Ultimately adding more energy maintenance will mean more minerals have to be spent on energy buildings instead of more mineral buildings or new outposts. Yes, it slows down expansion, but only because you have less energy to trade etc.
There’s a huge backlash to it on Reddit already. We’ll see if it survives beta as it currently is.
Apologies for what may be an obvious question but here goes.
If I have a current Iron Man game save that I started in 2.0 can I opt-in to the beta or will that mess up my game that started in 2.0?
Do subsequent patches 2.1, 2.2, etc. have an impact on games started in a previous version? That is, do I need to turn auto-updating off in Steam to keep playing my 2.0 game?
They normally tell you in the notes if it breaks previous save games. Version 1.9 to 2.0 wasn’t compatible due to the significant changes, but these small patches to 2.0 should work fine.
Thanks, I thought that was the case but wanted to be sure. :-)
Now though it will be break-even in most systems since you’ll have +1 energy maintenance for the starbase and another +1 for building the energy mine on the star.
I think Paradox may perceive that there’s an energy glut and this is their way of addressing it. I’m worried about unintended consequences but, hey, that’s why it’s beta right now. I’m sure they’ll make some further adjustments if needed.
Energy mining stations don’t have an upkeep cost in energy.
Just be aware that if you have a big empire you will have a large energy hit upon trying out an existing save with the new beta. Each starbase (including outposts) now cost 1 energy, so if you own 100 systems that’s a straight -100 energy.
Exactly. I haven’t tried the new update yet, but I’m making about 20-some energy min-game in my current play through. I’ve got about 50+ systems under my control maxed out with mines. The only way I can increase my energy is by colonizing new planets or creating habitats and I don’t want to gimp myself with research/unity increases. So when I load up my current game I’ll be at a -30 energy deficit with no quick way to close the gap.
Now thinking about starting a game with this issue, I think energy can be a big deal now, especially since leaders are tied to energy instead of influence. Right now my early game consists of me making a new science ship but waiting for enough energy to hire another science leader to man it. Then I need to wait for yet more energy to buy an admiral to man the fleet that will have to tackle pirates soon. I’m also waiting for my influence and minerals to grow so I can expand, but now expansion has an energy groth factor to worry about in addition to minerals and influence and let’s not even get into budgeting enough of that for mines, ships and sometimes robots. Oh, and don’t get me started on having to stick an outpost in every system so that prates don’t start blowing up all of my mines that I spent a fortune on.
Oh man, I’m starting to sound like an insufferable former fan boy with entitlement issues. I’ll adapt, but it was jarring to see that and think of the initial implications of an energy cost for every outpost.
Hey, you’re right. I thought they counted as ships but there’s no maintenance of any kind for them.
Yes, that is going to trash my current game… it may be fun to get out of that fiscal cliff, though :)
I am lukewarm to several of the changes in the patch, they are flip flopping too much.
Can’t you just run an energy overload edict while you convert some buildings and/or starbase slots?
I’m starting to wonder if Paradox actually know what they’re doing here. That’s a HUGE change, and I don’t think it’s for the better.
Heh, I’m already doing that. If I’m at - 30 when I load the game, where will I be when that edict runs out?
Anyway, I do like the new one-cost edict system they’ve implemented. So much so that I actually use a few of them pretty frequently in 2.0.
Yes and no. With trade ports I’m typically swimming in energy credits. So yes it’s a pretty big change in isolation, but with the addition of trade ports… not so great.
It’s interesting trying to learn a game with a 2.0 status wherein the designers are still making wild course correction changes seemingly based off of forum and Reddit reactions.
It’s on a beta branch for testing and feedback, it won’t affect the learning curve unless you opt in.
War Exhaustion will likely be a big change, though, once it gets pushed out to the main branch. The current mechanic seems to be very unpopular, but I haven’t had many issues with it. That may just be due to my play style, though.
2.0 is a set of huge changes. I don’t think it’s surprising that there are aftershocks.
You can only build trade ports on systems with colonies, so the “shock absorbing” properties of trade posts are very situation dependent.
If you’re having trouble piling up enough minerals to build up your fleets, shore up your defences and upgrade existing stations, building colony ships to broaden your economic base can be a problem. Let alone the steep expenses incurred by the process of colonising planets themselves. That’s precisely what is happening in one of my games.
At the beginning of that current game I had lots of energy, which I used to “overload” my research to keep ahead in the tech game after establishing contact with a Curators enclave. As my fleet and defense stations have grown in numbers I quickly started sliding onto a deficit.
The enforced status quo peace I think was brilliant, to be honest. There’s a fair bit of push back on that backtrack on the Stellaris forums, judging by the ratios of positive/negative reactions to posts, looks like a third of the posters hated the enforced status quo peace mechanic, while two thirds actually liked it or don’t mind.
I don’t think I want to go back to the early days of EU IV, where in order to get a surrender from France I had to take control of every province for a number of years just to get my hands on the Picardie…
Well, I thought the energy change was going to be kind of horrifying, but I loaded into a game where I controlled half the galaxy and I was still barely in the black, and i had made no effort towards energy production. Energy was just too easy to forget about. Having played it, the change seems fine to me.
Incidentally, loading the same game I immediately unlocked 7 traditions, and i think i may have hit some kind of storage cap because my further traditions were only taking 24 months.
Also, the Ascension Perk for +2 leader level cap is an interesting addition. The only Ascension Perk that strikes me as 100% useless is Shared Destiny, because either you are playing a vassal game and want the bonuses you get from having vassals, in which case you don’t really want to integrate them, or you don’t use vassals at all.
Fix that one and make Sedentary/Repugnant less obviously the best negative traits and almost all the choices would at least have some arguments to be made for them.