Stellaris News

Hello everyone!

Welcome to another mod highlight! This will be the final mod highlight of the summer, and we will be returning to our regularly scheduled dev diaries on Thursday!

This mod highlight is all about new technologies, and all of the mods add new techs to expand on vanilla mechanics.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
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[h3]Extra Ship Components NEXT​[/h3]
By NHunter

Written by NHunter​

Extra Ship Components aims to provide an extended and expanded technology tree that features upgraded versions of all vanilla weapon and utility components, as well new technology branches such as extra-large autocannons and missiles, and new kinetic and energy weapons. In addition to that, entirely-new types of weapons are introduced:

• Psionic weapons that allows one to unleash the full might of their empire's most powers psionics,
  
• Biological and Crystalline weapons based on spacebourne creatures, showcasing the empire's mastery over genetic engineering,
  
• Gravitic and Chrono-spatial weapons that utilize fundamental forces of nature to great and devastating effects,
  
• Nanite weapons with the power of very hungry synthetic life
  
• Special components obtainable only by defeating great leviathans to serve as a proof of an empire's might.
  

And with optional add ons, one can also change and improve the loadouts of FE fleets, giving them more power and thematic weapon sets, as well as unique components, some of which can be reverse engineered. Leviathans, Endgame Crises, Gray Goo and Curator Enclaves also receive a glow-up with improved ship designs to serve as a better challenge to the player.

[h3]Sparble's Stellar Hyper Constructs​[/h3]
By Sparble

Written by Sparble​

Hyperconstructs expands Stellaris' Megastructure features by adding 27 different new Megastructures to the game along with plenty of other content surrounding these. These structures currently reach from the relatively small Tier A ones, such as Shellworlds, to Tier G ones, which only the most advanced civilizations would be able to build.

At last, Hyperconstructs has integrated fully dedicated support for mods like Planetary Diversity and Gigastructural Engineering & More in the form of compatibility overrides, additional Gigastructure stages, and other effects.

More content is planned in the future, with an ever-growing list of megastructure ideas, event chains, and more, so stay tuned!

Features:

• Plenty New Megastructures
  
• New Planet & Star Classes
  
• New Become-The-Crisis Route
  
• New Endgame Crisis
  
• New Strategic Resources
  
• New Origins
  
• New Events
  
• New Technologies, Ship Components, Traits & Bombardment Stances
  
• New Jobs along with Districts & Buildings
  
• Dedicated Gigastructures + Planetary Diversity Support
  

Inspiration:
A huge inspiration for some of the megastructures have been Isaac Arthur's videos on Youtube. He has a great series of megastructure concepts and other space related stuff, and the initial idea for adding Shellworlds and the Stellar Hoop came from his videos.

Another initial inspiration for Hyperconstructs was that when Nemesis was released I liked the (back then) newly added player crisis mechanic, but wanted to stay ingame after ascension. This is how I came up with the idea of the Dimensional Tearer, allowing players to ascend into a higher plane of existence, but still being able to stay ingame after their ascension to mess with reality as they like.

Huge thanks to the Stellaris Community as they really helped me over time with my modding questions; I most likely wouldn't have advanced that much into modding without their help!

[h3]Nanite Expansion Continued​[/h3]
By Sunconure11

Written by Sunconure11​

Exploring hypothetical technologies in scales from the Micro to the Atto and everything between, the mod offers a plethora of new options for empires, many of which are derived from the sci-fi encyclopedia at Orion's Arm. All heavily integrate Nanites and make them an essential component of cutting edge empires. Three variations of the ascension perk to start your nanotechnology journey have been included; one for Organic Empires, one for Synths, and one for Machine empires.

Features:

• 40+ new technologies
  
• 5 new ship components
  
• two new buildings
  
• two new megastructures
  
• one of which is a giant AI entity who’s “personality” you get to influence
  
• a series of upgradable planet modifiers
  
• a new planet bombardment stance
  
• three new armies with a unique icon
  
• a set of traits for Synths and Machines equivalent to the Brain Slug for Organics
  
• And more!
  

