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The Strategic Coordination Center gives +6 starbase capacity, so you can add the amount you get from Anchorages Stations from it too if you want to make it seem better. 36*6 = 216 + 150 = 366 Total Capacity.
And you can go Authoritarian for stratified economy so you use almost none Consumer Goods and go military economy for +25% alloys. For good part of early game just empire capital factories should be enough to feed your consumer goods so new planets can go alloys or basic resources
Good thing about warrior culture is that you can have the hedonist civic instead to generate both unity and pops fast and switch to warrior culture when you got enough pops to field massive fleets
Fortress Habs also require *pops* to work the soldier jobs, so there's an opportunity cost there. Just counting alloys is a *gross* oversimplification of the pros and cons of each option. Naval cap options are not in a vacuum and different situations call for using different ones. Building a starbase on a trade route? In a black hole for dark matter generation? Might as well make it an anchorage, too! Have a key chokepoint that you want to stall enemies forever? Fortress hab gives you a ton of naval cap in addition to a world with thousands of armies and an FTL inhibitor.
Pops are king. Each pop produces 3 to 16+ resources per month. 6 naval cap from a soldier can be costing you 25+ resources **per year** per naval cap. Even if the jobs are free that isn't worth it usually.
@@adamnevraumont4027 I mean each pop costs 6ish alloys at base production rates in alloy upkeep from opportunity cost. That pop could be producing alloys instead.
@@KraNisOGnah solders produce low amount of unity in comparison with other jobs. I only bild solders in late game when you just have full space station limit but need to have much more naval cap.
Note that the fortress habitat costs ~10 alloys/month in upkeep from the minerals you have to convert into motes, plus the alloy upkeep from the capital building. It also requires an ascension perk as well as tens of thousands of research points sunk into habitat techs. Not to mention that those fortress habitats will negatively impact your empire size. Anchorages are available from the start of the game, and at least as a non-hivemind empire there isn't really much else worthwhile to put into your starbases. And of course, the true best way to get naval cap wasn't even mentioned. *Satrapies* Not exactly the most reliable way, since it requires the Khan to get out of bed, but good lord does it lead to a naval cap snowball.
For sure, Fortress Habs are more of a Mid and Late game way to increase naval cap, but in the early game, the best and most efficient way to increase your naval cap is just to research it. +30 Naval Cap in the early game is fantastic, even with the opportunity cost of not researching another tech. Like you said, the early starbases you build will also probably be Anchorages too. So combined, the two of those definitely outweigh Fortress Habs until you get all the aforementioned research, Ascension Perk, etc. But in the late game, where you need to build *massive* fleets, and you have basically repurposed your economy to prepare for the Crisis, then Fortress Habs are definitely the best. There is a very strong cap on the number of Starbases you can have, which requires Mega-Engineering, additional research, way more Alloys, and potentially an Ascension Perk (Master Builders for +Assembly speed and building more than 1 at once, not required, just extremely convenient, same as Voidborne) in order to increase that. Overall, in the course of the game, Fortress Habs will contribute more to your fleet cap. You definitely should not be trying to build them early, basically not at all until you run out of that Society tech that increases your Fleet Cap for you.
@@BrisingrFan55 I personally love Fortress Habs myself, alongside Starbases being designed for defense with them in chokepoint systems (To delay - while your starbase ain't going to win against a concerted fleet effort, the longer you delay an enemy, the better your odds of turning the tides and controlling the flow of the war). Of course, this is because the way I tend to play is by starting wide - grabbing as much area as I can, and settling on lots of planets early game - then turning all but the ones closest to my main worlds into population production centers whose pops will immigrate as fast as possible to my actual worlds with jobs (Mining, industry, etc) because they can't work on their home planets (Also makes these areas pretty easy to sacrifice in war). This of course makes my gameplay cycle tedious early game (And likely dumb as flip in multiplayer - but I don't play multiplayer ever in any game), as I kinda have to keep on eye on my neighbors, but the endgame effect works out quite well. By building up several fortresses in chokepoint systems, the AI really struggles to push into my main centers and I have beaten several games with the endgame crisis just suiciding themselves against my walls, all while I casually break them down piece by piece. Fun way to play if I'm not going Devouring Swarm. *Separately, the Unbidden absolutely change my strategy with this, but it's not much different - I just don't stay on the Cautious defense and push more for aggression.
i think its a big jump to considerate the 10alloys/month in upkeep " from minerals you have to convert into motes" . a realy BIG jump. its not even close , not only minerals can be found in space or megastructures , but converting them into alloys cost pops , upkeeps , sprawl and space. but i think habitats are worst way too but because you need pops. that don't grow that easely.
Honestly, they need to add some more buildings that you get from ascension perks. Galactic Force Projection could have a naval academy tied to it. One per planet but it gives you 10-20 capacity per job with it having upgradable tiers to have more jobs.
Don't forget the cost of food and amenities for a hab and planet. While it may not seem like much, you'd have to account for it as it grows. The anchorages just max out and you just have the energy/mineral upkeep.
It is easier to just treat pops as producing 4 to 12 net resources per month each. (This accounts for CG consumption, amenities, food etc - net resources). Then a soldier is producing 6 naval cap (more like 4-5 accounting for support) or the alloys etc it could produce. The real trick is that naval cap is traded off with naval support costs. At some point, cap is worth more or less than energy production.
I usually just spend a single building on each of my planets on a fortress, makes sure that all of my colonies has at least some security and scales BIG for wide empires
as an economist, your conclusion at the end is pretty much the thing that defines this whole thing, opportunity cost, having pops work as soldiers to generate naval cap is bad because those pops could always be doing something better, in fact, those 44 soldiers could've been 44 metallurgists generating 132 alloys per month. Honestly at the end I think this video would need to be remade in the future also taking in consideration monthly costs, because motes for example can be quite difficult in some playthroughs to get, and having that many buildings that need it means either wasting a lot of resources in trades or having even more pops wasting their time making the motes somewhere else in your empire. Also given that generating influence is a very big deal in this game, I think it's also worth using it as part of your production cost for naval capacity given that it plays such a huge role in the game
I think a great revamp for Galactic Force Projection would be to: a.) Increase the Naval Capacity Bonus b.) Change the Fleet Capacity bonus so that it instead scales the bonus provided by your Admirals (now relevant with Patch 3.8), and c.) Add a bonus to Sublight Speed for ships that are actively reinforcing your fleets. The last one is my favorite idea and I feel adds a lot of flavor to the Perk.
Very nice idea. It really should provide 120-150 naval cap. I only really take it for the fleet command limit to have the biggest individual fleets possible.
My personal favorite way to get naval capacity is to create Thrall Worlds filled with Fortresses that are manned by the enslaved xenos. It's best done on newly conquered worlds as your economy shouldn't be reliant on them or the pops there. The bonus to pop growth also means the soldier jobs are filled fast, though you could also just use resettlement. Since the pops are slaves there's minimal upkeep and it takes only a few years to build out all the fortresses, so there's no alloy upkeep from fortresses, no opportunity cost with your core worlds, and as a bonus you can outsource raw resource production to these worlds.
The issue with anchorages is that you have a cap on how many starbases you can have. That means early to mid game, you can get a huge boost to naval capacity from anchorages but then you hit a cap. After this is soldiers that must continue your naval capacity climb. If they are expensive and hard to maintain then build your economy up with them to support it
Anchorages, however, require limited Starbase space, and I think they're a module, making them exclusive w/ Trade Hubs, Shipyards, and gun batteries. Fortress Habs win.
But all going over the starbase cap does is to increase the cost of building and maintaining them, which is something any decent size economy can shoulder. I habitually go 100%+ over my starbase cap without any ill effects.
Nihilistic Acquisition solves all pop problems... and is fun as hell. Besides which, fortress worlds/habs are necessary for defense. If you don't have to rely on those fortress worlds/habs to survive mid/late-game wars, then you are not playing at a challenging difficulty.
