Stellaris Dev Diary #402 - Infernal Pops, Traits, and Volcanic Worlds
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[/p][p]by Eladrin[/p][p][/p][p]Hi everyone![/p][p][/p][p]The Steam Open Beta branch was updated this week with a preview of 4.1.7, with the following fixes:[/p][h3]4.1.7 ‘Lyra’ Open Beta Patch Notes[/h3][p]Improvement[/p]
Originally planned for the 4.2 Open Beta, the 4.1.7 Open Beta also includes a test of some “safe…ish” changes to how modifiers are applied behind the scenes. This may have some small hardware-dependent performance effects, mostly in the mid to late game, but lays the groundwork for some more radical changes that are planned for the ongoing Open Beta.
If all goes according to plan, 4.1.7 will be released early next week, though these modifier changes will not be moving as part of it to live yet. There may be additional fixes included in the release - for example, some slavery and pop category issues that also affected Necrophages have been identified by a player "fs_nanamedou" and are currently being investigated.
Development continues as described in Dev Diary #399. On the design side, alongside the advanced ship hulls experiment, we’ve created a branch focused on economic balancing and moderating many sources of non-linear growth. The Custodian programmers are currently focusing on the more advanced modifier dependency system, multiplayer stability, and a system that will let us give better tracking of performance related issues.
Now, on to some Infernal information.
[/p][h3]Infernal Pops and the Thermophilic Trait[/h3][p]This species evolved tissues of metallic alloys to grow and thrive on hot planets where traditional organics would cook. These alloyed cells are slower to degrade and are replaced infrequently, delaying the onset of age-related diseases. They also conduct cold temperatures, which can threaten their health in colder climates.
For the Infernals Species Pack, we’ve decided to make them exist somewhere between Lithoids and normal Organics. Your pops will begin with the Thermophile trait, which replaces their food consumption with a small amount of alloys. They thrive on Volcanic Worlds but suffer on colder planets. Under normal circumstances this changes their habitability preference screen, replacing Arctic, Alpine, and Tundra Worlds with Volcanic.[/p][p]![]()
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[/p][p]For those of you that have both Lithoids and Infernals, we’ve let two of the Lithoids be able to freely choose whether to be Lithoid or Infernal - the lithoid human portrait and the lava star. They’ll have the phenotype trait based on the phenotype you were looking at when you select them.[/p][p]![]()
[/p][p][/p][h3]Volcanic Worlds[/h3][p]Rocky world with a sulfur rich atmosphere and a partially liquid lithosphere. The ash and basalt covered surface is interspersed with fresh volcanic activity, lava lakes and rivers. Only extremophile life forms can be found, if any.
When Toxoids released, we included the Detox Ascension Perk to allow you to build colonies on Toxic Terraforming Candidates. This was the solution to the problem that we felt that we couldn’t simply let you live on any Toxic world as they outnumbered normal habitable worlds ten to one. You made it clear that this wasn’t terribly satisfying because it did not let you fulfill the fantasy of living on Toxic worlds until the relatively late game.
When discussing the initial designs for Infernals, we knew that we wanted to let you live on Molten Worlds right away, but we had the same problem - Molten Worlds are also far too common to be trivially colonizable, so we created a new planet class - Volcanic Worlds. These are Molten Worlds that retain an atmosphere of sorts and have sufficient solid land to be considered at least… semi-habitable.[/p][p][/p][p]![]()
[/p][p]Volcanic Worlds replace Mining Districts with Magma Conduits and Agricultural districts with Thermotechnic Forums.[/p][p][/p][p]![]()
[/p][p][/p][p]Thermoforgers split their production between Minerals and the Alloys Infernals need to feed, and Thermotechnic Mentor Specialist jobs provided by the Forums modify the production of Thermoforgers, Technicians, Metallurgists, and Artisans.
In some of the speculation around Volcanic Worlds since the announcement, I’ve seen a few of you suggest the idea of converting Toxoids to a similar system using “Corrosive Worlds” - I like the idea but it’s not likely to happen in the near future.
