Stellaris News

[previewyoutube]Uncharted Frontiers Video on YouTube[/previewyoutube]

Hello Stellaris Community!

We're here to talk to you today about the Uncharted Frontiers bundle, what this bundle adds to the game, and how to get the most out of the included content. This bundle is only available until November 29th!

The Uncharted Frontiers bundle contains the Ancient Relics Story Pack, Leviathans Story Pack, and the MegaCorp expansion. It adds two and a half blorg’s worth of content to base-game Stellaris -- which is also included in the bundle, get it here!

Already have all this content? Stellaris and selected DLCs are on sale until November 29th. There's never been a better time to pick up the DLC you might be missing. See the full list of discounts here!

[h2]Ancient Relics Story Pack[/h2]

The Ancient Relics story pack adds many relics to discover in your Stellaris galaxy. Relics are ancient, powerful artifacts that provide both a passive buff to your empire, and can be activated for temporary buffs to your empire.

[h3]Relics[/h3]

Relics are generally discovered by excavating archaeological sites or completing precursor event chains. When investigating certain anomalies, your science ship can discover mysteries from the past -- you will need to assign a science ship to excavate these archaeology sites. With a science ship and scientist assigned to an archaeology site, the site will progress and reveal the story of your scientists excavating the site, and what they discover as they’re doing so.

[h3]Precursor Event Chains[/h3]

Ancient Relics also adds two new precursor event chains, the Baol and the Zroni. The Baol were an ancient plantoid hivemind that expanded to control a sizable portion of the galaxy, before being destroyed by an even more powerful species. The Zroni were a psionically gifted race, who discovered how to alter the composition of Shroud itself before a question of morality lead to a vicious civil war that destroyed them. Both of these event chains have powerful relics at their culmination and can alter the course of your empire’s history.

[h3]Minor Artifacts[/h3]

Ancient Relics also helps you complete your precursor event chains with the addition of minor artifacts. Minor artifacts represent obscure technology and half-forgotten lore recovered from archaic civilizations, only partially understood by our own science. They are more common than Relics, and can be spent to enact various empire-wide effects. These effects will allow you to unlock previously unknown technologies, or receive one of several random civilian or military buffs. They also can help you discover more precursor insights, or unlock hidden secrets of your precursor event chain.

[h2]Leviathans Story Pack[/h2]

Moving onto the Leviathans Story Pack, we end up with even more mysteries to discover in the galaxy. From mysterious enclaves, to giant space guardians to a late-game event chain that pits two ancient rivals against each other.

[h3]Enclaves[/h3]

First, lets talk enclaves: Enclaves are unique in Stellaris, they don’t own their space and will build trust with other empires over time. Generally, their trust is financial in nature - doing business with them makes them trust you more. However, you may also gain access to unique starbase buildings and additional trust by owning the system the enclave is in and additional diplomatic options depending on the other things you’ve discovered in the galaxy. The Leviathans Story Pack adds three unique enclaves to Stellaris.

The Curator order, founded eons ago by the powerful empires at the time, the curator’s sacred duty is to preserve and disseminate knowledge to prevent the galaxy from falling into a dark age of extinction and barbarism. For a price, they will assist you with your research, reveal some of the mysteries of the universe, or give you a wise level 5 scientist with the curator trait. Doing business with the Curator order will certainly help your empire gain a technological edge -- or catch up technologically if you’ve fallen behind.

The Artisan Troupe’s members have dedicated their lives to the pursuit of music, art and culture, and all those things that make existence bearable to sapient life throughout the galaxy. They will give you the option to become a patron, which also allows certain patron-only events to trigger, including unlocking a powerful, empire-unique ministry of culture building. You can also commission an art piece, organize a festival on one of your worlds, and potentially found an art college on your starbase, should you own the system that their enclave is in. Dealings with the Artisans are especially beneficial for empires that have naturally low pop happiness, since happiness is directly tied to planetary stability, which is tied to pop production.

