This is sort of a minor issue, but I'm always weirded out when, after you've dealt with the thing they warned you about, the Fallen Empire doesn't respond in any way to your victory. Not even in terms of getting the lost relations back, just, I dunno... a haughty congratulation? A cry of disbelief? Something like that feels appropriate as recognition of your achievment.

Originally posted by The Next Decade:

This is sort of a minor issue, but I'm always weirded out when, after you've dealt with the thing they warned you about, the Fallen Empire doesn't respond in any way to your victory. Not even in terms of getting the lost relations back, just, I dunno... a haughty congratulation? A cry of disbelief? Something like that feels appropriate as recognition of your achievment.

Thats a pretty good idea and would be simple to implement. I will see if that can be implemented in the next major patch I am putting together.

But there is certainly much more room for improvement regarding the back-story surrounding the whole crisis (without spoiling too much, the mysterious star system is left unexplained). I am just concerned about adding too many words and pop-up events, since that might start to annoy players.

Thanks for the suggestion!

I like where this mod is going and a lot of the ideas are fantastic but they need a bit of refinement as some perks are op, others are lackluster and some are downright exploitable.
But complainign is easy so instead I will try to give constructive criticism on every ascension perk:

THE FREE MARKET

Imo, absolutely OP. Selling 2 Districts for 10.000 alloys 20 years into the game is completely broken. This perk has no downside. If you had planned to build two industrial districts there, it would take you 70 years to equal out on alloys, and that only on a dedicated forge world, on any other world it would take 140 years. Add to that that you "save" 60.000 minerals that would have been required to produce the alloys. But that is not the end, because you get even more tradeoffs for selling those districts in the form of a random planetary feature that, in many cases, would alone be worth the price of two districts since many of them add trade value, amenities and jobs.
But then, you also get +15% trade value and -10% market fee ON TOP.
This is, in my opinion especially sad since this perk completely overshadows another...

TRADE WINDS

Too weak in my opinion. It gives less empire wide boost since it does not have the -10% market fee of FREE MARKET and the jobs it adds are meh.
1 Clerk per 20 pops is not a quantity that makes any sort of difference and clerks are ♥♥♥♥ anyways, so it does not matter either way.
The Spice trader is an extremely cool idea but they need some changes to be worthwhile.
Instead of 1 per 40 pops, they should be 1 per planet with a planetary capital. This ensures that they can not be spammed on newly established colonies.
If you are going for a DUNE vibe with this civic I think it would be cool to throw in +20 years leader lifespan as a nod to the life extendin properties of Spice in that franchise.

WEAPON ASCENSION

Can´t say too much about it as I haven´t tried it a lot but it seems fine as far as I can see.

ADAPTABLE NAVAL CAPABILITY

Similar to Weapon ascension, havent played around with it too much


NATIONAL SECUROCRACY

Looks good to me. It has its uses and certainly fulfills its role very well, both in terms of RP and actual mechanics.

GALACTIC SECRETS I

Looks like a good alternative first pick to technological ascendancy and does not seem significantly stronger/weaker than it. I like it!

GALACTIC WONDERS II

What it does is fine but the fact that you can take it as your second perk and get jump drives is a bit too much. I´would get rid of that but the rest seems fine.

ETHNOS CENTRISM

This looks like a solid perk. Does what it´s supposed to and would be a good choice when combined with certain other perks like Citizen Service. I don´t think this needs any changes.

COSMIC FORGERY

Perk looks alright, though I am not sure if this perk is the only way to unlock those techs. If it is, it needs changes.

I will make further posts on the Ethic specific perks but I don´t want to make this post absolutely massive.
The MAIN PROBLEM with the perks (in my opinion) is that almost all of them are available as first picks. or, if anything, second picks.

I did one of these for the generic perks, now I am moving on to specific ones, starting with spiritualist.

CONVEYORS OF TRADITION

Basically a better version of Transcendent Learning, which is ok imo since A TL is bad anyways and B spiritualists need a bit of a buff in general.
I like the perk, it can be an alternative to the Exhalted Priesthood civic and the ruler pop output is a nice buff.

MASTERS OF THE IMMATERIAL

I love how unique this perk is. Specialist output is cool. The unique mechanic is AMAZING. Having lots of unity was cool but now you can actually put it to use by weakening your foes and converting it to influence. Love the idea

ESTABLISHMET

ONE OF MY FAVORITE PERKS!!! This does soooo much for spiritualists. This makes spiritualist ethics attraction useful and makes you less reliant on priests. And as a frequent Gospel of the Masses Megacorp player this makes me WEEP TEARS OF JOY because I get to collect all that extra trade value from my own pops and I get more energy from my branch offices in spiritualist empires.

I LOVE what you did for spiritualsits. This is exactly how they should be. Unique, cool and creative.

