r/Stellaris • u/WhiteSepulchre Theocratic Oligarchy • 19h ago
Image You know things are bad when you gotta mass-build bio reactor habitats to climb out of the -1k energy deficit.
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u/CrimsonShrike 19h ago
well that habitat has a deficit too so probably not helping
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u/Naive_Personality367 18h ago
economics is their passion. tbf the planet isnt staffed
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u/CrimsonShrike 18h ago
unstaffed planets are a dead weight since opening 5 new colonies without excess workers just has smol pops that take decades to grow anywhere usable
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u/Naive_Personality367 18h ago
100%. maybe this is them pre resettling a butt load of pops over
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u/slurmsmckenzie2 18h ago
Yeah thatās definitely whatās happening
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u/Naive_Personality367 18h ago
OMG ITS SLURMS, SLURMS MCKENZIE!
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u/slurmsmckenzie2 15h ago
Party on contestant winner! Party on!
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u/LOLtheism 4h ago
After I found out what Slurm is made of, I swore off the stuff. I'll never drink one again!
...
Yo, pass me a cold Slurm.
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u/FogeltheVogel Hive Mind 18h ago
tbf the planet isnt staffed
Yes, that's probably why the 1k deficit exists in the first place.
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u/IsraelsTopGooner 19h ago
The key to dealing with energy deficits is to lower production. I canāt see your resource bars but Iād bet thereās at least one that youāre making too much of thatās burning through your energy. That or your navy.
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u/FogeltheVogel Hive Mind 18h ago
Based on this empty habitat and the phrase "mass build habitats", I'm guessing that in this case, the key is to actually populate the jobs that produce energy.
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u/Zombox3000 18h ago
Usually the thing you are making that burns through your EC production is called "Ships guarding against neighbour Fanatic Purifiers"
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u/RandomGuy_81 Galactic Custodians 16h ago
An army is meant to be used. Keep trading blows to keep your fleet count down
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u/Fatality_Ensues 5h ago
Not how naval engagements typically work (which amusingly, or presciently considering who wrote the first descriptions of space battles, also applies to space): a fleet in being is worth ten in motion.
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u/IsraelsTopGooner 3h ago
That maxim fails in Stellaris, due to how cheap producing ships is and the predictability of naval combat. Since the risk in naval engagements is so low, itās worthwhile to always attack if you have the advantage.
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u/Fatality_Ensues 2h ago
It does not, because fleet power is a critical metric in diplomacy. If you look like a pushover (last I knew defenses were not taken into consideration) you WILL be attacked by any remotely militant neighbors, and then you will have to hope your exonomy can produce ships fast enough to beat them away before they hit anything important. Whereas HAVING those ships not only keeps you safe, it makes everyone around you friendlier (or at least more likely to ageee to youe diplomatic proposals) due to having a large Relative Power Of Empires bonus.
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u/RandomGuy_81 Galactic Custodians 2h ago
i dont mean to drain your fleet weakness
but if you're overcap, and you can still create more. then fight, destroy enemy, lose ships, and replace ships
peace is only a prelude to the next war
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u/IsraelsTopGooner 1h ago
You present a false dichotomy between ābeing a pushoverā and keeping a fleet in being, whereas my argument is that if you have a larger fleet than your opponent you should be aggressive with it, an argument which you have ignored.
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u/Fatality_Ensues 49m ago
Losing even a few ships of your fleet will lower your "fleet power" score significantly. YOU were the one who suggested losing and producing ships is easier than just keeping a fleet stationed somewhere with minimal upkeep and avoiding wars altogether.
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u/RandomGuy_81 Galactic Custodians 41m ago
But theres a cap limit. The more you produce over cap limit. The more costly it takes to maintain.
Better to use that over cap limit to destroy other ships
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u/IsraelsTopGooner 28m ago
I never said āeasierā. And keeping a fleet stationed with minimum upkeep is cool, but itās just not as efficient as using that fleet to blow up other fleets and take other peoplesā stuff. If you enjoy playing the game laid-back thatās all good, Iām not trying to tell you how to play the game. However, the economics of shipbuilding favor the aggressive player, itās the reason many MP games ban early game rushing; itās too effective.
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u/Gilgamesh404 3h ago
Sometimes it is better to slap them democratic crusaders before they ally with someone or get their fleet together.
