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Realize your Grand Design with Stellaris: Overlord on May 12th for USD 19.99/GBP 15.49/EUR 19.99!

In Overlord, the next full expansion for Stellaris, gain access to new features designed to unlock the next level of your Empire. Guide a galaxy full of potential subjects to victory - or subjugation. In Overlord you will gain access to new mechanics to specialize your Vassals’ role within your Empire, new Origins to explore, new Enclaves to meet, and new Megastructures to build for the glory of your Empire.

Wishlist Overlord Now!

Use new vassalization mechanics and specialize your subjects into economic powerhouses, defensive bulwarks, or technological masterminds. Negotiate the terms of your subjects’ Vassal Contracts, with the ability to subsidize their income, restrict their expansion, construct buildings on their worlds, and more.

Explore five unique Origins, opening up more roleplay possibilities than ever. Start as the subject of an advanced AI empire with Imperial Fiefdom, or release your mind with the Teachers of the Shroud origin, where you start as a Latent Psionic species and contact with a mysterious Shroudwalker Enclave. Discover the source of ancient lights in the night sky with Slingshot to the Stars. Subterranean allows you to start as a civilization that excels at mining and archaeology, and thrives underground, or unleash the power of the progenitor with the Progenitor Hive origin.

Meet three new Enclaves, who will offer unique abilities in your galaxies. The Shroudwalker Enclave allows you to pull back the veil of the Shroud. What will be your fate? Meet the Salvager Enclave, who can offer to scrap ships for resources or debris. Perhaps you might be interested in some combat-proven starships? Or choose one of your own fleets to lease out to other Empires as a Mercenary Enclave, and be rewarded with dividends on your investment as they fight alongside the highest bidder.

Construct three new game-changing Megastructures. Build taller than ever before by constructing an Orbital Ring around your habitable worlds. Use it as extra starbase capacity, or to further boost your planetary economy. The Quantum Catapult sends fleets on a one-way trip across the galaxy, ignoring closed borders and hostile empires that would stand in your way, to launch the ultimate surprise attack. Or build a Hyper Relay network, allowing you to rapidly transfer fleets and resources across your empire.

Whether you rule from the bridge of your flagship or from the lavish capital of your homeworld, Realize your Grand Design with Stellaris: Overlord!

Wishlist Overlord Now!

written by Eladrin

Hello again!

Last week’s dev diary examined the Orbital Ring, Quantum Catapult, and Scholarium. Today we’re going to look at another construction that has a massive impact on the game, the Hyper Relay. After that we’ll look at some other changes coming in Cepheus and Overlord, and finish off with another origin that was revealed yesterday by Nivarias.

As with all previews, numbers, text, and so on are not quite final and are still subject to change.

[h3]Hyper Relays[/h3]

Long ago, back in Dev Diary #243 we showed you some concept art of Hyper Relays, and told you they had greebles, and were game changing. Now it’s time to fully reveal them.

Hyper Relays are a rare Tier 2 technology that require the Hyperlane Breach Points technology and access to Rare Crystals to discover. Once you have observed a functional Hyper Relay in use by another empire, the technology will appear much more frequently, causing them to spread in a pleasing manner across the galaxy.



Hyper Relays can be built by your Construction Ships outside the gravity well of systems, just like Gateways. They’re useless on their own, but a chain of Hyper Relays built in adjacent systems dramatically speeds up travel, allowing you to jump from Relay to Relay after a short windup rather than having to travel across each system at sublight speed, as long as neither endpoint is controlled by a hostile empire.



Once two Relays in adjacent systems have been linked, the hyperlane between those systems will become bolder, and ships traveling along them will show the route plotted in blue as they are using the bypass.

Hyper Relays can be built in your own space, or that of your subjects. For convenience, Relays can also be built directly from the Galaxy Map.



If an Empire’s capital is attached to the Hyper Relay Network, additional effects can be projected through the network using several Network Edicts. These add strategic resource upkeep to your Hyper Relays and an effect on all of your colonies that are connected to your capital.

