Need tips regarding Voidborne strategies

[mortache]

When should I be building the fourth habitat? By year 2210 i have about 1k alloy, but running deficit in CG despite building a second CG factory since I have 3 research districts producing 300+ science. Should i build another CG factory? Should i go civilian economy? But that would delay getting the new habitat!

Also, are generator/mining districts in habitats worth it? Or should i let slaves/robots toil in the dirt, focusing only on buildings and habitation districts in habitats?

[Cryten]

Early Voidborne should be concentrating on alloys to offset the 5 upkeep from each habitat and to build more habs as fast as possible. As such Anywhere is fine. Science when you need it and some resource habs once you can build the housing buildings from the advanced habitat tech. Frankly the mini habs where a nerf to voidbourne as an origin purely because your stuck with size 4 habitats for so long. So you better make friends with some aliens for planetary settlements or else.

I just wish there was a way to keep the aliens off the habitats and the voidbourne's off planets. But migration causes them to spawn.

[galadon3]

The efficient way is to get non-voiddweller pops asap so you can basically ignore the drawback of your origin while keeping all of the overpowered bonus

For maximum efficiency try to get non-agression treaties all around you so you can pump every bit of alloy into building more habitats, since each of them is a new pop-factory to boost your economy.
Also take the voidborn-perk with the first finished tree, and get the tech for bigger habitats (thats especially important since with the perk you can build luxury appartments on rank2 and 3 habitats making them way more flexible and powerfull)

Originally posted by Cryten:

I just wish there was a way to keep the aliens off the habitats and the voidbourne's off planets. But migration causes them to spawn.

Set them on migration controls?

[Cryten]

You can do that but you loose all the bonus growth. And if you do it before you get a pops up and running you cant colonise with them.

[mortache]

Originally posted by Cryten:

You can do that but you loose all the bonus growth. And if you do it before you get a pops up and running you cant colonise with them.

Don't understand what you mean. The main pop grows at -60% rate in the planets by default (-10 from trait, -50% from 0% habitability).

[Cryten]

Immigration growth from your migration treaties. the direct result of banning migration is all bonus growth from immigration is halted.

[Kitten Food]

I play void born now almost exclusively and here is what works for me.

1) Every habitat until mid game should have an alloy, consumer and entertainment building.

This will allow you to offset the maintenance costs of having habitat admin complex, as well as keep pumping out alloys for new habitats. As you noticed, consumer goods vanish quickly due to the science focus that a void born is made for. 1 factory should be enough for each habitat and your lab world early game. You need amenities to stay high bc stability will make your void pops even more OP. In my game, my habitats are all at 100% stability, giving another 30% increase to their productivity!

2) Switch production focus to Alloys/Military and Trade Policy keep as energy.

3) Start making specialized habitats for specific purposes and choose their specialty manually in the planet UI. You start with a research, mineral and energy habitat. I goal myself to have habitats focused on the following priority: alloys, consumer goods, admin capacity, refinery for each strategic resource and unity. I build these above worlds that do not have energy or mineral production.

I only build energy and mineral habitats above their respective resource...these are just as powerful as a dyson sphere or matter decompressor. I build mineral/energy habitats when I notice my resource accrual begins to dip. Otherwise I solely focus on building science/alloy habitats.

4) Avoid refugees and migration treaties. You do not need planets. This can be controversial with players, but for me I already have enough to micro and those filthy xenos can't compare to my god-children. I never need planets as they cannot compare to the productivity of my habitats. Your void pops with 100% stability will easily produce almost 3 times more than base production.

5) Secure your empire and turtle. Since you have habitats, you do not have to spread out to find planets. Its not necessary. You do want to make sure you have plenty of energy/mineral resources to build your habitats over. I generally limit myself to about 10 systems in my "empire". I end up with over 30 habitats by mid to late game. Then I Colossus planet crack the whole galaxy.

[mortache]

Originally posted by Kitten Food:

Avoid refugees and migration treaties. You do not need planets. This can be controversial with players, but for me I already have enough to micro and those filthy xenos can't compare to my god-children. I never need planets as they cannot compare to the productivity of my habitats. Your void pops with 100% stability will easily produce almost 3 times more than base production.

But isn't it better to have xenos and robots on the planets? They don't get the +15% production bonus on habitats anyways, that means those jobs produce less with a robot working them.

Also, this post was mainly about priorities when just starting out

[Heimdall313]

I also play almost entirely Void Dweller since release; the cheaper habitats simply made it stronger contrary to popular belief.

Capital starts as your size 6 research hab, then you have a size 4 energy hab and size 4 mineral hab. 300 research at 2210 means you're probably overproducing and trying to debt leverage; these are idiotic theories irl and benefit no one except oligarchic thieves and the loaner.

