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written by Alfray_Stryke

WARNING: This is a long dev diary, grab a coffee and enjoy!

Hello, it’s Alfray Stryke again! Some folks might recall that back in DD#257 that we went over some of our plans for summer experiments. In particular, I planned to look at what could be done with tradition trees and gating them behind various requirements.

Traditions
With the flexibility in how empires can choose traditions that we introduced in 3.1 "Lem", Alfray Stryke is planning some experiments looking at introducing new tradition trees.

These are looking at how gating tradition trees behind various triggers might influence the game. There have been some ideas suggested about introducing tradition trees that are locked behind ascension perks or origins, and we're interested to see where these may lead.

Now what wasn’t mentioned is that I’ve been wanting to rework how the Ascension Paths from Utopia have worked for quite some time, with the original design framework written during Summer 2021, and this seemed like a good opportunity.

For those of you who attended PDXCON, Eladrin and I gave a presentation previewing our summer experiments which some members of our community were kind enough to share.

It turned out that these experiments proved successful internally and we’ll be moving to test them in the 3.6 “Orion” Open Beta. As a note, due to the length of this dev diary, I’ll be splitting sections into spoiler tags to make it slightly easier to read. Note that the numbers and effects of these changes may still change depending on testing results.

I’ll start by summarizing the current state of the Ascension Paths in 3.5:


Ascension Paths Summary (Live)
[expand]
Psionics

• Only available to regular empires.
  
• Requires Utopia
  
• Two routes:
  
• Mind over Matter AP followed by the Transcendence AP.
  
• Teachers of the Shroud origin followed by the Transcendence AP.
  

Genetics

• Available to regular empires and hive-minds.
  
• Requires Utopia
  
• Engineered Evolution AP and Evolutionary Mastery AP.
  

Synthetic Evolution

• Only available to regular empires.
  
• Requires Utopia
  
• Flesh is Weak AP and Synthetic Evolution AP.
  

Synthetic Age

• Only available to machine intelligences.
  
• Requires Synthetic Dawn
  

Synthetic Age AP.

• This isn’t really an ascension path, but I’m including it for completion’s sake.
  

[/expand]

So we (sort of) have between three to five ascension paths depending on how you look at things (mostly if you consider being cyborgs to be on the route to becoming synthetic or a separate thing). These have now been reworked so instead of an Ascension Path having a structure of two Ascension Perks which require various technologies or special projects, they each have an Ascension Perk which gives a guaranteed research option upon selection and grants access to the Ascension Path in the form of a tradition tree. Thus, under the rework we have the following:

Ascension Paths Rework Summary
[expand]

Psionic Ascension

• Only available to regular empires.
  
• Requires Utopia
  
• Mind over Matter AP OR Teachers of the Shroud origin.
  
• Psionic Traditions.
  

Genetic Ascension

• Available to regular empires and hive-minds.
  
• Requires Utopia
  
• Engineered Evolution AP
  
• Genetic Traditions
  

Cybernetic Ascension

• Available to regular empires, hive-minds and driven assimilators.
  
• Requires Utopia
  
• The Flesh is Weak AP (regular empires) OR Organo-Machine Interfacing AP (hive-minds) OR assimilate 30 pops (driven assimilators).
  
• Cybernetic Traditions
  

Synthetic Ascension

• Available to regular empires and machine intelligences.
  
• Requires Utopia for regular empires
  
• Requires Synthetic Dawn for machine intelligences
  
• Synthetic Evolution AP OR Synthetic Age AP.
  
• Synthetic Traditions
  

[/expand]

Each of these tradition trees has incorporated all of the benefits of the previous Ascension Paths, with some new goodies added for those that we felt needed them. Due to how traditions within the trees are unlocked we’ve found that this leads to a more gradual route through the paths instead of saving up Ascension Perk slots and then taking an entire path while the game is paused!

As expected, all values and art shown here are not final, things can and most likely will shift about during testing.



With all that preamble out of the way, let’s dive into the Psionic Ascension Path.

And thus by the commutative property of multiplication, Mind over Energy

We shall unlock the power within the [Root.GetSpeciesAdj] mind.

Psionic Ascension Flow Chart
[expand]
[expan]

Flow charts, now in purple
[/expand]

To access this tradition tree we either need to take the Mind Over Matter AP or have the Teachers of the Shroud origin (from Overlord) and have researched Psionic Theory.

