Everything was in place for the Romulan invasion of the United Federation of Planets. Warbirds screeched out of the shipyards of Romulus and Remus on a direct course for the closest Federation worlds, those belonging to the chilly Andorians. The real goal, of course, was neighbouring Vulcan. This was a symbolic war.
As my jade vessels bombarded the frozen Andorian homeworld, the Tal Shiar informed me that yet another Federation ship had been successfully sabotaged. When my Reman shock troops boots hit the icy ground, I realised that Star Trek: New Horizons, a Stellaris [official site] mod, was my favourite ever Roddenbery-flavoured game.
Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary is going to be about psionics and one of the three ascension paths mentioned in Dev Diary #56: the Psionic Ascension Path.
Psionics First, before we start digging into the way psionics will work Utopia, we should clarify that we are not removing any features from the free version of the game. If you have the Banks update but do not own Utopia, psionics will continue to work the same way they currently do: As technologies that you unlock. The only difference is that psionics can now only be researched by Spiritualist empires, though it is entirely possible for an empire that does not start out as Spiritualist to acquire psionics by shifting their empire ethics to Spiritualist over the course of the game, and once you start down the Psionic path it is possible to continue along it even if you stop being Spiritualist. This Spiritualist requirement applies whether or not you own Utopia.
If you *do* own the Utopia expansion, most of the psionic features will no longer appear as technologies. Only Psionic Theory, the very first psionic tech, is still researchable. To get access to the rest of the psionic path you will need to pick the 'Mind over Matter' Ascension Perk to start your empire on the Psionic Ascension Path. Picking this Ascension Perk will unlock latent psionic abilities among your primary species. A certain percentage of your leaders will have the 'Psychic' trait that grants a variety of advantages for the different leader classes, you will get access to Psionic Armies and also the special Psi Corps building. As with all Ascension Paths, you will need to have at least two Ascension Perk slots unlocked to pick 'Mind over Matter'.
After picking Mind over Matter, you will need to continue amassing Unity and working your way through the Tradition trees. Once you have unlocked your fourth Ascension Perk slot, the 'Transcendance' Ascension Perk becomes available. This is the second stage in the Psionic Ascension Path and represents the full Psionic awakening of your species. From this point on, your entire species will get the 'Psionic' species trait and all leaders from this species will be full-fledged Psychics. In addition to the advantages granted by these traits, from now on there is also a chance that other species in your empire will psionically awaken, first as latent Psychics and then as fully awakened ones much like your own.
The Shroud (Paid Feature) Not long after fully awakening, your species will become aware of The Shroud. The Shroud is the realm from which psychics draw their power, a strange dimension very unlike the material universe, a place of opportunity and danger alike. To begin exploring The Shroud, you will need to complete a special society research project that once completed will give you access to The Shroud in the contacts view. Each time you wish to enter The Shroud you will need to expend a considerable amount of energy (in the form of Energy Credits), though this cost can be reduced by having access to the Zro Dust Strategic Resource.
As for what can happen while exploring The Shroud... quite a few different things. We will not give them all away here, but some examples include unlocking psionic technologies, asking the spirits that dwell there for a boon, or even forming a Covenant with one of a number of particularly powerful spirits... a pact that will give great benefits, but may come at a terrible cost.
That's all for today! Next week we'll be coming back to Factions and how you can use them to change your Empire Ethics. We'll also be talking about Indoctrination. See you then!
Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary is going to be about psionics and one of the three ascension paths mentioned in Dev Diary #56: the Psionic Ascension Path.
Psionics First, before we start digging into the way psionics will work Utopia, we should clarify that we are not removing any features from the free version of the game. If you have the Banks update but do not own Utopia, psionics will continue to work the same way they currently do: As technologies that you unlock. The only difference is that psionics can now only be researched by Spiritualist empires, though it is entirely possible for an empire that does not start out as Spiritualist to acquire psionics by shifting their empire ethics to Spiritualist over the course of the game, and once you start down the Psionic path it is possible to continue along it even if you stop being Spiritualist. This Spiritualist requirement applies whether or not you own Utopia.
If you *do* own the Utopia expansion, most of the psionic features will no longer appear as technologies. Only Psionic Theory, the very first psionic tech, is still researchable. To get access to the rest of the psionic path you will need to pick the 'Mind over Matter' Ascension Perk to start your empire on the Psionic Ascension Path. Picking this Ascension Perk will unlock latent psionic abilities among your primary species. A certain percentage of your leaders will have the 'Psychic' trait that grants a variety of advantages for the different leader classes, you will get access to Psionic Armies and also the special Psi Corps building. As with all Ascension Paths, you will need to have at least two Ascension Perk slots unlocked to pick 'Mind over Matter'.