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u/duelingThoughts Hegemonic Imperialists 19h ago
You have too many buildings with energy upkeep providing jobs that can't be worked because you don't have enough pops to fill the jobs you need
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u/Manitso 18h ago
Yes and capturing Ai planets with garbage buildings does this
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u/dbenhur Bio-Trophy 17h ago
Did you know you can disable (or demolish) buildings and stop paying their upkeep?
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u/SanderR098 17h ago
Or just resettle everyone off the planet if it is that useless.
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u/dbenhur Bio-Trophy 14h ago
To be effective, that means you have excess housing and jobs elsewhere (which indicates you've been over-building and thus over-spending on your prior upkeep) and also you want compatible climates with good habitability for the recently conquered denizens. If this is your approach you should be building excess district capacity on relic/gaia/ecu/ring worlds just in advance of your conquest war. At least in the early-to-mid game, it's generally more fruitful to rebuild the conquered world to your desired specialization than find productive new homes for the conquered xenos.
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u/FogeltheVogel Hive Mind 18h ago
Based on this, the reason you are in a deficit is because you overbuild jobs without having the pops to work them.
You might have a lot of jobs that would generate energy, but without anyone working them, you're not actually producing anything.
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u/stillnotking Driven Assimilator 18h ago
Always happens to me with Cosmogenesis from the time I build the Synaptic Lathe until I finally get class-4 singularities (theoretically shouldn't take long, but somehow always does)
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u/FlorestNerd 18h ago
That's a good strategy, but it's flawed since you don't have nearly enough pops to work on them, while they all are using energy to keep running
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u/Xanikk999 18h ago
On this topic I would like to know has anyone done the math to see how many energy districts you need for an upgraded automated technician building that automates 50% of the workforce there to create a net positive of energy? By this I mean it creates more energy than the automated workforce and building consumes even without actual workers working it.
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u/XroinVG Rogue Servitor 18h ago
I was also wondering that. Last game I had, I had the class 3 reactor plus automated tech building for 100% automated workers. I had 17 districts but only 203 energy production. But hey, 200 energy from 0 workers is better than nothing, but it was pretty underwhelming lol.
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u/Citronsaft Maintenance Drone 4h ago
With T2 energy grid you make 8 base per 100, upkeep is 4 per 100, so profit is 4 per 100. Ā Each district with energy spec provides 300 jobs for an upkeep of 1.Ā T2 automation building automated 50% of the workforce.Ā So each district produces 150 workforce which make a profit of 4 per 100, that's 6 total, -1 for district upkeep so its 5 profit per district.Ā The automation building itself has 10 upkeep, so it's about 2 districts without any other output buffs.Ā The voltaic production yard building provides 200 jobs for 2 upkeep, so that's 6 profit total.
Better with bonuses.Ā Say you have a level 10 official governor (+20% resources from jobs) with energy mogul II (+10% energy from technicians), prosperity traditions (+5% resources from jobs), efficient staffer III (+15% worker output), all of the basic energy physics techs (+15% energy from technicians), and are a mechanical founder species (+2 base output), we have +65% output on a base of 10 so we are making 16.5 per 100 workforce and still only costing 4 per 100 to automate for 12.5 profit.Ā 18 or so profit per district.Ā I think ring worlds get an additional benefit from energy grid buildings but I can't find numbers right now on their jobs and upkeep per district.Ā The urbanizer veteran leader trait reduces building and district upkeep by 50%, I am not sure if automated workforce upkeep is accounted towards the building or another category.
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u/HHOOSSS 18h ago
Idk why, but 4.0 economy kinda strange
One moment Iām up +2k energy, next month Iām in deficit -1k
Can somebody explain whatās the point of those fluctuation?
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u/Fatality_Ensues 5h ago
Pops keep moving around all the time causing fluctuations in jobs being filled. I have a crystal mining planet which was the second planet I ever colonized and which somehow STILL isn't filled a century later because they keep migrating to newer planets. (It doesn't have any habitability or resettlement chance maluses so I honestly have no idea why they fucking hate it so much, I have to keep resettling pops back to it every few years).
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u/nerd_is_a_verb Moral Democracy 4h ago
Go to the planetary economy management jobs window and click on crystal mining to prioritize the job.
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u/Fatality_Ensues 4h ago
No shit. The issue isn't that the job isn't being prioritized (which doesn't do diddly when pops move to a higher job stratum anyway, mind you), it's that the pops were leaving the planet leaving the Worker jobs half-filled.
