Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today we'll be talking about a feature that was hinted at in last dev diary, Ascension Perks. Ascension Perks are related to the Traditions and Unity system, but is a paid feature in the (unannounced) expansion accompanying the 1.5 'Banks' update, rather than a part of the update itself. Those without the expansion will get full access to the Traditions and Unity features, but not to the Ascension Perks themselves.

Ascension Perks
The idea behind the Ascension Perks is to provide more unique unlockable features for Empires, and to provide the player with the ability to determine an 'endgame' for their species: What their empire is striving towards. Perhaps your goal is to go all-in on AI, replacing the frail biological bodies of your pops with immortal machines, or to harness the psionic potential of your species and reach a higher form of existence, allowing your empire to tap into other planes of being? All these and more are covered by the Ascension Perk system.



Each time you complete a Tradition tree, you will unlock one Ascension Perk slot, of which there are 8 in total. There may also be other ways to unlock slots, such as from certain rare technologies or as a reward for a particular event chain. This slot can then be filled with any of the Ascension Perks available to you. The final number of perks is not yet set down, but there are currently more than 20 and there will likely be more added. Ascension Perks have pre-requisites, which can for example be a particular technology or tradition, a certain number of Ascension Perk slots to be unlocked, or a specific ethos or government type. Some Ascension Perks are one-offs that simply provide a bonus to a particular area of your empire: For example, a bonus to border range, or cheaper terraforming. Others unlock new features, such as the ability to construct new types of space structures (more on in later dev diaries).

Finally there are the three 'Species Endgame' paths: The biological path, the spiritual path and the synthetic path. These three paths each consist of two perks, the first of which unlocks access to the second once a number of other pre-requisites have been met. The paths are mutually exclusive, and once you start heading down one of them, the other two are locked off.

• The Biological Path focuses on mastery over biological evolution. The first level of it gives access to more gene points and significantly cuts the cost of genemodding projects, while the second level expands the options available during genemodding in addition to further providing more points and less cost.
  
• The Psionic Path focuses on developing the psionic potential of your population. The first level unlocks new psionic technologies and benefits, while the second level allows your empire to reach a higher level of existance and communicate with the beings present there.
  
• The Synthetic Path focuses on the replacement of biology with machinery. The first level allows you to turn your population partly synthetic through the use of cybernetics, while the second level replaces your biological pops with robots, turning your empire entirely synthetic.

That's all for today! Next week we'll be talking about the concept of species rights and obligations.

Also about eating pops.

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Stellaris Wiki
Stellaris Development Diary Archive

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today we'll be talking about a feature that was hinted at in last dev diary, Ascension Perks. Ascension Perks are related to the Traditions and Unity system, but is a paid feature in the (unannounced) expansion accompanying the 1.5 'Banks' update, rather than a part of the update itself. Those without the expansion will get full access to the Traditions and Unity features, but not to the Ascension Perks themselves.

Ascension Perks
The idea behind the Ascension Perks is to provide more unique unlockable features for Empires, and to provide the player with the ability to determine an 'endgame' for their species: What their empire is striving towards. Perhaps your goal is to go all-in on AI, replacing the frail biological bodies of your pops with immortal machines, or to harness the psionic potential of your species and reach a higher form of existence, allowing your empire to tap into other planes of being? All these and more are covered by the Ascension Perk system.



Each time you complete a Tradition tree, you will unlock one Ascension Perk slot, of which there are 8 in total. There may also be other ways to unlock slots, such as from certain rare technologies or as a reward for a particular event chain. This slot can then be filled with any of the Ascension Perks available to you. The final number of perks is not yet set down, but there are currently more than 20 and there will likely be more added. Ascension Perks have pre-requisites, which can for example be a particular technology or tradition, a certain number of Ascension Perk slots to be unlocked, or a specific ethos or government type. Some Ascension Perks are one-offs that simply provide a bonus to a particular area of your empire: For example, a bonus to border range, or cheaper terraforming. Others unlock new features, such as the ability to construct new types of space structures (more on in later dev diaries).

