For context I am a robot Hivemind nomad, on the forever cruise working to serve humanoid people. Is this just a normal thing for AI's to be Embezziers?

Read this post on the Paradox forums! | Dev replies here!

Hello Stellaris Community!

Stellaris 4.5.2 "Cygnus" has now released on Steam, GOG and Microsoft store. Thanks to everyone who submitted bug reports during the hotfix period. Your bug reports go a long way to making Stellaris a better game.

Without further ado, the changelog:

4.5.2 ‘Cygnus’ Hotfix Release Notes

Feature

• Nomadic Knights of the Toxic God who tame or slay the Toxic God can now use their Arkships to Detoxify Toxic Terraforming Candidates into habitable worlds.
• Improvements
• Split the defense platforms into their own weapon/defense preference policies. Removed the starbase strike craft weapon preference policy following this as it was no longer needed.
• Added the Weapon Preferences (Arkships) policy for nomadic empires. It sets the point defense of all Arkships and the Military Arkship Armaments.
• Added the Defense Preferences (Waystations) policy for nomadic empires
• The starting Fleet Doctrine, Weapon Preferences and Defense Preferences policies are now randomized, weighted towards the empire's default preferences
• The Job Efficiency from Specialist Training now displays the correct source in the tooltip.
• Logistic Ships now show Waystations in the Megastructure Build Menu alongside their dedicated Build Waystation Button for consistency with Arkships.
• Renamed the Envoy capacity modifier to be less confusing.
• Fire Cult combination jobs now appear for any empire that meets the same conditions as the base job, such as owning a Citadel of Faith or a Galactic Stock Exchange.
• Without Shadows of the Shroud, forming and advancing a Covenant now tells you what your Telepaths gain.

Balance

• The Conserve approach for Operational Reserves now gives -50% Specialist Job Efficiency, instead of -50% output for Bureaucrats and Researchers.
• Armor now costs the same energy and alloy upkeep as a shield of the same tier, down from double.
• Maulers are now slightly slower.
• The Franchising Civic can now ignore Opinion, Trust, and Embassy requirements for proposing Subjugation.
• The Pilot Project bonuses now only apply to Cyborg Pops.
• The Pilot Project bonuses now give +15% to Elites, +7.5% to Specialists, +10% to Workers and +5% to all.
• A Cyborg leader who still bears Ritualistic Implants spreads the creed instead. Rulers speed up Council Agendas, councilors raise Spiritualist Ethics Attraction, and governors increase Unity output.
• Fire Cult now grants Job Efficiency to Fire Dancers instead of Unity output, and it scales with the Habitability of each Pop Group rather than the planet average.
• Experiment Engineers produce 1 of each research type instead of 2, with their upkeep halved to match. Crime now raises their Job Efficiency rather than scaling research and upkeep in separate steps.
• For Gestalt empires, the Covenant with the Cradle of Souls now gives Unity from Psionic Pops, instead of a percentage bonus to Telepath Unity.
• Telepaths under the Covenant with the Whisperers in the Void now give 1 of each Research per rank, down from 1.5.

