First off, Gratz! Nice going. But what are you gonna do now?

• Finish the campaign. Get done with the levelling zones. There's a lot waiting to be unlocked after you're done with the base levelling experience.
  
• Choose your covenant. You got to try them out during the levelling, what did you like? There's much info available on the usual sites (Icy Veins, Wowhead, etc) but unless your planning to mythic raid or push high level mythic+ keys then your choice won't make or break your playtime. Of course, if you are planning to run high level content you might wanna do some research. Note: You will have to do some stuff for your covenant before they give you your abilities. Don't pick your covenant and immediately queue for dungeons, you'll be missing some vital moves. More information on covenants and your options can be found here.
  
• Work on your renown. In the first week, you can reach renown level 3 if you want too. Level 1 you get for joining, level 2 you get for completing the first chapter of your covenant quest, level 3 you get for completing a quest to collect 1000 anima from any source. One of the NPC's in your covenant headquarters should have the quest for you once you've moved the covenant story forward a little. Renown also effects how far you can develop your soulbinds. More information on renown can be found here and information on soulbinds can be found here
  
• Torghast. Unlocked shortly after the end of the campaign (plus you've been there before at least once during) Torghast is a procedurally generated mini dungeon that you can do as a group or solo. There are 2 wings open on any given week. Each wing consists of 8 layers, each layer consists of 6 floors. The reward for completing a layer is a currency called Soul Ash that is used to create legendary items, though you can't collect enough in this first week to make anything. In this first week, only the first 3 layers of each wing are open, completing layer 3 of both wings will earn you 610 Soul Ash, plus the 200 for completing a quest Bolvar gives you should give you a maximum of 810. The first layer of each wing is pretty straightforward, though later wings are causing people no small amount of trouble, so don't sweat it if you're struggling with layers 2 or 3. More information can be found here. EDIT: I recently whipped up my own guide for Torghast if you'd like to take a look. It is a dense, forbidding tome, full of dark and forgotten lore. Also a couple of jokes, just to keep things light.
  
• The Maw. You will find yourself in the Maw whilst questing and most of the systems are pretty well explained in game, though there's a couple of things worth emphasizing. First off, there's an event you can take part in once a week called the Wrath of the Jailer. It appears as a yellow star with either crossed swords or a skull on it (this varies depending how far along the event is). The objective is to kill mobs to cause a rare to spawn. The rare in question has a chance to drop a piece of item level 183 gear (comparable to current mythic 0 gear) and as such is totally worth tracking down and doing. Drops, however, are not guaranteed. More information about the Maw can be found here.
  
• Professions. Legendary's work a little different in Shadowlands. They're crafted and to craft them you will need a "template" for the guy who makes them. Tailors make the cloth ones, Leatherworkers make the leather and mail ones, and Blacksmiths make a lovely beef wellington, and also the plate ones. The recipes themselves aren't difficult or expensive to get, though the materials can be pricy so maybe you should think about making your own? Levelling a crafting profession is very straightforward in Shadowlands and what with the influx of players at the moment materials are very reasonably priced. The crafted level 60 stuff can help fill out any pressing holes in your gear set in a pinch too. More info here.
  
• Gear. Okay, so now you want some high fashion wearables. Your covenant should have provided you with an item level 155 (ilvl from now on) weapon (it appears this can also be armour, or possibly no gear at all. Prayers to RNGesus may be required) to get you started. Normal dungeons at level 60 will drop ilvl 158 gear, heroics will drop ilvl 171 gear and mythic 0's will drop ilvl 184 gear. In order to qualify to use the LFG tool for heroic dungeons you'll need to be ilvl 155. Now you can into heroics at a lower item level as long as you're in a premade group and you walk to the instance. If you want to use the automated group matcher, you're gonna need to bump your ilvl up to 155. There's a few options here. First off try the auction house. There's likely to be some bits and bobs on there (there are also likely to be some ilvl 190 bind on equip epics, they are also likely to be stupidly expensive) you might be able to fill out some gaps in your gear there. Second, world quests will generally offer some okay gear if you need to specific pieces. Lastly, normal level 60 dungeons are going to be your go to for gear pre-heroics. Pop yourself in the random dungeon queue and go murder some dead people. Heroic dungeons are just normal dungeons except tuned to be harder. More damage needed to kill, more damage done to you. You cannot queue for mythic dungeons, you need to arrange the group yourself, or join a premade group in the group finder. You can technically enter a mythic dungeon at any item level, though you'll find people vary between choosy and downright unreasonable in what they expect from you. Finding a decent guild will help immensely in this respect. Mythic dungeons will traditionally add extra mechanics to the bosses as well as tuning up the damage and health numbers, so maybe do a little research before you jump on in.
  
• Anima. Anima is the catch all currency in Shadowlands, a combination of Artifact Power, Order resources and War resources from previous expansions. It's used to upgrade your covenant base, purchase certain items and cosmetics from vendors, use your command table, and all sorts of other things. Judging by the numbers involved in some of the covenant base upgrades the rate at which we collect it will increase over time, so you can go nuts collecting 30-70 at a time from world quests/rares/chests now, but I wouldn't bother myself. Get enough to do an upgrade or 2 and enough to keep your command table working away and you should be good. Likely the rate at which you collect will be increasing as we go so don't burn yourself out doing every world quest every day now. More info here.
  

Okay, well if nothing else that will keep you busy for a while. I do hope this proved helpful to someone at least and I wish you all the best in your adventures in the Shadowlands. Have a sweet day, and be excellent to one another.
Edit: Cleared up some layout and other errors. I did not mention PvP in this as I am the most useless PvPer ever to have graced a keyboard with my fat sausage like fingers. I can barely outsmart E and I know what thats gonna do. I have no chance against P.

Disclaimer: There are lots of different ways to play this game and they're all valid as long as you're having fun and it isn't creating a negative experience for others.
 
Hi there! Welcome to Idle Champions.
The following guide is targeted at brand new players, or recently started players, who are actively looking for an efficient way to play through the early game instead of just muddling along on their own or getting disjointed advice from multiple sources. This is not a complete walk-through, but more of a guided tour of the early game with milestones laid out to easily track your progress.
I'll be linking to external information sources (guides, videos, etc) at various points and after that link will expect you, the reader, to have gone and consumed that information.
Yes, there is a lot to know in this game. No, you don't need to know it all at once. However, taking the time to understand foundational systems will help you to make informed decisions as you progress. Each player's game experience is unique, so learning to make your own decisions based on your experiences is key.
There are a lot of guides for the game out there, so if this one doesn't feel like it fits your style of play for some reason, definitely go hunt down one of the others and see if they work better for you.
This guide was built off the knowledge gained from the 2020 Marsawarr Challenge. It is meant to get you through the "Early Game" and get you firmly situated in the "Mid Game" for Idle Champions.
 
Good luck and have fun!
~Gaar
 
 

1st Milestone: Unlock Drizzt Do'Urden, the Drow Ranger

First things first: open the in-game Menu, click Newsletter, and sign up. This gets you a new Champion right away that is very useful, each week you'll get a free Weekend Gold Chest, and they tend to give away a fun Champion Skin each year over the holiday break.
Reference Material: Hitch Guide & Core Champions Video Guide
The goal here with the first Milestone is to complete the Tutorial and then work your way through the Sword Coast storyline until you can attempt to unlock Drizzt. As a new player, your focus should be on the base storyline adventure, not the variants.

What's an adventure versus a variant?

In this image the storyline adventures are "The Cursed Farmer" and "The Mad Wizard" while the variants are the sub-adventures below each. You can't do a variant until you've done the base storyline version of it first. Variants have more restrictive rules for attempting/completing than the regular adventures, which is why you want to mostly ignore them when starting out. You'll need to complete some soon to move forward anyway, so just attack the adventures and push each for Favor before completing and moving to the next one.
Note: Do not complete a storyline adventure when you meet the requirement and the pop-up asks you to complete or continue. Continue on and keep pushing to earn Favor on each run. This ensures each subsequent adventure is easier to push in and variants are easier to complete. (This is why you want to wait on doing variants.)
While working towards your first Milestone, make sure to spend some of your newly-acquired Favor on Blessings and spend the Gems you earn in the Shop!
Reference Material: Formation Strategy 101, Blessings 101, Gems Visual Aide (Note: The Mage Hand Familiar is now only 250 Gems, so should be purchased immediately), Items Guide, & Consumables Guide
Here is a list of the storyline adventures you want to aim to complete for this milestone:

1. Tutorial 1
2. Tutorial 2 (If they give it to you)
3. The Cursed Farmer
4. The Mad Wizard
5. Beast Intentions
6. Terror in the Dark (Needs 11 Adventures/Variants completed; complete at least 6 of the 9 Variants from the first 3 Adventures)
7. Unearthed Evil
8. Escort to Waterdeep
9. Waterdeep Detours
10. Underdeep Cartography

Once you complete Beast Intentions, you will need to do 6 variants, as noted above, to continue your progress. This is the game's way of telling you it's time to try some variants. By now, you should have earned a lot of Favor and all the variants should show as "Difficulty: Easy" and be green. If they're not, don't attempt them. Instead, go into a Free Play of one of the completed adventures and push for Favor.
Note: The Difficulty rating system in Idle Champions is more of a "we recommend you be at least this tall before riding this ride" as opposed to "oh, you can definitely do this, no problem." Early on, making sure it shows as Easy gives you the best chance of completing it without wasting your time, in most cases. It's up to you to read the restrictions on a variant and understand how much harder it might be than the normal adventure.
When choosing your variants to complete, keep in mind that any that restrict the number of Formation Slots you have available are much harder to complete than ones that just make enemies hit harder or have more health. Knowing how to build a proper formation in restrictive variants is key.
Once you've completed Underdeep Cartography, you'll gain access to the variant that unlocks Drizzt: Overdue Rendezvous. Along this journey, you may also run into a Natural Time Gate Weekend or an Event. Those take priority over Milestone progress as they're only available for a limited time.
Reference Material: Drizzt Guide, Time Gate Video Guide, & Event Planning Guide
Once you've unlocked Drizzt, it's time to start on your next Milestone.
 
 

2nd Milestone: Unlock Azaka Stormfang, the Human Fighter

It's time to switch campaigns! Don't worry, we'll return to the Sword Coast later. From the map screen, choose the Tomb of Annihilation campaign and dive right in. Also, be sure you're buying Blessings here as you can afford it. They're fantastic in this campaign.

1. Ring of Regeneration
2. Seeking Allies
3. Exploring Port Nyanzaru
4. Running of the Saurs
5. The Templar's Camp
6. Rescue in the Jungle
7. Homecoming
8. The Lost Heir of Omu
9. The Forbidden City
10. Captured!
11. A Grand Puzzle
12. Tomb of the Nine Gods

Now, you could stop here and go back to do 18 variants out of the adventures you've done so far to unlock Azaka's variants, but there's an easier way. Keep on going with the story!

1. The Immortal Warrior
   
2. The Wyrmheart Mine
   
3. The Guardian of Orolunga
   
4. The Lost Love
   

This gets you four more credits, finishes the storyline, and helps you to maximize your Favor here. You want to hit at least e16 to unlock Azaka, but if you can get e18-20 on the way through these adventures, all the better!
Note: What's this e16/18/20 nonsense? It's Scientific Notation and it makes for a much easier way to reference your progress and make comparisons than the normal letter-based numerical notations. The numbers after e represent how far you move the decimal to the right. (Example: 1.58e5 = 158,000) You're going to end up with numbers in the e100s, so may as well learn how to use this now. Hit Y with the game open, or go into Settings and select it, to activate it.
You'll still need to knock out 14 variants to access Azaka, but with your high levels of Favor at this point, this should be pretty straightforward to do. There are a couple very difficult variants in ToA, but you need to learn to recognize them when you read the restrictions, so I'm gonna let you figure this out. You can do it!
Once you've completed a total of 30 adventures/variants in ToA, you'll gain access to the Grand Puzzle variant "Azaka's Procession - Part 1." Yup, this is a two-parter. Complete this and you'll gain access to the Tomb of the Nine Gods variant "Azaka's Procession - Part 2" to finally unlock her. Azaka opens up an entirely new way of earning Gold during a run. You can find more on that in the video linked in the guide below.
Reference Material: Azaka Guide
 
 

3rd Milestone: Unlock Dragonbait, the Saurial Paladin

We're already in ToA and are only a few more variants away from this next Milestone, so this is an easy one! Play all the way through to The Lost Love, if you haven't already, and make sure you have a total of 35 adventures/variants completed to access the A Sauriel's Resolve variant.
If you're below e18 Favor at this point, you may want to fix that before attempting this. Check the guide below for more information.
Around this time, you may also qualify for your first Patron: Mirt the Moneylender. It will be up to you if you want to unlock him right away or not. Just know that Patrons are a time-sink and will slow down your progress a bit while you do their chores (Challenges) each week.
One other thing you may be ready for, or almost ready for, is to unlock Multi-Party Mode and Modron Automation. This requires having 2 Champions in each of your 12 Champion Slots. If you weren't working towards this with your Time Gate choices before now, it's time to start.
Reference Material: Dragonbait Guide, Patron Video Guide, Champions Visual Aid, & Multi-Party & Modron Video Guide
 
 

4th Milestone: Unlock Ulkoria, the Dwarf Archmage

You're done with ToA for the time being. You'll return later to knock out all the variants, but for now it's time to head to Waterdeep! This Milestone is quite a bit more work as Ulkoria requires you complete 45 adventures/variants to access her variant. That's basically the entire campaign, so get to it!