Now moving on to the Pacifist civics

PEACE IN SOUL

I get the idea but it´s a bit weak. The sensor range is nice to see enemies coming but imo it should apply to starbases aswell. The rest seems fine, I would also add a fire rate decrease for enemy ships.

PEACE IN BODY

Looks like a decent perk and a viable alternative to One Vision. Not much to add as the perk is quite basic but it´s a pick worth considering.

PEACE WITH MIND

A very cool idea but this should have a limit to how far it can stack. +15% and +15 maybe?
This can be abused in MP by declaring wars on whoever took this and then instantly surrendering before they can do anything but I don´t see how that could be fixed.

Overall, quite a nice category, maybe a not as inspired as some others but not bad either

Next up, Xenophobe

CITIZEN SUPREMACY

I would reduce the pop growth to +20% and make it primary species only.
That would make it a sort of "Anti Xeno Compatibility". Where the Xenophiles ge +20% pop growth if there are multiple species, Xenophobes would get +20% to their main species and where the Xenophiles get half species, phobes get more output.

THE BARRIER

Just a blatently better version of Eternal Vigilance but not OP (because EV is bad)

HATRED

I think this is a great perk. I would reduce the Alloy bonus from 10% to 5% per rival but otherwise it´s a cool perk.

I like this category overall but it needs a few tweaks.

Continuing on: Authoritarian

IMPERIUM

It does what it´s supposed to. Again, I would put a cap on it at +30% fire rate.

UNIFORMITY

This is strong, very stong infact but it´s a bit too bland imo.
I would rename this to "LAW AND ORDER" and make enforcers give either stability or pop resource output and some unity.

VISION

I get the idea but the fact that these cost a lot of unity and does not give you edict capacity makes this meh. The edicts range from ok to OP.
What I would change: Make it so that having edicts active is beneficial. Maybe something like
+5% unity, 5% amenities per active edict or something like that.

Overall, this is imo one of the weaker category and need a bit more flavour.

Egalitarian is up next

LANDS OF FREEDOM

An ascension perk version of free haven. It´s a cool idea and it does what it´s supposed to do.

COMMON GOODS

Simply OP. It is super easy to get positive relations with empires, especially if they have the same ethics as you. Needs to be halved to 3 at least.

INDOMITABLE IDEOLOGY

Cool perk, cool idea. Not too strong but not lackluster either.

I like these perks, common goods is a bit op but other than that they fit the theme.

Let´s move on to Xenophiles next

CELEBRATION OF DIVERSITY

Interesting idea but I think it needs something else added onto it. Maybe something like + 5% unity on each planet per species present.

STRENGTH IN ALLIES

I like this perk more than Common Goods because you actually have to work for it. I still would cap it at like +20%.

THE POLITICAL GAME

OP. This makes each of your envoys worth 3 of any other empire. Unplayable in MP. this needs to reduced to like 15%.

I must say this is another great category with strong themes and lots of flavour but it needs a few numerical adjustments and enhancements.

Second to last: Militarist

REPURPOSED CIVILIAN FLEET

I like the idea but this is basically just free ships which later in the game is OP. To fix this, these ships need to be worse than regular ones. Maybe they should not have shields, or bad armour or anything like that.

MILITARISED ECONOMY

This is a cool perk. It makes soildiers more useful without making them OP. A very good perk.

HEROISM.

I don´t know what exactly the chance of the heroic perk appearing is but I love the idea.

This is one of my favorite category of perks because it represents what militarists should be extremely well.

Last but not least, Materialist.

FUTURE SEEKERS

This is quite the cool perk. It´s strong but not OP. Good alternative to Technocracy

MASTERS OF THE MATERIAL

This is kind of like Master Builders but in my opinion a bit broader. It´s not OP per say but I don´t think Materialists need such a strong perk. I would remove the guaranteeed tech.

PARTNERS IN PROGRESS

I like this. The + 15 trade value is a nice touch and adds a bit of flavour.

Strong category but nothing outstanding.

@Lord Naton
Thanks so much for the in-depth feedback! Below I will provide some of my thoughts on this matter:

FREE MARKET:
Yeah that feedback is fair. The downsides I had in my mind were that the feature you get is ultimately random and may not be useful. But the value you get for each sell-off is a bit over-cooked, I think I will add a time multiplier to this, so that sale value is less early game and ramps up later and maybe decrease some of the flat bonuses the perk comes with.

TRADE WINDS:
I agree with the change to the spice trader. I will also look into a more interesting and flavourful option that is a bit more dynamic (maybe trade value bonuses for commercial pacts? Other special resources or benefits for trade with other countries?)

GALACTIC SECRETS II:
I can remove Jumpdrives from this, the original intention was a provide a flavourful option for those who want to RP as the 'empire that dug too deep' so to speak. I will consider this change.