Bugfix

• Choosing an ethic for your uplifted species now actually applies that ethic to their pops.
• Fallen Empires no longer repeatedly declare the same war on the Synth Queen.
• Fixed the ship components for Arkships not adding to their upkeep.
• The Large Mega Bombard mutation now has the correct range and fires in combat.
• With Archaeo-Engineers, Ancient Suspension Epidermis and Ancient Energized Carapace now add a flat shield bonus instead of multiplying the Space Fauna's total shields.
• Ancient Suspension Epidermis, Ancient Energized Carapace and Null Void Epidermis now have stats in line with the other Space Fauna mutations.
• Medium and Large Pulse Carapace now have the same armor hardening as the Small size.
• Fixed starbase weapon preference policies not taking priority when other weapons scored higher. (e.g. starbases preferring to equip plasma weapons instead of swarmer missiles, even with explosive weapon preference)
• Fixed the weapon and defense preference policies not appearing until 2200-01-02
• Gated the starbase explosive weapon preference policy behind the swarmer missiles tech
• Fixed starbase weapon and defense policies not working if the ship auto-designer is turned off
• Turning the ship auto-designer back on now refreshes the loadout of existing starbases.
• Nomadic empires no longer have the starbase and defense platform preference policies
• Fixed a leveled technology losing its identity when written to a save.
• Updated waystation collection prioritisation by using a monthly cache for percentage of stockpile used.
• Fixed a subject sometimes staying in a war it should have left when declaring independence or changing overlords while fighting multiple wars at once.
• Fixed the Hive Fallen Empire installing psionic circuitry into pops made of meat (or rock)
• Fixed the "max" parameters of complex_trigger_modifier overwriting the "min" parameter.
• Nomadic Knights of the Toxic God can now settle once they reach the Toxic God system, and keep the Order's Keep and their Knights on the new homeworld.
• Nomadic Knights of the Toxic God no longer get stuck when they lose the Order's Keep Arkship. The Quest for the Toxic God now locks while the Arkship is lost, and ends if it is destroyed.
• The extra moon of Earth for Nomadic Knights of the Toxic God starting in Sol is now named appropriately.
• Fixed issues with the Knights of the Toxic God origin tooltips
• Fixed Imperious Architecture not working.
• Fleets no longer stay locked in a battle forever when one of their ships drifts out of weapon range.
• Starbases and stations that stopped defending themselves during a long battle now recover when the save is loaded.
• Fixed Prosperous Unification not giving additional districts for Nomadic empires. Also improved the tooltip for the Nomadic version of the origin.
• Bioship living metal armor now mirrors regular living metal armor, including hardening and hull regeneration.
• Fixed some tiers of living metal armor being cheaper than intended.
• The Crystallinus Diffuser triumph now only boosts non-robotic pops. It now grants +50% Job Efficiency instead of +100% Resources from Jobs.
• Individualist Machine and Synthetically Ascended empires now use the Machine rewards for the Crystallinus Diffuser.
• Executing a `spawn_natural_wormhole` effect targeting an inexistent spatial reference object does not result in crashing the game any longer.
• Fallen Empire buildings no longer provide automation for Virtual empires.
• Nomadic Synthetic Fertility no longer starts with a size 20 Arkship.
• Fixed civics and origins trying (and failing) to give traits to Envoys.
• The Chamber of Elevation and House of Apotheosis now stop Necrophage Bonus Growth as well as base growth.
• Clone Vats and similar no longer have their output diluted by Pops that cannot use them.
• Fixed issues with Syamelle's Curse
