Stellaris News

by Eladrin

Hi everyone, long thyme no see.

This week we’re continuing our exploration of the improvements the Custodian Team is making to Species Packs in the upcoming Stellaris 3.9 ‘Caelum’ Update, as well as some of the other stuff we’ve been up to.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Too much reading for a Thursday? Watch the video Dev Diary instead!

First up are some improvements to the Environmentalists civic.
[h3]Environmentalists​[/h3]
Although the initial version of the Ranger Lodge and the Ranger jobs for the Environment civic were good, we felt that they could be improved upon.

Changes this civic has seen are:

• The number of Ranger jobs provided by the Lodge now scales with the number of Natural Blockers on the planet.
  
• Environmentalist empires can now choose to expand their Nature Preserves, increasing the number of Blockers (and thus Ranger jobs) on the planet.

You should give the Nature Preserves as mushroom as possible.​

• In addition to producing Unity for Environmentalists, each Natural Blocker on the planet (with the exception of Nature Preserves), now gives Ranger jobs a small amount of production of basic resources

[h3]Invasive Species Trait​[/h3]
Gardeners everywhere know the threat of invasive species.

Now you too can have a Plantoid or Fungoid species that grows like weeds.

The root of the problem.​

Invasive species get +5% habitability and + 5% pop growth speed for each negative trait they possess, and can only select negative or botanical traits.

Will you use them to propagate yourselves across the galaxy, or make that xenophile regret signing that migration pact?

Or perhaps they can hitch a ride to nearby planets using the…

[h3]Fruitful Partnership Origin​[/h3]
Many plants spread their seeds far and wide through animal dispersal.

Plantoid and Fungoid civilizations now have that option as well.



This origin is so wholesome it’s a little sappy.​

Empires with the Fruitful Partnership origin will begin the game in contact with the Tiyanki, and Starseed Gardens already built on their home Orchard Station.



Space fauna that visit the system are lured to the station, where they partake in the provided fruits, and carry your seed pods with them as they travel the galaxy.

Where are they going to take them…?​

When passing near a habitable world, the seed pods can find a home…

…All clover the galaxy!



And by completing a special project, new life can bloom - wherever it is they brought the seeds.



It was mint to be.



Having your seeds carried away by space fauna can allow colonization of planets far from your home system, but you can also be a little more direct about seeding an enemy planet.

Dropping some sick beets.​

While these seed blockers are primarily just a nuisance to your opponent, if you end up taking the planet and clearing them yourself, you’ll be able to turn them into pops, similar to how Lithoid blockers work.

[h3]Human Plantoids​[/h3]
The Lithoid Theians from last week came from a close encounter with Earth eons ago, our new Plantoids actually start on Earth and explore the possibility of “what if humans were plants”. Naturally, empires that branched out from Earth like the Commonwealth of Man will share your leafy heritage. (Their reputation pre-seeds them.)

Say aloe to my little friend.

SPOILER: FIRST TIME EVER?
[expand]

[/expand]

Now, on to some other things coming in 3.9, and no more terrible plant jokes.

[h3]Enclave Leaders​[/h3]
During the development of Galactic Paragons and First Contact, we wanted to revisit some of the older interactions with the various Enclaves scattered around the Galaxy, but never found the time, namely:

• Hiring a Scientist from the Curators
  
• Hiring a Governor from the Trader Enclaves
  
• Hiring a Teacher from the Shroudwalkers
  
• Hiring a Salvage Overseer from the Salvagers
  

As the development of the 3.8 hotfix patches wound down, we were able to get some additional code support for Empire Councilors and got to work.

Coming in the 3.9 update, each of these decisions will grant recruitment of a Level 5 Scientist or Governor, each with their own unique trait (and for owners of Galactic Paragons, a unique Council Position that only they can be appointed to).

This leader recruitment replaces the existing Shroudwalker Teacher planetary modifier and Salvage Overseer empire modifier and improves upon the leaders recruited from the Curators and Trader Enclaves.

The Governors from the other Trader Enclaves provide bonuses to Rare Crystals or Volatile Motes instead.​

However, just because you’ve recruited these Renowned Leaders from Enclaves, don’t expect them to sit by idly if you attack their former home.



[h3]UI Modding Change​[/h3]

The main change that we want to highlight here is:

• NInterface has been moved from commom/defines/00_defines.txt to unchecked_defines/interface.txt. This means that any mods that alter defines listed under NInterface will no longer block achievements or Ironman.
  

[h3]Interim Leader XP Updates​[/h3]
As mentioned in Dev Diary #307, we were looking at some adjustments to the over-cap formulas to reduce their negative effects until the greater rework is ready.