[h3]What’s remained from the previous version?[/h3]

• Mind over Matter still grants Telepathy as a Research Option, requires Psionic Theory and can’t be taken as your first Ascension Perk.
  
• For Teachers of the Shroud empires, the path is still partially unlocked at the start of the game and to progress requires the Psionic Theory technology.
  

[h3]What’s changed?[/h3]

• Mind over Matter has had the bulk of its boons either moved to the opener (the Latent Psionic trait) or the Psi-Corps tradition.
  
• Transcendence has had its boons shared between the three remaining traditions.
  
• The +5%/+10% Energy from jobs provided by the Latent Psionic and Psionic traits have been replaced with +5%/+10% Unity from jobs as this was more in-line with the desired focus for Psionic and particularly Spiritualist empires.
  
• Telepaths previously provided a planet-wide +5% Resources from Pops modifier, this has been replaced with a +5% Resources from Psionic Pops so that non-Psionic pops in your empire no longer have their performance improved by the presence of Telepaths. However, this modifier increases to +10% when the Breach the Shroud tradition is taken, meaning that the two Telepath jobs from a Psi-Corp building will provide +20% to the resource output of the planet if all pops working are Psionic. So although a Psionic empire may have fewer pops than the other Ascension Paths, those pops should be more efficient.
  

[h3]What’s new?[/h3]

• Thought Enforcement is now a guaranteed research option, with the Psi-Corp tradition.
  
• The Mind Readers tradition grants a new empire edict, Sight Beyond Sight. This provides some rather nice bonuses as your navy’s navigators are supplied with an abundance of Zro.:
  
• +1 Sensor range
  
• -15% Hyper Drive Charge Time
  
• -15% Hyper Drive Cooldown
  
• -15% Jump Drive Cooldown
  
• +15% Quantum Catapult Accuracy.
  
• The finisher for the tradition tree grants 50 edict fund and more importantly a Special Project that when completed will allow you to form a Covenant with a random Shroud Entity.
  

In comparison, the Genetic Tradition tree is slightly simpler as the traditions themselves aren’t locked behind special projects. This is because to get the most use out of it, you’ll likely be doing a fair few special projects to modify species.


Sometimes a guiding hand is needed

What if we could obtain genetic perfection?

Genetic Ascension Flow Chart
[expand]


Reprogram your genetic code

[/expand]

[h3]What’s changed?[/h3]

The boons from Engineered Evolution and Evolutionary Mastery have been arranged to follow a logical progression through the tradition tree, with you gradually unlocking more and more advanced species modifications.

[h3]What’s new?[/h3]

• Efficient Cloning doubles the output of Clone Vats without increasing their upkeep, which should make them somewhat more competitive with empires that favour a more metallic path.
  
• Enhanced Expression allows you to add another trait pick on your modified species, meaning you can cram more traits onto a species.
  
• Completing Genetic traditions allows you to research special Transgenesis technologies. These technologies allow you to add Lithoid traits to non-Lithoids, Plantoid traits to non-Plantoids/Fungoids, and if you’ve harvested the DNA from certain Leviathans, you can splice some rather special traits into your species’ genetic code. The Leviathan traits available are:
  
• Drake-Scaled (Ether Drake, Shard, Sky Dragon)
  
• This trait requires that the player has harvested the genetic material from a space dragon (Ether Drake, Shard, or Sky Dragon). This is presented as an event option when the leviathan is slain.
  
• Cost: 3
  
• Each pop produces 0.025 monthly Alloys.
  
• +50% Army Health
  
• Mutually exclusive with other resource generating traits.
  
• Voidling (Voidspawn)
  
• Cost: 3
  
• This trait requires that the player has harvested the genetic material from the Voidspawn. This is presented as an event option when the leviathan is slain.
  
• Replaces all Food or Mineral upkeep with Energy Upkeep.
  
• Habitability Floor on all planets of 50%.
  
• Mutually exclusive with Phototrophic, Radiotrophic traits.
  
• Polymelic (Tiyanki Matriarch)
  
• Cost: 3
  
• This trait requires that the player has harvested the genetic material from the Tiyanki Matriarch. This is presented as an event option when the leviathan is slain.
  
• As budding but 0.05 assembly per pop.
  
• We’ve also added a few new Advanced traits that are unlocked by Genetic Creation to cover some missing bases.
  
