In regards to the Sentry Array, with how boring espionage currently is, I think it's worth building it just so I don't have to do a "gather information" operation every month to keep tabs on the galaxy
I agree. In my current game I'm trying to complete it because about half of the AI empires have fractured into 3+ new empires each which means I'll never have enough spies to watch them all, so the Sentry Array is my best (if not only) option to know what all the other empires are doing and what their fleets are like.
@@MontuPlays it'll definately never be my first mega construction in any game, but I'm also yet to go a game without it. It's not the strongest mega construction, but it helps me plan my war paths and I like not having to guess on where hostile empires have their ships and what they have.
@@StarboyXL9 I do in some but going around to every single ai empire and the many fractured bits they tend to make just to get enough info to see all their ships seems a bit much to me personally. In my current play through one empire has legit split into 6 separate smaller empires. I started the game with originally 9 (I exterminated a few so +/-2) ai empires, but now after a third of them suddenly fractured I have somewhere in the 20+ ai empires. In my opinion going around to each empire then spending the money to get the info I want is just too much. Like I said this is my opinion, so if you feel different and actually enjoy going around to each empire then props to you but it's just not my cup of tea.
A note on Sentry Arrays; Another hidden advantage I have found is the ability to see into Nebula and L-Cluster regions which normally are sensor-blocked. So tactically it is a helpful tool.
@@MontuPlays in certain cases you might not have enough envoys to field espionage ops. Also the fact that if you are Genocidal you can't even do diplomacy.
@@MontuPlays I think unity should be a "level", not a resource that stacks. Say, you try and keep it at a certain number between 0 and 100, similar to stability on planets, but instead if you're on the positive, you can sustain the tradition unlocking. if it is on the negative side, maybe its getting slower, or halting altogether, if youre horribly in the red you get some sort of penalties. Would be more interesting than how it works now, and unity will no longer be obselete by end game, even if it is just to keep a penalty at bay.
@@MontuPlays If it's going to be a supplement or replacement for administrative capacity (which is the impression I got, although I could easily be wrong about that) then you'll need it to keep expanding without penalties.
I was a bit surprised at first that Dyson Sphere didn't make it to S tier, but once you explained the speed and cost considerations for the Mega Shipyard I have to say I agree. Great video!
So the trick is to find a damaged dyson sphere at the start of the game. Then you restore that, and you use the power from that to build a second one. 8k energy credits a month is a nice little boost to your economy.
Funny thing about the mega shipyard is if you capture one from another empire the bonus stack so you can get a 200% bonus ship speed and that's just as ridiculous as it sounds
I try to chill around the time other empires are making mega structures and just snipe them once they are don't building. I always try to have 2 of each lol
I love going interstellar assembly because it helps me rush galactic imperium. I can pretty reliably start the galactic imperium 100 years before crisis happens.
Once got 3 Mega Shipyards in a single game. That's when I learned that the bonus it provides will stack with other Shipyards. I could build a Battleship in a month. Let's just say that the game ended very quickly afterwards.
Another thing I'd like to add with the Dyson sphere: The large energy output means that you can accumulate wealth quickly and then spend it on other resources such as alloys or strategic resources, so it can be useful even if you're not using it for upkeep of anything.
By the end game your ship upkeep is gonna be like 3k maybe 4k. So really it's going to be trade and energy distracts that's going to be buying everything.
I think that if you play as a gestalt, art installation would be a B tier because it's freed some of your amenities drones to do something useful. and unity production is a very nice bonus.
Well with Contingency Core relic, I've ended up with 3 Art (captured 1 from the Xphile Awakened Empire as I wanted to use my dark matter) and using the unity edicts heavily I've been running at a loss gone from 1mi unity to less than 500k, but my bio trophies are giving insane stability 😁 In many places I just can use some drone storage, a waste processing plant from the Rackets and eliminate the maintenance entirely. Where bio trophies live it's easy to gain absurd stability and efficiency
I'd say that the Sentry Array's final ability to reveal the entire galaxy is an extremely helpful advantage given you can directly see other empires' fleet position and power. Ambushes from players become much less likely to get the better of you, especially when jump-drives can let you position your fleet beyond hyperlane detection range. Plus it neutralizes the issues that nebulas bring which is nice.
Sentry Array is absolutely OP. I don’t build them anymore as it takes all fun out of a game. There is no fun in knowing exactly the power of an other empire, exactly where their ships are, no matter how far or close this empire is to you. It’s basically Fog of War cheat mode. Boring as hell, and in most long multiplayer sessions I play, they ban the building of it entirely
@@tylerlambert8400 other empires shouldn't last long with all that knowledge after anyways unless you're going for a diplomatic run because the sentry array is like the final peace for actually having full wars, the information it gives you should let you out smart and dodge any dangerous fleet on fleet combat when it's online which means you shouldn't ever lose a fight.
I think the interstellar assembly is at least in between B and C tier because of the extra envoys for either federations or Galactic Community And SCC is also an in between A and B because of the extra star base count which really helps if you end up over your count(the repeatable you mentioned only has 5 stages)
Agreed. Envoys are hard to get outside of running a diplomatic build, so the assembly opens up a lot of diplomatic and espionage options for players who want to start with a more competitive build of just RP as something other than a Federation builder.
It may sound weird, but for me priority of Strategic Coordination Center depends on if I can see an opportunity to get 2-3 of them in foreseeable future. If I see ruined one just outside my territory and one controlled by another empire in my neighborhood, then I'll start planning to dedicate resources towards it. Increasing starbase and defense platform capacity might not be optimal way to play, but it's an easy and relaxing one. Screw minmaxing:P
Given then vast cost of the interstellar assembly, and the opportunity cost of not building a different megastructure, I think it deserves its place. All those alloys just for 2 envoys, and a bit of extra diplo weight in the senate, is a hard sell!
Yeah it sucks being in the late game and not being able to build enough starbases when you're trying to deal with piracy and trade collection and things like that
Envoys alone make Diplo builds remarkably stronger. But yeah, opportunity cost. I feel like megastructures for me are more something that you develop when you're already a dominant or at least rival superpower in the galaxy. Or something you build up as you're prepping for the 25x crisis, ha
I played with it on multiple player with someone else and we conquered the whole galaxy without issue, but I'm probably running a better pc then most people
@@cosmicgrim7963 unless your whole group was running the same pc you had, small galaxy, no xenocompatbility, with logstic growth turned down, and default for most settings
I always build S and A Tier along with Strategic Coordination Center, rest are situational. On the other hand if you find a Ringworld system like Sanctuary it's a perfect situation, restoration is ok, but you still need tech and resources. If you build one it's only flex and most likely too late to be really beneficial.
I love megastructures but almost never build a ring world because if I don't find Sanctuary or the Cybrex I'll just take over the machine fallen empire which has three of them.
Hold on, isn't sanctuary the system with the primitives on a ringworld? I mean finding that is SSS tier! Have to agree though, usually its better to just build more ships after you have 4 or so megastructures
Good thing you can stack'em you going to have to. Vanilla mega shipyard has 20 production slots and 100% production speed. You can only build 1. (you can seize more from other empires through conquest or integration) Orbital shipyard has 8 i think, and a bit of prod speed Ring shipyard has 12 slots or so, requires a molten world, gives some production speed. Strategically, making alloys from what basically was a dead world is nice, but it's gotta be populated, managed. Oh and they have to be 'plugged in' to the starbase. A trivial cost all things considered.
+1 for this comment. The diversity and sheer amount of different megastructures gives much flavor to the mid and end game. I really liked how they give you a bunch of options on output, cost, build time, and upkeep as well as limit certain megastructures instead of all of them.
4:24 the mage-art installation is pretty strong for hive minds and machine empire tho I just had a run where it enabled me to let about 40 more pops to work actual jobs
@@hubermayer7551 not me on my first time playing as a gestalt empire with non machine pops: "What do you mean they need more than food!? They're in the matrix!"
Strategic Coordination Center is super good IMO, I always build it as the 1st or 2nd megastructure (Mega Shipyard being the other one). Otherwise, I agree with your tier list :)
@@MontuPlays thing is at the stage i normally build it, filling up habitats is a significant issue for me. taking MUCH longer than just building the SCC(though mostly i do both). also the fact that the starbase repeatable can only be researched a limited amount of times (i think 5) meaning there is no way to increase starbase cap (with the exception of taking systems) other than the SCC.
"A dyson sphere in the lategame usually means that you don't need to worry about energy again." With the old planetary tile system: Definetly yes. Modern Stellaris: Yeah somewhat. Modded Stellaris: I needed four the last time.
My order goes like this: Megashipyard>science nexus>dyson sphere=matter decompressor>coordination center>sentry array>interstellar assembly>mega art installation
@@ValinShadow I would say it depends on what state your econimy is in. I prefer the science first but if I have let the econimy slip I would go dyson or matter as needed.
Got to say i rate the sublight speed boost higher than B. It just has such a knock-on impact, from ensuring that your fleets get where they need to be much faster, to increasing the deployment speed of your armies to the enemies' worlds from deep in your empire, to speeding up the speed at which your construction ships traverse your newly conquered territory. You could build gateways everywhere, but that only ensures that only your space has this quick transportation. AI, from what I have seen, don't tend to build all that many of them, that you can rely on them for your fleet deployment.
I may be a little biased, as I usually find the blade of the huntress in a lot of my plathroughs. Though you have to ask yourself, is it worth that many thousands of alloys?
@@MontuPlays That might be playing a factor in our difference of opinion then, because I rarely get any relics when I study archeology sites. There might also be a factor of my micro not being so good that I start overflowing with alloys, so I consider the alloy cost to be worth it.
Well depending on the size of your empire but in mid to late game, I hope you would have scattered gateways in strategic positions, where sublight speed doesn’t really matter that much anymore. In fact I usually tend to build a shipyard star base (with crew quarters) + mega shipyard in my capital system. Then build a gate in that same system. Then build gates close to my frontlines (but not too close) and then station all my fleets in my capital system. When there is a war or whatever, I can almost instantaneously deploy my fleets to any strategic position.
