I don't even know if they are really meta or even good compared to other options but I dun care, they are so cool. I think Kilo structures are exactly what the game needed and are a great addition, hopefully we see more of them in general
I absolutely love the new Arc Furnaces
DiscussionYeah they great especially if you are machine intelligence
That makes sense. I'm playing a Paperclips Machine Empire with the Arc Furnace Origin, and with maybe 4 Arc Furnaces and 4 Dyson Swarms, and also a Matter Decompressor I found, I'm really struggling with creating more Jobs for my dudes in 2405.
I took the Detox Perk and did Orbital Rings on all the planets doing District stuff, and made all my planets into Machine Worlds, but they're almost all full.
And no, I didn't pick Virtual.
So now for the first time since the changes, I've started building Habitats. 2 under construction so far, but I expect I'll build more.
Sounds like a problem for people with weak militaries ;p
Paperclips Machine Empire
Will you ELI5 what this means
It's a new "sticky" Civic for Machine Empires. Obsessional Directive.
Starting from day one you're told a number of Consumer Goods you have to make in 10 years. 8000 on Captain Difficulty.
If you have met the quota when the 10 years are up, all your CGs disappear, and you get a small reward, Unity, Influence, Energy Credits or Resesrch. I think you get a bit more reward if you exceed the quota, but it doesn't seem like much.
Then you get a new quota 20% bigger (so 9600 CG) and 10 years to meet it, then a new 20% bigger one.
If you don't meet your quota then you get a new smaller quota (divided by 1.2, so 6666) and only most of your CGs disappear, you get to keep 1000 of them (so you only have to make 5666), and your Unity and Influence income get a -50% modifier.
I see, thank you!
As far as I can see, you can combine it with Rogue Servitor...
Additionally, it's referring to the Universal Paperclips game. You play an AI dedicated to turning the universe into paperclips.
Well, it's referring to the Paperclip Maximiser thought experiment, which that game is based on.
Yeah, true.
What's a matter decompressor . . .
It's a Megastructure, built around a Black Hole, siphoning off mater (something to do with exploiting hawking radiation?), to the tune of 2000 Minerals per month when fully upgraded.
I don't know if the ruined version can spawn in the galaxy if you don't own the DLC for it (Utopia?), but with that DLC once you've researched the purple RareTech Mega-Engineering, you'll become able to research the Matter Decompressor (and a few other high-end Megastructures) and then build them in stages. ...Whereas the ruined version can be repaired to full operational status in one swell foop once you have Mega-Engineering.
Oh, sorry, I forgot: Building them also requires taking the Galactic Wonders Ascension Perk.
A guy on another post did some math on the dyson swarm and it frees up about 30-something pops.
You're misrepresenting what he said - IIRC it was something along the line of 30 pops worth of output, for 20 pops worth of upkeep
Could be. I have the retention of a colander sometimes 🤣
Lol, that is a new one. Going to have to use that one myself.
Hm. Interesting. Imo, the upkeep isn't an issue because a Dyson swarm can pay all your energy credit needs for a while, so I call that a straight win.
It allows my virtual guardian build to focus entirely on advanced resources while having <100 Empire sprawl. It’s incredible
I concur, they definitely speed up the early game by not having to waste so many jobs on mineral production and the late early game by bolstering your alloys production. I'm running a mod that gives you a planetary decision that examines your empire and tells you the best systems to build the damn things too.
For anyone interested, here's the mod: Arc Furnace System Locator
I'm running a mod that gives you a planetary decision that examines your empire and tells you the best systems to build the damn things too
Dear goodness, why is this not vanilla?! I keep having to hunt through my empire trying to find molten worlds and trying to badly do the math to figure out which ones are even good systems
Usually I just grab a system with asteroids and 1-2 multi moon planets. Gives me 300 minerals 100 alloys which is good enough
There are two things I wish I could see easily.
First the number of hard bodies in a system for the Arc Furnace.
Two the base value of a stellar body rather than whatever the current value is accounting for all your modifiers.
I love seeing that like base output 4.00 current output 26.22 or whatever. Feels great.
Honestly though I just tend to look for trinary systems with Gas, Motes, Crystals, or Living Metal in it that's in a somewhat defensible position.