• Vat-Grown
  
• Cost: 3
  
• -25% Pop Growth Speed
  
• +25% Pop Assembly Speed
  
• -10% Housing Usage
  
• Felsic
  
• Requires Lithoid
  
• Cost: 2
  
• Minerals from Livestock and Processing: +2
  
• Natural Machinist
  
• Cost: 2
  
• +10% Alloys from Jobs
  
• +10% Consumer Goods from Jobs
  
• 
  

Now onto Cybernetic and Synthetic Ascension. To start with, we’ve split the Synthetic path into the two paths because it felt like a better fit to be able to wholly devote your empire into embracing cybernetics without going down the mind-uploading route.

Cybernetic ascension is no longer unlocked via the robotics line of technologies, instead there are new technologies to represent basic cybernetic upgrades that your population has access to. This comes with a change to the Powered Exo-Skeletons technology as well.

Powered Exo-Skeletons Technologies/Improved Servomotors
Tier 1, Engineering - Industry
+5% Army Damage
+5% Worker/Menial Drone Output

Integrated Cybernetics/Adaptive Cybernetics
Requires: Powered Exo-Skeletons Technologies/Improved Servomotors
Tier 2, Engineering - Industry
+5% Habitability

Neuro-Quantum Links
Requires: Integrated Cybernetics Technologies
Tier 3, Physics - Computing
+5% Specialist/Complex Drone Output
This technology is not available to driven assimilators

Since Cybernetic ascension is now available to Hive-Minds and Driven Assimilators, they too get access to The Flesh is Weak, albeit with a changed name and description.

The Flesh is Weak/Organo-Machine Interfacing Ascension Perk
Available to regular empires, hive-minds and driven assimilators

• Regular Empires and Hive-Minds:
  
• Requires Integrated Cybernetics Technology
  
• Driven Assimilators:
  
• Requires: Have assimilated 30 pops.
  
• Regular Empires and Hive-Minds:
  
• Gain Neuro-Quantum Links research option
  
• Driven Assimilators:
  
• Gain Adaptive Cybernetics research option
  
• Allows taking Cybernetic Traditions.
  

Because Cybernetic traditions are available to multiple empire types, there’s a number of tradition swaps used here to ensure they each get something different.


But the machine is strong

Our future lies in the fusion of flesh and machine.

Cybernetic Ascension Flow Chart
[expand]

So many tradition swaps!
[/expand]

Regular Cybernetic Traditions
[expand]
Opener
Gain access to The Flesh is Weak Special Project

• Tradition 1: Transubstantiation Synthesis
  
• Requires that The Flesh is Weak Special Project has been completed.
  
• Can assimilate organic species to Cyborgs (Including into/out of Hive-Minds).
  
• Tradition 1: Organ Harvesting (Swap for Fanatic Purifiers)
  
• Requires that The Flesh is Weak Special Project has been completed.
  
• Planets with ongoing purges gain +10% pop growth speed.
  
• Tradition 2: Metabolic Reprocessing
  
• -10% Cyborg Upkeep
  
• Tradition 3: Integrated Anatomy
  
• Allows add/remove cyborg traits (based off of robot traits) to cyborgs
  
• Tradition 4: Assembly Standards
  
• Unlocks Assembly Standards policy, allowing roboticists to assemble cyborgs instead of robots.
  
• Tradition 5: Modular Cybernetics
  
• -50% Modify Species special project cost
  
• +1 Biological Trait Picks
  
• 
  

Finisher:
+10% cyborg output
+1 Biological Trait Picks
[/expand]

Hive-Mind Cybernetic Traditions
[expand]

Opener
Gain access to The Flesh is Weak Special Project

• Tradition 1: Transubstantiation Synthesis
  
• Requires that The Flesh is Weak Special Project has been completed.
  
• Can assimilate organic species to Cyborgs (Including into/out of Hive-Minds).
  
• Tradition 1: Organ Harvesting (Swap for Devouring Swarms/Terravores)
  
• Requires that The Flesh is Weak Special Project has been completed.
  
• Planets with ongoing purges gain +10% pop growth speed.
  
• Tradition 2: Metabolic Reprocessing
  
• -10% Cyborg Upkeep
  
• -10% Empire Size from Cyborgs
  
• Tradition 3: Integrated Anatomy
  
• Allows add/remove cyborg traits (based off of robot traits) to cyborgs
  
• Tradition 4: Synaptic Sub-Processing
  
• -50% empire size from districts.
  