I agree the Mega Shipyard is the king of mega structures. I think the Matter Decompressor is essential if you wind up with more than one emunicopolis in your Empire
I've often made several for the pop growth and efficiency and not had many problems, perhaps the game plays out differently with huge galaxy. Dedicated mining worlds plus mining habs feed the foundries, I have often planned to use the decompressor but by the time I can build it, it's more the project to eliminate the mining jobs so I can have more farmers 😉😉 The reason is Megacorps don't need to manufacture CGs so zero upkeep leeching alloy upkeep and Rogue Servitor have insane low upkeep per alloy with high stability from trophies. When the channel was small I already valued merchants and then suddenly it became meta, doing stuff I made work in 2.8.2 and even 3.0.1 which was unpleasant as thrifty clerks early game weren't close to technicians. The tradition changes just made it possible to do early game
@@MontuPlays What's better than a science nexus? TWO science nexus and then getting brainslugs whilst playing a technocracy civic build. I did grin very muchly.
I see your ringworld and nexus and I raise you a mega shipard & a Dyson xD plus got freaking Cybrex so guaranteed ringworld. Luckiest start I've had so far.
Early game saw the ai spawn near a ruined Decompressor, got the broken ring world one system over. She wasnt pleased, but she was long dead by the time i got them online.
Since i start playing at the beggining of the year i always feel we need even more megastructures, like one than make food, alloys or consummer goods. I know you can just make an farmer world or an Ecumenopolis and produce thousands of that resources, but would be very cool on a Mega format :)
Mega structures are already somewhat unbalanced, but you can only have one of each, except for the ringworld. Gigastructures allow you to have dozens of dyson spheres, there’s literally an in-game achievement for having 5 of those, and same with the matter decompressor. It doesn’t mess with game balance, it outright kills it and then pees on its grave. Nidavellir, QSO, Nycoll beams, systemcrafts and co are broken as hell.
@@manofironthathasntturnedcr9817 but, as you pointed, megastructurea are already kinda broken. So when you have even one sphere and compressor you already won.
Mega Art Installation, more like a damning reminder that there's no easy way to actually get minor artifacts and you can be screwed out of getting *perfection*.
I mean megashipyards are broken. I played a game where I built one and a neighboring empire built one and restored a second one. Three mega shipyards stacked is ridiculous when you're pumping out battleships like destroyers or whole corvette swarms in less than a year. Even when I wasn't really matched against the end game crisis I could just wittle them down through attrition with swarms
and advanced AI empires usually make this one their first megastructure. if you let the AI sit on a bunch of tech for a while then you can have up to 5 megashipyards by the timme the crisis arives, if you donate a bunch of alloys to the AI then it just goes even faster.
The only thing I would add to this is that the effectiveness of sublight speed bonuses is tied to the size your empire as well as the galaxy. In a tall empire you don't need much to get around, and in a large one during late game gateways will give you enormous mobility. When invading other empires or fighting a crisis though, that speed will be important for outmaneuvering other fleets and the further away they are, the harder it is to deal with and the more valuable your sublight speed bonuses become. In any mid size galaxy or above, the Strategic Coordination Center is one of the first structures I build. Would also like to point out your comment about the repeatables for extra starbases is only able to be researched five times and it's done, so building a structure for six more is fantastic especially for an empire that is large or has many colonized systems. Megashipyard is king though, especially if you have a juggernaut on the frontline for fast reinforcement. Even better if you conquer an exterminator empire to push you borders forward in order to build gateways in other areas of the galaxy to make reinforcing trivial, the mobility and ship build speed combo to make you snowball out of control. Okay, maybe I had more than one thing to add.. my bad.
I remember the early days of Stellaris before all the massive reworks. Back when basically the only way to get Ring Worlds was to yoink them from a fallen empire that spawned with them. They were so incredible back then; now I find myself rarely ever feeling compelled to build one, and even if I find a ruined one I'm not even excited to reconstruct it.
This was rather helpful. I had no idea the mega shipyard could be built so fast, so cheaply, and with that added ship build speed bonus. I might try pairing this with a forge ecumenopolis (before I go for the galactic wonders megastructures) to pump out tons of fleets really quickly and early on.
I discovered an exploit where you can have infinite districts on a planet or habitat. I play on console so don’t know if it works on pc. So to pull off the exploit you need to build a district that you don’t want, once it’s finished go to the replace menu once you have selected the district that you want you can press the replace button as many times as you want. This causes the planet to add more spaces for those districts in effect increasing planet size. Hope this helps in some way.
I agree with everything except the sentry array’s placement. Knowing all fleet movements on the map and their strength is quite useful imo. Other than that great video as always!
There is one S-Tier list you missed; any ruined Megastructures or ones you can claim. They are cheap, and easy to fix up fast, and repairing a megastrcuture does not count towards your limit count - so you can build a second one of something if you can find or claim one from other empires. The result can be doubling or more the benefits of owning one.
I totally agree to the Strategic Command Center being B-Tier. But I think the +8Defenseplatforms is a really helping passive... maybe annoyance-killing. Normally you can only deal with piracy in tall/wide empires when one of your fleets arrive. But the + 8 Defplats can really help you there, cause the bonus counts also for the normal (non-upgraded) stations and suddenly you just feel the tickle of a 10 seconds battleship-pirate dying while trying to hurt your station. And combine this with some LR-weaponsystems and unyielding.... NPC are gonna hate it. I don't know, how good this helps against player-empires.
Overall a nice fair ranking. Sentry array deserves a better place though, you understand it in an all out war scenario like war in heaven or stage 2 or 3 of unbidden. It is useful in war of federations too! Also it would have been much more interesting if Dyson sphere energy output was a function of star type that you build it around, like Giga structure mod.
That whould be pretty cool seeing if like the red baby stars which compared to other stars Is weak and pafetic having it produce maby 2000 energy at most and maby a pulsar can produce upwards to 5000 or 6000 energy per month
I think an interesting change to make the art installation more viable would be to make it reduce the war exhaustion gained. It would work thematically by entertaining and distracting your empire’s population (the bread and circuses model) while also providing a bonus that would make it very relevant to certain play styles.
I think a cool feature for the Mega Art Installation would be to bump Xenophile faction attraction to all empires you have open borders with as they can view the Art and Culture from all different civilizations. It would also give more peaceful empires a way to unite the galaxy without resorting to war.
I was going to argue that a Dyson sphere's sheer power makes it better than a mega shipyard, but the bottom line is, when the ship hits the fan, and the crisis is overwhelming, what do you want? To be able to spit out 20 ships at a time twice as fast? Or some cash? Yeah, every serious empire should have a mega shipyard.
Personally I find the strategic coordination center 100% must build for my fortress sectors with a good fortress world a SCCS And a maxed out citadel I usually can hold off most of the end game catastrophes or... pesky fanatic purifiers that can't learn there lesson
I would normally jsut drop the citadel, it makes the system easier to retake if it is swsrming with hostiles. The planet usually breaks before the guard!
Idk if it is obvious to you or not, but I for one failed to notice for a really long time that some megastructures look different depending on what shipset you are using. The difference is pretty minor but i still felt mindblown the first time I noticed that my sentry array had lithoid textures. I had like 900 h at this point. Did any of you notice this or are you hearing about it for the first time?
I wonder if the Dyson sphere has been improved at all by the aquatic ascension? Slapping it down in a system with a large number of uninhabitable or undesirable worlds to turn them into ice worlds so you can harvest them to expand your ocean worlds sounds fun
This is conveniently useful at such time of the post, since i've just finally beaten my first Ironman game with 3 consecutive crises and survived, although surprisingly without any megastructure support at all, so this works to at least learn a bit about when they're most convenient
I don't usually build a matter decompresser, I think people sleep on how much recourses a couple of well set-up habitats can produce. Usually 4 mineral habitats are enough to outshine a decompresser. Then again if you are short on pops it's another question.
Hah your casual mention of kardashev to not only embellish the Dyson sphere in its top A spot, but also as a general expression of your interest in the topic. Instant like and subscribe.
the mega ar installation i really strong as any gestalt empire. since your amenity producing pops make up a big part of your population, they free up a considerable amount of economic potential by having less pops in useless maintenance roles. by the time you get this structure it is basically 10-20 free pops that come with the additional unity output.
It always amuse me when I play as a hivemind, they seem to enjoy art! the are patrons of the artisans and buy art monuments too! really gives some implications how its mind functions.
@@ValinShadow yeah but you cant build those right away if you dont already have a ruined megastructure. So if you play as gestalt the extra unity and the freed up pops make the mega art installation probably the best "tier 1" megastructure
@@philip8498 it's better certainly in a gesalt empire, but I still don't think it trumps mega shipyard both in terms of ship output and completion time to unlock dyson + matter decompressor. I could see it being built after those though before science nexus or scc. just my 2 cents.
You forgot the aetherophasic engine. But if you ask me is S tear, not only helps you kill the endgame crisis fast, it also destroys all those ugly xenos
The matter decompressor is affected by the omnifarious acquisition unity ambition. Generally by the time I have one built, I can run that edict (and most/all unity ambitions) constantly. So it actually ends up being like 2.6k or 2.8k. This might bump it up to S tier.
The problem with matter decomp is that getting maximum value requires reworking your empire out of mineral production unless you were already mineral poor. Dyson Sphere is better because you don't retool as many planets around it. You can dump those credits into running your fleet over cap, spamming Hive/Machine/Gaia worlds and/or buy whatever you need.
The Repeatable Tech for Starbase Capacity is limited to 5 or 10 dings. It’s not infinite. That’s part of what makes the Strategic Coordination Center more useful. The description of the final Center also contains a reference to Grand Admiral Thrawn.
"...never have to worry about energy ever again." I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over the cost of my 4k naval cap fleet costing me about 16k energy per month (and still gets obliterated by the 25x crisis).
If you're a machine empire, the mega-art installation is very powerful. You have no base unity production from administrators or your maintenance drones (what would be entertainers in organic empires), so the unity production is enough to keep the most important unity edicts running indefinitely. Secondly, the amenities bonus frees up a LOT of pops from being maintenance drones
One time I Captures like 4 mega shipyard from surrounding empires. I was building a Corvette every 5 seconds, it was insane the amount of output I had ....