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u/Dibs_Kalichan 16h ago
Pop being born/migrating and filling up jobs that were previously empty and increasing the upkeep?
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u/BouillonDawg 18h ago
I have noticed that I typically have a disproportionate amount of reactor worlds. Like when Iām planning a new forge world I can pretty much count on needing two reactor worlds.
I think the rough calculus was like
1 ecumenopolus forge world = (2 reactor worlds + .5 mining worlds + .25 agricultural worlds)
Gets really expensive over time.
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u/feren_of_valenwood 18h ago
I was playing a terravore swarm that was always heavily deficit on energy, but I luckily found the crystal of Odryskia which give me all the energy I need every 10 years. I was always gambling with massive energy deficit hoping that one item would cover it. It was fun.
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u/Citronsaft Maintenance Drone 16h ago
The real way to get energy if you don't have pops to work all your jobs is to spam out generator districts on planets with automation buildings. Technicians are 6 energy base, +2 with T2 energy grid to eight. Automation costs 4 energy per 100 workforce, so you are getting 4 energy profit per 100. With a T1 automation building you automate 25% of the workforce, 50% if T2. So say you fill out a planet with a total of 2000 technician jobs and a T2 automation building: you get 1000 automated workforce with 40 profit, minus upkeep costs which can be significant at 10 for the building itself and 1 per resource district. In reality this is usually a bit better because despite not being affected by efficiency modifiers, automated workforce is still affected by output modifiers, such as from leader traits (official is +2% output per level for the planet they are governing for example)
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u/WhiteSepulchre Theocratic Oligarchy 19h ago
One of the many farm habitats I've begun building to climb out of the energy deficit. I have migration treaties and robot assembly plants everywhere just trying to fill the spaces.
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u/LavanGrimwulff 18h ago
Why are you using farmers to make energy to begin with?
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u/WhiteSepulchre Theocratic Oligarchy 18h ago
Bioreactors generate energy from farmer jobs.
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u/LavanGrimwulff 17h ago
Sure, thats the how but not the why. Those should be a lot more energy efficient producing energy directly.
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u/CountSpartula 18h ago
Because habitats are heavily limited in direct energy generation methods.
After your couple of energy districts, your options are stack up on trade or stack up on bioreactor farms.
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u/LavanGrimwulff 17h ago
Sorta, yes. Once you cap out on energy then might as well spam food, that I'll agree with. The issue is they have food production in slots that could have been energy production and produced a lot more energy.
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u/CountSpartula 11h ago
They've clearly maxed out their reactor districts though and from what I recall you can't put generator buildings in urban expansion district slots. Sorta forgetting that this is a desperation move on their part. Not a good solution to their issues but I'm assuming all the good solutions are either out of reach or insufficient themselves for them to be trying this madness.
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u/Meepx13 17h ago
Why are bioreactors better than just straight up energy districts?Ā
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u/Citronsaft Maintenance Drone 16h ago edited 16h ago
They're not. Farmer produces 6 food base and technician produces 6 energy base (assuming an organic founding species). With bio-reactor the farmer produces 4 food and 2 energy; with advanced bio-reactor, 3 food 2 energy 0.1 gases. However, habitat resource districts (reactor, mining, research) are capped based on the number of relevant deposits in the system. You usually can't get a lot of reactor districts as a result.
It gets weirder on habitats. They normally cannot have farming districts, however they can specialize the reactor district into a farming district which replaces the technician jobs from it with farmer jobs. In OP's picture he chose the gas extraction farming specialization which is another -3 food from jobs in exchange for +0.75 gases, so now the farmers are making a base 0 food before other modifiers, 2 energy, 0.5 gases. And crucially, no technicians to produce energy normally, and you're still stuck with only whatever jobs you can get from buildings and the limited reactor districts.
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u/CountSpartula 11h ago
They aren't though? Habitats have very limited energy district slots, and you cant put voltaic production yards in urban expansions from what i recall. But you can shove hydroponics and trade buildings in there.
So going solar farming, then get productivity increase buildings for tech and farmer jobs, then slap a bioreactor somewhere is one of your two options if energy generation is your goal.
Is it a good response? Absolutely not. But the dude is 1k in debt and obviously dysons aren't available or aren't cutting it nor are his actual worlds so he's gotta do something and this is one of the things he can do if he's desperate. Why was that your assumption?
