Stellaris

[Proteus_MST]

Cool. How long to research the new techs? Have you researched the advanced governments? Does the science vessel being sucked into a rift mean that the rift late game event is about to spawn?

Researching techs most of the time takes several years ... it is also put inbto a formula that increasyes tech costs depending in the number of planets you have and the number of Pops. In short one might say that you are punished for rapid growth, as well as for colonizing small planets (like < 10) as in this case the penalty for the new planet is most likely higher than the gain in science points you may get out of it.
Example in my empire:
I need 60k physics points to research Plasma Cannons and generate around 1k physics points per month (yes, that means it takes 60 months at least )
Without the penalty for the number of planets and pops I would just need 4k physics points to research the tech.

Addendum:
Here a Pic of my current research screen:


And jep, I began the game with a science directorate and later then was able to change into its advanced form, the Technocracy (the "only" change however is, that it doubles the boni of the less advanced form of government in its line). You also cannot take every form of government ... which forms are allowed is dependant on the Ethos you take at the creation of your race (for the science directorate, for example, your society needs to be materialistic (which IIRC also means that I would be excluded from taking the spiritualistic trait at the beginning of the game, as it is the opposite ethos)

And nope, I don't think so ... the dimension jump anomaly seems to be totally independant from the (possible) late game crisis. AFAIK in my game noone has developed the jump drive, so I guess this excludes the extradimensional beings (the unbiodden ones) from appearing ... also I got the Prethoryn as late game crisis ... AFAIK the appearance of one late game crisis means, that other late game crisis won't appear.
(I am not totally certain about it, however, which is why I still ignore "Sentient AI" as research topic ... I surely don't want to get any AI rebellion )

[kentonio]

I also ignore techs marked as 'dangerous'.

[pchang]

Tech minuses for planets and pop appear to be an attempt at game balance. They don't want people in the lead racing away from everyone else. More realistic would be to give people behind in tech a boost due to trade/interaction with more advanced regimes.

[pchang]

One would hope that anything "dangerous" has a big enough upside to make it tempting to try, otherwise it would be boring.

[Proteus_MST]

One would hope that anything "dangerous" has a big enough upside to make it tempting to try, otherwise it would be boring.

Sentient AI itself only gives +10% research, but AFAIK it has further research topics along its line of research, that lead to cyborgs (Pops that can be produced and can take over more tasks than the simple Droids you can build without sentient AI)

And Jumpdrives (which can awaken the Unbidden) are like Warpdrives, but have instantaneous travel (a big advantage, considering that normal warp travel can take a week or longer)

[pchang]

Only one way you test for sure. Go for jump drives and sentient AI. Only 1 late game crisis, yes?

[pchang]

Arghh. I am having a hard time with the interface. How do I save and quit?

[kentonio]

Arghh. I am having a hard time with the interface. How do I save and quit?

Press escape IIRC.

[pchang]

Thanks. That did the trick. Now all I have to do is figure out how to size the thing properly on my Windows 7 machine. Seems to work better on my Mac.

[Dry]

Only 1 late game crisis, yes?

That's what wiki says.

Only a single crisis can occur per game; if the AI Rebellion is triggered, then the Prethoryn Swarm will never invade - and vice versa.

[pchang]

So, Proteus - feel free to robot and AI away!

[pchang]

There is a lot of stuff to pay attention to. Especially in the early game. If you screw up then, it puts you behind the entire game. Being aggressive and killing every space monster you can get to seems to be a pain in the butt (because of all the hostile ship warnings), but analyzing all that debris can get you some useful technologies much earlier.

[Sir Og]

I got the crystalline plate armor thing in my last game from elite Space Crystals for the first time. This thing seems OP. It doubles your corvettes HPs and is not countered by anything.

[pchang]

I can't seem to do anything with early civilizations. Is it because I'm a xenophile?

[pchang]

It seems to be a real pain to bike frontier stations in order to expand. I never seem to have enough influence points.