I personalty feel the ring world (if you build it yourself and not restore it) is a complete waste outside of mybe the Lcluster, at that point of the game you already have designated research planets and have already researched most of the tech since you need mega-eng and feel too late to be useful, especially when you need to transfer pops to it to even begin to get your value of out of it and would rather build another dyson sphere for energy instead of having a merchant based ring world. TLDR: Ring worlds are F tier if you try building them yourself since it too late into the game to make them worthwhile, but feel free to change my mind, great vid tho! looking forward to an Archaeology/dig site or anomaly tier list!
try doing a green peace game, where your goal is to move the population of every empire off their planets. If you have giga structures you can move all pops to one solar system with either the titanic ring world or one of the other options it has.
Agreed. I think Ringworlds need a buff. I'd love to see them either get a massive boost in pop-growth and build speed via a "vast habitat" bonus, or give an empire wide bonus to organic pop-growth and immigration via a similar "enough space for everyone" bonus.
I think that I've tried to balance the restored ring section with completing an entire ring, which is why it ended up in B. Though the main issue is that after all those alloys you get no output with pops (and lots of minerals to develop) your ringworld segment.
Maybe they're not that useful, but spamming ring worlds is the best way of getting high level repeatables. Nothing in Stellaris beats the feeling when Fallen Empires start showing as "pathetic" in technology :D.
@@theodoremccarthy4438 Honestly I would like to play a version where habitats were erly tier, and ring worlds were second tier technology with the giga structures third tier technology, but the AI still does very poorly with habitats.
A question regarding defence platforms' usefulness vs the traditional battleship fleet: The strength of battleships in general and Neutron Launchers in particular is the devastating alpha strike, is it not? Artillery battleships are only out-ranged by Titans, and Neutron Launchers deal their damage instantly, so whoever can fire first will have a huge advantage, etc etc. Given all of that... I think defence platforms with neutron launchers are actually the perfect counter to an artillery-battleship fleet! After all, they can benefit from the Target Uplink Computer starbase building, which grants an enormous +50% weapon range for both the starbase and its platforms. I'm not sure exactly, but that seems like enough extra range to get potentially multiple volleys in. At 195 effective range, defence platform mounted neutron launchers can outrange even tachyon lances! Further, with regards to the meta fleet build of 70% artillery to 30% carrier battleships, since starbases themselves cannot equip large weapon slots you could fill their modules up with strike craft to cover your bases. That would also help with small, high-evasion ships and missile spam. All in all, while the lack of evasion is a pretty serious weakness, I feel like defence platforms might have more potential than you think, and I'd love to see one of your characteristically in-depth analyses on how they actually perform when built and used optimally.
I like your thinking. However, I can see a couple pf issues with your plan. First, it is the X-slot weapons that will have the opening alpha strike, followed by neutron launchers which will fire before the defense platform neutrons due to pcmbat computer/admiral/policy which should cause them to outrange the others. The +50% weapons range building sadly only applies to the dtarbase weapons and not the defence platforms. In a very small system, yes the platforms should have no problem firing in time with the battleships arrival, but that is only very small systems. Im currently in the middle of doing a defence platform testing & analysis video!
@@MontuPlays Really? The uplink says it applies its buff to both the Starbase and the platforms, but I guess this wouldn't be the first time something in Stellaris was just quietly broken for ages lol. Anyways, happy to hear tests are in progress. Hopefully your video gets pdox to give our platform bois some love
I think if the AI was consistently as powerful as the player then it would be worth it to pick up the ias because diplomatic weight between the player and the galactic superpowers would remain equal, whereas now it's common to see a player with at least 100k diplo weight over the leading AI by the arrival of the endgame when becoming custodian or establishing the imperium becomes feasible. Of course upping the power of AI brings a ton of other benefits to gameplay but the interstellar assembly site becoming a stronger thing to build is one of them.
There is also another one for S-tier: Galactic Market. If Interstellar Assembly and Art Installation are somehow megastructures, that one certainly should be one, being de facto center of galactic trade and all that.
Intelligence is also super important too. When I’m in multiple wars and facing endgame crisis, it helps to know where the enemy is going / coming from.
Aquatics megastructures look great, I just wish the models were more dependant on your shipset... and not only because I want to see a giant band of lithoid crystals around a star.
I consider art installation in B tier, the amentities means happiness, happiness means good resourcing, and I often play void dwellers or build tall, I hate resort worlds and prefer this thing, I often don’t use precious building slots for happiness buildings, usually only using luxury goods, or art monuments! I always build a science nexus first, but I do tend to build the art installation 2/3rd.
1 thing about the sentry array. It really depends on galaxy size, Also it allows you to see in nebulas so you don't have to use/lose a science ship while attacking.
The one thing I would mention is the mega art installation seems a lot better in gestalt empires and for them would personally put in in b their for them as the amnenity bonus is a lot better for them
Seriously the megashipyard is amazing. I was playing 25x crisis with two other friends and we could suffer millions of fleet power lost in a single battle and bounce back in three months
Pro tip, you can release a vassal with the appropriate megastructre tech, give them the raw resources, and they will build one for you (eventually), you can do this to get infinite dyson spheres (well not infinite but a lot more than the 1 you normally can.
Honestly, they should allow us to just build as many megastructures as we like. Its such an arbitary restriction. I want to Dyson up the entire galaxy!
So, that's a great question. In essence, yes I'd love to do tier lists (and videos on mod content). The 'issue', as far as I see it, is that it reduces the accessibility of the video. Not everyone that plays Stellaris plays that mod, so my potential audience is reduced. I've always felt that I'd like to cover all of the content in the vanilla game before moving on to mods (such as Gigastructures or Star Trek: New Horizons), but that was 5 months ago and I've made lots of videos since then. Perhaps it is time to re-examine that position!
@@MontuPlays Many players (including me) that didn't consider this mod previously might atually try it for once after seeing your video. It would also be a great AD for the mod team.
@@MontuPlays I would love to see it happen, since it would greatly improve the available content to review. There are even new things to consider. For example: For a gigastructure Tier list i would personally consider putting the Matter Decompressor in S Tier. The reason is simple, to build Gigastructures it requires an ascencion perk that needs to have a Dyson Sphere, Matter Decompressor, Ringworld or a few other mod structures to be fully upgraded. The Matter Decompressor is a very quick and fairly cheap option to achieve that goal, while providing much needed minerals for the expanding alloy production for even more structures.
With try most recent addition of the quantum catapult, I’d rank is probably in the B teir. It’s nice to have but certainly not required. Definitely some games where I am glad I built it but others where it sits there without being used. I like it though and it’s relatively cheap to build
Late game build yes till you get cybrex precursor then u get delive into the secrets of the cybrex and they give u megastructure research and 10% mega structure build speed. I did this and got mega structure by year 2320
Interstellar assembly is great for a diplomatic game(duh) as the opinion is often just the thing that lets you vassalize or invite into a federation another empire. Adding another empire to your collection without wasting the time on conquest is always great. Envoys are impossible to get with just pops, unlike say alloys that you always have too much. And you need *lots* of envoys if you need to both maintain a bunch of spy networks, a massive federation, your voting power, AND that time you need 20 envoys yesterday improving opinion with an empire that has just lost their fleet and might consider a vassalization offer from you. Or join another federation if you're too late.
Ring world and nihilistic acquisition are a fantastic combo, together you can negate the main downside of the ring world. This combo for me puts ring worlds at the top.
I absolutely love this video, you were able to bring the strengths of each megastructure and have enough information so people watching could absorb it into their future games. In my future games I’ll just make sure I play Pokémon megastructures, how dare Xenos feel like they are allowed to be successful in MY galaxy.
Ring World from scratch is C tier at best. By the time you get one up and populated you're into repeatables, so Science has gone down in value compared to fleet size and ability to re-build ships quickly. Also consumer goods empires can't specialize ring worlds for Alloy production, so you end up swimming in consumer goods if you dedicate segments to factories. However, if you can snatch one early, they're really good. Otherwise, they just don't come online fast enough to push you into the last tier of tech. Ecumenopolii, Gaia, Hive and Machine worlds are just faster. My rankings: Must Have: Mega Shipyard, SCC, Dyson Sphere Really Good: Science Nexus, Matter Decomp It Depends: Assembly (PvE stewardship), Art (hive mind) Nice-to-have: Sentry Array Not worth: Ring World
a couple things I mostly agree with your assessment of the Strategic Coordination Centre but i think you undervalue it slightly (i still think its probably B tier, just a bit of a better B. Maybe B+). while you can get similar naval cap from fortress habitats, the SCC saves you on those pops so they can do other things, and you have to wait for them to grow anyways just like you have to wait for the SCC to build (though they are available much earlier admittedly and is much cheaper). The starbase cap also lets you get even more naval cap for a total of around 360(?) naval cap if you turn them all into anchorages. That coupled with the sublight speed makes it pretty great imo I am probably a bit biased though. I love habitats but after building a bunch I just get sad and stop looking at them because all that micro makes my brain cry in regards to the dyson sphere for trade empires, i think its really good. In my experience ( as a relatively non-competitive player tbf) energy becomes the biggest bottleneck of fleet size. Having an extra 4k energy along with massive energy from trade means you can just churn out more and more fleets without much worry. yeah you do get progressively higher % upkeep as you go higher over your fleet cap but an extra few fleets can make a big difference in a war with another player Outside of this I pretty much agree with everything you've said. Great video as always :))
One thing I would like to see, though I guess we get it from Gigastructures, is the ability to terraform worlds at extreme cost. IE terraforming barren and toxic worlds, just with some more restrictions.
Hey Montu could you possibly make a video about what repeatable techs to go for? I notice your ship load outs normally change after repeatable but I don't quite know what repeatable those are.
4:20 With a resort world and mega-art installation you pretty much don't need any amenity jobs. Just the administrators are able to provide everything you need.
I use the Interstellar Assembly to “attract” customers. The plus 50 opinion, and extra envoys is a good thing to have when you still have a few more empires that need convincing. Plus, I should add, that if you build a Mega Shipyard, slap into the L Cluster, that way, if you go to war, you can just fire ships right into the enemies back door! And since you can build so many off this shipyard, you can send a whole fleet in very quickly.
Hmm if I remember correctly Starbase capacity"repeatable" actually has a limit (as in it isn't truly repeatable ad infinitum but only come around roughly 5 times or so).
Could you do a tier list of the Gigastructures megastructures? That feels like it could be a continuation/DLC all its own (Except the EHOF, that kinda breaks things.)
