I like it. It's not my favorite ever addition to the game, but it's fine.
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I largely like Astral Planes. The launch ran up against some headwinds so I think it got a more negative reception than it would have otherwise. Namely:
1. There was a Paradox-wide (and tbh industry-wide) price increase due to inflation, and Astral Planes was one of the first DLC to reflect the new, higher prices. Not many consumers enjoy price increases.
2. They pushed the new Outliner without customization features, which was a disruptive UI change in the free patch accompanying release.
Most of the post-launch reviews and such were addressing one of the above, which made it hard to really have a conversation about the DLC itself.
Now that there's some distance from the launch, I think it was a worthwhile addition and I still continue exploring rifts in my games. I'm not sure if I've even seen them all (I haven't done wiki-trawling, so I don't know what's meant by "the Baol" one and such) and I know there are several which have additional branches I have yet to explore. I do think the point about ensuring branching paths aren't gotchas is a valid one, as there are a few rifts I've seen several times which have inferior or dangerous options that I have to remember not to pick. The branching is definitely an improvement over archaeology though.
However, astral actions are rather naggy. Yes, they increase in cost when you use them, so in general the time between uses stays the same as both your income (from completing more rifts or building storage) and price goes up. But that presumes you use all actions equally, and I very rarely have a need for the Astral Boost action. Which means late-game when I have dozens of threads coming in per month, the "Astral Action Ready" notifier is almost permanently on-screen (if you dismiss it, it just comes back later). You can also hit a point where the only feasible thread dump is the edicts, which burn through your supply until you run out, and then the edicts shut off and you fill back up again and encounter the dreaded "Storage Limit Exceeded" nag icon and have to micro your edicts again.
It's an annoyance that I have with minor relics too, now that you can gain decent monthly income of those. Since storage is finite and consumption is finite, there's a lot of late-game yo-yoing between zero and max, and a lot of button clicking to ensure the resource isn't wasted. I can't ignore it either because that same alert is used for other resources that I may actually want to prevent overcapping.
I hope the team in future DLC can find alternatives to introducing yet another niche strategic resource (buried in the non-expandable strategic resource dropdown on the top bar) with another low resource cap that forces you to enable/disable/spend it every few years, because it's already a lot of added busywork micro just for the ones we already have.
The actions themselves are mostly fine, though the AI really loves Dimensional Lock for some reason. I've never actually gotten to see the Chosen interact with the galaxy or doing anything because the AI will chain lock their wormhole (usually the AI connected to the Chosen, though the Chosen sometimes lock it themselves). I even saw an Awakened Empire do it when they took over the local empire, instead of steamrolling the Chosen like they could have. I wish the special boost wasn't for Physics research, which is already the lightest tree, but I guess that was balanced somewhat recently by Cybernetic Augmenters granting Engineering.
1. There was a Paradox-wide (and tbh industry-wide) price increase due to inflation, and Astral Planes was one of the first DLC to reflect the new, higher prices. Not many consumers enjoy price increases.
2. They pushed the new Outliner without customization features, which was a disruptive UI change in the free patch accompanying release.
Most of the post-launch reviews and such were addressing one of the above, which made it hard to really have a conversation about the DLC itself.
Now that there's some distance from the launch, I think it was a worthwhile addition and I still continue exploring rifts in my games. I'm not sure if I've even seen them all (I haven't done wiki-trawling, so I don't know what's meant by "the Baol" one and such) and I know there are several which have additional branches I have yet to explore. I do think the point about ensuring branching paths aren't gotchas is a valid one, as there are a few rifts I've seen several times which have inferior or dangerous options that I have to remember not to pick. The branching is definitely an improvement over archaeology though.
However, astral actions are rather naggy. Yes, they increase in cost when you use them, so in general the time between uses stays the same as both your income (from completing more rifts or building storage) and price goes up. But that presumes you use all actions equally, and I very rarely have a need for the Astral Boost action. Which means late-game when I have dozens of threads coming in per month, the "Astral Action Ready" notifier is almost permanently on-screen (if you dismiss it, it just comes back later). You can also hit a point where the only feasible thread dump is the edicts, which burn through your supply until you run out, and then the edicts shut off and you fill back up again and encounter the dreaded "Storage Limit Exceeded" nag icon and have to micro your edicts again.
It's an annoyance that I have with minor relics too, now that you can gain decent monthly income of those. Since storage is finite and consumption is finite, there's a lot of late-game yo-yoing between zero and max, and a lot of button clicking to ensure the resource isn't wasted. I can't ignore it either because that same alert is used for other resources that I may actually want to prevent overcapping.