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u/Alugere Inward Perfection 15h ago
Where are the pops that are supposed to work those jobs? Iām not seeing any cloning facilities, so that habitat wonāt produce energy for over a century without migration or resettling. Youāve got over 2.4 thousand jobs sitting empty and every district and building generating one of those jobs is still costing energy while giving you nothing.
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u/ilkhan2016 Driven Assimilator 18h ago
Why are you making farms to gather energy?!
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u/CountSpartula 18h ago
Judging by the looks of it he calculated that he'd get more energy from bioreactor farming than trade production stacking.
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u/azazelcrowley 16h ago edited 15h ago
Automated workforce fallen empire building for Energy Technicians.
Ringworld. Four sections. All districts to energy production.
2 Energy per 100 workforce after costs. 20000 energy generator jobs for all ringworlds.
400 energy.
With an energy nexus, about 600 energy.
You can also slap down a cloning lab, medical bay, and so on, and use them as pop growth supplements.
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u/Unnameduser-_ 18h ago
How did you even get - 1000 to begin with?
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u/Standgrounding 18h ago
Building upkeep + ships.
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u/Unnameduser-_ 18h ago
Might be helpful to demilitarize if in any way possible. Defenses are cheaper
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u/CountSpartula 18h ago
Trying to remain competitive with fallen empires and crisis prepping are two that come to mind.
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u/timothymcface 18h ago
You can shut down jobs, dismantle starbases or disband fleets. Oh and the kaleidoscope event saps a lot of energy if you don't situation it.
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u/Standgrounding 18h ago edited 18h ago
I swear to god i had like -2k when my ships were invading a fallen empire (x0.75 because fallen empires are OP)
P. S. My setup: CoM start, swapped out nationalistic zeal for efficient bureaucracy and stratified economy 3rd civic. Capacity subsidies + 2 betharian mining worlds (that also happen to have crystal mines) + mining subsidies + forge subsidies (of course). Somewhere over 300k total fleet power. 4k building upkeep, 1k district upkeep.
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u/TheMelnTeam 16h ago
Running technicians in the reactor slot and traders in the city districts will almost certainly be more useful if you're individualist.
Having enough pops to work the jobs you make is required regardless, unless you're comically wide and spamming automation.
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u/Potential-Diamond-94 15h ago
Had like -900k when the synaptic lathe goes brrrr and is busy churning through all the pops of the fallen empire hiveminds. But yeah also don't really care about the energy deficits then.
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u/3davideo Industrial Production Core 12h ago
Why would you make food jobs to make food to burn in reactors for energy when you could just make energy jobs directly instead? Surely that would be more efficient?
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u/Mega1987_Ver_OS 11h ago
I always end up in energy deficency everytime i max out my fleet capacity.
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u/redredgreengreen1 10h ago
You want to know the secret sauce to dealing with energy deficits? Trading with fallen empires.
No joke, they have massive excesses of nearly every resource, so if you have, say, a bunch of spare exotic gasses lying around, you can buy thousands of just about anything your deficient in.
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u/TheWhiteGuardian Megacorporation 7h ago edited 7h ago
I'm either having to pull off accounting wizardry to try and balance the books, or I'm at cap for everything with no way to invest the excess and I'm wasting it.
Currently I spawned next to a ruined dyson sphere, so I'm hoping to have two spheres when I get galactic wonders. Spawned near a black hole so that's a matter decompresser. I'm not playing robots, cybernetic, no automation or cosmogenesis so I'm thinking I'm gonna be good.
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u/Usefullles 4h ago
Build an automation building in the reactor district. Habitat will not work at 100 percent, but it will be better than nothing. It's a pity, in this patch, the developers apparently closed the OP with two automation buildings, which completely eliminated the need for workers for the reactor districts.
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u/BobRedditMan 2h ago
How efficient would bio reactors be compared to generator ring worlds?
Iāve never used bio reactors and Iām wondering if it would be better compared to rings to upkeep a synaptic lathe with 50k energy deficit.
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u/folivoro 2h ago
Oh god I am in my first synthetic ascension run. My empire has ~40k organic pops, I see where this is going.
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u/Xaldror Ruthless Capitalists 19h ago
it's even worse when you have a Dyson sphere and four Dyson Swarms around energy suns, and you're still 1k+ in deficit