1. A Mysterious Summons
2. Building Trust
3. The Dinner Party
4. The Botched Kidnapping
5. Trollskull Manor
6. Attack on the Manor
7. Nimble Escape
8. Fugitives
9. Hopelessly Lost
10. Enter the Sarguath
11. Lair of the Xanathar
12. Waterdeep Under Siege
13. Vault of Dragons
14. Champions of Waterdeep
15. Once More Into The Breach
16. Wyllowwood
17. An Illithid Undertaking
18. Deja Vu
19. Alterdeep

As you can see, that's only 19 adventures. That means you need to do 26 variants, which is almost all of them at the time I write this. If you treated each adventures like a Favor run, you should have e18-20 Favor by now and all the Blessings. If not, get that before attempting the variants to make them as straightforward as possible. Once you complete that 45th adventure/variant, you'll get access to the Alterdeep variant "The Gargoyle" which you'll need to complete to get Ulkoria. This one is pretty restrictive on the Champions you use, so hopefully you've picked up some options via Time Gates & Events on the way here. You can find more information on this variant in the guide below.
Reference Material: Ulkoria Guide
 
 

5th Milestone: Complete 'Towering Expectations' in Barovia (Sword Coast)

I told you you'd be coming back here. It's time to do more of the Sword Coast campaign and delve into the mists to get to Barovia. This journey fulfills one of the requirements to unlock Strahd as a Patron. By now, you may have already unlocked Mirt and Vajra, but if not, that's fine. You'll get there eventually and it's not a race. If you haven't unlocked Multi-Party & Modron Automation by this point, focus on that with your Time Gate choices as it will help with Patrons.

1. Silken Swamp
2. Supply Run
3. The Mists of Ravenloft
4. Family Entanglements
5. Tower on the Lake
6. Backtracking Through Barovia
7. Flies on the Wall
8. Seeds of Deceit
9. Excavating History
10. Towering Expectations

Once you're done here, it's time to go to hell. Literally.
If you've unlocked Patrons and have been working on their Influence or Currency, target Mirt's Tier 4 Perk "Challenge Accepted" as your first goal there as it will help increase your Currency gains from all Patrons. Spend Patron Currency primarily on Time Gate Fragments and Modron Chests early on to help flesh out your Champion pool as well as get pipes to help with increasing your Modron Flow. At this point, you'll want to make sure you're progressing in all the various ways you can to gain power to complete harder campaigns and variants.
Reference Material: Automation Video Guide, Progression Guide, Patrons Visual Aid, & Modron Flow Video Guide
 

6th Milestone: Complete all current Adventures in Baldur's Gate (Descent into Avernus)

 
Focus on the storyline here and work on maxing out the first two Tiers of Blessings. Don't worry about the third as that will take a lot more power than you may have at this point.

1. A Tale of Two Cities
2. The Dead Three
3. The Darkness Runs Deeper
4. Difficult Terrain
5. Elturel Has Fallen
6. Resolve Amongst Chaos
7. Into the Fire
8. Dreamscape
9. The Path of Dreams
10. The Lost Hollyphant
11. The Wandering Emporium
12. Tiamat's Army
13. Questlines
14. Bel's Forge
15. The Sibriex
16. Wrecked Flying Fortress
17. TBD

Once you've completed the storyline here, it's time to chill out.
 

7th Milestone: Complete all the current Adventures in Icewind Dale (Rime of the Frostmaiden)

 
You know how this works by this point. This campaign is still under construction, so there's not a lot to do here yet. However, doing the content here will let you grab the Tier 1 Blessings from here and, as always, you never want to ignore those Global Blessings.
Once you're done here, you can knock out the rest of the current storyline in Sword Coast, then start working through all the base variants in all campaigns. You'll need them completed to be able to access the Patron versions, if you haven't realized that yet.
This transition into working primarily on Patron variants is what I see as the current transition from Early Game into Mid Game. It's gonna take a lot of time and effort and you'll also be working on gearing out your Champions and collecting new ones while fiddling with the "Pipe Game" of Modron Flow.
If you haven't by now, make sure you join the official Discord where you can chat with the community and get assistance on difficult variants, among other things.
I'll update this guide as necessary, but most likely it won't see a major Milestone adjustment until they add a new Evergreen Champion. Those make for the easiest milestones for a new player to focus on.
Reference Material: All of my Guides

Welcome to this week’s Stellaris Space Guild Help Thread! This thread functions as a gathering place for all questions, tips, bugs, suggestions, and resources for Stellaris. Here you can post quick-fire questions, tips, and other tidbits of knowledge that may not deserve their own discussion thread. If you would like to ask a specific question about the state of your Stellaris campaign, please include links to relevant screenshots to assist the people helping you. This ensures that you get the most accurate advice for your specific campaign.
GUILD RESOURCES
Below you can find resources for the game. If you would like to help contribute to the resources section, please leave a comment that pings me (using "u/Snipahar") and link to the resource. You can also contribute by reaching me through private message or modmail. Be sure to include a short description of what you find valuable about the resource.
WIKI:

• Stellaris Wiki

INTRODUCTION GUIDES:

• Stellaris In A Nutshell - How To Master The Essentials (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 For Beginners (A Tutorial for People Who Are New To Wolfe 2.3) (David 'Wartorious' Beck)
• Stellaris 2.2 For Beginners (A Tutorial for People Who Are New To 2.2) (ASpec)
• Stellaris for Beginners - What is the Early/Mid/Late Game? (ASpec)
• Stellaris For Beginners - Gaining A ton of Space Early (A must of Wide Builds) (ASpec)
• The Quick Start Guide to Stellaris 2.2 - Le Guin Update (RepublicOfPlay)
• Stellaris Tutorial: Everything you need to play Patch 2.2 / MegaCorp! (quill18)
• How to Play Stellaris (CallMeEzekiel)

BEGINNER GUIDES:

• Stellaris Trade Tutorial (ColorsFade Gaming)
• Stellaris - 2.2 How To Manage Your Economy (ASpec)
• Stellaris - 2.2 Initial Expansion And Setting Goals (ASpec)

CONSOLE EDITION GUIDES:

• A Console Player's Guide to 2.2 Stellaris (Axeman1721)
• Stellaris: Console Edition - A tutorial for complete beginners! - Part 1 (quill18)
• Stellaris Console for Beginners - Your First 6 Years (Tutorial) (ASpec)

SPECIFIC/ADVANCED GUIDES:

• STELLARIS META-BREAKER : Secret moves to dominate the galaxy! Episode 1. (Regunes)
• Stellaris: Top 9 Megastructures (Arclinon)
• Civics Tier List for Standard Empires (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris: Rubricator Guide (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Horizon Signal Guide (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Origins Tier List (Arclinon)
• How to Build an OVERWHELMING Tall Empire | Stellaris 2.2.2 (Le Guin) Strategy (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 - Planet Designations & Sectors Overview (Automation is back on the menu) (ASpec)
• The Essential Guide to an OVERWHELMING Economy | Stellaris 2.3 | Part 1 - Empire Setup & Day One (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 - Habitats & Ringworlds District Overview (They're Actually Good Now) (ASpec)
• Stellaris: Unemployment Micromanagement Guide (Arclinon)
• Surviving Grand Admiral x5 End Game Crisis Tips (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Expansionist Megacorp Strategy (For Grand Admiral/Multiplayer) (Arclinon)

SHIP DESIGN:

• "Good Enough" Stellaris Ships (WonkiDonki)
• Fleet Design Guide - All Ship Builds! (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris - Ship Design For Beginners (Tutorial) (ASpec)
• Ship Design Guide - Space Blitz Edition | Stellaris 2.2 (Le Guin) Strategy (Stefan Anon)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Titans| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Battleships| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Cruisers| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Destroyers| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Corvettes| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Designer - Build Ships To Counter The Enemy (Tutorial) (David 'Wartorious' Beck)
• Stellaris: Combat and Ship Design Guide (SteamAH)

FLEET COMPOSITION:

• Stellaris: How to Test Fleets Using Console Commands (Arclinon)
• Best fleet composition? (Reddit)
• How to know what sort of fleet composition is optimal? (Reddit)

POSTS:

• "I have no idea what I'm doing!": Guide for first 25 years (Krakanu)
• Economy Management Guide (Krakanu)
• Basic Overview of Stellaris: A Guide for Newcomers (Stealmwood)

DLC DISCUSSIONS:

• The Essential Stellaris Expansion Buyers Guide (Sales Sales Sales) (ASpec)

MULTIPLAYER GUIDES:

• Organizing a Stellaris Multiplayer Campaign 101 (Arclinon)
• Stellaris Competitive Multiplayer Builds 4/14/2020 (Arclinon)

TROUBLESHOOTING:

• Stellaris: Desynch Guide (Arclinon)

If you have any suggestions for the body of this thread, please ping me, using "u/Snipahar" or send me a private message!

This is an overview of all the Features and an early look at Gameplay from the upcoming Indie city building game set in Mesopotamia called Nebuchadnezzar made by Nepos Games developers and influenced heavily by Pharaoh, Caesar, Zeus and Emperor isometric 2D city building games.
The setting of Nebuchadnezzar is ancient Mesopotamia where cultures developed, grew and fell one after, and on top, of the other for thousands of years. During the campaign, players will get to rule over influential historical cities filled with magnificent monuments they will design and construct.
Video form: https://youtu.be/uCjqDdB5tys
******
Hello and welcome to ancient times of plowing fields, milking goats and building massive monuments. We are going to take a trip to Mesopotamia on the 17th of february 2021, where developers over at Nepos Games will let us relive our fond memories of playing Pharaoh, Caesar, Zeus and Emperor isometric city building games in Nebuchadnezzar.
BUT with much, much more improved gameplay and mechanics. This was the promise these nostalgic game developers made, and I am here to tell you they delivered in spades!
They have overhauled and improved practically every aspect of the fan favorite games I just mentioned. From direct management of workers and production, over advanced AI pathing of agents to fully customizable monument building.
So let’s talk about all the features and gameplay Nebuchadnezzar has to offer.
The campaign is over a dozen missions long and for the first few of those you will have Gilgamesh as your trusty advisor and guide. He will take you through building the basic food production chain and making homes for your first settlers.
In future missions you will travel both through time and Mesopotamia in order to learn how to produce more types of goods and provide them to your citizens. In Nebuchadnezzar the upgrading of citizens' homes is tied to the supply of different goods like in all the old fan favorite isometric city building games, alongside specific services. There are 34 resources and goods which are produced out of them in total and 6 different services in this game.
But where Nebuchadnezzar differs from similar games is that each citizen class, of which there are three, have their own type of homes and they each require access to different goods and services to level up and increase in citizen capacity. More on this later in the video and my future tutorials on this subject.
Those goods need to be distributed to homes and this is just one of the places where the improvements to gameplay can be noticed. You get to manually employ citizens to work in the market as haulers and distributors in customizable slots. Each worker represents a certain percentage of your total free labor force for that class. Moreover, you also manually choose the routes these distributors will follow along the roads and you will see exactly which homes they will supply along this route. These routes can be edited at any time, shortened or lengthened and even copy pasted with two simple clicks to other distributors in the same market.
Farms, manufacturing buildings and other service buildings function much the same. You chose how many of the worker slots will be producers and how many haulers or service providers and manually setup their paths.
Another gameplay improvement are the distance ranges for each building in the production or service chains. When you want to place such a building you will see it’s maximum range in which haulers can transfer goods and resources. As long as a single tile of a building, like a warehouse, is in the range of a production building the two will operate in a chain, provided there is a road connecting them.
Naturally, some buildings and warehouses will simply be too far from each other because of their specific requirements and space constraints. Like a port and a production building of a certain good. This is why there is a special building where you can employ caravanners and set up simple one way transfer paths. These are especially useful in moving homes of your second and third citizen classes away from noise and smelly production buildings and still being able to deliver food and goods to warehouses from which more fancy markets can reach them. But pollution is just one half of the puzzle when it comes to attracting townsfolk and Aristocracy.
The second is beautifications which increase an area’s appeal. Gardens, statues, flower parks and fountains all contribute to making the areas where there are Villas and residences in which these two classes are to live in, more appealing.
This might now all sound like the complexity is going off the charts but the saving grace is the fact that each production chain is just two steps long. You gather or import a resource in one building, transfer it directly to another or a nearby warehouse and then produce a good out of it in another manufacturing building. Get those to a warehouse in range of a market which distributes them and you are done.
In this way you level up homes of each citizen class so that more of them can move in and become your workforce. Peasants will settle in with no requirements but to grow their homes to their maximum, fourth level they will need cheap goods and simple services like clean water and administration. Townsfolk and aristocracy on the other hand won’t even settle without having their base requirements fulfilled. Each of these citizen classes work in their own professions. Peasants work mostly in farms and industry manufacturing, Townsfolk in more advanced production chains, like furniture and meat, while even the aristocrats work in the most valuable and clean professions like jewelry and wine making.
Another set of gameplay improvements Nebuchadnezzar brings to this genre are the interface options. Beyond the double time control, which you can speed up to three and then multiply that speed by a factor of 4, and overlays for goods and services, right clicking on just about anything gives you a host of options. You can copy a building and even cut it to move it. Your most used buildings will also be there for you to quickly build more of. Each opened building information panel can be moved around the screen or even changed by adding or removing columns. The in-game menus offer both options and guides for the player. Here you can find the information about your prestige level, consumption and production of each good and resources, a map of nearby cities with whom you can trade and even a breakdown of each citizen's home and the requirements for leveling it up.
Since I mentioned trade, I will elaborate on that a bit. Some resources you can’t gather from the map. Like copper, gold, stone, ivory and so on. These you have to import from other cities by setting up a port on the riverside and opening trade relations with that city. This costs some goods and requires a set amount of prestige. Once contact is established, and you set a limit to how many resources to import and goods to export, you can sell goods from warehouses in the ports range and also import into those resources you require. This is the main way of making more gold by the way.
As for prestige, this you gain passively when you have more population settled in nice looking and advanced homes but you can also gain it actively through monument building and by fulfilling requests for goods from other cities.
The monuments themselves are something else entirely. Hanging gardens, a massive temple and a spacious palace. Each with a unique look and construction process but all made out of simple clay bricks. The default monuments are automated and will build themselves in awe inspiring detail. If you want to watch a timelapse of these monuments being constructed follow the link here
https://youtu.be/hjzly4Xpl4I
The truly innovative thing about monuments in Nebuchadnezzar is the ability to manually build them or some other shape entirely as you can construct these yourself, brick by brick. You can even color them as you see fit. Completing one such monument gets you a massive prestige boost and opponents up trade with many more nearby cities.
This is no doubt where modding will come into play as the developers are giving their full support for mods and scenario making which is already setup in the game. In the settings you will find a 4k interface option which I would advise using if you want to play in that resolution.
The version I played was quite stable and beyond a few unexpected crashes which developers have already fixed no other problems came up. I have enjoyed the music very much but some of it doesn’t closely match the lore so don’t be surprised when these come up.
The developers are to be congratulated on the animations, art style and textures as I had a blast just zooming in and watching all the citizens at work in their tiny workplaces using their tools and moving about.
Playing Nebuchadnezzar really cleaned my pink glasses and showed me just how many improvements those old isometric games were missing.
Thank you for reading!
**********
Game's Steam store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1157220/Nebuchadnezza
***********
Gameplay wise players will get to manage everything from plowing fields to creating products, as they must oversee agriculture and the manufacturing of goods for the city's population.
Nebuchadnezzar features an in-game “monument editor” giving players complete control over their monument’s design. Modders will be able to create their own buildings, goods, and monuments. And in addition, they can invent new missions and campaigns to share with other players and increase the amount of game content.
********
DEVELOPER & PUBLISHER: Nepos Games
Official website: https://nepos.games/nebuchadnezza
-Gameplay
Build your city while you oversee the manufacturing of different agriculture and goods for your population. Solve problems, prevent population loss, trade with other cities, handle foreign relationships, take care of varying population classes and employee types across various industries and services, and many more. Nebuchadnezzar’s gameplay is geared towards all types of players: from beginners of the genre to experienced strategists.
-Campaign
Nebuchadnezzar’s main campaign contains more than a dozen historical missions covering the colonization of ancient lands to the conquest of Babylon by Persians in the 6th Century bc. Each mission summons a different time period in Ancient Mesopotamian history, providing comprehensive historical experience. Players must carry out tasks important to the specific time and place of each mission, including the construction of historical monuments.
-Monuments
During the campaign players will not only build complex ancient monuments, but design them too. Nebuchadnezzar features an in-game monument editor giving players complete control over their buildings. From structural design to color scheme to final details: it’s in the hands of the player. Will you recreate history or make history? It’s up to you.
-Mods & Localization
Nebuchadnezzar was created with mods and localization in mind. Expand your experience with the full support of mods from new buildings, new goods, production chains, and even new maps, missions, and campaigns. It is almost entirely moddable. Localizing mods will also not be a problem. You can create mods in multiple languages and/or add languages to existing ones. This applies to the base game as well.

