Kind of surprised it took the devs so long to implement this too, considering the fact that they already had a Human X-com primitive planet early on. Only seems natural to have a game start that pick up right after the ending of X com
I once sent an equal amount of armies onto an Atomic Age primitive world and lost the conquest... Too bad nothing had happened of it back then. Let's see if now's gonna be any different? An emerging FTL civ with a technological headstart would be flavourful.
@@the_fenix_3247 and maybe add a chance to add a "few" armees if you attack a atomic age or later civ, as they unity, and throw everything against you. (and if they win, they become a payback empire), if they lose, they lose a few pops
I’m really excited for this new origin! I think it’d be really cool to play as a fanatical purifier who were baptized by fire with their first contact with aliens and this only made them want to purge the galaxy of all alien life so they can forever be at peace.
This is correct. It was a late technological development. Specifically the Bird of Prey in ST VI was the prototype of the tech. From there, even in TNG, it's never seen that I can recall. And it's not until the Defiant that this becomes more common.
The only two ships that I can remember that could fire while cloaked in ST was the aforementioned Bird of Prey form ST VI and the Scimitar from Nemesis
@@shawngillogly6873 Even the Defiant couldn’t fire while cloaked. When the Riker clone stole the defiant he decloaked before attacking Cardassian outposts. I don’t recall any incident where they did fire while cloaked, let me know if there is one on the show. (I don’t count the books or games, so maybe there?)
@@ErzengelDesLichtes While I too cannot speak of books or games, you are correct. The tough little ship always uncloaks before firing in the series. I believe the only other ship we have seen that could fire when cloaked was the Scimitar.
for the stealth tech, I hope that it can be attached to the Colossus. the amount of crazy things with a Colossus and several Fleets appearing above the enemy worlds within seconds before send it to kingdoms come would be a great stroy to tell.
I wonder if sentry arrays will be buffed a ton if they can see hidden ships Then imagine quantum catapults -> gateway in system next to it -> Lgate next to a gateway -> +50% firerate all across your empire...
@@TheContingency25x What's the point of building a sensor array if it can't do that job anymore? It's already a dubious build. But at least it has tactical value if it can detect all (or at least almost all) cloaked ships.
@@shawngillogly6873 But then it removes the purpose of cloaked ships. That’s why I said I was mixed. It’s either they don’t do it and the sentry array is a meh megastructure or if they do do it there’ll be no point in cloaked ships.
How about if the Sentry Array can see through cloaks, but the smaller the ship the closer it can get before the Sentry Array can see through the cloak? So capital ships can be detected a long distance away, but smaller ships can sneak up fairly close to it.
You can have a VERY long playthrough of Xcom: Enemy Unknown to fight back the alien invaders and then move onto Stellaris with the Payback origin to RP as a unified Earth with Xcom leading the fight.
Predatory Tactics might not mean that cloaking gives a huge speed debuff. Fx. it could be 10% reduction and Predatory tactics reduce it to 5% as opposed to a 60% reduction being reduced to 10%
I can see a slingshot to the stars + hivemind + Cordyceptic Drones start being very strong, especially early game - use the slingshot to make sure you've captured the space fauna homeworld systems, then use your slingshot to send the fauna into the heart of your enemies.
Same, it’s my favorite play style. I race out in the beginning grab the furthest choke points, turtle up and backfill my empire. Then I use the catapult to conquer parts of empires, modify the new species and release them as a vassal
I once encountered a pre ftl planet in the early space age with a habitable moon that was colonised by them with a cold War between the two groups happening. I started to uplift the moon colonists and got a message from the aliens on the planet telling me they know we're out there and demanding to be uplifted instead. To this day I have never encountered it a second time and I don't know if it was a vanilla or modded situation I ran into
@@voxter7224 still unsure if im honest, But about a month ago playing a new game a science ship found a system with a planet and moon that were tomb worlds. My suspicion is that its in the vanilla game
hm. Start with a (armed?) colony ship & a small defensive fleet, and the war fleet of a very hostile machine empire occupying your home system (that has several planets inhabited by your species), and you have to start by heading out into the galaxy to find a new world to settle and build a fleet to retake the home system. With the special ability to settle that only colony on a planet inhabited by a pre-FTL species! With different events for where along the path that pre-FTL species is. Still: the hardest start ever? In effect not having a homeworld at start is pretty darn hardcore even without having an enemy empire that has at least two systems at the start, and your colony ship starting in one of those systems. Insane. Gotta love it. Something like that?
There should be an option in the galactic community for Council or Custodian to pressure an empire into changing their laws/whatnot to REALLY prevent them from doing illegal things, and the target empire has to comply or pay influence or be targetted with an Enforce Galactic Law casus beli
6:56 in star trek it took special technology to allow to shoot while cloaking. most ships did not have that capability (if i remember right it was in one of the tos movies and maybe one tng episode [or a two-parter most likely] and thats it) so it does seem to be just like the standard star trek cloaking
That speech brings tears to my eyes everytime I hear it. Again, you mentioned guaranteed habitable worlds. Am I the only one who plays with those turned off? I look forward to the event where aware primitives on the brink of world war plead for an intervention from their alien observers.
I also play with them off. But i also reduce the number of habitable worlds and increase the number of pre ftl species. I wish i had an option to adjust the number of dead worlds with the terraform trait so i can gradually increase the number of planets over time with research. Hell, I'd take an option to increase the amount of tomb worlds by default if i could
"Becoming a pacifist after being invaded by aliens" It makes sense for Stellaris Pacifism, which is effective defensive violence only. They already have events where pops go pacifist after settle on tomb worlds, so a cataclysmic battle for existence could reasonably make a civ never want to wage offensive war again, even if their systems and worlds are brimmed with defensive weapons.
Gonna be honest, it would be a greatly flavorful thing to have a pacifist empire, that everyone learns are peaceful nabors to have... then pulls out the 'Payback' CB and utterly wreaks havoc on the ones who wronged them. Then goes straight back to being peaceful again, but now everyone really understands why they had so much military. Or alternatively, go full overkill, bust out the Colossus weapons and Genocide... Then experience a culture shift because 'actually, we're kind of horrible people for doing that, aren't we?' Bonus points if Cyberex make an appearance here. Or of course, realize you can't face this bigger, older empire without some kind of leg up... and become the Crisis. After all, it's easy to ensure 'Never Again.' when you are Shroud Gods, right?
