NOTE: This was recorded BEFORE 3.12.3, which introduced a couple of changes: 1 - You can now disband your kilo structures for some resources back, the Scavengers Civic gives you 10% more back too! 2 - You can now hover over systems to see Arc Furnace build site information. If there is a Molton world it will tell you how many bodies are within the system, so you can easily check which systems CAN have the arc furnace, and which one will be the best (more bodies)
Are you seeing the bug where you can't build a 3rd one of these? It lets you click to build it, but the constructor ship doesn't start building or cancels the 2nd one if mid-build
@@ancientgammoner6961 I've noticed the game doesn't track the number you actively have as well as it tracks megastructures.i noticed the same behavior as you when I expanded and acquired more furnaces from other empires and then tried to build more since it allowed me to but the ship kept on stopping building mid way. Interesting that you saw it at the third. Wonder if they're having issues with the cap due to arc welders origin or the megastructure addition
@Tamizushi Yeah, I figured that, but as your Empire gets larger, you are forced to take every Empire sprawl deductions possible, and it seems like it never seems enough to realistically eliminate. It appears to me the only way to deal with it is fight against it as much as possible, and just deal with debuffs
This is my current empire, void dweller and cybrex precursor. I'm doing the mercenary corporate empire, so I have 6 mercenary enclave and I'm so rich I'm giving everything away. Suffering from success.
Fun fact: "On solar sails" arc site creates a minor artifact deposit on the star, so you can build a dyson swarm around it to get ~30 MAs each month. Useful? Maybe not. Funny? 100% And once I managed to get 254 minerals on a STAR... Didn't really know what happened
I also saw someone building a dyson swarm around a star from the Toxic God origin and you can get huge amount of volatile motes and exotic gases (on the screenshot it shows 158 of each)
11:56 The Rackets Trader Enclave will sometimes offer to increase a star’s EC output by 5 in exchange for 70 Influence, as a one-time thing. That’ll make a Dyson Swarm *very* worthwhile.
Also watch out for anomalies creating unique opportunities with these, I once had an anomaly add a relic deposit to a star, buffing that with a Dyson Swarm gave me the highest relic income I've had in a game
RP-wise, how's that done? I think, if those relics were directly mined from the star then, I imagine, the swarm focused light rays on the star itself to mine off bigger chunks to work with?
@@The_OriX_LoL If the archaeology site that produced the minor artifact deposit was something in orbit of the star, then perhaps the Dyson swarm helps you to locate and retrieve more small fragments that have broken off from the main object? If it's something to do with the star itself, then maybe it's a basic "star-lifting" rig to extract more matter from the star?
@@matterhorn731 That's really interesting. I think some anomalies should have graphical reflection on the stellar object they affect. That would be cool and it has nigh-endless possibilities.
Astro-Mining Drones + Cybrex Mining Bay (+100% mining station output in system) + Arc Furnace = absolutely INSANE income. Also, I don't think it was explicitly mentioned in any patch notes, but the automated Mining drones home system got shadow buffed to always have a molten world in addition to an absolute crap-ton of asteroids, making it one of the single best systems to put an Arc Furnace in the game.
I found a ruined arc furnace in that system in one of my games so I think it is better then you let on, because you can build to your limit then repair that one for extra +1.
If you get cybrex it's mining bay is good bonus but the civic is a bad idea, 50% is nothing compared to other bonuses you already get but 50% malus for menial drones is sure felt.
@@Petter1900 You do have to supplement your energy income with energy jobs until you can get some good stars going on the dyson swarms. I got one on a 17 base star and it was almost 400ec alone, before astro mining bays as I did not have that civic at the time.
Damn I love these things and I wish they would add more of these kinds. Especially love how you can upgrade the swarm into a sphere as the game goes on
i love the kilo structures you can quite easily afford them in a peace phase, helping recovering from wars, and in my playthrough i had a 22 energy star, absolute banger dysonswarm ontop of that.
Man, the last game I played didn't even make it past the first session because I was stuck between marauders and a fallen empire and the marauders woke up the instant I tried to break out and push past them as a mere one-sector empire in the year 2270.
Ah yes, the khan... Defeated him year 2300 with 2 200k riddle escort fleet... Sent all his people to my synaptic megastructure to reach a generous 70k+ research points a month... Arc wielders with virtual rush and cosmogenesis is still undefeated... Now I'm facing cetana, year 2411, my rep techs around 60 in every field, my fleets are around 1.2M each, I have like 10 fleets with that power, while cetana's fleets are around 10 fleets with 3M or more military power... My third playthrough against her and still I cant defeat her...
@@GilAzuara But I have to ask, how did you manage to get the Synaptic Structure to work as an Virtual empire.... It always broke for me coz the virtual pops didnt work anything on there... :(
I feel like this video has forgot to mention the fantastic synergy between arc furnace and habitats. By significantly buffing the mineral deposits on all objects in the system you are also significantly increasing the number of mining districts that habitat can build to the point where an arc furnace + habitat combo can rival a full on dedicated mining world which is amazing since it means you can shift the dedication of one of your mining worlds and just build a habitat and arc furnace to replace the mineral generation that planet used to provide.
Thanks for the video, I hadn't bothered calculating the 'break even' points for these structures! A little note to add: the mining output bonus from an Arc Furnace (and Astro Mining bays) improves the output of a Dyson Swarm. If you find a system with a lot of celestial bodies and a good star, make sure you you build both Kilostructures for maximum profit! It also gives you an achievement! :)
Do note the dyson swarm can even boost more exotic star ressource output such as minor artefact spawned from an event or the gas and mote from the unique system from knight of the toxic god
My buddy was messing around with a build he made specifically meant for Arc Welders and ended his game with the Arc Furnace system you find with the origin producing so many minerals and alloys that it bugged the display out and the numbers you’d see when you press Alt were inside each other
I put a Dyson swarm over a 2x artifact sun and was getting 36 artifacts a month from it. Was able fit my entire fleet with ancient components with archeo-engineering and spam reverse engineer tech the entire game just from that.