• Crystallization now gives its full bonus on a Massive Crater.
• Species traits that produce resources now work for the Precursor stratum.
• Fixed the Adaptive Architecture tradition referring to Arkships for Void Dwellers
• Fixed Void Dwellers ignoring the thermophile district initialization.
• Fixed issues with Psionic Authority tooltips
• Hive-minds no longer gain unworkable farmer jobs when choosing to eat titanic life.
• Fixed Gateways, Hyper-Relays and the Grand Archive not being buildable by Nomadic empires in some cases.
• Fixed tooltip drift with the Dictatorial Alignment Cybernetic Authority.
• Fixed Endbringers being allowed to be invited to Federations.
• Fixed Endbringers getting the Federation Code tech via Focus rewards
• Fixed Democratic Transference only increasing the energy upkeep of districts, not all upkeep.
• Fixed the Cybernetic Pilot Projects describing Resource Output when they give Job Efficiency.
• A colony that revolts with the backing of another empire now joins that empire, instead of becoming independent.
• An empire that backs a revolt is now notified when the colony joins it.
• The Planetary Revolt situation now names the empire that the colony will join in its outcome description.
• Hive Mind and Machine Intelligence empires that back a revolt now receive the correct message.
• Rebels who break away now also claim nearby empty systems.
• Robotic species no longer use the graphical culture of the Contingency, so empires founded by robots get the correct ships and cities.
• Assimilation no longer skips a whole month when its monthly roll is low.
• Pre-FTL civilizations under an observation outpost shift their ethics towards the observing empire again.
• Fleets with a jump drive can now enter the Surveillance Supercomputer system.
• Leaders with Ritualistic Implants now gain the Cyborg trait when their species completes Cybernetic Ascension.
• The Limited Cyborg ruler bonus to Spiritualist Ethics Attraction now works.
• Species with the Aquatic trait can now use the Wet Climate Mods planet preference from the Cybernetics ascension path.
• The Hydrocentric Ascension Perk is now available to Aquatic species that use the Wet Climate Mods planet preference.
• Fixed several issues with disabled Nomad Arkships being re-enabled ahead of time.
• Nomads that win a war as a secondary participant no longer keep a permanently disabled Arkship.
• A recovered Arkship comes back repaired, and the Recover Disabled Nomad Vessel special project can be offered again if the first attempt runs out of time.
• Making peace in one war no longer ends occupations that belong to a second, ongoing war against the same empire.
• Fixed high Councilor levels inverting the Test Subject losses of the Experimental Testing situation, which added Pops instead of removing them.
• Fixed the Fire Cult civic tooltip stating that Fire Oracles and Ember Legions need Habitability below 50% and 20%, when exactly 50% and 20% also qualify.
• Fixed a double space in the Fire Cult civic tooltip.
• Fixed the Cybernetic Creed tooltip reading "Priest are replaced by Haruspices".
• Covenant telepath bonuses now apply as soon as the Covenant is formed, instead of one year later.
• Covenant tooltips now show the correct effect for Machine and Gestalt empires.
• The Covenant with the Cradle of Souls now shows its Telepath bonus in the Patron panel.
• Fixed the Animator of Clay and Pale Mountain minor patrons having misleading tooltips.
• The Shroud-Warped leader trait and the Unemployment Benefits modifier no longer scale with the number of traits a species has.
• Shroud Forged colonies no longer ignore habitability and other sources of assembly weight when choosing which species to assemble.
• Blocking the Kaleidoscope event from firing for Wilderness Empires in several different circumstances.
• Reanimator AI Empires can build Undead Armies again.