• Tradition 5: Modular Cybernetics
  
• -50% Modify Species special project cost
  
• +1 Biological Trait Picks
  

Finisher:
+10% cyborg output
+1 Biological Trait Picks
[/expand]

Driven Assimilator Cybernetic Traditions
[expand]
Opener
Assimilating Organic Pops now provides Engineering Research,
All resources provided from Assimilation are increased..

• Tradition 1: Inevitable Assimilation
  
• Can now assimilate Hive-Minded pops.
  
• +1 Pop assimilated (per planet, per year).
  
• Tradition 2: Metabolic Reprocessing
  
• -10% Cyborg Upkeep
  
• -10% Empire Size from Cyborgs
  
• Tradition 3: Integrated Anatomy
  
• Allows add/remove cyborg traits (based off of robot traits) to cyborgs
  
• Tradition 4: Crucible Worlds
  
• Gain access to the special Crucible World planetary designation.
  
• Crucible Worlds have greatly increased pop growth, provided by Crucible Drones, but have penalties to pop upkeep and output and have restrictions on certain buildings.
  
• Tradition 5: Modular Cybernetics
  
• -50% Modify Species special project cost
  
• +1 Biological Trait Picks
  

Finisher:
+10% cyborg output
+1 Biological Trait Picks
[/expand]

To expand upon Cybernetic Ascension, we have added Cybernetic Traits that are only available to Cybernetic pops, after taking the Integrated Anatomy tradition. These traits make use of normal biological trait point and pick limits, but are not blocked by any biological traits. The traits available to cyborgs are based off of the traits available to robotic species, however they are slightly cheaper in terms of trait points while giving the pops a small amount of energy upkeep. These traits are as follows:

Cybernetic Traits
[expand]

Positive traits

These all increase pop upkeep by 0.5 energy/month.

• Power Drills, Cost 1, +15% minerals from jobs
  
• Harvesters, Cost 1, +15% food from jobs
  
• Superconductive, Cost 1, +15% energy from jobs
  
• Efficient Processors, Cost 2, +5% resources from jobs
  
• Logic Engines, Cost 1, +10% research from jobs
  
• Loyalty Circuits, Cost 1, +10% happiness
  
• Double-Jointed, Cost 1, -10% pop housing usage, +15% pop growth from immigration, -25% resettlement cost
  
• Enhanced Memory, Cost 1, +2 leader level cap,
  
• Durable, Cost 1, pop amenities usage -0.5
  
• Learning Algorithms, Cost 1, +25% leader experience, +1 leader level cap
  
• Streamlined Protocols, Cost 1, -10% empire size from pops
  
• Trading Algorithms, Cost 1, +25% trade value from jobs.
  

Negative traits

• Bulky, Cost -2, +10% pop housing usage, -15% pop growth from immigration, +25% resettlement cost
  
• High Maintenance, Cost -2, pop amenities usage +0.5
  
• Power Intensive, Cost -1, increases pop upkeep by 1 energy/month.
  
• Neural Limiters, Cost -2, -25% leader experience, -1 leader level cap
  
• High Bandwidth, Cost -2, +10% empire size from pops
  

[/expand]

Additionally, the Trading Algorithms trait is available to both robots and cyborgs.

[h3]Onto the path of the machine…[/h3]

The first thing with this that I want to address is comparing the Synthetic Age AP with the options available to regular empires was rather damning. Only +2 trait points and -33% species modification cost left a lot to be desired for any machine intelligence. Thus one of the first things I wanted to do with this was make the Synthetic path available to machine intelligences. The APs required to access this tradition tree are

Synthetic Evolution Ascension Perk
Available to regular empires

• Requires: Droids Technology
  
• Gain Synthetics as a research option
  
• Allows taking Synthetic Traditions.
  

Synthetic Age Ascension Perk
Available to machine intelligences

• Requires: Machine Template System Technology
  
• Gain Binary Motivators as a research option
  
• Allows taking Synthetic Traditions.
  

We're all just cogs in the machine

It is the dawn of a Synthetic Age.

