The Gas Giant Signal: ALWAYS a Sensor Malfunction, Ignore It.

[Belaaron]

I've done this event chain a few times. Sometimes I go one way, sometimes I go another, and sometimes I choose to do neither.
It was annoying in the beginning how it could trigger multiple times on a single map, but that really just meant I could take all of the paths in a single playthrough.


/rant on
But then I realized something...you don't GET ANYTHING for all that trouble and nuisance.

You get a couple of good society deposits to claim, and a one-time pittance of minerals and physics, depending on which paths you choose and which parts of the chain trigger.

But after all that annoyance, that's it.

And it IS annoying. I'm typically anti-purge, but this event chain is so stupid, so worthless, for how convoluted it is, that I probably would exterminate them, if I had the opportunity. And that's why I always ignore the signal now, every single time.

The only possible way I'd consider it worthwhile at all, by this point, is if Paradox included them as the only possible way to colonize gas giant planets. No trait to take, no research to acquire...you get and complete this event chain, or you don't get the option to colonize gas giants.

That would be worth it. You complete the chain, and your reward is that they join your empire as pops on their two worlds, like any other colony you'd have. The possibilities would be fantastic.

But no, we get these Gungan wannabes...for no practical gain compared to the effort and irrtation involved.
/rant off

What about the rest of you...
Do you do this event chain?
Do you always skip it?
Do you hate it as much as I do?
What are your reasons for enjoying / despising it?
Do you think it can be improved, or not?
How so, and why?

[MightyFox]

Well, many of the chains arn't particulalry rewarding. After all, they have to be balanced so that you don't HAVE to do them to stay competive. For example, many of the chains that give you free ships are completely worhless 50+years into the game. It's just another destroyer/cruiser. Some even trigger bad events, such as the scientist searching for "the door".

It's all up to you, and part of the RP experience the game is currently built around. When the Cherryh update comes out, the game will likely switch to a more RTS style, as it's basically apeing Sins of a Solar Empire (right down to the pirates). We'll see what they do about these random events then.

[Belaaron]

Originally posted by MightyFox:

Well, many of the chains arn't particulalry rewarding. After all, they have to be balanced so that you don't HAVE to do them to stay competive. For example, many of the chains that give you free ships are completely worhless 50+years into the game. It's just another destroyer/cruiser. Some even trigger bad events, such as the scientist searching for "the door".

It's all up to you, and part of the RP experience the game is currently built around. When the Cherryh update comes out, the game will likely switch to a more RTS style, as it's basically apeing Sins of a Solar Empire (right down to the pirates). We'll see what they do about these random events then.

I certainly don't disagree, but the Gas Giant Signal seems...particularly loathsome.

It's one of the longest chains, second only to the Horizon Signal, I think. Not quite as much is invested in it, since the HS requires several high-level researches to be completed to make the most of it. But that said, asking for one pop on one gas giant (with the option to colonize other gas giants) seems like it would be a fair comparison in terms of effort invested.

While many events have lackluster conclusions, and some even have negative ones, they're mostly one-offs, or maybe two or three events that aren't that annoying, or difficult. The GGS is well over a dozen events...all of them are stupid...and you only get a total of four very lackluster rewards, if the RNG gods smile on you. Otherwise you get nothing.

I'm probably just being cranky for unrelated reasons within the game, but I really need there to be something more substantial to the game. But instead, we get "planet killers". It's that kind of thing that makes me worry the game will be turning into strictly a cash grab for them.

[NixBoxDone]

Skip, every time.

There's really no rational reason to, mind you. The anomaly DOES give you something you previously didn't have and once you read the pop-ups once nothing stops you from just closing them or answering them immediately.
This means all you lose is whatever time a research ship / transport spends flying around and as those are both things you already have (or should have :D) you basically gain social research for nothing. You also sometimes gain caches of... Stuff.

It's just this irrational feeling of being used as a bell boy for next to no gain that I'd consider accepting doing so for. :P

Frankly I'd say they should just go nuts on the events and rewards. Screw balancing around multiplayer - half the people that play do so with mods and even if they didn't, half the content is already not viable in pvp anyways. Like, build anything but the current "best" meta ships and you get wrecked, play anything that doesn't have diplomacy and you get wrecked, etc. tt.