Rather than a linear progression that abruptly hits -100% XP, we’ve replaced the current XP scaling for leaders with a formula that follows a curve.

XP curves for being over capacity (at the base of 6 leaders)​

[h3]Next Week​[/h3]
Humanoids and Necroids will be next week’s primary topic. Alfray will give an update on how Habitats have been going, and what’s this I hear about an Open Beta?

See you then!

SPOILER: PROGRESS
[expand]

[/expand]

Sorry about all of the puns in this one.

by Eladrin

Welcome back!

In this week’s dev diary, we’re going to explore some improvements the Custodian Team is making to the Lithoids Species Pack in the upcoming Stellaris 3.9 ‘Caelum’ Update, and then a few other new features.

Before that, I have an announcement to make regarding Species Pack Pricing.

[h3]Announcement Regarding Species Pack Pricing​[/h3]
Stellaris Species Packs started as purely cosmetic add-ons, consisting of portraits, ship sets, city sets, and advisor voices. They’ve come a long way since them, now including a much greater variety of content. While the exact spread of features varies by pack, they now all include things such as origins, civics, traits, events, and new mechanics.

As Game Director, I’m especially pleased with how the Custodian Team has improved the quality of the older packs. They’ve added new playstyles and enabled many more sci-fi tropes to be explored during your games.



With the changes coming in 3.9 ‘Caelum’, we believe that the older Species Packs will be on par with the newer ones, and we’re planning an increase in the base price of the Plantoids, Humanoids, Lithoids, and Necroids Species Packs from $7.99 to match the $9.99 base price of the more recent Aquatics and Toxoids Species Packs.

Per the promise made by Fredrik Wester several years ago, we are announcing this change ahead of time so anyone that wishes to purchase them at the current base prices will have an opportunity to do so. They will be available with the current base price for at least 30 days, and will be changing alongside the release of 3.9 ‘Caelum’.

Stellaris will be taking part in the Steam Strategy Fest. This will give you a chance to get the affected Species Packs at a discounted price before the price change goes into effect.

I’ll now detail the improvements made to the Lithoids Species Pack. Improvements to the other Species Packs will be a major focus of dev diaries over the next few weeks.

[h3]Things That Rock​[/h3]
My very first Stellaris Dev Diary was #157 - Things That Rock.

The Lithoids Species Pack was the first one that wasn’t exclusively an art pack. The Lithoid trait added interesting game mechanics to the phenotype, we had a few Lithoid specific traits, some event changes, and the Terravore variant of the Devouring Swarm.

The purely cosmetic Species Packs were updated in subsequent releases, but while it did get an Origin in Federations and more traits in 3.5 ‘Fornax’, Lithoids hadn’t gotten quite as much of an update from the Custodian Team as the packs. Of quartz I thought that we should dig up some improvements.

I’ll turn things over to Iggy now to talk about some of the changes.

—

Greetings all, Iggy here!

Since the release of Galactic Paragons, the Custodian Team has been working on improving the value and quality of older DLC’s. Today I will be talking about what we have done for the Lithoid Species Pack.

[h3]Buffing the Old​[/h3]

As previously shown in DD #305 we returned to Calamitous Birth to give it some love. This includes removing the habitability loss from Lithoid Craters for Lithoid pops as well as increasing the effectiveness of lithoid exclusive traits such as Gaseous Byproducts on the Massive Crater world.







We also talked about how terravores have gotten a glow up. No longer will you need to sit and click a decision every 6 months as you consume your world! Now it’s all handled in a handy compact situation. The output should still be exactly the same as before thanks to clever script math so don’t worry about this being a nerf to acquired pops or resources.

Crunch crunch!

[h3]In With the New!​[/h3]

Not satisfied with only buffing these two old pieces of content we also felt like the species pack could do with a bit of a polish to stack up to current species packs.

First up: Void Hive

I love this icon so much

As you can see it’s a Hive Civic with quite a unique effect and if the habitat changes discussed in DD #306 go through it would be a powerful addition to your Void Dweller Hiveminds.

Iggy making potentially game breaking hive content? SHOCKER!

This civic plays around with the flavor of a Hive Mind that is capable of surviving out in space and the dangers of vacuum. While you still can build gathering stations it goes against your nature to instruct specific drones to do so and will cost you some Unity. They also excel at creating structures in space, whether they be habitats, dyson spheres, or hyper relays, so get out into the dark void already!

The other new civic added to the Lithoid Species Pack is Selective Kinship.

This civic is not for the xenophiles so please, avert your ocular organs.

Meat. They’re made out of meat!