Your galatron stream may be short. A few days ago, I just loaded up an old save and rolled one reliquary! After playing this game for five years! Just randomly on a whim I decided to try and it worked out on the very first roll! 🤣😂
I found the sea shanty dig site and got minor artifact deposit from it. Slapped a dyson swarm and it multiplied the deposit as well lol. I was pulling 40 minor artifacts a month
i played an astro-mining arcfurnace start machine empire, ended up starting in a nebula and finding the cybrex.. it was glorious. current game im playing i just found the "high energy system" which has a base of 15 energy on the star. and i also just learned dyson swarm tech.. cant wait to get a swarm on it. lol (but yeah i personally dont put swarms ob anything except 7+ energy outputs.. i know they're hard to come by but its worth the wait imo. only exception is if i know im going to turn it into a sphere than i'll build it on a super low one cuz the sphere will cover it)
For the dyson swarm, the ring world start gives you a star that easily ends up with 12-15 base energy output, or potentially over 300 energy from a full swam, VERY worth it early on
0:55 The Arc Furnace will add minerals and alloys properly to celestial bodies (including gas giants) with a trade value deposit, but the weird way that trade value deposits are handled means you aren't allowed to build a mining station over them. If you use the console to remove the trade value deposit you'll see the minerals and alloys show up right away and be accessible. From what I can tell, research deposits do in fact block any addition of minerals and alloys.
Best use of Dyson swarm I’ve seen is on the message in a bottle archeological site. Boosting minor artifact gain is stronk, maybe even enough to make archeo-engineering viable.
I love the arc furnace since it gives you something to spend your energy credits on. Many builds are completely flooded with energy in the midgame. Especially when you play megacorps or most trade builds.
One of the wandering traders can upgrade a star in your system with +5 energy, which is amazing for an early dyson swarm (I got it to +9, but I imagine it can be higher.) There was a stellar archaeology site that granted +1 minor artifacts as a star deposit, which the dyson also multiplied into a stupid amount of MA.
My new favorite thing with Quest for Toxic God is building a Dyson Swarm on the Viridescent Lightbringer. Fully upgraded, it yields over 100 Exotic Gases and Volatile Motes. So I should never lack any, unless I play very wide.
The best dyson swarm is one built around a star that has a minor artefact deposit. In one of my games I had a star with 3 minor artefacts, and was getting something like +50 minor artefacts per month from my dyson swarm. In another game I had a size 1 deposit, which was still worth building the sphere around. I'm not sure which archaeology sites can spawn on a star, but there definitely is at least one, and if you are lucky it can make your star an artefact motherlode.
The arc furnace makes me wish for a way to sort systems by the number of potential solar bodies. I usually look for systems with 15 or more that could benefit. But looking through each system individually is a PITA. Also being able to find stars that have a large output is tedious as well.
If you build the dyson swarm on a good physics producing star then upgrade it later to a dyson sphere you will get all the bonus science and the all the dyson sphere energy. It's also possible to build a arc furnace and dyson swarm in the same system and get symbiotic bonus.
Last thing you want is to nerf them - everyone gets access to 3x each of them so why would people want a nerf? They need to add more of them to be honest
I'm a little behind on the DLCs, but I always loved anything that can help simplify your economy. Even if it isn't always most optimal, can make for a more enjoyable experience. Probably why I love playing a Hive Mind Lithoid, then I don't have to worry about Consumer goods or Food lol
If you have a tier 3 Dyson swarm on a science star and upgrade to a Dyson sphere do you maintain that improved science? Same with the base improved energy?
the fournace is a life saver , whatever happen , you can always have minerals by using it with habitats , it's absolutely not optimal , but if necessary is a good way to stay away from mineral inflation. on the other side , the swarm i feel has use only on tech stars . you can always find ways to produce energy, at least as a normal empire, but having tech not costing you more tech (sprawl) is great.
Furnace is good with Cybrex Mining Hub and Swarm is good when Surveyor lands on a star, but most of the time they gather dust, because there are no good enough systems around. They reward wide.
Actually astro mining bays can be risky to run with arc welders at start due to the -50 menial drone output effect, making it much harder to afford the upkeep of the furnaces early on. Picking it as your 3rd civic i find is a little smoother.
one thing you're wrong with about the arc furnace is that it does in fact make deposits on gas giants, and it makes them on stars too. i was really confused when i tried them out, thinking that it would put them only on planets/asteroids
There should be no limits for this mega structures, it really breaks all the immersion when my interstellar civilization can't build another dyson swarm just because. "It's too broke" yes, building a space civilization should resemble a tycoon game when it comes to the amount of resources you gather.
honestly i think there should be more galaxy settings for such things, personally i dont have a problem with the cap but it would "sandbox-ize" the game even more wchich in turn would make it better
Imo, cap is fine, but not being able to increase it by much is an issue. Like, you research mega-engineering and the best you can do is.... 4 dyson swarms and 4 arc furnaces. As an empire capable of eclipsing an entire star with a dyson sphere, harvesting materials back from the black hole, or building an entire habitable ring around the star... The way I see it, and the way it could be interesting - the amount of kilostructures and megastructures you can build should scale off off Empire Sprawl, similarly to how starbase cap is pinked to amount of star systems.
@@ghfgxijaorgf5393 I do think Stellaris would be even better if they increased the amount of places we can colonize. We in real life can colonize the Moon and Mars without any significant jumps on our technology, but in the game we need a planet to have near to perfect conditions for our species, it makes things a bit small given the size of our empires.
@@superpacocaalado7215 in irl its literally thousands of times worse, in stellaris from one small planet producing minerals and another alloys you can build over time dyson spheres and other extreme things even though you would need hundreds of times more material than from one small planet, the only thing in stellaris is you cant colonize others planets without terraforming them, so no living under domes on barren, frozen etc planets, but looking at lore and balance that would be too much planents and too few space on a planet with such small settlements to make sense to have, we also already have habitats
I would say they need to get rid of the random Trade Value deposits as a whole, and make it so TV only comes from either colonies, or player constructions [ie starbases w/ the trade hubs modules + the building that grants a little TV per module]. This way we don't have a potentially amazing system get turned junk because of multiple Trade Value deposits. Additionally, perhaps an option when building the Furnace/upgrading it that can pop up as an event, asking if you want to purge any "junk deposits" in-system? [ie, make the Arc Furnace nuke any research deposits] For the above, I'd have the caveat that Dark Matter would need to be moved to a Mining Station deposit instead of Research. Or be valid for "Either" if such is possible.
i would say that the vanilla Kilostrcutures are decent, very workable, however the Kilostrcutures added in Gigastructural engineering are much better usually.