For once I must slightly disagree, granted practically solely with the Sentry Array. While certainly it is not as powerful as some of the other megastructures in pure flat bonuses, in fact I'd consider its Intel bonus practically worthless, I do believe the tactical and strategical advantage of being able to see all empire's vessels, planets, stations and more is absolutely indispensable. That combined with its, as mentioned, low build time creates a rather nice combination for an early, solid Megastructure that will retain its usefulness over time within wars and keeping tabs on the entire galaxy with ease. Knowing when I have an opportunity to strike, or when I am about to be caught with my pants down, is an advantage that I can simply not understate. As always however, excellent video and keep up the good work.
S. Mega shipyard. Dyson. Science nexus. Mega shipyard is self explanatory, ship go brrrr The Dyson sphere is Amazing! My approach is not to move ALL my pops out of technician jobs and have a shit ton of extra energy to trade with the neighboring empire's or on the galactic market. The science nexus is ALWAYS the first megastructure I build, number 1 is that sweet, sweet 900 research with turns into 1000 after the research speed bonus plus it unlocks galactic wonders. A. ring world. Matter decompresser. Yes you have to populate the ring world but for me it helps negate some of the late game micro build one slap 9 research segments and one housing and just let auto resettle make science go BRRRR. basically what you said montu, for the matter decompresser just move those miners on my new ring world. The rest I agree with except for one F. Mega art installation. Fuck you for taking my minor artifacts you fucking asshole. TL:DR fuck mega art installation.
I Put The Science Nexus in S tier, a boost in your research helps a LOT, and we have a a event that happens when we complete this megastructure which is that one of your scientists will "transfer" his own brain to the megastructure, giving you more bonuses (I forgot what the bonuses are). Of course it is expensive and takes time, but knowing that there are edits, perks that reduce the time to build, makes this structure worth a lot and one of your priorities to build
I do think it’s worth noting the opportunity cost of having to shove envoys to spy on one enemy at a time. That envoy could be controlling votes in the senate, holding your federation together, improving relations, and more. That, and the fact that a surprise war declaration from someone you didn’t happen to be wasting an envoy on spying will leave you clueless still. Sentry array avoids ALL of those situations while also adding two envoys on top of it all.
My go to in most games is finding a system with a ton of planets to build habitats in, if there are resources directly on those planets I'll develop them but if not, they get robot assembly plants and a station with a transit hub. Makes filling those research ringworlds ALOT easier to fill
The matter decompressor definitely is in the S-tier for me, due to minerals stopping to matter when you get to it, not to mention the chance to put your miners into better jobs. Since I am not a conquest-happy player, getting new planets is often not an option for me. And then there's also the matter of the stifled pop growth in the late game since 3.0.
The most recent game I declared "completed" (I usually turn victory off because I like having basically infinite playtime) was a Megacorp that I wound up building a lot of Megastructures. I don't think I _ever_ bothered with the Mega Art Installation... but I did build six Ringworlds that I used for Commercial. I wasn't super worried about tech production by this point in the game, but I'd say that situationally - specifically for a Megacorp - a Commercial Ringworld might be a B-Tier Megastructure, simply due to the fact that once all the Jobs were being worked on all four segments, each of my Ringworlds were producing ~4k Trade Value, and since I'd gone back to Wealth Creation Trade Policy, that literally made each Ringworld essentially another Dyson Sphere. The only real downside is how long it takes to populate those Ringworlds, but thanks to Transit Hubs, Gene Clinics, and Robot Assembly Plants, plus a bunch of Migration Treaties, it wound up not being a huge deal. Plus, I had like +1500 Alloys a month, so cost was immaterial. It's part of the reason my Trade Value at the end of the game was somewhere in the 25 Dyson Spheres range. I also built _one_ Strategic Coordination Center... and captured _three more_ in wars. And having 4 Strategic Coordination Centers was just... fantastic.
So a note about the Sentry Array being "replaceable" by espionage: This only applies to other normal AI empires AND is limited by your envoy count. The only time I find that I actually have more envoy's than normal AI empires are the times I am running a super diplomatic type empire and I need those envoys for Federations or improving relations in said case. Also you can't spy on the Crisis, fallen/awoken empires, the Great Khan or the Grey Tempest. Which also tend to be the things you REALLY want to keep track of. I find the "Can only build one mega-structure" or "It takes 20+ years" a bit weak of an argument as the Ambition and Ascension perk that improve build speed/count are some of the most desirable things to get. If anything I find alloy output the bigger limiter to making the first 2-3 mega-structures than the time or build cap. For the Strategic Coordination Center: Starbase repeatable tech has an actual cap of 5 unlike most other repeatables which increase into infinity. As such +6 is actually a respectable number of Starbases as your base cap is 12 after all techs, +1 per 10 systems, +4 with Unyielding, +5 for an ascension perk, +4 from a Megacorp Civic and +2 from an Edict. It's as high as a 40% increase to Starbase cap and even if you have a ludicrous amount of cap from systems you would want those extra Starbases MORE.
The Dyson Spheres are a perfect example for the use some Mega Structures have depending on the playstyle. I made the experience whenever I play a MegaCorp, by the time I am able to start building a Dyson Sphere I already have 1.5 to 2.0 energy outcome I would get from an already finished Dyson Sphere which makes it just a glorified Energy District. The income is so absurd that even in the late early game I am able to compensate a low aloy production just with money.
Some Megastructures are more powerful and I mostly agree with the order, but there's no "wasting a Megastructure build slot". With the Ascention perk and the ambition you can build 3 at once, not to mention the build speed bonus. The only thing Megastructures can waste are Alloys spent on ships.
3 at once is still pretty limiting, given there are 10 total! I usually wouldnt take the Master Builders ascension perk for an extra slot anymore. I don't think its really worth it...
The Mega Art Installation can actually be obtained incredibly early if you get lucky with the result of the "Too Angled" archeological dig site. There's a 10% chance it awards 10% of the Mega Art Installation technology, and makes it a permanent research option. You don't actually need the Mega Engineering technology to build it if you get this. It takes a significant amount of time and resources to build it up before you would build megastructures under normal circumstances, but getting it built early can really be a serious boost in the midgame, not to mention being able to get Galactic Wonders as soon as you research Mega Engineering.
Considering how long and costly James Web telescope construction was, can we consider it a galactic wonder?
Let's hope it launches and makes it
I would call it a system wonder
Nah, it's probably the equivalent of scanner tech tier minus 3 or something. Which is still a tier higher than we had before.
Funny, but still hurts:(
It is launching this Christmas
In regards to the Sentry Array, with how boring espionage currently is, I think it's worth building it just so I don't have to do a "gather information" operation every month to keep tabs on the galaxy
Every one of them is worth getting, the question is which ones to prioritize.
I agree. In my current game I'm trying to complete it because about half of the AI empires have fractured into 3+ new empires each which means I'll never have enough spies to watch them all, so the Sentry Array is my best (if not only) option to know what all the other empires are doing and what their fleets are like.
In an ideal world you build them all. The issue is which ones do we build first. Honestly I don't think the Sentry Array is up there
@@MontuPlays it'll definately never be my first mega construction in any game, but I'm also yet to go a game without it. It's not the strongest mega construction, but it helps me plan my war paths and I like not having to guess on where hostile empires have their ships and what they have.
@@StarboyXL9 I do in some but going around to every single ai empire and the many fractured bits they tend to make just to get enough info to see all their ships seems a bit much to me personally. In my current play through one empire has legit split into 6 separate smaller empires. I started the game with originally 9 (I exterminated a few so +/-2) ai empires, but now after a third of them suddenly fractured I have somewhere in the 20+ ai empires. In my opinion going around to each empire then spending the money to get the info I want is just too much. Like I said this is my opinion, so if you feel different and actually enjoy going around to each empire then props to you but it's just not my cup of tea.
A note on Sentry Arrays;
Another hidden advantage I have found is the ability to see into Nebula and L-Cluster regions which normally are sensor-blocked.
So tactically it is a helpful tool.
This is also something you get from high enough intel!
@@MontuPlays in certain cases you might not have enough envoys to field espionage ops. Also the fact that if you are Genocidal you can't even do diplomacy.
@@cptlonesong3211 So basically, its kind of fitting to have COMPLETE overwatch on the galaxy if you are genocidal or geno exterminators.
@@jxslayz666 well you need to know what they are before you gun them down
@@MontuPlays I don’t have the time for intel when I’m currently trying to create The first galactic empire after I became custodian
I'm very interested to see how the utility of the Mega Art Installation may change with the rework of Unity and Admin Cap coming soon.
I'm still not sure the unity generation at that late point in the game is going to be enough.
@@MontuPlays hopefully it will
@@MontuPlays It just cost alloy
@@MontuPlays I think unity should be a "level", not a resource that stacks. Say, you try and keep it at a certain number between 0 and 100, similar to stability on planets, but instead if you're on the positive, you can sustain the tradition unlocking. if it is on the negative side, maybe its getting slower, or halting altogether, if youre horribly in the red you get some sort of penalties. Would be more interesting than how it works now, and unity will no longer be obselete by end game, even if it is just to keep a penalty at bay.
@@MontuPlays If it's going to be a supplement or replacement for administrative capacity (which is the impression I got, although I could easily be wrong about that) then you'll need it to keep expanding without penalties.
I was a bit surprised at first that Dyson Sphere didn't make it to S tier, but once you explained the speed and cost considerations for the Mega Shipyard I have to say I agree. Great video!
Haha great to hear I managed to represent my opinion in a robust way!
Thing is if you made sure to build a strong economy from game start with trade/generators, a dyson sphere wont be top priority.
So the trick is to find a damaged dyson sphere at the start of the game.
Then you restore that, and you use the power from that to build a second one.
8k energy credits a month is a nice little boost to your economy.
Funny thing about the mega shipyard is if you capture one from another empire the bonus stack so you can get a 200% bonus ship speed and that's just as ridiculous as it sounds
It is wonderful!
Now add the crisis path and maybe a matterdecompressor and u are unstopable
now, try going with, like, 5 mega shipyards.. that is fun, titans built in like 300 days
I try to chill around the time other empires are making mega structures and just snipe them once they are don't building. I always try to have 2 of each lol
I didn't know that! I thought it was just the 20 shipyards for anything beyond the first. That seems a bit broken, lol.
I love going interstellar assembly because it helps me rush galactic imperium. I can pretty reliably start the galactic imperium 100 years before crisis happens.