I hope that cloaking introduces some mechanics that encourages you to patrol your systems to actively try detect cloaked vessels by like flying either Science ships or like corvettes with big sensors around your empire. The only reason to patrol within your borders now is to counter piracy, but that is like a non-issue at every stage of the game. Now this is making me wish that there were more ways to increase ship experience outside combat, like patroling ships instead of keeping em docked would increase exp to a certain point.
Hello, Commander. In light of the recent extraterrestrial incursion, this Council of Nations has convened to approve the activation of the XCOM Project. You have been chosen to lead this initiative. To oversee our first-and last-line of defense. Your efforts will have considerable influence on this planet's future. We urge you to keep that in mind as you proceed. Good luck, Commander.
I think the importance of the research options from pre-ftl civis changes with playing tall or wide. For a tall empire, they don´t really give much, but for a wide one, I see them as a really good bonus.
Would be cool if all affected pre-ftl civilizations would unite under one banner against the corporation, essentially giving you control of multiple planets with different pops across the galaxy
It might be interesting of you can catapult a cloaked fleet it would be like teleporting a sub fleet way behind enemy lines one at a time for a massive sneak attack
Reducing Empire Size from Districts can be really good. There is no way to reduce it more than 10% yet (with Construction Templates), so if you optimize your Empire for it, you'll end up with Districts being the biggest factor in Empire Size. I think from the revealed technologies so far, it is actually the second best. Best being the one which reduces Station Upkeep by 50%. This, depending on if it applies to Starbases too (they're Stations after all), may be worth multiple hundreds of Energy per month!
The energy upkeep applies only to mining and research stations in orbit because otherwise it would be crazy strong, makes exceeding your starbase limit trivial
@@KaizerKlash111 It is definitely worded differently than the bonus just above it (which explicitly applies to "Orbital Stations"). If it works differently remains to be seen (no way to know without a beta). Maybe it will be too strong, unbalanced content is nothing new, after all.
I assume it has something to do with the dilpomacy options built in between the payback empire and the freed slaves empire? Still would be nice to have it
You can be xenophobic (for good reason), just not full-on "genocide all other life in the galaxy"). Although Humanity in the Xeelee Sequence became like that after alien occupation...
Interesting. I studied a bit on trinary (or ternary) computing back in college. It uses values of 0,1, or -1, instead of just 0 and 1. It never really took off because it's not (necessarily) better than binary, and we've done pretty well with binary computing over the decades. It would be interesting to observe a civilization that decided on trinary computing.
One can only guess at how this would affect civilization as a whole. I like to think binary won out because it's simple: on-off, up-down, true-false etc. Maybe a society that gravitated more towards trinary computing would have more flexible ways of thinking, finding more middle grounds or 3rd options, as it were
@@brandonoflight8274 interesting. Maybe it could be a civic for a robotic empire. Perhaps they have better relationships due to being able to think more "broadly"
I usually play very diplomatic games and usually don’t invade them anyways for the society research, so this is actually a really cool dlc for the way I like to play.
Been doing a solo run where I'm playing the flood, consuming the galaxy, I managed to build a catapult close to the center so I could fling my hive fleets far and wide, but now with this level of accuracy? Nothing could stop them, right now I have randomly scattered areas of control outside of my core space, I'm loving the thought that I'll actually be able to send ships where I actually want them to go
Sounds like the 'Payback' origin quest line will finally let me create my own sequel to the _XCOM : Enemy Unknown / Enemy Within_ victory timeline. Vigilo Confido!
In other words, with the payback origin, we're the greater terran Union from Stellaris Invicta straight out of the gate without needing to role play as them. All Hail the GTU!
4:40 You just proposed a solution to that problem Allow players to form Armada's, these could be kind of like "super fleets" with their own Grand Admiral.
Oohh, I hadn't seen the updates to Quantum Catapult yet. Some interesting buffs to both the megastructure and the origin. It seems like they overestimated the usefulness of the megastructure in the eyes of the player and what getting it early actually granted. It makes me curious to see what a max upgraded catapult with the origin would look like accuracy wise now at long range. Still, even if your armada gets split up some with a longer launch, the +50% fire rate is a pretty massive boost on arrival that may compensate at least some for not all of your fleets arriving in the same system, especially if they're still close enough to survive in the system they land in and converge on the target system at roughly the same time. Between Insight Technologies, Archeotech (of which I'm looking forward to the reworked Remnants origin), and cloaking, there's a lot of goodies coming with first contact and the next update. They're not all game changers, but they are interesting little additions. I doubt there'd be stiff penalties for de-cloaking. They've already said that they envision a benefit of cloaking is to deliver a sucker punch (though I'm not entirely sure how as if you have to decloak to shoot, their return fire will only be momentarily behind your alpha strike), and having cloaking turn that punch into a slap seems counter-intuitive. In general mechanics terms, moving slow while invisible is a pretty common theme and trade-off, so it's just a matter of exactly how much slow you are. Basically, if you want to move around unseen, you're going to take longer to get there, so cloaking is more about either avoiding contact altogether or getting into position before a decisive strike. It would be interesting to know if cloaked ships, military or civilian, can get around FTL-Inhibitors, as that would mean you could use a collection of random construction or science ships to spy on neighboring systems. And speaking of those civilian ships, a cloaked Battlewright construction ship or Arctrellis science ship could make for a nasty surprise, especially in multiplayer where I would think most people would end up with AI combat computers eventually, and that special science ship means they're ships enter a system to fight in a surprise weakened state.
I certainly hope they don't nerf damage coming out of cloak. Sublight speed reduction, shield strength/regen, I could definitely see. As you're routing power back to defensive platforms. But the whole purpose of a stealthed combat ship is the sneak attack Alpha strike. If that's nerfed into the floor, there's no point having cloaked combat ships at all.
It's kinda sad how restrictive the origins are. I mean what if i want an empire different to the MSI to be the one that invaded my planet? I understand making them the default, but i wish you could change it.
@@fetti5451 By mod tools you mean settings? Cause mods tend to be kinda unreliable, being made and maintained by unpaid volounteers. many don't make it trough updates.
I find it strange the Payback origin doesn't let you take Fanatic Purifier. Why isn't that a valid choice of Payback? lol. Very strange restrictions for that origin I would say.
Because the story is MSI is uplifting primitives to exploit them, and did this to you successfully for a time before you eventually threw them off, so they likely still influenced your cultural development enough to prevent you from being genocidal. That, and I'm sure the scripted events aren't going to be written with alternative types of empires in mind, hence gestalt empires being disallowed as well.