Synthetic Ascension Flow Chart
[expand]

A synthetic dawn approaches
[/expand]

Regular Synthetic Traditions
[expand]

Opener
Allows recruitment of robotic leaders

• Tradition 1: Maintenance Protocols
  
• −10% Robot Amenities Usage
  
• Tradition 2: Optimization Algorithms
  
• +10% Robot Output
  
• Tradition 3: Synthetic Age
  
• Requires the Synthetics technology to be researched
  
• For Non-Purifiers:
  
• Grants the Synthetic Evolution Special Project
  
• Can assimilate organic, robotic and machine species to Synths (after completing the special project).
  
• For Fanatic Purifiers:
  
• +10% Robot Assembly Speed
  
• Tradition 4: Prefabricated Components
  
• -50% Modify Species special project cost
  
• Tradition 5: Solid-State Actuators
  
• +2 Robot Modification Points
  

Finisher:
+1 Trait Pick for Robots.
+1 Roboticist job added to capital building
[/expand]

Machine Synthetic Traditions
[expand]

Opener
Can assimilate robot and machine species into your primary machine species.

• Tradition 1: Maintenance Protocols
  
• −10% Machine Amenities Usage
  
• Tradition 2: Optimization Algorithms
  
• +10% Machine Output
  
• Tradition 3: Efficient Power Systems
  
• +1 Trait pick for Machines
  
• Tradition 4: Prefabricated Components
  
• -50% Modify Species special project cost
  
• Tradition 5: Solid-State Actuators
  
• +2 Machine Modification Points
  

Finisher:
Machine leaders gain the Synthetic trait.
+1 Replicator jobs added to capital building
[/expand]

Some of the changes we’ve made here could be considered fairly spicy as we’ve reduced the sheer amount of robot assembly that you could gain by no longer scaling the number of roboticists by the tier of the capital building. Though, of the changes we’ve made, the ability to convert all species (including other empires’ robots) into your synths is one of my favorites.

Another change we made alongside this rework was that the Mechanists origin has lost their -5% robot upkeep modifier in exchange for +15% robot build speed, +1 robot trait pick and having the Machine Template System technology available as a research option from the start of the game.

That's it for this week! Be sure to join us Monday, October 10th, on twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive at 3 PM CEST (UTC + 2) where Game Director Eladrin will be showing off the Combat Rebalance live on Stream!

written by CheerfulGoth and Caligula Caesar

Hello there!

I’m CheerfulGoth, a content designer on Stellaris, and today I’m excited to share the design process behind the Tiyanki Grave Mound that was added in the Fornax patch!

[h2]Concept and Planning[/h2]
To allow new content designers to familiarize themselves with all aspects of the game, they are usually assigned some onboarding tasks. The Tiyanki Graveyard was a combination of two such tasks: designing a unique solar system with new ships on patrol, and creating an arc site.

Stellaris already includes a massive amount of content, and one of the hardest things as a new content designer is to avoid retelling stories. I decided to focus on space critters, because they have relatively few events associated with them, and most of these haven’t been touched in years. We already have a system where Tiyanki are born, so why not show where they die?

Something that struck me while rereading all our Tiyanki-related content was that killing them allows you to research the Regenerative Hull Tissue, but their superior healing abilities don’t have any narrative impact. This gave me the idea of a sort of ‘elephant graveyard’ full of wriggling corpses that don’t stop growing even if they’re dead.

After getting the main concept approved, it was time to build the event chain. The onboarding tasks required me to create new ship types, so I decided to make some static Tiyanki gravekeepers protecting the arc site. I knew some players would never hurt a Tiyanki, though, and I wanted to keep the content accessible to different playstyles. A special project was thus added, allowing pacifist players to lure away the gravekeepers without hurting them.

[h2]Prototype[/h2]
Communication between different departments is crucial when working on a team. I wanted my ball of corpses to look the part, but the art team was busy working on Toxoids — so instead of requesting art assets for a minor onboarding task, I experimented with what was already in the game. After all, we already have a perfectly good Tiyanki Matriarch corpse. Why not scale it down and spawn a couple copies around a planet, wrapping it in tentacles?

My first attempts, however, produced... Unintended results:


Space in Stellaris is actually flat: all planets and spaceships are bound to an invisible 2D plane. We can offset the coordinate of ambient objects (decorations) to make them appear above or below the plane, but we usually use this kind of trick only for temporary VFX, like when a planet cracker hovers over a planet.