That sounds to me like you should bring forwards the end game start year... by about 100 years haha
Once got 3 Mega Shipyards in a single game.
That's when I learned that the bonus it provides will stack with other Shipyards.
I could build a Battleship in a month.
Let's just say that the game ended very quickly afterwards.
holy smokes.
Holy shit imagine shitting out titans that fast!
Another thing I'd like to add with the Dyson sphere:
The large energy output means that you can accumulate wealth quickly and then spend it on other resources such as alloys or strategic resources, so it can be useful even if you're not using it for upkeep of anything.
By the end game your ship upkeep is gonna be like 3k maybe 4k. So really it's going to be trade and energy distracts that's going to be buying everything.
I think that if you play as a gestalt, art installation would be a B tier because it's freed some of your amenities drones to do something useful. and unity production is a very nice bonus.
Yes thats definitely something I can see, and would possibly agree with. Personally i just dislike that megastructure... only a little biased
Well with Contingency Core relic, I've ended up with 3 Art (captured 1 from the Xphile Awakened Empire as I wanted to use my dark matter) and using the unity edicts heavily I've been running at a loss gone from 1mi unity to less than 500k, but my bio trophies are giving insane stability 😁
In many places I just can use some drone storage, a waste processing plant from the Rackets and eliminate the maintenance entirely.
Where bio trophies live it's easy to gain absurd stability and efficiency
I'd say that the Sentry Array's final ability to reveal the entire galaxy is an extremely helpful advantage given you can directly see other empires' fleet position and power. Ambushes from players become much less likely to get the better of you, especially when jump-drives can let you position your fleet beyond hyperlane detection range. Plus it neutralizes the issues that nebulas bring which is nice.
Another issue with sentry aray is it can make late game VERY laggy because everything is rendered
Sentry array should be an F tier because its boosts the mid to late game lag
Sentry Array is absolutely OP. I don’t build them anymore as it takes all fun out of a game. There is no fun in knowing exactly the power of an other empire, exactly where their ships are, no matter how far or close this empire is to you.
It’s basically Fog of War cheat mode. Boring as hell, and in most long multiplayer sessions I play, they ban the building of it entirely
@@tylerlambert8400 other empires shouldn't last long with all that knowledge after anyways unless you're going for a diplomatic run because the sentry array is like the final peace for actually having full wars, the information it gives you should let you out smart and dodge any dangerous fleet on fleet combat when it's online which means you shouldn't ever lose a fight.
@@trutwhut6550 spy networks made the sentry array irrelevant. With enough spy network you can see the entirety of an empire
I think the interstellar assembly is at least in between B and C tier because of the extra envoys for either federations or Galactic Community
And SCC is also an in between A and B because of the extra star base count which really helps if you end up over your count(the repeatable you mentioned only has 5 stages)
Agreed. Envoys are hard to get outside of running a diplomatic build, so the assembly opens up a lot of diplomatic and espionage options for players who want to start with a more competitive build of just RP as something other than a Federation builder.
It may sound weird, but for me priority of Strategic Coordination Center depends on if I can see an opportunity to get 2-3 of them in foreseeable future. If I see ruined one just outside my territory and one controlled by another empire in my neighborhood, then I'll start planning to dedicate resources towards it. Increasing starbase and defense platform capacity might not be optimal way to play, but it's an easy and relaxing one. Screw minmaxing:P
Given then vast cost of the interstellar assembly, and the opportunity cost of not building a different megastructure, I think it deserves its place. All those alloys just for 2 envoys, and a bit of extra diplo weight in the senate, is a hard sell!
Yeah it sucks being in the late game and not being able to build enough starbases when you're trying to deal with piracy and trade collection and things like that
Envoys alone make Diplo builds remarkably stronger. But yeah, opportunity cost. I feel like megastructures for me are more something that you develop when you're already a dominant or at least rival superpower in the galaxy. Or something you build up as you're prepping for the 25x crisis, ha
It always makes my day better when you post thanks!
That's lovely to hear! I hope you enjoy the video
@@MontuPlays I'm currently watching it and I am enjoying very much
Sentry Array should be Tier F because of how bad the lag is when all the lanes are visible once it's completed.
Oh no. It can be a lag bomb for some people, shoudl have mentioned that!
I played with it on multiple player with someone else and we conquered the whole galaxy without issue, but I'm probably running a better pc then most people
@@cosmicgrim7963 net matters more if you are playing multiplayer, desynch with one player lags everyone so your specs dont matter
@@cosmicgrim7963 unless your whole group was running the same pc you had, small galaxy, no xenocompatbility, with logstic growth turned down, and default for most settings
@@loafofbread9400 nope, max settings on the biggest world and I hosted with dogshit internet
I always build S and A Tier along with Strategic Coordination Center, rest are situational. On the other hand if you find a Ringworld system like Sanctuary it's a perfect situation, restoration is ok, but you still need tech and resources. If you build one it's only flex and most likely too late to be really beneficial.
I love megastructures but almost never build a ring world because if I don't find Sanctuary or the Cybrex I'll just take over the machine fallen empire which has three of them.
Personally I like to build all of the structures because by the late game I'll be able to have the industry to do it.
I tend to spam ringworlds, for all the science farming
Hold on, isn't sanctuary the system with the primitives on a ringworld? I mean finding that is SSS tier!
Have to agree though, usually its better to just build more ships after you have 4 or so megastructures
@@MontuPlays So it's Super Saiyan God Tier?
Would love a revised list with "Gigastructural Engineering & More" mode included :)
And if you play with NSC too starbases go crazy. I've had 40 shipyard slots on one system and I think it can go higher.
Good thing you can stack'em you going to have to.
Vanilla mega shipyard has 20 production slots and 100% production speed. You can only build 1. (you can seize more from other empires through conquest or integration)
Orbital shipyard has 8 i think, and a bit of prod speed
Ring shipyard has 12 slots or so, requires a molten world, gives some production speed. Strategically, making alloys from what basically was a dead world is nice, but it's gotta be populated, managed.
Oh and they have to be 'plugged in' to the starbase. A trivial cost all things considered.
+1 for this comment. The diversity and sheer amount of different megastructures gives much flavor to the mid and end game. I really liked how they give you a bunch of options on output, cost, build time, and upkeep as well as limit certain megastructures instead of all of them.
Does Birch worlds blow the matter decompressor out of the water?
4:24 the mage-art installation is pretty strong for hive minds and machine empire tho
I just had a run where it enabled me to let about 40 more pops to work actual jobs
yeah as a gestalt amenities are a serious problem. Very much unlike a normal empire
@@hubermayer7551 not me on my first time playing as a gestalt empire with non machine pops: "What do you mean they need more than food!? They're in the matrix!"
Strategic Coordination Center is super good IMO, I always build it as the 1st or 2nd megastructure (Mega Shipyard being the other one). Otherwise, I agree with your tier list :)
Personally I prefer fortress habitats, so I don't tend to have a naval cap issue.
It is a completely vaild strategy as well! I prefer every possible pops slaving as researchers or metallurgists :)
@@MontuPlays thing is at the stage i normally build it, filling up habitats is a significant issue for me. taking MUCH longer than just building the SCC(though mostly i do both). also the fact that the starbase repeatable can only be researched a limited amount of times (i think 5) meaning there is no way to increase starbase cap (with the exception of taking systems) other than the SCC.
@@MontuPlays There's no replacement for the sublight speed increase, though.
"A dyson sphere in the lategame usually means that you don't need to worry about energy again."
With the old planetary tile system:
Definetly yes.
Modern Stellaris:
Yeah somewhat.
Modded Stellaris:
I needed four the last time.
Old planetary tile system?
@@kjj26k when districts weren't a thing and you had buildings for everything. You could just colonize a planet and build 25 Powerplants on it
My order goes like this:
Megashipyard>science nexus>dyson sphere=matter decompressor>coordination center>sentry array>interstellar assembly>mega art installation
imo Dyson + Matter before Science Nexus, but I also build a Gateway network after Shipyard before moving on the Dyson + Matter
I'd say we almost completely agree!
@@ValinShadow I would say it depends on what state your econimy is in. I prefer the science first but if I have let the econimy slip I would go dyson or matter as needed.
Got to say i rate the sublight speed boost higher than B. It just has such a knock-on impact, from ensuring that your fleets get where they need to be much faster, to increasing the deployment speed of your armies to the enemies' worlds from deep in your empire, to speeding up the speed at which your construction ships traverse your newly conquered territory. You could build gateways everywhere, but that only ensures that only your space has this quick transportation. AI, from what I have seen, don't tend to build all that many of them, that you can rely on them for your fleet deployment.
I may be a little biased, as I usually find the blade of the huntress in a lot of my plathroughs. Though you have to ask yourself, is it worth that many thousands of alloys?
@@MontuPlays That might be playing a factor in our difference of opinion then, because I rarely get any relics when I study archeology sites.
There might also be a factor of my micro not being so good that I start overflowing with alloys, so I consider the alloy cost to be worth it.
Well depending on the size of your empire but in mid to late game, I hope you would have scattered gateways in strategic positions, where sublight speed doesn’t really matter that much anymore. In fact I usually tend to build a shipyard star base (with crew quarters) + mega shipyard in my capital system. Then build a gate in that same system. Then build gates close to my frontlines (but not too close) and then station all my fleets in my capital system. When there is a war or whatever, I can almost instantaneously deploy my fleets to any strategic position.
@@MontuPlays but moooaaaahhhhhrrrrrr base mean LESS farmers!!!
I agree the Mega Shipyard is the king of mega structures. I think the Matter Decompressor is essential if you wind up with more than one emunicopolis in your Empire
I agree, it is almost impossible to fund a seconf ecumenopolis without a decompressor
I've often made several for the pop growth and efficiency and not had many problems, perhaps the game plays out differently with huge galaxy.
Dedicated mining worlds plus mining habs feed the foundries, I have often planned to use the decompressor but by the time I can build it, it's more the project to eliminate the mining jobs so I can have more farmers 😉😉
The reason is Megacorps don't need to manufacture CGs so zero upkeep leeching alloy upkeep and Rogue Servitor have insane low upkeep per alloy with high stability from trophies.
When the channel was small I already valued merchants and then suddenly it became meta, doing stuff I made work in 2.8.2 and even 3.0.1 which was unpleasant as thrifty clerks early game weren't close to technicians.