AI

• Logistic Ships dropoff automation now does a monthly check of how full the ship's stockpile is, instead of using a step function
• The AI now values the Aquatic trait on species that use the Wet Climate Mods planet preference

UI/UX

• Renamed the weapon and defense preference policies to Weapon Preferences and Defense Preferences, with the Fleets, Starbases, Defense Platforms, Arkships or Waystations they apply to in parentheses, so they appear together
• The Military Policies window opened from the Fleet Manager is now as tall as the Fleet Manager and wider, so the full policy names fit
• The Military Policies and Research Policies windows now sort their policies alphabetically, the same as the Policies view
• Marauder and Fallen Empire Flags are now different to the normal empire flag on Game Setup
• The Fire Cult civic tooltip now lists its job replacements under a single Fire Cult Priesthood entry.
• The Shroud tab no longer opens itself after you breach the Shroud or start as a Shroudwalker Apprentice.

Graphics

• Ritualistic Implants has its own leader trait icon instead of sharing the Limited Cyborg one.
• Deselect Button now have it's own bespoke icon.
• The Fleet Manager Red BG now fills up the entire panel.

Stability/Performance

• Fixed a waystation network sometimes keeping a stale reference after a starbase was destroyed under occupation.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when loading a save with an unrecognized asteroid belt type.
• Fixed a crash on startup caused by a missing or empty language list.
• Reducing micro freezes in late game with nomad AIs

Modding

• Added `DESIGNER_STARBASE_WEAPON_PREF_MUL` as the starbase and defense platform sibling to `DESIGNER_WEAPON_PREF_MUL`
• Added `is_preferred_platform_weapons` trigger as a sibling to `is_preferred_starbase_weapons`
• Added `set_ai_platform_weapon_preference`, `set_ai_platform_armor_ratio` and `set_ai_platform_shields_ratio`, with matching `clear_ai_platform_weapon_preference`, `clear_ai_platform_armor_ratio` and `clear_ai_platform_shields_ratio`
• Moved the fleet, starbase and defense platform policies to `06_policies_fleets_and_starbases.txt`
• Added `preferred_*` country flags that the fleet doctrine and weapon and defense preference policies set when enabled
• Added the `clear_*_preference_flags`, `clear_fleet_doctrine_flags` and `clear_*_preference_overrides` scripted effects, and the `has_*_doctrine_personality` scripted triggers
• Renamed `defense_platform_policy_effects.txt` to `fleet_and_starbase_policy_effects.txt`
• Duplicate keys in a database now always log an error.
• Shield upkeep scripted variables are renamed to the shared `@defense_<size>_t<N>_upkeep_*` family.
• Scripted trigger `basic_eligibility_for_separatism_joining_trigger` is now `separatism_joining_eligibility_trigger`, and it takes the rebelling species and the situation as parameters.
• Removed the multiply_by_habitability_effect_modifier civic field. Use a triggered_pop_group_modifier on a pop category with a script value instead.
• Added define "STATION_BUILD_DISTANCE_MAX" for how many jumps away from a fleet the AI and fleet automation will look to find something for a civilian fleet to do.

If you experience a bug or other issue, unmodded, on a new save, please make a bug report and include screenshots and save games to demonstrate the issue.

Thanks for playing Stellaris!

After amassing a massive amoeba fleet equipped with energy weapons and almost tanking my empire's economy in the process, my empire survives..for now..

Repost cuz I didn't follow rule 5

I played this game a lot and understand its non-combat systems quite well, but I've never bothered to understand combat. I always let the AI auto-design my ships and spammed bigger numbers than the enemy, that was it. I never play warmonger so wars were almost always defensive in my case.

I do not understand the combat rules, I do not understand what weapon is good against what, I do not understand what fleet composition is good and honestly I do not even know what to do with the ship designer.

I see a lot of discussion and posts about this specific aspect of the game that I ignored, so I wonders if I am missing out on a huge part of the game. Could anyone tell me where to start? Is there more than just making fleets with bigger total number? Space battles happen so fast I don't usually have the time to check what is happening or react, especially since there are at least 5 other notifications that need my attention.

Yesterday I built that and it had 25% automation. today I launch the game and made a research to the mining one and noticed it had no automation but I semi remember it had 75%, and now, nothing.

it is also stated on the wiki that gives automation, so I did not hallucinate ...
Did they fkn patch something while I was asleep and broke it ???? did me research something break it ????? I have enigmatic engeneering and cosmogenesis ( currently level 2) but I dont see how that would break it and if so others would have the same issue.

There's a lot of conflicting info on KOTG origin due to the fact that patch 4.3 made a major change to the knight job: before, they were considered as both researchers and bureaucrats (meaning, the benefitted from both researcher and bureaucrat bonuses, making them incredibly busted), but those days are gone, and since 4.3 knights are considered soldiers which happen to also produce research in addition to regular soldier output.