@@AdmiralKarelia that is quite understandable, i myself love how over the top it is because i tend to develop atleast a quarter of the galaxy before the endgame crisis, but i can understand why it might be a bit much for some.
@@garrettjohnson343 i tend to beeline for Neutronium Gigaforges on EVERY available neutron star asap, so i can beeline it for matryoshka brains as soon as possible to then branch out from there, but mileage may vary as situation may vary. (edit: also fully building one Gigaforge should make building other Gigastructures much easier not just because of the extra alloys but also because it should give you the ability to get the Gigastructural engineering Ascension perk.)
Hey Ep3o, Love the vids. When you mentioned being unable to value research have you considered using the value of the consumer goods a researcher consumes to generate it as a good alternative? So, 2 consumer goods = 9 research.
For the swarm there are certain events that makes it really nice. For science a system where the Kohtalo have been destroyed you can get a star with 7/3 Physics/Engineering output. For energy there is the pulsating star situation which produces a base 8 star.
You can't build Dyson Swarms around pulsars or neutron stars, so the Kohtalo is inconsequential here. You can however get really good physics deposits from the Heavy Pulse and A Strange Resonance anomalies if you get them on stars that already have a physics deposit. Usually those come as size 2 or 3, but it's possible to find a 4. There's also the High Energy System with a giant class B star that just has base 12 energy and several Molten worlds in orbit.
I do think the weighting on the tech needs to be changed, I've run a few empires that have gone tech heavy that haven't unlocked the tech until 100+ years in, which from what I've read the dev team saying about kilostructures, seems to be unintended. Especially given its cost.
Personally I don't get why with both DLCs you can only get Dyson Spheres by upgrading a Dyson Swarm. Realistically, it makes little sense because only a limited amount of the infrastructure would be applicable in its new role. I think it's cool, but I dont think it should be the only way, and I think that the Construction Time & Cost of Stage 1 and Stage 2 should thus be reduced. Currently it costs more alloys if you went Sphere -> S3 Sphere, but less Unity than Swarm -> S3 Sphere, whilst also taking 15 years not 9, and not getting you any bonuses in the mean time. Kilostructures as a concept are really cool though, I hope they can cook up some more.
You can build monster mining habitats by adding an arc furnace to the system, and you don't even need to upgrade the furnace beyond first level to enjoy from having 3 mining districts for every single planet in the system.
In my current game, I defeated the mining drone home base and gained the Surveyor artefact. Using it, I randomly gained +9 energy to a star in my empire, resulting in a base 14 energy star! I am desperately attempting to gain dyson swarm tech to: Swarm. That. Star! *game show theme plays*
I really enjoy having something extra to do midgame. I do think the balancing is a little crazy though. You can achieve functionally infinite income from a fairly small group of systems.
Aww, didn't answer the one thing I wanted to know. What happens if I take a Dyson swarm that was built for science and upgrade to Dyson sphere, does it kill the science bonus and replace it with credits only?
No, because it counts you as the one who created them, same with megastructures(from my experience at least), so it's counting towards your cap. You'd have to let the vassal create the other four.
I found out that doing knights of the toxic god will get you a system with a star that gives exotic gas and volitile motes and putting a Dyson swarm on THAT star will give you over 100 motes and 100 gas monthly sooo i think its pretty good
Issue of course is the opportunity cost, time to pay back and increased risk of losing them in war compared to planets. Probably could use some bit more love but are not bad.
swarm and arc are espeshally usfull i have found in ur home system since ur home star tends to have around 10 energy output and depending on ur starting system (mainly sol) a lot of starting astral body for the furnice
Hows the achievement hunt going? Although I haven’t finished, i have gotten up to 87% complete. Still have 2 dlcs to purchase but the struggle is real. Played an entire game as the “CoM” only to realize after the achievement didn’t pop you can modify the template at all. Rip 8 hrs and so many Signs of the Locus…
I must say the Galatron achievement is overhyped in how difficult it is. Not counting the buff they made patches ago, you could always buy 6 reliquaries per game. I always do (because why the hell not) - this costs you 8450+3900 = 12350EC for the price of admission, which I just factor into my game plan when going into each game. You can then buy the reliquaries over the course of the next 7 years, which gives you a 3% chance of rolling it every game you play. If you manage to get it early from the first 6, it's such a big bonus for most empires: +100% diplo weight means you have early GalCom control, and the +3 Influence makes territory/hyper-relays/habitats that much quicker. Even just considering this, in 23 games you have a 50% chance to get it (138 rolls). I tend to try to buy the CC stock out asap each game I play, and it doesn't take all that long to get to the point of being able to purchase them. Following on from that, they patched into the game the ability to buy reliquaries with EC after having bought 6, with zero cooldown. This means that once I've hit ME and got a dyson sphere I'm usually just dumping all my excess into reliquaries. It's not even that bad a trade usually, with some decent lategame payouts regardless: -7.7% chance of Ancient Trade route capital modifier -> permanent +10% TV buff on capital (onetime only) -7.7% chance each of 24 months of society/physics research. i.e Double your research for the next two years -7.7% chance of 24 months of alloys, which I sometimes have to keep the text box open and slowly sell my alloy stockpile back to the market for profit if my fleet/storage is full Lategame you've often got a giant energy surplus to manage war whenever you undock your fleet, so it's not even a big deal to dump your excess into reliquaries. Set up monthly trades to keep minerals/food/CG near your stockpile cap at -50/month and you can maximise it even further. Before I started opening EC reliquaries I'd most often just let resources waste away by overcapping. [NB: numbers chosen arbitrarily for ease of mathematics] Let's say you buy 23 reliquaries per game, at a total cost of 230k EC (which is actually not very many at all - in a fairly normal multiplayer game I'd opened 41 by 2341, before the endgame crisis had even spawned @ ~20% chance to get it in that game): -You were making +1k surplus EC @2247 in your video "Can I Defeat The Synthetic Queen?" -Assuming you didn't improve your economy, it would take less than 20 years to buy -Even with your condensed mid/lategame timers, this wouldn't even take you to the lategame start date -It would only take you 6 games to reach a 50% chance of getting it. For every additional 6 you would half the remaining likelihood -> 75% @12 games 87.5% @18 games etc ___ I go through waves of playing somewhat casually, but when I'm playing and bumping up my hours past 1800 hours I usually get the Galatron once every few weeks. I understand completely that you're building hype for your sub milestone (and I am very much looking forward to both; you deservedly hitting it, and your stream searching for the Galatron) but the community has it as some kind of boogeyman. In reality most people just don't play towards it, thinking that it's 'just not going to happen'. In this rare contrary-to-the-real-world situation, the correct thing to do is just keep on opening those sweet, sweet loot boxes. Keep up the good work, dude, you're crushing it.