The tradition changes just made it possible to do early game
Totally lucked out in my latest game and got both ruined ring-world and ruined science nexus to rebuild.
Oh sweet! I love finding a ruined science nexus.
@@MontuPlays What's better than a science nexus? TWO science nexus and then getting brainslugs whilst playing a technocracy civic build. I did grin very muchly.
I see your ringworld and nexus and I raise you a mega shipard & a Dyson xD plus got freaking Cybrex so guaranteed ringworld. Luckiest start I've had so far.
@@tezatheboffin2184 and then you also get erudite...
Early game saw the ai spawn near a ruined Decompressor, got the broken ring world one system over.
She wasnt pleased, but she was long dead by the time i got them online.
Since i start playing at the beggining of the year i always feel we need even more megastructures, like one than make food, alloys or consummer goods. I know you can just make an farmer world or an Ecumenopolis and produce thousands of that resources, but would be very cool on a Mega format :)
I’d recommend the gigastructures mod on the steam workshop if you play on pc. Adds like 40 something new megastructures.
Welcome to Stellaris. I hope you're enjoying it!
@@nukessolveeverything5340 ditto on gigastructures. Amazing mod. Messes with game balances though
Mega structures are already somewhat unbalanced, but you can only have one of each, except for the ringworld. Gigastructures allow you to have dozens of dyson spheres, there’s literally an in-game achievement for having 5 of those, and same with the matter decompressor. It doesn’t mess with game balance, it outright kills it and then pees on its grave. Nidavellir, QSO, Nycoll beams, systemcrafts and co are broken as hell.
@@manofironthathasntturnedcr9817 but, as you pointed, megastructurea are already kinda broken. So when you have even one sphere and compressor you already won.
Mega Art Installation, more like a damning reminder that there's no easy way to actually get minor artifacts and you can be screwed out of getting *perfection*.
It can be so annoying. It is a bit too rng based
I mean megashipyards are broken. I played a game where I built one and a neighboring empire built one and restored a second one. Three mega shipyards stacked is ridiculous when you're pumping out battleships like destroyers or whole corvette swarms in less than a year. Even when I wasn't really matched against the end game crisis I could just wittle them down through attrition with swarms
and advanced AI empires usually make this one their first megastructure. if you let the AI sit on a bunch of tech for a while then you can have up to 5 megashipyards by the timme the crisis arives, if you donate a bunch of alloys to the AI then it just goes even faster.
I love how you don'T even explain how the shipyards turned from being your neighbour's to being your own XD
I would have thought that keeping an alloy economy strong enough to keep up with the pace of 3 mega shipyards would be all but impossible.
@@UrVileWedge foundry ecumenopoly are pretty good structures
@@Aja-e5j I mean bloody bloody conquest. How else ?
The only thing I would add to this is that the effectiveness of sublight speed bonuses is tied to the size your empire as well as the galaxy. In a tall empire you don't need much to get around, and in a large one during late game gateways will give you enormous mobility. When invading other empires or fighting a crisis though, that speed will be important for outmaneuvering other fleets and the further away they are, the harder it is to deal with and the more valuable your sublight speed bonuses become. In any mid size galaxy or above, the Strategic Coordination Center is one of the first structures I build. Would also like to point out your comment about the repeatables for extra starbases is only able to be researched five times and it's done, so building a structure for six more is fantastic especially for an empire that is large or has many colonized systems. Megashipyard is king though, especially if you have a juggernaut on the frontline for fast reinforcement. Even better if you conquer an exterminator empire to push you borders forward in order to build gateways in other areas of the galaxy to make reinforcing trivial, the mobility and ship build speed combo to make you snowball out of control.
Okay, maybe I had more than one thing to add.. my bad.
I remember the early days of Stellaris before all the massive reworks. Back when basically the only way to get Ring Worlds was to yoink them from a fallen empire that spawned with them. They were so incredible back then; now I find myself rarely ever feeling compelled to build one, and even if I find a ruined one I'm not even excited to reconstruct it.
This was rather helpful. I had no idea the mega shipyard could be built so fast, so cheaply, and with that added ship build speed bonus. I might try pairing this with a forge ecumenopolis (before I go for the galactic wonders megastructures) to pump out tons of fleets really quickly and early on.
*laughs in maginot world* (although thats technically a gigastructure mod)
I discovered an exploit where you can have infinite districts on a planet or habitat. I play on console so don’t know if it works on pc. So to pull off the exploit you need to build a district that you don’t want, once it’s finished go to the replace menu once you have selected the district that you want you can press the replace button as many times as you want. This causes the planet to add more spaces for those districts in effect increasing planet size. Hope this helps in some way.
the districts are cancelled with no refund cost once the cap is hit.
@@micramism6431 must have patched it then
I agree with everything except the sentry array’s placement. Knowing all fleet movements on the map and their strength is quite useful imo. Other than that great video as always!
There is one S-Tier list you missed; any ruined Megastructures or ones you can claim.
They are cheap, and easy to fix up fast, and repairing a megastrcuture does not count towards your limit count - so you can build a second one of something if you can find or claim one from other empires. The result can be doubling or more the benefits of owning one.
I mean absolutely, I just didn't feel I would fit with the style of list I was going with
I totally agree to the Strategic Command Center being B-Tier. But I think the +8Defenseplatforms is a really helping passive... maybe annoyance-killing. Normally you can only deal with piracy in tall/wide empires when one of your fleets arrive. But the + 8 Defplats can really help you there, cause the bonus counts also for the normal (non-upgraded) stations and suddenly you just feel the tickle of a 10 seconds battleship-pirate dying while trying to hurt your station. And combine this with some LR-weaponsystems and unyielding.... NPC are gonna hate it. I don't know, how good this helps against player-empires.
If you are having piracy issues, gateways are usually the best answer! I have a video on it somewhere
Overall a nice fair ranking. Sentry array deserves a better place though, you understand it in an all out war scenario like war in heaven or stage 2 or 3 of unbidden. It is useful in war of federations too!
Also it would have been much more interesting if Dyson sphere energy output was a function of star type that you build it around, like Giga structure mod.
That whould be pretty cool seeing if like the red baby stars which compared to other stars Is weak and pafetic having it produce maby 2000 energy at most and maby a pulsar can produce upwards to 5000 or 6000 energy per month
I think an interesting change to make the art installation more viable would be to make it reduce the war exhaustion gained. It would work thematically by entertaining and distracting your empire’s population (the bread and circuses model) while also providing a bonus that would make it very relevant to certain play styles.
I think a cool feature for the Mega Art Installation would be to bump Xenophile faction attraction to all empires you have open borders with as they can view the Art and Culture from all different civilizations. It would also give more peaceful empires a way to unite the galaxy without resorting to war.
I was going to argue that a Dyson sphere's sheer power makes it better than a mega shipyard, but the bottom line is, when the ship hits the fan, and the crisis is overwhelming, what do you want? To be able to spit out 20 ships at a time twice as fast? Or some cash?
Yeah, every serious empire should have a mega shipyard.
Personally I find the strategic coordination center 100% must build for my fortress sectors with a good fortress world a SCCS And a maxed out citadel I usually can hold off most of the end game catastrophes or... pesky fanatic purifiers that can't learn there lesson
I would normally jsut drop the citadel, it makes the system easier to retake if it is swsrming with hostiles. The planet usually breaks before the guard!
@@MontuPlays Kadia stands!
With the change in unity recently, the mega art installation has become a lot more valuable.
Wow, I thought the megashipyard gave +100% build speed for itself only. I had not realized it was empire wide. that is amazing!
Idk if it is obvious to you or not, but I for one failed to notice for a really long time that some megastructures look different depending on what shipset you are using. The difference is pretty minor but i still felt mindblown the first time I noticed that my sentry array had lithoid textures. I had like 900 h at this point. Did any of you notice this or are you hearing about it for the first time?
I only really noticed that for the first time whilst filming this video, I was using the aquatic shipset and noticed all of the aquatic details!
Forgot the main benefit of sensor array. It reduces game speed to allow you to react faster to events
rofl
I wonder if the Dyson sphere has been improved at all by the aquatic ascension? Slapping it down in a system with a large number of uninhabitable or undesirable worlds to turn them into ice worlds so you can harvest them to expand your ocean worlds sounds fun
This is conveniently useful at such time of the post, since i've just finally beaten my first Ironman game with 3 consecutive crises and survived, although surprisingly without any megastructure support at all, so this works to at least learn a bit about when they're most convenient
I don't usually build a matter decompresser, I think people sleep on how much recourses a couple of well set-up habitats can produce. Usually 4 mineral habitats are enough to outshine a decompresser. Then again if you are short on pops it's another question.
Hah your casual mention of kardashev to not only embellish the Dyson sphere in its top A spot, but also as a general expression of your interest in the topic.
Instant like and subscribe.
the mega ar installation i really strong as any gestalt empire. since your amenity producing pops make up a big part of your population, they free up a considerable amount of economic potential by having less pops in useless maintenance roles. by the time you get this structure it is basically 10-20 free pops that come with the additional unity output.
It always amuse me when I play as a hivemind, they seem to enjoy art! the are patrons of the artisans and buy art monuments too! really gives some implications how its mind functions.
I mean sure, but Dyson Sphere + Matter Decompressor both give roughly 200 pop jobs worth of output each I believe
Yes thats a very good point, it is probably comfortably in B tier for gestalt empires!
@@ValinShadow yeah but you cant build those right away if you dont already have a ruined megastructure. So if you play as gestalt the extra unity and the freed up pops make the mega art installation probably the best "tier 1" megastructure
@@philip8498 it's better certainly in a gesalt empire, but I still don't think it trumps mega shipyard both in terms of ship output and completion time to unlock dyson + matter decompressor. I could see it being built after those though before science nexus or scc. just my 2 cents.
You forgot the aetherophasic engine. But if you ask me is S tear, not only helps you kill the endgame crisis fast, it also destroys all those ugly xenos
The matter decompressor is affected by the omnifarious acquisition unity ambition. Generally by the time I have one built, I can run that edict (and most/all unity ambitions) constantly. So it actually ends up being like 2.6k or 2.8k. This might bump it up to S tier.