After picking Mind over Matter, you will need to continue amassing Unity and working your way through the Tradition trees. Once you have unlocked your fourth Ascension Perk slot, the 'Transcendance' Ascension Perk becomes available. This is the second stage in the Psionic Ascension Path and represents the full Psionic awakening of your species. From this point on, your entire species will get the 'Psionic' species trait and all leaders from this species will be full-fledged Psychics. In addition to the advantages granted by these traits, from now on there is also a chance that other species in your empire will psionically awaken, first as latent Psychics and then as fully awakened ones much like your own.
The Shroud (Paid Feature) Not long after fully awakening, your species will become aware of The Shroud. The Shroud is the realm from which psychics draw their power, a strange dimension very unlike the material universe, a place of opportunity and danger alike. To begin exploring The Shroud, you will need to complete a special society research project that once completed will give you access to The Shroud in the contacts view. Each time you wish to enter The Shroud you will need to expend a considerable amount of energy (in the form of Energy Credits), though this cost can be reduced by having access to the Zro Dust Strategic Resource.
As for what can happen while exploring The Shroud... quite a few different things. We will not give them all away here, but some examples include unlocking psionic technologies, asking the spirits that dwell there for a boon, or even forming a Covenant with one of a number of particularly powerful spirits... a pact that will give great benefits, but may come at a terrible cost.
That's all for today! Next week we'll be coming back to Factions and how you can use them to change your Empire Ethics. We'll also be talking about Indoctrination. See you then!
When we first covered G-Man's New Horizons Star Trek mod last year, the Stellaris total conversion boasted an impressive 38 pre-scripted races with canon starting positions, and five playable factions and their ships, among a host of other neat mechanics and features. It's now dropped its Alpha 0.9 update which lifts that number of races above 50, and adds a load of new ships and weapons to boot.
In preparation of its eventual Beta 0.1 stage, Alpha 0.9 also introduces new mechanics which allow players to customise their ships, spaceports and empires; while also adding re-designed edict and policy trees, an overhauled ground combat system, and larger star bases. Of the exhaustive list, this particular addition sounds great:
"More Espionage! As the federation grows stronger, the secret order of the Romulan Tal Shiar plans its downfall… a new espionage and sabotage mechanic has been developed, allowing the Romulans to do harm to their enemies from afar. Will you destroy their fleets? Or go after their infrastructure? Of course, the Tal Shiar are not the only organization… and the Obsidian Order is about to teach those pointy-ears how it’s done."
Here's YouTube person Lyellin2 putting the latest iteration of New Horizons through its paces:
Look out for more on New Horizons soon when we catch up with its creators. More information on the mod itself can be found this way.
Between plantoids, Leviathans, and Alexis Kennedy-inspired Horizon Signals, Stellaris' post-launch updates have grown the space-flung 4x-meets-grand strategy game quite considerably since its May release last year. It's now announced its first major update, Utopia, which encourages players to develop their interstellar empires further still.
With a choice of following a biological path, a psionic path, or a synthetic path—"with various options within these broad categories"—players will determine how their species evolves and advances by way of 'Ascension Perks'. "Body, Mind or Machine—how will your species challenge the future," asks developer Paradox.
Building new types of space stations and constructions will further aid your domination of the universe, such as Habitat Stations which house larger populations for smaller planets within your increasingly confined empires. New Rights and Privileges keep your populace in check and allow players to choose "an egalitarian paradise or a caste system" and everything in between.
Perhaps the most exciting feature of Utopia, though, is the addition of megastructures—whereby players can build "wondrous" constructs such as Dyson Spheres and ringworlds, both of which add near-impenetrable levels of defence to your worlds.
More information on Stellaris: Utopia can be found this way, including details on the game's free Update 1.5 Banks which ships alongside the new expansion. Utopia is without a concrete launch date and price, however Paradox says both will be revealed at a "later date".
Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary is going to cover the headline feature of the Utopia Expansion that we announced mere hours ago: Megastructures.