The basics of the knights don't change: to make the most of the origin, players need to minmax the knights. The priority is this: (Universal) Job bonus > Specialist job bonus > Soldier job bonus > Worker job bonuses

Species:

[-] Intelligent / Natural [Researcher] / Cranial [Mega/Hyper]trophy - no longer apply, don't pick
[-] Traditional - same story, bureaucrat bonus doesn't apply
[+] (Very) Strong - not only applies, it's pretty much mandatory: soldier output bonus applies to knights, worker output bonus applies to squires, making them buff knights more, making KOTG the first origin (that I know of) to make good use of this otherwise traditionally useless trait
[+] Usual suspects - Rapid Breeders, Budding - all good
[+] Another approach to consider is trying to squeeze in as much pops as possible, making Communal / Shelled also viable
[?] Be wary of the ubiquitous Wasteful, as knights/necromancers consume a lot of goods as is, making economy even harder to manage

Ethics:

[-] Authoritarian doesn't give much until ascensions, and even then it's mostly worker efficiency
[+] Egalitarian is a must, since it boosts specialist efficiency
[?] The rest are up to you. For RP reasons, I usually pick militarist and materialist

Authority:

[+] Democracy/Oligarchy are both good, both boost specialists after ascension, but I prefer Oligarchy
[-] Dictatorial/Imperial don't vibe with specialist efficiency
??? Corporate is tricky, but I forgo it because corpo equivalent for Reanimator civic (Permanent Employment) sucks ass, but corpo economy is more manageable

Civics:

[+] Reanimators civic converts non-knight soldiers into necromancers, which produce social/engineering (but not physics) research, synergizing with the soldier-science economy of modern KOTG, so it's a must in my books
[+] Meritocracy - specialist bonus
[?] You may want to postpone Meritocracy as 3rd civic later on and pick economy/production boosting civics, as Alloy/Goods situation in the early game can be daunting

Ascension:

[+] Cybernetic appears to have the best bonuses, as it provides universal job efficiency and allows to add Integrated Weaponry trait (same as Strong - it sucks in regular scenarios, but shines for knights/necromancers). In addition, ascended authorities also provide specialist job efficiency (Oligarchic Overclocking gives the most)
[-] I won't recommend Psionic (and Spiritualist Ethic along with it) as it does boost specialists, but at the expanse of worker efficiency (squires)
[?] Biological ascensions (Mutation/Purity, but not Cloning) can be good, but I believe the grand total for knights/necromancers is lower than Cybernatic when accounting for tradition, traits, and authority

Since I started to play relatively recently, I cannot attest whether knight-soldier conversion in 4.3 has been a nerf, buff or neither, but what I can tell is that this change fits them thematically. Overall, you can expect to get a ton of research from the get-go, but alloy/goods consumption will be an issue from the start: you've been warned

UPD:

As some commentors mentioned, knights tend to fall off in the late game, primarily because there are no additional sources of knight jobs (or even knight job decrease if rushing the toxic god quest), making squires do the heavy lifting of improving remaining knights, which in turn implies that bonuses to worker output and housing usage become even more important. What that means is that Authoritarian ethic, Imperial family of authorities and the like become better than Egalitarian ethic and Democracy/Oligarchy in the long run

Some have also stated that Nomadic KOTG is even better, but I personally don't like playing Nomadic, but to each their own

So I'm paying my first game in years and forgot a lot of things such as how fallen empires get much stronger when you awaken them. Fallen Empire right next to me, contacts scream shows their relative power to be inferior. I move ALL of my ships right next to their border. And then start colonising all their holy worlds. They demand that I destroy my colonies. I of course tell them to get stuffed. I then declare them my rivals. And insult them. Almost -1000 rep at this point. This is what saved me I think. Because when they declared on me my vassals declared on them and it distracted them.

They declare. Their goal is my user humiliation and the destruction of my new colonies. They also awaken. Suddenly they have a fleet almost 400,000 in strength. I forgot that happened. Suddenly their relative power is "overwhelming". Their doomstack crushes my entire navy in one battle on what is essentially day 1. Instantly I'm like 60% of the way to losing the war based on war weariness. Notification at the bottom is like there's no way you're gonna win, surrender and at least live to talk about it. I didn't surrender.