Might help if we make some noise on the official forums : https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/stellar-resources-view.1674933/
Because tool to locate best systems for habitats and furnaces definitively should be in vanilla.
that and being able to find any special resource on galaxy map or by colony let alone just being able to find where I can place the Betharion power plant!
A nebula flag would be helpful. I'm playing a game where my first 3 worlds (including my home system) were all in a nebula and refineries were a real game-changer.
To be fair about that one, nebulas have a very obvious visual appearance
They actually get a bit tricky depending on the map mode.
That's fair!
I find my best luck with trinary systems. Usually lots of planets to develop in those.
This, we really need an expansion planner for megastructures like this
For anyone interested in the mod I recently found it:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3243319558
I concur, they definitely speed up the early game by not having to waste so many jobs on mineral production and the late early game by bolstering your alloys production.
Am I just doing things wrong? I usually only have the mineral production that your homeworld starts with and maybe one other planet until late game, because you can get most of what you need from mining stations.
The big thing the arc furnaces are doing for me is the extra alloy production. I usually have more minerals than I can use by 20 years into the game without them.
It's really a question of how crowded the galaxy is and how may star systems you are able to claim before getting boxed in. In a crowded galaxy, you might get boxed in with only 20-30 systems to your name.
Crowded galaxy is usually more fun tbh makes espionage useful.
I play with no clustered starts mod cause I hate crowding or interacting with other empires before I can even get an economy going.
I like clusters actually, without that early game feels too easy. Like last save I was cornered in to just 20 systems by 2 hive minds, 1 fallen empire and another empire, with no way to expand any further. But I didn't care one bit because I was playing virtualist machine empire lol.
Well part of it is I always feel way too parched for basic resources cause planets are rng in how many mining or energy districts there are. Maybe that's changed with arc furnaces and such but mining stations were nowhere neaf enough to hold it up.
So I need space and planets.
Also no idea how to fight wars without cruiser tech.
True. I tend to play very aggressively wide, with expansion focused on cutting off access to whole clusters and then back filling them once the neighbors are established. Playing a bit taller, voluntarily or not, does demand a bit more from planets.
That moment when your forge worlds still consume more minerals than your arc furnaces and 3 dedicated mining worlds can handle
Ah but you see, that's where your grand admiral difficulty vassals come in! I find Vassals are the best way to get basic resources by far thanks to them keeping their difficulty bonus minus one level, so GA becomes Admiral
Those three minining worlds could be 3 research worlds while a single vassal produces like 8 times more minerals than your worlds could have
My buddy too all the nearby empires while I was stabilizing the absolute shit fest that was my fall empire. Also I do have 4 or so research worlds. I was hemorrhaging consumer goods like crazy lol
Its impossible to get GA vassals no? Once you vassalize an AI they always get bonuses one difficulty below what you're playing. Unless they changed that recently.
Yeah, that's what I meant by their bonus minus one level. So a GA AI becomes Admiral which is still a crazy high bonus and almost certainly beats what you would produce with those planets
Can you sauce it over?
is there a similar mod for dyson swarms?
I don't think there is, but it's a lot easier to tell at a glance if a system is a potential candidate. Just find the systems with the highest energy output and then go in and see if it's all the star or does it include other deposits.
I think 6-7 is a good base. I found one with 12 and that kept me going for a long while before turning it into a sphere.
Is there a limit to how many sec furnaces an empire can have?
Yes. Regular empires are limited to 5 and empires with Arc Welders are limited to 6.
I’m running the Arc Welders origin with two furnaces, only one fully upgraded, and have never employed a miner past year 10ish to get me jumpstarted
Do you think that mod is compatible with multiplayer??
I think everyone would have to have it installed, as it does modify checksum.
Ah, ok I'll discuss it with my group, thanks for the mod suggestion :)
That mod has to become a QoL update in the game. Checking every system manually and counting stuff gets annoying fast ;)
that's a great feature! it would also be nice if we could get one for dyson swarms
The mod now has an alternative WiP Ideal System Locator decision with an option to search for Dyson Swarm systems, if you wanna test it out :)
Where is that decision? On the homeworld?
I'm not a mod author, so you're barking up the wrong tree there mate lol.
Holy shit this is a godsend. Wish I saw this post yesterday before I eyeballed all my systems.