The problem with matter decomp is that getting maximum value requires reworking your empire out of mineral production unless you were already mineral poor. Dyson Sphere is better because you don't retool as many planets around it. You can dump those credits into running your fleet over cap, spamming Hive/Machine/Gaia worlds and/or buy whatever you need.
That is a very good point!
The Repeatable Tech for Starbase Capacity is limited to 5 or 10 dings. It’s not infinite. That’s part of what makes the Strategic Coordination Center more useful.
The description of the final Center also contains a reference to Grand Admiral Thrawn.
"...never have to worry about energy ever again." I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over the cost of my 4k naval cap fleet costing me about 16k energy per month (and still gets obliterated by the 25x crisis).
If you're a machine empire, the mega-art installation is very powerful. You have no base unity production from administrators or your maintenance drones (what would be entertainers in organic empires), so the unity production is enough to keep the most important unity edicts running indefinitely. Secondly, the amenities bonus frees up a LOT of pops from being maintenance drones
One time I Captures like 4 mega shipyard from surrounding empires. I was building a Corvette every 5 seconds, it was insane the amount of output I had ....
I don’t know why, but it just feels so good when you complete 20 ships at once with the mega shipyard
I personalty feel the ring world (if you build it yourself and not restore it) is a complete waste outside of mybe the Lcluster, at that point of the game you already have designated research planets and have already researched most of the tech since you need mega-eng and feel too late to be useful, especially when you need to transfer pops to it to even begin to get your value of out of it and would rather build another dyson sphere for energy instead of having a merchant based ring world.
TLDR: Ring worlds are F tier if you try building them yourself since it too late into the game to make them worthwhile, but feel free to change my mind, great vid tho! looking forward to an Archaeology/dig site or anomaly tier list!
try doing a green peace game, where your goal is to move the population of every empire off their planets. If you have giga structures you can move all pops to one solar system with either the titanic ring world or one of the other options it has.
Agreed. I think Ringworlds need a buff. I'd love to see them either get a massive boost in pop-growth and build speed via a "vast habitat" bonus, or give an empire wide bonus to organic pop-growth and immigration via a similar "enough space for everyone" bonus.
I think that I've tried to balance the restored ring section with completing an entire ring, which is why it ended up in B. Though the main issue is that after all those alloys you get no output with pops (and lots of minerals to develop) your ringworld segment.
Maybe they're not that useful, but spamming ring worlds is the best way of getting high level repeatables.
Nothing in Stellaris beats the feeling when Fallen Empires start showing as "pathetic" in technology :D.
@@theodoremccarthy4438 Honestly I would like to play a version where habitats were erly tier, and ring worlds were second tier technology with the giga structures third tier technology, but the AI still does very poorly with habitats.
A question regarding defence platforms' usefulness vs the traditional battleship fleet: The strength of battleships in general and Neutron Launchers in particular is the devastating alpha strike, is it not? Artillery battleships are only out-ranged by Titans, and Neutron Launchers deal their damage instantly, so whoever can fire first will have a huge advantage, etc etc. Given all of that... I think defence platforms with neutron launchers are actually the perfect counter to an artillery-battleship fleet! After all, they can benefit from the Target Uplink Computer starbase building, which grants an enormous +50% weapon range for both the starbase and its platforms. I'm not sure exactly, but that seems like enough extra range to get potentially multiple volleys in. At 195 effective range, defence platform mounted neutron launchers can outrange even tachyon lances!
Further, with regards to the meta fleet build of 70% artillery to 30% carrier battleships, since starbases themselves cannot equip large weapon slots you could fill their modules up with strike craft to cover your bases. That would also help with small, high-evasion ships and missile spam. All in all, while the lack of evasion is a pretty serious weakness, I feel like defence platforms might have more potential than you think, and I'd love to see one of your characteristically in-depth analyses on how they actually perform when built and used optimally.
I like your thinking. However, I can see a couple pf issues with your plan. First, it is the X-slot weapons that will have the opening alpha strike, followed by neutron launchers which will fire before the defense platform neutrons due to pcmbat computer/admiral/policy which should cause them to outrange the others. The +50% weapons range building sadly only applies to the dtarbase weapons and not the defence platforms. In a very small system, yes the platforms should have no problem firing in time with the battleships arrival, but that is only very small systems.
Im currently in the middle of doing a defence platform testing & analysis video!
@@MontuPlays Really? The uplink says it applies its buff to both the Starbase and the platforms, but I guess this wouldn't be the first time something in Stellaris was just quietly broken for ages lol.
Anyways, happy to hear tests are in progress. Hopefully your video gets pdox to give our platform bois some love
I think if the AI was consistently as powerful as the player then it would be worth it to pick up the ias because diplomatic weight between the player and the galactic superpowers would remain equal, whereas now it's common to see a player with at least 100k diplo weight over the leading AI by the arrival of the endgame when becoming custodian or establishing the imperium becomes feasible.
Of course upping the power of AI brings a ton of other benefits to gameplay but the interstellar assembly site becoming a stronger thing to build is one of them.
There is also another one for S-tier: Galactic Market. If Interstellar Assembly and Art Installation are somehow megastructures, that one certainly should be one, being de facto center of galactic trade and all that.
So what are ya thinking like 50% trade value empire wide or some shit
I really like the sentry array as a first, not only is it fast but seeing the borders complete in the galaxy is so damn fuldilling to my ocd
Intelligence is also super important too. When I’m in multiple wars and facing endgame crisis, it helps to know where the enemy is going / coming from.
Aquatics megastructures look great, I just wish the models were more dependant on your shipset... and not only because I want to see a giant band of lithoid crystals around a star.
I consider art installation in B tier, the amentities means happiness, happiness means good resourcing, and I often play void dwellers or build tall, I hate resort worlds and prefer this thing, I often don’t use precious building slots for happiness buildings, usually only using luxury goods, or art monuments! I always build a science nexus first, but I do tend to build the art installation 2/3rd.
For Sentry Array, it seems like you gain the ability to spy on the crisis. I haven't played Stellaris, but I don't think you can spy on the crisis.
Yep. Already diplomacy on a crisis is absolutely impossible.
1 thing about the sentry array. It really depends on galaxy size, Also it allows you to see in nebulas so you don't have to use/lose a science ship while attacking.
The one thing I would mention is the mega art installation seems a lot better in gestalt empires and for them would personally put in in b their for them as the amnenity bonus is a lot better for them
Nice that you mentioned the Kardashev scale. Good video!
The sentry array lets you see into system that the end-game crisis owns, no amount of intel can do that.
Seriously the megashipyard is amazing. I was playing 25x crisis with two other friends and we could suffer millions of fleet power lost in a single battle and bounce back in three months
I miss the really old Sentry Array. It just reveals everything(planet pops, ship design, fleet,armies... Everything!) on the map lol.
I was sitting here thinking "IT doesn't do that anymore?" It has been a long time since I actually checked it.
@@SImrobert2001 it doesn't anymore sadly. You need to gather more spy intel for more info.
Usually the +40 is enough to get an intel of (I want to say 70 or 80) which reveals all the systems on the map anyway
Pro tip, you can release a vassal with the appropriate megastructre tech, give them the raw resources, and they will build one for you (eventually), you can do this to get infinite dyson spheres (well not infinite but a lot more than the 1 you normally can.
I mkight try this in a next play through. Conquer the galaxy but make wonders wherever I conquer then integrate them again once done.
Releasing vassals can lead to all sorts of powers some would consider unnatural...
Honestly, they should allow us to just build as many megastructures as we like. Its such an arbitary restriction. I want to Dyson up the entire galaxy!
@@MontuPlays She can't do that! Shoot her... or something.
@@KatyaAbc575 Like me quote Emperor Palps ahem *clears throar* INFIIIIIIIITEEEEEE POOWWWAAAAAAAAA
Great Tierlist as usual. Any chance for a potential Tierlist of the Gigastructure mod structures or whould that be too much?
So, that's a great question. In essence, yes I'd love to do tier lists (and videos on mod content). The 'issue', as far as I see it, is that it reduces the accessibility of the video. Not everyone that plays Stellaris plays that mod, so my potential audience is reduced. I've always felt that I'd like to cover all of the content in the vanilla game before moving on to mods (such as Gigastructures or Star Trek: New Horizons), but that was 5 months ago and I've made lots of videos since then. Perhaps it is time to re-examine that position!
@@MontuPlays even if people don't play with gigastructure mods I'm betting they will still be curious to see what's it about
@@thomaslacroix6011 can confirm, am not playing with this mod but am curious to find out what it’s all about.
@@MontuPlays Many players (including me) that didn't consider this mod previously might atually try it for once after seeing your video. It would also be a great AD for the mod team.
@@MontuPlays I would love to see it happen, since it would greatly improve the available content to review. There are even new things to consider. For example: For a gigastructure Tier list i would personally consider putting the Matter Decompressor in S Tier. The reason is simple, to build Gigastructures it requires an ascencion perk that needs to have a Dyson Sphere, Matter Decompressor, Ringworld or a few other mod structures to be fully upgraded. The Matter Decompressor is a very quick and fairly cheap option to achieve that goal, while providing much needed minerals for the expanding alloy production for even more structures.
Megastructures are always a great passive income, but Gigastructures from a certain Gigastructures mod literally can spice things up 10-fold.
This... is very true.
@@MontuPlays Gigastructures Tier List when?
After gigastuctures mod vanilla megastructures look so pathetic.
@@xxXXRAPXXxx Mega Shipyard is still very powerful even within gigastructures. And there's not really a replacement for Dyson spheres.
@@Xaphnir The only replacement for a dyson sphere is an o-class dyson sphere.
With try most recent addition of the quantum catapult, I’d rank is probably in the B teir. It’s nice to have but certainly not required. Definitely some games where I am glad I built it but others where it sits there without being used. I like it though and it’s relatively cheap to build
Late game build yes till you get cybrex precursor then u get delive into the secrets of the cybrex and they give u megastructure research and 10% mega structure build speed. I did this and got mega structure by year 2320
Interstellar assembly is great for a diplomatic game(duh) as the opinion is often just the thing that lets you vassalize or invite into a federation another empire. Adding another empire to your collection without wasting the time on conquest is always great.
Envoys are impossible to get with just pops, unlike say alloys that you always have too much. And you need *lots* of envoys if you need to both maintain a bunch of spy networks, a massive federation, your voting power, AND that time you need 20 envoys yesterday improving opinion with an empire that has just lost their fleet and might consider a vassalization offer from you. Or join another federation if you're too late.