Gestalts have a reflavored variant of Networked Amenities.

Specialist subjects each have a Network Effect available at Tier 1, which becomes active in the overlord’s Relay Network if a continuous chain connects their capitals.



As one could imagine, an expansive Hyper Relay network makes travel much faster during the mid-game while you do not yet have a comprehensive Gateway system built, and since such travel is permitted in neutral empires that have open borders, navigating the galaxy and responding to distant threats is easier than ever before.

As a personal anecdote, after playing with these and the new subjugation mechanics internally, it was almost difficult to go back to 3.3 for the Dev Clash. Made me almost want to blow up the galaxy.

[h3]Selected Other Changes[/h3]

As with every update, there are a number of balance or quality of life changes and adjustments in Cepheus. Here’s a handful of interesting changes:

• Successful Force Ideology wars with a corporate aggressor now result in the target (or created) empire having the Oligarchic authority and Merchant Guilds civic. This is also true for Status Quo resolutions of Establish Hegemony, Subjugation, and the Scion’s Bring into the Fold wargoals.
  
• Corporate subjects can now open branch offices in subjects of their shared overlord, as long as their overlord is not also a MegaCorp.
  
• AI Subjects of Player Empires now receive AI bonuses as if the difficulty level of the game were one level lower, rather than losing their bonuses entirely.
  
• The Parliamentary System civic now allows factions to be generated much earlier in the game.
  
• You can now nominate other empires to Custodianship, provided they meet the requirements.
  
• The Unbidden can no longer spawn in pulsar systems (as the star will disable their Dimensional Portal's shields - Heavy Metal, Inc. sends its regards…)
  
• Low Military Intel is now gained at 30 Intel instead of 40 and Medium Military Intel is now gained at 60 Intel instead of 70. The effects of Medium and High Military Intel have been swapped. Medium now allows you to view ship loadout. High now grants visibility of location of military fleets.
  
• Gateways (and Hyper Relays) can now be built in vassal space.
  
• The Grasp the Void Ascension Perk now grants increased draw weight for FTL travel techs.

Some improvements have been made to automated migration:

• "Ideal" worlds such as ring worlds, gaia worlds, hive worlds and machine worlds now have a 50% higher score when pops are deciding where to automatically resettle to. So they are more likely to want to move to your newly-founded ring world, for instance. Capital world planet designations also have a +10% score, and freshly founded colonies have 25% from their designation.
  
• Pops will now pick which planet to auto-migrate to based on which planet has the most free jobs, rather than the least. They also now take free housing into account better.
  
• The Outliner will now differentiate between unemployed pops that are migrating and those that are not. A yellow briefcase will be shown for planets that have unemployed pops that are in the process of migrating to another planet. A red briefcase will be shown if your attention is required to resolve the unemployment. On the planet view, the tooltips will now show where the pops are most likely to move to, or explain why they are unable to move.

We have eleven new achievements in Overlord. Here are the icons, I’m curious what people think they are.

Cheevos!

[h3]Anniversary Additions[/h3]

Some eagle-eyed readers have noticed some flags that aren’t possible in 3.3. You’re correct! The art team has added some new colors to the flag palette…



…over seventy flag emblems…



…and forty-five new flag backgrounds.



These will all be part of the Cepheus update as part of the May anniversary celebrations.

[h3]Slingshot to the Stars[/h3]


Bordergore? Bordergore.

Those born under the Slingshot to the Stars find their desires to explore fulfilled by a nearby Quantum Catapult, which replaces one of their Guaranteed Habitable Worlds. Their eagerness to explore into the unknown reduces the distance penalty for building starbases in remote systems by 75%.

[h3]Next Week[/h3]

Next week the totally human programmer Narkerns will take over for an update on AI and automation improvements coming in Cepheus, and I’ll add a little bit about a fourth Origin at the end.