Our final enclave included in the Leviathans story pack is the traders. The Trader enclave comes in one of three flavors: Xuracorp, Riggan Commerce Exchange, and the Muutagen Merchant Guild. These enclaves allow access to monthly strategic resources, for a price. If you’ve gained enough trust with them, you may also gain the ability to hire an immortal level-five governor. Contact with the Traders is especially important for those playthroughs where you find yourself playing tall, or if you want earlier access to strategic resources that you wouldn’t otherwise have access to.

[h3]Guardians[/h3]

With the Leviathans Story pack, it's possible to find mysterious and ancient guardians hidden out in the galaxy. Some of these guardians are overtly hostile, such as the ether drake and dimensional horror, while others such as the enigmatic fortress and infinity machine potentially offer long-term benefits and otherwise inaccessible bonuses and technologies for your empire.

[h3]War in Heaven[/h3]

In the late game with leviathans and with two or more fallen empires in your galaxy, its possible for both fallen empires to become ancient rivals. These rivals will attempt to align the empires of the galaxy against the other, and draw a line through the galaxy. You will be given the choice to join one or the other side of this war in heaven -- or should you feel powerful enough, you can - at your own peril - choose to remain independent and attempt to form a coalition of the younger races against these giants in the playground.

[h2]MegaCorp[/h2]

And finally, we come to the MegaCorp expansion! We released a video last week that offers a deep dive into what’s available in MegaCorp.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]MegaCorporations[/h3]

The Corporate authority makes available a different branch of civics to choose for your empire, some of these are corporate-themed regular civics, while others are specifically available to empires that have the Corporate authority. Most of these civics are made available by owning the MegaCorp expansion, while there are some others - like Permanent Employment - that are unlocked by owning MegaCorp plus another expansion.

MegaCorporations can build unique Branch Office buildings on any colonized planet belonging to an empire they have a commercial pact with. The branch office itself will generate 50% of the planet’s trade value in energy production for the Corporation, and new building slots are unlocked based on the capital building tier on the planet in question.

Branch office buildings will generate jobs that are filled by the planet owner’s pops, and will generate resources for both empires in most cases.

MegaCorps also get a unique cassus belli against other Megacorporations, as long as two corporations have branch offices in the same empire they will get the Expel Corporation. Expel Corporation allows you to declare war to expel a rival megacorp’s branch offices from the empire in question.

[h3]Spiritualist MegaChurch[/h3]

This Megacorporation embraces a curious blend of commercial and spiritualistic values, in which the position of ordained minister and corporate officer have merged into a single role. Choosing the gospel of the masses civic with the corporate authority will convert your money-loving corporation into a spiritualist megachurch, which gives the added bonus of increasing spiritualist ethics attraction on planets that you build branch offices on. Every pop on an empire with a branch office with the spiritualist ethic will increase the trade value of the planet by .33.

Additionally, Corporations with the Gospel of the Masses civic can build a special holding on their vassels - the temple of prosperity - which adds two Prosperity Preacher jobs to the planet, as well as increases Spiritualist Ethics attraction by +50%.

[h3]Criminal Syndicate[/h3]

This megacorporation can trace its origins back to a crime syndicate that eventually grew powerful enough to supplant all forms of local government. Choosing the Criminal Heritage Civic with the Corporate authority is definitely the spiciest of the three types of megacorporation.

Unlike MegaCorps or MegaChurches, Criminal Syndicates do not require Commerical Pacts in order to open branch offices as long as they’re not at war or have a truce with the planet’s owner. Additionally, their branch offices become more valuable when there is more crime there is, and their branch office buildings will generally increase the amount of crime on the planet they’re built on.

Criminal Syndicates gain access to a new set of Branch Office buildings, that definitely have a unique criminal flavor. Criminal Syndicates also gain 20% infiltration speed and +1 codebreaking.

