So ring worlds are now useless

[CacoSteven]

Built my first ring world in a long time because I needed mineral production and habitats do not have mining districts. RNG bent me over the pool table because hardly any of my planets have more than 3 or 4 mineral districts, some just have 1 or 2. My planets have more food and energy districts than I know what to do with, like one size 12 has 10-15 for each food and energy.

Imagine my shock to see ring worlds cannot build mining ditricts.

I guess the new top dog megastructure is the matter decompressor and I don't have the DLC. I see what they're doing. Yeah yeah, the DLC is optional, nobody's forcing you to buy it. But you NEED those minerals wink-wink...

[CacoSteven]

Maybe I'm being a little harsh on them by calling them usless, but they ain't exactly nothing to write home about either.

[MadMek]

Originally posted by Cacodemon:

Originally posted by MadMek:

I see your problem. You still give a damm about the admin cap. Don't. Ignore it, it means nothing. Building a couple labs and trade/generators VASTLY outweighs the debuffs of admin cap.

Makes one wonder what purpose something serves if the best strategy is to simply blow passed it like it doesn't exist lol. Guess I need to stop picking imperial prerogative.

It's not about punishing wide empires, it's about rewarding tall ones. Combined with the right civics, Ect, it makes tall empires pretty viable.

[cooltv27]

ring worlds are somewhat meh for normal empires because of the no mining districts thing, but for hiveminds and machine empires they are amazing

HMs and MEs can terra form a planet to not limit what districts you are allowed to build, allowing you to turn every single one of them into mineral worlds, while moving all your food and energy onto ring worlds to open more space for mining planets

[Evilgenius]

a ringworld as a megacorp is a massive trade value generator, as machine empire a ringworld is better then a dyson sphere for energy, hivemind can make good use of the food production.

For minerals they are ofcourse not so good, you have to trade for them and this can cost alot. But the ringworld can really give you so much, it just takes a long time to develope.

[BGR]

You can grow food in the regolith deposited inside your shiny new Ring World and you can build structures on it. You can gather energy from the star at it's center but because the regolith you used to create the artificial crust of the Ring World is the byproduct of mining for the materials neccessary to build the Ring World there is nothing left to mine.

Sorry but that's so obvious that it is hard to imagine how anyone could miss that logic.

[Metempsychosis O BILLOfy]

Originally posted by Breadsmith:

Originally posted by Army Pea:

Minerals do seem in higher demand than previous builds

Only slightly. The reason they feel like they're used up faster is because minerals are consumed to make alloys, consumer goods, and science. As well as buildings and a few other things. The big one is science, which never cost minerals before.

It doesn't cost minerals directly, but minerals through consumer goods. I never played stellaris before there were no consumer goods. How was science different?

[MadMek]

Science used to take nothing but energy.

[Karina]

They are not useless for several reasons
1) You can only have 1 dyson sphere. 50 generator distrcits energy worlds.
2) 50 agri districts farming worlds.
3) more living space and jobs

This is not first mega structures you are going to build (unless you will repair cybrex ring world) but you are going to build one eventually. I already have full dyson sphere and half finished science nexus, after that im going to build a ring world.

[cooltv27]

Originally posted by Metempsychosis O BILLOfy:

Originally posted by Breadsmith:

Only slightly. The reason they feel like they're used up faster is because minerals are consumed to make alloys, consumer goods, and science. As well as buildings and a few other things. The big one is science, which never cost minerals before.

It doesn't cost minerals directly, but minerals through consumer goods. I never played stellaris before there were no consumer goods. How was science different?

there was a building, you put a pop on it and science was produced. the building had energy upkeep (though not much)

[CacoSteven]

Originally posted by Esteban Failsmore:

They are not useless for several reasons
1) You can only have 1 dyson sphere. 50 generator distrcits energy worlds.
2) 50 agri districts farming worlds.
3) more living space and jobs

This is not first mega structures you are going to build (unless you will repair cybrex ring world) but you are going to build one eventually. I already have full dyson sphere and half finished science nexus, after that im going to build a ring world.

Minerals man. All those pops need to work those distructs and jobs in a ring world will require minerals in the form of consumer goods, not to mention to build the damn thing. Sure, you could switch on the trade policy that converts trade into goods, but that policy is already OP.

I think they've bottlenecked minerals too much with their recent changes, especially if you get boned by the RNG district gods. To address this I'd like to see changes to those various uninhabitable celestial modifiers like carbon worlds and rich moon systems so habitats can exploit them to create mining districts. Create more options for players.

I'm just saying there's room to improve things here. Ring worlds are basically glorified pop and energy dumps, as well as admin cap sinkholes. Other megas already excel in such roles like the ecumenopolis and dyson sphere.

It does make me want to put this to the test though. Make a new game, specifically shoot for ring worlds, and see how far consumer benefits can take me. This way the majority of my minerals will go towards alloys and synthetics.

[Kitten Food]

So another use, if you don't like them for normal govts, is for Megacorps. Not sure if you have tried one yet, but you can essentially live off of nothing but clerks and research labs as a Megacorp.

With a ringworld, you are set all game. You don't need to really ever build an industrial factory either if set to consumer trade. Just import food when needed (super cheap) and buy minerals when needed (also super cheap). You are rolling around in hundreds of energy credits per month.

Ring Worlds and Ecumenopolis Worlds are S+ for a Megacorp.

[Vasire]

I agree with OP . I've always liked Stellaris for it's potential to support infinite growth. And I actually like the new economy. But they've made the whole game revolve around mineral production. There is always shortage.

And trust me ONE matter decompressor won't help you lot even if you get it. It just postpones the inevitable. And yes you can go wide at this point, refrain from building high tier buildings on every planet except for a few special ones. But then unemployment and housing crisis kick in all over the place and the game just stops being fun for me at this point.

Edit: I forgot the main point. That's why I don't do ring worlds anymore either.

[Forblaze]

There definitely needs to be a more scalable source of minerals. I still find ring worlds theoretically useful for uber-late game food and energy production, but the lack of minerals seriously hurts once you're at that point. All we really need is the matter replicator back.

[MadMek]

TBF in my case I did find ringworlds useful, but I also lucked out on an amazing mining world and had a matter decompressor, so I had tons of raw minerals, and so the food, energy, science, and space for factories was more attractive than just "moar minerals".

[EleventhStar]

Originally posted by Kaelmato:

It wouldn't make much sense to mine a ringworld you just built with your own materials now would it.

it doesnt make sense either that planets and asteroids are infinite minerals instead of deplete over time.

and then to build a ringworld those infinite minerals planets and asteroids are consumed to construct it, while on top of that it still cost minerals comparable to other megastructures.

but then you say, yeah but a real ringworld is so much larger than a real science nexus would be so it makes sense! and id agree but then why can't it fit a billion ingame pops on it so it would at least be somewhat comparable to a real ringworld?

and then think of a dyson sphere that costs comparable or more then a ringworld in required materials, but that somehow doesn't need to consume the planets in a system. so what really happened to those infinite minerals planets?


moral of the story: gameplay > lore. "buildable" sources of minerals were just removed for reasons like forcing market participation, having an upper cap on planets/pops for performance reasons, stuff like that.