Video versions of these dev diaries are available at the Stellaris Official YouTube Channel. Subscribe so you don’t miss them, and wishlist Overlord if you haven’t already!

In the meantime, keep your eyes on our social media channels. There'll be an announcement later today.

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Today we're going to be taking a first look at the Slingshot to the Stars Origin with Nivarias!

Strange lights in the night sky drove your species' curiosity to develop interstellar travel and explore the stars. Now you stand on the precipice of discovery, as you stand to answer a question that your species has asked for eons: What secrets will the Quantum Catapult reveal?

Wishlist Overlord!

As for this week's Dev Diary Tease, when we initially had the idea of doing a tease to get our Community excited for Thursday's Dev Diary, we had no idea that it would be taken quite this literally.

See the rest of this expertly cropped screenshot in Thursday's Dev Diary!

written by Eladrin

Greetings!

Last week’s dev diary went through the new Enclaves in Overlord, the Bulwark, some more Holdings, and the Imperial Fiefdom Origin. This week we’re going to look at two constructions, the Scholarium, Specialist Holdings and a summary of the origin revealed by Nivarias earlier this week.

As with all previews, numbers, text, and so on are not quite final and are still subject to change.

[h3]Orbital Rings[/h3]

Orbital Rings are a Tier 3 Voidcraft Engineering technology requiring Starholds, Galactic Administration, and Ceramo-Metal Infrastructure. Like Habitats, they do not require Mega-Engineering.

They are treated as a variant of Starbases, and while system control is still primarily determined by the actual Starbase of the system, the planets they surround cannot be invaded until the Orbital Ring has been disabled.





Initially your Orbital Ring will have two module slots and no building slots. As you gain additional Starbase technologies (Star Fortress and Citadel) and improve the planet’s capital building you can upgrade the Orbital Ring through two additional tiers, adding one module and building slot at each tier.



Most of the Orbital Ring modules are similar to Starbase modules. Defensive modules trade piracy protection for extra hull and armor, and the Habitation Module is a Ring specific module that adds a district slot to the planet below.



Systems with multiple habitable planets can become an exceptionally thorny obstacle if you build multiple defensive orbital rings supporting a bastion starbase at the center.

Having a large conveniently placed ring around your planet provides an opportunity to enhance the planet with some interesting buildings. These stack with similar planetside buildings.



Many standard starbase buildings can also be placed on an Orbital Ring - though some are now limited to one per system.

Orbital Rings fill the same “orbital slot” as habitats, so you’ll have to decide which of the two you want over your worlds, and they can only be built around colonized habitable planets.

[h3]Quantum Catapult[/h3]

There comes a time in every overlord’s reign when a faraway crisis suddenly requires your attention. Things are going on halfway across the galaxy, a rival in the way has closed borders to you, and the Galactic Community is debating something about Tiyanki. Again.

A true galactic overlord has to be able to project their power at will, and doesn’t let these little things stop them from enacting their plans.



Built around Neutron Stars or Pulsars, Quantum Catapults can hurl fleets across incredible distances of space, but these megastructures have accuracy issues over long distances.



The maximum range of a Quantum Catapult is significantly longer than jump drive range but there’s a risk the fleet may not land exactly where they intended. The further the launch, the wider the scatter radius.

Higher tiers of the Quantum Catapult are both more accurate and have longer maximum range, with a well-placed fully-constructed Catapult able to threaten virtually anywhere, even in a huge galaxy.

After selecting a desired target system, a short windup later your fleet will arrive somewhere in a nearby system, without any lingering jump debuffs... But there is a chance, especially on spiral maps, that this “nearby” system is quite a few jumps away from your intended destination when traveling the hyperlanes.

There’s no clear route to this system, but the Catapult doesn’t care.

Quantum Catapults also have a passive effect that reduces MIA time for your missing fleets, which comes in useful when moving reinforcements to the front line, using experimental subspace on your science ships, or if your launched fleet lands in a system with Closed Borders.

