Hi everyone, I don't really have time to mod anymore but I did want to update the mod. In short, all empires should now begin with the experimental hyperdrive, eliminating the problem of empires not upgrading FTL at all.

As I do not have any engine, I am not able to build science ships or colonizers, no matter that I can colonize in my starting system. Having this mod nearly at the end, even after NSC2, of my mod list should prevent any incompatibilities.

Getting the first experimental sublight engine, which in fact seems like the experimental engine from vanilla game with cutted-off delay, but I do not get any of the mentioned later engines in the research tree. Actually I'm on year ~2350. Does it take that long until the other engines pop up?

Not working 3.8

Too bad the mod is no longer updated.

Hey, I've run into a pretty bad bug where none of the AI are ever expanding. They seem to never even research FTL technology (Atleast none of their ships have FTL capability). I played 97 years and none of the AI had built anything, let alone left their starting system.

This should be on the front page, this mod feels so essential I can't even remember playing without it.

Still fine working on 3.6

@RudytheDominator One of the reasons why I haven't tried Stellaris yet is the abysmally slow ship engines. If I have to choose a single mod for this game, this would be it. Could we see a 3.6 update sometime in the near future, please?

how does this run with 3.5?

@Saint Kelly™ You are more than welcome to build upon my mod! You can do so by downloading the mod contents where steam keeps workshop items you subscribe to.

Any chance of getting you to make a version of this with just the vanilla Drives and Thrusters? Or where I might get started myself on making one.

Amazing have a Golden Unicorn lol.

I'll take a look into it. See what I can do but this may be a backend thing that can't be modded.

Rounix, that may not be this mod. Recently (either 3.0 or 3.1), the reinforcement option was "updated" to basically just take effing forever. Consequently, I just don't use it and build my reinforcements manually. A pain, to be sure, but certainly better than sitting around for years and years waiting for the ships to slowboat their way here :P

This is a great mod, but I have run into some issues while using 3.1. version of stellaris.

As you know the devs changed the way the fleets are being reinforced. Back in the day the ships were being constructed at the starbase, and then they would travel towards the reinforced fleet. Now instead of subspace-travel they use "in-transit" system, similiarly to how the defeated fleet in battle behaves.

This causes a major inconvinience - in the base game the ships are in transit for roughly a few months maximum - but when im using low tech FTL drives that this mod delivers the "in-transit" time might even extend up to 15 years!

Here is my question: Can it be fixed or do we have to accept this as a "feature"?

How have I never seen this mod before. It's everything I've been looking for

I completely forgot about advanced AI's cause I never play with them on. I'll fix that

Apparently advanced start AI's don't get hyperdrive as one of their starting techs. Is this intentional?

All right, once you unpause an event should fire giving non-ai players the choice of getting experimental FTL drives.

Sorry for the long response times. I am still working on the mod, and it should be updated with the latest bugfixes. Also I made it so the weight factor (how soon the tech pops up/ how fast the AI takes it) should be higher.

I'll add an event for non-ai players that asks them if they want to discover the tech upon starting the game.

Is this still working? Or do you know if any of the "ship component" mods have similar effect? Thankyou

Here is a bug I tracked down to this mod.
Apparently you removed the wormhole stabilization tech from your vanilla techtree overwrite.
Leading to a crash if you have expanded/extra events that try to grant an invalid tech.

this might be a bit funky in MP, i got it first tech but my 2 friends are on tech #3 and still none.
and yes please make it an option to start with hyperdrives.
besides that nice mod for slow mid/late game.

I'll look into some kind of Policy or Edict option so people can start with hyperdrives. And I'll also boost up the AI weight when the next update comes out. I suggest if you are playing at anything higher than x1 tech that you get a mod that also reduces pop growth speed so the game feels like a marathon campaign.

Could I suggest to make starting with hyperdrives an option for this mod? I love the idea of having tech matter much more for ship speed, but I hate waiting at the start for decades with little to do.

I suppose my game setup might be a bit of an outlier - a lot of modded in techs (even some mundane tier 1 techs - so the tech pool gets diffused), and 2x or more tech cost. In this situation, it becomes really noticeable when an AI doesn't pick the experimental hyperdrive early enough (can spend over 50 or 100 years stuck).
Anyhow, would you consider increasing the proto-drive weight beyond tier1weight1 (maybe 150?), and bump the AI weight a bit as well to make sure they really pick it as soon as they see it?

@Retep Its the luck of the draw. Sometimes i get it right off other games it takes a while.

@Rudy, and when do acquire those hyperdrives, i waited like 40 years (4 to 5 techs) until i started a new game

@Retep Exactly, you don't start with hyperdrives. You and all the AI have to research them.

This mod prevents my ships from entering any hyperlanes at the start of the game, so i can't escape my home system, same for the AI.

can i make one suggestion. Start with the experimental hyper drive or maybe an even worse pre prototypical one. It could take forever to wind up and cool down and be slower than a snail with an elephant on its back but at least expansion possible from the beginning. It would be better that way imo.

Ok in my current game they did expand. I did have a problem where i had to delete in game some of my pre ftl science or constructors but otherwise the mod worked.

The mod shouldn't change how the AI prioritizes expansion. And I did make sure the AI has a high priority weight for researching the drives. Perhaps the specific AI got unlucky, got it third or fourth in the tech lineup, and is just slightly behind.

Maybe.... the AI kept growing pops, couldn't expand, and became overburdened resulting in a total economic collapse/deleting ships?

@Dawgstruction Are you playing with any mods or Modified game rules?
@Tyrannus Primus Same question?

I've played several games with this mod and the AI is only a year behind me with expansion. Something must be going on there other than this mod.

@Crazy Old Texan do they expand after they do, and how long does it take before they start expanding? I was almost 100 years into the game and i saw no action.

For some reason, ALL my hyperdrives are unlocked at the start and I have no idea why.

They'll research the hyper drives but just a little slower than you.

Ok so i figured out how to get hyperdrives. The problem is that im not sure if the AI empires are researching Hyperdrives themselves because i just found the first ai empire and he has no ships with hyperdrives on them and the year is 2245.

So when you start out you dont start with hyper drives researched. How do you get out of your system or are you stuck there till you get the research?

Thanks for fixing the thrusters much appreciated.

Thankyou!! and thanks for the heads up on the NSC ships. I'll look into it

This is an excellent mod. The only thing that it doesn't work is the thrusters do not show up in the NSC ships like the Battlecruiser and Escort Carrier but that's minor. Great job and thanks for this great mod.

Is that a technology option?

Compatible with NSC you say...excellent, I'm been looking for something like this since 1.9.

Thank you!