This is an overview of all the Features and an early look at Gameplay from the upcoming Indie city building game set in Mesopotamia called Nebuchadnezzar made by Nepos Games developers and influenced heavily by Pharaoh, Caesar, Zeus and Emperor isometric 2D city building games.
The setting of Nebuchadnezzar is ancient Mesopotamia where cultures developed, grew and fell one after, and on top, of the other for thousands of years. During the campaign, players will get to rule over influential historical cities filled with magnificent monuments they will design and construct.
Video form: https://youtu.be/uCjqDdB5tys
******
Hello and welcome to ancient times of plowing fields, milking goats and building massive monuments. We are going to take a trip to Mesopotamia on the 17th of february 2021, where developers over at Nepos Games will let us relive our fond memories of playing Pharaoh, Caesar, Zeus and Emperor isometric city building games in Nebuchadnezzar.
BUT with much, much more improved gameplay and mechanics. This was the promise these nostalgic game developers made, and I am here to tell you they delivered in spades!
They have overhauled and improved practically every aspect of the fan favorite games I just mentioned. From direct management of workers and production, over advanced AI pathing of agents to fully customizable monument building.
So let’s talk about all the features and gameplay Nebuchadnezzar has to offer.
The campaign is over a dozen missions long and for the first few of those you will have Gilgamesh as your trusty advisor and guide. He will take you through building the basic food production chain and making homes for your first settlers.
In future missions you will travel both through time and Mesopotamia in order to learn how to produce more types of goods and provide them to your citizens. In Nebuchadnezzar the upgrading of citizens' homes is tied to the supply of different goods like in all the old fan favorite isometric city building games, alongside specific services. There are 34 resources and goods which are produced out of them in total and 6 different services in this game.
But where Nebuchadnezzar differs from similar games is that each citizen class, of which there are three, have their own type of homes and they each require access to different goods and services to level up and increase in citizen capacity. More on this later in the video and my future tutorials on this subject.
Those goods need to be distributed to homes and this is just one of the places where the improvements to gameplay can be noticed. You get to manually employ citizens to work in the market as haulers and distributors in customizable slots. Each worker represents a certain percentage of your total free labor force for that class. Moreover, you also manually choose the routes these distributors will follow along the roads and you will see exactly which homes they will supply along this route. These routes can be edited at any time, shortened or lengthened and even copy pasted with two simple clicks to other distributors in the same market.
Farms, manufacturing buildings and other service buildings function much the same. You chose how many of the worker slots will be producers and how many haulers or service providers and manually setup their paths.
Another gameplay improvement are the distance ranges for each building in the production or service chains. When you want to place such a building you will see it’s maximum range in which haulers can transfer goods and resources. As long as a single tile of a building, like a warehouse, is in the range of a production building the two will operate in a chain, provided there is a road connecting them.
Naturally, some buildings and warehouses will simply be too far from each other because of their specific requirements and space constraints. Like a port and a production building of a certain good. This is why there is a special building where you can employ caravanners and set up simple one way transfer paths. These are especially useful in moving homes of your second and third citizen classes away from noise and smelly production buildings and still being able to deliver food and goods to warehouses from which more fancy markets can reach them. But pollution is just one half of the puzzle when it comes to attracting townsfolk and Aristocracy.
The second is beautifications which increase an area’s appeal. Gardens, statues, flower parks and fountains all contribute to making the areas where there are Villas and residences in which these two classes are to live in, more appealing.
This might now all sound like the complexity is going off the charts but the saving grace is the fact that each production chain is just two steps long. You gather or import a resource in one building, transfer it directly to another or a nearby warehouse and then produce a good out of it in another manufacturing building. Get those to a warehouse in range of a market which distributes them and you are done.
In this way you level up homes of each citizen class so that more of them can move in and become your workforce. Peasants will settle in with no requirements but to grow their homes to their maximum, fourth level they will need cheap goods and simple services like clean water and administration. Townsfolk and aristocracy on the other hand won’t even settle without having their base requirements fulfilled. Each of these citizen classes work in their own professions. Peasants work mostly in farms and industry manufacturing, Townsfolk in more advanced production chains, like furniture and meat, while even the aristocrats work in the most valuable and clean professions like jewelry and wine making.
Another set of gameplay improvements Nebuchadnezzar brings to this genre are the interface options. Beyond the double time control, which you can speed up to three and then multiply that speed by a factor of 4, and overlays for goods and services, right clicking on just about anything gives you a host of options. You can copy a building and even cut it to move it. Your most used buildings will also be there for you to quickly build more of. Each opened building information panel can be moved around the screen or even changed by adding or removing columns. The in-game menus offer both options and guides for the player. Here you can find the information about your prestige level, consumption and production of each good and resources, a map of nearby cities with whom you can trade and even a breakdown of each citizen's home and the requirements for leveling it up.
Since I mentioned trade, I will elaborate on that a bit. Some resources you can’t gather from the map. Like copper, gold, stone, ivory and so on. These you have to import from other cities by setting up a port on the riverside and opening trade relations with that city. This costs some goods and requires a set amount of prestige. Once contact is established, and you set a limit to how many resources to import and goods to export, you can sell goods from warehouses in the ports range and also import into those resources you require. This is the main way of making more gold by the way.
As for prestige, this you gain passively when you have more population settled in nice looking and advanced homes but you can also gain it actively through monument building and by fulfilling requests for goods from other cities.
The monuments themselves are something else entirely. Hanging gardens, a massive temple and a spacious palace. Each with a unique look and construction process but all made out of simple clay bricks. The default monuments are automated and will build themselves in awe inspiring detail. If you want to watch a timelapse of these monuments being constructed follow the link here
https://youtu.be/hjzly4Xpl4I
The truly innovative thing about monuments in Nebuchadnezzar is the ability to manually build them or some other shape entirely as you can construct these yourself, brick by brick. You can even color them as you see fit. Completing one such monument gets you a massive prestige boost and opponents up trade with many more nearby cities.
This is no doubt where modding will come into play as the developers are giving their full support for mods and scenario making which is already setup in the game. In the settings you will find a 4k interface option which I would advise using if you want to play in that resolution.
The version I played was quite stable and beyond a few unexpected crashes which developers have already fixed no other problems came up. I have enjoyed the music very much but some of it doesn’t closely match the lore so don’t be surprised when these come up.
The developers are to be congratulated on the animations, art style and textures as I had a blast just zooming in and watching all the citizens at work in their tiny workplaces using their tools and moving about.
Playing Nebuchadnezzar really cleaned my pink glasses and showed me just how many improvements those old isometric games were missing.
Thank you for reading!
**********
Game's Steam store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1157220/Nebuchadnezza
***********
Gameplay wise players will get to manage everything from plowing fields to creating products, as they must oversee agriculture and the manufacturing of goods for the city's population.
Nebuchadnezzar features an in-game “monument editor” giving players complete control over their monument’s design. Modders will be able to create their own buildings, goods, and monuments. And in addition, they can invent new missions and campaigns to share with other players and increase the amount of game content.
********
DEVELOPER & PUBLISHER: Nepos Games
Official website: https://nepos.games/nebuchadnezza
-Gameplay
Build your city while you oversee the manufacturing of different agriculture and goods for your population. Solve problems, prevent population loss, trade with other cities, handle foreign relationships, take care of varying population classes and employee types across various industries and services, and many more. Nebuchadnezzar’s gameplay is geared towards all types of players: from beginners of the genre to experienced strategists.
-Campaign
Nebuchadnezzar’s main campaign contains more than a dozen historical missions covering the colonization of ancient lands to the conquest of Babylon by Persians in the 6th Century bc. Each mission summons a different time period in Ancient Mesopotamian history, providing comprehensive historical experience. Players must carry out tasks important to the specific time and place of each mission, including the construction of historical monuments.
-Monuments
During the campaign players will not only build complex ancient monuments, but design them too. Nebuchadnezzar features an in-game monument editor giving players complete control over their buildings. From structural design to color scheme to final details: it’s in the hands of the player. Will you recreate history or make history? It’s up to you.
-Mods & Localization
Nebuchadnezzar was created with mods and localization in mind. Expand your experience with the full support of mods from new buildings, new goods, production chains, and even new maps, missions, and campaigns. It is almost entirely moddable. Localizing mods will also not be a problem. You can create mods in multiple languages and/or add languages to existing ones. This applies to the base game as well.

I am currently remotely DMing a PF2e campaign for local Denver, CO players. We started playing Pathfinder 2nd Edition in early Dec-2020 and are still getting comfortable with the rules and Fantasy Grounds. There are currently three players and we need a forth (I am currently playing the 4th as an NPC). We are planning to start meeting in person again on the 19th of Feb. Players will be bringing their laptops and we will continue using Fantasy Grounds around the table for its automation.
Some details:

• SYSTEM: Pathfinder 2e (Core & Advanced Players Guide)
• ADVENTURE: Mummy's Mask Adventure Path converted to 2e. About two-thirds of the way through.
• You will need a laptop that can run Fantasy Grounds (both Mac and PC are supported)
  • You don't need to purchase anything to use Fantasy Grounds
• WHEN: Meet every two weeks on Friday evenings
• TIME: From ~5:30pm to 10/11pm MST
• WHERE: SE Aurora near Southlands
• AGEs: From 40 into our early 50s of various ethnicity
• OTHER GAMES: Occasional we also play board games (Descent, Gloomhaven, Arkham Horror, Robinson Crusoe, Mansions of Madness) when not playing Pathfinder
• We have been known to drink beer at the table while we play (NO MJ Please)
• Have a nice game table that I built a couple of years ago just waiting to be used again (gaming table)

If you are a local Denver player and this is something that interests you, please message me and I can get you more details.