THANK YOU!!! I've been trying to figure out the best way to determine this, you're a hero <3
Is there a similar mod for habitats?
Not as far as I'm aware, but systems that are good for the arc furnace are probably decent candidates for a habitat.
This mod now has an option to search for good habitat systems.
I'm not home right now but if this works I'm eternally grateful.
I used it over the weekend, works like a charm.
Holy Fuck this is amazing.
Works also with Nanites and Dyson Swarms.
This needs to be in vanilla.
Great mod, thanks for the recomendation. Thought about a feature like this as soon as I tried building my first Forge haha
There are no other options to compare them to. They produce substantial resources without requiring pops in the early-midgame. It's hard to imagine a reason not to build them unless you're doing some kind of specific challenge run.
It can be difficult to balance with void Dwellers, as habitat orbitals negate mining resources on the object they orbit.
No question, as a void dweller I will drop an arc furnace before a habitat. My current run has zero worker pops, with my capital being my only source of metallurgist jobs, and I'm still making alloys almost faster than I can spend them.
Does it make a major difference if you place the arc furnace before or after you place a habitat there?
I have a system where its filled with orbitals and habitat, I deleted one orbital to place a furnace there and it hasn't really done anything for my habitat. Im wondering if I placed a furnace before I placed my habitat there would the bonuses be greater?
Basically you shouldn't put the furnace and a habitat in the same system
I mean it doesn’t technically negate though, it turns them into 3 mining districts.
I’ve already been using them to make my mineral habitats go nuts.
Right, but as pointed out earlier, the major use of arc furnaces is to allow you to focus your pops on specialist jobs.
Sure, but for void dwellers specifically I’ve had at least one of them dedicated to boosting my mineral habitat, especially in a virtual empire. Worst case scenario, I just shut down the habitat if I’m overproducing post-decompressor and destroy all the orbitals to get the basic resources back.
But in the mid game I’ve been using it to pump the habitat up until I get my free stuff from the matter decompressor.
I actually dislike them because it means a well-built empire should have 0 worker class in it. Food via hydroponics, energy from dyson swarms, and minerals via arc furnaces.
In the short term you could minimize the number of workers you have by getting kilostructures up early enough, but that just isn't sustainable for more than a couple decades. They let you have a smaller worker count, not eliminate it entirely.
3 well placed Arc Furnaces can produce 400-500 minerals and maybe 100 alloys on the side. That isn't going to feed an ecumenopolis making 2000+ alloys and 1000+ consumer goods. About half of the energy from your Dyson Swarms is going to be upkeep for the Arc Furnaces, so there isn't much left to work with.
You can definitely cut farmers to basically nothing in the early game with hydroponics bays, but approaching midgame even 15 of them leaves me with a sizable food deficit. I usually make at least one agri world, even without going genetics.
The only way you can really cut workers to nothing sustainably long term is through Cosmogenesis and spamming FE buildings on habitats. 2 habs full of Class 4 Singularities can match a Dyson Sphere without even touching any of the jobs, and there will be at least 60 technician jobs on each of those habs from the buildings alone. You can do the same thing with all other resources.
How do you spam FE buildings?
Take the Cosmogenesis AP, and you can unlock all of them as you progress down the crisis levels. Build as many as you want. They provide jobs AND give you resources just by existing. Habitats are the easiest way to spam building slots in the lategame, so just spam habs and power up your economy to insane levels.
it means a well-built empire should have 0 worker class in it
The dream of Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism has been achieved.
I enjoy them but I do wish there was a "decommission/destroy" button when you find a better system but you've already maxed them out.
I dont mind megastructures being permanent because their abilities are static but Arc Furnace / Dyson Swarm bonuses shift according to the system and it feels bad to build them for what you need in the moment and then get locked out of a really good one you discover later. I'm now in a classic gaming hoarder mindset where I won't even build them "just in case" there's a really good system nearby
You can redevelop planets to adapt to shifting needs, this should be similar
I personally really dislike limits on mega structure construction. Only mega structure that should have limits is habitats because I AI will spam the fuck out of them.
I hope they add other interesting kilo structures
My favorite part about them and the Dyson Swarm is that they're interesting. They're not just a "plop them down anywhere" kind of a deal. Considering where I want them is engaging (though the Furnace could use some better tool to figure that out), and finding a system with numerous objects or an unusually plentiful star is now exciting in a new way.
