Stellaris News

by Atmaz

Hello!

Gary from Abrakam Entertainment here.

Last week we talked about what Astral Rifts were, how they were formed, and what you could find in them. We also briefly mentioned something nebulous about a new resource called Astral Threads and what you can do with them. We call these, simply enough, Astral Actions.

Let's dig a little deeper.

[h3]Astral Threads​[/h3]

Conceptually, an Astral Thread is the material that binds the boundaries between dimensions. In areas where these boundaries are weakest, these filaments of existence unravel to the point at which they become tangible objects that can be harvested. This unique resource can be put to various uses should you possess the proper technologies and level of attunement to the Astral Planes.

You'll first be able to gather Astral Threads when you encounter an Astral Scar, which you'll remember from our last post are minor tears in space-time present at map-generation. As when discovering other rare resources such as Dark Matter or Rare Crystals, you'll be prompted to begin researching a new technology: Astral Harvesting.



This means you can begin gathering this material before you ever set foot inside of a Rift. But what can you do with it?

[h3]Discovery Tab​[/h3]



First, let's cover where you can find the Astral Actions.

We have taken this opportunity to create a new category on the sidebar: Discoveries. This category now contains all Relics and Astral Actions you have acquired. This means, of course, that Relics and Minor Artifact actions have been removed from the Society Management Category. With the addition of Astral Actions, more Relics, and a particular action that can manipulate Relics, this made practical sense to do.

Another extra feature we've added here is that you can now click Minor Artifacts or Astral Threads in the topbar dropdown to move immediately to this category - similar to how you can click the other resources to open the Galactic Market.

[h3]Astral Actions​[/h3]



Generally, these are various empire-wide effects that you can activate by spending Astral Threads. Some actions are repeatable on a cooldown, while others have a limited amount of uses. All actions generally have something to do with manipulating space-time or interacting with other dimensions.

When you first look here, you won't have many actions you can do at all. You'll need to attune yourself to the Planes in order to master their use. In other words, the more Astral Rifts you explore, the more actions you will unlock. After exploring 5 Astral Rifts, you will have unlocked all possible actions. Generally, the higher the attunement level required, the more powerful the action.

[h3]Thread Count​[/h3]



Initially, you will start at an Astral Thread cap of 500. This seems quite low, but increasing this cap comes naturally with increasing your level of attunement. With each Rift explored, you'll bump the cap up by 250. There is also a special structure called the Astral Siphon you can unlock which can increase the cap even further.

Many actions will increase in cost as you use them, so you'll need to be sure to increase your cap if you intend on using these routinely.

Let's show a few examples.

[h3]Astral Splitting​[/h3]



Astral Splitting will be one of the first actions available to you. Every 10 years, if you have the available space, you can utilize Astral Threads to tear at the space-time within your own borders and open a new Rift. Astral Rifts cannot open if one already exists in an adjacent system, so keep that in mind.

This is an example of an action that has both a limited number of uses, and an increasing cost. All 'limited use' actions are organized on the bottom row of the Astral Action tab.

This action is useful if you haven't gotten very lucky in your explorations and found as many natural Rifts as you'd hoped.

[h3]Dimensional Lock​[/h3]



Here we have an example of a more powerful action with unlimited uses.

The Dimensional Lock allows you, for the first time in Stellaris, to prevent movement across wormholes and other bypasses. This will last for 10 years, and only those with whom you have Open Border agreements can pass through. Have a vulnerable back door into the heart of your empire? This might be worth taking advantage of.

Note: This won't work on the Shroud Tunnel in the Shroudwalker enclave, or the main L-Gate in its cluster. It can only block links between two exact points in space, not nexus points. To be clear, it will still work on Shroud Tunnels created from beacons, and normal L-Gates.

[h3]Hyper Relay Insight​[/h3]

There are a few actions that give bonuses to features from the Overlord expansion, specifically for Hyper Relays and Quantum Catapults.



If you have not yet researched Hyper Relay technology, Hyper Relay Insight will give you a boost to get started in doing so.

Once researched, this action will become something entirely new: Flash Forging Hyper Relays

[h3]Flash Forge Hyper Relays​[/h3]



This action is unique in that it is the only one that costs another resource in addition to Astral Threads. At double the normal Influence cost, you'll be able to instantly place a Hyper Relay anywhere you like. If you ever find yourself in a situation where building your space highway becomes a priority, this should help out considerably. Like Dimensional Locks, this action is infinitely repeatable with a cooldown.

[h3]What else can you do?​[/h3]

We're only detailing a few of the actions available to you and saving the rest to be discovered. Some you may have guessed already by their icons, and some you may have not.

Next week, we'll talk about the new Origin and Civics we're introducing with Astral Planes.

Thanks for reading. See you then!

by Atmaz

Hello!

I'm Gary Morris (or Atmaz) - Lead Game Designer on the Astral Planes DLC, from Abrakam Entertainment.

I've been playing video games my whole life. Some of my earliest memories are staying up way past my bedtime and grinding out hours and hours on strategy games on the Super Nintendo my older brother got for Christmas. I have specific memories of a particular game where I was cleaning up nuclear waste with my workers, tile by tile, and having a great time doing it. I didn't know it at the time, but I was enthralled by a type of game that would later become known as a "4X."