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I always use a mixture of Fortress Worlds and Starbase anchorages. Seems to work pretty well. Galactic Force projection would be a alright perk if it gave a certain amount of naval cap for every starbase and planet you control, that way it would scale properly into the late game. Around 10 per planet and 5 per starbase would be ok, I think. It'd at the very least be a improvement over the fixed 80 it gives now.
I typically build two kinds of civilian stations: shipyards and system hubs. A system hub station has three trade hubs, three anchorages, an offworld trading company, a navel logistics office, a transit hub and a deep space blacksite. It's not min/maxed, but it's easily replicable, and it covers all my bases. I can place a fortress world if I need to, to boost beyond that.
I don't think you need that much trade hubs. They're terrible in terms of trade value production, and you dont need that much of them to cover your empire, if you minmax a station. Basically, a trade station with 6 trade hubs and hyperlane registrar is covering 7 systems deep, which can easily be 20 systems. It also helps minimise piracy, if that's a problem, because trade collection from outside, doesn't generate piracy in the system. If you have Mercantile traditions, you'll also get +1 range, but that's a niche tree. Other big benefit to separation is obviously more naval cap from anchorage stations with naval logistics office, since its bonus scales with number of amchorages. I would say, this is the main reason to split those. Also, there's no real benefit to doing mixed things. I would understand, if you could copy and paste designs or autobuild stations somehow, but currently the ease of use is not a factor in deciding the best designs. Also, I written all this simply because you commented it under the video about the best ways to get naval cap, which mixed stations are definitely not.
Alloy cost is not the right way to look at it. Fortress habitats cost pops, pops you would probably rather have doing something productive. There is a huge opportunity cost. In that sense anchorage are a lot cheaper. Warrior culture's duellists are very good for this reason, but it's a very specific build compared to habitats and anchorage who are for everyone. Alternatively there is some value to be had in giving every planets it's own fortress to delay invasions.
The best source of fleet capacity is federation and custodian/imperial fleets. That's up 500 fleet capacity right here each, especially if you create a bunch of vassals with anchorages as everyone gets 3 regardless of size. On a side note if you want to blow an ascension perk on fleet capacity grasp the void is straight-up better than galactic force projection. It gives you extra starbase capacity and each starbase can be turned into an anchorage that when put together produces more fleet cap than galactic force projection each
@@inFayt_Lies Worthy Ascension Perks for 3.8.* Though in the current version, they updated what the perk does to give it an extra step. You have to do an agenda, which gives +10% naval cap and +5% ship build speed. The finish effect is a one time permanent bonus of +15% naval cap and +10 command limit. Wasn't aware of the change until you made me go look for the mod name. Been a couple weeks since I've played with it lol.
I think the opportunity costs are also important. A strategic command center could have been a science nexus (though I like the sublight speed as well) A planet could have been an ecumenopolis (that is the ascention perk better used) a habitat station could have been a mining colony (Let's call it Deep Space 9 and position it in a wormhole system) but an anchorage station allows the weapons mounted on the station to be put on a ship and moved around for some extra alloy cost of building the ship. Yet if you need a single hard point of defense, a battlestation can be very effective.
Strategic command center I would disagree, it can be a science nexus, only if you don't have one build yet. If you have built the rest, the opportunity cost is lower (it could be a ring world)
You can build one of each megastructure normally, so there's no opportunity cost. Only if you factor in time, which isn't really relevant, as megastructures are late game build-whenever-you-get-them kind of thing. The only exceptions are ring worlds, which are less efficient than any other 1 of a kind megastructures, but share the same limit of building. You should build ring worlds after the unique stuff, probably.
I used to be team anchorage, then I started doing fortress worlds. Habitats are nice, but they're small. Anchorages are great early game, but once everything's set up I usually transition to habitats/worlds to maximize energy production
Fortress planets have 3 major hidden costs. 1)opportunity cost:pops(mentioned) small planets inside your empire can easily turn either to unity or science production(building heavy). Both unity and science lead to more Fleet cap while Fortress planets lead to more energy/mote upkeep. They require a strong economy, while not directly beefing up said economy, while also denying other tech/unity benefits 2)Reliability cost: You won't always have small planets in your empire 3)Conflicting Interests: You might be asking a question yourself even if you have the planets, tech and unity production. Do you really want to colonise that size 9 planet for nav cap? Stellaris has empire size that gets higher through 4 main ways. Number of pops, number of districts, number of planets and number of systems. Colonising a planet and growing it affects 3 out of those 4. Besides fortress habitats and planets, no other nav cap boosting method does that, which is why they are considered only very late into the game(unless there are multilayer reasons for them, but then it's not the naval cap you are seeking) Edits: (1) added a missing "planets" word (2) corrected 3 to 4 in Empire size growth ways
You should have done it with energy cost instead of alloys. That way, you could also factor in the upkeep per pop and such. But still, an informative video.
Also of note, and this is probably important when it comes to Fortress Worlds, and Habitats. is that as of current patch, they're broken, and a moment they are invaded, most if not all the pops may die off completely if the invading army is Xenomorphs or other very high collateral damage causing army. As right now Armies and Riding bombardment are broken. (see also how Sentinel armies can kill around 25~ 30 pop planet when triggered )
It's really about the stage of the game and opportunity cost more than just the alloy cost. Anchorages are better for early game because of what you said in the video, how they are faster and easier to get up and running. For late game when you are trying to make your 2000+ naval capacity super fleets you need to have 1 or 2 fortress worlds setup, unless you're a megacorp and then you can just use mostly branch offices lol.
Anchorages are great and all until you need 1000s of naval cap. They don’t scale well in that regard. Then in wartime as your naval bases are taken you lose cap, and thus upkeep. Had a few wars tank my economy that way. I’ll keep my fortress chokepoints to stall the enemy for my much larger fleets.
I tend to use them to collect trade and such. Especially with voidborne start. Build a starbase over them with the module that gives stability, food and fleet capacity plus then anchorage. Which is a pretty cheap way to collect the trade ans boost the production of say 5 habitats below them. Furthermore, they also protect trade coming in from places that are farther away without needing to build trade protection modules.
I think the problem with the Fortress Worlds is you lose out on its use an unbreakable Cadia-like bastion if it's not at some kind of choke node lynchpin, and just making one feels wrong though it 's doable. You better believe if I get a planet at a choke node though it's fortress time.
Fanatic militarist + culture workers = your unity production has extra naval capacity. Sure only 12 per maxed upgraded monument but as you get more worlds that adds up! ^^
The simplest and lowest effort way is just to plop a stronghold on each planet as it grows, then worry about additional sources when you're running low.
I think ascension perks in general need a total re-work. I want to see ascension perks merged and just tossed out, reducing the number of useless ones. Gating structures and ships behind ascension perks is dumb. Ascension perks that give a flat bonus one time need to be re-worked to give some kind of scaling bonus. To me ascension perks exist to change how you play, but gating things you will definitely want every single playthrough behind them is just a tax on getting to those things. Ascension perks should either fill a gap in your build or allow you to double down on and specialize hard into your build, not gating off things that could be events and techs or just techs.
Another fun hidden cost in fortress habitats is if you are not making clones, you are probably building robots to reliably fill up the jobs at a steady rate, since habitats have really bad planet capacity that affects natural pop growth on them. So robots (or cyborgs) it is, which is another constant alloy drain that is going to get worse per pop the further in the game you are.
i feel like up front cost of gaining naval cap is arguably negligible. if ur desperate for naval cap to begin with, u should be in the stage of the game where ur economy is good enough to cover such cost and fill that naval cap. The more important thing in gaining naval cap is the upkeep expense of gaining naval cap in the long term. If someone is trying to get naval cap while their economy is crap, their doing it wrong to begin with. whats the point of gaining naval cap if u cant support the fleet that's gonna fill that cap.
