Machine World vs Ring World or both ?

[Ragnaman]

Just wondering about ascension perks.

Can one utilise Machine Worlds and Ring Worlds ? IIRC Ring World construction caused all planets in the system to be eaten up for the RW to be constructed ?

Or is it reasonable to just go for Machine Worlds anyway as Ring Worlds are just too expensive ?

[Maya-Neko]

Don't mix up things here: Ring worlds doesn't turn a planet into a ring world, but construct new living room in a system, which yet doesn't have any habitable planet or habitat (you could imagine it as a giant habitat). Therefore you won't need to give up any of your other planets.

So yes, you can have both, as long as your ascension strategy allows for it.

And ring worlds are one of the best ways to produce extremely high amounts of science. So if you're able to populate them properly, then it's worth it. Trade and food are also quite good, if you need to have it.

[VoiD]

Do note that if you're playing a species that can't steal pops from other empires you will never fully populate a ringworld.

Or an ecumenopolis.

Unless you empty out all of your other planets, ofc, then you'll have 1 full planet instead.

[Ragnaman]

Is it possible to beat the game with just one Ring World ? The one you start with. Also that Shattered Ring is not fully repairable ?

Wait wot ? How big are these Ring Worlds ? I thought its something like 4 planets ?

[lethminite]

The ringworlds are 4 planets, but they have special districts, and pop growth slows down the more people you have, so by the time you are building them, it's unlikely you'll grow your population enough in the remaining time to fill them.

Your starting one from the origin can never have it's 4th segment repaired, it will always have 3 segments.

Machine worlds are a terraforming option, and are more about having your existing worlds become more efficient (and less appealing to others), and not about creating more space.
There is no real tension between getting machine worlds or getting ringworlds, you can happily have both.

Making more than 1, maybe 2 ringworlds is complete overkill, and you'll never get the full value of your second one, and you won't be filling the galaxy with ring worlds, unless you are intentionally misplaying for RP reasons, so the machine world option will help every other planet in your empire.

[SaD-82]

lethminite lähetti viestin:

unless you are intentionally misplaying for RP reasons

How can you misplay?
There is no wrong and right way to play this game. I know that powergamers would disagree with this (and they would just play their own playstyle every single game (unless they are choosing a different origin/empire...which, most often, they don't do, because other empires are bad in their eyes as they aren't their prime choice of powerplay) - to them this is fun; to others this is boring as hell), but the fact remains: There is no wrong or right way to play this game. If you have fun (and are winning on top of that) - what would be a misplay then?

[lethminite]

SaD-82 lähetti viestin:

lethminite lähetti viestin:

unless you are intentionally misplaying for RP reasons

How can you misplay?
There is no wrong and right way to play this game. I know that powergamers would disagree with this (and they would just play their own playstyle every single game (unless they are choosing a different origin/empire...which, most often, they don't do, because other empires are bad in their eyes as they aren't their prime choice of powerplay) - to them this is fun; to others this is boring as hell), but the fact remains: There is no wrong or right way to play this game. If you have fun (and are winning on top of that) - what would be a misplay then?

You are derailing the thread, but since the OP's question is already answered, i'll bite.

The aim of the game, and the reason you play games are not the same thing.
The reason you play games at all is to have fun, and if you are not having fun, you should probably stop playing the game.
The aim of any game is to win (or more specifically, to achieve the objectives of the game, which is normally to win).
There is a "correct" way to play a game, which is making optimal choices to maximise your chance of winning. Not doing this is making a mistake, and learning the game more will help make it easier to make the right choices.
That said, the best way to play the game isn't necessarily the most fun, so for many people, playing perfectly is more tedious than fun.

Basically, it's just semantics, people are free to play however they want (there are difficulty settings for a reason) but they are playing "worse" if they are just messing around, even if they are still enjoying themselves.

I personally don't bother using the ship builder because I don't think it's worth my time to customise my ships, but I know that doing so would make me a 'better' player, and make me be able to win with more challenging settings.

[Ficelle]

Machines worlds is a special terraformation that make planets better for Machine Empires
Small buff to production, remove farm districts (useless for Machines), remove all blockers, unlock all slots directly, allow to choose freely how to distribute alloy / energy / mineral districts
It benefits all your planets after terraformation

Ring world is just like a gigantic very expensive Gaia habitat
Great and all...but Machines couldnt care less about Gaia...and by the time you can build them, Pop growth has already slowed down a lot, meaning you wont fill them...
You will get some Ring worlds anyway from enemies (current game, ive 5, didnt build any...all 90% empty...)
If you really have too much Pop, you can still build habitats anyway...as many as you want

Now, nothing says you cant have both...but for Machine empires, if you have to choose between the 2, Machine Worlds is (much) more useful than Ring worlds

[SaD-82]

lethminite lähetti viestin:

You are derailing the thread

No, I'm just pointing out that incorrect answers will help noone.
There is no "correct" way to play a game. There isn't. For powergamers there is - but there isn't. Especially not in a singleplayer game. If you want to talk about multiplayer competition where everything is just about clicking as fast as possible (and if it's fun to you) - that's something completely different. Boring to me as you just could play any clicker game instead on mobile phones, but if someone likes to play just in a certain way everytime and trying to click as fast as he can - have fun.
This doesn't change the fact that there isn't a correct way to play the game.
Plastering the universe with ringworlds is as viable and correct as to not do this (or to just build 1,36 ringworlds to maximize whatever you want to maximize because you believe those things have to be maximized to win and have fun).
Or do you really want to say that someone who will build ringworlds in all systems would lose because of this? That would be as ridiculous as saying that there would be a correct way to play Stellaris. And I don't think that this would be your take.