But wait.. There’s more! In addition to playable MegaCorporations, MegaCorp also includes 3 new megastructures, a new planet type, roving trade caravans, and new ascension perks!

[h3]New Megastructures[/h3]

The Mega Art Installation is an artistic beacon on a stellar scale, this installation inspires and represents the spirit of its creators. The mega art installation is a three-stage megastructure (four, if you have the Ancient Relics story pack) and requires the Mega-Engineering Technology, and generates vast sums of unity and extra planetary amenities for your empire, which increases with every stage. These bonuses make the Mega Art Installation a great culmination to a unity run, or a great way to catch up if you’ve fallen behind on traditions and ascension perks.

The Strategic Coordination Center is a facility for synchronizing the national Starbase network, augmenting defensive and offensive capabilities. The Strategic Coordination Center is a three stage megastructure and requires the Mega-Engineering Technology as well. Each stage produces naval capacity, starbase capacity, allows starbases to support more defensive platforms, and gives a subspace speed boost. This is a great megastructure for those late game wars or for an extra fleet capacity boost to defeat an extragalactic crisis that may or may not come knocking on your galaxy.

The final megastructure added in MegaCorp is the Matter Decompressor. The Matter Decompressor is a four-stage megastructure and requires Mega-Engineering, having built or repaired another megastructure, and the Galactic Wonders ascension perk. This megastructure, when constructed, will decompress the matter from a black hole and convert it into minerals for your empire, with each stage producing an increasing amount of minerals.

What could you need this many minerals for you ask? Well, that brings us to our next feature included in MegaCorp: the Ecumenopolis.

[h3]New Planet Type[/h3]

An ecumenopolis is a city that has grown so large that it encompasses the entire planet. Construction of an ecumenopolis requires anti-gravity engineering technology, as well as the Arcology Project ascension perk. Ecumenopolis give massive bonuses to habitability, resource production, pop growth speed and additional resettlement chance. Additionally, they start with all building slots unlocked, and all normal planetary features are removed.

But that’s not all, Ecumenopolis also gain access to a special set of arcology districts, that provide more housing and jobs than regular districts, allowing you to build taller than ever before in Stellaris.

[h3]Caravaneers[/h3]

What economy-focused expansion would be complete without roaming trade caravans? Enter, the Caravaneers. The Caravaneers, based out of a system called Chor’s Compass, are roaming trade caravans that will travel to each empire in the galaxy. Upon entering their borders, the caravaneers will offer a rare and unique trade, some of these are extremely valuable and grant access to powerful planetary decisions, technologies, components and more. Caravaneers are traders, however, so don’t expect to get by just paying with energy credits, as some of their prices are extremely… creative.

Chor’s Compass, the Caravaneer’s home system, doubles as a casino. There you can buy some of their currency -- CaravanCoinz. Caravan Coinz can be used to play the slots for a chance at winning big on resources or planetary modifiers. Or you can choose to spend your caravan coinz, and build a sense of pride and accomplishment by opening a reliquary.

Reliquaries have a slightly better chance of granting resources, research or planetary modifiers, and are also the only way to gain access to the GALATRON.

[h3]Ascension Perks[/h3]

MegaCorp allows access to up to 4 new ascension perks.

• The Arcology project, which allows building an ecumenopolis.
  
• Galactic Wonders, which allows the construction of a Matter Decompressor -- Galactic Wonders is also unlocked by the Utopia expansion, but has different effects depending on whether MegaCorp or Utopia or both are active.
  
• The Universal Transactions Ascension Perk reduces the cost of constructing branch offices on planets, as well as removes the influence cost from commercial pacts -- a must pick for those MegaCorporations looking after their bottom line -- which… should be all of them?
  
• The final ascension perk unlocked with MegaCorp is xeno compatibility. This ascension perk will allow your species to reproduce with other species you find out in the galaxy. It also grants +20% pop growth speed, if the planet has two or more species on it, +33% immigration pull, and allows the creation of hybrid species.
  

