Sooo, is virtuality the only thing that matters now?

[Average AMD neanderthal]

I dont have season 08 just yet, but i find it both fascinating and worrying to see that any posts about new builds that go viral are all centered around mixing just about anything with virtuality. Meanwhile science is still crap, trade is not as strong as it used to be, and the only thing that goes hard is being a xenophobe or phile and focusing on production and warfare. Is there not more creativity other than old meta build + virtuality?

[Stephono]

Originally posted by Silica dust enjoyer:

Individualist machines with modularity are hilariously broken and have a higher potential for scaling than virtuals, their research is going to be worse due to sprawl but dark matter engines coupled with dark consortium seems borderline unbeatable in terms of fleet production. Currently playing an mp game after a long hiatus in which a guy is running said build and he seems completely untouchable, he's outscaled everyone by 2300 so hard that the game might as well just be basically over

Nanites would have absurd gamebreaking (in a literal sense, 8 fps on normal speed is quite the experience) scaling if they didn't instantly nuke your war exhaustion down to -100% after one battle, might be doable if you decide to become the crisis? Nanotech really feels unfinished, deposits scale with planet size and yet there's no way to view the size of uninhabitable objects, they could really use some larger ship hulls that don't cause your CPU to cry out in pain

Nanites can be insanely good late game. They are really slow compared to the other ascension paths. Virtual gives a massive increase in power instantly (assuming you build around it). Modularity also gives you a ton of stuff. Nanites give almost nothing until you build it up to a certain level where it can potentially be the best military option. Only, my computer melted after something like 25,000 ships in combat at once. I put hangars on them, so that is probably my fault. I really hope nanites get an update that allows you to consolidate your ships into larger ones or something just for the lag alone.

[titanopteryx]

Speaking of nanites, I picked that one. They can do carrier, medium guns, torpedoes, and point defense. They can't use armor or shields but innately have 100 armor. What's a good build for them? I'm thinking 2 disruptors with a swarm computer and reactive armor to get the most out of their armor. They would attack in massive numbers with no upkeep. Does that sound good? Or is there a better way to build them?

[GLUE]

Originally posted by titanopteryx:

Speaking of nanites, I picked that one. They can do carrier, medium guns, torpedoes, and point defense. They can't use armor or shields but innately have 100 armor. What's a good build for them? I'm thinking 2 disruptors with a swarm computer and reactive armor to get the most out of their armor. They would attack in massive numbers with no upkeep. Does that sound good? Or is there a better way to build them?

A carrier loudout seems optimal from my experience so far, the best way to keep a 50 hull ship alive is to not have it get shot in the first place. Sustained fire loadouts are just going to get your swarmers killed in no time especially if you run into disruptor spam

Alpha strike weapons could also potentially work as you get access to two torpedo slots but carriers still outperform neutron launchers and the like. You could potentially use archaeotech weapons since swarmers bypass the artifact cost but I doubt it would perform better than carriers in most cases

Carrier spam also has the niche benefit of being able to stall enemies for quite a long time as it's quite easy to reach max evasion whilst also having long range

[Takichi]

Virtuality=Early Boost, Instant Job Maximizing, but never ever Jobless or Overpopulation to Exploit.
Nanites=Late Game endless Fleets.

Both are pretty much on the Same Level of Strenght. One simply catapult itself more or less into the Late Game at an relativly early Gametime. But this "End Game" is basicly Set. They can never get Bigger as that. Also to reach it "fast" you basicly allways need some kind of Unity Build and manage that in Combination with low Planet and Ressource Income. Which means you are "weak" for a good Portion of the Game. Now Granted against AI that isnt often a Big Problem (except for exterminator and such as Neighbours). However in MP and espacialy Competetiv MP, not beeing able to Defend Way above the Paygrade is often a garant for Leaving the Game earlier as wanted :D

Nanites on the Other Hand dont care how big they Become. There is a Theoretical Endless Scaling (for basicly everyone) who can make some use out of Jobless true. But they also got Nanite Ships, MONTHLY Ressource Buffs (which as later the Game and more you Produce, as more effective they become) and such Stuff.

I Think the Biggest Factor why Virtuality feels so Opressivly Strong Compared to Nanites, is simple because of the Time-Difference it takes. (And no i dont Say Nanites are Stronger, Virtuality definetly is the stronger Choice, its just not such an Auto Pick, as some People Think)

[Average AMD neanderthal]

Originally posted by Takichi:

Virtuality=Early Boost, Instant Job Maximizing, but never ever Jobless or Overpopulation to Exploit.
Nanites=Late Game endless Fleets.

Both are pretty much on the Same Level of Strenght. One simply catapult itself more or less into the Late Game at an relativly early Gametime. But this "End Game" is basicly Set. They can never get Bigger as that. Also to reach it "fast" you basicly allways need some kind of Unity Build and manage that in Combination with low Planet and Ressource Income. Which means you are "weak" for a good Portion of the Game. Now Granted against AI that isnt often a Big Problem (except for exterminator and such as Neighbours). However in MP and espacialy Competetiv MP, not beeing able to Defend Way above the Paygrade is often a garant for Leaving the Game earlier as wanted :D

Nanites on the Other Hand dont care how big they Become. There is a Theoretical Endless Scaling (for basicly everyone) who can make some use out of Jobless true. But they also got Nanite Ships, MONTHLY Ressource Buffs (which as later the Game and more you Produce, as more effective they become) and such Stuff.