I am currently remotely DMing a PF2e campaign for local Denver, CO players. We started playing Pathfinder 2nd Edition in early Dec-2020 and are still getting comfortable with the rules and Fantasy Grounds. There are currently three players and we need a forth (I am currently playing the 4th). We are planning to start meeting in person again on the 19th of Feb. Players will be bringing their laptops and we will continue using Fantasy Grounds around the table for its automation.
Some details:

• SYSTEM: Pathfinder 2e (Core & Advanced Players Guide)
• ADVENTURE: Mummy's Mask Adventure Path converted to 2e. About two-thirds of the way through.
• WHEN: Meet every two weeks on Friday evenings
• TIME: From ~5:30pm to 10/11pm MST
• WHERE: SE Aurora near Southlands
• AGEs: From 40 into our early 50s of various ethnicity
• OTHER GAMES: Occasional we also play board games (Descent, Gloomhaven, Arkham Horror, Robinson Crusoe, Mansions of Madness) when not playing Pathfinder
• Sometimes we have a beer while we play
• Have a nice game table that I built a couple of years ago just waiting to be used again
  If you are a local Denver player and this is something that interests you, please DM and I can get you more details.
  

In the spirit of my thread about the TW series, I'll be talking today about a small RTS from the year 2001 called Battle Realms. I'll first describe how the game works since I'll assume most of you aren't familiar with it, then I'll discuss which ideas can be pulled from it for FG. Please note I've only been playing the game for a couple weeks and I'm not as familiar with it as I was with TW. Everything I'm gonna say about multiplayer especially is speculative and the result of me watching a few games on youtube, not playing multiplayer.
​
Be yourself is what BR was told
What I mean by that is BR is quite a unique game in a lot of aspects, here are its most prominent features in a list format.

• unique medieval/fantasy setting with an Asian theme
• very limited macro-management with automated workers production, only 2 resources (+ horses and yin/yang points) and no expansions
• unique units production mechanic, you make every unit by training peasants in buildings, and you can cumulate trainings too. For example, peasant into dojo = spearman, peasant into target range = archer, archer into dojo OR spearman into target range = dragon warrior (who has melee and range attacks).
• a main campaign with choices that lead to different missions and possibly different endings(?). Btw I really like the next mission presentation where you have to choose between 2 provinces on a map and with advisers telling you where they think you should go. With the steam version you also get a campaign from the expansion which I haven't played yet.
• a very speedy early game thanks to the simple economy that seem to favor aggression in MP
• a unique countering system between units which I'll talk about later
• deep unit interactions and micro possibilities, with a lot of active abilities

If you don't know the game, I highly recommand it. The uniqueness of the experience is well worth 8€. It's super ugly, the unit models look like FF7 characters, however it does look much much better in movement as there was a lot of care put into animations.
Every unit has different combat moves and combined with appropriate sound effects, the illusion they're parrying and deflecting each other is working. Animations when units ride horses or fall from them are great, idle animations are great, ranged units have different animations when fighting in melee (and different damage too), etc...Honestly even SC2's animators are put to shame by this 20 years old game.
Like I said the game is only 8€ and by buying it you support continuous development of it. The devs want to have patches coming to balance the MP, improve performance and maybe in the long run make a remaster or even a sequel. Here's a youtube channel run by a guy working with the devs if you want to keep in touch with news about the game
If you plan to play the game I have 2 recommendations: 1)Do the tutorial even if it's agonizingly slow (you can speed it up by cranking the game speed in options) 2)Save the campaign because there is no select mission screen, don't be like me and do the first 3 missions and go to bed only to find out you have to do them again :(
And also expect the UI and command to be clunky and unfamiliar since the game isn't based around move commands with right click and attack moves...The UI can only show 8 units at a time so you can only trigger the abilities of the first 8 units before having to cycle through them....in a word the game's interface is quite outdated.
​
Discussion about units counters and damage types
Oh boy. I need a parapragh for this one. Like I said BR is unique. Most RTS with a medievalish setting have something like that going on: spearmen counter cav, cav counter ranged units, ranged units counter spearmen. With bonus damages and different movement speed that naturally leads to this balance. BR says fuck this and bases everything around damage types and resistances to them. This page explains as clearly as possible what's going on, but yeah...it's still a mess...
There are 6 dmg types and units have different resistances against them. Every unit has some weaknesses and those are quite arbitrary. It's easy to tell attack types (swords cut, spears pierce, hammers blunt...) but armor types are impossible to guess. For example the samuraï who is a late-game unit with a metal armor resists most T1 dmg (cut or pierce). This makes sense, but why does he takes a massive 200% dmg from explosive? Purely for balance I imagine but I'd never have guessed. Especially since the game does not tell you any of this (well maybe there was a manual in 2001). The tutorial and campaigns never go into this...thank god the wiki is here.
​
Mechanics and features that could be translated other RTSs

• BR's stamina system. Every unit can run at the cost of stamina. Running is like 4x faster than walking. Stamina regenerates when in idle state and is used for abilities like a mana bar. Every unit can have 1 ability by training in an upgrade building. Some like healers will use their stamina constantly during combat. Some units have big bonuses or maluses to stamina regen. So despite the samy speed of units their mobility feels different through the stamina system.

The weakness of the system is that there is no reason to walk since stamina don't regenerate when walking. It seems much more efficient to run, then to idle in order to be able to run again. This is possibly the case because walking is extremely slow. However I like that there is a way to get stamina faster. In most RTS, mana is used and just builds over time with little interaction from the player. I think BR would have benefitted a lot from a unit that could give or transfer stamina.
I don't see the same system working in another game but for a single faction or a few units it could be cool. For instance let's imagine a late-game unit which is a fast ranged glass canon with a lot of DPS. It would be hard to punish at full speed but could only move at full speed with stamina. With players interacting with the stamina bar through spells, buffs and debuffs, it could lead to a frantic cat-and-mouse game.
​

• Forests. I like forests in BR. If you're not inside them they act like SC2 los blocker. Once inside units have like 50% of their vision radius but they're hidden from units outside the forest. However startled birds flying up can give away your units' position (they have a sound effect and appear on screen and on the minimap), I think you startle more birds if you're running but I'm not sure. Also running speed is reduced in forest and horses cannont run at all in them. And the best thing is foliage disappears when you have units in a forest so you can actually see what they're doing.

​

• The raider. I love this unit as a concept. He resists forest maluses so he's sneaky and mobile without having a cloak mechanic. He has a weak attack who's bad against most units but he can set buildings on fire. When a building is burning it loses health and can set fire to nearby buildings. Peasants can extenguish fires with water. Raiders can also set fire to rice fields.

A harass units designed to kill building is an idea I had never seen (i think CnC games have similar units but I don't play them). I really like the fact that you don't have to wait for the building to die to switch target since fire does dmg on its own. I like that there is a counter play for the harassed player and I love their sneakiness that relies more on terrain and vision rather than cloaking and speed.
In most non-Blizzard RTS buildings are usually quite tanky and BR is no exception (they have a resistances to most dmg types). Anti-buildings units are usually quite slow and sluggish like in AoE. But as BR proves, this role can be filled by something else than siege units (in BR the units with the biggest range aren't good against buildings).
​

• Horses. Horses are a resource present on the map. Peasant can capture them once you build stables and put them in, then either a peasant or a unit can go to the stables to take them. A peasant get a buff to resource collection (the horse carry a much bigger load than a peasant) but I don't know if it's worthwhile compared to putting one combat unit on a horse. Making any unit a rider gives it a huge bonus in mobility since horses are super fast and have a lot of stamina. It also gives it more health since units (except a few ranged ones) deal dmg to the horse and not the rider. Finally horses replace the unit's ability with a trample which is a powerful AoE dmg spell.

I am torn about allowing any unit to be mounted, on one hand it gives players a lot of freedom, on another units on horses feel similar. Maybe they should only have allowed melee or they should have given some units like spearmen attack bonuses. I also don't like horses don't really have a counter. In MP, players seem to go for horses ASAP because they're such a huge boost. I like however that it forces peasant out of their fields and make them vulnerable (they can take horses from the other side of the map but they will be exposed doing so).
Having a finite (I think horses spawn back but slowly) resource/creep is interesting. I think like in AoEII you could have some micro involved with military units to gather them faster. You could imagine a system where players would have the choice between killing horses for food or using them for units. Ofc the same ideas could work for any fantasy creature. Imagine a RTS with creep camps, you could go kill a troll for food and/or XP early on or try to capture it to use him as a unit to go rush your enemy or use him as a worker in a mine where he'll be worth 10 normal peons.
​

• Animations matter a lot. BR feels good to play because units are responsive and their interaction is satisfying to watch, despite the ugliness of models. However, sometimes animations take too much time to finish (for example a canoneer will finish its long attack animation before listening to you and moving), I think it's due to the lack of animation cancelling in the game. There is always a balance to find between making animations look good and responsiveness. In another thread, I'll take a look at a RTS that looks better than BR but whose animations are lacking and sluggish.

​

• Ranged units forced to fight in melee. An interesting consequence of the care put into animations is that ranged units engaged in melee automatically fight back using their shitty melee attack. Usually in games it's better to gank on 1 enemy until it's dead then switch to the next one. This mechanic is a counterpoint to that where in the ideal fight you split all your melee attackers between the enemy range units to suppress them. You can micro ranged units back but ofc it limits kiting.

​

• Great readibility through exaggerated unit shape. In BR every unit in a dude (or a gal), meaning he or she has a humanoïd silhouette. However, size differences are craked to 11. Big tanky melee fighters are literally 4 times as big as small agile skirmishers. Weapons are also gigantic, putting Cloud to shame with his baby sword. And hairstyles are crazy, like anime-crazy but even crazier. All of this makes BR quite readable despite what I thought when I started playing it.

​

• Frantic start for multiplayer. Spectating BR benefits a lot from the ultra speedy early game with aggression starting ASAP. Of course this probably comes at a price. The community seems to play on only 1 map because others aren't fair. Also the game has a weird pacing because ecnomy doesn't scale meaning if the first fights aren't decisive, there may be a lull while players wait to remax. However the peasant generation system is a built-in comeback mechanic: if you lose your army, your pop will drop and peasants will generate way faster than your opponents'.

​
Unsuccessful mechanics (only my opinion ofc)

• Simplistic economy and macro. Not a fan. BR doesn't give you enough to do at your base past a few minutes, once you have 5 or 6 buildinngs down. The feeling of not having control on your economy isn't great either.
• Training peasants. Sounds interesting on paper. In reality the only thing it changes is that you have to screen shift just to make units...I think Spellforce III's Trolls work the same way, I haven't played it, maybe they managed to make it more fun.
• Damage types. Way too complicated and non intuitive resistances. I think you could make it work with a better tutorial and more consistancy. For example, all units resistant to cut have metal armor, all units resistant to blunt have layered clothes, etc...
• Lack of space control or defensive options. The only defensive option in BR is to build a tower and to put a ranged unit inside it. No unit benefits from a setup position (like siege tanks or lurkers). Even if there was a standard economy there will be little room to turtle and tech instead of producing units I think.

​
The end!
Thanks for reading through the end. I hope I was clear enough on how the game works, ask me questions if it wasn't the case. Remember it's a cheap old-school unique experience that I recommand if you're interested in RTS design.