This civic also comes with the lithoid species pack and lets you create an empire consisting only of your primary phenotype such as Lithoids, Aquatic, Mammalian, etc. Though don’t think it will be smooth sailing because you won’t like anyone not conforming to your standards and they will really not like your bigoted thinking. However if you really want to have some friends the Hegemon and Common Ground origin will ensure that your member nations are your phenotype if you choose to start with this civic.

[h3]Shine Bright!​[/h3]

Thanks, Iggy.

We’ve been having a lot of questionnaires and feedback sessions with players, and one of the things that is often requested is some more relatable characters in the various phenotypes. While we’ll of course continue creating horrific alien monstrosities, the art team took this opportunity to add a few new portraits to Lithoids, Plantoids, and Humanoids.



For Lithoids, the Federated Theian Preserves will be a new prescripted empire that begins on the Desert World of Theia, in the Titawin system.

Billions of years ago, two planets formed from the primordial material in orbit of Sol - ancient Earth, and Theia.

Rudimentary life evolved on both worlds, biological in the case of Earth, and lithoid on Theia. For eons, these sister planets maintained a peaceful revolution around their star. Then came the cataclysm.

The planets collided, and in the moment of impact, microbial life was exchanged. Earth survived, and Luna was formed. What remained of Theia was jettisoned from the system.

On this rocky colony ship, life from ancient Theia traversed the void before it was caught in the gravity well of the star Titawin. Crashing into one of the system's worlds, a new species was introduced to the local biosphere. A few short millennia later, the Theians took to the stars, seeking to understand the universe as well as their own heritage.

Work is still being done on the lava shader.

May they find their way home!

On to some other 3.9 changes…

[h3]Ascension Path Agendas​[/h3]
Some players have commented that they often find themselves saving an Ascension Perk slot for an indeterminate amount of time, waiting for the required research for their desired Ascension Path to appear.

The Ascension Perks that unlock the four Ascension Paths have had their requirements changed so that they now be taken as your third AP at the earliest instead of as your second AP. We have removed the Technology requirements and moved those to progressing down the Tradition Tree associated with that Ascension Path.





Each Ascension Path now has an Agenda that grants 25% progress in technologies associated with that Ascension Path, which should ensure that you are no longer reliant on random chance to acquire these technologies. These Agendas have a reduced cost and cooldown compared to normal Agendas, though some have modifiers based on Empire Ethics compatibility with the Ascension Path.





These agendas advance to the next relevant technology if you finish some research while the agenda is ongoing.

[h3]rm -rf /nodes/regulatory​[/h3]

One of the complaints we’ve had with Gestalt Councils is that Nodes cannot be replaced unlike the Councilors for regular empires. This means that you are no longer locked forever to traits that might be useful for your Nodes in the early-game but fall off in the mid- to late-game.

To solve this, we’ve added three new Society technologies to Machine Intelligences (and Hive Minds) which unlock a set of new Council Agendas that replace the existing Nodes, after a bit of reformatting (or vivisection).

TODO: Icons



The first technology will unlock the Agendas themselves, while the following technologies will unlock modifiers that improve both the Agendas and your Council.

The newly created Nodes will initially start at level 1, though this can be improved to a maximum starting level equal to the level of the reformatted/culled Node depending on Technologies, Traditions and Civics.

[h3]Next Week​[/h3]
Next week we’ll be going over improvements to the Plantoids Species Pack and some more other changes coming in 3.9 ‘Caelum’. Humanoids and Necroids will be the following week.

These are not plantoids. But you’ll get to meet them in the plantoids dev diary.

Spoiler: Updated Progress Image
[expand]

[/expand]

by Eladrin

Happy Thursday!

This week we’re looking at another of our Summer Experiments, though this one unfortunately didn’t work out as well as we had hoped.

Class-based leader limits.​

[h3]Why are you looking at this?​[/h3]
Galactic Paragons reintroduced a limit to the number of leaders you could recruit at one time, and while it was a soft cap that you could exceed, experience gains were reduced and once you hit twice the cap, all leader experience gain stopped. In subsequent patches, we relaxed some of the numbers and added more ways to increase the cap, but it’s still a rather unpopular system that could use some work.

Currently, the presence of a less valuable leader (like a General) takes up the same “space” as something like a Scientist or Admiral, which leads to some unsatisfying gameplay decisions.

I mentioned a few things we were planning on looking at back in Dev Diary #302, along with some of the issues we expected to run into.

[h3]So what did you try?​[/h3]
During our experiments we added the ability to have individual leader caps by class, so that General mentioned above would use up General capacity, but Scientists would be governed by their own limit. “Over cap” effects would likewise be per-class, so if you had too many Admirals, their progression would slow, but other leader classes would be unaffected.

We also experimented with retaining “wild-card” capacity, so you could always get a few over before starting to run into penalties.