Dyson swarm for science is not worth it unless you get that anomaly that gives a high physics modifier to a star redulting in a more than 10 base value. The amount of resources can be shifted to researchers and get the three forms of research for cheaper.
Does anyone know if there can be a system in the game with two or more molten worlds so a player could build several arc furnaces in that system and have bonuses from each of them? That would be massive
One of the systems that can spawn in vanilla is a class B with base 12 energy. It's tagged as the [high_energy_system] and has about 5 Molten worlds around it.
@@pikpikgamer1012 If anything, I suspect Elowine is working on the third route for the Blokkats: Leaving the Galaxy for an Inter-Galactic Voyage. It makes sense if you think about what Cosmogenesis has done.
Fun fact: If you play Shattered Ring, you can build a dyson swarm on your star and upgrade it to a dyson sphere, making a very cool looking home system.
@@damonedrington3453 No, it turns all planets into frozen worlds. Ring world segments are not normal planets though so it doesn't affect them. That being said I don't think this is intended behavior, usually having a mega-structure built around a star would prevent you from making another one so it's probably a bug with the Shattered Ring system since it isn't the usual derelict ring world.
@@commandoepsilon4664 alright cause I was gonna say, if you can build Dyson spheres in ANY system with no concerns for planets, that’s a little ridiculous.
Do note that Alfray Stryke have confirmed that Trade Value shouldn't block access to mineral deposits from Arc Furnace and that this should be considered somewhere between unintended and bug, and probably be changed soon(tm)
NOTE: This was recorded BEFORE 3.12.3, which introduced a couple of changes:
1 - You can now disband your kilo structures for some resources back, the Scavengers Civic gives you 10% more back too!
2 - You can now hover over systems to see Arc Furnace build site information. If there is a Molton world it will tell you how many bodies are within the system, so you can easily check which systems CAN have the arc furnace, and which one will be the best (more bodies)
Are you seeing the bug where you can't build a 3rd one of these? It lets you click to build it, but the constructor ship doesn't start building or cancels the 2nd one if mid-build
@@ancientgammoner6961 I've noticed the game doesn't track the number you actively have as well as it tracks megastructures.i noticed the same behavior as you when I expanded and acquired more furnaces from other empires and then tried to build more since it allowed me to but the ship kept on stopping building mid way. Interesting that you saw it at the third. Wonder if they're having issues with the cap due to arc welders origin or the megastructure addition
point 2 also applies to habitat orbitals as well by the way.
@@ancientgammoner6961yeah having the same bug too, bit frustrating that I can’t build the third arc furnace/ Dyson swarm
I got the same bug, unable to build the 3rd of either one, can I force add it onto the save file? not playing achivements anyway
An important aspect of megastructures in general is that they give resources without increasing your empire size.
Is it worth it to fight against empire size?
@@Gamerguy_69420yes
@@Gamerguy_69420 if you can keep a good amount of research and unity production while minimizing empire size it can be extremely beneficial
@@Gamerguy_69420 For small empires, not so much, but as your empire gets bigger and bigger, empire size becomes more and more expensive. So yes.
@Tamizushi Yeah, I figured that, but as your Empire gets larger, you are forced to take every Empire sprawl deductions possible, and it seems like it never seems enough to realistically eliminate. It appears to me the only way to deal with it is fight against it as much as possible, and just deal with debuffs
I found the arc furnace to be an insane structure to pair with habitats in a large system.
Astro Mining Drones plus Cybrex Mining hub makes you drown in minerals.
@@PhthaloGreenskinand alloys
@@PhthaloGreenskin Yeah, Cybrex Mining hub is actually useful now.
@@PhthaloGreenskinfor real I never needed a mining world or matter decompressor, the furnaces also made about 60% of my total alloys
This is my current empire, void dweller and cybrex precursor. I'm doing the mercenary corporate empire, so I have 6 mercenary enclave and I'm so rich I'm giving everything away. Suffering from success.
Fun fact: "On solar sails" arc site creates a minor artifact deposit on the star, so you can build a dyson swarm around it to get ~30 MAs each month. Useful? Maybe not. Funny? 100% And once I managed to get 254 minerals on a STAR... Didn't really know what happened
I also saw someone building a dyson swarm around a star from the Toxic God origin and you can get huge amount of volatile motes and exotic gases (on the screenshot it shows 158 of each)
Yeah it happened to me.
My entire fleet had archeotech components because I had nowhere to put all those minor artifacts.
It's not guaranteed. The chance for the deposit spawn is 67% if I remember correctly so it's not uncommon to get nothing.
As someone pointed out allready, the dyson swarm works on the viredecent lightbringer
Also, caraveneers can sometimes upgrade a star's energy output. A star with 13 energy will be huge with a dyson swarm.
1500% --> Ep3o: "FIFTEENTHOUSAND"
Me: "Ok this probably was a mistake by accident.
3000% --> Ep3o: "THIRTYTHOUSAND"
Dude.