Figuring out how to wrap a planet in corpses took a bit of experimentation, but eventually we got there!


[h2]Implementation[/h2]
Once implemented in-game, the content gets tested for bugs by QA. While testing, we noticed a curious issue: the graveyard looked fine when you encountered it the first time:


But if you closed the system view and opened it again...


...It ballooned into a fleshy monstrosity whose size rivaled the Sun!

The cause, as fellow Content Designer Caligula Caesar discovered, turned out to be an obscure bug that resulted in offset decorations being incorrectly sized during initialization.. As mentioned above, we usually use offset for temporary VFX, so this bug has never been noticed since release!

[h2]Final Art[/h2]
At this point, the art department stared at my work in mild horror and decided it was best to create an unique asset for it. The graveyard looked fine, but smashing ambient objects together is not standard practice and could potentially create performance issues. Nevertheless, the horrible mishmash provided a useful reference for the concept art and the final model:



[h2]Notes for modders[/h2]
My graveyard was dismantled, but I hope it will inspire you to create even worse abominations.
Here’s a handy summary on how to offset ambient objects. When spawning an event object, make sure sure to use use_3d_location = yes to be able to adjust its position.

Command	
entity_offset
Offsets an object on the horizontal axis (left or right).
Takes both fixed values or a min/max amount (useful for randomly spawning multiple objects in a while block).	

Example
create_ambient_object = {
    while = {
        count = 10
        create_ambient_object = {
            type = "small_dead_tiyanki_object"
            use_3d_location = yes
            entity_offset = { min = -10 max = 10 }
            location = this
        }
    }
}

Example Result
Objects spawned with random horizontal offset.

Command
entity_offset_height
Offsets an object on the vertical axis (up or down).

Example
Takes both fixed values or a min/max amount (useful for randomly spawning multiple objects in a while block).	create_ambient_object = {
    while = {
        count = 10
        create_ambient_object = {
            type = "small_dead_tiyanki_object"
            use_3d_location = yes
            entity_offset_height = { min = -10 max = 10 }
            location = this
        }
    }
}

Example Result
Objects spawned with random vertical offset.

Command
entity_offset_angle
Offsets the angle at which the object is spawned in relationship to its spawning point. Think of a clock: the base entity is the pivot, while the new objects are spawned around it.

Example
Takes both fixed values or a min/max amount (useful for randomly spawning multiple objects in a while block).	create_ambient_object = {
    while = {
        count = 10
        create_ambient_object = {
            type = "small_dead_tiyanki_object"
            use_3d_location = yes
            entity_offset_angle = { min = 0 max = 360 }
            location = this
        }
    }
}

Objects spawned with random angles.

Command
entity_face_object
Automatically rotates the object towards the target.
Scope: planet, fleet, star, this.	

Example
create_ambient_object = {
    type = "small_dead_tiyanki_object"
    use_3d_location = yes
    entity_face_object = star
}

Example Result
Left group is set to face the star (not in the screen). Second group is set to face this (the planet they spawned from).

Command
base_angle_towards
Determines the default angle of the object in relationship to the base entity.
Scope: planet, fleet, star, this.	

Example
create_ambient_object = {
    type = "small_dead_tiyanki_object"
    use_3d_location = yes
    base_angle_towards = this
}

Example Result
Both Tiyankis have an angle of 0°. One is set to base_angle_towards = star, and is aligned to its "face" like the planets. The second is set to base_angle_towards = this, where this is a planet with an angle of 180°

No tiyankis were harmed in the making of this dev diary.

-------

But that is not all! For I, Caligula Caesar, have something quite cool to show off, namely some experimentations with galaxy shapes.

We haven’t made any changes to the available galaxy shapes for… I think since release, unless I am mistaken. Anyway, we wanted to spice things up a bit, and took a look at whether we could persuade our galaxy generator to create new shapes.

First we taught it a few new tricks. Now you can define a new galaxy in script and feed parameters into it, and it will be available to select in the galaxy generation screen. This means that when modders inevitably decide we didn’t go far enough in this dev diary, they can make their own combinations without replacing existing ones. It now also doesn’t determine its behaviour based on what the galaxy shape is called. With this I mean, in the current version the 2-spiral galaxy will always have two spiral arms, and you can merely tweak how thick and twisting these arms are - this is no longer the case. Now you can freely define how many arms you wish to have, and also combine them with a ring if you so please.