Ring world and nihilistic acquisition are a fantastic combo, together you can negate the main downside of the ring world. This combo for me puts ring worlds at the top.
I absolutely love this video, you were able to bring the strengths of each megastructure and have enough information so people watching could absorb it into their future games. In my future games I’ll just make sure I play Pokémon megastructures, how dare Xenos feel like they are allowed to be successful in MY galaxy.
That is a very kind summary! I'm glad you enjoyed the video. Playing Pokémon with megastructures is definitely the way to do it!
Gigastructural Engineering list next? Can’t wait for that three hour video.
Ring World from scratch is C tier at best. By the time you get one up and populated you're into repeatables, so Science has gone down in value compared to fleet size and ability to re-build ships quickly.
Also consumer goods empires can't specialize ring worlds for Alloy production, so you end up swimming in consumer goods if you dedicate segments to factories.
However, if you can snatch one early, they're really good. Otherwise, they just don't come online fast enough to push you into the last tier of tech. Ecumenopolii, Gaia, Hive and Machine worlds are just faster.
My rankings:
Must Have: Mega Shipyard, SCC, Dyson Sphere
Really Good: Science Nexus, Matter Decomp
It Depends: Assembly (PvE stewardship), Art (hive mind)
Nice-to-have: Sentry Array
Not worth: Ring World
a couple things
I mostly agree with your assessment of the Strategic Coordination Centre but i think you undervalue it slightly (i still think its probably B tier, just a bit of a better B. Maybe B+). while you can get similar naval cap from fortress habitats, the SCC saves you on those pops so they can do other things, and you have to wait for them to grow anyways just like you have to wait for the SCC to build (though they are available much earlier admittedly and is much cheaper). The starbase cap also lets you get even more naval cap for a total of around 360(?) naval cap if you turn them all into anchorages. That coupled with the sublight speed makes it pretty great imo
I am probably a bit biased though. I love habitats but after building a bunch I just get sad and stop looking at them because all that micro makes my brain cry
in regards to the dyson sphere for trade empires, i think its really good. In my experience ( as a relatively non-competitive player tbf) energy becomes the biggest bottleneck of fleet size. Having an extra 4k energy along with massive energy from trade means you can just churn out more and more fleets without much worry. yeah you do get progressively higher % upkeep as you go higher over your fleet cap but an extra few fleets can make a big difference in a war with another player
Outside of this I pretty much agree with everything you've said. Great video as always :))
One thing I would like to see, though I guess we get it from Gigastructures, is the ability to terraform worlds at extreme cost. IE terraforming barren and toxic worlds, just with some more restrictions.
I play on maps with 1000 stars and max AI, Sentry Array is S tier when you can see what everybody is doing
The fact that the Sentry array isn’t already S tier shows how little people value intel.
This combined with some of the games has taught me some important lessons for why I fall behind mid to late game. I'm ready for my next attempt!
Hey Montu could you possibly make a video about what repeatable techs to go for? I notice your ship load outs normally change after repeatable but I don't quite know what repeatable those are.
4:20
With a resort world and mega-art installation you pretty much don't need any amenity jobs. Just the administrators are able to provide everything you need.
I use the Interstellar Assembly to “attract” customers. The plus 50 opinion, and extra envoys is a good thing to have when you still have a few more empires that need convincing. Plus, I should add, that if you build a Mega Shipyard, slap into the L Cluster, that way, if you go to war, you can just fire ships right into the enemies back door! And since you can build so many off this shipyard, you can send a whole fleet in very quickly.
Hmm if I remember correctly Starbase capacity"repeatable" actually has a limit (as in it isn't truly repeatable ad infinitum but only come around roughly 5 times or so).
Could you do a tier list of the Gigastructures megastructures? That feels like it could be a continuation/DLC all its own (Except the EHOF, that kinda breaks things.)
For once I must slightly disagree, granted practically solely with the Sentry Array. While certainly it is not as powerful as some of the other megastructures in pure flat bonuses, in fact I'd consider its Intel bonus practically worthless, I do believe the tactical and strategical advantage of being able to see all empire's vessels, planets, stations and more is absolutely indispensable. That combined with its, as mentioned, low build time creates a rather nice combination for an early, solid Megastructure that will retain its usefulness over time within wars and keeping tabs on the entire galaxy with ease. Knowing when I have an opportunity to strike, or when I am about to be caught with my pants down, is an advantage that I can simply not understate.
As always however, excellent video and keep up the good work.
S. Mega shipyard. Dyson. Science nexus.
Mega shipyard is self explanatory, ship go brrrr
The Dyson sphere is Amazing! My approach is not to move ALL my pops out of technician jobs and have a shit ton of extra energy to trade with the neighboring empire's or on the galactic market.
The science nexus is ALWAYS the first megastructure I build, number 1 is that sweet, sweet 900 research with turns into 1000 after the research speed bonus plus it unlocks galactic wonders.
A. ring world. Matter decompresser.
Yes you have to populate the ring world but for me it helps negate some of the late game micro build one slap 9 research segments and one housing and just let auto resettle make science go BRRRR.
basically what you said montu, for the matter decompresser just move those miners on my new ring world.
The rest I agree with except for one
F. Mega art installation. Fuck you for taking my minor artifacts you fucking asshole.
TL:DR fuck mega art installation.
I Put The Science Nexus in S tier, a boost in your research helps a LOT, and we have a a event that happens when we complete this megastructure which is that one of your scientists will "transfer" his own brain to the megastructure, giving you more bonuses (I forgot what the bonuses are). Of course it is expensive and takes time, but knowing that there are edits, perks that reduce the time to build, makes this structure worth a lot and one of your priorities to build
I do think it’s worth noting the opportunity cost of having to shove envoys to spy on one enemy at a time. That envoy could be controlling votes in the senate, holding your federation together, improving relations, and more. That, and the fact that a surprise war declaration from someone you didn’t happen to be wasting an envoy on spying will leave you clueless still.
Sentry array avoids ALL of those situations while also adding two envoys on top of it all.
Another note on ringworlds is that not only can you find ruined ones with stuff like cybrex but also pre-populated ones very rarely.
My go to in most games is finding a system with a ton of planets to build habitats in, if there are resources directly on those planets I'll develop them but if not, they get robot assembly plants and a station with a transit hub. Makes filling those research ringworlds ALOT easier to fill
The matter decompressor definitely is in the S-tier for me, due to minerals stopping to matter when you get to it, not to mention the chance to put your miners into better jobs. Since I am not a conquest-happy player, getting new planets is often not an option for me. And then there's also the matter of the stifled pop growth in the late game since 3.0.
The most recent game I declared "completed" (I usually turn victory off because I like having basically infinite playtime) was a Megacorp that I wound up building a lot of Megastructures. I don't think I _ever_ bothered with the Mega Art Installation... but I did build six Ringworlds that I used for Commercial. I wasn't super worried about tech production by this point in the game, but I'd say that situationally - specifically for a Megacorp - a Commercial Ringworld might be a B-Tier Megastructure, simply due to the fact that once all the Jobs were being worked on all four segments, each of my Ringworlds were producing ~4k Trade Value, and since I'd gone back to Wealth Creation Trade Policy, that literally made each Ringworld essentially another Dyson Sphere. The only real downside is how long it takes to populate those Ringworlds, but thanks to Transit Hubs, Gene Clinics, and Robot Assembly Plants, plus a bunch of Migration Treaties, it wound up not being a huge deal. Plus, I had like +1500 Alloys a month, so cost was immaterial. It's part of the reason my Trade Value at the end of the game was somewhere in the 25 Dyson Spheres range.
I also built _one_ Strategic Coordination Center... and captured _three more_ in wars. And having 4 Strategic Coordination Centers was just... fantastic.
So a note about the Sentry Array being "replaceable" by espionage: This only applies to other normal AI empires AND is limited by your envoy count. The only time I find that I actually have more envoy's than normal AI empires are the times I am running a super diplomatic type empire and I need those envoys for Federations or improving relations in said case. Also you can't spy on the Crisis, fallen/awoken empires, the Great Khan or the Grey Tempest. Which also tend to be the things you REALLY want to keep track of.
I find the "Can only build one mega-structure" or "It takes 20+ years" a bit weak of an argument as the Ambition and Ascension perk that improve build speed/count are some of the most desirable things to get. If anything I find alloy output the bigger limiter to making the first 2-3 mega-structures than the time or build cap.
For the Strategic Coordination Center: Starbase repeatable tech has an actual cap of 5 unlike most other repeatables which increase into infinity. As such +6 is actually a respectable number of Starbases as your base cap is 12 after all techs, +1 per 10 systems, +4 with Unyielding, +5 for an ascension perk, +4 from a Megacorp Civic and +2 from an Edict. It's as high as a 40% increase to Starbase cap and even if you have a ludicrous amount of cap from systems you would want those extra Starbases MORE.
The Dyson Spheres are a perfect example for the use some Mega Structures have depending on the playstyle. I made the experience whenever I play a MegaCorp, by the time I am able to start building a Dyson Sphere I already have 1.5 to 2.0 energy outcome I would get from an already finished Dyson Sphere which makes it just a glorified Energy District. The income is so absurd that even in the late early game I am able to compensate a low aloy production just with money.
Some Megastructures are more powerful and I mostly agree with the order, but there's no "wasting a Megastructure build slot".
With the Ascention perk and the ambition you can build 3 at once, not to mention the build speed bonus.
The only thing Megastructures can waste are Alloys spent on ships.
3 at once is still pretty limiting, given there are 10 total! I usually wouldnt take the Master Builders ascension perk for an extra slot anymore. I don't think its really worth it...
@@MontuPlays Ascension Perk tier list and order video? =D
The Mega Art Installation can actually be obtained incredibly early if you get lucky with the result of the "Too Angled" archeological dig site. There's a 10% chance it awards 10% of the Mega Art Installation technology, and makes it a permanent research option. You don't actually need the Mega Engineering technology to build it if you get this. It takes a significant amount of time and resources to build it up before you would build megastructures under normal circumstances, but getting it built early can really be a serious boost in the midgame, not to mention being able to get Galactic Wonders as soon as you research Mega Engineering.