don't have to wait forever to start building them or to finish them.

I think you confused viable with "lol so overpowered".

Nah, its fine. They're about on par with habitats this way. In reality it only make them available a little earlier, and ring worlds have some good buildings, and Dyson Sphere and Science Nexus are actually worth the cost. They pretty much just suck in vanilla, and there's a pretty big consensus on that.

[Bomber]

Originally posted by Sniff my finger:

I finally got the ascension perks for ringworlds, dyson spheres, etc, and now I'm told I can only build one at a time. And it takes decades! I have purposely hobbled my empire, purposely not won the game for a very very long time, just so I could build these mega structures, and now I have to sit here for hours waiting for them to build. I'm about to quit this game from sheer boredom and I haven't even finished the first habitable section of my ringworld, which is my first mega structure other than habitats. This tedium is ridiculous.

And that's not even getting into how stupid some of these structures are... Habitats can only orbit "planets" but not moon? That's not how it would work... the moons themselves should become habitats. And a dyson sphere is silly - it would be a dyson swarm, not a solid sphere. And where the hell are the space elevators?

Pdx, fix this crap. At least fix the late-game tedium of building a megastructure. Who has the patience for this?

Let me guess, you play on a small galaxy size? (maybe even the smallest?)

I can understand you, good side on a small size: Just conquer everything and let the game in the background for some hundred years until megastructures are build. Of course thats only helping if you do it for the achievements.
If you do want them to be usefull -> Play a 1k star galaxy (you can at least build 1-2 complete megastructures even in the best case scenario for galaxy domination) or use a mod that decreases building time.

[cooltv27]

the build time vs what they provide ratio is pathetic. for the amount they give they should take around half the time to build (or allow more than 1 to be built)

they show up so late in the game that it just isnt worth planning around building them AND winning the game in any kind of timely manner

and any empire that can afford to spend the resources on always building one isnt going to need the resources they provide. the resources can be better spent


now habitats are actually pretty useful (energy wise) because they can be built many at once
the ascension perk for mega structures is kinda worth gettign because of the sentry array (because it provides something unique) then building ring worlds at all times from that point onwards, ignoring dyson sheres and science nexuses

[Endymion]

@Bomber :
No, I play on whatever the normal galaxy size is. I only increase the difficulty to hard, set AI to aggressive, and change to 2-arm spiral. I would love to play on the biggest map, but my computer can't handle it.