As a result, we could add a few new shapes. For instance, we could add some spiral galaxies with different numbers of arms:


But there was more we could do. In particular, we wanted to make a few galaxy shapes that would create some unusual galactic terrain, and some potentially interesting asymmetric starts. For instance, we could make a twist on the two-arm spiral galaxy that has very thick, slightly winding arms, resembling a bar galaxy:

Credit: NASA and STScI​ Yes, those two halves are connected by a single hyperlane

A ring galaxy and a spiral galaxy could be combined to make a “cartwheel” galaxy:

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI and Webb ERO Production Team​

Alternatively, we could omit an arm of a 4-arm spiral, and create something we dubbed the “hedgehog”:


Finally, in a bout of silliness, I also added the “starburst”, which is a shape that is actually impossible in reality, but might create some interesting gameplay:


Another thing related to galaxy shapes which we’ve looked at a bit is static galaxies. This is the system modders use to generate a specific preset galaxy, for instance certain total conversion mods. It turns out that the code for generating a random galaxy (i.e. those we usually generate) and that used for static galaxies differ completely, which specifically became an issue during galaxy generation: the two different versions of the code probably did the same thing once upon a time, but inevitably the code has diverged, so modders reported numerous issues with static galaxies. For instance, it was not possible to use secondary species, and there were a number of small issues with starting setups, such as starbases and sectors not automatically spawning. It also wouldn’t call the empire_init on_actions, which would cause further divergence from how things would be if a regular galaxy was generated.

Anyway, I probably shouldn’t talk about this, since the code has not yet even been approved, but I tried to combine as much of the random galaxy and static galaxy code as possible, resolving a fair few issues with the latter, and hopefully making it more robust in the future. (Also, on the prompting of a modder, I added the ability to specify "effect = { }" in a particular system’s entry in a static galaxy. And you should now be able to create several static galaxy maps rather than being limited to one).

So, basically, for players who enjoy mods that create bespoke galaxies, you will probably be able to get access to much improved versions of these in the near future. (Can't promise it will definitely be in the next patch).

This wasn't on my bingo card for 2022, but Paradox's sci-fi 4X Stellaris is getting a spin-off: a VR "action-roguelite set in Paradox’s sci-fi milieu" for the Meta Quest 2. It comes from Fast Travel Games, who also made a Cities: Skylines VR experience once upon a time...
Read more.

written by Eladrin

Hello scavengers!

This week marks the launch of the Toxoids Species Pack in all its poisonous goodness, with many quests undertaken, debris fields scavenged, planets relentlessly industrialized, and an uncountable number of leaders dead from old age at the ripe old age of childbirth. We hope you've been enjoying it.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]What's New in 3.5.2 Fornax?[/h2]

Today we have a small hotfix for a couple of problems that immediately arose.

3.5.2 "Fornax" Patch Notes:
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########################## VERSION 3.5.2 ###########################
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Bugfix

-The Toxic Entity will no longer bless those unworthy. (You cannot select a Toxic God solar system initializer without the Knights of the Toxic God origin)
-Crisis will now destroy the starbases of the systems it invades, fixing an issue where the AI would sometimes not land their armies on colonies properly.
-You can no longer put the Toxic God's strike craft on your ships if you defeat the Prethoryn
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We'll be continuing to watch your feedback for things that may go into a possible 3.5.3 in a few weeks.

[h2]What's New in 3.6 Orion?[/h2]

What, already? Can't you give them a week or two with what we have before starting the future dev diaries?

OK, fine. We'll save most of it for a little while.

Next week we can have CheerfulGoth's talk about Space Whales, after which Caligula Caesar can then tell them about the new Galaxy Shapes or the Spiritualist Federation planned for Orion. Then Alfray Stryke, Gruntsatwork, and I will talk about the potential Ascension Path changes, Combat Balance work, and the Orion Open Beta.

We'll of course have to include a disclaimer about how some of those latter changes Alfray Stryke, Gruntsatwork, and I are working on are planned for Orion, but could get delayed or even removed entirely if the Open Beta feedback indicates that's the correct move.

[h2]Okay, so what can we give them today?[/h2]

There's this: Toxoids Discord Dev Q&A Transcript!

Thanks to everyone that came and asked questions!

We'll see you next week with CheerfulGoth's tales of the Tiyanki. Until then, stay toxic!