Fortress worlds at choke points. Military star bases with anchorages and logistics offices. I still take force projection, but it’s in need of a serious nerf. A strategic coordination center has become a must build for me lately.
I use fortress habitats on choke point systems into my territory primarily for the subspace snares they provide. One more defensive stumbling block if I am overwhelmed. Sure, you might take the starbase, but you can't leave the system. Good luck taking 8 habitats with 4k troops on each one, and the naval capacity is a bonus. Ps- I prefer to use my stations to spam defensive platforms and shipyards over anchorage. When I'm pumping out ships at 100 at a time during a costly war of attrition, it's worth not having anchorage stations. Pps- gestalt consciousness I legit have a difficult time producing enough jobs for pops.
I always dedicate any extra starbase cap towards anchorages. I also try to find planets in strategic systems to turn into fortress worlds. Then I start making fortress habitats. In one of my most recent games I was able to stack up almost 6000 naval cap after everything
I don't usually use fortress worlds or anchorages, I use an early game tech upgrade(society, ground defense planning), which I notice you didn't mention at all, combined with a single stronghold and military academy on each of my planets to build my naval capacity. Unless I have a small planet count, by the endgame, I usually need to remove some of, or entirely avoid using, the strongholds and academies, as my navcap eventually builds much higher than I can afford to maintain. It has the added benefit of making each of my worlds difficult to invade with ground forces, thereby slowing down any invasions, significantly.
The opportunity cost of the soldier job really throws this metric off. Those soldiers are workers that could be producing more alloys on planets. I feel like Anchorage are just free real estate that dont cost a huge amount of alloys, and dont really take away from any other resource, other than star base cap.
you can use fortress habitat, build all trade district and put it on trade station cause martial law doesnt effect trade value and you have 100% stability
Megacorp is the way to go for absurd feelt sizes because they can also pay the upkeep the easiest, the msot extreme i've gotten so far in unmodded is 20k navy at 7k cap with a bunch of upkeep reducing leaders but undocked that was still an upkeep of well over 20k energy credits
I’ll just state that the strategic coordination center is far better than it sounds. Sure 45000 alloys for 150 sounds bad, but it’s actually 45000 + the cost of 6 anchorage starbases for 366 naval capacity, which is a lot more palatable. And who remembers when galactic force projection was actually +200 capacity, making it highly viable for rush empires?
Galactic force projection should be a PERCENTAGE boost to naval capacity (As well as the Fleet command limit). Seriously though, if you're willing to spend an ascension perk on naval capacity, just take Grasp the void.. 5 extra starbases translates into 180 Naval Capacity. (Is 100 naval cap worth 20 fleet command limit? hmm..)
So it seems like, in summary, fortress habs are the best when it comes to cost for most empires, but you need to staff them with pops, and it won't produce too much. Anchorages are more expensive, but are able to be just plopped down and be done with. Fort. Planets are the best overall when it comes to efficiency.
I always get fortres planets late game because of the reason this video states. The pops are probably my most important resource. They can make anything and they can make everything rather efficiently. Early game, the most important thing for my planets is not to make naval cap, it's to make energy, minerals, alloys, science. Late game though, one small planet extra for making 5% extra alloys while you have nowhere to spend those alloys because you're at naval cap? I usualy look for small worlds and when I can afford I colonice them, make them create pops for my other planets (maximize pop growth) and then when naval cap becomes a problem they stop exporting pops and start making naval cap instead.
Well warrior culture along with Leisure districts in Ecumenopolis with strongholds and boom you are done for, huge amount of Naval caps, and unity, can use that unity for all other edict buffs including fleet capacity buffs. Have reached multiple times to max naval capacity of 9999 that way, only thing what matches it is Machine empire with Machine worlds strong holds.
Only reason I get Galactic Force Projection, is for the Fleet Command Limit. The total max of fleet command limit, is 260. Quick Rundown on what is needed for it all. From *Research*: +40 from Destroyer, Cruiser, Battleship and Titan Research. +100 from the 5 Doctrine Fleet command limit research. +50 from the Repeatable 5 times of Admiralty Support Staff. From *Civic, Tradition, Ascension*: +10 from Distinguished Admirals Civic. +20 from Supremacy War Games Tradition perk. +20 from Galactic Force Projection Ascension. From *Base*: 20. Total from Research is 190, Total from Civic, Tradition and Ascension is 50, and the base number is 20. 190 + 50 + 20 = 260. And for those who wants some Ship Numbers with it. This is equal to: 260 Corvettes/Frigates 130 Destroyers 65 Cruisers 32 Battleships + 1 Cruiser 16 Titans + 1 Cruiser. Though I doubt anyone will have 16 Titans in one fleet XD And since we do need to have a mixed fleet, we have a larger pool to work with, which in turn means more fleet power, which means easier to win. Sadly Machine Empires, Hive Minds, and Megacorps will not be able to get the Distinguished Admirals Civic, so they only get 250 as max.
in all my hundreds of hours of stellaris, i have never had enough spare pops to build a single fortress building for naval cap. anytime i built one of these, it was to defend a chokepoint i was unlikely to hold in space.
Lol, if you put all our tool and lawn care device storage sheds together they would make up more space than our house, and the whole porch and basement are also full of tools and other stuff my father used once or twice and forgot he had it. Most of it was used when he got it. We don't spend a lot on tools, but we have a lot.
I thoght Fortress Worlds would have been a no brainer because 90% of games you're going to have at least 1 fortress world because of the massive strategic, and tactical boons it gives your empire. Besides, star bases can have better uses than anchorages. Stealing pops from other empires to make your planets EVEN better is.... well as we've seen can be quite broken.
I'm not saying galactic force projection is good by any means but it is potentially situationally useful in giving you a timing window vs one other empire. Every other source requires that you spend alloys to get that fleet cap. In Particular if you compare GFP to grasp the void (the direct 1-1 comparison of two perks), whilst in the long run GtV is 180 naval cap (i.e. 125% more naval cap than GFP), you don't get it until you've spent both the alloys and time to get there. This analysis on the whole falls into this problem that future alloys and current alloys are valued equivalently and that's just not the case, one unit of 2220 alloys is significantly more value than one unit of 2250 alloys. An interesting exercise to run the maths though. If you wanted to get the biggest fleet in the shortest time you're probably opening something like prosperity, unyielding, supremacy off three planets. Picking up both grasp the void and GFP. Long term you lose out but there's a window when the freeness of GFP can be leveraged significantly against these other methods.
in my games, i am always super pop-starved, despite being a machine empire, with 40+ planets, machine assembly complexes on each and every one(yes the upgraded ones) i have barely even filled 5 planets! so anchorages it is
Galactic fore projection should scale like idk +2 naval cap every year and maybe +2 fleet comand limit every 5 years after grabing the perk. Then ist great if you need more ships early on and is still somewhat usefull later on.