Megastructures (Paid Feature) Have you ever looked at a Fallen Empire's Ringworld and thought 'I want to build one of those?'. Well, so have we, and in the Utopia expansion you will be able to do so. Megastructures are massive multi-stage construction projects that require an enormous investment of resources and time but offer quite spectacular pay-offs. There are four Megastructures that you can build: The Ringworld, the Dyson Sphere, the Sentry Array and the Science Nexus. In order to build a Megastructure you will need to unlock a number of advanced technologies and pick the appropriate Ascension Perk. This will unlock the ability for your construction ship to build a Megastructure Construction Site in an appropriate location. The Construction Site alone is a project that takes a large amount of resources and takes several years to complete.
Once you have built the Construction Site for a Megastructure, you will be able to upgrade it to the first construction stage for a Megastructure. For the Ringworld and Dyson Sphere, this is an initial frame that provides no benefit, while the Science Nexus and Sentry Array gets a partially completed structure that provides some of the benefit of the finished version. From here, you can upgrade the unfinished Megastructure to the next stage(s) by investing more time and resources. For the Dyson Sphere, Science Nexus and Sentry Array, you upgrade one stage at a time, with increasing benefits from each finished stage until you have the completed Megastructure. The Ringworld Frame has four segments that can all be upgraded into finished Ringworld Sections simultaneously.
The four different Megastructures work as follows:
Ringworld: Can only be built around a planet-rich star in your borders and, once finished, provides four maximum size 100% habitable planets. The Ringworld construction project will consume all planets in the system to be used as building materials. Cannot be built around Black Holes, Pulsars or Neutron Stars.
Dyson Sphere: Can only be built around a star in your borders and provides a huge amount of energy each month, with the amount increasing for each stage of the Dyson Sphere completed. Once completed, the Dyson Sphere will cool down the system, turning most planets there into frozen worlds. Cannot be built around Black Holes, Pulsars or Neutron Stars.
Science Nexus: Can be built around any non-inhabitable non-moon non-asteroid planet (similar to Habitats) and provides a huge amount of science each month, with the amount increasing for each stage of the Science Nexus completed.
Sentry Array: Can be built around any non-inhabitable non-moon non-asteroid planet (similar to Habitats) and functions as a sensor station, providing sensor range in a radius that grows for each stage of the Sentry Array completed. Once fully finished, it will give complete sensor view of the entire galaxy.
Building a Megastructure is hardly a subtle affair, and once an empire starts construction on such a project, all other empires that have communications with them will be notified about the start, progression and completion of such a project. As monumental undertakings involving the resources of a whole empire, these projects can also have unintended political and diplomatic consequenses. Also, much like the Ringworlds already in the game, you are not the first civilization to conceive of the idea of Megastructures, and you may encounter ancient, ruined Megastructures while exploring.
That's all for today! Next week we'll be talking about yet another feature of the Utopia expansion: Psionic Transcendance and The Shroud.
Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary is going to cover the headline feature of the Utopia Expansion that we announced mere hours ago: Megastructures.
Megastructures (Paid Feature) Have you ever looked at a Fallen Empire's Ringworld and thought 'I want to build one of those?'. Well, so have we, and in the Utopia expansion you will be able to do so. Megastructures are massive multi-stage construction projects that require an enormous investment of resources and time but offer quite spectacular pay-offs. There are four Megastructures that you can build: The Ringworld, the Dyson Sphere, the Sentry Array and the Science Nexus. In order to build a Megastructure you will need to unlock a number of advanced technologies and pick the appropriate Ascension Perk. This will unlock the ability for your construction ship to build a Megastructure Construction Site in an appropriate location. The Construction Site alone is a project that takes a large amount of resources and takes several years to complete.
Once you have built the Construction Site for a Megastructure, you will be able to upgrade it to the first construction stage for a Megastructure. For the Ringworld and Dyson Sphere, this is an initial frame that provides no benefit, while the Science Nexus and Sentry Array gets a partially completed structure that provides some of the benefit of the finished version. From here, you can upgrade the unfinished Megastructure to the next stage(s) by investing more time and resources. For the Dyson Sphere, Science Nexus and Sentry Array, you upgrade one stage at a time, with increasing benefits from each finished stage until you have the completed Megastructure. The Ringworld Frame has four segments that can all be upgraded into finished Ringworld Sections simultaneously.
The four different Megastructures work as follows:
Ringworld: Can only be built around a planet-rich star in your borders and, once finished, provides four maximum size 100% habitable planets. The Ringworld construction project will consume all planets in the system to be used as building materials. Cannot be built around Black Holes, Pulsars or Neutron Stars.