[h3]Why didn’t it work?​[/h3]
This experiment largely failed due to UX issues. Stellaris isn’t always the easiest game to parse information from, but this turned out diabolically bad and difficult to fix.

The information transfer is made even harder by Envoys acting as their own “special version” that have their own capacity but behave entirely differently from all of the other leaders.

It says we have 1 leader out of 3, but we actually have 4 out of 5-8. Oh no.

1/1 Admirals, 0/1 Generals, 1/2 Scientists, 2/1 Governors, 0/3 Envoys (but actually 3 Envoys, 0 of which are being used), plus the Wildcards. This could possibly have been shown as something like 1/0/1/2 (+2) | (3), but that’s very confusing.​

Five different leader types plus the wildcard was too difficult to explain clearly in the top bar (where the limited space is a major issue) and even in the expanded space available in tooltips.

After several variants and some UX design time, we deemed this variant a failure. We could have continued spending time refining this - but decided that we’d rather pursue a greater rework that we’re hoping to release alongside the 3.10 update. (Custodian initiatives do not generally have hard release dates - if it’s not ready by 3.10 freeze, it’ll move out to 3.11.)

I’ll go into full details after Caelum is released, but the quick summary involves consolidating the five leader classes down to three (Commanders, Diplomats, and Scientists) and reworking how Envoys are used. (As they would be merged into the Diplomat class.)

Yes, we've had one, yes, but what about second leader rework?​

Until then, we’re planning on making some adjustments to the over-cap formulas to reduce their negative effects until the greater rework is ready.

[h3]Tell us about Caelum then!​[/h3]
Like the Stellaris 3.1 ‘Lem’ update, 3.9 ‘Caelum’ has a lot of general improvements scattered across a great number of game systems.

Common Ground and Hegemony are getting some improvements:

• Your starting federation members no longer own your immediately neighboring systems, allowing both you and them some room for early expansion.
  
• The Federation now starts with 0 Cohesion (instead of -100) and halfway to Level 2 (600 XP instead of 0 XP).
  
• The requirements for the Origins have been relaxed to allow non-genocidal Hive-Minds and Machine Intelligences to take them. This also allows your AI federation members to occasionally spawn as Hive-Minds or Machine Intelligences.
  

We also have some balance changes done for Archaeotechs:

• Halved the energy upkeep of the Facility of Archaeostudies.
  
• Added the Archaeotech Focus admiral trait, which grants increased damage and fire rate with Archaeotech weapons.
  
• Decreased the research speed and draw weight for Archaeotech from the Expertise trait, but made it reduce the Minor Artifact cost for ship components.
  
• The starting head of research for Remnants empires now has the Expertise: Archaeostudies trait.
  
• The Archaeoengineers AP now reduces Minor Artifact cost for ship components by 10%
  
• Increased the range of Macro Batteries by 50%.
  

[h3]Next week…​[/h3]
Here are some things that we’ll be talking about in the next few weeks:

Pixelated collage of lots of tooltips that I figure you'll have deciphered by the end of the day. We’ll reveal all of these, and more.​

We’ll be starting with all the improvements to the Lithoids Species Pack, that are intended on bringing it up to the level of the others..

See you then!

by Eladrin

Hi everyone!

I hope your summers have been going well! I got a bit sunburnt, but today we’re back and ready to talk about some of the promising experimentation we’ve been doing with the Habitat system.

We’ll be going through the entire development process in this dev diary, so there’s going to be a lot of ideas that were interesting but were subsequently discarded for various reasons.

[h3]Why Are You Looking at Habitats Again?​[/h3]
The Stellaris Custodian team looks to three primary categories when deciding what to pursue:

• Directives: Things dictated by me, the Game Director, usually for long term strategic reasons.
  
• Community: Things you ask for. Pain points, quality of life improvements, bug fixing, and other good ideas from the community.
  
• Passion: Things the individual developers really want to do.
  

Conveniently, a lot of times all of these align quite nicely.

Let’s start by looking at the history of Habitats in Stellaris.

Habitats were introduced way back in the 1.5 ‘Banks’ update in Utopia.

In 2.3 ‘Wolfe’, alongside Ancient Relics, we removed the Voidborne requirement to build Habitats, adjusted their habitability a little bit, and gave them varying districts based on what they were built over.

The 2.7 ‘Wells’ patch made the next major change to Habitats, adjusting their costs, requirements, and adding multiple tiers.

Since then, we’ve added a couple of special Habitat variants, and various other reworks have shifted their fortunes up and down in the overall balance of the game. Recently, there have been many requests from the community to review the tendency of AI empires building dozens of Habitats when they’re otherwise unable to expand.