Maybe you can make a honorable mention of Merc enclave's logistic contract. I know it's a percentage but I find it extremely important mid to late game
Seriously, what else are you going to build on your citadels? A trading hub or two if you need them, maybe some defense oriented modules on border bases, but what else needs a module slot on a base within your empire?
yea, i dont own most dlcs, and of course it has to be Cadia the best way, you should put a planet shield generator there aswell so that the enemies will stack up ships on that in orbital bombardment and they are stuck there untill the planet reach 50% devastation due to the fortress FTL inhibitors, i managed to survive 15+ stacks of 200k fleets for decades by just recrouting soldiers in the besiged planet and i would have just played the game normally while in a loosing war, you can use slave xeno pop to fill in the soldier jobs to top it all off, dont forget to put the planet in martial law to get it at 100% stability from soldiers jobs while getting bombarded, you can do that on low habitability planets too, because slaves and soldier jobs don't use any consumer goods
I prefer not to waste my starbases on raising naval cap as I have better things to do with them e.g. defending choke points; collecting and protecting trade revenue. I will fill up the remainder of a trade station with anchorages but will almost never purpose build anchorages. I will put fortresses on planets and habitats but the habitat is often a mid-late game item (150 influence will get you about 2.5 systems) and my first habitat is always a research station. Also you need spare pop growth capacity to put fortresses on planets, by the endgame I will have a fortress on most planets outside my core systems, but in the early game production is more important. One of the best ways to get Naval capacity. The Supremacy Tradition - starting this gives +20 Naval cap (not much) but then you can get a priceless +20% Naval cap with your next pick. The Galactic Community defence resolutions give you +10%, +20%... Naval cap. But if they pass the private security contractor law that's 10 % off your cap until you can get a Naval contractor to handle your logistics for +15% cap. Now, doesn't 'Lord of War' seem a better pick than GFP - unless you need extra cap/fleet size in a hurry.
galatic force project isnt good because of fleet capacity is good because fleet command limit is a hard 250 max and the only way to get there is that perk. if you want that quick lead on fleet str. 2 extra battle ships in your fleet does the trick
well with habitats and worlds you can use them to stop they enemy to advance deeper in your systems without the need to use the naval capacity....i like it is so diverge and there are so many options. However since ships are so damn expensive to maintain i would rarelly need more than 300 naval capacity in a game before the crisis comes.
Actually, Force Projection got a MASSIVE boost with 3.8, as you need to be more concerned with fleet command than ever before. In fact, 3.8.3 just threw us all into a dilemma: what to do about admirals in the mid-to-late game? As admirals would give us extra fleet command up until 3.8.2, this wasn't as big a problem. But now, it's an unmitigated disaster! Which brings me to Force Projection: combined with Distinguished Admiralty (which got an even greater boost since they decided to remove almost all leader xp boosters from the game), it means max fleet command of 260, instead of 230: 3 battleships, a cruiser and a destroyer per fleet, which not only make each fleet more powerful, but also reduce the number of admirals eating up our brand new Leader Cap!!!
Well the cheapest a best source of naval cap is..... khan Thrones... Satrapy cost nothing exept influence and give a lot of naval cap ;) But i agree with you i like to play tall and fortress world and habit are busted... You can fill them easy with slave buyed on the market or with raiding bombardment stance or even with resetling pop away from conquered world.... ;)
if you think about how many energy credits or minerals, or even consumer goods and alloys those pops wasted on a fortress world(well "wasted", having one has big benefits) can create, how that very same planet could host districts, unity, or research buildings... anything is better than fortress worlds...until you need them. I would never build one for naval cap. Only at a chokepoint for defense. All those pops as techies and you can easily afford going OVER your naval and starbase cap.
lets be real The best way to get naval capacity is to combine EVERYTHING together in a way that doesnt bankrupt the empire you are playing (oh yeah and making federations for that OP federation fleet lol)
Usually I really like your content but in this case ngl I was hoping for a more detailed approach to this issue. After watching this video i am as smart (or rather as dumb) as before watching it. 1. I think your dea to reduce all cost to allows is immensely oversimplifying it. After a certain point the "upkeep" or opportunity costs really outweight the initial costs. You kind of mentioned that in the end at the fortress world part, but I would have liked a more numbers approach here. (E.G. Production of lategame alloy worker vs Soldier or something). I also think that at least mentioning the possible cost reduction technologies or policies would also be important. 2. Why do you only consider the maximum costs? I think mentioning the costs of a minimum slot (2 slots) starbase vs a basic habitat is just as important as mentioning the lategame costs. I really like to go for the starbase (with 2 or 4 slots) naval cap. in the early game and would like to know if that's any good. 3. Strategy aspect is also relevant. You can't compare a fortress world with a fortress habitat. Ususally fortress habitats get placed at the border with inhibitors to slow down the enemies. I am only a vs AI player with admiral/grandadmiral scaling difficulty and medium threat. You are at least 10 times the player I am. But that's the reason I am watching your videos :) No hard feelings and I hope you keep up the good content :)
You don't have to expand the habitats... it doesn't give you any slots and you can upgrade the capital building after 10 pops regardless. And you can get 7 slots easily with just lvl2 capital and 2 building techs. All in all the actual cost per naval cap is like 25 alloys. The scaling is infinite as the only really limiting part are the pops. On the flip side anchorages scale kinda poorly. You will be VERY hard-pressed to get more than 20ish slots. And you kind of want them for other things too, like shipyards and defense. But even if you use all 20 slots (which is still a lot in general) you only get 720 in total... and that's it. But it isn't that much, in the grand scale of things, especially if you are doing some 25x crisis run or sweating in multiplayer. Overall it comes down to the situation: not many pops but leftover alloys => anchorages you do have some leftover pops => habitats Ultimately if you wanna min-max you should probably just do Both.
I wouldn't wanna waste administrative cap on fortress world. I might put a fortress on every planet if there's the end game crisis but otherwise I don't think I would wanna.
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Play the game for a bit, if you like it; keep playing, if not, well, bask in the warm glow of shed building support.
Until Fleet Command fixes the PVP aspect of the game, I'm never playing that game ever again.
The Strategic Coordination Center gives +6 starbase capacity, so you can add the amount you get from Anchorages Stations from it too if you want to make it seem better.
36*6 = 216 + 150 = 366 Total Capacity.
I say Warrior Culture, as planets expand, they need amenities. It can scale quickly.
And you can go Authoritarian for stratified economy so you use almost none Consumer Goods and go military economy for +25% alloys. For good part of early game just empire capital factories should be enough to feed your consumer goods so new planets can go alloys or basic resources
WC only is good with new leadership council position.
Agree, even with the alloy cost, for most of the game, I'm building some kind of entertainer building for amenities when I first settle a world.
Good thing about warrior culture is that you can have the hedonist civic instead to generate both unity and pops fast and switch to warrior culture when you got enough pops to field massive fleets
Tried it once, the alloy cost was waaaay too high.
Fortress Habs also require *pops* to work the soldier jobs, so there's an opportunity cost there. Just counting alloys is a *gross* oversimplification of the pros and cons of each option.
Naval cap options are not in a vacuum and different situations call for using different ones. Building a starbase on a trade route? In a black hole for dark matter generation? Might as well make it an anchorage, too! Have a key chokepoint that you want to stall enemies forever? Fortress hab gives you a ton of naval cap in addition to a world with thousands of armies and an FTL inhibitor.
Pops are king.
Each pop produces 3 to 16+ resources per month. 6 naval cap from a soldier can be costing you 25+ resources **per year** per naval cap.
Even if the jobs are free that isn't worth it usually.
@@adamnevraumont4027 I mean each pop costs 6ish alloys at base production rates in alloy upkeep from opportunity cost. That pop could be producing alloys instead.
But those pops can provide a MASSIVE unity boost which gives you even more bonuses you can activate, and increase your alloy production even more.
@@KraNisOGnah solders produce low amount of unity in comparison with other jobs. I only bild solders in late game when you just have full space station limit but need to have much more naval cap.
Well, anchorage starbases are, in fact, in vacuum.
Note that the fortress habitat costs ~10 alloys/month in upkeep from the minerals you have to convert into motes, plus the alloy upkeep from the capital building. It also requires an ascension perk as well as tens of thousands of research points sunk into habitat techs. Not to mention that those fortress habitats will negatively impact your empire size.
Anchorages are available from the start of the game, and at least as a non-hivemind empire there isn't really much else worthwhile to put into your starbases.
And of course, the true best way to get naval cap wasn't even mentioned.
*Satrapies*
Not exactly the most reliable way, since it requires the Khan to get out of bed, but good lord does it lead to a naval cap snowball.
