One point of the galactic nemesis crisis path i dont see mentioned

[Swarm lover]

So in general i definitely feel like the galactic nemesis crisis path in comparison to the other 2 is lacking (im not gonna go into the obvious points), however, i noticed one point i have not seen people talk about and that is the disconnect between the "resource" you harvest to get through the different stages and what you harvest in the last stage.

What i mean by that is the menace you harvest is all about making people suffer on a mass scale, your situation pop ups as you go from stage to stage go on about how you discovered the shroud, confirming its existance and that mass pain affects the shroud etc. All fine and dandy but when you get to the last stage your empire just changes gears completely to harvesting dark matter from stars.Like i get you gotta confirm the shroud etc but to me at least feels very disconnected to go from causing pain to harvesting stars. Heck if i am psionic already why would i even need to confirm its existence if im already in contact. (Heck there is an event in the covenant federation going on about the shroud even if no one is psionic).

The other 2 crisis paths to me feel much more connected, cosmogensis is all about tech at all costs and leaving this universe with the needle, the behemoth path is all about being the apex predator you get behemoths that you grow one into a super unit and establish your dominance as the galactic apex predator. The connection of what you "research" and what you do to get the crisis points feels very in line with what the end goal is. Heck despite the nemesis path basically being the "psionic" crisis path (with cosmo being the tech and behemoth being the bio) it really has little to do with the shroud and psionics when you look at it. Heck behemoth crisis path is the only one right now that has a very "logical" restraint in the sense that you gotta have bio ships.

Personnally hope they give the nemesis crisis path a bit of a rework alongside or soon after the psionic dlc, yes making another "psionic" crisis path could be done but i dont really see how they could make it distinct enough from the nemesis one.

 

[Calvax]

Agreed. I've said it loads but Nemesis feels tonally confused, like two different crisis paths mixed together. It was the first one so it gets a pass but I hope it can be reworked/split out in future. It's not very coherent how your species develops eldritch hypertech due to studying the effect of mass death on the shroud but also makes scrap ships out of poor quality materials. Just aesthetically it's a bit of a mess to see fleets of scrap alongside hypercubes.

I'd rather the scrap ships were replaced with something more fitting which matches the cube's aesthetically and both of them have some sort of link between the shroud and the effect of death on it. The scrap ships and their raw material construction could then be repurposed for some other perk, or maybe even a new crisis where it fits better.

 

[Swarm lover]

Agreed. I've said it loads but Nemesis feels tonally confused, like two different crisis paths mixed together. It was the first one so it gets a pass but I hope it can be reworked/split out in future. It's not very coherent how your species develops eldritch hypertech due to studying the effect of mass death on the shroud but also makes scrap ships out of poor quality materials. Just aesthetically it's a bit of a mess to see fleets of scrap alongside hypercubes.

I'd rather the scrap ships were replaced with something more fitting which matches the cube's aesthetically and both of them have some sort of link between the shroud and the effect of death on it. The scrap ships and their raw material construction could then be repurposed for some other perk, or maybe even a new crisis where it fits better.

My thoughts exactly the menace ships just dont fit the theme and identity of the crisis. What does scrap ships have to do with gaining god like power, compare them to the smooth hyper tech eldritch cube and they are far too different. For cosmo you get fallen empire ships that fit the theme of tech shortcuts while behemoths and bio ships fit each other.

Also did find the sudden knowledge of star eaters very out of nowhere in my opinion. Like yes you studied the shroud and mass suffering affecting it but how is that linked to developping star harvesting giant ships.

But yeah i do feel like its two crisis badly melded together rather than a proper single theme crisis like the other 2. (Also agree that i kind of get it considering it was their first test run but they definitely bring it up to speed and a psionic focused dlc is the perfect time to do so tbh. Heck both previous crisis came with a dlc theme that fit them.)

 

[passeris]

I'm not holding out for a rework, given they will be fixing 4.0 bugs for years. The ascension perk was even called "Become the Crisis", which doesn't exactly promise attention to detail and consistent themes.