Quick thought, Larger fleets get a speed penalty by default even when otherwise optimum due to fact that large formations will have a number of ships that need engine maintanance slowing the entire fleet down more. Smaller fleets will have a lower probability of ships needing maintanance.
I’ve been hoping for a while that they’d add an origin for the international fleet from Enders Game but I guess payback is as close as we’re going to get
Min-Maxers will always min-max and you will never be able to balance it that both options are of equal value, but it's nice to not always be punished for roleplaying.
The payback part reminded me of an online story I’ve read. Especially the part of revenge denied. An AI programmed with the brain scans of a human, basically acts like a human for the early part if the story, wakes up to a nukes earth. Finds billions of bodies. They build a mammoth ship, hidden underground in what is probably Mount Everest. After twenty years they launch this 30 km mammoth into orbit, destroy an alien craft of the same make as the attackers, and bodes their time in the asteroid belt, building an army. They eventually acquire FTL and go on a rampage as a determined exterminator gestalt. But then they make new minds, new humans. It’s eventually revealed that the bombardment was 300 years ago, so the perpetrators are long dead. The story is a sad and kinda bitter sweet one with an open ending, I quite like it and have my own post story continuation in my brain.
Me playing the new Payback-Empire as soon as i see MSI space: "Hans get the Planet-Cracker" but maybe nerve stapled livestock would also be an adequate fate for everyone who dares to mess with the devine human race...
also, one thing to mention, the video called the flagship, a "battleship", now wether or not this means a new shipset or hull type, is up to anyone to guess. or maybe its one of those "event only" special ships
i kinda would like to see an option so that when you invade a pre-FTL civilization you have the option to invade with the goal of changing their ideology to your own. and uppon victory you have the option to release them or integrate them into your empire
Me remembering conquering a capital world only for them to immediately rebel with a 2000 power army. They somehow lost to a 500 army whose commander went from a 2 to power level 10. They lasted long enough for reinforcements to arrive far longer than I’d expected
I always wished for this type of origin, but not as a freed slaves, but more so as an exiles, who are hunting by their own species due to differences in ideologies or practices (something similar to TEC and Advent from Sins of Solar Empire)
After watching the Paradox developers play the Payback origin, I’m fairly concerned it might be an even worse origin than Doomsday. Since it seems that the debt collectors offer you the options of destroying yourself by wrecking your economy through outrageous payments, hobbling yourself by giving away pops when you’re already down 10 pops, or fighting them, you’re pretty much forced to fight. However, If MSI spawns next to you, and you find them before year 15, you might as well restart the game, because it turns out that if you attack the debt collectors after you meet MSI, they declare war on you, and your automatic war goal doesn’t allow any peace until one side or the other is completely defeated. You’re totally screwed. What they need to do is at least make the payments reasonable (logically the max payment should also be more reasonable, more like 100,000 than a million, but maybe they want you paying forever, which was another part of the small print, I guess). If they could lower the payments so payments are a legitimate option, they gain profit and you can bide your time rather than die on year 15 if the RNG gods hate you. Either that, or get rid of the debt collectors, or make them independent agents whose destruction doesn’t cause MSI to curb stomp you after you’re forced to destroy them because you have no other options (or you could cheat like the developers did, I suppose).
@@therealspeedwagon1451 It’s more the opportunity cost of the resources and time spent building and upgrading it compared to what you can do with other megastructures that’s the problem
The Requiem for a Drone event is likely using the original meaning of the word requiem, not referring to Requiem for a Dream. In Catholicism, a requiem is a mass for the dead, kinda like a funeral, so watching a whole hive mind stop to mourn a fallen member in a grieving, almost spiritualistic ritual could be considered analogous to a requiem.
i think the multi fleet would be too powerful, but that is more like, 3 systems directly together, or chooses one system, and has a smaller circle around that system for the other fleets in the same multi fleet
Independence Day somehow ended up being my chilhood movie, and I'm not even American. But I watched it so many times. And that speech is always amazing.
Gonna be honest here, Montu, your "problem" with the Quantum Catapult is basically what is intended. The further from the Catapult you go, the fleets can appear anywhere within the circle the targeting icon shows.
Now I can play an Xcom/Xenonaut Sequel where we take the fight to them, Paired with stealth gameplay I can have 1 powerful fleet roaming around doing havok.
"My friends, more than a century ago, we were ignorant. We squabbled with each other, looking at each other with envy or fear. We were disunited. We were foolish. But one day, we were invaded. They sought to utilize our divisions in order to exploit us. But when faced with a common enemy, old hatreds were set aside, and we fought back with common cause; with common purpose. The battle was long and hard. A great many of our people died, but we were victorious. With our home secured, did we return to our petty squabbles? No! We held together; the bonds from fighting arm and arm were stronger than old rivalries. We embraced each other, buried our dead, and proceeded onward with purpose. For we knew we were not alone. The wreckage of their defeated forces provided us with new insights, new technologies, and a new goal. For among the wreckage, we learned the name of those loathsome invaders: the Minimar Specialized Industries. They were still out there, enslaving other species the same way they intended to do with us. And so our goal was set. We would find them, we would free all of their slaves, and then, once nothing stood in our way, we would pay them back a thousand fold. We tentatively took our first steps into space, preparing fortifications as we went, for we did not know who else was out there. As we surveyed more systems for expansion, we discovered a colony. Initially, we feared the worst. Were we prepared to face another great enemy? But our fears did not come to pass, for we found something unexpected: an ally. This colony was made of those who had broken their shackles from MSI as well. Our goals were aligned, and an alliance was forged. A century has passed from that day. And what a century of progress it has been! Our people are exponentially more prosperous than our ancestors were. Our territorial expanse is vast. Opportunity is everywhere, and our citizens want for little. From the ashes of our home, we have formed a grand Republic. One which has transcended just our founder species. We have welcomed in refugees fleeing slavery anywhere, but especially those fleeing our former invaders. Even now, within our territory we observe species much like ours, who will one day progress to space flight. And when they do, we will be there to greet them, congratulating them for their progress and welcoming them to become new citizens of our Republic. Speaking of other species, we discovered many throughout this galaxy. And with these species, we formed a Galactic Union; one which transcended our national borders to bring relative stability to our galaxy. But with this union came a surprise: we came face to face with our old enemy. To our shock, they didn't recognize us. What was for us our most important day, they had written off as a mere hyperspatial accident. We knew we were not prepared to face them militarily, but the Galactic Union presented us with an opportunity. It took decades of lobbying, bargaining, and influencing, but we were able to get the galactic community to ban their entire business model. Their slaves were freed without us having to fire a shot. And those former slaves have left MSI space, and are now safe. MSI is a shell of its former self. It is weakened and barely able to keep itself afloat. But this outcome has proved unsatisfying. With time, they could regroup. They could expand, and, with enough lobbying, could repeal the measures we have taken to weaken them. We would have to kick the cracked structure down before they could repair it. We would need total military victory over them to satiate or need for vengeance. And we were not idle in our decades of lobbying. Great efforts were taken to develop a military capable of crushing any who would try to harm us. And we succeeded. We are the most militarily powerful member of the Galactic Union by a large margin. But merely conquering them would not be satisfying, for that would arguably leave them better off than they are now. Similarly, we didn't want to bombard all of their planets to uselessness, slaughtering all of their people. We could do that, but that wouldn't be any benefit to us either. So a new strategy would be needed, and our scientists have delivered. We have a new weapon. One which will bring horror to them without killing them. We call it: The Devolution Cannon. With this weapon, they will be reduced to pre-sapience, slowly, over the course of days. They will feel themselves becoming lesser every minute, but unable to articulate why. They have abused the rights of every sentient being, so they have forfeited their right to sentience. So here we stand with our new weapon, we will have our revenge on those loathsome xenos, the Minimar Specialized Industries. We will stand over them as they are reduced to base animals, unable to enslave anyone else. And then, one day, in the far future, when their species regains it's sapience, we will be there to extend our hand as we have done with a number of other species. We will wash away their sins, and then treat them as we have treated every other species, for they would no longer be Minimar. My friends, this is the President of your nation, and the time has come. Let our Great Crusade begin!" - President of the Payback Republic.