Due to how production and population work in Stellaris, this led to an interesting quandary - it is theoretically “correct” for the AI to create many Habitats if it was blocked in, but it was tedious as a player to deal with invading up to a dozen Habitats per system. (The current interactions with population growth have also always been troublesome on the game balance side.)

Habitats were feeling far too common, were too good at certain things, and weren’t capturing the base fantasy that we were looking for. They’re the central pillar of a very popular playstyle that we wanted to preserve, though, so this made them a perfect target for “summer experimentation”.

Everything in this dev diary is considered experimental, and may or may not make it live. All numbers are placeholders for prototyping purposes only. There is no set release date for any of these changes at this time, but we welcome community feedback.

[h3]Different Takes[/h3]
One of the most common requests from the Community was to add a Galaxy slider to restrict the use of Habitats. Options could have ranged from banning Habitats entirely, to “Nobody (except Void Dwellers) can create Habitats”, requiring the Ascension Perk to build them again, restricting only the AI, or placing (hard or soft) limits to the number of Habitats that could be built.

We also discussed “what if Habitats cost fractional Starbase Capacity to build” - with Void Dwellers and the Voidborne AP granting discounts to this value. This was more appealing, since the soft cap would control AI use of Habitats nicely without significantly hindering players that wanted to go all-in on them.

These discussions led to some questioning about whether Stellaris Habitats were satisfying the general fantasy well enough, and whether Habitats should be more “hard sci-fi”, with lower habitability bases or even ceilings for those accustomed to planetbound life, and whether we could make changes that would address balance challenges like Hive Void Dwellers.

[h3]A More Complex Take​[/h3]
We made a list of some of the current challenges caused by the existing Habitat system, and this led to the idea of “what if all the Habitats in a system were linked?” We could retain the interesting expansion of Habitats across a system while reducing the burden when seizing the system, and potentially address some of the other problems introduced by an excess number of Habitats in the galaxy.

Alfray threw together an incredibly hacky and utterly unshippable version of this, and continued iterating on it during the Summer.

Under this variant, the first Habitat built within a system is the Central Habitat Complex. Additional Habitats are Support Habitats that add additional space and versatility to the Central Complex. A reminder, many values are grossly unbalanced placeholders in the following screenshots.

At this point I went on vacation, so I’ll turn this over to Alfray to talk about his investigations.

[h3]Once More Into the Alfray​[/h3]
Keep in mind that the numbers shown in the below screenshots are never intended to be the final values, but were used purely for testing purposes of how the systems felt to use and play with.

Firstly, to counteract the expected changes that with minimal Support Habitats, the Central Complex would be small, cramped and overall not great to live on, I gave Void Dwellers extra districts and building slots as a unique modifier (This saw further refinement in a later prototype).



Support Habitats as Megastructures:​
The first iteration of these prototypes made use of Support Habitats as additional megastructures.









In this prototype, we had the maximum amount of each type of resource collection district (Energy, Minerals, Research) limited by the size of the deposits the habitats were constructed over, similar to how buildings for Strategic Resources are limited.

Support Habitats provided additional Districts, Building Slots, and Housing to the Habitat Central Complex, while reducing the Habitability (to reflect the civilian traffic between habitats) as they are upgraded. The final tier also allowed the Habitat Complex to use deposits on moons of their orbited planet.

On the surface, this prototype seems to satisfy our initial requirements and more:

• Conquering systems with Habitat-spam was easier due to there only being one functional “planet” per system.
  
• Constructing multiple Habitats per system felt rewarding as it upgraded your existing colony.
  
• The removal of multiple starting colonies removed one of our main concerns for allowing Hive-Minds to have access to the Void Dweller origin - their high pop growth rate due to excessive numbers of spawning pools in the early game. (Iggy had some thoughts on this that he’ll be mentioning in a future Dev Diary).
  

A Void Dweller Habitat Complex.

The rather cluttered system said Habitat Complex is in.​

However, the Support Habitats couldn’t be interacted with outside being upgraded, which felt like a major downside. Enemy ships would happily fly past and ignore the Support Habitats, they couldn’t be specialised or downgraded.

All things considered, this prototype showed that making habitats into a single logical planet spread across many entities in a solar system felt good, but megastructures were not the path forward.

Support Habitats as “Starbases”:​

Keep in mind that the numbers shown in the below screenshots are never intended to be the final values, but were used purely for testing purposes of how the systems felt to use and play with.

The below screenshots feature placeholder art and the default art for starbases, their buildings and modules.

The second iteration of this prototype investigated treating Support Habitats as special Starbases (much like Orbital Rings).

In this prototype, the districts available to Habitat Central Complexes depend on the configuration of any Support Habitats in the same system. Thus construction of a Habitat Central Complex would automatically build a neighbouring Support Habitat in orbit of the same planet.