[h3]Dawn Of Ascension[/h3]​
By Daniellm

Written by Daniellm​

Dawn Of Ascension is a Vanilla+ mod that expands on the mid to end game content of Stellaris. It adds multiple event chains to learn the secrets of dark matter power, including infiltrating a Fallen Empire's Master Archive, digging up old abandoned Precursor shipyards or even putting your best scientists at the major task of inventing it yourself!

The major feature of the mod is "the ascension project" , a long situation where you invent a bunch of dark matter related technologies, and even go beyond what the fallen empires did before you, however... the ancient guardians will not sit idle and watch the primitive empires do the ascension project.

Are you ready for the next step in your technological evolution?

Features:

• 3 new event chains to gain Dark Matter Power
  
• new civics allowing everything from putting dark matter cores into your machine worlds, to having scion wargoals so everyone fights to unite the galaxy under your banner
  
• The ascension project, a long project allowing you to go beyond those that came before you.
  
• New ascendant shipset
  
• 3 tiers of FE+ automated industries
  
• New ships allowing you to match the power level of FE ships and beyond
  
• 2 New tech tiers for components
  
• Custom weapon effects for all weapons
  
• Doa is made with mod compatibility in mind and should be compatible with everything!
  
• 2 different ascension mechanics depending on what mods you have installed
  

That’s it for this Mod Highlight! Hope you’ve found some new mods to discover, and new things to learn out in the galaxy.

Thanks for reading!

by MrFreake_PDX

Hello everyone!

Welcome to another mod highlight, Michael_Stellaris has some great mods lined up for us this week, and this week’s theme is exploration! These mods will make the galaxy more interesting and diverse, and who doesn’t love new things to find out in the galaxy. I’m sure nothing bad will happen.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

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Dangerous Wildlife Expanded is a very unique mod, adds much more depth to dangerous wildlife, and should make planets feel much more unique, and can even alter the course of your playthrough.
[h3]WP's Dangerous Wildlife Expanded​[/h3]
By WoodenPotatoes

This section was written by WoodenPotatoes

Firstly, I really liked the idea of expanding on the sorts of non-intelligent fauna we might find around the galaxy, like T-Rexes and Mammoths and whatnot. Stellaris is utterly fantastic with intelligent aliens, primitive aliens, and even has pre-sapients. But what kind of wildlife is out there? What alien monsters and creepy crawlies lurk on foreign worlds?

Secondly, I really liked the concept of mounted alien cavalry.

So I made this!

Features:

• Diversify the flavour of the "Dangerous Wildlife" planetary feature
  
• Defend your colonies from these creatures as they attack you
  
• Eventually, recruit them for yourself
  

Inspiration:
I was really inspired by one of the launch army attachments "Xeno Cavalry", and have a lot of fond memories of mounting my psionic warriors on them.

I do have a funny bug story from development on this one: In one early prototype of the attack events I hadn't set a flag to tell the monsters to stop attacking if they had already won. This meant that if you, the player, lost to a horde of, let's say, dire wolves, then a couple of years later you might look at your planet see that even more dire wolves had now come out of hiding to attack the new top dogs in charge! This was happening everywhere, best of all on planets with multiple types of wildlife at once. You'd have swarms of giant cockroaches trying to eat T-rexes, Woolly Rhinos duking it out against alien Yeti, Bats vs Spiders, you get the picture. An entire galaxy of raging wildlife.

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More Events Mod is one of the most popular event mods out there, it definitely deserves to be featured. It contains some really fun event chains, systems, and new things to find out in the galaxy.
[h3]More Events Mod​[/h3]
By Malthus

This section was written by Malthus

Our mod started out shortly after Stellaris' release back in 2016. A lot of people have worked on and contributed to it over the years, among them great scripters, writers and 2d/3d artists who all shared the same goal of adding more to the the game experience in terms of short stories through anomalies and bigger story arcs with digsites, quests and even some mid game crises (Broken Clock, Vazuran Menace, Surveyor Probe). All of which is meant to add to the Stellaris lore while staying true to it without contradictions - a vanilla+ basically.