Indeed. Being able to shoot a single torpedo while cloaked was a huge deal, and no polity ever really got better than 'near instant firing after ending cloak' that I know of.
MSI may choose to ignore the law and take the economic hit? What, a predatory corporation choosing to pay fines rather obey the law? Such a sci-fi concept
Cloaked ships seems to me, like a good way to get some low ranged weapons in under the guns of enemy battleship flotillas while avoiding getting alpha struck to oblivion.
I predict that Slingshot to the Stars is going to be an extremely powerful origin. Very cheap colonization and early quantum catapult is going to be massive.
Primitive was always the thing that interested me the most when I started in stellaris, I’m so glad this DLC is coming.
Kind of surprised it took the devs so long to implement this too, considering the fact that they already had a Human X-com primitive planet early on.
Only seems natural to have a game start that pick up right after the ending of X com
+8 society research dlc
I once sent an equal amount of armies onto an Atomic Age primitive world and lost the conquest... Too bad nothing had happened of it back then. Let's see if now's gonna be any different? An emerging FTL civ with a technological headstart would be flavourful.
Imagine you fail the attack it spawns a payback empire that wants to end you
@@the_fenix_3247 "the Empire of XCOM hás declared war on us
@@the_fenix_3247 Oh yes, that should be a thing
@@the_fenix_3247 the eternal crusade against the xeno invader
@@the_fenix_3247 and maybe add a chance to add a "few" armees if you attack a atomic age or later civ, as they unity, and throw everything against you. (and if they win, they become a payback empire), if they lose, they lose a few pops
I’m really excited for this new origin! I think it’d be really cool to play as a fanatical purifier who were baptized by fire with their first contact with aliens and this only made them want to purge the galaxy of all alien life so they can forever be at peace.
Sadly as you can see on 11:45 you can't be fanatical purifier
Payback doesn't allow you to play Fanatic Purifiers it seems
It says you can't, but that ain't stopping me.
@@seanbridge9991 there will always be mods that allow you to bypass that
@@therealspeedwagon1451 Imagine playing a Broken Shackle civ that then meets their F.Purifier counterpart. What do, LMAO
in star trek, most ships that cloak cant shoot while cloaked, only a select few ships actually have this feat
This is correct. It was a late technological development. Specifically the Bird of Prey in ST VI was the prototype of the tech.
From there, even in TNG, it's never seen that I can recall. And it's not until the Defiant that this becomes more common.
The only two ships that I can remember that could fire while cloaked in ST was the aforementioned Bird of Prey form ST VI and the Scimitar from Nemesis
Yeah, that was crucial to the plot of ST VI.
@@shawngillogly6873
Even the Defiant couldn’t fire while cloaked. When the Riker clone stole the defiant he decloaked before attacking Cardassian outposts. I don’t recall any incident where they did fire while cloaked, let me know if there is one on the show. (I don’t count the books or games, so maybe there?)
@@ErzengelDesLichtes While I too cannot speak of books or games, you are correct. The tough little ship always uncloaks before firing in the series.
I believe the only other ship we have seen that could fire when cloaked was the Scimitar.
for the stealth tech, I hope that it can be attached to the Colossus. the amount of crazy things with a Colossus and several Fleets appearing above the enemy worlds within seconds before send it to kingdoms come would be a great stroy to tell.
Bruh stealth exterminatus is terror redefined
Until your capital gets stealth cracked while your fleets are 19 jumps away.
"Wait, since when did we make massive planetary shields?"
"Attention Enemies of the Empire. Your capitol has been preserved from your folly-"
Stealth Death Star... Good luck hitting that exhaust port Luke.
As someone who loves the slingshot to the stars the fact its getting buffed is awesome.
Imagine that juicy fire rate buff with a clone ascendant fanatic purifier empire.
MAXIMUM FIRE RATE.
@@TheContingency25x MORE FIRE RATE. MOOOREEEEE
@@irineiovcnaosabenemeu4358 MORE DAKKA!!! MORE DAKKA!!!
@@irineiovcnaosabenemeu4358 Distinguished admiralty civic.
And if lucky: in game empire wide effects.
really hats off the the team behind stellaris, theyve really stepped up their game with the quality of the dlcs released
One of the great movie speeches EVAH!!!!
Was that custom made or where can I find the original?
From Independence Day - Bill Pullman as the US President
@@davidwoodmansee6233 danka
@@bullet6177 th-cam.com/video/9t1IK_9apWs/w-d-xo.html
I wonder if sentry arrays will be buffed a ton if they can see hidden ships
Then imagine quantum catapults -> gateway in system next to it -> Lgate next to a gateway -> +50% firerate all across your empire...
I’m kinda mixed with the sentry array one.
@@TheContingency25x What's the point of building a sensor array if it can't do that job anymore? It's already a dubious build. But at least it has tactical value if it can detect all (or at least almost all) cloaked ships.