COSMIC FORGERY:
Yes that is the only way to get those techs at the moment. If it problematic that these techs are limited to this AP, I might just delete this AP or replace it with something similar

SPIRITUALIST APS
I am glad I captured this, you repeated to me the intention behind the APs, to provide a thematic yet useful bonus in the theme of spiritualism.

PACIFIST APS
TBH I had a hard time coming up with anything too creative in this category. I stand by the fact that pacifism in general is just boring in Stellaris. I think I managed to capture some of the themes behind pacifism, but it still seems quite boring. I might go back to the drawing board on these ones to consider how I might make pacifism more 'exciting'

XENOPHOBE APS
Funnily enough I have nerfed Citizen Supremacy internally many times at this point. I like your reasoning behind the changes, this one is meant to be a simple perk that can be picked early on, so I will probably just implement a numbers change.

In terms of The Barrier... Many 4X or grand strategy games like Stellaris have long had the problem of balancing defensive measures. Its a very fine line between 'useless' or 'over-cooked to the point that empires are locked in cold-wars unable to break each-others defensive lines'. The typical middle ground is 'mostly useless'. I have elected to try another approach, granting powerful defenses only to certain empires, who have to sacrifice other things in place (in this case, other ascension perks).

AUTHORITARIAN APS
I agree, the bonuses here are bland, but your suggestion around enforcers might be promising. Typically an oversupply of enforcers is not useful and authoritarian empires get a good chunk of them for free. Maybe you get a special bonus for more enforcers? I will investigate this further.

XENOPHILE APS
Yeah I will probably just consider some numbers changes to these, as you suggested.

MILITARIST APS
In terms of the free fleets, a minor nerf to the ships would be quite possible (they are just repurposed civilian ships after all!). I could further randomise ship designs or just apply a flat negative modifier to these ships.

EGALITARIAN APS
I might nerf Common Goals by 2% and/or tighten the conditions to get the bonus. Maybe add a static bonus in exchange a nerf in the dynamic bonus?

MATERIALIST
Like Pacifist, I had troubles coming up with something here that matches the theme I am going for. Somewhere is this mod, I want to support empires who have a limited number of resources but want to build an economy by spamming mega-structures (going tall with megastructures). I am happy with Partners in Progress, but I am not too happy with Future Seekers, nor Masters of the Material. Basically I want to provide more resources for a megastructure rush, I may have failed to capture this, so I will go back and reconsider these APs.

GENERAL COMMENTS
The intention behind the ethic specific ascension perks is to provide dynamic bonuses that encourage you to do certain things. For example, the spiritualist Establishment AP encourages you to increase spiritualist ethics attraction when you otherwise wouldn't care. I try to keep these things in mind while making these APs. I generally also (with the exception of the general APs that don't require a certain ethic) make them available as first pick ascension perks with bonuses that either scale into the game or are designed to work best early game.

I am currently working on some improvements to the crisis, but the next major patch will certainly include balance changes and minor reworks as discussed above.

Thanks again for the impressive feedback!

This is part feedback, part bug report, so wasn't sure which thread to use. A bit more in-depth feedback, I tried the crisis. Overall it was pretty well written and pretty well done, but a few issues and bugs I had with it:

1. The Eye spawned in one of my super fortified citadel systems, meaning none of the fleets there ever broke the starbase. Fine on its own, but this meant I could start the project to close it before getting the offer to join them. Instead I got the offer to spare him before the offer to join and, on accepting it, nothing happened. Later on went on to just finish the project, but I'm not sure it actually closed even though the project finished? May relate to the fact that my construction ship got forced to retreat right before/as it finished, unsure. I ended up consoling the system destroying event after reading the files. Was a bit amused he turned into a woman as a governor =P But perhaps fitting considering he called my female Chosen One leader "Son" XD

2. Even with a super fortified citadel and a fleet of 275 corvettes hovering over the Eye to intercept spawns, the reinforcement cycle was so fast that a stray shot almost inevitably blew up my construction ship while trying to do the project. I feel like the reinforcement cycle should have a liiiittle more leeway for getting the project done between spawns if you can trash his fleets. Maybe move the project to the edge of the system?

3. I was mildly disappointed there wasn't any extra flavor for doing it as psionic ascended with a Chosen One god empress leader. Might be something to consider. It was sort of fitting to adopt him considering I was playing as the Original People from ZoFE, so we're also an ancient enemy of the FEs though.

@Evereal

I´m glad my feedback was of use to you as I see so much potential in this mod and it has already become a permanent addition to my modded playset.

Since you mentioned that you wanted to rework certain perks I thought I would just give some ideas of what I think would be cool. Mind you, I am not much of a modder myself (the only mod I ever made simply unlocks Bioreactors and Solar arrays for everyone) so I can´t guarantee that what I propose is possible.