But for minimal effort they could add some exposition so the narrative actually makes sense. Also, I think if the Star Eater needed to destroy inhabited star systems it would help tie the two disparate threads together.

 

[Swarm lover]

I'm not holding out for a rework, given they will be fixing 4.0 bugs for years. The ascension perk was even called "Become the Crisis", which doesn't exactly promise attention to detail and consistent themes.

But for minimal effort they could add some exposition so the narrative actually makes sense. Also, I think if the Star Eater needed to destroy inhabited star systems it would help tie the two disparate threads together.

Probably is indeed unlikely but who knows, considering the amount of effort put into the other 2 crisis i really feel like they would miss a golden opportunity to rectify their less popular one. I mean the groundwork is there all they need is to rework it, unlike the other 2 crisis which they made from scratch and gave unique models and mechanics.

Honestly no restricting the star eater to inhabited system would be a very bad change in my opinion. (especially with how much dark matter you need for a large galaxy and wouldnt make sense too). Plus if the whole point was to cause suffering nuking a star would make death instantaneous, if they give instead a sort of reverse synaptic lathe that you shove pops into to torture mentally without killing them then yeah it would fit more but would be too much like the cosomogenesis.

 

[passeris]

Honestly no restricting the star eater to inhabited system would be a very bad change in my opinion. (especially with how much dark matter you need for a large galaxy and wouldnt make sense too). Plus if the whole point was to cause suffering nuking a star would make death instantaneous, if they give instead a sort of reverse synaptic lathe that you shove pops into to torture mentally without killing them then yeah it would fit more but would be too much like the cosomogenesis.

I'm not a Star Wars person. But there is a scene in the film (you may have seen it) where the 'Death Star', a giant spaceship in the shape of a regular solid, charges its lazor and destroys an inhabited planet. The space-monk Obi-Wan Kenobi, at a remote location, stops and remarks "I felt a great disturbance in the force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out and were suddenly silenced." Don't you think the Star-Eater is deliberately evocative of this event? It's also consistent with the idea of the Shroud responding to mass pain, suffering, death etc.

Of course, you could still eat regular stars. But if destroying a certain number of inhabited systems were needed in order to, say, destabilise the Shroud enough to let the Aetherophasic Engine do its job, it would tie the story threads together and make the Star-Eater more than just a lazy way of getting Dark Matter.

 

[Swarm lover]

I'm not a Star Wars person. But there is a scene in the film (you may have seen it) where the 'Death Star', a giant spaceship in the shape of a regular solid, charges its lazor and destroys an inhabited planet. The space-monk Obi-Wan Kenobi, at a remote location, stops and remarks "I felt a great disturbance in the force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out and were suddenly silenced." Don't you think the Star-Eater is deliberately evocative of this event? It's also consistent with the idea of the Shroud responding to mass pain, suffering, death etc.

Of course, you could still eat regular stars. But if destroying a certain number of inhabited systems were needed in order to, say, destabilise the Shroud enough to let the Aetherophasic Engine do its job, it would tie the story threads together and make the Star-Eater more than just a lazy way of getting Dark Matter.

The force and the warp are very different things. (and the shroud is pretty much a carbon copy of the warp)

But still very much of the opinion it needs a proper rework not a band aid solution of oh now you gotta nuke a couple of inhabited systems. Theres still a major disconnection of identity even if you were to do that.

 

[Dragatus]

This thread raises some good points. The Galactic Nemesis was the first crisis path and it shows. It's not just the resource for the final stage that feels disjointed, it has two themes running in parallel that have nothing to do with each other and feel disjointed, the final stage just clarifies this.

The first theme is exploring the shroud and merging with it. The other is going horde mode and declaring war on the entire galaxy with ultra cheap ships, which are basically meteors with engines and weapons strapped on.

What Galactic Nemesis needs is to be split into two distinct crisis paths, one for each theme. Galactic Nemesis can keep the menacing ships and the combat bonuses, but progression through stages would be done with engineering projects on how to make better cheap ships. For the final stage there are different options, but the simplest might be that you even keep the Star-Eaters, they're just renamed to Star-Killers (or equivalent) and you gain the ability to destroy an empire if you blow up their capital system. The justification might be that you somehow figured out how to channel the energy of a destroyed star into the empire's communication system and since you did it in the capital system it gets channeled across the entire empire and the communications overload and are fried, which is what destroys the empire. Or something else, it doesn't really matter. The point is that you get a consistent vibe of a barbarian horde destroying civilization.