AC6 was what got me into Ace Combat, and my initial AC7 playthrough left me burnt out because of how much harder the campaign was, even on Easy. I struggled with getting the most out of the F-16C, and I had to look up a guide just to know that the PLSR was the best weapon in the campaign. I played Assault Horizon for a change of pace, and then I moved on to AC3, AC4/AC5/ACZ, Project Wingman, ACX, JA, AC2, and AC1.
And I have to say, it's given me a new respect for the franchise's game mechanics. Especially since AC6 had easier air-to-air combat because all missiles would pre-emptively burst if they were about to miss, which no other Ace Combat game does.
In any case, I've been thinking about my favorite planes and SP Weapons in AC7 and across the franchise in general.
...
Planes:
F-4E Phantom II: The starting plane of AC4. Humble, yet nostalgic in design.
F-16C Fighting Falcon: A classic early-game plane in the earlier titles, now the starter plane in a world where technology is already marching on. Even so, it can still hold its own in a dogfight.
F/A-18F Super Hornet: A mid-tier plane used by the 444th Fighter Squadron. And the EML is useful (with mods).
F-15C Eagle: A sleek, all-purpose plane used by the LRSSG. Also comes with the ever-helpful PLSR.
F-22A Raptor: My favorite non-superfighter plane, used by Phoenix, Mobius 1, Gryphus 1, Antares, Bishop, and Trigger. I've loved the design ever since I unlocked it before the final two missions of AC6, and it's always a solid choice for the finale of any Ace Combat game.
A-10C Thunderbolt II: Always fun for missions with an anti-ground focus. And even bombers can be used for dogfighting when the situation calls for it.
MiG-21bis Fishbed: It's never been a high-tier plane, but there's always been a charm to its design. The gun pods are a plus, too.
Gripen E: It has a decent selection of SP weapons... also, I recently started watching Girly Air Force. Sue me.
Su-47 Berkut: I don't like it as much as the F-22A, but it's still a respectable plane and the forward-swept wings are cool. It was slightly worse in performance than the F-22A in AC6. In AC4, it actually had better stats than the F-22A, and it had the QAAMs.
Su-57: A great dogfighter, has a sleek design and carries 650 PLSRs.
...
SP Weapons:
4AAM/6AAM: Always my preferred choice for a dogfight. Mostly because you can't use SAAMs effectively at close range.
QAAM: Never a bad choice for a furball, with the enhanced speed and homing capabilities.
PLSR: Lasers are fun, even when the aiming is tricky and it's hard to tell exactly how many lasers you need to down a target. Either way, they're still fun and powerful.
EML: I loved using the railgun in AC6, and I was a bit disappointed to see that it was nerfed in AC7. It's difficult to use with without a range mod.
TLS: Laser beams are cool. So is having a mod that lets you slice up a dozen planes with a single beam.
ADMM: Like the EML, I get why they nerfed it in Assault Horizon and AC7. I mostly enjoyed using it in AC6.
LASM: Anti-ship missiles have always had a place in Ace Combat. They're incredibly helpful in AC4 and AC5, and I've been meaning to give them a go in Fleet Destruction (along with the LAGM and LACM).
FAEB: It was an incredibly effective weapon in ACZ, and the version in AC7 is also fun to use.
...
Parts:
New High-Energy Propellant (MSL) Lv. 1/Thrust-Adjusting Steering Device (MSL) Lv. 1: I like having fast missiles that are more likely to hit other planes.
Electronic Optical Hybrid Sight (MSL) Lv. 1/Infrared Seeker Cooling System Lv. 1: Surprisingly helpful for speeding up the mission flow.
Multiple Enemy Detection Device (MSL) Lv. 1: It's also good to not have to wait ages for your missiles to reload.
Bulletproof Fuel Tank Lv. 1/Automated Fire Extinguisher: It might be cheap, but it's nice to have the option of tanking a few extra missiles in an emergency.
Auto-Strafing Machine Gun Device/Machine Gun Radar Lock System: Used together, these parts make the machine gun far more effective against clusters of ground targets. It's fun to use the A-10C's bombs and missiles while the machine gun does it's thing.
...
Do you have various planes and playstyles that you gravitate towards?

Welcome to Max the Min Monday! The post series where we take some of Paizo’s weakest, most poorly optimized options and see what the best things we can do with them are using 1st party Pathfinder materials!
Last week we discussed the vanilla shifter. Basically, the discussion can be summed up by saying that vanilla shifter isn't necessarily bad, it can be quite powerful in combat, especially at lower levels in comparison to the average party. But it just doesn't have much going for it later so can appear boring. That said, we saw monkey aspect builds with large weapons, crocodile aspects that grappled and coup de grace with throat slicer, weapon shift feat, and other general options to make it work.
This Week’s Challenge First off I just want to say that I'm personally excited about this one. Thanks to u/RazarTuk, we're discussing the Reanimated Medium.
Gotta love the flavor here. Most mediums channel spirits into their body to gain powers. However, the Reanimated Medium is a dead spirit forcing itself into a corpse so it can keep adventuring despite death. Isn't that awesome?! Plus it is the only class you can multiclass into when your PC dies so you can keep adventuring with them! Awesome! And with the fact that the medium is a very flexible class that can synergize with most classes, it isn't a bad idea for a dip.
So where's the Min? Well, the way it is written to work is a mess, and as much as I love this archteype and even have it as a backup character in my own campaign, I am only able to do so with a flexible GM willing to make some house calls.
For one, the bane of every medium's existence is influence. Normal mediums, you gain too much influence, you become an NPC for the rest of the day. Reanimated ones, however, work in reverse. You go to 0 influence, you enter a 24 hour coma (taking you out of the game even longer than a normal medium). However, due to the fact that they never removed some of the original medium's mechanics, one common RAW reading of the rules makes your medium have to spend every other day in a coma! So you can only adventure half the days, other half you are sleeping it off. See this comment for more details on the RAW issues that cause it, and a potential alternate reading / houserule that fixes it.
Even if you can find a way around the coma thing (or if you have a generous gm who ignores it), then there is the fact that you (probably, again, alt reading) start closer to your limit than normal mediums do.
A major reason people don't like the Medium in general is the whole sticky situation about having to be in thematic locations to channel spirits. Despite the Reanimated Medium channeling themself, they still use that rule of appropriate locations in order to channel the day's "potential future legend". So GM's could really limit access, or even deny the ability to channel altogether (in this case triggering another coma). At this time I wish to remind everyone of this FAQ which states that spirits should be available more often than not, and symbolic action may replace location. However, even this FAQ states that there will be occasions for our medium to not channel the spirit they most want. So you end up with a bit of a pickle. How do you build an optimized build where you can't even guarantee you'll have access to your choice of class abilities?
This means for our discussions, if a build isn't optimized for at least 2 spirits, then it can be shut down at any moment. Plenty of guides say to optimize for one, but considering that we are already risking the RAW reading of every other day being a coma, we can't afford to waste one of our awake days if we can't get our #1 pick. I realize that there are readings that don't have the coma rule, but for the purposes of our discussion, let's see if we can Max the Min builds that are good in at least two spirits. After all, we are Max the Min Monday, and the flavor of the Medium is supposed to be flexible, so why not see what we can do with some flexibilty?
That's kinda it for the archetype specific issues. Any other issues are also part of the main class, which some say is generally weak for various reasons (jack of all trades, master of none, except you pick only 1 trade for 24 hours). Being that it hd so much going on, I won’t go into depth about all the spirits. Personally, I don't think it actually is that weak, more just complex and extremely modular, meaning you need good system mastery (and maybe an automated spreadsheet) to run one well. So with all this in mind. . . just how strong can we make one? Bonus points if you find a way to not be worried about that worst-case scenario of every other day being coma day (though honestly, I don't expect any reasonable GM to actually require that in play).
Don’t Forget to Vote!
Nominate topics in the dedicated comment thread below! See the comment for details.
Previous Topics:
Cantrips, Shuriken, Sniping, Site-bound Curse, Warden Ranger, Caustic Slur, Vow of Poverty, Poisons, Counterspelling, Drake Companions, Scroll Master, Traps, Kobolds, Blood Alchemist, Drugs, Performance Combat, Shifter.

Welcome to this week’s Stellaris Space Guild Help Thread! This thread functions as a gathering place for all questions, tips, bugs, suggestions, and resources for Stellaris. Here you can post quick-fire questions, tips, and other tidbits of knowledge that may not deserve their own discussion thread. If you would like to ask a specific question about the state of your Stellaris campaign, please include links to relevant screenshots to assist the people helping you. This ensures that you get the most accurate advice for your specific campaign.
GUILD RESOURCES
Below you can find resources for the game. If you would like to help contribute to the resources section, please leave a comment that pings me (using "u/Snipahar") and link to the resource. You can also contribute by reaching me through private message or modmail. Be sure to include a short description of what you find valuable about the resource.
WIKI:

• Stellaris Wiki

INTRODUCTION GUIDES:

• Stellaris In A Nutshell - How To Master The Essentials (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 For Beginners (A Tutorial for People Who Are New To Wolfe 2.3) (David 'Wartorious' Beck)
• Stellaris 2.2 For Beginners (A Tutorial for People Who Are New To 2.2) (ASpec)
• Stellaris for Beginners - What is the Early/Mid/Late Game? (ASpec)
• Stellaris For Beginners - Gaining A ton of Space Early (A must of Wide Builds) (ASpec)
• The Quick Start Guide to Stellaris 2.2 - Le Guin Update (RepublicOfPlay)
• Stellaris Tutorial: Everything you need to play Patch 2.2 / MegaCorp! (quill18)
• How to Play Stellaris (CallMeEzekiel)

BEGINNER GUIDES:

• Stellaris Trade Tutorial (ColorsFade Gaming)
• Stellaris - 2.2 How To Manage Your Economy (ASpec)
• Stellaris - 2.2 Initial Expansion And Setting Goals (ASpec)

CONSOLE EDITION GUIDES:

• A Console Player's Guide to 2.2 Stellaris (Axeman1721)
• Stellaris: Console Edition - A tutorial for complete beginners! - Part 1 (quill18)
• Stellaris Console for Beginners - Your First 6 Years (Tutorial) (ASpec)

SPECIFIC/ADVANCED GUIDES:

• STELLARIS META-BREAKER : Secret moves to dominate the galaxy! Episode 1. (Regunes)
• Stellaris: Top 9 Megastructures (Arclinon)
• Civics Tier List for Standard Empires (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris: Rubricator Guide (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Horizon Signal Guide (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Origins Tier List (Arclinon)
• How to Build an OVERWHELMING Tall Empire | Stellaris 2.2.2 (Le Guin) Strategy (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 - Planet Designations & Sectors Overview (Automation is back on the menu) (ASpec)
• The Essential Guide to an OVERWHELMING Economy | Stellaris 2.3 | Part 1 - Empire Setup & Day One (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 - Habitats & Ringworlds District Overview (They're Actually Good Now) (ASpec)
• Stellaris: Unemployment Micromanagement Guide (Arclinon)
• Surviving Grand Admiral x5 End Game Crisis Tips (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Expansionist Megacorp Strategy (For Grand Admiral/Multiplayer) (Arclinon)

SHIP DESIGN:

• "Good Enough" Stellaris Ships (WonkiDonki)
• Fleet Design Guide - All Ship Builds! (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris - Ship Design For Beginners (Tutorial) (ASpec)
• Ship Design Guide - Space Blitz Edition | Stellaris 2.2 (Le Guin) Strategy (Stefan Anon)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Titans| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Battleships| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Cruisers| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Destroyers| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Corvettes| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Designer - Build Ships To Counter The Enemy (Tutorial) (David 'Wartorious' Beck)
• Stellaris: Combat and Ship Design Guide (SteamAH)

FLEET COMPOSITION:

• Stellaris: How to Test Fleets Using Console Commands (Arclinon)
• Best fleet composition? (Reddit)
• How to know what sort of fleet composition is optimal? (Reddit)

POSTS:

• "I have no idea what I'm doing!": Guide for first 25 years (Krakanu)
• Economy Management Guide (Krakanu)
• Basic Overview of Stellaris: A Guide for Newcomers (Stealmwood)

DLC DISCUSSIONS:

• The Essential Stellaris Expansion Buyers Guide (Sales Sales Sales) (ASpec)

MULTIPLAYER GUIDES:

• Organizing a Stellaris Multiplayer Campaign 101 (Arclinon)
• Stellaris Competitive Multiplayer Builds 4/14/2020 (Arclinon)

TROUBLESHOOTING:

• Stellaris: Desynch Guide (Arclinon)

If you have any suggestions for the body of this thread, please ping me, using "u/Snipahar" or send me a private message!

Welcome to this week’s Stellaris Space Guild Help Thread! This thread functions as a gathering place for all questions, tips, bugs, suggestions, and resources for Stellaris. Here you can post quick-fire questions, tips, and other tidbits of knowledge that may not deserve their own discussion thread. If you would like to ask a specific question about the state of your Stellaris campaign, please include links to relevant screenshots to assist the people helping you. This ensures that you get the most accurate advice for your specific campaign.
GUILD RESOURCES
Below you can find resources for the game. If you would like to help contribute to the resources section, please leave a comment that pings me (using "u/Snipahar") and link to the resource. You can also contribute by reaching me through private message or modmail. Be sure to include a short description of what you find valuable about the resource.
WIKI:

• Stellaris Wiki

INTRODUCTION GUIDES:

• Stellaris In A Nutshell - How To Master The Essentials (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 For Beginners (A Tutorial for People Who Are New To Wolfe 2.3) (David 'Wartorious' Beck)
• Stellaris 2.2 For Beginners (A Tutorial for People Who Are New To 2.2) (ASpec)
• Stellaris for Beginners - What is the Early/Mid/Late Game? (ASpec)
• Stellaris For Beginners - Gaining A ton of Space Early (A must of Wide Builds) (ASpec)
• The Quick Start Guide to Stellaris 2.2 - Le Guin Update (RepublicOfPlay)
• Stellaris Tutorial: Everything you need to play Patch 2.2 / MegaCorp! (quill18)
• How to Play Stellaris (CallMeEzekiel)

BEGINNER GUIDES:

• Stellaris Trade Tutorial (ColorsFade Gaming)
• Stellaris - 2.2 How To Manage Your Economy (ASpec)
• Stellaris - 2.2 Initial Expansion And Setting Goals (ASpec)

CONSOLE EDITION GUIDES:

• A Console Player's Guide to 2.2 Stellaris (Axeman1721)
• Stellaris: Console Edition - A tutorial for complete beginners! - Part 1 (quill18)
• Stellaris Console for Beginners - Your First 6 Years (Tutorial) (ASpec)

SPECIFIC/ADVANCED GUIDES:

• STELLARIS META-BREAKER : Secret moves to dominate the galaxy! Episode 1. (Regunes)
• Stellaris: Top 9 Megastructures (Arclinon)
• Civics Tier List for Standard Empires (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris: Rubricator Guide (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Horizon Signal Guide (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Origins Tier List (Arclinon)
• How to Build an OVERWHELMING Tall Empire | Stellaris 2.2.2 (Le Guin) Strategy (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 - Planet Designations & Sectors Overview (Automation is back on the menu) (ASpec)
• The Essential Guide to an OVERWHELMING Economy | Stellaris 2.3 | Part 1 - Empire Setup & Day One (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 - Habitats & Ringworlds District Overview (They're Actually Good Now) (ASpec)
• Stellaris: Unemployment Micromanagement Guide (Arclinon)
• Surviving Grand Admiral x5 End Game Crisis Tips (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Expansionist Megacorp Strategy (For Grand Admiral/Multiplayer) (Arclinon)

SHIP DESIGN:

• "Good Enough" Stellaris Ships (WonkiDonki)
• Fleet Design Guide - All Ship Builds! (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris - Ship Design For Beginners (Tutorial) (ASpec)
• Ship Design Guide - Space Blitz Edition | Stellaris 2.2 (Le Guin) Strategy (Stefan Anon)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Titans| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Battleships| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Cruisers| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Destroyers| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Corvettes| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Designer - Build Ships To Counter The Enemy (Tutorial) (David 'Wartorious' Beck)
• Stellaris: Combat and Ship Design Guide (SteamAH)

FLEET COMPOSITION:

• Stellaris: How to Test Fleets Using Console Commands (Arclinon)
• Best fleet composition? (Reddit)
• How to know what sort of fleet composition is optimal? (Reddit)

POSTS:

• "I have no idea what I'm doing!": Guide for first 25 years (Krakanu)
• Economy Management Guide (Krakanu)
• Basic Overview of Stellaris: A Guide for Newcomers (Stealmwood)

DLC DISCUSSIONS:

• The Essential Stellaris Expansion Buyers Guide (Sales Sales Sales) (ASpec)

MULTIPLAYER GUIDES:

• Organizing a Stellaris Multiplayer Campaign 101 (Arclinon)
• Stellaris Competitive Multiplayer Builds 4/14/2020 (Arclinon)

TROUBLESHOOTING:

• Stellaris: Desynch Guide (Arclinon)

If you have any suggestions for the body of this thread, please ping me, using "u/Snipahar" or send me a private message!

https://mailchi.mp/cloudimperiumgames/squadron-42-update-143260?e=8c0917c13b
Attention Recruits,
What you are about to read is the latest information on the continuing development of Squadron 42 (SCI des: SQ42).
Thanks to the work of dedicated field agents and operatives, we've uncovered information on Vanduul combat at varying distances, creating dynamic lighting to cinematic moments, and work continues on bringing the Xi'an race to life.
The information contained in this communication is extremely sensitive and it is of paramount importance that it does not fall into the wrong hands. Purge all records after reading.
UEE Naval High Command

AI (Combat)

We start with the Character Combat Team, who progressed with Vanduul and Human combat behaviors. Specifically for the Vanduul, the team authored several animations for melee attacks with the direction based on the location of the target. They’re currently adding initial support for ‘animation warp,’ which will enable the Vanduul to procedurally adjust the rotation and translation of the animation. The first pass on combo attacks was added, which gives a more fluid selection of animation when executing a chain of melee attacks.
The first pass of the ‘surrender’ behavior was completed. This allows NPCs that are under pressure and without ammunition to decide to surrender. During their regular combat behavior, NPCs will try to find lootable ammo boxes (and in the future request help from friendlies and loot available weapons). If no options are available, they’ll try to survive by staying out of dangerous environments.
The team began implementing support for character traits. This functionality exposes the ability of selected traits in the ‘Character Skills and Traits Editor.’ The designers can then assign traits to templates that are then assigned to characters. These can be used to either modify or enable specific behaviors in certain characters. For example, a ‘coward’ NPC won’t try to put pressure on the player.
Several bugs were fixed for visual perception, cover usage, and Vanduul dodge reactions too.

AI (General)

Last month, the AI Team found and fixed more issues related to characters standing on top of usables. This time, the problem was specific to characters streaming in before their usables. Code was added to handle this particular edge case. Some of the recent AI component updates were also updated with stricter dependency rules to avoid conflicting read/writes inside the zone system. This prevents contention when reading entity positions.

AI (Ships)

Ship AI began October extending the quantum travel Subsumption task. This will be used in specific scenarios where a behavior needs to queue quantum travel for a ship and then continue with regular duties, which is particularly useful in multi-crew ships.
The team continued to iterate on missile targeting, first of all ensuring turrets respond immediately to incoming hostile torpedoes when not in combat mode. They then adjusted targeting priorities to give a better balance when capital ships are fighting multiple targets. This will also improve how seat operators handle burst fire when controlling ship weapons.
Time was also spent improving how collision avoidance handles missiles, with the team figuring out how to filter out missiles in the code due to them not being part of collision avoidance. For the accuracy calculation, the team implemented different convergence speeds towards targets when the AI is hitting or missing the target. This simulates NPCs trying to hit a target faster when they are missing but relaxing slightly when they’re on target.
The capital ship combat behavior was also improved to allow longer-range combat. NPCs will now react to an enemy starting to charge a weapon too.
Several bugs were fixed and improvements made to the break-away movement request, the patrol-around-position assignment, and the hostility of specific targets.

AI (Social)

Last month, the Social AI Team moved the first version of the mess hall scenario into a state that allows other teams to better iterate on animations, props, and the technical setup. At the moment, the scenario supports usables that provide cutlery, food, and drinks. NPCs can iterate on food lines, retrieve anything their sustenance behavior wants, and then take the food to tables and can consume it. This involves both systemic animations and mo-cap created for specific scenarios.
All of these usables are item providers, which NPCs can search to obtain specific objects. These objects are actually used by the AI, so consuming food and drink impacts the NPC’s status system. This also expands the use of grip tags in the ‘take,’ ‘prepare,’ and ‘place’ use-channel.
The team are currently working on several behaviors that will benefit both the PU and Squadron 42, including arcade-machine use and dancing. Playing arcade machines will be one of the available leisure activities, while dancing will likely be a special activity for the patrons of discos and other appropriate areas.

Animation

Last month, the Animation Team worked on staggering, push/pull, stance transition improvements, a handful of new weapons, and improvements to the ‘crouch’ set.
Tasks progressed for the ‘social and life’ animations, including the chowline, mess hall, bartender drinks, bathrooms, armory character, engineer, and exercises. They also added the AI surrender mechanic and continued with Vanduul melee combat.
Facial animation assets were created for the Feature teams, including effort sets, and female-player performances continued. On the motion-capture side, new shoots for the Actor Feature, Social AI, and Combat AI teams were planned. A few outstanding scenes were also completed and improvements were made to the MotionBuilder skeleton.

Art (Characters)

Character Art’s October involved work on major campaign characters. After submitting major changes to Morrow’s head, the team updated his jumpsuit, which will serve as the basis for all related navy uniforms. The team also revisited Vallon, this time focusing on her hair. The quality is now extremely high and will form the basis of a ‘generic’ hairstyle too. The team is currently updating major assets for a key ship introduction, including bridge officer and deck crew uniforms, engineer outfits, and several heads and hairstyles.

Art (Environment)

Throughout October, the SQ42 Art Team focused on two key areas of the game, Chop-Shop and Archon Station. They also put the finishing touches on Aciedo Station, which was shown extensively during the first briefing room update.
The Chop-Shop contains a mix of hard surface and organic elements, so the team experimented with both scanned data and procedural systems to achieve the final result. They also worked alongside the Design teams to construct the location’s playable spaces, with the organic and hard surface kits being used with the completed whitebox layouts.
Archon Station is the largest location that players visit in the game, so the team who worked on Aciedo have now moved over to form a larger Archon strike-team. They began by closing off the hangar and are now starting to break down a kit of shared library assets for use throughout the station. This is driven by a new style guide that provides clear direction for the interior to keep it consistent with the previously completed exterior. Planetside, progress was made on the Chemline facility, which was placed among new ground terrain.
Steady progress was made on the Javelin and Idris interiors too, with lighting, material, and geometry polished. The finishing touches were also added to the Javelin’s engine room.
Elsewhere, excellent progress with made on the space outpost kit. This station asset is unique to the Odin System and will be used to populate space scenes with believable facilities and stations. They also implemented a hugely important story location.

Audio (SQ42)

Audio spent the month finishing editorials for dialogue and implemented improvements into the music system. They also worked alongside the SQ42 composers to create new music.

Engineering

The Actor Team started the month continuing their work on force reactions. Now, characters will respond to either sudden effects such as an explosion or sustained effects like wind or g-force. This is being expanded to include staggers, where the force is strong enough to move the player but not enough to knock them down.
The team began implementing FPS radar and scanning, accounting for weapon emissions and audio signifiers. Further time was dedicated to cooperative locomotion, with trolly push/pull polished and the smooth locomotion trajectory code refactored to better integrate into AI path-following. This will result in higher-quality visuals, particularly with character strafing. It will also provide better animation alignment when entering usables, which will also help with the in-development motion-matching tech.
The SQ42 Feature Team continued to improve camera depth-of-field when in conversation or when following an NPC. They also added TrackView support to better trigger the destruction of ships and added additional polish to the dynamic lighting rig.
The team also improved mission startup, revising which elements object-container-streaming loads first. The firing-range flowgraph setup was revisited too.

Gameplay Story

October saw the Gameplay Story Team focus on a key introductory chapter, with the scenes themselves now looking impressive and working as desired. The current goal is to support the Code and Design teams in perfecting the blending of scenes via AI locomotion. Although a difficult process, great progress is being made and the results look promising. They also worked alongside Design to implement scenes for chapter 6, 7, 13, and 18, which are needed by the Gameplay Story team.

Graphics

The Graphics Team delivered the iridescent shader, which simulates color shifts based on the camera angle relative to the surface. Shader optimizations and look-up textures were used to reduce the cost of this feature to the point it can be widely used without performance concerns.
The light-beam shader was also worked on, which underwent significant quality improvements and bug fixes. This feature helps the team simulate distant beams of light beyond the range that can be simulated by the volumetric fog system.
Work also continued on the Gen12 renderer and the automated testing system.

Level Design

The Social Design Team brought a number of scenes up to their “gold standard,” which include completed behaviors, usables, interrupts, and abandons.
The Level Design Team moved several FPS sections to a near-complete state. This will highlight any additional mo-cap required to extend the narrative and support the multiple approaches supported across most of the environments.
The Space/Dogfight Team supported the various feature teams. For example, AI and Flight Gameplay are working on enhanced path-following and hazard awareness behaviors. They also continued to space-scape the Odin System alongside the Art teams.

Narrative

Throughout the month, Narrative met with Design to plan out additional dialogue needed across the campaign. They then scripted lines and made placeholder recordings to enable Design to see how the additions sound in situ.
As the various environments continue to develop, the Art teams asked for support on additional props or environmental set dressing. These include additional story indicators that reward players who dig a little deeper and explore the game’s locations.
As mentioned in last month’s report, Narrative continued to work with Audio and Combat AI to develop the Vanduul culture and behavior, while the team’s xenolinguist further developed the language.

QA

QA supported Cinematics with recordings of each level, enabled them to review each chapter to ensure scenes are working and appearing as intended.

Tech Animation

Throughout October, Tech Animation focused heavily on upgrading the head assets in the character pipeline. A huge amount of technical detail goes into every head asset that will be accounted for and restructured throughout the overhaul.
The team also began overhauling combat animations to remove technical glitches in AI weapon holding, ships were rigged for the Animation Team, and support was given to Social AI.

UI

Much of the UI team’s SQ42-specific work was focused on new tech, including a new system to allow animators to move and position UI within cutscenes. They also further iterated on the 3D lighting system to improve the appearance of ships and items on UI screens and holograms. On the art side, visual target concepts for the Aegis Gladius UI were finalized, including the visuals for the MFD screens.

VFX

Last month, VFX continued to improve the destruction pipeline, focusing on a couple of specific sequences with varying degrees of complexity. They also worked on effects for the Multi-Tool tractor beam attachment.