Yeah. That and the Arc Furnace kind of allows for "colonization" of normally uninhabitable planets while avoiding the problems that made that previously not an option.
Dyson Swarm with Consolidated Resources origin is also very strong. Home system usually has a 12-14 powered sun which gives it insane output. Although… Arc Furnace alternatively does let you sell monthly minerals for a decent bump in energy as well and correlates well with becoming the crisis, buying ships with minerals.
sell monthly minerals
I think you mean trade 😎
I feel like a lot of people on this sub don't realize how absurdly ridiculously strong trading is. Find a mega corp and send an envoy to make them like you, and you can easily get like 3-5+ times the market rate for stuff. You can often trade 100 minerals for like 300 energy and 200 consumer goods
I do indeed mean trade 😬. Trading is tricky to understand for newer players I’d say. Buying and selling in bulk is easy, but the monthly trades are where it gets weird as you have to find the sweet spot for it or else the ratio for what you’re selling gets wildly un proportionate. When I started at least, trying to understand trading and the different strategies to boost those trades was just a lot to take in and mainly comes with time.
(I’d still consider myself new with only 200 hours in the game, predominately playing machine empires, although this new DLC is making me scream with joy, being an individualistic machine empire)
Only busted trading I know off is a fallen empire when it likes u will pay premium for strategics
They will trade if they like you, but if you are liked you should check out what the megacorp will give you compared to galactic market rates lol
I'll very often do stuff like trade 1,000 food for like 10,000 alloys or 100 minerals a month for 400 energy a month etc. Empires that like you will absolutely smoke the galactic market rate, especially on Grand Admiral where they can actually afford to do so
I pretty much always check the power charts to see who's the strongest non genocidal empire in the galaxy and make friends with them just for trading purposes
what does "Kilo structure" mean? Never heard that before...
Structure×10³, the little brother of Structure×10⁶, more commonly known as Megastructure)
In math mega is 10⁶ and kilo is 10³ so those new mid game structures are called kilo because they are smaller than proper end game megatsructures
Basically, kilogramme, milligramme, gramme. Basically just different scaling
Now I want millistructures.
"What is this?? An arc furnace for ANTS??"
The game has nanites already.
The building has to be at least... 10³ times bigger than this. How are we supposed to use minerals if we can't even get them out of the building?
Funnily enough if you Google it it's pretty much only used in reference to Stellaris
I love the flavor of arc furnaces, such good rp
I feel like I missed a memo. How many furnaces can you have? I started a game with the Origin and immediately found 2 candidates for it. The game notified me about 1, which makes sense it was a tutorial, and the other was a happy bonus.
You can have 5 normally, 6 with the origin I believe
The ancient mining hub system has a ruined one you can fix as well
Yes. 3 from the starter tech, 2 more from the general megastructure tech, and 1 bonus from the origin (in your starting system, with a guaranteed nearby excellent spawn for your second, I think)
Even if it isn't perfect finding it now will be a huge advantage. I will build away! Thanks!
My empires are generally starving for minerals, now they're giving them away. Cybrex precursor got a huge buff with this structure, the mining hub in an arc furnace system is just incredible.
Wait arc furnaces can give you alloys too? Dang it here I thought they were only minerals and I already make far more minerals than I need (even with constantly pumping out industrial districts now and beginning the effort of paving over some of my worlds to be ecumenopoli). I guess I'll need to try out an arc furnace when I get home, I've been avoiding them because I had a couple of really good mineral planets and almost no limit to pops.
Yeah they give like 100+ alloys each
Nice! Now I just need to find space to build them. I'm unfortunately a little cornered right now but I'll find space (by annealing vassals if need be)
At max, it's 2 alloys/deposit, with a 100% boost on top (so 4 each), plus whatever other mining bonuses you get. 100+ out of a good system is easy.
Absolutely love them. I'm late game so it's not super necessary but I guffawed during my current war (me vs giant Federation including MSI and it's a Payback Total War) and I keep taking systems with Dyson Swarms and Arc Furnaces.
I was very surprised when I actually got under my naval capacity (it was brief, I used that opportunity to make about 8 more titans and 200+ battleships)
I have no idea how I lived without em, also yes they're just cool. Turning Mercury into a mega furnace is apparently now a dream of mine
It’s amazing! And fun!!