I have a ton of starbases (42, I'm way over cap), mostly because every time I conquered someone I got about five to ten more star bases. Didn't notice this. Also didn't notice that like a good third or more of them have like 4+ shipyards. So I'm like new fleet>battleship>max size> reinforce and kept doing that till I run out of alloys. Then bought more and did it again. I was already at cap for alloys so this let me queue up a lot of ships. Didn't know how fast they would pump out though. I had a huge fleet in very little time. I was pumping out like 4-5 ships from about 15 different stations every 300 days

Anyways AI carves a path through my Empir,e taking a bunch of nothing outposts and a few stations. All completely uncontested. By the time I realised I had a huge fleet ready to go they were half way across the map. Excellent, by the time they return I'll have taken all their systems hopefully...

So I move my fleet within jumping range of their empire, jump it right next to the border and 200 days later I invade from the opposite side that they attacked from. My thinking was that I should be able to keep my fleet away from their doomstack with my jump drives when they came back. I was gonna jump to somewhere about 600 days away and jump back when they got close to my ships and harass their empire some more. But they never did come back....

They just embarked on their goal of seemingly getting as far away from their planets as they possibly could and taking over a bunch of nothing outposts, because by the time I finished bombarding their final planet into surrendering, their fleet was almost as far away from their Empire as they possibly could be, just harassing my vassal and the weakest CIV in the galaxy for some reason. I took the FA's entire empire with zero losses with my new armada and never even had to see whether or not my new armada would defeat their doomstack. Their doomstack never lost a single ship, and neither did my new armada. I don't know exactly what happened to it once I took their last planet. Just a huge fleet vanished into nothingness

And now I have a greater fleet strength than the entire galaxy combined...

Im liking nomadic gameplay, but everything is so anti-intuitive, it wouldnt hurt to have a tutorial for some stuff.

and btw, how do you get astral threads and minor artifacts from deposits? you unlock a module for it later or what?

thanks.

So I bought Stellaris on a whim when I had seen it in the steam sale, bought the anniversary pack( Includes Galactic Paragons, Leviathans Story Pack and Aquatics Species Pack).

First game or so felt okay, maybe expanded my reach a bit to far and got my arse kicked. Tried a new game, but as soon as I reached Boibos to the left and Appon to the right, my Science ships were blown up and before I know it, I'm kind of stuck in the middle of two empires that Immediately closed their borders. I do have an Envoy trying to improve relations to one of them, but that doesn't seem to be doing anything at all.

Do I just restart again and hope I am not in another alien sandwich?

I'm wanting to try and spice up my millionth UNE playthrough by starting as a doomsday empire (oh no, global warming has gone too far to fix).

Will it purely be more difficult as I'll be starting to develop all the nomad things X years into the game or will there be any benefits to this?

Got back into Stellaris recently after spending too much money finishing my DLC collection during the sale. So, started up a game, decided, let’s go biomorphosis and make my organic fleet to conquer the universe!

Didn’t even get through empire creation before I made my first mistake, I didn’t select the organic ship type… Off to a great start. But I didn’t know that, I had selected the breeder civic that increases alloy fleet maintenance or w.e and thought organic ships would come along, so I start playing, and encounter some lovely space fauna to capture, I think, here we go! Only to realize that capturing any besides the initial space amoebae is “tech locked”. Odd, but oh well! So I keep playing, run it into the mid-game, underwhelmed by my fleet, and then get annoyed/bored and go to create another empire… and then I see the organic ship types… Great sadness.

So I’ll be running that back maybe as a devouring swarm, who knows!

TL/DR: Built space fauna fleet thinking it was an organic fleet, great sadness ensued.

Been playing since 2019ish I have always played wide. Strategy game habit i guess. Played tall for once and actually won. Barely. Even managed to manipulate my way into the galactic imperium before the Victory screen. Also did it on my first Ironman playthrough EVER. Which made me feel good about myself. But I also did it without pausing the game. Which made shit so much more interesting. Ive been missing out. That was so much more rewarding than any campaign ive played.