Over the time it grew quite a bit from just being a few anomalies and events at the start, to now having nearly two dozen digsites, three mid game crises and even custom species portraits which were made for their respective events but are also fully usable for ai empires. It may be bloat to some, but it is just a big package by now.

Features:

• dozens of anomalies
  
• early and mid game events, multiple archaeological sites and a few origins
  
• multiple mid game crises
  
• various species portraits
  

Inspiration:
The mod was originally created by vonMourn shortly after the initial Stellaris release. I joined a few weeks later, when he asked around for people interested in contributing to it. Back then I had no idea about scripting and just wanted to add my "Event Horizon" knockoff story about a possessed ship that took its crew into hell. So writing was all good and well, but getting into scripting afterwards was a lot of trial and error back when there weren't such cool helpers like CWTools around. It was a great help though that all the stuff in Stellaris is as easily accessible with a text editor as it is.

The Broken Clock system from More Events Mod

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Guilli's Planet Modifiers and Features adds a ton of new anomalies, relics, and modifiers to make planets, and outer space more interesting.
[h3]Guilli’s Planet Modifiers and Features​[/h3]
By Guilliman

For version 3.12+ of the game, section written by Guilliman

A big content expansion mod focusing on Planetary Modifiers. With hundreds of modifiers and lots of content that interacts with them.

Features:

• Over 400 new Planet Modifiers
  
• Many new planet features and blockers
  
• Terraforming improvements through planet modifiers
  
• New planetary decisions to interact with planet modifiers
  
• Tons of story events
  
• New Anomalies and exploration events
  
• New policy: survey expeditions
  
• New Precursor Dig Sites that interact with precursor planet modifiers
  
• Precursor Discoveries (technologies, components, bonuses,..)
  
• 29 new relics
  
• Relic War Goals (claim relics!)
  
• Espionage to steal relics
  
• Relic galaxy map overlay to see who has relics and how many (based on intel)
  
• New precursor planet: "Archaeopolis" (requires Ancient Relics DLC)
  
• Minor Artifacts uses, techs, armies (requires Ancient Relics DLC)
  
• Broken Mini-Megastructures that spawn across the galaxy
  
• Wondrous Planets
  
• Custom options menu at the start of the game
  

Inspiration:
I always found planets a little boring but I was mostly curious if I could mod a single planet modifier to see how hard it would be. It got a little bit out of hand from there.. :)

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More Primitives adds more content for primitives. It adds new events, 11 new Primitive eras, pre-FTL colonization of other habitable planets, and more!

[h3]More Primitives​[/h3]
By Sparble

This section written by Sparble

More Primitives, as the name suggests, is a mod all about Pre-FTL civilizations, with its main focus being Pre-FTL Ages, Events, Situations and Special Projects.

The mod started with a handful of primitive events, such as particle accelerator construction with mysterious events related to that, Pre-FTL world war with multiple outcomes, primitives entering a fanatic philosophical age from which they could turn into primitive purifiers, begin to worship multiple benevolent or malicious shroud entities, or embrace deeply philosophical debates such as anti-natalism.

These events were expanded over time, and new event chains came along, such as primitives colonizing their solar system before reaching FTL, their reaction to megastructures in their system, or Pre-FTLs entering a robotic age and developing a technological singularity, which would eventually become self-aware an either trigger a global catastrophe or ultimately become the benevolent savior of the primitive species.

It's also worth mentioning that More Primitives does not require the First Contact DLC, but adds additional content on top of that if used along with it.

Features:

• Plenty of new Pre-FTL Events & Event Chains
  
• 11 New Pre-FTL Ages
  
• Pre-FTL Machine Intelligences
  
• New special projects & interactions related to Pre-FTL events
  
• Other flavor stuff related to primitives (Pre-FTL buildings, modifiers, planet class, traits)
  
• Dedicated Cross-Mod Support
  

You can never have enough primitive content!

More Primitives was my first ever Stellaris mod and, with the help of the great modding community, inspired me to expand my initially very limited knowledge about modding, which has resulted in much new and improved content and the release of various other mods over time, expanding and adding new features to expand the Stellaris Universe.