[/p][h3]Infernal Species Traits[/h3][p]A picture is worth a thousand words, so the Infernal Species Traits are:[/p][p][/p][p]![]()
[/p][h3]Anything Else?[/h3][p]Davide, our Product Marketing Manager you have encountered in our livestreams, has some Ghelli jolly news:
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There’s a hat and socks too. Bury him in Trade and we’ll be able to convince him to make a new design for the next holiday season.[/p][p][/p][p]![]()
[/p][p]You can get them here!
[/p][p]Speaking of livestreams - it’s time for you to see the Infernals Species Pack yourself. Join us for our first preview stream at 16 today.[/p][p][/p][p]![]()
[/p][p][/p][h3]Next Week[/h3][p]We’ll be looking at the Cosmic Dawn origin, the Infernal Civics, and give you a better look at the Shipset.
Until then, here’s a different look at the new portraits.[/p][p]![]()
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- [p]AI exterminator empires with the chosen civic will not pick the Cradle of Souls as their patron.[/p]
- [p]Updated the Broken Shackles Origin Tooltip to mention that you need to explore the Crashed Slaver Ship dig site before unlocking City District Specializations.[/p]
- [p]Added the Visionary job swap for politicians, which combines Science Directors and Merchants[/p]
- [p]Changed the Cradle of Souls chosen trait to give +30%/+15% Political Power as Planet / Sector governor instead of +750%/+500%.[/p]
- [p]The Cybernetic and Cyber Commando traits now allow species to live on machine worlds, even outside of a driven assimilator.[/p]
- [p]The Opus core world for the Hard Reset origin is now size 25.[/p]
- [p]The Extradimensional Experimentation planetary decision now has the Data-Driven Theorem Facility increase physicist output and give them zro upkeep.[/p]
- [p]Cybernetic Creed empires with Civil Education no longer start with a massive consumer goods deficit.[/p]
- [p]Many fixes related to Cybernetic Ascension (with a special thanks to modder FirePrince for providing a number of these)[/p]
- [p]Fixed handling of leader species when converting between limited and not limited cyberization policies.[/p]
- [p]Improved Neural Chip conversion[/p]
- [p]Updated leader trait handling after species modification.[/p]
- [p]Fixed checks regarding subject-overlord relations on if you are a legal criminal or not.[/p]
- [p]Fixed scope errors in species assimilation.[/p]
- [p]Fixed species assimilation not handling robots for synthetically ascended organics.[/p]
- [p]Improved handling of mechromancy[/p]
- [p]Fixed the cyberization situation claiming you needed to build an augmentation center even if you had built one[/p]
- [p]Fixed issues with converting between the Cyberization Standards policies.[/p]
- [p]Cyberization pop conversion the situation now takes into account your Cyberization Standards policy.[/p]
- [p]Fixed an issue where your authority wouldn't change to Imperial after appointing your ruler as Divine Sovereign[/p]
- [p]The Divine Sovereign civic is now properly removed, should the chosen leader of an empire die.[/p]
- [p]Added missing Production Overseers jobs to multiple rural districts for Tankbound empires.[/p]
- [p]The Prethoryn should once again turn worlds into Infested worlds once they have finished purging the pops on it.[/p]
- [p]The Contingency should be able to purge pops again and should also properly gain control of them when they finish the purging.[/p]
- [p]Corrected missing full stops at the end of the Great Awakening tooltip.[/p]
- [p]Restored the ending of the Fleet Maneuver event chain.[/p]
- [p]Added missing upkeep modifier from Tankbound to habitat rural districts.[/p]
- [p]Updated ringworld colony designations to follow the new standards[/p]
- [p]The relic world specialization being blocked by the collapsed spire will no longer have repeat lines in it[/p]
- [p]The Retirement Home achievement is once again achievable[/p]
- [p]Fixed a wide range of the galaxy's species going on a hunger strike (including MSI for some reason!)[/p]
- [p]Fixed the Nivlac trait not displaying an icon, it now shares its icon with the Extremely Adaptive trait.[/p]
- [p]Alloy megaforges now correctly have a volatile motes cost and upkeep.[/p]
- [p]Fixed missing species name in event title and descript when awakening psionic abilities.[/p]
- [p]The Minor Artifact Decision "Initiate Performance Competition" will once again be providing working modifiers[/p]
- [p]The Hard Reset species traits will once again be localized[/p]
- [p]Sabotaging Starbases should no longer generate ethics options that mention your target's ethic.[/p]
- [p]Fixed modifier removal being displayed twice in Order Restored event acceptance tooltip.[/p]
- [p]first_contact.15, the event that talks about the location of your contact's country's homeworld will no longer sometimes try to tell you about their star instead.[/p]
- [p]Fixed being able to take the Hegemon origin while being Egalitarian[/p]
- [p]Hard Reset origin and Tankbound civic are now incompatible due to mutually exclusive mechanics.[/p]
- [p]Empires are no longer required to feed any pre-sapients they find in the galaxy. (But your cat will still claim it has never been fed).[/p]
- [p]Players now take ownership of claimed DSCs after war finishes[/p]
- [p]Added the soft_traits parameter to origins for traits the player should start with but can remove without making their government invalid[/p]
- [p]Fixed OOS in pop growth system[/p]
Originally planned for the 4.2 Open Beta, the 4.1.7 Open Beta also includes a test of some “safe…ish” changes to how modifiers are applied behind the scenes. This may have some small hardware-dependent performance effects, mostly in the mid to late game, but lays the groundwork for some more radical changes that are planned for the ongoing Open Beta.
