Stellaris News

by CheerfulGoth

Nothing unites people more than a common enemy.

You know how the story goes: space invaders attack, and the people of the world unite, casting aside their differences to stand together against a shared threat. Together, they defeat the more advanced enemy, who foolishly underestimated the plucky underdogs.

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But what happens after the story ends? The former invaders are still out there, and they won’t be fooled again. An awkward reunion is unavoidable.
I'm CheerfulGoth, a content designer on Stellaris, and this is the story I wanted to tell with Payback.

Payback is the “sibling” of Broken Shackles, two origins united by a common threat: Minamar Specialized Industries, a megacorp that provides pre-FTL enlightenment – for a price. While Broken Shackles focuses more on reconnecting with your past, Payback empires only see one thing in their future: revenge.





The means of achieving that revenge are up to you. Annihilate your enemy? Turn your slavers into your slaves? Or battle them on the floor of the Galactic senate, outlawing their very business model? Even Pacifist empires will have the means to obtain their vendetta without betraying their ideals.

Revenge doesn’t have to be synonymous with violence.
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Don’t be too hasty in your quest for revenge, though. Rest. Take your time to rebuild. The war against MSI left you with a devastated planet... And the remnant of a battleship to be repurposed for your own needs.



Make new allies (Broken Shackles empires might be particularly inclined to help you). Remember: revenge is a dish best served cold. Don’t wait too long, though, because the Minamar Specialized Industries surely won’t let you alone.

You want to make them pay? The feeling is mutual.​

We’re not so different, you and I​

The galaxy of Stellaris is already filled with extra-dimensional invaders, space dragons, and all kinds of unimaginable horrors. With Payback and Broken Shackles, we wanted to pit players against an enemy not so different from themselves. Minamar Specialized industry starts as a developed empire with extra colonies and resources, but otherwise behaves like a normal empire with a well-defined personality. They will make their own alliances, join their Galactic Community, wage their wars... and might even fall before you can get your due.

What will you do when even revenge is stolen from you?​

Many of our narrative Origins present a fixed story. With Payback, we wanted to create a less linear narrative, providing players with multiple tools to accomplish their goal. Sometimes things don’t go as planned, but we believe that’s what will make this origin more interesting and replayable.

We give you an enemy. You tell us how you want to pay them back.


Insights​

Now for the return of PDS_Iggy who desperately wants you to stop invading pre-FTLs.

A common issue that has been brought up in regards to this DLC is “Why shouldn’t I just invade the pre-FTLs the moment I meet them” and I am here to present a counter offer. What if I give you unique techs?

Insight Technologies are gained when you study pre-FTLs without making them aware of you. They are unique paths their society take which you have dismissed as dead ends. This is all tracked through a situation which, once completed, will make a future observation event grant you a new Insight.

We can learn from anything and anyone.​

If you haven’t completed the situation when you get an observation event instead you gain even faster progress to the next Insight.

I am sure it’s nothing.



These Insight technologies are designed to have unique and flavorful effects. So let me share a few with you.

Let’s see how close we can get with our observation station.

A smart hunter lets the environment aid their hunt.

How were the pyramids built? Let's check!​

As you can see these technologies grant you partial Envoys as well as a unique benefit. Therefore, the more you spy and study the pre-FTLs, the more you can do it!

Next week, Alfray Stryke will finally tell you about cloaking, and I might be back to help him explain the new civics!

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Paradox’s grand spacefaring strategy Stellaris is getting its fifth story pack First Contact on March 14th, following on from the previously released Leviathans, Synthetic Dawn, Distant Stars, and Ancient Relics. Story packs are mid-sized expansions that flesh out Stellaris’s universe and this time First Contact is focusing on pre-FTL civilisations, taking a step back from the stars. The expansion was officially revealed back in January after a series of SteamDB leaks outed the project.

Read more

The First Contact Story Pack will release on March 14th for $14.99!

The galaxy is vast and full of wonders, but it’s also full of alien empires you’re going to encounter - whether you’re ready or not. Tell the story of your empire’s early contacts with visitors from the stars, or become a visitor yourself. Will you remain cloaked in shadows, or reveal your presence to those you visit?

Preorder the First Contact Story Pack today!

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Explore three new narrative-led Origins: Band together in Broken Shackles as the survivors of a crashed slaver ship and build a diverse empire with multiple species from across the galaxy. Embark on a quest to find your various homeworlds, as long as you escape the prying eyes of your former captors.



Do not go quietly into the night with the Payback Origin. Your civilization is the result of a civilization that did not invent faster than light travel, but instead was invaded by – and repelled – an invader from the stars. With access to their advanced technology, your empire is now ready to enter the galactic stage and find out just what else is out there.



In Fear of the Dark, a large portion of your population has embraced isolationism and xenophobia, ever since a planet in your solar system suffered an “incident”. Will you ignore their concerns and explore the stars, making “friends” along the way? Or will you appease their isolationism in order to grow your civilization even more powerful?



As you venture out into the stars, you will discover other civilizations that have yet to develop faster than light travel, and are in various stages of development. What stories will these civilizations tell about you when they reach the galactic community? Will your civilization be known as heartless invaders, benign shepherds, or a civilization of all-powerful deities? Will you reveal your presence at all, or choose to remain cloaked in the shadows?



And the feature nobody saw coming! Not just for hiding Observation Posts, equip your military and civilian ships with cloaking devices to allow them to remain undetected, even while traveling through closed or hostile space. Decloak to catch your foes unaware and unprepared, or survey systems in secret. But be sure you keep your scanners up to date and powered, in a galaxy full of possibilities, you never know what may be hidden in plain sight.