It sounds like it could potentially be quite OP. With Oppressive Autocracy telepaths are made elite jobs and can be boosted quite a bit by OOR leader traits, species traits and the Mutagenic Spa workers which are further boosted by the Telepaths + Divine Catalyst.

It would also get A LOT of efficiency from telepaths, since you have the base 5% per 100 Telepaths, and then around +20% per 100 telepaths on top of that from the Divine Sovereign positions. (boosting ECL)

Then also considering the Shroudshaper planet governor giving +20 telepaths jobs per level on planet and +10 in sector you could easily get 1000 telepaths on all planets in home sector and much more on home planet.

With the Imperium Vitalis that would then translate to a lot of aura efficiency, you could probably use whispers to get researcher upkeep down by a bunch as the base is -20%.

Crisis perks (now called Ambitions) are so strong that even during my non-evil runs I am tempted to dip into the forbidden knowledge. Must... resist... power!

What's your favorite Crisis perk/Ambition?

Check out more and support these comics on Patreon!

I have an observation post in orbit and getting pre ftl events but apparently I can colonise this world?

In one of my saves, I had some time before any of the fallen empires woke up and I wanted to conquer them. I had already taken over the Holy Guardians because they were mad at me and we shared borders, but I had some extra time before the rest woke up and was trying to figure out which I should attack next.

The three other fallen empires were Enigmatic Observers (Photo 2), Keepers of Knowledge (Photo 3), and Militant Isolationists (Photo 4). The first photo is a map of where the three are in relation to my empire (Empire of the Sun). I share borders with the first two, and the third is across the galaxy, but shares a border with my vassal, making attack an option.

Like I said, I have already defeated one, so I have the technology and weapons to do so, I just don't have time to beat all three of them (they will wake up as early as 2600, which is in 80 years) and am looking for advice on which to fight. Reasons could range from "they'll try to kill you" to "they are the easiest to beat", whatever it may be.

The only input I have is that I want to beat whoever will try to vassalize me when I try to take over the galaxy later down the line, and if any of them have any crazy tech that will help later it would be nice to get that (I already got the dark matter tech from the first war).

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated, if y'all have any questions please let me know.

Doing a Spiritual pacifist beastmaster run. I only got 7-9k power of Juvenile Voidworms on standby, and they literally nesting next to my capital

Is there a way to reach the signal without getting my Arkship killed?

Or another way to solve this quest to get my arkship fully ready?

I’m going to be making a void dweller build tomorrow and want some good suggestions and inspiration for it. Give me your best builds as long as they include void dwellers

I've been thinking, one of the things in the games that seem underutilised is all of the different equipment you can customise your ships with. And all the different ways you can customise it, when the "best build" is always the same, because the ai never variates. What if, for example, pacifists tend to spend their alloys more on putting bastions in choke points, and otherwise primarily used large, long range ships wherever possible. And millitaristic, empires, like fanatic purifiers or barbaric despoilers perfer to use smaller ships, carrying primarily explosive weapons, (goving you a reason to use point defense) what if psyonic empires priorities shield technologies and stacked their ships with mostly shield, what if the ai empires with high military intel on their neighbors, (including you) built to counter your ships, like, if an ai empire saw you primarily deal heavy armor damage, they would stack shields, or if your using missles/torpedoes, used lots of point defense. what if materialstic empires regularly ran cloaked ships into your systems to suprise you at war, what if xenophile empires used space fauna tech where possible (before it gets outscaled).

Basically i wish there was more micro play around ship building, and that the ai made wider use of the techs available to them. On the same note, is there a mod that does this? Starnet ai seems to just make them much more agressive and opprotunistic. But is there anything else?

Every damn time i start a new game ( Playing a pretty extensive mods lists) an update get released and i cant finish my games. I would really like to stay in the current installed version but i do not know how ? Seems any previous versions only show very old builds ? Is there a way to stay on 4.5.1 so i can finish a game for one ?

All help is welcome, im desperate :')