H'okay!

First game mostly over. Played megastructure focused, otherwise aloof space butterflies. They wanted to build beautiful and enduring things, and cared about nothing else. Tall and insular play.

It's a super-cool idea for a mod, that's much needed.

First, I apologize if something I say is wrong due to mod conflicts. I tried to strip out everything I had that messed with megastructures, but there was clearly some interaction (for example, I could still relocate, though I didn't use it to populate the rings), megastructure engineering was not early, etc.

As I mentioned in my comment, my main issue really is just the speed of things. It's such a cool idea that is mostly locked out of ever getting used (save for maybe M-class star stuff). Simply due to excessive build times. This seems like something where realism has to take a back seat to gameplay.

Or at the very least you need to include a note, at least here, if not in game, telling people that they will need to build up through increasingly large ringworlds in order to get anything done. The builder's association, since it offers no megastructure build time buff on planetary levels, isn't an obvious 'fix' for it. You won't realize it until you've already built a larger ringworld, and grok the scaling implications.

I made the stupid choice to build a dyson first. And it delayed me, like, fifty years, before I could give up and build something else. Which brings me to a second issue.

You reaaaaally need to include the ability to build multiple megastructures. That, I think, was half the problem. Slow wouldn't be bad if you could spin up a few of them, if you could afford it. Nor would it lock you in from building other things if you made an error, like I did. The long build times mean that I pretty much had to put huge pauses on my intended progress in the game.

I could have afforded more rings, or building stuff like the science nexus while the decades counted off, but I pretty much had to sit on my hands and stare at the bar going up.

So those would be my two big suggestions:
1) Include a pop up explaining the builder's association need, or put a more explicit note in the mod description. At least include a megastructure build time increase in the base level, so people 'get it' easier. Maybe that was a bug or conflict or omission, but it isn't there in my game.

2) Being able to build multiple megastructures at the same time is an absolute must. Especially since this is obviously balanced around having multiple ringworlds, in order to 'tech up' to larger ones.

Beyond that, there's probably just stuff you already know, like localizations not being done, with names of some buildings like the artists being in basic_xmly_formats. But I was impressed by your attention to detail in including them, and the worm buildings and such! Even the minerals you can get with hydroponics bays was there. Neat!

I do sort of wish there was something to help you start out. A larger boost to speed to kick-start the whole thing. But I guess that would be covered by lots of Builder's Associations, if they gave megastructure build speed at planet level, or from being able to build multiple things.

On the topic of habitats I saw you addressing, I don't much use them either, especially now that they're nerfed, but I don't see why they should be locked out. Heck, I'd give them an empire unique building with a good infusion of build speed or something, to simulate space industry bending to the task of great works. But... I guess that could happen on planet level too.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Would it be possible for you to scale up modded-in megastructures? Like for example, if I decided to build a Nicoll Dyson Beam on a B class star, it should charge faster than one built on an A class star. And admittedly take even longer to build

If I get the time I might create a patch for it, no promises though.