Finally there are the three 'Species Endgame' paths: The biological path, the spiritual path and the synthetic path. These three paths each consist of two perks, the first of which unlocks access to the second once a number of other pre-requisites have been met. The paths are mutually exclusive, and once you start heading down one of them, the other two are locked off.

• The Biological Path focuses on mastery over biological evolution. The first level of it gives access to more gene points and significantly cuts the cost of genemodding projects, while the second level expands the options available during genemodding in addition to further providing more points and less cost.
  
• The Psionic Path focuses on developing the psionic potential of your population. The first level unlocks new psionic technologies and benefits, while the second level allows your empire to reach a higher level of existance and communicate with the beings present there.
  
• The Synthetic Path focuses on the replacement of biology with machinery. The first level allows you to turn your population partly synthetic through the use of cybernetics, while the second level replaces your biological pops with robots, turning your empire entirely synthetic.

That's all for today! Next week we'll be talking about the concept of species rights and obligations.

Also about eating pops.

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Stellaris Wiki
Stellaris Development Diary Archive

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today we'll be talking about a new feature coming in the 1.5 'Banks' update called Traditions and Unity. As before, I can't talk about when Banks will be coming out, only that it's a while away and we have quite a few dev diaries to go through before we get there :)

One thing we have mentioned as a big priority for Stellaris is adding more empire customization and more ability to roleplay diverse empires. We have also talked about our desire to allow for the existance of 'tall' empires. Traditions and Unity is a feature that aims to tackle both these topics by adding 7 new Tradition trees and a resource called Unity that is used to unlock them. Unity is an accumulative resource that increases each month, and is primarily gained through the construction of government buildings such as monuments, mausoleums and temples. Unity is spent on adopting Tradition trees and purchasing individual Traditions. Each Tradition tree has a starter bonus, five unlockable bonuses and a finisher bonus that is gained once the entire tree is filled out.


The seven Tradition trees are as follows:
Expansion: Focuses on growth through rapid colonization.
Domination: Focuses on maintaining control over your population and subjects.
Prosperity: Focuses on economic growth.
Harmony: Focuses on maintaining a happy and diverse population.
Supremacy: Focuses on growth through military conquest.
Purity: Focuses on strength through homogenity and dominion over other species.
Exploration: Focuses on exploration and scientific discovery.


The cost of unlocking a Tradition depends on the size of your empire, as well as how internally stable it is. Unhappy factions, minority species and slaves all increase the cost of adoption Traditions further, though these effects can be offset or even canceled out entirely by adopting the right Traditions for the empire you intend to build. Overall, small harmonious empires will unlock Traditions more quickly than large, expansionistic ones. Which Traditions you unlock also has a significant impact on the ethics of your population, and so can be a useful tool to either strengthen your existing empire ethics or further a planned empire-wide shift towards a different set of ethics altogether.

You may have noticed a certain part of the Traditions screen that I have not yet mentioned in this dev diary. That's because it's actually the subject of the next dev diary! However, since the Christmas holidays are coming up, most of the Stellaris team will be away, so dev diaries will be on hiatus until January 12th. Tune back in then to find out all about the Ascension Perks and how you can use them to build the empire of your dreams.

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Stellaris Wiki
Stellaris Development Diary Archive

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today we'll be talking about a new feature coming in the 1.5 'Banks' update called Traditions and Unity. As before, I can't talk about when Banks will be coming out, only that it's a while away and we have quite a few dev diaries to go through before we get there :)

One thing we have mentioned as a big priority for Stellaris is adding more empire customization and more ability to roleplay diverse empires. We have also talked about our desire to allow for the existance of 'tall' empires. Traditions and Unity is a feature that aims to tackle both these topics by adding 7 new Tradition trees and a resource called Unity that is used to unlock them. Unity is an accumulative resource that increases each month, and is primarily gained through the construction of government buildings such as monuments, mausoleums and temples. Unity is spent on adopting Tradition trees and purchasing individual Traditions. Each Tradition tree has a starter bonus, five unlockable bonuses and a finisher bonus that is gained once the entire tree is filled out.