When I finally did get a computer, it was a Tandy 1000 HX. I still don't know what the HX stands for, or what the fascination is with adding X's onto things. On that machine, I quickly acquired a similar 4X game that was much older, but it captivated me just as much. Its lack of fancy graphics was not a problem for me, because I was given a very powerful new tool to play with: a keyboard. In my blissful ignorance, I never realized how much I had struggled with the SNES controller until I had the full complement of a keyboard and number pad (I don't remember there even being a mouse).

Fast forward about 25-30 years, and here we are today. Everyone has a mouse and keyboard, the 4X genre has exploded, and there are multiple great titles of this type to enjoy. One of the best ones, I say without prejudice, is Stellaris.

When we were asked by Paradox to start work with them on a new Stellaris expansion last year, my first thought was: What makes Stellaris fun? That's probably one of the hardest questions I've had to put serious thought to. It's easy to play the game and have fun - but why did I have fun? How do you measure… Stellaris's fun?

There are more complicated answers to this, but the simplest place to start is that it takes you somewhere else. Just like when I was cleaning up nuclear waste with my workers all those years ago to save my cities, I get the same type of feeling when I survey a new system and find something new that might kill me. I like being somewhere else.

So, where is the farthest we can go? We're already in outer space in Stellaris - and really, do you need much more? The concept of space exploration is already so full of excitement and wonder. Stellaris captures this feeling so completely, it makes you wonder: What could possibly be next?

There are hints of what this could be already in-game: the mysteries of the Shroud and what it might contain, the unexplained appearance of the Unbidden and where they have come from. It's clear that there are other dimensions adjacent to our own, and we are teased with only tastes of them. This is the seed of thought from which Astral Planes was born.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Creative Director Jean-Michael Vilain and I talk about the inspiration for Astral Planes​

[h3]What are Astral Rifts?​[/h3]

In each galaxy, there are points at which the boundaries of space and time are weaker than others. Once discovered, they will appear to you as Astral Scars. These Scars are not large enough to be explored, but they do leak through a significant amount of astral material which may be of some use to you.

An Astral Scar, still closed

Over time, it may happen that these Scars become unstable. After blossoming into a fully-blown Astral Rift, they are now open for you to explore. These Astral Rifts take us to the 'somewhere else' that exists beyond our known universe.

An open Astral Rift

However, you can't just plunge yourself into one of these things. The chaotic energies involved in these phenomena would literally tear your scientists into the base components of the universe. You'll need to find a way to slip them more carefully inside. This is where Rift Sphere technology comes in.

Rift Sphere

Achieving 'perfect smoothness' on any object is incredibly difficult - if not impossible. Apparently, it has been achieved here on earth on a very small scale with what is known as the "quantum stabilized atom mirror" earlier this century, but in most practical cases we cannot accomplish this. The James Webb Space telescope, for instance, has a reflective surface polished to an average roughness of only 20 nanometers. That's quite smooth, but we need to go even smoother to safely enter a Rift and have a vessel large enough to accompany a team of scientists. This will take some scientific effort on your part, but once complete you'll be ready to begin exploring other planes of existence.

Conceptually, the Rift Sphere device is loaded onto your science ships and shot like a bullet into the center of a Rift. It possesses basic propulsion capabilities, but for the most part is otherwise helpless on the other side. This is why a cable is tethered from its point of origin to allow for retrieval. This lifeline also serves as a means to send reports and other information from between universes.

[h3]Mid to late game exploration​[/h3]

One goal we had with Astral Planes was to provide more opportunities for exploration into the mid and late game. At a certain point, after all systems are explored and all Archeological Sites are exhausted, there naturally tends to not be much out there left to see.

Where Astral Rifts help out in this regard is that they are generally not present at map start. They will procedurally open over the course of the game. This means that even in a fully explored system, something new can still appear within your borders to take a look at.

The Dimensional Machine rift

[h3]Choose your own adventure​[/h3]

The significant difference between exploring a Rift and exploring an Archaeological Site is that your scientists are in the middle of a 'live' situation. You're not digging up the past and learning about what was, you're discovering something that currently is. This generally means they are often in much more danger, and decisions will need to be made on how to proceed based on the information you are given. On top of that, time can move much differently inside of a Rift, where years have passed on one side where only minutes have on the other end.

Most steps inside of an Astral Rift will provide a choice, and often they will have varying difficulty levels. You may choose to go the easier path to protect your scientists, or brave the danger and hope whatever it is they are trying is a success. A heavy "Risk vs Reward" concept is present in these explorations. There are multiple results that can be achieved from exploring each Rift, and we've added over 30 of them. Inside of many of those Rifts are brand new Relics you can find - provided you make the right choices, and provided your Scientists survive those choices.

There are not just Relics that you can find, however. Nearly every Rift contains some sort of possible unique reward, from new Faction Modifiers, to Planetary Decisions, to even recruitable Leaders. You're entering other places far from your own that have any number of exotic things to discover.

There are even more things, however, that you bring back with you from inside these Rifts - and we call those Astral Threads.

Astral Threads

Let's talk about what you can do with those in the next post.

From behalf of all of our team, thank you for reading this, and thanks to Paradox for giving us this amazing opportunity to create something we think is really cool.

See you soon!

Galactic tyranny sim Stellaris is officially getting weird. Paradox has announced the game's next DLC—named Astral Planes—and it's promising to let you venture into whole new dimensions, where everything is topsy-turvy and the laws of physics go out the window...
Read more.