For sure, Fortress Habs are more of a Mid and Late game way to increase naval cap, but in the early game, the best and most efficient way to increase your naval cap is just to research it. +30 Naval Cap in the early game is fantastic, even with the opportunity cost of not researching another tech. Like you said, the early starbases you build will also probably be Anchorages too. So combined, the two of those definitely outweigh Fortress Habs until you get all the aforementioned research, Ascension Perk, etc.
But in the late game, where you need to build *massive* fleets, and you have basically repurposed your economy to prepare for the Crisis, then Fortress Habs are definitely the best. There is a very strong cap on the number of Starbases you can have, which requires Mega-Engineering, additional research, way more Alloys, and potentially an Ascension Perk (Master Builders for +Assembly speed and building more than 1 at once, not required, just extremely convenient, same as Voidborne) in order to increase that. Overall, in the course of the game, Fortress Habs will contribute more to your fleet cap. You definitely should not be trying to build them early, basically not at all until you run out of that Society tech that increases your Fleet Cap for you.
@@BrisingrFan55 I personally love Fortress Habs myself, alongside Starbases being designed for defense with them in chokepoint systems (To delay - while your starbase ain't going to win against a concerted fleet effort, the longer you delay an enemy, the better your odds of turning the tides and controlling the flow of the war).
Of course, this is because the way I tend to play is by starting wide - grabbing as much area as I can, and settling on lots of planets early game - then turning all but the ones closest to my main worlds into population production centers whose pops will immigrate as fast as possible to my actual worlds with jobs (Mining, industry, etc) because they can't work on their home planets (Also makes these areas pretty easy to sacrifice in war). This of course makes my gameplay cycle tedious early game (And likely dumb as flip in multiplayer - but I don't play multiplayer ever in any game), as I kinda have to keep on eye on my neighbors, but the endgame effect works out quite well. By building up several fortresses in chokepoint systems, the AI really struggles to push into my main centers and I have beaten several games with the endgame crisis just suiciding themselves against my walls, all while I casually break them down piece by piece. Fun way to play if I'm not going Devouring Swarm.
*Separately, the Unbidden absolutely change my strategy with this, but it's not much different - I just don't stay on the Cautious defense and push more for aggression.
i think its a big jump to considerate the 10alloys/month in upkeep " from minerals you have to convert into motes" . a realy BIG jump. its not even close , not only minerals can be found in space or megastructures , but converting them into alloys cost pops , upkeeps , sprawl and space. but i think habitats are worst way too but because you need pops. that don't grow that easely.
And It costs pops
Empire size is 100% irrelevant ALWAYS
Honestly, they need to add some more buildings that you get from ascension perks.
Galactic Force Projection could have a naval academy tied to it. One per planet but it gives you 10-20 capacity per job with it having upgradable tiers to have more jobs.
ascension perks do sometimes feel like they're missing a little something spicy sometimes.
building your tech early is demanding enough
Don't forget the cost of food and amenities for a hab and planet.
While it may not seem like much, you'd have to account for it as it grows.
The anchorages just max out and you just have the energy/mineral upkeep.
It is easier to just treat pops as producing 4 to 12 net resources per month each. (This accounts for CG consumption, amenities, food etc - net resources).
Then a soldier is producing 6 naval cap (more like 4-5 accounting for support) or the alloys etc it could produce.
The real trick is that naval cap is traded off with naval support costs. At some point, cap is worth more or less than energy production.
You don't need amenities...
If any1 rebels, they get annihilated by the armies.
@@r30413 sure, but amenities is like a 10% tax. On the scales we are talking about rounding error
I usually just spend a single building on each of my planets on a fortress, makes sure that all of my colonies has at least some security and scales BIG for wide empires
Yeah, these fools don't understand our ways.
;D
as an economist, your conclusion at the end is pretty much the thing that defines this whole thing, opportunity cost, having pops work as soldiers to generate naval cap is bad because those pops could always be doing something better, in fact, those 44 soldiers could've been 44 metallurgists generating 132 alloys per month.
Honestly at the end I think this video would need to be remade in the future also taking in consideration monthly costs, because motes for example can be quite difficult in some playthroughs to get, and having that many buildings that need it means either wasting a lot of resources in trades or having even more pops wasting their time making the motes somewhere else in your empire.
Also given that generating influence is a very big deal in this game, I think it's also worth using it as part of your production cost for naval capacity given that it plays such a huge role in the game
"Where are you going to get all those pops from?" Laughs in Raiding bombardment
I think a great revamp for Galactic Force Projection would be to:
a.) Increase the Naval Capacity Bonus
b.) Change the Fleet Capacity bonus so that it instead scales the bonus provided by your Admirals (now relevant with Patch 3.8), and
c.) Add a bonus to Sublight Speed for ships that are actively reinforcing your fleets.
The last one is my favorite idea and I feel adds a lot of flavor to the Perk.
Very nice idea. It really should provide 120-150 naval cap. I only really take it for the fleet command limit to have the biggest individual fleets possible.
d.) make it strong by just giving you 100 fleet command limit
I think it should allow in-place retrofit of ships.
@@cyruspowers735550 plus 30%?
My personal favorite way to get naval capacity is to create Thrall Worlds filled with Fortresses that are manned by the enslaved xenos. It's best done on newly conquered worlds as your economy shouldn't be reliant on them or the pops there. The bonus to pop growth also means the soldier jobs are filled fast, though you could also just use resettlement. Since the pops are slaves there's minimal upkeep and it takes only a few years to build out all the fortresses, so there's no alloy upkeep from fortresses, no opportunity cost with your core worlds, and as a bonus you can outsource raw resource production to these worlds.
Fortress habitats require pops whereas anchorages don’t, and pops can have a pretty high alloy output
The issue with anchorages is that you have a cap on how many starbases you can have. That means early to mid game, you can get a huge boost to naval capacity from anchorages but then you hit a cap. After this is soldiers that must continue your naval capacity climb. If they are expensive and hard to maintain then build your economy up with them to support it
Anchorages, however, require limited Starbase space, and I think they're a module, making them exclusive w/ Trade Hubs, Shipyards, and gun batteries. Fortress Habs win.
But all going over the starbase cap does is to increase the cost of building and maintaining them, which is something any decent size economy can shoulder. I habitually go 100%+ over my starbase cap without any ill effects.
Nihilistic Acquisition solves all pop problems... and is fun as hell.
Besides which, fortress worlds/habs are necessary for defense. If you don't have to rely on those fortress worlds/habs to survive mid/late-game wars, then you are not playing at a challenging difficulty.
Important! Wood stain with preservative every wood shed item all sides, even the flooring. You'll extend shed life a tonne even if the wood is pressure treated. Do a couple coats and it'll look great too
I always use a mixture of Fortress Worlds and Starbase anchorages. Seems to work pretty well.
Galactic Force projection would be a alright perk if it gave a certain amount of naval cap for every starbase and planet you control, that way it would scale properly into the late game. Around 10 per planet and 5 per starbase would be ok, I think. It'd at the very least be a improvement over the fixed 80 it gives now.
Or give like 50, and 30% (that would be 80 if you have 50 from other sources)
Iirc supremacy gives 20%
I typically build two kinds of civilian stations: shipyards and system hubs. A system hub station has three trade hubs, three anchorages, an offworld trading company, a navel logistics office, a transit hub and a deep space blacksite. It's not min/maxed, but it's easily replicable, and it covers all my bases. I can place a fortress world if I need to, to boost beyond that.
I don't think you need that much trade hubs. They're terrible in terms of trade value production, and you dont need that much of them to cover your empire, if you minmax a station. Basically, a trade station with 6 trade hubs and hyperlane registrar is covering 7 systems deep, which can easily be 20 systems. It also helps minimise piracy, if that's a problem, because trade collection from outside, doesn't generate piracy in the system.
If you have Mercantile traditions, you'll also get +1 range, but that's a niche tree.