Welcome to this week’s Stellaris Space Guild Help Thread! This thread functions as a gathering place for all questions, tips, bugs, suggestions, and resources for Stellaris. Here you can post quick-fire questions, tips, and other tidbits of knowledge that may not deserve their own discussion thread. If you would like to ask a specific question about the state of your Stellaris campaign, please include links to relevant screenshots to assist the people helping you. This ensures that you get the most accurate advice for your specific campaign.
GUILD RESOURCES
Below you can find resources for the game. If you would like to help contribute to the resources section, please leave a comment that pings me (using "u/Snipahar") and link to the resource. You can also contribute by reaching me through private message or modmail. Be sure to include a short description of what you find valuable about the resource.
WIKI:

• Stellaris Wiki

INTRODUCTION GUIDES:

• Stellaris In A Nutshell - How To Master The Essentials (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 For Beginners (A Tutorial for People Who Are New To Wolfe 2.3) (David 'Wartorious' Beck)
• Stellaris 2.2 For Beginners (A Tutorial for People Who Are New To 2.2) (ASpec)
• Stellaris for Beginners - What is the Early/Mid/Late Game? (ASpec)
• Stellaris For Beginners - Gaining A ton of Space Early (A must of Wide Builds) (ASpec)
• The Quick Start Guide to Stellaris 2.2 - Le Guin Update (RepublicOfPlay)
• Stellaris Tutorial: Everything you need to play Patch 2.2 / MegaCorp! (quill18)
• How to Play Stellaris (CallMeEzekiel)

BEGINNER GUIDES:

• Stellaris Trade Tutorial (ColorsFade Gaming)
• Stellaris - 2.2 How To Manage Your Economy (ASpec)
• Stellaris - 2.2 Initial Expansion And Setting Goals (ASpec)

CONSOLE EDITION GUIDES:

• A Console Player's Guide to 2.2 Stellaris (Axeman1721)
• Stellaris: Console Edition - A tutorial for complete beginners! - Part 1 (quill18)
• Stellaris Console for Beginners - Your First 6 Years (Tutorial) (ASpec)

SPECIFIC/ADVANCED GUIDES:

• STELLARIS META-BREAKER : Secret moves to dominate the galaxy! Episode 1. (Regunes)
• Stellaris: Top 9 Megastructures (Arclinon)
• Civics Tier List for Standard Empires (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris: Rubricator Guide (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Horizon Signal Guide (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Origins Tier List (Arclinon)
• How to Build an OVERWHELMING Tall Empire | Stellaris 2.2.2 (Le Guin) Strategy (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 - Planet Designations & Sectors Overview (Automation is back on the menu) (ASpec)
• The Essential Guide to an OVERWHELMING Economy | Stellaris 2.3 | Part 1 - Empire Setup & Day One (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 - Habitats & Ringworlds District Overview (They're Actually Good Now) (ASpec)
• Stellaris: Unemployment Micromanagement Guide (Arclinon)
• Surviving Grand Admiral x5 End Game Crisis Tips (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Expansionist Megacorp Strategy (For Grand Admiral/Multiplayer) (Arclinon)

SHIP DESIGN:

• "Good Enough" Stellaris Ships (WonkiDonki)
• Fleet Design Guide - All Ship Builds! (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris - Ship Design For Beginners (Tutorial) (ASpec)
• Ship Design Guide - Space Blitz Edition | Stellaris 2.2 (Le Guin) Strategy (Stefan Anon)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Titans| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Battleships| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Cruisers| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Destroyers| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Corvettes| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Designer - Build Ships To Counter The Enemy (Tutorial) (David 'Wartorious' Beck)
• Stellaris: Combat and Ship Design Guide (SteamAH)

FLEET COMPOSITION:

• Stellaris: How to Test Fleets Using Console Commands (Arclinon)
• Best fleet composition? (Reddit)
• How to know what sort of fleet composition is optimal? (Reddit)

POSTS:

• "I have no idea what I'm doing!": Guide for first 25 years (Krakanu)
• Economy Management Guide (Krakanu)
• Basic Overview of Stellaris: A Guide for Newcomers (Stealmwood)

DLC DISCUSSIONS:

• The Essential Stellaris Expansion Buyers Guide (Sales Sales Sales) (ASpec)

MULTIPLAYER GUIDES:

• Organizing a Stellaris Multiplayer Campaign 101 (Arclinon)
• Stellaris Competitive Multiplayer Builds 4/14/2020 (Arclinon)

TROUBLESHOOTING:

• Stellaris: Desynch Guide (Arclinon)

If you have any suggestions for the body of this thread, please ping me, using "u/Snipahar" or send me a private message!

Welcome to this week’s Stellaris Space Guild Help Thread! This thread functions as a gathering place for all questions, tips, bugs, suggestions, and resources for Stellaris. Here you can post quick-fire questions, tips, and other tidbits of knowledge that may not deserve their own discussion thread. If you would like to ask a specific question about the state of your Stellaris campaign, please include links to relevant screenshots to assist the people helping you. This ensures that you get the most accurate advice for your specific campaign.
GUILD RESOURCES
Below you can find resources for the game. If you would like to help contribute to the resources section, please leave a comment that pings me (using "u/Snipahar") and link to the resource. You can also contribute by reaching me through private message or modmail. Be sure to include a short description of what you find valuable about the resource.
WIKI:

• Stellaris Wiki

INTRODUCTION GUIDES:

• Stellaris In A Nutshell - How To Master The Essentials (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 For Beginners (A Tutorial for People Who Are New To Wolfe 2.3) (David 'Wartorious' Beck)
• Stellaris 2.2 For Beginners (A Tutorial for People Who Are New To 2.2) (ASpec)
• Stellaris for Beginners - What is the Early/Mid/Late Game? (ASpec)
• Stellaris For Beginners - Gaining A ton of Space Early (A must of Wide Builds) (ASpec)
• The Quick Start Guide to Stellaris 2.2 - Le Guin Update (RepublicOfPlay)
• Stellaris Tutorial: Everything you need to play Patch 2.2 / MegaCorp! (quill18)
• How to Play Stellaris (CallMeEzekiel)

BEGINNER GUIDES:

• Stellaris Trade Tutorial (ColorsFade Gaming)
• Stellaris - 2.2 How To Manage Your Economy (ASpec)
• Stellaris - 2.2 Initial Expansion And Setting Goals (ASpec)

CONSOLE EDITION GUIDES:

• A Console Player's Guide to 2.2 Stellaris (Axeman1721)
• Stellaris: Console Edition - A tutorial for complete beginners! - Part 1 (quill18)
• Stellaris Console for Beginners - Your First 6 Years (Tutorial) (ASpec)

SPECIFIC/ADVANCED GUIDES:

• STELLARIS META-BREAKER : Secret moves to dominate the galaxy! Episode 1. (Regunes)
• Stellaris: Top 9 Megastructures (Arclinon)
• Civics Tier List for Standard Empires (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris: Rubricator Guide (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Horizon Signal Guide (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Origins Tier List (Arclinon)
• How to Build an OVERWHELMING Tall Empire | Stellaris 2.2.2 (Le Guin) Strategy (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 - Planet Designations & Sectors Overview (Automation is back on the menu) (ASpec)
• The Essential Guide to an OVERWHELMING Economy | Stellaris 2.3 | Part 1 - Empire Setup & Day One (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 - Habitats & Ringworlds District Overview (They're Actually Good Now) (ASpec)
• Stellaris: Unemployment Micromanagement Guide (Arclinon)
• Surviving Grand Admiral x5 End Game Crisis Tips (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Expansionist Megacorp Strategy (For Grand Admiral/Multiplayer) (Arclinon)

SHIP DESIGN:

• "Good Enough" Stellaris Ships (WonkiDonki)
• Fleet Design Guide - All Ship Builds! (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris - Ship Design For Beginners (Tutorial) (ASpec)
• Ship Design Guide - Space Blitz Edition | Stellaris 2.2 (Le Guin) Strategy (Stefan Anon)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Titans| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Battleships| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Cruisers| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Destroyers| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Corvettes| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Designer - Build Ships To Counter The Enemy (Tutorial) (David 'Wartorious' Beck)
• Stellaris: Combat and Ship Design Guide (SteamAH)

FLEET COMPOSITION:

• Stellaris: How to Test Fleets Using Console Commands (Arclinon)
• Best fleet composition? (Reddit)
• How to know what sort of fleet composition is optimal? (Reddit)

POSTS:

• "I have no idea what I'm doing!": Guide for first 25 years (Krakanu)
• Economy Management Guide (Krakanu)
• Basic Overview of Stellaris: A Guide for Newcomers (Stealmwood)

DLC DISCUSSIONS:

• The Essential Stellaris Expansion Buyers Guide (Sales Sales Sales) (ASpec)

MULTIPLAYER GUIDES:

• Organizing a Stellaris Multiplayer Campaign 101 (Arclinon)
• Stellaris Competitive Multiplayer Builds 4/14/2020 (Arclinon)

TROUBLESHOOTING:

• Stellaris: Desynch Guide (Arclinon)

If you have any suggestions for the body of this thread, please ping me, using "u/Snipahar" or send me a private message!

Welcome to this week’s Stellaris Space Guild Help Thread! This thread functions as a gathering place for all questions, tips, bugs, suggestions, and resources for Stellaris. Here you can post quick-fire questions, tips, and other tidbits of knowledge that may not deserve their own discussion thread. If you would like to ask a specific question about the state of your Stellaris campaign, please include links to relevant screenshots to assist the people helping you. This ensures that you get the most accurate advice for your specific campaign.
GUILD RESOURCES
Below you can find resources for the game. If you would like to help contribute to the resources section, please leave a comment that pings me (using "u/Snipahar") and link to the resource. You can also contribute by reaching me through private message or modmail. Be sure to include a short description of what you find valuable about the resource.
WIKI:

• Stellaris Wiki

INTRODUCTION GUIDES:

• Stellaris In A Nutshell - How To Master The Essentials (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 For Beginners (A Tutorial for People Who Are New To Wolfe 2.3) (David 'Wartorious' Beck)
• Stellaris 2.2 For Beginners (A Tutorial for People Who Are New To 2.2) (ASpec)
• Stellaris for Beginners - What is the Early/Mid/Late Game? (ASpec)
• Stellaris For Beginners - Gaining A ton of Space Early (A must of Wide Builds) (ASpec)
• The Quick Start Guide to Stellaris 2.2 - Le Guin Update (RepublicOfPlay)
• Stellaris Tutorial: Everything you need to play Patch 2.2 / MegaCorp! (quill18)
• How to Play Stellaris (CallMeEzekiel)

BEGINNER GUIDES:

• Stellaris Trade Tutorial (ColorsFade Gaming)
• Stellaris - 2.2 How To Manage Your Economy (ASpec)
• Stellaris - 2.2 Initial Expansion And Setting Goals (ASpec)

CONSOLE EDITION GUIDES:

• A Console Player's Guide to 2.2 Stellaris (Axeman1721)
• Stellaris: Console Edition - A tutorial for complete beginners! - Part 1 (quill18)
• Stellaris Console for Beginners - Your First 6 Years (Tutorial) (ASpec)

SPECIFIC/ADVANCED GUIDES:

• STELLARIS META-BREAKER : Secret moves to dominate the galaxy! Episode 1. (Regunes)
• Stellaris: Top 9 Megastructures (Arclinon)
• Civics Tier List for Standard Empires (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris: Rubricator Guide (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Horizon Signal Guide (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Origins Tier List (Arclinon)
• How to Build an OVERWHELMING Tall Empire | Stellaris 2.2.2 (Le Guin) Strategy (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 - Planet Designations & Sectors Overview (Automation is back on the menu) (ASpec)
• The Essential Guide to an OVERWHELMING Economy | Stellaris 2.3 | Part 1 - Empire Setup & Day One (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 - Habitats & Ringworlds District Overview (They're Actually Good Now) (ASpec)
• Stellaris: Unemployment Micromanagement Guide (Arclinon)
• Surviving Grand Admiral x5 End Game Crisis Tips (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Expansionist Megacorp Strategy (For Grand Admiral/Multiplayer) (Arclinon)

SHIP DESIGN:

• "Good Enough" Stellaris Ships (WonkiDonki)
• Fleet Design Guide - All Ship Builds! (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris - Ship Design For Beginners (Tutorial) (ASpec)
• Ship Design Guide - Space Blitz Edition | Stellaris 2.2 (Le Guin) Strategy (Stefan Anon)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Titans| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Battleships| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Cruisers| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Destroyers| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Corvettes| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Designer - Build Ships To Counter The Enemy (Tutorial) (David 'Wartorious' Beck)
• Stellaris: Combat and Ship Design Guide (SteamAH)

FLEET COMPOSITION:

• Stellaris: How to Test Fleets Using Console Commands (Arclinon)
• Best fleet composition? (Reddit)
• How to know what sort of fleet composition is optimal? (Reddit)

POSTS:

• "I have no idea what I'm doing!": Guide for first 25 years (Krakanu)
• Economy Management Guide (Krakanu)
• Basic Overview of Stellaris: A Guide for Newcomers (Stealmwood)

DLC DISCUSSIONS:

• The Essential Stellaris Expansion Buyers Guide (Sales Sales Sales) (ASpec)

MULTIPLAYER GUIDES:

• Organizing a Stellaris Multiplayer Campaign 101 (Arclinon)
• Stellaris Competitive Multiplayer Builds 4/14/2020 (Arclinon)

TROUBLESHOOTING:

• Stellaris: Desynch Guide (Arclinon)

If you have any suggestions for the body of this thread, please ping me, using "u/Snipahar" or send me a private message!