[h3]The Scholarium[/h3]

The Scholarium is the last of the Specialists coming in Overlord. Dedicated to the advancement of science, the Scholarium relies on their overlord to defend them from enemies.

The State of Saathuma are our Scholarium minions, bringing us the secrets of the universe in exchange for our benevolent protection.



As with the other specialist empires, the penalties and benefits both grow as they tier up.



Where the Prospectorium could discover valuable deposits in their space, the Scholarium instead finds opportunities to learn.



The advisor perk, as you likely expected, improves your overlord’s scientific research.



And like the others, they have a Hyper Relay Network effect at Tier 1.

Next week? Yeah, why not, let's show it next week.

At Tier 2, the Scholarium also gains a set of special traits for their leaders, and the ability to trade their Scientists to their overlord.



Finally, at Tier 3 the Scholarium gains an advanced variant of the Science Ship, the Arctrellis. Like the Prospectorium’s Battlewright, it provides an aura in combat, but this time the scientists aboard the ship can cripple opposing ships piloted by AI - whether they be machine intelligences, sapient combat computers, or the Contingency.



It should be noted that as a Scholarium, the military penalties make it difficult to free yourself from under your overlord’s control. You may need some powerful friends to help you out.

[h3]Specialist Holdings[/h3]

Each of the Specialist empires has a unique holding that their overlord can build on their worlds.

Prospectoria can host the Offworld Foundry, which converts subject minerals into alloys for the overlord.



Bulwarks can have the Vigil Command, which grants additional Defense Platforms to their overlord. As the Bulwark increases in tier, these values increase.



Scholarium worlds can build the Ministry of Science. Surrounding their planet with additional Science Ships increases the effect of the building.



One extra holding we’ll show this week is for the Tree of Life origin. It lets you share your blessings with your subjects, improving both the habitability and food production of your subject’s world, though a fair bit will be consumed by the sapling itself.



[h3]Galactic Community[/h3]

It seemed natural that with such a large focus on subjugation, the Galactic Community would want to regulate things in different ways. Two more minor resolution lines are coming, in the new Suzerains and Sovereignty category.



The Intergalactic Directives line of resolutions protects the rights of subjects and encourages the preservation and release of weaker societies.

You can’t take the sky from me.

Bureaucratic Surveillance, on the other hand, focuses more on the rights of the overlords, requiring a short leash on their subjects and encouraging the use of holdings. Resolutions in this line can only be proposed by empires that are overlords of another empire.



Borderless Authority and Personal Oversight force extra holdings into subject contracts, but since the total limit remains 4 the highest Holding Limit terms become redundant.

[h3]Teachers of the Shroud[/h3]



With the Teachers of the Shroud origin, your civilization was identified as a civilization of interest long ago by the Shroudwalkers, and they carefully guided you as their visions instructed. Your species begins with the Latent Psionics trait and in contact with the Shroudwalker coven.

Your civilization is treated as if it already has the Mind over Matter Ascension Perk, meaning Transcendence is not far away. (And you cannot pursue Synthetic or Biological Ascension.)

[h3]Next Week[/h3]

Next week we’ll take a ride on the Hyper Relay Network, finally see those three Specialist perks, look at some other balance changes and additions coming in Cepheus and Overlord, and reveal another Origin.

Video versions of these dev diaries are available at the Stellaris Official YouTube Channel. Subscribe so you don’t miss them, and wishlist Overlord if you haven’t already!

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This week we explore the mysterious Teachers of the Shroud Origin with Nivarias!

Lift the veil that covers the Shroud, and entangle yourself in the strange processes of the Shroud Beacon. Interstellar exploration will now be quicker and infinitely more mysterious for those who choose to take a shortcut through the Shroud.

Wishlist Overlord Now!

As for this week's Dev Diary tease:

There's nothing that will make a Stellaris player jump to the wrong conclusion like a giant crosshair and 10 highlighted stars. ​😅



So.. What do you think this does? Find out in this Thursday's Dev Diary!