I was thinking the same thing
He's desperately wanting to go over nine thousand
11:56 The Rackets Trader Enclave will sometimes offer to increase a star’s EC output by 5 in exchange for 70 Influence, as a one-time thing. That’ll make a Dyson Swarm *very* worthwhile.
Also watch out for anomalies creating unique opportunities with these, I once had an anomaly add a relic deposit to a star, buffing that with a Dyson Swarm gave me the highest relic income I've had in a game
There's also the "Viridescent Lightbringer" star you get from finding the Toxic God which gives both exotic gases and volatile motes.
RP-wise, how's that done? I think, if those relics were directly mined from the star then, I imagine, the swarm focused light rays on the star itself to mine off bigger chunks to work with?
@@The_OriX_LoL If the archaeology site that produced the minor artifact deposit was something in orbit of the star, then perhaps the Dyson swarm helps you to locate and retrieve more small fragments that have broken off from the main object?
If it's something to do with the star itself, then maybe it's a basic "star-lifting" rig to extract more matter from the star?
@@matterhorn731 That's really interesting. I think some anomalies should have graphical reflection on the stellar object they affect. That would be cool and it has nigh-endless possibilities.
Astro-Mining Drones + Cybrex Mining Bay (+100% mining station output in system) + Arc Furnace = absolutely INSANE income.
Also, I don't think it was explicitly mentioned in any patch notes, but the automated Mining drones home system got shadow buffed to always have a molten world in addition to an absolute crap-ton of asteroids, making it one of the single best systems to put an Arc Furnace in the game.
i had a game with ruined arc furnace in that system, absurd output and didnt even count towards the limit.
I found a ruined arc furnace in that system in one of my games so I think it is better then you let on, because you can build to your limit then repair that one for extra +1.
Insane Mineral income, but honestly I'm hurting for energy credits. Arc Furnaces are great, but swarms could be better
If you get cybrex it's mining bay is good bonus but the civic is a bad idea, 50% is nothing compared to other bonuses you already get but 50% malus for menial drones is sure felt.
@@Petter1900 You do have to supplement your energy income with energy jobs until you can get some good stars going on the dyson swarms. I got one on a 17 base star and it was almost 400ec alone, before astro mining bays as I did not have that civic at the time.
Damn I love these things and I wish they would add more of these kinds. Especially love how you can upgrade the swarm into a sphere as the game goes on
Have you considered.... Hear me out... Getting megaengineering?
i love the kilo structures you can quite easily afford them in a peace phase, helping recovering from wars, and in my playthrough i had a 22 energy star, absolute banger dysonswarm ontop of that.
"Oh hey nerd...Your maths and Min-Maxing won't unconquer your empire" =The Great Khan.
Man, the last game I played didn't even make it past the first session because I was stuck between marauders and a fallen empire and the marauders woke up the instant I tried to break out and push past them as a mere one-sector empire in the year 2270.
Ah yes, the khan... Defeated him year 2300 with 2 200k riddle escort fleet... Sent all his people to my synaptic megastructure to reach a generous 70k+ research points a month...
Arc wielders with virtual rush and cosmogenesis is still undefeated... Now I'm facing cetana, year 2411, my rep techs around 60 in every field, my fleets are around 1.2M each, I have like 10 fleets with that power, while cetana's fleets are around 10 fleets with 3M or more military power... My third playthrough against her and still I cant defeat her...
@@GilAzuara Nice. Im glad that I am not the only one who figured out this broken playstyle
@@GilAzuara But I have to ask, how did you manage to get the Synaptic Structure to work as an Virtual empire.... It always broke for me coz the virtual pops didnt work anything on there... :(
I feel like this video has forgot to mention the fantastic synergy between arc furnace and habitats. By significantly buffing the mineral deposits on all objects in the system you are also significantly increasing the number of mining districts that habitat can build to the point where an arc furnace + habitat combo can rival a full on dedicated mining world which is amazing since it means you can shift the dedication of one of your mining worlds and just build a habitat and arc furnace to replace the mineral generation that planet used to provide.
Thanks for the video, I hadn't bothered calculating the 'break even' points for these structures! A little note to add: the mining output bonus from an Arc Furnace (and Astro Mining bays) improves the output of a Dyson Swarm. If you find a system with a lot of celestial bodies and a good star, make sure you you build both Kilostructures for maximum profit! It also gives you an achievement! :)
Wait, Draythix!?
Do note the dyson swarm can even boost more exotic star ressource output such as minor artefact spawned from an event or the gas and mote from the unique system from knight of the toxic god
I don't actually care if its better/equal than simply min maxxing your pops I'm still gonna build them for completion and rp feel.
My buddy was messing around with a build he made specifically meant for Arc Welders and ended his game with the Arc Furnace system you find with the origin producing so many minerals and alloys that it bugged the display out and the numbers you’d see when you press Alt were inside each other
Absolutely great to have them.
The power of math after a 3 hours long paper 2…. and the 50k special might be possibly the shortest stream if statistics play out 😅
I put a Dyson swarm over a 2x artifact sun and was getting 36 artifacts a month from it. Was able fit my entire fleet with ancient components with archeo-engineering and spam reverse engineer tech the entire game just from that.
Your galatron stream may be short.
A few days ago, I just loaded up an old save and rolled one reliquary!
After playing this game for five years! Just randomly on a whim I decided to try and it worked out on the very first roll! 🤣😂
I do think all of the megastructure stuff is a huge, missed opportunity to make the 'Expansion Planner' tab actually useful.
I found the sea shanty dig site and got minor artifact deposit from it. Slapped a dyson swarm and it multiplied the deposit as well lol. I was pulling 40 minor artifacts a month
i played an astro-mining arcfurnace start machine empire, ended up starting in a nebula and finding the cybrex.. it was glorious.
current game im playing i just found the "high energy system" which has a base of 15 energy on the star. and i also just learned dyson swarm tech.. cant wait to get a swarm on it. lol (but yeah i personally dont put swarms ob anything except 7+ energy outputs.. i know they're hard to come by but its worth the wait imo. only exception is if i know im going to turn it into a sphere than i'll build it on a super low one cuz the sphere will cover it)
For the dyson swarm, the ring world start gives you a star that easily ends up with 12-15 base energy output, or potentially over 300 energy from a full swam, VERY worth it early on
I love the KSP reference in the Arc Furnace’s Mohole upgrade name
I think the kilostructures are pretty good. Glad you made a video for these!