@@shawngillogly6873 But then it removes the purpose of cloaked ships. That’s why I said I was mixed. It’s either they don’t do it and the sentry array is a meh megastructure or if they do do it there’ll be no point in cloaked ships.
How about if the Sentry Array can see through cloaks, but the smaller the ship the closer it can get before the Sentry Array can see through the cloak? So capital ships can be detected a long distance away, but smaller ships can sneak up fairly close to it.
You can have a VERY long playthrough of Xcom: Enemy Unknown to fight back the alien invaders and then move onto Stellaris with the Payback origin to RP as a unified Earth with Xcom leading the fight.
Psi-ascension mandatory.
You might enjoy "X-COM Second Contact" by Agayek.
Predatory Tactics might not mean that cloaking gives a huge speed debuff. Fx. it could be 10% reduction and Predatory tactics reduce it to 5% as opposed to a 60% reduction being reduced to 10%
I can see a slingshot to the stars + hivemind + Cordyceptic Drones start being very strong, especially early game - use the slingshot to make sure you've captured the space fauna homeworld systems, then use your slingshot to send the fauna into the heart of your enemies.
The Quantum Catapult was my favourite origin because of the -75% distant system station cost penalty. Glad it got better.
That + the one ascension perk that reduces starbase influence cost is an absolute godsend, especially when you aren't in an expansionist empire state
@hafelord2513
It's funny cause I almost never take that perk. It just dosent feel more usefull compared to others.
Same, it’s my favorite play style. I race out in the beginning grab the furthest choke points, turtle up and backfill my empire. Then I use the catapult to conquer parts of empires, modify the new species and release them as a vassal
Payback Origin + Scavenger Civic seem like a good RP combo
I once encountered a pre ftl planet in the early space age with a habitable moon that was colonised by them with a cold War between the two groups happening. I started to uplift the moon colonists and got a message from the aliens on the planet telling me they know we're out there and demanding to be uplifted instead. To this day I have never encountered it a second time and I don't know if it was a vanilla or modded situation I ran into
Hi , did you find if it was vanilla or modded ?
@@voxter7224 still unsure if im honest, But about a month ago playing a new game a science ship found a system with a planet and moon that were tomb worlds. My suspicion is that its in the vanilla game
Excuse me? Demanding? The motherfuckers forgot who have the cannons to bombard a planet?
@@jman431it is in vanilla
I really hope there will be some events, like you research cloak scanners tier 2 and detect a derelict ship that can be an archaeology site.
I hope the developers give us a BattleStar Galactica sort of origin at some point. Also, glad to hear you pronounce Casus Belli correctly!
hm.
Start with a (armed?) colony ship & a small defensive fleet, and the war fleet of a very hostile machine empire occupying your home system (that has several planets inhabited by your species), and you have to start by heading out into the galaxy to find a new world to settle and build a fleet to retake the home system.
With the special ability to settle that only colony on a planet inhabited by a pre-FTL species! With different events for where along the path that pre-FTL species is.
Still: the hardest start ever? In effect not having a homeworld at start is pretty darn hardcore even without having an enemy empire that has at least two systems at the start, and your colony ship starting in one of those systems. Insane. Gotta love it.
Something like that?
There should be an option in the galactic community for Council or Custodian to pressure an empire into changing their laws/whatnot to REALLY prevent them from doing illegal things, and the target empire has to comply or pay influence or be targetted with an Enforce Galactic Law casus beli
This
6:56 in star trek it took special technology to allow to shoot while cloaking. most ships did not have that capability (if i remember right it was in one of the tos movies and maybe one tng episode [or a two-parter most likely] and thats it) so it does seem to be just like the standard star trek cloaking
Finally, a proper way of creating the Greater Terran Union!
My thoughts exactly!
I hope that in the future we can do fanatic purifiers with this origin
You’ll definitely be able to with mods
That speech brings tears to my eyes everytime I hear it. Again, you mentioned guaranteed habitable worlds. Am I the only one who plays with those turned off?
I look forward to the event where aware primitives on the brink of world war plead for an intervention from their alien observers.
I also play with them off. But i also reduce the number of habitable worlds and increase the number of pre ftl species. I wish i had an option to adjust the number of dead worlds with the terraform trait so i can gradually increase the number of planets over time with research. Hell, I'd take an option to increase the amount of tomb worlds by default if i could
"Becoming a pacifist after being invaded by aliens"
It makes sense for Stellaris Pacifism, which is effective defensive violence only. They already have events where pops go pacifist after settle on tomb worlds, so a cataclysmic battle for existence could reasonably make a civ never want to wage offensive war again, even if their systems and worlds are brimmed with defensive weapons.
Yeah the horror that was brought to them might shake people to never want to visit it on others.
Gonna be honest, it would be a greatly flavorful thing to have a pacifist empire, that everyone learns are peaceful nabors to have... then pulls out the 'Payback' CB and utterly wreaks havoc on the ones who wronged them. Then goes straight back to being peaceful again, but now everyone really understands why they had so much military.
Or alternatively, go full overkill, bust out the Colossus weapons and Genocide... Then experience a culture shift because 'actually, we're kind of horrible people for doing that, aren't we?' Bonus points if Cyberex make an appearance here.
Or of course, realize you can't face this bigger, older empire without some kind of leg up... and become the Crisis. After all, it's easy to ensure 'Never Again.' when you are Shroud Gods, right?
@@Sorain1 I wonder how the devolution beam will count for Pacifists. It's technically not violent?
I hope that cloaking introduces some mechanics that encourages you to patrol your systems to actively try detect cloaked vessels by like flying either Science ships or like corvettes with big sensors around your empire.
The only reason to patrol within your borders now is to counter piracy, but that is like a non-issue at every stage of the game.
Now this is making me wish that there were more ways to increase ship experience outside combat, like patroling ships instead of keeping em docked would increase exp to a certain point.
Hello, Commander. In light of the recent extraterrestrial incursion, this Council of Nations has convened to approve the activation of the XCOM Project.
You have been chosen to lead this initiative. To oversee our first-and last-line of defense.
Your efforts will have considerable influence on this planet's future. We urge you to keep that in mind as you proceed.
Good luck, Commander.
I would imagine the "Eager Explorers" civic would give unity for advancements in exploration, such as surveying systems.
The Payback origin reminds me a lot of the Greater Terran Union from the Stellaris Invicta series by Templin Institute
I think the importance of the research options from pre-ftl civis changes with playing tall or wide. For a tall empire, they don´t really give much, but for a wide one, I see them as a really good bonus.