Assuming you're organic and not Spiritualist (which is still stupidly powerful with void dweller), I run research + admin buildings on the capital, factories on the mining habitat (change specialization to Factory station, you save more minerals than you gain by Mining station bonus), and alloy on the energy station (again, change to industry station). Off the bat, my first three build slots look like:

Capital: Habitat Admin, Admin building, Hydroponic Farm. Usually hold 2 research districts for a bit because CGs.
Mining Hab (Factory Station): Habitat admin, CG factory, CG factory (replace your alloy building)
Energy Hab (Industry Station): Habitat admin, Alloy foundry, Hydroponic farm (replace with alloy, buy food)

4th building slot I drop Holo Theaters or Temple if Spiritualist. Can also do Gene Clinic if you unlock it early. I usually drop robot builder on the mining world, since basic bots are dumb and can't do technician jobs until Droids upgrade. Get Voidborne ascend asap, the extra build slots are unbelievably useful. Technological ascendancy is best as your second pick; if its your first pick you suffocate on your size 4 habs for a really minor research bonus. Food, yeah you produce it like a Washington state anarchist but hey food is cheap on the market.

Charismatic is a really useful trait on Void Dwellers, it (seems to) stack with the +15% specialist bonus and Meritocracy to buff Amenities (and thus stability) and conserve CG for research. Lets me stall building the Holo Theater / Temple / Gene Clinics to the third/fourth building slot.

4th world I build usually on energy as the size 4's start to fill. Your capital at size 6 can build Luxury Apartments to help housing and amenities so it lasts a while. Usually it'll be a generator station with Farms and Strategic resources as needed to fuel Factory/Industry station. At that point you'll be floating CG's, and research will be good enough to get habitat expansion tech.

That's typically how I run my start if it helps you at all.

[Heimdall313]

Originally posted by mortache:

Also, are generator/mining districts in habitats worth it? Or should i let slaves/robots toil in the dirt, focusing only on buildings and habitation districts in habitats?

Ah I completely forgot to address this part lol.
Yes, Generator / Mining habs are worth it. You *can* let Droids toil down on the filthy dirt-worlds if you get a good one (mostly for food or build slots for strategic resources, but you can hit up a world with 5+ Energy or Mining districts too), but Habitats are better. A Generator district on a filthy dirt-world is 2 housing, 2 technicians; mining are also 2 house / 2 miners. Habitat districts are +3/+3 housing/jobs.
A size 4 Energy habitat can provide up to 12 technician jobs, equal to 6 energy districts on a planet. Size 6 Habitat is 18 Tech jobs, equivalent to 9 districts on a planet: which you almost never see outside special tomb worlds and FE / Life Seeded gaia worlds, or large Relic worlds. Size 8 Energy habitat is a whopping 24 Tech jobs, up to 26 with Energy Grid, which is a nearly impossible 12 Energy districts on a planet. This is all true of Mining as well. Not to mention, +15% production bonus on Habitats (maybe more with traits or an enslaved sub-species with Gene ascend). This also gets extremely stupid with Mining Guilds adding +1 to the base production of each miner.

If your starting trinary has 3 energy producing planets you can build Habitats over (which isn't uncommon tbh), you can net 200+ energy each in profit including upkeeps, which is the same as around 36 energy districts on planets ignoring +15% void bonus which no dirt dweller can even joke about achieving aside from Hive Minds on a Ring world.

As for slaves, I avoid them on Habitats since they produce less even with Chattel slavery and because of how pop selection works, it usually prefers the fastest growing pop which means it selects against your void dweller due to -10% pop growth penalty. If you get slaves on a planet for farming that's fine, just restrict migration on them.

[Cryten]

What do you do if you get an aggressive neighbor and cant spend alloys on new habitats? Also how do you deal with the overcrowding that hits by about year 10?

[Heimdall313]

Originally posted by Cryten:

What do you do if you get an aggressive neighbor and cant spend alloys on new habitats? Also how do you deal with the overcrowding that hits by about year 10?

Envoy and gifts will bribe AI into non-aggression pacts most of the time, marauders are also a cheap bribe, if you spawn by fanatic purifiers I guess you'll just die like everyone else.
Overcrowding isn't that bad and if somehow you suffer this at year ten you aren't building districts. Due to literally not needing planets at all, you can stay geographically small and minimize chokepoints while conserving alloy/influence for the 4th habitat. Starbase during the first 20 years or so will stomp the 20 corvette fleet the AI spawns with, with just one or two defense platforms or equivalent corvette cost. You dwarf regular AI in tech at pretty much all points in the game.

I've seriously survived and eventually won sitting in a 8-10 system patch with 2 chokes and 3 unused planets bordering marauders, which means they want to raid you every decade or so. The amount of resources you can pump out in just the starting trinary is insane.

edit: tbh the worst slowdowns I get isn't housing, but just failing over and over to roll basic techs like Alloy Mega Forge or Synthetic Crystal plants which suffocates the Foundry/Industry station(s).

[mortache]

Fanatic xenophobe and authoritarian build here, running out of food and energy at around 2030 since i'm boxed in, only have 2 ♥♥♥♥♥♥ planets, size 13 and size 10! Had to build hydroponic farms on the planets to keep the robots working out in the dirt, while keeping my people mostly on the habitats. Using 4 separate construction ships to build energy habitats. Severe overpopulation issue. Oof.

Attacking is not an option since my neighbor is a Determined Exterminator with ring world origin that I designed myself! The other neighbor is a bit farther.