The best is when you see your neighbors start building kilostructures, then you know they're ready for picking.
0:55 The Arc Furnace will add minerals and alloys properly to celestial bodies (including gas giants) with a trade value deposit, but the weird way that trade value deposits are handled means you aren't allowed to build a mining station over them. If you use the console to remove the trade value deposit you'll see the minerals and alloys show up right away and be accessible. From what I can tell, research deposits do in fact block any addition of minerals and alloys.
Best use of Dyson swarm I’ve seen is on the message in a bottle archeological site. Boosting minor artifact gain is stronk, maybe even enough to make archeo-engineering viable.
I love the arc furnace since it gives you something to spend your energy credits on. Many builds are completely flooded with energy in the midgame. Especially when you play megacorps or most trade builds.
If you put arc furnaces in systems with a cybrex mining station and an ice mining station you get even better bonuses
hi thanx for video is Multiplayers?
52 seconds ago is wild fast for RUclips.
One of the wandering traders can upgrade a star in your system with +5 energy, which is amazing for an early dyson swarm (I got it to +9, but I imagine it can be higher.)
There was a stellar archaeology site that granted +1 minor artifacts as a star deposit, which the dyson also multiplied into a stupid amount of MA.
My new favorite thing with Quest for Toxic God is building a Dyson Swarm on the Viridescent Lightbringer. Fully upgraded, it yields over 100 Exotic Gases and Volatile Motes. So I should never lack any, unless I play very wide.
There is an arc furnace locator mod i recommend. It just tells you the best planet in your space for furnace and swarm
So I just realized that the ost "call to assembly" is a remix of sg1 intro, and many ost names probably reference episode titles, lol
The best dyson swarm is one built around a star that has a minor artefact deposit. In one of my games I had a star with 3 minor artefacts, and was getting something like +50 minor artefacts per month from my dyson swarm. In another game I had a size 1 deposit, which was still worth building the sphere around. I'm not sure which archaeology sites can spawn on a star, but there definitely is at least one, and if you are lucky it can make your star an artefact motherlode.
The arc furnace makes me wish for a way to sort systems by the number of potential solar bodies. I usually look for systems with 15 or more that could benefit. But looking through each system individually is a PITA. Also being able to find stars that have a large output is tedious as well.
If you build the dyson swarm on a good physics producing star then upgrade it later to a dyson sphere you will get all the bonus science and the all the dyson sphere energy.
It's also possible to build a arc furnace and dyson swarm in the same system and get symbiotic bonus.
Rolling Cybrex starbases for my first game with kilo structures was so much fun. Minerals everywhere!
Last thing you want is to nerf them - everyone gets access to 3x each of them so why would people want a nerf?
They need to add more of them to be honest
X5 megastructures up the buildable once
I'm a little behind on the DLCs, but I always loved anything that can help simplify your economy. Even if it isn't always most optimal, can make for a more enjoyable experience. Probably why I love playing a Hive Mind Lithoid, then I don't have to worry about Consumer goods or Food lol
If you have a tier 3 Dyson swarm on a science star and upgrade to a Dyson sphere do you maintain that improved science? Same with the base improved energy?
the fournace is a life saver , whatever happen , you can always have minerals by using it with habitats , it's absolutely not optimal , but if necessary is a good way to stay away from mineral inflation.
on the other side , the swarm i feel has use only on tech stars . you can always find ways to produce energy, at least as a normal empire, but having tech not costing you more tech (sprawl) is great.
@E3po One thing you forgot about the arc furnace cost is the cost and UPKEEP of the mining stations.
There is a mod on the workshop that adds a tooltip for arc furnace deposits
Furnace is good with Cybrex Mining Hub and Swarm is good when Surveyor lands on a star, but most of the time they gather dust, because there are no good enough systems around.
They reward wide.
Actually astro mining bays can be risky to run with arc welders at start due to the -50 menial drone output effect, making it much harder to afford the upkeep of the furnaces early on. Picking it as your 3rd civic i find is a little smoother.
one thing you're wrong with about the arc furnace is that it does in fact make deposits on gas giants, and it makes them on stars too. i was really confused when i tried them out, thinking that it would put them only on planets/asteroids
If I want an Arc furnace i'm building the swarm as either one makes the other free(ish depending on things) with some extra for you
There should be no limits for this mega structures, it really breaks all the immersion when my interstellar civilization can't build another dyson swarm just because.
"It's too broke" yes, building a space civilization should resemble a tycoon game when it comes to the amount of resources you gather.
Should be easy to find a mod that removes those limits.
honestly i think there should be more galaxy settings for such things, personally i dont have a problem with the cap but it would "sandbox-ize" the game even more wchich in turn would make it better
Imo, cap is fine, but not being able to increase it by much is an issue.
Like, you research mega-engineering and the best you can do is.... 4 dyson swarms and 4 arc furnaces.
As an empire capable of eclipsing an entire star with a dyson sphere, harvesting materials back from the black hole, or building an entire habitable ring around the star...
The way I see it, and the way it could be interesting - the amount of kilostructures and megastructures you can build should scale off off Empire Sprawl, similarly to how starbase cap is pinked to amount of star systems.
@@ghfgxijaorgf5393 I do think Stellaris would be even better if they increased the amount of places we can colonize.
We in real life can colonize the Moon and Mars without any significant jumps on our technology, but in the game we need a planet to have near to perfect conditions for our species, it makes things a bit small given the size of our empires.
@@superpacocaalado7215 in irl its literally thousands of times worse, in stellaris from one small planet producing minerals and another alloys you can build over time dyson spheres and other extreme things even though you would need hundreds of times more material than from one small planet, the only thing in stellaris is you cant colonize others planets without terraforming them, so no living under domes on barren, frozen etc planets, but looking at lore and balance that would be too much planents and too few space on a planet with such small settlements to make sense to have, we also already have habitats
I absolutely love them as I don't need a vassal to produce my basic resources now so I can play an isolationist techrusher.