If all goes according to plan, 4.1.7 will be released early next week, though these modifier changes will not be moving as part of it to live yet. There may be additional fixes included in the release - for example, some slavery and pop category issues that also affected Necrophages have been identified by a player "fs_nanamedou" and are currently being investigated.
Development continues as described in Dev Diary #399. On the design side, alongside the advanced ship hulls experiment, we’ve created a branch focused on economic balancing and moderating many sources of non-linear growth. The Custodian programmers are currently focusing on the more advanced modifier dependency system, multiplayer stability, and a system that will let us give better tracking of performance related issues.
Now, on to some Infernal information.
[/p][h3]Infernal Pops and the Thermophilic Trait[/h3][p]This species evolved tissues of metallic alloys to grow and thrive on hot planets where traditional organics would cook. These alloyed cells are slower to degrade and are replaced infrequently, delaying the onset of age-related diseases. They also conduct cold temperatures, which can threaten their health in colder climates.
For the Infernals Species Pack, we’ve decided to make them exist somewhere between Lithoids and normal Organics. Your pops will begin with the Thermophile trait, which replaces their food consumption with a small amount of alloys. They thrive on Volcanic Worlds but suffer on colder planets. Under normal circumstances this changes their habitability preference screen, replacing Arctic, Alpine, and Tundra Worlds with Volcanic.[/p][p]
When Toxoids released, we included the Detox Ascension Perk to allow you to build colonies on Toxic Terraforming Candidates. This was the solution to the problem that we felt that we couldn’t simply let you live on any Toxic world as they outnumbered normal habitable worlds ten to one. You made it clear that this wasn’t terribly satisfying because it did not let you fulfill the fantasy of living on Toxic worlds until the relatively late game.
When discussing the initial designs for Infernals, we knew that we wanted to let you live on Molten Worlds right away, but we had the same problem - Molten Worlds are also far too common to be trivially colonizable, so we created a new planet class - Volcanic Worlds. These are Molten Worlds that retain an atmosphere of sorts and have sufficient solid land to be considered at least… semi-habitable.[/p][p][/p][p]
In some of the speculation around Volcanic Worlds since the announcement, I’ve seen a few of you suggest the idea of converting Toxoids to a similar system using “Corrosive Worlds” - I like the idea but it’s not likely to happen in the near future.
[/p][h3]Infernal Species Traits[/h3][p]A picture is worth a thousand words, so the Infernal Species Traits are:[/p][p][/p][p]
[/p]
[p]We just launched a time limited offer for you to buy the Stellaris (and other games) Christmas Sweaters![p]
These sweaters are well beloved within the Stellaris team, and now you can get yours too![/p]
There’s a hat and socks too. Bury him in Trade and we’ll be able to convince him to make a new design for the next holiday season.[/p][p][/p][p]
[/p][p]Speaking of livestreams - it’s time for you to see the Infernals Species Pack yourself. Join us for our first preview stream at 16 today.[/p][p][/p][p]
Until then, here’s a different look at the new portraits.[/p][p]