TRADE WINDS

+15% trade value
Unlocks the "Spice Market" building

Spice Market (or "Exotics Market" as an alternative name)
Planet unique building that requires a T 2 capital building or higher
Produces 0.1 exotic gas, volatile motes and rare crystals per commercial pact
Provides 1 Spice Trader job

Spice Trader
Ruler job. + 8 amenities; +4 trade value.
Provides an additional +4 trade value per commercial pact.
+ 4 trade value for each commercial pact per Tier 1 strategic resource (motes, crystals and gases) the partner empire is producing (meaning that if you have a commercial pact with an empire that produces all of these you get +16 trade value from them)
+ 16 trade value if the other empire is producing Zro

UNIFORMITY replaced with LAW AND ORDER

Flavor text: It is the duty of the state to bring order to the chaos of civilisation. Each member of our society must know their place in the great machine of our empire.

Administrators, Enforcers and Bureaucrats provide 15% government ethics attraction and +2 unity.
Pops that follow a government ethic have their happiness and resource output icreased by 10%.

The influence cost of surpessing or supporting factions is halved.


VISION replaced with COMMAND ECONOMY

Flavor text: The forces of the free market are volatile and unpredictable. To ensure a steady growth of our empires economy it is necessary that the government has the power to restrict our populations access to the wider galactic market when needed.

This perk can not be taken with "The free market" and vcse versa

Grants access to the "Market access" policy with the following options:

Free access

+ 10% pop happiness
+ 10% trade value

Import taxes

-5% trade value
+5% miner and farmer output and happiness

State sanctioned only

-15% trade value
- 10% market fee (the goverment is exempt from their own taxes, so they can buy cheaper)
+5% worker output

Absolute isolation

-20% trade value
+ 5% resource output
Returns to the internal market (if it is not possible to mod that increase output increase to 10-15%)
-30% market fee (only if the return to an internal market is possible to mod)

PARTNERS IN PROGRESS replaced with SCIENTIFIC DISCOURSE

Flavor text: Science and learing should not be restricted by a few elitist researchers. It is our belief that each member of our society can add in some way to our persuit of knowledge through unconventional ideas, simple experiments or personal observation.

Each pop that is part of a citizen species +provides +1 of each type of science.
This should not be affected by resource output increases

FUTURE SEEKERS replaced with COLLECTORS

Grants access to the empire unique "Artifact gallery" building

Artifact gallery
Produces 1 of each science per minor artifact our empire has stored.
+25% planet amenties
Grants 1 "Curator" job

Curator
Produces 0.1 minor artifacts for each empire we´ve met per month

CELEBRATION OF DIVERSITY

Added to the perk:

grants access to the planet unique "Xeno Museum" building

Xeno Museum
+ 15% culture workerr output
+ 2 unity per alien empire we have neutral or better relations with

PEACE IN SOUL replaced with DEFENSIVE DIPLOMACY

Non agression pacts no longer cost influence to maintain.

Proposing galactic resolutions from the "Rules of War" category costs no influence and when they are on the senate floor increase diplomatic weight by 30% until the vote has concluded.

When an alien empire claims one of our systems, all other empires we´ve met have their opinion of the claiming empire reduced by 10 or 20 if we have a non agression pact with them.


PEACE WITH MIND replaced by ASCETISM

Each free pop produces 1 amenties
Pop food/ mineral upkeep -50%
Pop housing usage -50%
Leader upkeep -50%

PEACE IN BODY replaced with MEDITATION

Leader lifespan +75 years
Leader experience gain +100%
Leader level cap +3

Grants access to the "Meditation" temporary edict

Costs 200 unity and lasts 5 years.
While active, leader experience gain is increased by another 100%
Pop happiness +5%

@Cyberforte:

Thanks for the feedback. I will address each point individually:
1: Yeah that sounds like a weird sequence of events leading to some bugs; I will look into this scenario in greater detail.

2: I have been concerned about this issue popping up. Reinforcements rapidly spawn if they have less than 450 ships in total which I imagine may cause ships to very rapidly spawn if you manage to spawn-camp out of the blackhole. Your suggestion seems very reasonable as to the location of the special project; I might see if that is possible to implement.

3: I am always looking forward to adding some more flavour to that crisis, I think there is a good deal of room for empire specific interactions. These sorts of things are #1 on my priority list (behind fixing urgent bugs) at the moment. I will see what I can fit into the next patch!

I have some questions for you relating to the mechanics:

• Did you think the crisis was too easy?
  
• Did you think it was too short (as in, you must destroy more ships before getting the chance to end it)?
  
• Do you think it would be fair if they spawn a 'siege-breaker' fleet in the event they spawn right beneath a fortified starbase?

@Lord Naton
Again thanks so much for the in-depth and positive feedback. I like these suggestions; they fit with the theme and with the mechanics that some of existing APs use. You may see elements of these in the coming patch ;)