I hope the team in future DLC can find alternatives to introducing yet another niche strategic resource (buried in the non-expandable strategic resource dropdown on the top bar) with another low resource cap that forces you to enable/disable/spend it every few years, because it's already a lot of added busywork micro just for the ones we already have.
The actions themselves are mostly fine, though the AI really loves Dimensional Lock for some reason. I've never actually gotten to see the Chosen interact with the galaxy or doing anything because the AI will chain lock their wormhole (usually the AI connected to the Chosen, though the Chosen sometimes lock it themselves). I even saw an Awakened Empire do it when they took over the local empire, instead of steamrolling the Chosen like they could have. I wish the special boost wasn't for Physics research, which is already the lightest tree, but I guess that was balanced somewhat recently by Cybernetic Augmenters granting Engineering.
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Really well written and I wanted to come back to the idea Dragatus had about merging it into Dark Matter resource that you commented on.
There is definitely reason for it to happen but I don't know how you can merge one resource that's very sparse and low number based versus one that tends to have double or more to function and tends scale up in consumption at the top tier quite a lot and it would also make dark matter a lot more common. It would be worth exploring though and keeping tabs on one less resource should be a good thing.
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I like short stories so this DLC was built for me. I quite enjoyed it.
It's not the worst DLC for me at all, that's Megacorp at release, lol.
It's not the worst DLC for me at all, that's Megacorp at release, lol.
I quite like Astral Planes. But what I want from DLC, and will pay for, is not new game mechanics or empire types, but rather new professionsl quality anomalies, events, dig sites, and precursors. I know I'm a minority on the forums and likely in the community as a whole.
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I thought so too until I got it. When I looked at my research cost, it said something like +400% Empire Size, -50% Luminarium. So it's not as good as doubling your physics research.
It is a good story DLC, it writes a lot of interseting stories. I think sometimes we shouldn't just for efficiency. But it lacks sufficient intensity, I only have fixed Astral Planes actions, rather than adapting to changes in the Astral Planes as I explore. And some of them are limited, the cost also becomes increasingly expensive.
I looked into it and it actually still doubles physics research. The two percentile bonuses aren't added together, but are applied multiplicatively.
131250 x 274.24% = 359940
359940 x 50% = 179970
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I liked the DLC, but I won't say it is good. I am the only one of my friends to buy it, so now I am always the host (for better or worse) and can say quite a few things about it, I like the origin (play it very often as it integrates into my RP neatly) but as you mentioned there are many issues with it. First, many things don't matter, most rifts have a clear winner, which makes the branching useless. The astral threads cost in stuffs is too high, so you have to invest heavily in something that is not even that good, which makes the entire thing feel worse. Is similar to espionage in the sense that the cost doesn't justify the benefits. This is more apparent with the edicts. extremely expensive, good, but too expensive. You generally can't use them when you need them most. Th typhon building being planet limited is also bad. It would be better if you could stack them somewhere else on one planet if you want, as of now you are limited by the amount of planets you have, which in turn plays with empire size unnecessarily, again making your edicts cost more. Is very hard to find a balanced middle ground when you can focus enough in rifts for it to matter but without sacrificing too much.
I honestly think that if some mechanics are polished, costs revised and rifts rewards overhauled to make them more competitive, then this DLC would get better. Specially the cost and rift rewards. Making a rift and choosing every time the same stuff is boring, some rifts do it well, but most don't.
I honestly think that if some mechanics are polished, costs revised and rifts rewards overhauled to make them more competitive, then this DLC would get better. Specially the cost and rift rewards. Making a rift and choosing every time the same stuff is boring, some rifts do it well, but most don't.
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For me there are two different values for the branching:
1 - to RP my empire. That is valuable even if there's no meaningful reward.
2 - for the reward. That's kinda bad but it's true that more bonus makes monkey neuron activate.
I just wish that the Astral Actions were locked behind an Ascension Perk. It somehow feels off to have them as a mechanic available to everyone because, unlike wars and resource gathering, this doesn't feel like something every empire in the Galaxy should specialize in. And as is, I can't say that I like how the "Astral Actions For Everyone" affects the overall gameplay loop.
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That's a fascinating idea. Not so much for itself, but rather for the implications. If astral actions were locked behind an AP, anyone who doesn't take the AP has an entire tab of the UI unused. Which suggest there could be other perks that give you an alternate use for it, just how we now have two different crisis perks (Galactic Nemesis & Cosmogenesis). And that alternate use could be using various resources, which could also solve the problem of how most resources outside of Alloys, Unity and Research are not worth maxing.
In particular some sort of perk that gives you new uses for Food would be great, but I can also see it as an alternate way to handle interactions with the Shroud.
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