I would say they need to get rid of the random Trade Value deposits as a whole, and make it so TV only comes from either colonies, or player constructions [ie starbases w/ the trade hubs modules + the building that grants a little TV per module].
This way we don't have a potentially amazing system get turned junk because of multiple Trade Value deposits.
Additionally, perhaps an option when building the Furnace/upgrading it that can pop up as an event, asking if you want to purge any "junk deposits" in-system? [ie, make the Arc Furnace nuke any research deposits]
For the above, I'd have the caveat that Dark Matter would need to be moved to a Mining Station deposit instead of Research. Or be valid for "Either" if such is possible.
@5:30 You totally forgot about Mining station upkeep. Each mining station needs 1 energy upkeep
i would say that the vanilla Kilostrcutures are decent, very workable, however the Kilostrcutures added in Gigastructural engineering are much better usually.
The gigastructures mod is just a bit too much for me, personally. Feels too over the top. Hell, a Dyson sphere itself is over the top.
Yeah but getting them to roll is pretty hard, what structures do you go for in giga?
@@AdmiralKarelia that is quite understandable, i myself love how over the top it is because i tend to develop atleast a quarter of the galaxy before the endgame crisis, but i can understand why it might be a bit much for some.
@@garrettjohnson343 i tend to beeline for Neutronium Gigaforges on EVERY available neutron star asap, so i can beeline it for matryoshka brains as soon as possible to then branch out from there, but mileage may vary as situation may vary. (edit: also fully building one Gigaforge should make building other Gigastructures much easier not just because of the extra alloys but also because it should give you the ability to get the Gigastructural engineering Ascension perk.)
Hey Ep3o, Love the vids. When you mentioned being unable to value research have you considered using the value of the consumer goods a researcher consumes to generate it as a good alternative? So, 2 consumer goods = 9 research.
For the swarm there are certain events that makes it really nice. For science a system where the Kohtalo have been destroyed you can get a star with 7/3 Physics/Engineering output. For energy there is the pulsating star situation which produces a base 8 star.
You can't build Dyson Swarms around pulsars or neutron stars, so the Kohtalo is inconsequential here. You can however get really good physics deposits from the Heavy Pulse and A Strange Resonance anomalies if you get them on stars that already have a physics deposit. Usually those come as size 2 or 3, but it's possible to find a 4. There's also the High Energy System with a giant class B star that just has base 12 energy and several Molten worlds in orbit.
@@JabberwockOclockTyiana Vek gives you 5 physic star
@@Fish_Priest 6 actually.
I do think the weighting on the tech needs to be changed, I've run a few empires that have gone tech heavy that haven't unlocked the tech until 100+ years in, which from what I've read the dev team saying about kilostructures, seems to be unintended. Especially given its cost.
In my most recent game, I literally reached and researched Mega Engineering before rolling Arc Furnaces.
Ran initially like 10 systems on my last virtual build. When using the surveyor relic it proc'd more energy onto my dyson swarm star 🤤
If you have the Resource Consolidation origin the star in your capital system has 10 energy making it a really good candidate for a Dyson Swarm.
Is there a limit to how many kilo structures you can have being built/upgraded at once?
Personally I don't get why with both DLCs you can only get Dyson Spheres by upgrading a Dyson Swarm. Realistically, it makes little sense because only a limited amount of the infrastructure would be applicable in its new role. I think it's cool, but I dont think it should be the only way, and I think that the Construction Time & Cost of Stage 1 and Stage 2 should thus be reduced. Currently it costs more alloys if you went Sphere -> S3 Sphere, but less Unity than Swarm -> S3 Sphere, whilst also taking 15 years not 9, and not getting you any bonuses in the mean time.
Kilostructures as a concept are really cool though, I hope they can cook up some more.
The Resource Consolidation Origin gives you a star with a size 11 energy deposit.
You can build monster mining habitats by adding an arc furnace to the system, and you don't even need to upgrade the furnace beyond first level to enjoy from having 3 mining districts for every single planet in the system.
In my current game, I defeated the mining drone home base and gained the Surveyor artefact. Using it, I randomly gained +9 energy to a star in my empire, resulting in a base 14 energy star! I am desperately attempting to gain dyson swarm tech to: Swarm. That. Star! *game show theme plays*
I really enjoy having something extra to do midgame. I do think the balancing is a little crazy though. You can achieve functionally infinite income from a fairly small group of systems.
My brother in Shroud, fym ''Are Kilo Structures Good?''
Aww, didn't answer the one thing I wanted to know. What happens if I take a Dyson swarm that was built for science and upgrade to Dyson sphere, does it kill the science bonus and replace it with credits only?
Oh yea, something to make the Frame World early game less painful. Lets go
Could you basically build 4 arc furnaces, create a vassal with that in it, build 4 more then integrate them?
No, because it counts you as the one who created them, same with megastructures(from my experience at least), so it's counting towards your cap. You'd have to let the vassal create the other four.
I found out that doing knights of the toxic god will get you a system with a star that gives exotic gas and volitile motes and putting a Dyson swarm on THAT star will give you over 100 motes and 100 gas monthly sooo i think its pretty good
Nice breakdown of the minimum needed to 'break even'.
The arc furnace is crazy, but tbh I never rly use the Dyson swarm except to make up for the cost of arc furnaces
Don’t you also need to factor all of the mining stations upkeep since the arc furnace doesn’t automatically collect all those deposits?
If I build a swarm over a star for science output, I want the sphere to provide me said science output as well as the energy.
Protip: with knights of the toxic god, you actually get the blighted star that adds like 300 motes and 300 gases
Issue of course is the opportunity cost, time to pay back and increased risk of losing them in war compared to planets. Probably could use some bit more love but are not bad.
swarm and arc are espeshally usfull i have found in ur home system since ur home star tends to have around 10 energy output and depending on ur starting system (mainly sol) a lot of starting astral body for the furnice
dyson swarm and arc furnace my beloved
Hows the achievement hunt going? Although I haven’t finished, i have gotten up to 87% complete. Still have 2 dlcs to purchase but the struggle is real. Played an entire game as the “CoM” only to realize after the achievement didn’t pop you can modify the template at all. Rip 8 hrs and so many Signs of the Locus…
I think the arc welders origin should be made accessable for lithoids, too.