Other big benefit to separation is obviously more naval cap from anchorage stations with naval logistics office, since its bonus scales with number of amchorages. I would say, this is the main reason to split those. Also, there's no real benefit to doing mixed things. I would understand, if you could copy and paste designs or autobuild stations somehow, but currently the ease of use is not a factor in deciding the best designs.
Also, I written all this simply because you commented it under the video about the best ways to get naval cap, which mixed stations are definitely not.
Alloy cost is not the right way to look at it.
Fortress habitats cost pops, pops you would probably rather have doing something productive. There is a huge opportunity cost. In that sense anchorage are a lot cheaper.
Warrior culture's duellists are very good for this reason, but it's a very specific build compared to habitats and anchorage who are for everyone.
Alternatively there is some value to be had in giving every planets it's own fortress to delay invasions.
The best source of fleet capacity is federation and custodian/imperial fleets. That's up 500 fleet capacity right here each, especially if you create a bunch of vassals with anchorages as everyone gets 3 regardless of size.
On a side note if you want to blow an ascension perk on fleet capacity grasp the void is straight-up better than galactic force projection. It gives you extra starbase capacity and each starbase can be turned into an anchorage that when put together produces more fleet cap than galactic force projection each
Galactic Force projection need to be a percentage increase. So as your naval cap raises from other sources, it increases it and becomes more powerful
1:20 That shed looks like something you'd rent for 600 a month while going to college in a big city these days.
Comes with a complementary dose of Black longue and Tetanus.
Don't give him ideas...
@@A_Spec what a sale! both for free? or do they cost subscription to get?
1500 take it or leave it!
@@meetjoechill I saw it first! Get back!
There's a mod I play with that changes Galactic Force Projection to give it a flat % increase to naval capacity. Makes it *much* better.
Name of the mod?
@@inFayt_Lies Worthy Ascension Perks for 3.8.*
Though in the current version, they updated what the perk does to give it an extra step. You have to do an agenda, which gives +10% naval cap and +5% ship build speed. The finish effect is a one time permanent bonus of +15% naval cap and +10 command limit.
Wasn't aware of the change until you made me go look for the mod name. Been a couple weeks since I've played with it lol.
Even the weather wants shed gone.
I never build Strategic coordination center for the ship cap, but rather the sub-light speed LOL.
I think the opportunity costs are also important.
A strategic command center could have been a science nexus (though I like the sublight speed as well)
A planet could have been an ecumenopolis (that is the ascention perk better used)
a habitat station could have been a mining colony (Let's call it Deep Space 9 and position it in a wormhole system)
but an anchorage station allows the weapons mounted on the station to be put on a ship and moved around for some extra alloy cost of building the ship. Yet if you need a single hard point of defense, a battlestation can be very effective.
Strategic command center I would disagree, it can be a science nexus, only if you don't have one build yet. If you have built the rest, the opportunity cost is lower (it could be a ring world)
You can build one of each megastructure normally, so there's no opportunity cost.
Only if you factor in time, which isn't really relevant, as megastructures are late game build-whenever-you-get-them kind of thing.
The only exceptions are ring worlds, which are less efficient than any other 1 of a kind megastructures, but share the same limit of building.
You should build ring worlds after the unique stuff, probably.
A fortress world can still be an ecumenopolis. Those soldiers need to be entertained, give them a leisure district to defend.
I used to be team anchorage, then I started doing fortress worlds. Habitats are nice, but they're small. Anchorages are great early game, but once everything's set up I usually transition to habitats/worlds to maximize energy production
Fortress planets have 3 major hidden costs.
1)opportunity cost:pops(mentioned) small planets inside your empire can easily turn either to unity or science production(building heavy). Both unity and science lead to more Fleet cap while Fortress planets lead to more energy/mote upkeep. They require a strong economy, while not directly beefing up said economy, while also denying other tech/unity benefits
2)Reliability cost: You won't always have small planets in your empire
3)Conflicting Interests: You might be asking a question yourself even if you have the planets, tech and unity production. Do you really want to colonise that size 9 planet for nav cap? Stellaris has empire size that gets higher through 4 main ways. Number of pops, number of districts, number of planets and number of systems. Colonising a planet and growing it affects 3 out of those 4. Besides fortress habitats and planets, no other nav cap boosting method does that, which is why they are considered only very late into the game(unless there are multilayer reasons for them, but then it's not the naval cap you are seeking)
Edits:
(1) added a missing "planets" word
(2) corrected 3 to 4 in Empire size growth ways
You should have done it with energy cost instead of alloys. That way, you could also factor in the upkeep per pop and such. But still, an informative video.
Important metric
I tend to use anchorages in inhabited systems/black hole systems so i can use them for multipurpose stuff.
What I use for my intial increase in naval cap is to put a strong hold on every planet.
Also of note, and this is probably important when it comes to Fortress Worlds, and Habitats. is that as of current patch, they're broken, and a moment they are invaded, most if not all the pops may die off completely if the invading army is Xenomorphs or other very high collateral damage causing army. As right now Armies and Riding bombardment are broken. (see also how Sentinel armies can kill around 25~ 30 pop planet when triggered )
It's really about the stage of the game and opportunity cost more than just the alloy cost. Anchorages are better for early game because of what you said in the video, how they are faster and easier to get up and running. For late game when you are trying to make your 2000+ naval capacity super fleets you need to have 1 or 2 fortress worlds setup, unless you're a megacorp and then you can just use mostly branch offices lol.
Anchorages are great and all until you need 1000s of naval cap. They don’t scale well in that regard.
Then in wartime as your naval bases are taken you lose cap, and thus upkeep. Had a few wars tank my economy that way.
I’ll keep my fortress chokepoints to stall the enemy for my much larger fleets.
I tend to use them to collect trade and such. Especially with voidborne start. Build a starbase over them with the module that gives stability, food and fleet capacity plus then anchorage. Which is a pretty cheap way to collect the trade ans boost the production of say 5 habitats below them. Furthermore, they also protect trade coming in from places that are farther away without needing to build trade protection modules.
The best source is big economy, so you can easily tank double naval cap.
Also, Satrapy is great.
Pops spent on naval cap can instead be spent on energy and alloys, effectively inceeasing your actual hard cap.
Short answer: Dyson spheres
I think the problem with the Fortress Worlds is you lose out on its use an unbreakable Cadia-like bastion if it's not at some kind of choke node lynchpin, and just making one feels wrong though it 's doable. You better believe if I get a planet at a choke node though it's fortress time.
My best on your improving Amenities shed. Keep clearing blockers!
I often set up fortress worlds at bottlenecks anyway, the naval cap is just a nice bonus.
Same. Not to mention the armies help delay bombardment losses of plsnets
Fanatic militarist + culture workers = your unity production has extra naval capacity.
Sure only 12 per maxed upgraded monument but as you get more worlds that adds up! ^^
The simplest and lowest effort way is just to plop a stronghold on each planet as it grows, then worry about additional sources when you're running low.
This is the way
Nothing on the new council mechanic? Some admirals can give massive boosts to naval capacity based on how their new leader traits...
I think ascension perks in general need a total re-work. I want to see ascension perks merged and just tossed out, reducing the number of useless ones. Gating structures and ships behind ascension perks is dumb. Ascension perks that give a flat bonus one time need to be re-worked to give some kind of scaling bonus. To me ascension perks exist to change how you play, but gating things you will definitely want every single playthrough behind them is just a tax on getting to those things. Ascension perks should either fill a gap in your build or allow you to double down on and specialize hard into your build, not gating off things that could be events and techs or just techs.