Hybrid species will choose a portrait at random from the two parent species, as well as a mix of traits from both species. Additionally, hybrid species get +1 trait point and +1 trait pick. Species are also more likely to create a hybrid if they’re from the same species phenotype.

If you like the sound of all this, pick up the Uncharted Frontiers bundle today on Steam, and check the Stellaris store page for the full list of discounts!

written by Iggy

Greetings, ghouls and ghasts! Chief Reanimator Iggy here to report the most recent innovation in the field of necromancy. With the 3.6 update, we will bring you the Cordyceptic Drones civic! These delightful fungi will allow you to dominate the galaxy with zombie space fauna, as this is the third Reanimation civic! I know many of you have been enjoying this on the Beta, but if you give me a moment, I will have something new to show you!

[h2]Cordyceptic Drones[/h2]

If you have been following how I made Permanent Employment, you would know that I want all these different reanimation civics to have access to the Leviathan Reanimation feature while still having unique gameplay. Cordyceptics follow this trend giving hives a much more biological reanimation method.

Also including the new Hivemind Government Type Parasitic Overmind!

The civic can be incredibly powerful based on the space fauna you encounter. If you find Tiyana Vek early game, then you are in for a fun game while you have to restructure your entire economy to produce enough food to keep your dread fleet flying. Yet that is not all! Cordyceptic Empires are masters of all things biological, so your Amoeba Flagella will now be a force to be reckoned with in the early game. And if you happen to get the Prethoryn as your crisis, you might be able to use those missiles better than the Prethoryn themselves!

Now, who would want to start with some boring old Corvettes?

As a final little flavor feature for you, I present you with the Cordyceptic Reanimation Facility, capable of resurrecting space fauna continuously for a food upkeep! However, it requires that you find systems rich in organic life.

A new Tiyanki fleet is ready to be deployed!

[h2]The Other Thing[/h2]

Back when Eladrin and I first introduced Reanimatable Leviathans for 3.1 “Lem” there was one piece of feedback we kept hearing internally. Will the Leviathans look like Zombies? While we couldn't deliver it back then. After much finagling, bartering, and pledging my soul to our Art Director, we are here to bring you Reanimated Leviathans as you have never seen them before.

Someone call in the Fire Department ‘cos it’s SMOKING in here!

This collaboration required the cooperation of each discipline within our art team, with beautiful concept art, new shaders, and breathtaking VFX!



[h2]What is Next for Reanimators?[/h2]

Machines will repurpose dead organic matter.

Eventually…

Now go out and raise some dead!

written by Eladrin and Mr Cosmogone

Hello everyone!

It’s been a busy few weeks here on the Stellaris team, and I wanted to thank the community for helping us out so much with the 3.6 Orion Open Beta.

There was significantly more activity than anticipated - during the month of October, over 100,000 players took part in the Orion Open Beta branch - and the volume of feedback we received was incredible. The 3.6 update should be much better thanks to your involvement.

We have a few more fixes that we’d like to get into the update (such as vassals colonizing Holy Worlds), after which it’ll go through the final testing, localization, and release process. As mentioned last week, we’ll be keeping the Open Beta branch available until the live release of 3.6 Orion so you can continue your games.

I’ll now pass you over to Mr.Cosmogone, who will provide a bit of enlightenment about one of the features that has been in the Open Beta, but hasn’t gotten a proper dev diary thus far. (Now, with non-placeholder art!)

[h2]Raising Spirits[/h2]

Peace be upon you, children,

Mr.Cosmogone here, to tell you about the upcoming Spiritualist Federation. I had the chance to collaborate on this with the famous Caligula who had long yearned for a way to share his spiritual convictions with his allies.

Some of you may have already had a chance to play this as part of the ongoing Open Beta, they might not find anything new here, but for the rest of the faithfuls, let me introduce to the Holy Covenant:



Spiritualist empires will find this new federation type to be quite aligned with their gamestyle, as it will provide them with a range of bonuses about unity, priests and the spiritualist faction.