The seven Tradition trees are as follows:
Expansion: Focuses on growth through rapid colonization.
Domination: Focuses on maintaining control over your population and subjects.
Prosperity: Focuses on economic growth.
Harmony: Focuses on maintaining a happy and diverse population.
Supremacy: Focuses on growth through military conquest.
Purity: Focuses on strength through homogenity and dominion over other species.
Exploration: Focuses on exploration and scientific discovery.


The cost of unlocking a Tradition depends on the size of your empire, as well as how internally stable it is. Unhappy factions, minority species and slaves all increase the cost of adoption Traditions further, though these effects can be offset or even canceled out entirely by adopting the right Traditions for the empire you intend to build. Overall, small harmonious empires will unlock Traditions more quickly than large, expansionistic ones. Which Traditions you unlock also has a significant impact on the ethics of your population, and so can be a useful tool to either strengthen your existing empire ethics or further a planned empire-wide shift towards a different set of ethics altogether.

You may have noticed a certain part of the Traditions screen that I have not yet mentioned in this dev diary. That's because it's actually the subject of the next dev diary! However, since the Christmas holidays are coming up, most of the Stellaris team will be away, so dev diaries will be on hiatus until January 12th. Tune back in then to find out all about the Ascension Perks and how you can use them to build the empire of your dreams.

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Stellaris Wiki
Stellaris Development Diary Archive

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Now that 1.4 is out, we can finally start properly talking about the 1.5 'Banks' update, which will be a major update with an accompanying (unannounced) expansion. As of right now we cannot provide any details on when 1.5 will come out, or anything about the unannounced expansion, so please don't ask. :)

Today's topic is a number of changes coming to ethics in the 1.5 update. Everything in this diary is part of the free update. Please note that values shown in screenshots are always non-final.

Authoritarian vs Egalitarian
One of the things in Stellaris I was never personally happy with was the Collectivism vs Individualism ethic. While interesting conceptually, the mechanics that the game presented for the ethics simply did not match either their meanings or flavor text, meaning you ended up with a Collectivist ethos that was somehow simultaneously egalitarian and 100% in on slavery, while Individualism was a confused jumble between liberal democratic values and randian free-market capitalism. For this reason we've decided to rebrand these ethics into something that should both be much more clear in its meaning, and match the mechanics as they are.

Authoritarian replaces Collectivist and represents belief in hierarchial rule and orderly, stratified societies. Authoritarian pops tolerate slavery and prefer to live in autocracies.
Egalitarian replaces Individualist and represents belief in individual rights and a level playing field. Egalitarian pops dislike slavery and elitism and prefer to live in democracies.

While I understand this may cause some controversy and will no doubt spark debate over people's interpretation of words like Authoritarian and Individualist, I believe that we need to work with the mechanics we have, and as it stand we simply do not have good mechanics for a Collectivism vs Individualism axis while the mechanics we have fit the rebranded ethics if not perfectly then at least a whole lot better.



Pop Ethics Rework
Another mechanic that never quite felt satisfying is the ethics divergence mechanic. Not only is it overly simplified with just a single value determining if pops go towards or from empire ethics, the shift rarely makes sense: Why would xenophobe alien pops diverge away from xenophobe just because they're far away from the capital of a xenophobic empire? Furthermore, the fact that pops could have anything from one to three different ethics made it extremely difficult to actually quantify what any individual pop's ethics actually mean for how they relate to the empire. For this reason we've decided to revamp the way pop ethics work in the following way:

• Each pop in your empire will now only embrace a single, non-fanatic ethic. At the start of the game, your population will be made of up of only the ethics that you picked in species setup, but as your empire grows, its population will become more diverse in their views and wants.
  
• Each ethic now has an attraction value for each pop in your empire depending on both the empire's situation and their own situation. For example, enslaved pops tend to become more egalitarian, while pops living around non-enslaved aliens become more xenophilic (and pops living around enslaved aliens more xenophobic). Conversely, fighting a lot of wars will increase the attraction for militarism across your entire empire, while an alien empire purging pops of a particular species will massively increase the attraction for xenophobic for the species being purged.
  