When built, a Support Habitat would start with a module that matches any deposits on the planet it orbits. Each Module on a Support Habitat, gives +3 Max Districts of that type to the Habitat Central Complex.

Upgrading the Support Habitats, still provides the same modifiers as shown in Megastructure Prototype. Additionally each tier of the Support Habitat allows construction of an additional Support Habitat module and the second and third tiers allow construction of a Support Habitat building.

Expanded Support Complex v2 -- The starting Habitat Central Complex and its neighbouring Support Habitat for a Void Dweller empire.

New Habitat Complex v2 -- A newly constructed Habitat Central Complex, completely unspecialised.​

Allowing the choice of which districts the Habitat Central Complex has access to via specialisation of the Support Habitats brings some interesting changes to how Habitat-dependent empires play.

Due to the nature of the prototype, the buildings for Support Habitats haven’t seen much investigation yet, but would likely include buildings much like those on an Orbital Ring, the lunar extraction support that Advanced Support Habitats experimented with in the Megastructure Prototype above and other such buildings.

Research Habitat Complex, v3 or so? A Research Habitat Complex, using some of the district capacity to provide hydroponic districts.​

Due to the nature of summer experiments, we can’t say if or when this prototype might make it into the live version of the game, but it’s something that we’re interested in exploring further.

[h3]…But the fourth one stayed up!​[/h3]
Thanks, Alfray.

That variant listed achieved a lot of the goals we were looking for, but was cobbled together out of the scripting equivalent of sticks and twine as a quick and dirty implementation. It also required a lot of back and forth clicking that we really weren’t too fond of. So after that one burned down, fell over, and sank into the swamp, we came up with another iteration.

My feedback: Simplify things.

The latest variant we’ve been playing with has been especially promising. In this one, we turned the “Starbase” style Support Habitats into single tiered “pre-specialized” units (renamed to “Orbitals” for UX purposes) rather than requiring Modules to be built on them - so you could build a Mining Orbital, Research Orbital, and so on.

This dramatically simplified the flow of building out Habitats while simultaneously improving the implementation.

Pre-Specialized Research Orbital.

Habitat Transit Hub. Hey wait, Maintenance DRONES? Unique buildings on the primary habitat complex can increase the effects of the orbitals.

Upgraded Habitat Transit building.

We’re still doing some experimentation with this model, but so far we’re liking what we’re seeing. Technologies can add special Orbital types or buildings that can modify the primary Habitat Complex, and it’s very easy for us (or modders) to add new types.

We've been looking at jobs per districts too - the Complexes have different challenges from the older Habitat system, and further updated the Voidborne Ascension Perk. Void Dwellers will start with its effects (similar to how Teachers of the Shroud empires effectively start with Mind over Matter).



Void Dwellers get Habitat Build Cost reductions in Traditions.​
[h3]What’s Next?​[/h3]

For now, I’d like to get some of your thoughts on what you’ve seen today, which we’ll bring into our internal design discussions. It would also be great to get feedback on whether you like this sort of diary, where we go through the overall process (including the failures).

Next week I'd like to talk about a Summer Experiment relating to leaders that didn’t pan out quite so well, and our plans on how to proceed with that.

See you then!

written by: MrFreake, jasonpepe, AlphaAsh, Jamesfire, corsairmarks, michaelmakesgames

Hello Stellaris Community!

You’ll be pleased to know that dev diaries are currently scheduled to return next week! In the meantime, we are going to take this opportunity once again to highlight some of the lesser known mods from the Steam workshop.

This week, we will be looking at mods that add internal political interactions within your empire, from new factions, to leveling your rulers, new mechanics for vanilla civics and even an industrial overhaul. This is an exciting lineup of mods, and – judging by the sheer number of people who are interested in an Internal Politics rework – one of these could be just the mod you were looking for. handwave

If you’re a Modder, and are interested in having your mod featured in a future Mod Highlights, please fill out this form. After this week Mod Highlights will be moving to a longer-form biweekly or monthly publication (depending on the number of interested modders we get), and either taking the place of Dev Diaries when there’s no news (eg. Summer and Winter holidays), or the second Monday of each month.

So if you are liking this format, keep an eye out for future Mod Highlights!

# # # #
[h3]Divided Loyalties by AlphaAsh​[/h3]



Features

• Up to 15 new extremist factions can now form in a run.
  
• There's one extreme faction for Xenophobes, and two for all other ethics. Sorry gestalts - you get no extremist factions. Sad face.
  
• There are pros and cons to promoting or suppressing extremist factions.
  
• ...and also banning each of the factions. Yes, you can ban extremist factions.
  
• Some factions oppose each other. Think before you promote/suppress/ban one. Another faction may be very pleased... or very upset.
  