Is this a bad time to mention that I've gotten the galatron a few times?
The thumbnails picture is slightly wider on the left pannel than the right pannel
does anybody know if the arc furnace percentage buff applies to a dyson swarm on the same system???
it does, and there is an achievement for it
@@Killerbot-jn6xi I see, this changes everything, gonna start building arc furnaces first for better dyson swarm outcome when possible
Arc-Furnace + Astro Mining + Cybrex Mining Hub = YES
dyson swarm over the Viridescent Lightbringer is fun
I must say the Galatron achievement is overhyped in how difficult it is. Not counting the buff they made patches ago, you could always buy 6 reliquaries per game. I always do (because why the hell not) - this costs you 8450+3900 = 12350EC for the price of admission, which I just factor into my game plan when going into each game. You can then buy the reliquaries over the course of the next 7 years, which gives you a 3% chance of rolling it every game you play.
If you manage to get it early from the first 6, it's such a big bonus for most empires: +100% diplo weight means you have early GalCom control, and the +3 Influence makes territory/hyper-relays/habitats that much quicker.
Even just considering this, in 23 games you have a 50% chance to get it (138 rolls). I tend to try to buy the CC stock out asap each game I play, and it doesn't take all that long to get to the point of being able to purchase them.
Following on from that, they patched into the game the ability to buy reliquaries with EC after having bought 6, with zero cooldown. This means that once I've hit ME and got a dyson sphere I'm usually just dumping all my excess into reliquaries. It's not even that bad a trade usually, with some decent lategame payouts regardless:
-7.7% chance of Ancient Trade route capital modifier -> permanent +10% TV buff on capital (onetime only)
-7.7% chance each of 24 months of society/physics research. i.e Double your research for the next two years
-7.7% chance of 24 months of alloys, which I sometimes have to keep the text box open and slowly sell my alloy stockpile back to the market for profit if my fleet/storage is full
Lategame you've often got a giant energy surplus to manage war whenever you undock your fleet, so it's not even a big deal to dump your excess into reliquaries. Set up monthly trades to keep minerals/food/CG near your stockpile cap at -50/month and you can maximise it even further. Before I started opening EC reliquaries I'd most often just let resources waste away by overcapping.
[NB: numbers chosen arbitrarily for ease of mathematics]
Let's say you buy 23 reliquaries per game, at a total cost of 230k EC (which is actually not very many at all - in a fairly normal multiplayer game I'd opened 41 by 2341, before the endgame crisis had even spawned @ ~20% chance to get it in that game):
-You were making +1k surplus EC @2247 in your video "Can I Defeat The Synthetic Queen?"
-Assuming you didn't improve your economy, it would take less than 20 years to buy
-Even with your condensed mid/lategame timers, this wouldn't even take you to the lategame start date
-It would only take you 6 games to reach a 50% chance of getting it. For every additional 6 you would half the remaining likelihood -> 75% @12 games 87.5% @18 games etc
___
I go through waves of playing somewhat casually, but when I'm playing and bumping up my hours past 1800 hours I usually get the Galatron once every few weeks. I understand completely that you're building hype for your sub milestone (and I am very much looking forward to both; you deservedly hitting it, and your stream searching for the Galatron) but the community has it as some kind of boogeyman. In reality most people just don't play towards it, thinking that it's 'just not going to happen'. In this rare contrary-to-the-real-world situation, the correct thing to do is just keep on opening those sweet, sweet loot boxes.
Keep up the good work, dude, you're crushing it.
Dyson swarm for science is not worth it unless you get that anomaly that gives a high physics modifier to a star redulting in a more than 10 base value. The amount of resources can be shifted to researchers and get the three forms of research for cheaper.
Does anyone know if there can be a system in the game with two or more molten worlds so a player could build several arc furnaces in that system and have bonuses from each of them? That would be massive
We need a ledger for star systems to find the best ones for these and habitats.
If anyone knows mods for that.
When Gigastructures gets it's update for this version, I can only imagine the O-Class Dyson Swarm
One of the systems that can spawn in vanilla is a class B with base 12 energy. It's tagged as the [high_energy_system] and has about 5 Molten worlds around it.
I agree I’m getting pretty tired of waiting for Gigastructres to update but I know it will be worth it
@@pikpikgamer1012 If anything, I suspect Elowine is working on the third route for the Blokkats: Leaving the Galaxy for an Inter-Galactic Voyage.
It makes sense if you think about what Cosmogenesis has done.
@@PurpleHeartE54 smart… that would explain why the update is taking ages
@@pikpikgamer1012 Yep. Excellent story-writing takes a large amount of time, and he has a whole team to probably help him out there as well.
I find the arc furnace to be extremely good. As long as you build it in a good system. And if you pair it with the Cybrex mining hub its very OP
Fun fact: If you play Shattered Ring, you can build a dyson swarm on your star and upgrade it to a dyson sphere, making a very cool looking home system.
Haven’t played in a few months, but does building a Dyson sphere not turn all planets and bodies in the system uninhabitable
@@damonedrington3453 No, it turns all planets into frozen worlds. Ring world segments are not normal planets though so it doesn't affect them. That being said I don't think this is intended behavior, usually having a mega-structure built around a star would prevent you from making another one so it's probably a bug with the Shattered Ring system since it isn't the usual derelict ring world.
@@commandoepsilon4664 alright cause I was gonna say, if you can build Dyson spheres in ANY system with no concerns for planets, that’s a little ridiculous.
I've found by mixing arc furnaces with Catalytic technicians you could completely get rid off miners
What's the full menu of max sell and buy before inflation I wonder
lol I have the galatron. I got it on my second try on an iron man, and only found out later how rare it occurs
Do note that Alfray Stryke have confirmed that Trade Value shouldn't block access to mineral deposits from Arc Furnace and that this should be considered somewhere between unintended and bug, and probably be changed soon(tm)
Master builders are gaining more power ⚒️
Why are we all going for the cubic machine portrait?