• Over time, the ethics of your pops will drift in such a way that it roughly matches the overall attraction of that value. For example, if your materialist attraction sits at 10% for decades, it's likely that after that time, around 10% of your pops will be materialist. There is some random factor so it's likely never going to match up perfectly, but the system is built to try and go towards the mean, so the more overrepresented an ethic is compared to its attraction, the more likely pops are to drift away from it and vice versa.

So what does the single ethic per pop mean in terms of how it affects pop happiness? Well, this brings us to the new faction system, which we will cover briefly in this dev diary, and get back to more in depth later.

Faction Rework
One thing we feel is currently missing from Stellaris is agency for your pops. Sure, they have their ethics and will get upset if you have policies that don't suit them, but that's about the only way they have of expressing their desires, and there is no tie-in between pop ethics and the politics systems in the game. To address this and also to create a system that will better fit the new pop ethics, we've decided to revamp the faction system in the following manner:

• Factions are no longer purely rebel groupings, but instead represent political parties, popular movements and other such interest groups, and mostly only consist of pops of certain ethics. For example, the Supremacist faction desires complete political dominance for their own species, and is made up exclusively of Xenophobic pops, while the Isolationist faction wants diplomatic isolation and a strong defense, and can be joined by both Pacifist and Xenophobe pops. You do not start the game with any factions, but rather they will form over the course of the game as their interests become relevant
  
• Factions have issues related to their values and goals, and how well the empire responds to those issues will determine the overall happiness level of the faction. For example, the Supremacists want the ruler to be of their species and are displeased by the presence of free alien populations in the empire. They will also get a temporary happiness boost whenever you defeat alien empires in war.
  
• The happiness level of a faction determines the base happiness of all pops belonging to it. This means that where any pop not belonging to a faction has a base happiness of 50%, a pop belonging to a faction that have their happiness reduced to 35% because of their issues will have a base happiness of only 35% before any other modifiers are applied, meaning that displeasing a large and influential faction can result in vastly reduced productivity across your empire. As part of this, happiness effects from policies, xenophobia, slavery, etc have been merged into the faction system, so engaging in alien slavery will displease certain factions instead of having each pop individually react to it.
  
• Factions have an influence level determined by the number of pops that belong to it. In addition to making its pops happier, a happy faction will provide an influence boost to their empire.

We will come back to factions in greater detail in a later dev diary, going over topics such as how separatists and rebellious slaves will work, and how factions can be used to change your empire ethics, but for now we are done for today. Next week we'll be talking about another new feature that we have dubbed 'Traditions and Unity'. See you then!

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Stellaris Wiki
Stellaris Development Diary Archive

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Now that 1.4 is out, we can finally start properly talking about the 1.5 'Banks' update, which will be a major update with an accompanying (unannounced) expansion. As of right now we cannot provide any details on when 1.5 will come out, or anything about the unannounced expansion, so please don't ask. :)

Today's topic is a number of changes coming to ethics in the 1.5 update. Everything in this diary is part of the free update. Please note that values shown in screenshots are always non-final.

Authoritarian vs Egalitarian
One of the things in Stellaris I was never personally happy with was the Collectivism vs Individualism ethic. While interesting conceptually, the mechanics that the game presented for the ethics simply did not match either their meanings or flavor text, meaning you ended up with a Collectivist ethos that was somehow simultaneously egalitarian and 100% in on slavery, while Individualism was a confused jumble between liberal democratic values and randian free-market capitalism. For this reason we've decided to rebrand these ethics into something that should both be much more clear in its meaning, and match the mechanics as they are.

Authoritarian replaces Collectivist and represents belief in hierarchial rule and orderly, stratified societies. Authoritarian pops tolerate slavery and prefer to live in autocracies.
Egalitarian replaces Individualist and represents belief in individual rights and a level playing field. Egalitarian pops dislike slavery and elitism and prefer to live in democracies.