I Think the Biggest Factor why Virtuality feels so Opressivly Strong Compared to Nanites, is simple because of the Time-Difference it takes. (And no i dont Say Nanites are Stronger, Virtuality definetly is the stronger Choice, its just not such an Auto Pick, as some People Think)

Sounds like there needs to be more costs and/or weaknesses to it. Sure, they are vulnerable to planetary assault. but is that really an issue when your eco is that good? Sounds like fleets and stations can more than solve that problem for you.

[kirb]

Originally posted by titanopteryx:

Virtuality is for playing tall but so is megacorp. Machines can be megacorps now. Has anyone tried a virtual megacorp machine empire?

yeah.

my capital had 15000 trade value. i had 0 miners, technicians, administrators, or artisans. just clerks, traders and metallurgists because of the trade league policy. was making at least 2k of every resource every month and by the end of the game i had nearly 6 million unity.

it's pretty decent i'd say.

[mss73055]

"Has anyone tried a virtual megacorp machine empire"

This one is power creep to the max.

And if you play democratic robots get the Harmony tradition, so you can start a **Holy Covenant**.

It's worth getting extra ring segments, because jobs fill automatically.
45k research at 12% sprawl.
Enough cash to field 8 times 300 size fleets, 4M fleet power each.

And its genocide mechanism works even on ultra peaceful: move all bio pops to a new colony --- server shut down --- noone cares.

[identity]

I've been playing a virtual GC with Tactical Algorithms, Gaurdian Matrix and OTA Updates. This basically gives you -100% sprawl from pops, which is your biggest problem late game with virtual. Yes, you have penalties to resource production and sprawl from planets, but the sprawl from planets can be mitigated a little by Imperial Perogative, and overall 20 sprawl per planet isn't too bad, in addition to the sprawl from systems. With ascension levels on my 8 settlements, I have less than 200 sprawl, and 16k research with Shattered Ring, Cybrex and a Relic world. This is in Grand Admiral, too, and I just beat Cetana, so it's basically in the bag.

The only other thing to keep in mind is that Cosmogenesis pretty much makes any civ OP.

[Brother Skolas]

Originally posted by Silica dust enjoyer:

Individualist machines with modularity are hilariously broken and have a higher potential for scaling than virtuals, their research is going to be worse due to sprawl but dark matter engines coupled with dark consortium seems borderline unbeatable in terms of fleet production. Currently playing an mp game after a long hiatus in which a guy is running said build and he seems completely untouchable, he's outscaled everyone by 2300 so hard that the game might as well just be basically over

Nanites would have absurd gamebreaking (in a literal sense, 8 fps on normal speed is quite the experience) scaling if they didn't instantly nuke your war exhaustion down to -100% after one battle, might be doable if you decide to become the crisis? Nanotech really feels unfinished, deposits scale with planet size and yet there's no way to view the size of uninhabitable objects, they could really use some larger ship hulls that don't cause your CPU to cry out in pain

so you dont have the same ship hull's being used by those daunou guys in the L cluster? if you go nanite

[CrUsHeR]

So i also bought the DLC to see if i should give PDX another chance.


All the changes from the tech beta and previous DLC nerfs seem so laughable with this.

So you start a machine megacorp as Void Dwellers, adopt the Marketplace of Ideas, then you breeze through all traditions with a pace of around 12 months per perk which doesn't really change as long as you stick to 3 habitats in total.


Got ascended and completed Virtuality at some time in the 2230s, and this isn't even the minmax build for this (far from it).

Playing on GA with the PvP galaxy settings (midgame 2250, endgame 2300), everyone is "pathetic" by 2250 and i'm not even using half my naval cap.

Also note that due to not having any notable sprawl, having something like 4k research output is always better than anything you can achieve with any non-tall empire.

Other ascensions are a complete joke, like the virtual synthetic ascension which only gives virtual leaders but not the instant pops or the other tradition bonuses!



This DLC is being praised for having SOOO much content. But if you count the previous expansions being so tiny, and the patches having been entirely reductive, it is pretty much a zero-sum game.

If you understand the Virtuality builds, this DLC is pretty much ONLY Virtuality and nothing else. Because all other empire types are long vassalized or dead before they can start building up power.

[Willem]

As for the nanite Swarmers: Maybe put a Juggernaut with the Range +40% Aura with them?

[Doug Dimmadong]

You don't have to play meta. Just made an empire with a theme and build it according to that, even if what fits isn't strong.

[heh]

How is vrituality "early game"? Instant pop build from any construction is better growth than anything else in the game. My current game's virtual empire has 11000 pops, more than the rest of the galaxy combined, obviously tech capped ages ago and functionally unlimited resources. Could just expand to take the whole galaxy and who cares about tech or tradition cost when you're capped ages and ages ago? But I have to stop playing it now because of all the lag they're causing. Can't understand why pops would cause such insane amounts of lag.