Their level two perks will help lay strong foundations for your church:



While the third level will help you on your way towards ascension:



At the fourth level, priests will start appearing left and right to carry the good word.



The fifth and last level of the federation will be a consecration for its members:



Like all federation types, the Holy Covenant comes with a unique succession challenge, the conclave, where the most pious are assured to be rewarded. Or perhaps the most generous. Money is the root of all sins after all, so you might as well give it away.

That’s it from me this week, and remember if you want to play all the cool things we’ve talked about over the last few weeks, go play the beta!

[h3]To opt-in to the Open Beta branch, right-click Stellaris, click Properties, Beta tabs, and choose “Stellaris_test” from the drop down.[/h3]

We're happy to announce that we've updated the 3.6 Open Beta again today. As mentioned in the original announcement, the Open Beta was originally supposed to run until the end of October, however due to the unexpectedly high number of players who have participated, we’re going to leave the Open Beta branch available until the official release of 3.6 ‘Orion’. We will continue to monitor the feedback you provide, but due to how close this is to the release, changes made from feedback this late will not be in the release of 3.6 ‘Orion’.

We’d like to thank all of those that have taken the time to try out the changes and given their feedback.

Thus, below are the patch notes for this week’s update to the Open Beta.

Further updates to the Stellaris 3.6.0 ‘Orion’ open beta
[expand]
Balance

• Explicitly prevented various scripted solar systems from spawning inside Marauder territory. These include Amor Alveo, Wenkwort, the Caravaneer capital, and Lost Colony origin systems.
  
• Integrated Preservation for Machine Intelligences now affects Evaluators (and Chronicle Drones) not Coordinators.
  
• Martial Law, Hunter Killer Drones and Compliance Drones planet modifiers now provide penalties to both mechanical and organic pop assembly.
  
• Moved the repeatable technologies for strike craft into Society - Military Theory.
  
• Rebalanced synchronicity traditions to match with the changes to harmony traditions.
  
• Larger Unbidden ships and structures now have a point defense solution. Bzzt.
  

Beta Updates

• Pacifist Xenophobe empires are no longer ambivalent about attacks on the Caravaneers
  
• Fix for terraforming candidates that shown when tech is missing.
  
• The Energy Siphon is now a space fauna weapon
  
• Fixed a number of tooltips not showing for hive-mind cybernetic ascension
  
• Fixed the tooltip for Adaptability for Void Dwellers.
  
• Modular Cybernetics adds Augmentation Drones to Spawning Pools for hive-minds. Augmentation Drones turn alloys into pop assembly for cybernetic hive-mind pops.
  
• Modular Cybernetics no longer gives hive-minds +10% pop assembly.
  
• Ringworld colony designations and ecumenopolis planet class now provide both mechanical and organic pop assembly.
  
• Updated a number of stern sections to have the correct number of aux slots for offspring ships.
  
• Added the Parasitic Overmind Goverment type
  
• Added checks for corporate civics for shroud patrons
  
• Added missing pop growth and assembly modifiers to unity designations for ringworlds.
  
• Added missing tiyanki pop assembly for hive minds.
  
• Fixed most of the machine intelligence authority text having highlights.
  
• Updated Integrated Anatomy tooltip.
  
• Balanced numbers for the instrument of Desire.
  
• Fixed that the Cordyceptic Reanimation Facility wasn't buildable inside Amor Alveo.
  
• Changed ethics attraction for the Composer and the Whisperer.
  
• Knight jobs now give amenities instead of stability as reward from a quest. The Order's Keep now give 15 stability as a reward from that quest
  
• Players now have a wider choice of leaders to become chosen through their covenant.
  
• Players should no longer be able to form covenants with all the entities if they refuse the first covenant.
  
• Shroud cooldown modifiers should now appear as percentage without need for unique loc.
  