While I understand this may cause some controversy and will no doubt spark debate over people's interpretation of words like Authoritarian and Individualist, I believe that we need to work with the mechanics we have, and as it stand we simply do not have good mechanics for a Collectivism vs Individualism axis while the mechanics we have fit the rebranded ethics if not perfectly then at least a whole lot better.



Pop Ethics Rework
Another mechanic that never quite felt satisfying is the ethics divergence mechanic. Not only is it overly simplified with just a single value determining if pops go towards or from empire ethics, the shift rarely makes sense: Why would xenophobe alien pops diverge away from xenophobe just because they're far away from the capital of a xenophobic empire? Furthermore, the fact that pops could have anything from one to three different ethics made it extremely difficult to actually quantify what any individual pop's ethics actually mean for how they relate to the empire. For this reason we've decided to revamp the way pop ethics work in the following way:

• Each pop in your empire will now only embrace a single, non-fanatic ethic. At the start of the game, your population will be made of up of only the ethics that you picked in species setup, but as your empire grows, its population will become more diverse in their views and wants.
  
• Each ethic now has an attraction value for each pop in your empire depending on both the empire's situation and their own situation. For example, enslaved pops tend to become more egalitarian, while pops living around non-enslaved aliens become more xenophilic (and pops living around enslaved aliens more xenophobic). Conversely, fighting a lot of wars will increase the attraction for militarism across your entire empire, while an alien empire purging pops of a particular species will massively increase the attraction for xenophobic for the species being purged.
  
• Over time, the ethics of your pops will drift in such a way that it roughly matches the overall attraction of that value. For example, if your materialist attraction sits at 10% for decades, it's likely that after that time, around 10% of your pops will be materialist. There is some random factor so it's likely never going to match up perfectly, but the system is built to try and go towards the mean, so the more overrepresented an ethic is compared to its attraction, the more likely pops are to drift away from it and vice versa.

So what does the single ethic per pop mean in terms of how it affects pop happiness? Well, this brings us to the new faction system, which we will cover briefly in this dev diary, and get back to more in depth later.

Faction Rework
One thing we feel is currently missing from Stellaris is agency for your pops. Sure, they have their ethics and will get upset if you have policies that don't suit them, but that's about the only way they have of expressing their desires, and there is no tie-in between pop ethics and the politics systems in the game. To address this and also to create a system that will better fit the new pop ethics, we've decided to revamp the faction system in the following manner:

• Factions are no longer purely rebel groupings, but instead represent political parties, popular movements and other such interest groups, and mostly only consist of pops of certain ethics. For example, the Supremacist faction desires complete political dominance for their own species, and is made up exclusively of Xenophobic pops, while the Isolationist faction wants diplomatic isolation and a strong defense, and can be joined by both Pacifist and Xenophobe pops. You do not start the game with any factions, but rather they will form over the course of the game as their interests become relevant
  
• Factions have issues related to their values and goals, and how well the empire responds to those issues will determine the overall happiness level of the faction. For example, the Supremacists want the ruler to be of their species and are displeased by the presence of free alien populations in the empire. They will also get a temporary happiness boost whenever you defeat alien empires in war.
  
• The happiness level of a faction determines the base happiness of all pops belonging to it. This means that where any pop not belonging to a faction has a base happiness of 50%, a pop belonging to a faction that have their happiness reduced to 35% because of their issues will have a base happiness of only 35% before any other modifiers are applied, meaning that displeasing a large and influential faction can result in vastly reduced productivity across your empire. As part of this, happiness effects from policies, xenophobia, slavery, etc have been merged into the faction system, so engaging in alien slavery will displease certain factions instead of having each pop individually react to it.
  
• Factions have an influence level determined by the number of pops that belong to it. In addition to making its pops happier, a happy faction will provide an influence boost to their empire.

We will come back to factions in greater detail in a later dev diary, going over topics such as how separatists and rebellious slaves will work, and how factions can be used to change your empire ethics, but for now we are done for today. Next week we'll be talking about another new feature that we have dubbed 'Traditions and Unity'. See you then!

Read the original post

Useful links
Official Website
Stellaris Wiki
Stellaris Development Diary Archive