Would be cool if all affected pre-ftl civilizations would unite under one banner against the corporation, essentially giving you control of multiple planets with different pops across the galaxy
Nice! More food is always good in my eyes
Crazy what can happen when you only send one army to a pre-ftl civ
Imagine if having MSI destroyed before you can, is a way to get Fanatic Purifier, or better, play like one with diplomacy being an option.
I hope that the revenge origin also comes with an army bonus, X-com and all that.
Vigilo Confido! For Bradford!
I hope we get more events with Xcom references. Like if you find the alien homeworld you get an engineering special project, to "build the avenger"
i think youd love the game Terra Invicta if you want more space-sized xcom
@@ASlickNamedPimpback I made Africa into a super continent it was amazing
@@thatguy5391 I own the planet as the Initiative and built more Democratic nations than all the other factions.
@@desertdude8274 Russia and America nuked the world in one of my Play throughs
It might be interesting of you can catapult a cloaked fleet it would be like teleporting a sub fleet way behind enemy lines one at a time for a massive sneak attack
Reducing Empire Size from Districts can be really good. There is no way to reduce it more than 10% yet (with Construction Templates), so if you optimize your Empire for it, you'll end up with Districts being the biggest factor in Empire Size.
I think from the revealed technologies so far, it is actually the second best. Best being the one which reduces Station Upkeep by 50%.
This, depending on if it applies to Starbases too (they're Stations after all), may be worth multiple hundreds of Energy per month!
i would disagree, a district gives 1 empire sprawl, a pop too, but a district let mire than one pop work
The energy upkeep applies only to mining and research stations in orbit because otherwise it would be crazy strong, makes exceeding your starbase limit trivial
@@KaizerKlash111 It is definitely worded differently than the bonus just above it (which explicitly applies to "Orbital Stations"). If it works differently remains to be seen (no way to know without a beta). Maybe it will be too strong, unbalanced content is nothing new, after all.
Thanks!
Thanks for your support Neil!
I'm suprised that this origin disallows Fanatic Purifier.
paradox game is being a little bit of a coward with it's origins requirements.
Seems Paradox teams just really try to avoid giving F-Purifiers any amount of justification
I assume it has something to do with the dilpomacy options built in between the payback empire and the freed slaves empire? Still would be nice to have it
You can be xenophobic (for good reason), just not full-on "genocide all other life in the galaxy"). Although Humanity in the Xeelee Sequence became like that after alien occupation...
Interesting. I studied a bit on trinary (or ternary) computing back in college. It uses values of 0,1, or -1, instead of just 0 and 1. It never really took off because it's not (necessarily) better than binary, and we've done pretty well with binary computing over the decades.
It would be interesting to observe a civilization that decided on trinary computing.
How do you think they would differ? I don't know anything about trinary so I'm curious
One can only guess at how this would affect civilization as a whole. I like to think binary won out because it's simple: on-off, up-down, true-false etc.
Maybe a society that gravitated more towards trinary computing would have more flexible ways of thinking, finding more middle grounds or 3rd options, as it were
@@brandonoflight8274 interesting. Maybe it could be a civic for a robotic empire. Perhaps they have better relationships due to being able to think more "broadly"
Isn't it just a more efficient way to store data?
New origin is literally the lore about the first season of Stellaris Invicta from Templin Institute.
I usually play very diplomatic games and usually don’t invade them anyways for the society research, so this is actually a really cool dlc for the way I like to play.
I have over 1k hours in Stellaris just playing Single player roleplaying for fun. I am so excited for this DLC
Same! Almost 2000 hours playing single player games.
This council of nations has convened to approve the activation of the X-Com project.
Proceeds to miss the 90% shots
@@mobgabriel1767 That is a 10% failure rate
I forget how great the speech is from independence day is and give me goosebumps every time.
Been doing a solo run where I'm playing the flood, consuming the galaxy, I managed to build a catapult close to the center so I could fling my hive fleets far and wide, but now with this level of accuracy? Nothing could stop them, right now I have randomly scattered areas of control outside of my core space, I'm loving the thought that I'll actually be able to send ships where I actually want them to go
@Montu Plays 6:58 Star Trek ships CANNOT fire while cloaked, nor can they have shields up.
The Greater Terran Union never forgets our visitors…
Sounds like the 'Payback' origin quest line will finally let me create my own sequel to the _XCOM : Enemy Unknown / Enemy Within_ victory timeline.
Vigilo Confido!
I love that they looked at quantum catapults and said "we need to give people a reason to play this origin" because theyre right its underpowered
Yeah it's basically the Mass Effect origin. Ought to be an interesting one at least.
25% of an envoy sounds hilarious, "This is Glork" "That's a foot in a jar." "He's very sensitive."
XCOM 2 inspired Payback campaign here I come
Anyone else planning to load up a nearly-empty galaxy, crank primitives up to max, and go nuts after this DLC?
In other words, with the payback origin, we're the greater terran Union from Stellaris Invicta straight out of the gate without needing to role play as them.
All Hail the GTU!
4:40
You just proposed a solution to that problem
Allow players to form Armada's, these could be kind of like "super fleets" with their own Grand Admiral.
Maybe I did 😉
Oohh, I hadn't seen the updates to Quantum Catapult yet. Some interesting buffs to both the megastructure and the origin. It seems like they overestimated the usefulness of the megastructure in the eyes of the player and what getting it early actually granted. It makes me curious to see what a max upgraded catapult with the origin would look like accuracy wise now at long range. Still, even if your armada gets split up some with a longer launch, the +50% fire rate is a pretty massive boost on arrival that may compensate at least some for not all of your fleets arriving in the same system, especially if they're still close enough to survive in the system they land in and converge on the target system at roughly the same time.
Between Insight Technologies, Archeotech (of which I'm looking forward to the reworked Remnants origin), and cloaking, there's a lot of goodies coming with first contact and the next update. They're not all game changers, but they are interesting little additions.
I doubt there'd be stiff penalties for de-cloaking. They've already said that they envision a benefit of cloaking is to deliver a sucker punch (though I'm not entirely sure how as if you have to decloak to shoot, their return fire will only be momentarily behind your alpha strike), and having cloaking turn that punch into a slap seems counter-intuitive. In general mechanics terms, moving slow while invisible is a pretty common theme and trade-off, so it's just a matter of exactly how much slow you are. Basically, if you want to move around unseen, you're going to take longer to get there, so cloaking is more about either avoiding contact altogether or getting into position before a decisive strike. It would be interesting to know if cloaked ships, military or civilian, can get around FTL-Inhibitors, as that would mean you could use a collection of random construction or science ships to spy on neighboring systems. And speaking of those civilian ships, a cloaked Battlewright construction ship or Arctrellis science ship could make for a nasty surprise, especially in multiplayer where I would think most people would end up with AI combat computers eventually, and that special science ship means they're ships enter a system to fight in a surprise weakened state.