Get all this and more with the First Contact Story Pack on March 14th. Preorder now!

by Lloyd Drake-Brockman

Hi, I’m Lloyd Drake-Brockman, Concept artist on the Stellaris team. I worked extensively on the First Contact DLC and I'm excited to share some of the artistic journey that this pack took me and the art team on. Specifically we're going to be discussing the development of MSI, a new, non-player faction with a really interesting visual style. I was involved in designing most of their visual elements. I think we have ended up with a great set of designs that are quite unique in the world of Stellaris. I'm going to take you through some of my design journey working on various elements of this faction.



[h2]MSI Flagship​[/h2]
The flagship was the first element of MSI that I worked on. It was a complicated design challenge and it informed the aesthetics for MSI as a whole. Not only were there quite a few gameplay requirements which restricted the design, it has a unique visual language which gives the player insight into the nature of MSI themselves.

‘Corporate Vaporwave’ was the brief for the ship’s general aesthetic. A combination of bright neon, classical architecture and modern corporate sensibilities.

MSI flagship early sketches by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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The first thing I had to nail down was the overall shape. It had to be imposing, beautiful, mysterious and ruthless. You can see here the sketch on the bottom right pretty much became the design of the finished ship, when viewed from above.

MSI flagship chosen sketch by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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From the top-view I worked out a side view of the design. I was very keen for the ship to involve some sort of central rotating element. This ship would move around quite unlike most of the other ships in the game and I wanted to show that it had some sort of unique drive system.

MSI flagship design development sketches over 3D by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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Happy with these sketches, I mocked the design up in 3D. Here you can see three stages of refining the shapes of the ship. Then it's time to take the concept to final.

MSI flagship final concept by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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Here's the final version of the concept art for the ship. The purpose of this image is to give the 3D and animation teams all the information they need to build the ship in-game. The concept was mostly built in 3D with certain elements such as the gold detailing around the edge of the marble panels added afterwards in Photoshop.

MSI Flagship In-game, modeled and textured by Tim Wiberg​

[h2]MSI Uniform​[/h2]
After the ship the next thing I looked at was the MSI portrait. It was decided early on that we were going to use an existing species from the game and dress them in a unique outfit, therefore the only thing I had to concept was the uniform.

Initial sketches for the MSI uniform by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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I began with some sketches. I chose to sketch the outfits symmetrically, even though all the portraits in Stellaris are angled to the right. This helps me sketch faster and I have to think less about the process of drawing. I knew I wanted some kind of mysterious head-covering but I did not know whether to go down a more mystical, or corporate route. In the end the design for the robes was taken largely from a different piece of art, and the helmet that I sketched above was added to make up the whole uniform.

MSI uniform approved sketch by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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Once this sketch was approved I continued to refine it. We also required male and female variants, so I added another version of the outfit.

MSI uniform final concept by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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This is the point where I handed these concepts over to another artist who finalized the painting and prepared the asset for animation. A lot of work goes into each of these portraits, to bring them to a high standard and ensure that they work properly with all the game’s systems. I couldn't be happier with the final result.

MSI uniform finished portrait by Alec Beals​

[h2]MSI Diplomacy Room​[/h2]
These characters needed somewhere to take their video calls of course, and it was also my job to work on the MSI Diplomacy room. This asset I worked on all the way to its final in-game state.

I imagined that the MSI representatives would be calling from onboard their flagship, but I didn't want to make it too specific in case they were somewhere else. Either way, given the design of their ship and outfit, an over-the-top opulent hall seemed to be fitting. I had a vision in my head of what I wanted the scene to look like. So my initial sketch was extremely rough. Just enough for me to see that it was going to work.

MSI diplomacy room initial sketch by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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From here I went over to 3D and built the whole scene, paying attention to the materials and lights to give the space the feeling of grandeur I was after. I also made sure that the pillars at the top of the room disappeared off the top of the image towards a distant ceiling, making the space feel larger than what you can see. The busts that flank the hall are not playable species - other than the human of course - but they do appear in other places in first contact, which I felt was a fun way to tie some of the elements of the story pack together.

3D development of the MSI diplomacy room by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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From this point it was back over to Photoshop for the final cleanup. As you can see most of the bright reflections on the walls and floor have been painted out. Although they were accurate they ended up being too distracting in the final image.

MSI diplomacy room final image by Lloyd Drake-Brockman​

[h2]Payback Event Image​[/h2]
This is the last piece of art I did that involved MSI. It was great fun to be able to show the ship I had concepted in a scene. Some of you might recognise this as being similar to a shot from the recently released teaser trailer for First Contact. I'm proud to say that this image came first!

The brief I was given for this image asked that we see the MSI Flagship looming over a city in space. There was some confusion as to whether the ship should be out in space or lower over the city. Here are some of my first stabs at the composition.

Payback event image thumbnails by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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We settled on a variant of (A), as we could show the ship in space, but from the perspective of someone on the planet.

For this image I knew I was going to need some buildings. To make them I chose to use a new technique of projecting satellite image textures from real-world-Earth cities onto simple geometry, resulting in some pretty convincing looking buildings

Creating buildings by projecting satellite images onto geometry in 3D by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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As I already had a 3D Model of the MSI flagship, I rendered it with matching lighting and combined all the elements in Photoshop.

3D renders used to build up the final image by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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I had fun creating some alien script to add some life to the signs on the buildings. Most of this can't be seen in the in-game image as it's too small. But I feel it's still necessary to put in so that the final image has the right “feel” to it when it's scaled down. I was very happy with how the ship looks in the finished piece. All the dark areas are obscured by the blue of the sky, just like how you can't see the dark side of the moon when you look at it during the day.

Payback event image by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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Well, that's all the shiny things I have to show today! Thanks for reading, and if you play First Contact I hope you enjoy seeing some of my art in there!