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That’s it for this week, we have one more Mod Highlight scheduled for August 10th before Dev Diaries resume on August 15th!

See you then!

Hello everyone!

While the devs are off frolicing in the sun, we decided this is a great opportunity to highlight (mostly) community mods!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We wanted to change things up a bit this year, but we have such a hard time choosing between all the amazing mods on the workshop, so instead we made Michael~ do it. Michael has assembled several collections of mods each based on a theme, and then we tracked down the modders and asked if they had anything they wanted to share about their mods.

So without further ado, I present:
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The Friends We Made Along The Way

This mod collection is all based on the various storytelling aspects of Stellaris. From origins (letting the player create a unique backstory), to event mods (allowing you to create compelling narratives throughout the game). That's the reason why many people (including myself) got into the game, and that's the unique quality about Stellaris - the ability to create your own story, and fulfill your scifi fantasy.

[h3]Darkspace​[/h3]
By Exakan



Darkspace is a vanilla+ and roleplay mod, not an overhaul. DarkSpace does not change basic game mechanics and players have full control over the content, the game will only change if you choose an option. DarkSpace offers a whole host of new, unique playstyles that vanilla Stellaris doesn’t.

Features:

• +15 Origins with unique game mechanics & asymmetrical gameplay. Some of them even have their own category of multiple civics.
  
• Multiple new Civics for roleplay or game mechanics.
  
• Ascension Perks for all empire types.
  
• Unique playstyles (Eldritch, Plague, Nomads, Nanites, Crisis..)
  
• >25 Megastructures, dependent on perks, origins or crisis paths.
  
• Has the largest & most complex Nomad origin that exists right now.
  
• You can become a fallen empire, and create new civilizations by hand.
  
• Some portraits and shipsets (Unbidden, Organic, Fallen Empire) etc for roleplay.
  
• DS is made with great cross-mod compatibility in mind.
  
• Right now a story-interactive endgame crisis with multiple choices/paths is in the works
  

Inspiration:
DarkSpace is my personal playground. If I find an idea that I would like to play as in Stellaris, then I add it. With the "fun factor" secured for myself, I know Ill put the required passion into the project. I keep everything optional though, the player decides what the mod is doing with their game .

I never expected the mod to "explode" that much, I expected like 1k subs at start. The Stellaris community is very friendly and it makes a lot of fun to mod for them :)


[h3]Dynamic Political Events​[/h3]
By caligulacaesar

Disclaimer: When Michael~ was selecting this list of mods, he was not aware that Caligula works for Paradox Development Studios and was previously a developer on Stellaris. Caligula was recruited as a Stellaris developer after making this mod.



Stellaris empires have never really felt alive. Imagine if we (us Humans) suddenly weren’t the only species on our planet – how we get on with the others would soon be one of the big topics. Or if machines produced half our output suddenly, one could imagine it might be difficult to adjust. These societal factors are currently not represented well in Stellaris - there are the factions, but they don't have events surrounding them. Even now, 8 years past release, we still have not had the fabled Internal Politics DLC that could, possible, change this.

This mod was an attempt from 2018 to fill this void. It adds dozens of events - and some ridiculously extensive branching event chains - to give you further stories to experience and decisions to make about how you run your empire.

Features:

• Events to do with integrating alien species, including tensions between species and your attitude towards interspecies marriages.
  
• Events focusing on pops’ and factions’ specific demands (e.g. emancipation movements).
  
• Colonisation Stories – your new colonists on a planet might choose their own leader or how they wish to organise themselves.
  
• Establish a ruler cult to your emperor.
  
• Various scandals and conspiracies.
  
• Events affecting interstate relations.
  
• And more (over 55,000 words of text in total).
  

Inspiration:
The original inspiration for my mod was twofold: firstly, I loved playing Stellaris, but the version in those days (1.6 or so) has relatively little content beyond the initial exploration, and I wanted to add more storylines to experience later in the game. Secondly, I was working a job I found very boring, and it was very nice to have a creative outlet.

After doing that for a year, I ended up being hired by Paradox, and I'm still there over 5 years later, so I think that worked out for me!