I think that after uncloaking the shields ned to charge up from 0. Makes the most sense.
i bet that 90% of players who buy that DLC , will start in Sol system at least one time
Payback Earth + Broken Shackles with Humans let's fucking go
Without a doubt my first playthrough will be Payback roleplaying as Independence day.
With every single new fact about cloaking. I keep hoping your Sentry Array will get a buff, via being able to see through the cloaking.
I hope that MSI will be one of the default empires on the empire selection screen, they are interesting and it would be nice to play as them
The Devs already said that the MSI will not be a playable empire but as long as you play on PC, you always have mods
I certainly hope they don't nerf damage coming out of cloak. Sublight speed reduction, shield strength/regen, I could definitely see. As you're routing power back to defensive platforms.
But the whole purpose of a stealthed combat ship is the sneak attack Alpha strike. If that's nerfed into the floor, there's no point having cloaked combat ships at all.
It's kinda sad how restrictive the origins are. I mean what if i want an empire different to the MSI to be the one that invaded my planet? I understand making them the default, but i wish you could change it.
Probably will have mod tools to it in the future tbh
@@fetti5451 By mod tools you mean settings? Cause mods tend to be kinda unreliable, being made and maintained by unpaid volounteers. many don't make it trough updates.
I want a Montu and friends vs the AI and all the crisis on hardest difficulty with some modifiers like no AI vassals 👍
Ep3O: I have been training for this my whole life.
**** me Montu, that Intro was incredible!
Ah yes, the X-COM civic.
*Vengeance!*
I find it strange the Payback origin doesn't let you take Fanatic Purifier. Why isn't that a valid choice of Payback? lol.
Very strange restrictions for that origin I would say.
I mean you wouldn't want to kill other primitives and subject them to what happened to you
@@warbrain1053 why would I care? The purpose of slaying all xenos is to prevent another MSI to develop.
@@ВиталийКотиков-т5э just giving a theoretically valid reason. You may become it if msi dies not to you
Because the story is MSI is uplifting primitives to exploit them, and did this to you successfully for a time before you eventually threw them off, so they likely still influenced your cultural development enough to prevent you from being genocidal.
That, and I'm sure the scripted events aren't going to be written with alternative types of empires in mind, hence gestalt empires being disallowed as well.
Quick thought, Larger fleets get a speed penalty by default even when otherwise optimum due to fact that large formations will have a number of ships that need engine maintanance slowing the entire fleet down more. Smaller fleets will have a lower probability of ships needing maintanance.
I’ve been hoping for a while that they’d add an origin for the international fleet from Enders Game but I guess payback is as close as we’re going to get
Something about economic efficiency even through little things like a reduction of station upkeep by 50% gets me going
Min-Maxers will always min-max and you will never be able to balance it that both options are of equal value, but it's nice to not always be punished for roleplaying.
The payback part reminded me of an online story I’ve read. Especially the part of revenge denied. An AI programmed with the brain scans of a human, basically acts like a human for the early part if the story, wakes up to a nukes earth. Finds billions of bodies. They build a mammoth ship, hidden underground in what is probably Mount Everest. After twenty years they launch this 30 km mammoth into orbit, destroy an alien craft of the same make as the attackers, and bodes their time in the asteroid belt, building an army. They eventually acquire FTL and go on a rampage as a determined exterminator gestalt. But then they make new minds, new humans. It’s eventually revealed that the bombardment was 300 years ago, so the perpetrators are long dead.
The story is a sad and kinda bitter sweet one with an open ending, I quite like it and have my own post story continuation in my brain.
Me playing the new Payback-Empire as soon as i see MSI space: "Hans get the Planet-Cracker" but maybe nerve stapled livestock would also be an adequate fate for everyone who dares to mess with the devine human race...
I am looking forward to this DLC. So many fun RP options.
6:13 "pr(e)-FTL inhibitors"
A freudian slip? Does Montu want an inhibitor that prevents pre-FTL species from reaching the stars?
👀
also, one thing to mention, the video called the flagship, a "battleship", now wether or not this means a new shipset or hull type, is up to anyone to guess.
or maybe its one of those "event only" special ships
i kinda would like to see an option so that when you invade a pre-FTL civilization you have the option to invade with the goal of changing their ideology to your own. and uppon victory you have the option to release them or integrate them into your empire
Me remembering conquering a capital world only for them to immediately rebel with a 2000 power army. They somehow lost to a 500 army whose commander went from a 2 to power level 10. They lasted long enough for reinforcements to arrive far longer than I’d expected
I always wished for this type of origin, but not as a freed slaves, but more so as an exiles, who are hunting by their own species due to differences in ideologies or practices (something similar to TEC and Advent from Sins of Solar Empire)
All I can think about with that primitives uprising is a player saying "damn I forgot to add a garrison"
With that new origin it's time for Stellaris Invicta 1st season remastered.
After watching the Paradox developers play the Payback origin, I’m fairly concerned it might be an even worse origin than Doomsday. Since it seems that the debt collectors offer you the options of destroying yourself by wrecking your economy through outrageous payments, hobbling yourself by giving away pops when you’re already down 10 pops, or fighting them, you’re pretty much forced to fight. However, If MSI spawns next to you, and you find them before year 15, you might as well restart the game, because it turns out that if you attack the debt collectors after you meet MSI, they declare war on you, and your automatic war goal doesn’t allow any peace until one side or the other is completely defeated. You’re totally screwed.
What they need to do is at least make the payments reasonable (logically the max payment should also be more reasonable, more like 100,000 than a million, but maybe they want you paying forever, which was another part of the small print, I guess). If they could lower the payments so payments are a legitimate option, they gain profit and you can bide your time rather than die on year 15 if the RNG gods hate you. Either that, or get rid of the debt collectors, or make them independent agents whose destruction doesn’t cause MSI to curb stomp you after you’re forced to destroy them because you have no other options (or you could cheat like the developers did, I suppose).
Salvaging an advanced battleship to fight against superior invaders? Got a splash of Macross in that Bill Pullman movie lol
I assume the lost building methods was inspired by Roman concrete.
These updates/DLC features sound incredible!
Finally, *slightly* useful Quantum Catapult.
Indeed it is!