Just beat a GA 10x with arc, gestalt machine empire going virtual. Rolled Cybrex and had 5 colonies at the end. 4 ring fragments and my capital. Dyson swarm everywhere, furnace everywhere. 30k tech a month.
Before I couldn’t reliably beat GA, forget about 10x.
Is your capital worth keeping? I'm working on getting my Cybrex ring up and going atm and I figure I should just abandon my tiny size 15 capitol (from the arc furnace origin) in favor of getting a large ecumenopolis or something
Oh sorry! Ditch your original homeworld like immediately! Get size 25+ ECU ASAP and make it a pure alloy colony. By capital I mean a new capital not the origin joke of a planet
I needed it for alloy. Something must have happened with fleet maintenance because I was alloy starved even with all the furnaces.
I found that the game is a bit buggy if you build them in systems you already had an habitat in, as upgrading the Arc doesn't trigger the additional mining districts for the habitat if the orbitals were already built, and destroying the orbitals ends up with a planetary body stuck doing nothing.
I'm also loving the Dyson Swarms. Great to bolster energy needs in the early game an if you find a juicy research star you'll be eating good til dyson spheres are availalble.
If you're lucky enough to get Cybrex as your precursor then the arc furnace becomes even more insane.
Plus if you stack Astro mining drones from machine empires, you can get more than +100% mining station output from that system
PLUS you can get 200% if you manage to get the cybrex mining bay
It helps my RP as a pacifist nature lover that preserves my Gaia paradise.
They're nice but you're allowed too many of them so it's just another thing that's actually better for going wide than tall.
Pretty sweet for giving you minerals/alloys if you want to do unity/science spam.
They also make Cybrex even more OP since you get the minerals to alloys relic and the cybrex mining drones super buff arc forge.
I hope they expand on it.
The Gigastructures nod has some really cool ideas that would fit in as kilostructures. The Yggdrasil Orchard is constructed around a gas giant and produces food and there's two asteroid ones that either turn the asteroid into a powerful defense structure or a factory that produces consumer goods.
I love it too.
I'm playing a game with Arc furnace origin, the machine empire civic astro mining drones which buffs mining stations, weakens menial drone jobs and adds a new space station module that replaces solar panels which buffs mining stations (and you can build multiple on the station) and with Cybrex on top of that I get the Cybrex mining hub meaning all together I can get phenomenal space station output.
There are better optimisations of course as this is all focused around base resources rather than the likes of research etc but it's so fun to do.
I'm just confused how to use them with habitats in general. Do you build the furnace first then the habitat afterwards? Does it even matter? I have one and it barely does anything for my habitat, but I built the furnace after I already filled the system with orbitals.
I think you build them in different systems because habitats don't give bonuses on places you built the orbitals
now wait until you remember the +100% mining station output from the cybrex starbase building exists
Yep, I'm currently using them lol
People keep forgetting they are supposed to be mid-game constructs, they are meant to SUPPLIMENT whilst you prepare for your end-game stuff
Yep, only issue imo is they are kinda rare tech wise. Dyson Swarms took forever to show up in the tech list for me
Game needs a re-balance now. Kilo structures are super strong and virtuality blows all other choices out of the water.
What's super strong and may need rebalance is virtuallity.
Kilo structures are available for every empire and makes gameplay much more comfortable.
I'm not saying it needs to be nerfed. I'm saying other things need to be buffed. Like megacorps and many other things.
Well.. Maybe, but since when did megacorps become underperforming? Especially after the last dlc.
Don't think so. It's not a choice to either build them or not, so I don't see the problem. Also, other empires use them too, so that is balanced as well.
And also, but that may just be a feeling of mine, fallen empires feel much stronger than before the update.
Not saying anything needs to be nerfed.
What do you think needs a buff then? Genuinely curious here
I feel megacorps are pretty weak and hard to optimize, trade is weak unless you're virtual, various ascension perks have been left in the dust (e.g. executive vigor), I feel that devouring swarm and fanatic purifier need minor economy buffs, several origins need some tuning.
They're definitely good. Any tech that frees up pops is usually worth it.
A guy on another post did some math on the dyson swarm and it frees up about 30-something pops.