Summary

This mod includes 15 new extremist factions, one for Xenophobes, and two for all other ethics. There are pros and cons to promoting, suppressing and banning each of the factions.

Some of the factions are also opposed to each other, in such a way that promoting one faction will pee off any opposing faction, or suppressing or banning a faction will please any opposing faction. You aren't told which factions oppose which - experiment and find out.

You absolutely should not use this mod if you dislike red indicators in the factions screen. Or dislike not being able to get 100% approval from all factions all the time.

No, really. I get it, it's not for everyone. With this mod it is intended to be very difficult to keep all factions happy at the same time. It is intended for you to make tough decisions about which factions to promote, suppress or ban. It is intended that you will make compromises with policy, ascension and a few other areas of running your empire when managing factions. It is intended that your Unity from factions may fluctuate, sometimes seeming excessive, or lacking.

Inspiration
Factions are a feature that needed more bite. This mod does that.



# # # #

This next mod was hard to classify, since it has a mix of both diplomacy and internal politics. I put it in the internal politics highlight, because I write these things and that’s what I wanted to do. Stop judging me.

# # # #
[h3]Uncivic: New Mechanics for Vanilla Civics by michaelmakesgames​[/h3]



Features
Adds new mechanics to the following civics for increased depth and RP:
- Exalted Priesthood
- Nationalistic Zeal
- Parliamentary System
- Shadow Council
- Technocracy
- more on the way!

Summary Exalted Priesthood:
- Lead a Galactic Faith that other Spiritualist empires can join
- Use the Ideology casus belli to forcefully convert empires to your faith
- Compete with other Exalted Priesthoods to win followers
- Contend with the spread of unorthodox beliefs -- reform your faith or declare heresy!

Nationalistic Zeal:
- Balance your nation's Zeal
- If your zeal gets too low, you get Nationalistic Disgrace
- High zeal grants strong military bonuses, but too much causes Nationalistic Hubris
- If you lose a war or any territory while you have Hubris, you are immediately Disgraced

Parliamentary System:
- Planets elect factions to represent them in parliament
- Each faction has a unique effect on the planet
- The factions and political power of the planet's pops determines who wins (with a bit of randomness)
- If you don't like the election result, you can "find some more votes" for your preferred candidate, but you risk a scandal!

Shadow Council:
- Appoint your non-Councilor leaders to positions in your Shadow Council
- The more Shadow Councilors you have, the less experience your "legitimate" Councilors earn
- Six different Shadow Council positions, each with a unique effect that scales to the leader's skill
- Shadow Councilors can get exposed, and you'll face a tough choice

Technocracy:
- Your non-scientist leaders can start with the Technocrat trait, producing a little science
- At level 4, your Technocrats choose a specialization (Physicist, Social Scientist, or Engineer), with a unique effect depending on the leader's class

Each civic's new mechanics can be individually turned off if you don't want to play with them all.

Inspiration
I like playing civics that have a big impact on gameplay! Sometimes I want to choose a civic that fits with the RP of my empire, but the effects are a bit boring... So I made Uncivic to add some new life to conceptually interesting but mechanically simple civics.



# # # #

Those of you who remember MODJAM2020, might remember this as a mod that started off as an Origin, but now contains almost a total overhaul of how vanilla industries work!

# # # #
[h3]Rise Of Cosmic Industry by jamesfire​[/h3]



Summary
Industry in Stellaris is simple, and abstracted to the point of not making much sense. Not only that, but critical methods of industry that should be utilized by space-faring empires are missing entirely.

Features
Rise of Cosmic Industry is composed of 7 modules that can be independently disabled at game start, and come with minimal overwrites:

• Orbital Infrastructure is an implementation of Orbital Districts on planets, opening up more options for planetary development.
  
• Realistic Development overhauls how things are built, using a Labour-like system called Industrial Production, so that 2 planets don't build twice as fast as 1 for some reason.
  
• Factory Automation implements Automated Factories, for making resources without pops.
  
• Space Exploitation is an expansion to Space Mining using Minor Colonies, allowing you to exploit celestial bodies more thoroughly.
  
• Fallen Empire Buildings provides a third tier of Buff Buildings, that increase the production of their appropriate job, as well as produce some resources on their own.
  
• Cargo Ships provides Cargo Ships that can be used to form trade routes with other empire's planets, granting both planets resources based on their existing production.
  
• Shipping Costs makes planet-level deficits cost some energy credits to represent shipping in materials to cover the deficit.
  

In Rise Of Cosmic Industry, I provide new mechanics and new content that better match how I feel this should work, and in some cases just add missing tech.




# # # #

Want to get your ruler to the next level? Jasonpepe has you covered with this next mod!