Instead (in my opinion) they'd do well to make the universe as fantastic, interesting and full of valuable things you want as possible, rather than balancing them to be sort of the same in value so player A doesn't get his fee fees hurt when player B gets the Cybrex and he doesn't.
Not only does that play around the many, many people that enjoy singleplayer, but it would also put less emphasis on having a top competitive civ because you can always hope to find any of a dozen or more different events or anomalies that can give you a boost to get ahead.

[unskilled-]

I suppose if your really lucky and can terraform that once gas giant now turned barren planet you *could* get something out of it.

One of those "candidates for terraforming" ones.

[Half Phased]

Originally posted by unskilled-:

I suppose if your really lucky and can terraform that once gas giant now turned barren planet you *could* get something out of it.

One of those "candidates for terraforming" ones.

Not possible in vanilla. Only one anomaly can spawn per planet, so if you get the "actually a barren planet" anomaly, you cant get the "terraforming candidate" anomaly.

[secataur]

I agree, the Gas Giant Signal events are underwhelming. My main gripe is that you most likely won't get any reward unless you game the event chain, and to do that you have to read the script. Because, really, the first gas giant the gas entities wants to move to is a random "nearby" gas giant that your empire hasn't surveyed. Which means that it will often pop in hostile space, because allthe gas giants in hostile space remain unsurveyed. Because of the hostiles there. The odds are stacked against you unless you purposefully avoid surveying some gas giants in friendly space.

My second gripe is that the rewards are front-loaded. There's exactly no reward from the Chabky event nor any further events, even though those are the majority of events. It becomes tedious if you know not to expecting anything, and disappointing if you don't.

[McGeeZac]

Did you get their rebels to their original planet yet? It will be a massacre party everyday. They even broadcast it.

[Radene]

I categorize my games into two columns. Silly and serious.

Ignore in serious, always do it in silly.

[Flytrap]

Its tedious, its annoying, and it appears EVERY. SINGLE. GAME.

I hate it so much, even though it was a bit of self aware humor at first, i grew to hate this event out of all of them

[AP WOLRD 5 MANIFEST TRUST IN GOD]

I find it rather useful. You can cancel out the long part of it by refusing to take the one colonist home and I think you still get the chance of minerals and research. It also gives you two research deposits you can turn into research habitats later, which I find quite valuable

[Segovax]

The gas giant blobbies are a badly written homage to the Slylandro, and just straight up annoying. Some of the writers for Stellaris are just bad and need to stop writing stories, because they suck at it.

[CrUsHeR]

Accept the event, take the next science ship doing research assistance, complete the project.

Repeat 1x

For those handful of mouse clicks, you turn two blank gas giants near your capital into research deposits. Perfect for void dwellers.

After doing the 2 resettlement projects, you reject the rest of the chain. Then you still get some minerals and physics research which can be like 100k points later in the game.



Honestly if you're getting hysterical over this... oh well.

[Silamon]

Originally posted by Flytrap:

Its tedious, its annoying, and it appears EVERY. SINGLE. GAME.

I hate it so much, even though it was a bit of self aware humor at first, i grew to hate this event out of all of them

This thread is from 3 years ago, and that comment doesn't really add much to the discussion...

[ScreamCon]

Originally posted by Flytrap:

Its tedious, its annoying, and it appears EVERY. SINGLE. GAME.

I hate it so much, even though it was a bit of self aware humor at first, i grew to hate this event out of all of them

Hey what I recommend is not doing anomalies. Only survey/explore. Once your science ships have nothing better to do 50 years in and you have fleet power do em all up for science yield.

That way they don't get in the way of early colony development.

[Nobelissimos]

bruh this post is originally from 2018 what are you doing reviving a 4 year old post?
Still true tho. Recently did that chain and didnt take a side in the civil war and didn't hear from them again, got nothing for it all. Always found it annoying to do.