Personally I think you can use the inaccurate of it to your advantage by sending several fleets that can encircle an enemy system
even with 100% accuracy, for the whole galaxy, it's more of a cool gimmick, that I build almost only for the emergency jump buff
@@therealspeedwagon1451 It’s more the opportunity cost of the resources and time spent building and upgrading it compared to what you can do with other megastructures that’s the problem
@@isuckatusernames4297what about sieging enemy capital
Have we had any information about making Galactic Doorstep worth playing ever? I'm glad to see the Quantum Catapult origin get a buff, but still...
The Requiem for a Drone event is likely using the original meaning of the word requiem, not referring to Requiem for a Dream. In Catholicism, a requiem is a mass for the dead, kinda like a funeral, so watching a whole hive mind stop to mourn a fallen member in a grieving, almost spiritualistic ritual could be considered analogous to a requiem.
i think the multi fleet would be too powerful, but that is more like, 3 systems directly together, or chooses one system, and has a smaller circle around that system for the other fleets in the same multi fleet
Those new techs look really strong!
It's coming out on my birthday. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that.
Slingshot was already my favourite origin and now I can take it without being steamrolled in multiplayer. Maybe.
Independence Day somehow ended up being my chilhood movie, and I'm not even American. But I watched it so many times. And that speech is always amazing.
Well it's supposed to be a bad a** movie you need to have bad a** speeches
Gonna be honest here, Montu, your "problem" with the Quantum Catapult is basically what is intended. The further from the Catapult you go, the fleets can appear anywhere within the circle the targeting icon shows.
Now I can play an Xcom/Xenonaut Sequel where we take the fight to them, Paired with stealth gameplay I can have 1 powerful fleet roaming around doing havok.
"My friends, more than a century ago, we were ignorant. We squabbled with each other, looking at each other with envy or fear. We were disunited. We were foolish. But one day, we were invaded. They sought to utilize our divisions in order to exploit us. But when faced with a common enemy, old hatreds were set aside, and we fought back with common cause; with common purpose. The battle was long and hard. A great many of our people died, but we were victorious.
With our home secured, did we return to our petty squabbles? No! We held together; the bonds from fighting arm and arm were stronger than old rivalries. We embraced each other, buried our dead, and proceeded onward with purpose. For we knew we were not alone. The wreckage of their defeated forces provided us with new insights, new technologies, and a new goal. For among the wreckage, we learned the name of those loathsome invaders: the Minimar Specialized Industries. They were still out there, enslaving other species the same way they intended to do with us. And so our goal was set. We would find them, we would free all of their slaves, and then, once nothing stood in our way, we would pay them back a thousand fold.
We tentatively took our first steps into space, preparing fortifications as we went, for we did not know who else was out there. As we surveyed more systems for expansion, we discovered a colony. Initially, we feared the worst. Were we prepared to face another great enemy? But our fears did not come to pass, for we found something unexpected: an ally. This colony was made of those who had broken their shackles from MSI as well. Our goals were aligned, and an alliance was forged.
A century has passed from that day. And what a century of progress it has been! Our people are exponentially more prosperous than our ancestors were. Our territorial expanse is vast. Opportunity is everywhere, and our citizens want for little. From the ashes of our home, we have formed a grand Republic. One which has transcended just our founder species. We have welcomed in refugees fleeing slavery anywhere, but especially those fleeing our former invaders. Even now, within our territory we observe species much like ours, who will one day progress to space flight. And when they do, we will be there to greet them, congratulating them for their progress and welcoming them to become new citizens of our Republic.
Speaking of other species, we discovered many throughout this galaxy. And with these species, we formed a Galactic Union; one which transcended our national borders to bring relative stability to our galaxy. But with this union came a surprise: we came face to face with our old enemy. To our shock, they didn't recognize us. What was for us our most important day, they had written off as a mere hyperspatial accident. We knew we were not prepared to face them militarily, but the Galactic Union presented us with an opportunity. It took decades of lobbying, bargaining, and influencing, but we were able to get the galactic community to ban their entire business model. Their slaves were freed without us having to fire a shot. And those former slaves have left MSI space, and are now safe.
MSI is a shell of its former self. It is weakened and barely able to keep itself afloat. But this outcome has proved unsatisfying. With time, they could regroup. They could expand, and, with enough lobbying, could repeal the measures we have taken to weaken them. We would have to kick the cracked structure down before they could repair it. We would need total military victory over them to satiate or need for vengeance. And we were not idle in our decades of lobbying. Great efforts were taken to develop a military capable of crushing any who would try to harm us. And we succeeded. We are the most militarily powerful member of the Galactic Union by a large margin.
But merely conquering them would not be satisfying, for that would arguably leave them better off than they are now. Similarly, we didn't want to bombard all of their planets to uselessness, slaughtering all of their people. We could do that, but that wouldn't be any benefit to us either. So a new strategy would be needed, and our scientists have delivered. We have a new weapon. One which will bring horror to them without killing them. We call it: The Devolution Cannon. With this weapon, they will be reduced to pre-sapience, slowly, over the course of days. They will feel themselves becoming lesser every minute, but unable to articulate why. They have abused the rights of every sentient being, so they have forfeited their right to sentience.
So here we stand with our new weapon, we will have our revenge on those loathsome xenos, the Minimar Specialized Industries. We will stand over them as they are reduced to base animals, unable to enslave anyone else. And then, one day, in the far future, when their species regains it's sapience, we will be there to extend our hand as we have done with a number of other species. We will wash away their sins, and then treat them as we have treated every other species, for they would no longer be Minimar.
My friends, this is the President of your nation, and the time has come. Let our Great Crusade begin!" - President of the Payback Republic.
The Romulan warship in "Balance of Terror" had to decloak in order to fire it's plasma weapon. Decloaking before firing is classic Trek.
Indeed. Being able to shoot a single torpedo while cloaked was a huge deal, and no polity ever really got better than 'near instant firing after ending cloak' that I know of.
MSI may choose to ignore the law and take the economic hit? What, a predatory corporation choosing to pay fines rather obey the law? Such a sci-fi concept
13:21 nah this ain’t Stellaris anymore, this is just Ace Attorney. And I still love it
Cloaked ships seems to me, like a good way to get some low ranged weapons in under the guns of enemy battleship flotillas while avoiding getting alpha struck to oblivion.
My thought on seeing the ‘Revenge’ bit possibilities you mentioned… Time to open the Book of Grudges.
I predict that Slingshot to the Stars is going to be an extremely powerful origin. Very cheap colonization and early quantum catapult is going to be massive.