Welcome to this week’s Stellaris Space Guild Help Thread! This thread functions as a gathering place for all questions, tips, bugs, suggestions, and resources for Stellaris. Here you can post quick-fire questions, tips, and other tidbits of knowledge that may not deserve their own discussion thread. If you would like to ask a specific question about the state of your Stellaris campaign, please include links to relevant screenshots to assist the people helping you. This ensures that you get the most accurate advice for your specific campaign.
GUILD RESOURCES
Below you can find resources for the game. If you would like to help contribute to the resources section, please leave a comment that pings me (using "u/Snipahar") and link to the resource. You can also contribute by reaching me through private message or modmail. Be sure to include a short description of what you find valuable about the resource.
WIKI:

• Stellaris Wiki

INTRODUCTION GUIDES:

• Stellaris In A Nutshell - How To Master The Essentials (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 For Beginners (A Tutorial for People Who Are New To Wolfe 2.3) (David 'Wartorious' Beck)
• Stellaris 2.2 For Beginners (A Tutorial for People Who Are New To 2.2) (ASpec)
• Stellaris for Beginners - What is the Early/Mid/Late Game? (ASpec)
• Stellaris For Beginners - Gaining A ton of Space Early (A must of Wide Builds) (ASpec)
• The Quick Start Guide to Stellaris 2.2 - Le Guin Update (RepublicOfPlay)
• Stellaris Tutorial: Everything you need to play Patch 2.2 / MegaCorp! (quill18)
• How to Play Stellaris (CallMeEzekiel)

BEGINNER GUIDES:

• Stellaris Trade Tutorial (ColorsFade Gaming)
• Stellaris - 2.2 How To Manage Your Economy (ASpec)
• Stellaris - 2.2 Initial Expansion And Setting Goals (ASpec)

CONSOLE EDITION GUIDES:

• A Console Player's Guide to 2.2 Stellaris (Axeman1721)
• Stellaris: Console Edition - A tutorial for complete beginners! - Part 1 (quill18)
• Stellaris Console for Beginners - Your First 6 Years (Tutorial) (ASpec)

SPECIFIC/ADVANCED GUIDES:

• STELLARIS META-BREAKER : Secret moves to dominate the galaxy! Episode 1. (Regunes)
• Stellaris: Top 9 Megastructures (Arclinon)
• Civics Tier List for Standard Empires (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris: Rubricator Guide (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Horizon Signal Guide (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Origins Tier List (Arclinon)
• How to Build an OVERWHELMING Tall Empire | Stellaris 2.2.2 (Le Guin) Strategy (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 - Planet Designations & Sectors Overview (Automation is back on the menu) (ASpec)
• The Essential Guide to an OVERWHELMING Economy | Stellaris 2.3 | Part 1 - Empire Setup & Day One (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 - Habitats & Ringworlds District Overview (They're Actually Good Now) (ASpec)
• Stellaris: Unemployment Micromanagement Guide (Arclinon)
• Surviving Grand Admiral x5 End Game Crisis Tips (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Expansionist Megacorp Strategy (For Grand Admiral/Multiplayer) (Arclinon)

SHIP DESIGN:

• "Good Enough" Stellaris Ships (WonkiDonki)
• Fleet Design Guide - All Ship Builds! (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris - Ship Design For Beginners (Tutorial) (ASpec)
• Ship Design Guide - Space Blitz Edition | Stellaris 2.2 (Le Guin) Strategy (Stefan Anon)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Titans| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Battleships| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Cruisers| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Destroyers| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Corvettes| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Designer - Build Ships To Counter The Enemy (Tutorial) (David 'Wartorious' Beck)
• Stellaris: Combat and Ship Design Guide (SteamAH)

FLEET COMPOSITION:

• Stellaris: How to Test Fleets Using Console Commands (Arclinon)
• Best fleet composition? (Reddit)
• How to know what sort of fleet composition is optimal? (Reddit)

POSTS:

• "I have no idea what I'm doing!": Guide for first 25 years (Krakanu)
• Economy Management Guide (Krakanu)
• Basic Overview of Stellaris: A Guide for Newcomers (Stealmwood)

DLC DISCUSSIONS:

• The Essential Stellaris Expansion Buyers Guide (Sales Sales Sales) (ASpec)

MULTIPLAYER GUIDES:

• Organizing a Stellaris Multiplayer Campaign 101 (Arclinon)
• Stellaris Competitive Multiplayer Builds 4/14/2020 (Arclinon)

TROUBLESHOOTING:

• Stellaris: Desynch Guide (Arclinon)

If you have any suggestions for the body of this thread, please ping me, using "u/Snipahar" or send me a private message!

Welcome to this week’s Stellaris Space Guild Help Thread! This thread functions as a gathering place for all questions, tips, bugs, suggestions, and resources for Stellaris. Here you can post quick-fire questions, tips, and other tidbits of knowledge that may not deserve their own discussion thread. If you would like to ask a specific question about the state of your Stellaris campaign, please include links to relevant screenshots to assist the people helping you. This ensures that you get the most accurate advice for your specific campaign.
GUILD RESOURCES
Below you can find resources for the game. If you would like to help contribute to the resources section, please leave a comment that pings me (using "u/Snipahar") and link to the resource. You can also contribute by reaching me through private message or modmail. Be sure to include a short description of what you find valuable about the resource.
WIKI:

• Stellaris Wiki

INTRODUCTION GUIDES:

• Stellaris In A Nutshell - How To Master The Essentials (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 For Beginners (A Tutorial for People Who Are New To Wolfe 2.3) (David 'Wartorious' Beck)
• Stellaris 2.2 For Beginners (A Tutorial for People Who Are New To 2.2) (ASpec)
• Stellaris for Beginners - What is the Early/Mid/Late Game? (ASpec)
• Stellaris For Beginners - Gaining A ton of Space Early (A must of Wide Builds) (ASpec)
• The Quick Start Guide to Stellaris 2.2 - Le Guin Update (RepublicOfPlay)
• Stellaris Tutorial: Everything you need to play Patch 2.2 / MegaCorp! (quill18)
• How to Play Stellaris (CallMeEzekiel)

BEGINNER GUIDES:

• Stellaris Trade Tutorial (ColorsFade Gaming)
• Stellaris - 2.2 How To Manage Your Economy (ASpec)
• Stellaris - 2.2 Initial Expansion And Setting Goals (ASpec)

CONSOLE EDITION GUIDES:

• A Console Player's Guide to 2.2 Stellaris (Axeman1721)
• Stellaris: Console Edition - A tutorial for complete beginners! - Part 1 (quill18)
• Stellaris Console for Beginners - Your First 6 Years (Tutorial) (ASpec)

SPECIFIC/ADVANCED GUIDES:

• STELLARIS META-BREAKER : Secret moves to dominate the galaxy! Episode 1. (Regunes)
• Stellaris: Top 9 Megastructures (Arclinon)
• Civics Tier List for Standard Empires (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris: Rubricator Guide (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Horizon Signal Guide (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Origins Tier List (Arclinon)
• How to Build an OVERWHELMING Tall Empire | Stellaris 2.2.2 (Le Guin) Strategy (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 - Planet Designations & Sectors Overview (Automation is back on the menu) (ASpec)
• The Essential Guide to an OVERWHELMING Economy | Stellaris 2.3 | Part 1 - Empire Setup & Day One (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 - Habitats & Ringworlds District Overview (They're Actually Good Now) (ASpec)
• Stellaris: Unemployment Micromanagement Guide (Arclinon)
• Surviving Grand Admiral x5 End Game Crisis Tips (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Expansionist Megacorp Strategy (For Grand Admiral/Multiplayer) (Arclinon)

SHIP DESIGN:

• "Good Enough" Stellaris Ships (WonkiDonki)
• Fleet Design Guide - All Ship Builds! (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris - Ship Design For Beginners (Tutorial) (ASpec)
• Ship Design Guide - Space Blitz Edition | Stellaris 2.2 (Le Guin) Strategy (Stefan Anon)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Titans| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Battleships| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Cruisers| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Destroyers| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Corvettes| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Designer - Build Ships To Counter The Enemy (Tutorial) (David 'Wartorious' Beck)
• Stellaris: Combat and Ship Design Guide (SteamAH)

FLEET COMPOSITION:

• Stellaris: How to Test Fleets Using Console Commands (Arclinon)
• Best fleet composition? (Reddit)
• How to know what sort of fleet composition is optimal? (Reddit)

POSTS:

• "I have no idea what I'm doing!": Guide for first 25 years (Krakanu)
• Economy Management Guide (Krakanu)
• Basic Overview of Stellaris: A Guide for Newcomers (Stealmwood)

DLC DISCUSSIONS:

• The Essential Stellaris Expansion Buyers Guide (Sales Sales Sales) (ASpec)

MULTIPLAYER GUIDES:

• Organizing a Stellaris Multiplayer Campaign 101 (Arclinon)
• Stellaris Competitive Multiplayer Builds 4/14/2020 (Arclinon)

TROUBLESHOOTING:

• Stellaris: Desynch Guide (Arclinon)

If you have any suggestions for the body of this thread, please ping me, using "u/Snipahar" or send me a private message!

Welcome to this week’s Stellaris Space Guild Help Thread! This thread functions as a gathering place for all questions, tips, bugs, suggestions, and resources for Stellaris. Here you can post quick-fire questions, tips, and other tidbits of knowledge that may not deserve their own discussion thread. If you would like to ask a specific question about the state of your Stellaris campaign, please include links to relevant screenshots to assist the people helping you. This ensures that you get the most accurate advice for your specific campaign.
GUILD RESOURCES
Below you can find resources for the game. If you would like to help contribute to the resources section, please leave a comment that pings me (using "u/Snipahar") and link to the resource. You can also contribute by reaching me through private message or modmail. Be sure to include a short description of what you find valuable about the resource.
WIKI:

• Stellaris Wiki

INTRODUCTION GUIDES:

• Stellaris In A Nutshell - How To Master The Essentials (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 For Beginners (A Tutorial for People Who Are New To Wolfe 2.3) (David 'Wartorious' Beck)
• Stellaris 2.2 For Beginners (A Tutorial for People Who Are New To 2.2) (ASpec)
• Stellaris for Beginners - What is the Early/Mid/Late Game? (ASpec)
• Stellaris For Beginners - Gaining A ton of Space Early (A must of Wide Builds) (ASpec)
• The Quick Start Guide to Stellaris 2.2 - Le Guin Update (RepublicOfPlay)
• Stellaris Tutorial: Everything you need to play Patch 2.2 / MegaCorp! (quill18)
• How to Play Stellaris (CallMeEzekiel)

BEGINNER GUIDES:

• Stellaris Trade Tutorial (ColorsFade Gaming)
• Stellaris - 2.2 How To Manage Your Economy (ASpec)
• Stellaris - 2.2 Initial Expansion And Setting Goals (ASpec)

CONSOLE EDITION GUIDES:

• A Console Player's Guide to 2.2 Stellaris (Axeman1721)
• Stellaris: Console Edition - A tutorial for complete beginners! - Part 1 (quill18)
• Stellaris Console for Beginners - Your First 6 Years (Tutorial) (ASpec)

SPECIFIC/ADVANCED GUIDES:

• STELLARIS META-BREAKER : Secret moves to dominate the galaxy! Episode 1. (Regunes)
• Stellaris: Top 9 Megastructures (Arclinon)
• Civics Tier List for Standard Empires (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris: Rubricator Guide (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Horizon Signal Guide (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Origins Tier List (Arclinon)
• How to Build an OVERWHELMING Tall Empire | Stellaris 2.2.2 (Le Guin) Strategy (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 - Planet Designations & Sectors Overview (Automation is back on the menu) (ASpec)
• The Essential Guide to an OVERWHELMING Economy | Stellaris 2.3 | Part 1 - Empire Setup & Day One (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris 2.3 - Habitats & Ringworlds District Overview (They're Actually Good Now) (ASpec)
• Stellaris: Unemployment Micromanagement Guide (Arclinon)
• Surviving Grand Admiral x5 End Game Crisis Tips (Arclinon)
• Stellaris: Expansionist Megacorp Strategy (For Grand Admiral/Multiplayer) (Arclinon)

SHIP DESIGN:

• "Good Enough" Stellaris Ships (WonkiDonki)
• Fleet Design Guide - All Ship Builds! (Stefan Annon)
• Stellaris - Ship Design For Beginners (Tutorial) (ASpec)
• Ship Design Guide - Space Blitz Edition | Stellaris 2.2 (Le Guin) Strategy (Stefan Anon)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Titans| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Battleships| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Cruisers| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Destroyers| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Design Guide 2.2 |Corvettes| (GenesisKing)
• Stellaris Ship Designer - Build Ships To Counter The Enemy (Tutorial) (David 'Wartorious' Beck)
• Stellaris: Combat and Ship Design Guide (SteamAH)

FLEET COMPOSITION:

• Stellaris: How to Test Fleets Using Console Commands (Arclinon)
• Best fleet composition? (Reddit)
• How to know what sort of fleet composition is optimal? (Reddit)

POSTS:

• "I have no idea what I'm doing!": Guide for first 25 years (Krakanu)
• Economy Management Guide (Krakanu)
• Basic Overview of Stellaris: A Guide for Newcomers (Stealmwood)

DLC DISCUSSIONS:

• The Essential Stellaris Expansion Buyers Guide (Sales Sales Sales) (ASpec)

MULTIPLAYER GUIDES:

• Organizing a Stellaris Multiplayer Campaign 101 (Arclinon)
• Stellaris Competitive Multiplayer Builds 4/14/2020 (Arclinon)

TROUBLESHOOTING:

• Stellaris: Desynch Guide (Arclinon)

If you have any suggestions for the body of this thread, please ping me, using "u/Snipahar" or send me a private message!