Another fun hidden cost in fortress habitats is if you are not making clones, you are probably building robots to reliably fill up the jobs at a steady rate, since habitats have really bad planet capacity that affects natural pop growth on them. So robots (or cyborgs) it is, which is another constant alloy drain that is going to get worse per pop the further in the game you are.
i feel like up front cost of gaining naval cap is arguably negligible. if ur desperate for naval cap to begin with, u should be in the stage of the game where ur economy is good enough to cover such cost and fill that naval cap. The more important thing in gaining naval cap is the upkeep expense of gaining naval cap in the long term. If someone is trying to get naval cap while their economy is crap, their doing it wrong to begin with. whats the point of gaining naval cap if u cant support the fleet that's gonna fill that cap.
I say fortress habitats, because they also work as FTL traps.
Throw a planetary shield generator on it and straight up nothing is getting past that system
Fortress worlds at choke points. Military star bases with anchorages and logistics offices. I still take force projection, but it’s in need of a serious nerf. A strategic coordination center has become a must build for me lately.
I use fortress habitats on choke point systems into my territory primarily for the subspace snares they provide. One more defensive stumbling block if I am overwhelmed. Sure, you might take the starbase, but you can't leave the system. Good luck taking 8 habitats with 4k troops on each one, and the naval capacity is a bonus.
Ps- I prefer to use my stations to spam defensive platforms and shipyards over anchorage.
When I'm pumping out ships at 100 at a time during a costly war of attrition, it's worth not having anchorage stations.
Pps- gestalt consciousness I legit have a difficult time producing enough jobs for pops.
I always dedicate any extra starbase cap towards anchorages. I also try to find planets in strategic systems to turn into fortress worlds. Then I start making fortress habitats. In one of my most recent games I was able to stack up almost 6000 naval cap after everything
I don't usually use fortress worlds or anchorages, I use an early game tech upgrade(society, ground defense planning), which I notice you didn't mention at all, combined with a single stronghold and military academy on each of my planets to build my naval capacity.
Unless I have a small planet count, by the endgame, I usually need to remove some of, or entirely avoid using, the strongholds and academies, as my navcap eventually builds much higher than I can afford to maintain.
It has the added benefit of making each of my worlds difficult to invade with ground forces, thereby slowing down any invasions, significantly.
I use EVERY way. I use habitats, planets, anchorages, branch offices if i'm megacorp, galactic resolutions, etc.
The opportunity cost of the soldier job really throws this metric off. Those soldiers are workers that could be producing more alloys on planets.
I feel like Anchorage are just free real estate that dont cost a huge amount of alloys, and dont really take away from any other resource, other than star base cap.
you can use fortress habitat, build all trade district and put it on trade station cause martial law doesnt effect trade value and you have 100% stability
Mercenary liaison + naval contractors + Logistical solutions = super high naval cap while ignoring soldier jobs
Megacorp is the way to go for absurd feelt sizes because they can also pay the upkeep the easiest, the msot extreme i've gotten so far in unmodded is 20k navy at 7k cap with a bunch of upkeep reducing leaders but undocked that was still an upkeep of well over 20k energy credits
I Alway go for Fortress Worlds, there is always a Useless size 10 or less Planet around \o/
The only time I have fortress worlds/habitats is to road block a route into my empire... they work for a good amount of time
I’ll just state that the strategic coordination center is far better than it sounds.
Sure 45000 alloys for 150 sounds bad, but it’s actually 45000 + the cost of 6 anchorage starbases for 366 naval capacity, which is a lot more palatable.
And who remembers when galactic force projection was actually +200 capacity, making it highly viable for rush empires?
Galactic force projection should be a PERCENTAGE boost to naval capacity (As well as the Fleet command limit).
Seriously though, if you're willing to spend an ascension perk on naval capacity, just take Grasp the void.. 5 extra starbases translates into 180 Naval Capacity. (Is 100 naval cap worth 20 fleet command limit? hmm..)
So it seems like, in summary, fortress habs are the best when it comes to cost for most empires, but you need to staff them with pops, and it won't produce too much. Anchorages are more expensive, but are able to be just plopped down and be done with. Fort. Planets are the best overall when it comes to efficiency.
Criminal Syndicate. Vassals. Branch offices. In that order. Those pirates are mint
I always get fortres planets late game because of the reason this video states. The pops are probably my most important resource. They can make anything and they can make everything rather efficiently. Early game, the most important thing for my planets is not to make naval cap, it's to make energy, minerals, alloys, science. Late game though, one small planet extra for making 5% extra alloys while you have nowhere to spend those alloys because you're at naval cap?
I usualy look for small worlds and when I can afford I colonice them, make them create pops for my other planets (maximize pop growth) and then when naval cap becomes a problem they stop exporting pops and start making naval cap instead.
Well warrior culture along with Leisure districts in Ecumenopolis with strongholds and boom you are done for, huge amount of Naval caps, and unity, can use that unity for all other edict buffs including fleet capacity buffs. Have reached multiple times to max naval capacity of 9999 that way, only thing what matches it is Machine empire with Machine worlds strong holds.
Only reason I get Galactic Force Projection, is for the Fleet Command Limit.
The total max of fleet command limit, is 260.
Quick Rundown on what is needed for it all.
From *Research*:
+40 from Destroyer, Cruiser, Battleship and Titan Research.
+100 from the 5 Doctrine Fleet command limit research.
+50 from the Repeatable 5 times of Admiralty Support Staff.
From *Civic, Tradition, Ascension*:
+10 from Distinguished Admirals Civic.
+20 from Supremacy War Games Tradition perk.
+20 from Galactic Force Projection Ascension.
From *Base*:
20.
Total from Research is 190, Total from Civic, Tradition and Ascension is 50, and the base number is 20. 190 + 50 + 20 = 260.
And for those who wants some Ship Numbers with it.
This is equal to:
260 Corvettes/Frigates
130 Destroyers
65 Cruisers
32 Battleships + 1 Cruiser
16 Titans + 1 Cruiser.
Though I doubt anyone will have 16 Titans in one fleet XD
And since we do need to have a mixed fleet, we have a larger pool to work with, which in turn means more fleet power, which means easier to win.
Sadly Machine Empires, Hive Minds, and Megacorps will not be able to get the Distinguished Admirals Civic, so they only get 250 as max.
in all my hundreds of hours of stellaris, i have never had enough spare pops to build a single fortress building for naval cap.
anytime i built one of these, it was to defend a chokepoint i was unlikely to hold in space.
Her Majesty, The Empress, Praise be unto Her and the Golden Throne, said "vassals".
Lol, if you put all our tool and lawn care device storage sheds together they would make up more space than our house, and the whole porch and basement are also full of tools and other stuff my father used once or twice and forgot he had it. Most of it was used when he got it. We don't spend a lot on tools, but we have a lot.
I thoght Fortress Worlds would have been a no brainer because 90% of games you're going to have at least 1 fortress world because of the massive strategic, and tactical boons it gives your empire. Besides, star bases can have better uses than anchorages.
Stealing pops from other empires to make your planets EVEN better is.... well as we've seen can be quite broken.
I'm not saying galactic force projection is good by any means but it is potentially situationally useful in giving you a timing window vs one other empire. Every other source requires that you spend alloys to get that fleet cap. In Particular if you compare GFP to grasp the void (the direct 1-1 comparison of two perks), whilst in the long run GtV is 180 naval cap (i.e. 125% more naval cap than GFP), you don't get it until you've spent both the alloys and time to get there. This analysis on the whole falls into this problem that future alloys and current alloys are valued equivalently and that's just not the case, one unit of 2220 alloys is significantly more value than one unit of 2250 alloys.
An interesting exercise to run the maths though.
If you wanted to get the biggest fleet in the shortest time you're probably opening something like prosperity, unyielding, supremacy off three planets. Picking up both grasp the void and GFP. Long term you lose out but there's a window when the freeness of GFP can be leveraged significantly against these other methods.
Hm, so early game: the first couple of naval cap techs. Mid game: anchorage stations. Late game: Cadia *stands* .
I got it! G.F.P a must, thanks Aspec .