And I still keep the mod up to date, even though I don't add new event chains, because for the most part it still holds up well.

[h3]Forgotten Empires​[/h3]
By inny78




Embark on a cosmic odyssey with this mod, where a tapestry of interstellar narratives unfolds for your science team amidst the boundless realms of the galaxy. Delve into the forgotten tales of ancient precursor empires, their legacies lost in the starlit void long before your celestial journey began. Uncover hidden dig sites and engage with enigmatic anomalies that beckon with inscrutable secrets. Every discovery and encounter weaves into the fabric of your empire's destiny, steering its path through the stars.

Recommended DLC, but not required: Ancient Relics, Utopia, Synthetic Dawn, Nemesis and First Contact - these will provide additional rewards.

Features:

• New Precursor chains
  
• New Dig sites
  
• New events
  

Inspiration:
When XVCV announced that he would stop modding, I decided that his amazing mods (Precursor Story Pack and Archaeology Story Pack) should not be abandoned. I added later some old mods that I enjoyed, with the permission of their authors Marky612 (Strange Worlds, resurrected from the Stellaris 1.6 era) and QUENTOPOLIS' Fires of Ziaskehorn.

I wanted to preserve the stories told by abandonded event mods, and also create my own with more liberties than the constraints of Extra Events Continued. So I created the Stellaris Chronicles collection (Extra Events Continued and Forgotten Empires) and started creating Forgotten Empires with a curated selection of lore-friendly stories. These stories don't require any DLC but the events can make use of them if they are present. Now that I'm satisfied with the new precursors, my focus is now on creating shorter stories and unique systems.

[h3]Basic Ordinary Origins​[/h3]
By cybrxkhan



Basic Ordinary Origins adds in several new origins that are just that - basic and ordinary. They are simple origins meant to provide alternative "default" origins to Prosperous Unification, with starting bonuses that are similarly mundane and not drastic. They won’t change gameplay significantly, but will hopefully add flavor and variety to your games so not every nation starts with the “Prosperous Unification” origin. Though this isn’t meant to be perfectly balanced, keeping in line with the vanilla origins' lack of balance, none will ideally be overpowered.

Features:
20+ new "simple" origins; usable by both human players and AI empires:

• Antediluvian Knowledge
  
• Chosen Revolutionary
  
• Chosen Royal
  
• Clean Energy
  
• Former Scavengers
  
• Global Wars
  
• Great Khanate
  
• Legendary Friendship
  
• Lost Continent
  
• Mysterious Bonds
  
• One with Nature
  
• Post-Post-Apocalyptic
  
• Silk Road
  
• Slow Evolution
  
• Steampunk
  
• Survival of the Fittest
  
• The Gate
  
• Trekkers of the Stars
  
• War to End All Wars
  

Inspiration:
I started Basic Ordinary Origins (BOO) back in 2020 when the Origins feature was first added. A lot of vanilla's origins other than Prosperous Unification are complex and have deep storylines attached to them, so I felt there was a lack of simple origins to make things more interesting without needing the larger origins.

I've been modding Stellaris since it came out in 2016. My major mods which I started back then, and which I still maintain, are Cybrxkhan's Assortment of Namelists (CANS) and More AI Personalities (MAP). CANS adds more (mostly fictional) namelists that both players can use and AI empires can randomly spawn with, while MAP adds new AI personalities. They're both compatible with and complement BOO well.

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That’s all for this week! We’ll be back in two week’s time with another Mod Highlight!

If you've ever wanted to have a citizen of the Stellaris universe staring at you from across the room, now's your chance!

Stellaris and Makeship have teamed up to bring this war criminal adorable Starfish Plushie to life -- but only for a limited time.

If not friend, why friend-shaped?

[h3]Get your very own Stellaris Starfish plushie on Makeship![/h3]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
*Suit of armor not included*

Make sure to assimilate this fanatic purifier into your empire while you can!

Specifications:
Eyes: 4
Arms: 6
Inches: 11.5
USD: $29.99
Galaxies Ruined: All of them!​