Building the Aetherophasic Engine and merging with the Shroud could then be turned into a crisis path for psionic empires.

 

[Swarm lover]

This thread raises some good points. The Galactic Nemesis was the first crisis path and it shows. It's not just the resource for the final stage that feels disjointed, it has two themes running in parallel that have nothing to do with each other and feel disjointed, the final stage just clarifies this.

The first theme is exploring the shroud and merging with it. The other is going horde mode and declaring war on the entire galaxy with ultra cheap ships, which are basically meteors with engines and weapons strapped on.

What Galactic Nemesis needs is to be split into two distinct crisis paths, one for each theme. Galactic Nemesis can keep the menacing ships and the combat bonuses, but progression through stages would be done with engineering projects on how to make better cheap ships. For the final stage there are different options, but the simplest might be that you even keep the Star-Eaters, they're just renamed to Star-Killers (or equivalent) and you gain the ability to destroy an empire if you blow up their capital system. The justification might be that you somehow figured out how to channel the energy of a destroyed star into the empire's communication system and since you did it in the capital system it gets channeled across the entire empire and the communications overload and are fried, which is what destroys the empire. Or something else, it doesn't really matter. The point is that you get a consistent vibe of a barbarian horde destroying civilization.

Building the Aetherophasic Engine and merging with the Shroud could then be turned into a crisis path for psionic empires.

Honestly i would just get rid of the scrap ships all together they already belong to the marauders which are a mid game crisis at best and to me do not fit the idea at all of a crisis of galactic proportions. Also dont agree with still giving you star eaters if there is a seperate menace crisis would also come very much out of nowhere and no relation to the crisis. (If the whole thing is making cheap ships why would you suddenly decide to build a hyper expensive one.)
The whole kill an empire by blowing up their capital system also feels very much out of nowhere to me. (How would destroying the means of communication end the entire empire the people and warships are still there.

A whole "barabarian horde" type thing doesnt feel like a galactic crisis to me. Maybe give the scrap ships to the barabaric despoilers civic.

 

[passeris]

Honestly i would just get rid of the scrap ships all together they already belong to the marauders which are a mid game crisis at best and to me do not fit the idea at all of a crisis of galactic proportions. Also dont agree with still giving you star eaters if there is a seperate menace crisis would also come very much out of nowhere and no relation to the crisis. (If the whole thing is making cheap ships why would you suddenly decide to build a hyper expensive one.)
The whole kill an empire by blowing up their capital system also feels very much out of nowhere to me. (How would destroying the means of communication end the entire empire the people and warships are still there.

A whole "barabarian horde" type thing doesnt feel like a galactic crisis to me. Maybe give the scrap ships to the barabaric despoilers civic.

What I'm taking away from this is that you really just hate the scrap ships. Ok, so we get rid of the scrap ships; where are we now?

1. There's nothing useful to unlock at early Crisis stages (except Existential Expulsion)
2. You dont have anything that facilitates the "menacing" activities you need to progress the Crisis path

So instead of scrap ships, each Crisis stage could unlock the following empire-wide, per-stage modifiers:

• -x% Ship Alloys cost
• -x% Ship Hull Points

This offers a similar advantage as scrap ships, without making it so obvious (while we're on the topic, no more "Menacing Corvettes" please, it's embarrassing). It might represent the Crisis empire progressively devaluing life. Because you still have Shields and Armor, total ship durability doesn't scale by the same factor as ship cost even when the variable x is equal, so the perk gets effectively stronger at higher Crisis stages.

 

[Swarm lover]

What I'm taking away from this is that you really just hate the scrap ships. Ok, so we get rid of the scrap ships; where are we now?