I would basically only build fortress worlds/habitats for defense and never for naval cap exclusively (like spamming them everywhere).
Aspec is prolly thinking of turning the shed into his new fortress world and maybe a anchorage for his tools :)
in my games, i am always super pop-starved, despite being a machine empire, with 40+ planets, machine assembly complexes on each and every one(yes the upgraded ones) i have barely even filled 5 planets! so anchorages it is
Galactic fore projection should scale like idk +2 naval cap every year and maybe +2 fleet comand limit every 5 years after grabing the perk. Then ist great if you need more ships early on and is still somewhat usefull later on.
Maybe you can make a honorable mention of Merc enclave's logistic contract. I know it's a percentage but I find it extremely important mid to late game
Anchorage's are more like the default way of expanding. Fortress Worlds are the way forward for me. Terraformed a size six planet. Fortress world.
I build strongholds on every planet, they shall not pass...
So yeah, habitats are the best.
Seriously, what else are you going to build on your citadels? A trading hub or two if you need them, maybe some defense oriented modules on border bases, but what else needs a module slot on a base within your empire?
I usually use small planet as miniopolis.
first?
Yay. Refreshed and confirmed.
Now to actually watch the video :)
yea, i dont own most dlcs, and of course it has to be Cadia the best way, you should put a planet shield generator there aswell so that the enemies will stack up ships on that in orbital bombardment and they are stuck there untill the planet reach 50% devastation due to the fortress FTL inhibitors, i managed to survive 15+ stacks of 200k fleets for decades by just recrouting soldiers in the besiged planet and i would have just played the game normally while in a loosing war, you can use slave xeno pop to fill in the soldier jobs to top it all off, dont forget to put the planet in martial law to get it at 100% stability from soldiers jobs while getting bombarded, you can do that on low habitability planets too, because slaves and soldier jobs don't use any consumer goods
I prefer not to waste my starbases on raising naval cap as I have better things to do with them e.g. defending choke points; collecting and protecting trade revenue. I will fill up the remainder of a trade station with anchorages but will almost never purpose build anchorages.
I will put fortresses on planets and habitats but the habitat is often a mid-late game item (150 influence will get you about 2.5 systems) and my first habitat is always a research station. Also you need spare pop growth capacity to put fortresses on planets, by the endgame I will have a fortress on most planets outside my core systems, but in the early game production is more important.
One of the best ways to get Naval capacity. The Supremacy Tradition - starting this gives +20 Naval cap (not much) but then you can get a priceless +20% Naval cap with your next pick.
The Galactic Community defence resolutions give you +10%, +20%... Naval cap. But if they pass the private security contractor law that's 10 % off your cap until you can get a Naval contractor to handle your logistics for +15% cap. Now, doesn't 'Lord of War' seem a better pick than GFP - unless you need extra cap/fleet size in a hurry.
Galactic Force Projection should be one of the perks that increase leader capacity, otherwise its literally useless.
galatic force project isnt good because of fleet capacity is good because fleet command limit is a hard 250 max and the only way to get there is that perk. if you want that quick lead on fleet str. 2 extra battle ships in your fleet does the trick
well with habitats and worlds you can use them to stop they enemy to advance deeper in your systems without the need to use the naval capacity....i like it is so diverge and there are so many options. However since ships are so damn expensive to maintain i would rarelly need more than 300 naval capacity in a game before the crisis comes.
Honestly. They need to change how it works with fleet cap and such. It hasn't changed since 1.0.
Aspec, thoughts on making as much energy credits as possible to just buy pops for fortress planets?
I can pop branch offices at a whim, but I can't summon and terraform tiny planets in a similar way.
Also they cost no pops and a whopping 2 empire size. Whereas a planet costs a lot more.
Fortress planets are fine... But the opportunity cost of having pops work soldier jobs rather than metallurgist or researcher jobs is high.
Actually, Force Projection got a MASSIVE boost with 3.8, as you need to be more concerned with fleet command than ever before. In fact, 3.8.3 just threw us all into a dilemma: what to do about admirals in the mid-to-late game? As admirals would give us extra fleet command up until 3.8.2, this wasn't as big a problem. But now, it's an unmitigated disaster! Which brings me to Force Projection: combined with Distinguished Admiralty (which got an even greater boost since they decided to remove almost all leader xp boosters from the game), it means max fleet command of 260, instead of 230: 3 battleships, a cruiser and a destroyer per fleet, which not only make each fleet more powerful, but also reduce the number of admirals eating up our brand new Leader Cap!!!
The best place to get more pops is the neighbors, they tend to have plenty of pops who want to become unpaid interns for you.
The coordination center is a weird one because the additional starbases are anchorages :D
Well the cheapest a best source of naval cap is..... khan Thrones... Satrapy cost nothing exept influence and give a lot of naval cap ;) But i agree with you i like to play tall and fortress world and habit are busted... You can fill them easy with slave buyed on the market or with raiding bombardment stance or even with resetling pop away from conquered world.... ;)
Wish we could get all the ship types right from the start instead of just corvettes and frigates.
if you think about how many energy credits or minerals, or even consumer goods and alloys those pops wasted on a fortress world(well "wasted", having one has big benefits) can create, how that very same planet could host districts, unity, or research buildings... anything is better than fortress worlds...until you need them. I would never build one for naval cap. Only at a chokepoint for defense. All those pops as techies and you can easily afford going OVER your naval and starbase cap.
lets be real
The best way to get naval capacity is to combine EVERYTHING together in a way that doesnt bankrupt the empire you are playing
(oh yeah and making federations for that OP federation fleet lol)
i start off using anchorages then when i start taking over enemy planets i turn them into fortress worlds and use the new slave pops as soldiers
Usually I really like your content but in this case ngl I was hoping for a more detailed approach to this issue. After watching this video i am as smart (or rather as dumb) as before watching it.
1. I think your dea to reduce all cost to allows is immensely oversimplifying it. After a certain point the "upkeep" or opportunity costs really outweight the initial costs. You kind of mentioned that in the end at the fortress world part, but I would have liked a more numbers approach here. (E.G. Production of lategame alloy worker vs Soldier or something). I also think that at least mentioning the possible cost reduction technologies or policies would also be important.
2. Why do you only consider the maximum costs? I think mentioning the costs of a minimum slot (2 slots) starbase vs a basic habitat is just as important as mentioning the lategame costs. I really like to go for the starbase (with 2 or 4 slots) naval cap. in the early game and would like to know if that's any good.
3. Strategy aspect is also relevant. You can't compare a fortress world with a fortress habitat. Ususally fortress habitats get placed at the border with inhibitors to slow down the enemies.
I am only a vs AI player with admiral/grandadmiral scaling difficulty and medium threat. You are at least 10 times the player I am. But that's the reason I am watching your videos :)
No hard feelings and I hope you keep up the good content :)
You don't have to expand the habitats... it doesn't give you any slots and you can upgrade the capital building after 10 pops regardless. And you can get 7 slots easily with just lvl2 capital and 2 building techs. All in all the actual cost per naval cap is like 25 alloys. The scaling is infinite as the only really limiting part are the pops.
On the flip side anchorages scale kinda poorly. You will be VERY hard-pressed to get more than 20ish slots. And you kind of want them for other things too, like shipyards and defense. But even if you use all 20 slots (which is still a lot in general) you only get 720 in total... and that's it. But it isn't that much, in the grand scale of things, especially if you are doing some 25x crisis run or sweating in multiplayer.
Overall it comes down to the situation:
not many pops but leftover alloys => anchorages
you do have some leftover pops => habitats
Ultimately if you wanna min-max you should probably just do Both.
I wouldn't wanna waste administrative cap on fortress world. I might put a fortress on every planet if there's the end game crisis but otherwise I don't think I would wanna.
Now, to do a tall militarist six-mercenary megastructure megacorp max popless production build.
Satrapies basically pull resources out of thin air.