EDIT: This update IS NOW LIVE.

For tl;dr look at bottom!

Good evening, dear Xenos :)

For a while now i've been somewhat dissatisfied with how the general gist of megastructues works in Stellaris. You might have seen my rant on reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/7y0ggr/does_anyone_else_feel_that_cool_ascension_perks/) about this. In the end i decided that I will be adding some additional functionality to this mod, aimed at changing how players get access to Megastructures via the ascension perks.

Allow me to go over this step by step:

>Star forge

Originally Star Forge has been rolled into my mod as there was a lack of a reasonable way to obtain minerals in large quantities in late game. This has been "fixed" with 2.0, giving players access to matter replicators (name?), buildings that convert 50 energy into 30 minerals. I have considered removing Star Forge, as its function was no longer needed, but in the end decided that I always valued player choice, and thus want to keep this choice. If people decide not to use the star forges, they can simply ignore them. For now, the star forge stays - but if in later patches there appear to be glitches with it, I will probably remove it.

> Mega-engineering

My mod was making it so that ME was made available to you once you picked Master Builders perk. This functionality has been rolled into vanilla with 2.0, and as such will be removed from this mod. However, read on.

> Voidborne, Galactic Wonders, Circle of Life, Master Builders

As i discussed in my reddit rant, i feel like Megastructures potential is locked behind too many perks. I agree that "path to megastructures" should be a choice you make, not something available every game, but right now even if you do make this choice, often you're sitting not doing anything because you're waiting for something - like, either Mega Engineering to pop up, or extra perk slot to unlock Master Builders. And i hope im not the only one who feels that "having" to pick a -megastructure build cost perk before even being able to pick the "you can build megastructures" perk feels akward. Not only that, but the fact that by the time you unlocked all the requirements, it was often too late in the game for you to fully benefit from them. I have not once had a game where i could build a ringworld at the time when it would actually help me. As such, I will be redesigning these perks slightly.

Voidborne: Now also unlocks Mega Engineering research option. I feel like Voidborne is a perk that says "I choose to work towards megastructures this game", and thus should help you on this path. I feel like doing this will not upset the balance, since ME is not a tech you can rush early game, and even if you did, it does not provide you any significant advantage aside from being able to progress towards further megastructures.

Galactic Wonders: Now requires 2 perks to be picked before it, instead of 3. This should allow you to have a meaningful perk progression rather than getting some "placeholder" perks as you move towards megastructures. Galactic wonders now also unlocks Ringworld construction.

Circle of Life: Removed. I feel like it was taking too long to invest an additional perk into this to unlock ringworlds, especially since it already required mega-engineering as well. Note that I am not sure if it is possible to "delete" a perk via modding without doing the "bad" version of file overwriting. So if i do not find a way to do so, i might just edit this perk to be "unpickable" (i.e. by requiring something impossible).

Master Builders: While the build speed/cost was nice, most people picked this perk due to Mega Engineering tech becoming available. With that becoming part of Voidborne, this perk is in dire need of an additional buff in my opinion.This perk will be changed so that it provides not only 100% build speed increase, but also 30% build cost reduction. This way the perk stays useful for people going down megastructures route, especially so with the vanilla change to Living Metal (which used to give -cost, but now gives +speed instead).


tl;dr:

Some time after 2.0 (maybe a few days, maybe a week) the mod will be changed/expanded:

1. Star Forge (unchanged)
2. No megastructure limit (unchanged)
3. Megastructure construction speed increase and cost decrease (unchanged BUT might be nerfed due to further changes, will see how balanced it is)
4. ~~Increases chance of getting Mega Engineering if you have a curator scientist~~ ( REMOVED. No longer important due to voidborn changes, and removal also increases compatibility with other mods)
5. Multiple megastructures can be constructed/upgraded at the same time (unchanged)
6. Allows construction of Ringworlds around almost all stars, including black holes (unchanged)
7. Voidborn ascension perk now provides Mega Engineering research option (NEW)
8. Galactic Wonders ascension perk now requires 2 perks to be picked before it, down from 3. Also allows construction of Ringworlds. (NEW)
9. Circle of Life ascension perk removed* (*potentially redesigned in future) (NEW)
10. Master Builders no longer provides Mega Engineering tech (voidborn does). Now also decreases megastrucrure construction cost. (Note to self: mod_megastructure_build_cost_mult) (NEW)


These changes are NOT set in stone, and I more than welcome any and all discussion and feedback. If you like (or dislike) those planned changes, let me know. Everything is up for debate.