1. There's nothing useful to unlock at early Crisis stages (except Existential Expulsion)
2. You dont have anything that facilitates the "menacing" activities you need to progress the Crisis path

So instead of scrap ships, each Crisis stage could unlock the following empire-wide, per-stage modifiers:

• -x% Ship Alloys cost
• -x% Ship Hull Points

This offers a similar advantage as scrap ships, without making it so obvious (while we're on the topic, no more "Menacing Corvettes" please, it's embarrassing). It might represent the Crisis empire progressively devaluing life. Because you still have Shields and Armor, total ship durability doesn't scale by the same factor as ship cost even when the variable x is equal, so the perk gets effectively stronger at higher Crisis stages.

No its not "i just hate scrap ships" its they dont fit the psionic theme at all and shouldnt be associated with that kind of crisis. Honestly the only thing i would be fine with them being part of is if something like religions are added to the game well i would be fine with a bunch of fanatics making them. like you declare some kind of holy war, these random civilians and workers just slap together what they can and beg to join.

Replacing them would be pretty easy and the crisis as it currently is would need some reworking. (Honestly having trouble even knowing what to do with the star eaters.

 

[Exasperation]

Replace the scrap ships with psionic avatar summoning. Thematic problem solved.

 

[Swarm lover]

Replace the scrap ships with psionic avatar summoning. Thematic problem solved.

Only partially the end game part of the galactic nemesis is still very disconnected compared to what you do in the previous stages.

Honestly what i would change it into is something like this:

Requirements: be psionic (imagine one of the new origins will allow robots to do this), maybe pacifist and xenophiles cant do it.

Your species tries to figure out how to control the shroud fully. Realize a single normal psionic doesnt cut it and even if your whole species tries to "unite" their powers the big "spirits" in the shroud make it impossible and most of the energy they try to pool is lost without a focal point.

Decide to make a machine where a leader or maybe your ruler resides and has all that energy channeled into them (like refined mining a lot less waste). Does indeed greatly increase the psionic power of the leader. They still not strong enough to take over the shroud but attempts to "create" their own spirits in the real world.

First attempts are non sentient balls of barely stable energy, completely shackled to the will of the leader but no initiative or higher thought. (Psionic robots basically)

Machine gets refined further, second "generation" are smarter with some very simple thoughts and a bit of initiative but still very limited.

Machine refined again and empire realises simple "pooling" of psionic power isnt going to cut it. Decide to test out straight up "draining" people after shoving them into the machine. Works insanely well test subject "bursts" from the overwhelming amount of psionic energy from taking peoples souls becoming a being of pure psionic energy like a spirit but actually sentient unlike previous tries. (like a very strong psionic avatar) Also realise that this new spirit cannot exist forever in the material world and will eventually run out of energy and dissipate no matter what it does but cannot "die" in the traditional sense reforming like grey does if killed in battle and could do something like the beholder where they can either be a space fighter or go planet side to rule. So final goal is to get inside the shroud where energy is infinite or nearly.

Can also imagine this "burst" gets the attention of the shroud inhabitants who panick once they realise the end goal. Maybe try stopping you.

Final upgrade for the machine can regulate the energy to not overwhelm the reciever. Final goal is to shove enough people into the machine and drain them until the ruler reaches the "critical mass" being actually able to challenge the bigger spirits and maybe take over the shroud. (Can maybe spend some of the "psionic energy" you harvest to ascend other leaders to act as support)

Once ruler ascends not sure, either end the game right there as the ruler ascends into an uber strong psionic entity rips open a hole into the shroud taking their entire empire population with them but the ripping a hole causes a wave of psionic energy to wipe out the galaxy. (your people survived cus your ascended ruler shielded them. Other option would be that the ruler is now a controllable psionic entity and still have one final objective to do, either have to "charge up" their rip or some other objective before being able to win.

Ending text could vary based on the amount of support ascended you have (basically how big your army of psionic gods is), the more you have the more its stated clearly that yes you absolutely are going to conquer the shroud or have a good chance of making it happen but will require time etc.

Its not perfect and would get rid of the star eaters but i just dont see how to use them.

Also doesnt help we have no idea how the psionic rework is really gonna work so the rework could render it all moot.