# # # #
[h3]Ruler Level System by jasonpepe​[/h3]



Features
Unique Skill System for every empire Ruler(s).
1. Customize their focus
2. Spend their Execution points for campaigns when necessary
3. Leaders are self-learning and will level up over time

Summary
A mod that allows player to customize their Ruler's abilities, which includes:

1. Ruler Foci: A UI which allows players to customize their Ruler's Focus and Categories.

2. Every leader has Execution Points and Idea Points.

• Execution Points: Spend to level up categories and launch Ruler Campaigns.
  
• Idea Points: Used to unlock or skill up focuses.
  
• Rulers can only have up to 15 Execution and 15 Idea points.
  

3. Each Ruler has their Charisma, Affair, and Inspire skill levels.

• Charisma: Determines the speed of gaining Execution Points.
  
• Affair: Determines the progress speed Ruler Campaigns.
  
• Inspire: Determines the speed of gaining Idea Points.
  
• Ruler’s species traits will also effect the base-value of the 3 skills.
  

4. Ruler Campaigns: Short-Term, powerful Campaigns that appear from time to time. More Campaigns can appear with higher Affair skill levels.

5. Over time, Rulers will gain Skill Points (scaled by their Affair skill level). Skill Points can be used to improve Ruler's Charisma, Affair, and Inspire skills. Skill Points can also be converted to Execution & Idea Points.

Inspiration
In my gameplay of Stellaris, the Ruler is the main leader in my mind. Yet I always find a Ruler’s ability to rule a country being a lackster, as they should never appear to be a figurehead.

Putting the mind that I want my Ruler a 6-6-6 one, not 0-0-0 (EU4), a ruler mod is made.

This mod has a lot of history, the very first version was released in 1.5 (Utopia DLC). In pre 2.0 version, the mod still used the classic annoying popup events with randomized options. After 2.0 released, the first rework introduced the Ruler Campaign(s) edicts. Then in 2.6, the first version of Ruler Focus was introduced. The mod also got a complicated and massive rework in version 3.0, with a completely new custom-made UI, and an even more recent one in 3.8 with Ruler Directions getting an overhaul update.



# # # #

If an empire is subjugated and there’s no atmosphere to carry the sound, does it make a sound? No.. I don’t think that’s how the expression goes. Anyway, this mod will do the next best thing, and allow you to keep the leaders of integrated Subjects and pre-FTLs.

# # # #
[h3]Retain Leaders from Integrated Subjects & Pre-FTL Civilizations by corsairmarks​[/h3]


Features

• Have the option to keep (and maybe assimilate) leaders in a variety of situations when gaining control of another empire:
  
• When integrating subjects
  
• When infiltrating or conquering pre-FTLs
  
• When firing the Nanobot Diffuser on a pre-FTL world
  
• Custom story text for different kinds of "Retain Leaders" situations, including integration between regular/hive/machine empires and interactions with homicidal civics
  
• Uses the new "Recruit Leader" functionality added in Stellaris 3.8 "Gemini," with additional background art taken from official Stellaris art
  
• Empires with assimilation available to them (or necrophages) can opt to transform leaders based on the available assimilation type(s)
  
• Updates the "Promising Officer" events (both the standard and the variant during fleet maneuvers) to use the "Recruit Leader" functionality - other built-in Stellaris events similarly enhanced, including expanded story text
  
• Adds special traits for former rulers - including those who lose an election or are otherwise forced out of rulership (includes variants for different empire types and leader classes)
  
• Designed to work with other mods published by corsairmarks, including additional gameplay interactions
  

Summary
Have you ever wondered what happened to the former leaders of your subject after you integrated them? Or perhaps where that pre-FTL leader went after you annexed their planet? Wonder no more! With this mod you will be prompted to choose what to do with the now-unemployed leaders whenever you integrate a subject, conquer a pre-FTL planet, "allow" pre-FTLs to join you via covert infiltration, or convert then via a colossus weapon.

Scientists and Admirals are automatically assigned back to their pre-integration roles, if they were commanding a science ship or fleet. Notably, if you play with "pause-on-event" the science vessels will then continue their assigned orders after the leader is reassigned for command.

Inspiration
I developed this mod over two years ago and it was first published to the Steam workshop in July 2021. Its functionality dovetails nicely with the enhanced focus on fewer, more memorable leaders as part of Stellaris 3.8 "Gemini" update (and Galactic Paragons expansion). Although it's less likely players will be integrating empires (since the Overlord expansion), the flavorful gameplay options still enhance interaction with pre-FTL empires.



# # # #

That’s it for this week! Next week Game Director Eladrin will be back with our first regularly scheduled Dev Diary after the summer!