• The Whisperers stability penalty has been reduced. It now comes with a reduction in Unity.
  
• The Whisperers will no longer kill up to 8 (!) pops on a planet.
  

Bugfixes

• It is no longer possible to engage the Marauders or Horde in multiple dialogs
  
• Lead ships should no longer run into the enemy disregarding their combat computer
  
• Tooltip for opinion decay rate now shows two decimal places
  
• Reunited the 'Code Changes' and 'Incompatible Code' modifiers with their icons
  
• Fix for when becoming a vassal resets all Policies and Species rights to Default.
  
• Reimplemented the localisation for the Trader Proxy Office.
  
• Marauder clans may no longer spawn in systems which are adjacent to player empires.
  
• Fixed AI's difficulty-adjusted economic modifiers, plus certain misevaluations of modifier benefits in its economic strategy
  
• Pop Assembly modifiers now have decimal places.
  
• Shroud Chosen Leaders will no longer lose their chosen trait on becoming rulers
  

Improvements

• The Epi-Genetic Triggers technology and Genetic Resequencing tradition now both allow the removal of pre-sapient traits from species via species modification. The Servile trait from the Syncretic Evolution origin and traits bestowed by the Enigmatic Cache count as pre-sapient traits for this.
  
• Renamed 'Planetary Government' and 'Planetary Unification' for gestalts
  

Modding

• Fixed show_in_outliner in megastructures not actually working
  
• Moved most pop upkeep and resource production to inline script.
  
• Removed pop_assembly_speed modifier. You should use planet_pop_assembly_(organic_)mult instead. The sole difference previously was the former only worked in species traits (the untriggered sections) and the latter worked everywhere else (but not species triats). The error log didn't warn you of this, either. So now the latter works everywhere and the former no longer exists.
  

[/expand]

Once again, by the time this dev diary goes live, the Open Beta should be updated with the above changes. This is likely going to be final update to the beta branch.

Due to the Open Beta update, this dev diary replaces our normally scheduled dev diary that would have gone out on Thursday. We'll have more news next week.

[h3]Please note that the 3.6 "Orion" Open Beta is an optional beta patch. You have to manually opt in to access it.

Go to your Steam library, right click on Stellaris -> Properties -> betas tab -> select "stellaris_test" branch.[/h3]

Don't forget to turn off your mods, they will break.

written by Alfray_Stryke

Good Afternoon, I’m taking over Dev Diary duties this week as Eladrin is away!

We’ve been continuing to work on the 3.6 ‘Orion’ patch, and hope to have another update for the Open Beta out next week. The feedback we’ve received has been immensely useful and I cannot thank those that have been providing it enough!

Here is a preview of some of the new UI art our artists have been working on for the new features and additions coming in 3.6 ‘Orion’ and a small selection of some of the changes we’re planning to get into the Open Beta for the next update following the feedback both on the forums and our discord.

Work in Progress UI Art for new Resolutions, Traits, and Ship Components.

Work in Progress UI Art for the Holy Covenant Federation

"Preview for planned changes to the Stellaris 3.6.0 ‘Orion’ open beta"
[expand]
Modular Cybernetics no longer gives hive-minds +10% pop assembly, instead their Spawning Pools now gain Augmentation Drone jobs, which turn alloys into Cyborg Pop Assembly.
The Integrated Preservation tradition for Machine Intelligences now affects Evaluators (and Chronicle Drones) not Coordinators.
The Whisperers in the Void stability penalty has been reduced, but now imposes a small reduction in Unity production.
Larger Unbidden ships and structures now have an Arc Defense Field to vaporize attacking strike craft and missiles.
[/expand]

Please note that the 3.6 "Orion" Open Beta is an optional beta patch. You have to manually opt in to access it.

Go to your Steam library, right click on Stellaris -> Properties -> betas tab -> select "stellaris_test" branch.

[h3]Don't forget to turn off your mods, they will break.[/h3]