[Ragnaman]

Didnt know Ring Worlds are like Gaia, now it makes sense, its a zoo for xenophiles to lure unsuspecting poor aliens to via "diplomacy", might be a fun playthrough for that tbh.

[VoiD]

Ragnaman lähetti viestin:

Didnt know Ring Worlds are like Gaia, now it makes sense, its a zoo for xenophiles to lure unsuspecting poor aliens to via "diplomacy", might be a fun playthrough for that tbh.

Yes, everybody can live there.

But their main benefit is science production, they have actual science districts, much larger than regular planetary districts, and a good science designation that planets can't have either.

A single ringworld segment problably will outproduce all of the science of all of your other worlds combined, and you can have 4 of those.

Likewise an ecumenopolis can do the same but with industry.

Haven't played machine empires in a while so I don't remember how comparable they are to ecumenopolises.

[Ficelle]

Yeah, districts in Rings worlds produce a lot...provided you can populate them without depopulating your whole empire ;D

True for Science but also for Urban, Energy, Alloy and Food
Note that they dont have Mineral districts

[CrUsHeR]

If you play with the default population growth setting, don't bother with ring worlds. They will never populate by the time you can construct them.

The same perk (galactic wonders) lets you build a dyson sphere and matter decompressor, and these are still pretty good. Though both have lost lots of their value since you can now get huge amounts of free resources from a couple of vassals.

If you turn the pop growth scaling really low (like 0.1x or 0.05x) then the Ring Worlds are super-amazing. In particular with synthetic ascension + void dwellers.

Ragnaman lähetti viestin:

Is it possible to beat the game with just one Ring World ? The one you start with. Also that Shattered Ring is not fully repairable ?

The origin used to be the best in the game, since your initial ring world segment was fully operational, AND you got to use an organic species with a regular habitation preference (arctic, desert etc).

Though this was changed so that

1) The initial ring world segment is "broken", so it is restricted by building slots and does NOT have the actual ring world districts

2) Organic pops have the ring world preference, so they can't live on anything that isn't Gaia / Relic / Habitat / Ecumenopolis / Ring World


In short, the origin is absolute garbage. By the time you got mega-engineering and 10k alloys to repair the first segment, you spent your time with an empire which is worse than basically every other origin.


Machine Empires do not suffer the habitation preference issue, though they still lack the 2 guaranteed habitable planets. In fact i had a game where there were 0 planets within the capital sector, so that's a massiv setback as well.

Also the Machine World origin is a lot better, since your machine capital is simply the best homeworld due to its bonuses and the extra replicator job.
With all bonuses to pop assembly speed, you build new drones almost as fast as you can build new jobs.

[Mr.M]

VoiD lähetti viestin:

Do note that if you're playing a species that can't steal pops from other empires you will never fully populate a ringworld.

Or an ecumenopolis.

Unless you empty out all of your other planets, ofc, then you'll have 1 full planet instead.

Hmmm how big do Ringworlds and Ecumenopolis' get? From what i have seen till now i would guess its "only" a couple hundred pops anyway?

Shouldnt be that hard to fill up in a normal game.

(Asking if i am overlooking something)

[Ficelle]

Just checked current game

Ring worlds can have 10 districts by part...there are 4 parts
Urban is 40 housing, others are 10 housing + production

So, maxed, it would be between 400 and 1600 Pop just to fill a single Ring world

Have no oecu, cant check that


To give an idea, im in 1565 (almost won) with 0.5 habitable worlds (half default) and 1.1 pop growing (much more than default 1.25)
6600 Pop total (95% my specie, a few hundreds robots i cant purge)
140 colonies (planets / habitats / 5 Rings world i captured)

It means i could pretty much move my whole empire into these 5 Ring World...
No wonder they are almost empty as well as quite a lot of planets

Now, with all default settings, a player would have double the planets....but not even half the Pop...

No way to fill them unless litterally emptying your whole empire to fill them

[Mr.M]

But from my math its only around 6-700 population per ring world...?

I currently have no open game with ring worlds, but iirc it was 10 districts per segment and you already mentioned the district output - so optimally it would probably be 2 urban + 8 production districts.

Doesnt really matter what i choose for buildings, lets say research - with 8 research buildings i get an extra 48 jobs + some extra from capital/gene clinic/clone vats etc

Thats leads to a minimum of 140 jobs per segment, 560 in total.

Sure, if i spam 10 urban districts per segment i get 1600 housing in total but there doesnt seem a point in that to me without having the jobs for such a large population - and not getting any production districts MASSIVELY reduces the job output of ringworlds

Do some DLCs enable more jobs for them?

Ecumenopolis worlds seem to usually have around 20 districts (from what i have seen), special districts give 10 housing and 6 jobs, urban 24 housing 6 jobs

So its around 250 pop per world