Dyson Sphere: Can only be built around a star in your borders and provides a huge amount of energy each month, with the amount increasing for each stage of the Dyson Sphere completed. Once completed, the Dyson Sphere will cool down the system, turning most planets there into frozen worlds. Cannot be built around Black Holes, Pulsars or Neutron Stars.
Science Nexus: Can be built around any non-inhabitable non-moon non-asteroid planet (similar to Habitats) and provides a huge amount of science each month, with the amount increasing for each stage of the Science Nexus completed.
Sentry Array: Can be built around any non-inhabitable non-moon non-asteroid planet (similar to Habitats) and functions as a sensor station, providing sensor range in a radius that grows for each stage of the Sentry Array completed. Once fully finished, it will give complete sensor view of the entire galaxy.
Building a Megastructure is hardly a subtle affair, and once an empire starts construction on such a project, all other empires that have communications with them will be notified about the start, progression and completion of such a project. As monumental undertakings involving the resources of a whole empire, these projects can also have unintended political and diplomatic consequenses. Also, much like the Ringworlds already in the game, you are not the first civilization to conceive of the idea of Megastructures, and you may encounter ancient, ruined Megastructures while exploring.
That's all for today! Next week we'll be talking about yet another feature of the Utopia expansion: Psionic Transcendance and The Shroud.
Having previously launched a few DLCdribs and DLCdrabs into Stellaris [official site], Paradox today announced Utopia, the first “major expansion” for their space strategy game. It will introduce Dyson spheres and ring worlds, let starlords shape their empire’s future form such as going cybernetic or reaching a higher plane of existence, and more.
As is customary with Paradox strategy expansions, Utopia will be accompanied by a free update with important new features of its own. Changes in update 1.5, nicknamed ‘Banks’, will include expanding species rights, reworking ethics, and adding refugees. … [visit site to read more]
STOCKHOLM – 02 February 2017 – We reach for the stars for many reasons. They challenge us to explore. They dare us to explain. They prod us to expand. But, most of all, the universe offers every space-faring race a new start. This is the chance to perfect the species and to reach new heights of self-awareness, technological prowess or spiritual enlightenment. You can only get to Utopia by moving faster than light.
Stellaris: Utopia is the first major gameplay expansion to Stellaris, Paradox’s critically acclaimed and best selling strategy game about building an empire in new galaxies. Utopia introduces new options for developing your empire, with new types of space stations and constructions that open alternate avenues for making your species the dominant power in the galaxy.
One of the core improvements to Utopia is the introduction of Ascension Perks. As your species advances and gains new traditions, it can choose how it wants to evolve as it is further enlightened. You can choose between a biological path, a psionic path or a synthetic path, with various options within these broad categories. Body, Mind or Machine - how will your species challenge the future?
Utopia also includes:
Megastructures: Build wondrous structures in your systems including Dyson Spheres and ring worlds, bringing both prestige and major advantages to your race.
Habitat Stations: Build “tall” and establish space stations that will house more population, serving the role of planets in a small and confined empire.
Rights and Privileges: Set specific policies for which of the many species under your thumb will have the rights and privileges of full citizenship. Build an egalitarian paradise or follow a caste system.
And even more improvements and updates, including (as is traditional with all of our paid content releases) free updates for every Stellaris owner!
Stellaris: Utopia brings even greater depth and variety to a game already celebrated for its story-telling power and near endless possibilities. Are you ready for perfection?
Do you want to read more details about the features coming with Stellaris: Utopia, as well as the free Update 1.5 Banks that accompanies the expansion? Then check out the Development Diaries.
Price and Release Date will be revealed at a later date
STOCKHOLM – 02 February 2017 – We reach for the stars for many reasons. They challenge us to explore. They dare us to explain. They prod us to expand. But, most of all, the universe offers every space-faring race a new start. This is the chance to perfect the species and to reach new heights of self-awareness, technological prowess or spiritual enlightenment. You can only get to Utopia by moving faster than light.
Stellaris: Utopia is the first major gameplay expansion to Stellaris, Paradox’s critically acclaimed and best selling strategy game about building an empire in new galaxies. Utopia introduces new options for developing your empire, with new types of space stations and constructions that open alternate avenues for making your species the dominant power in the galaxy.
One of the core improvements to Utopia is the introduction of Ascension Perks. As your species advances and gains new traditions, it can choose how it wants to evolve as it is further enlightened. You can choose between a biological path, a psionic path or a synthetic path, with various options within these broad categories. Body, Mind or Machine - how will your species challenge the future?
Utopia also includes:
Megastructures: Build wondrous structures in your systems including Dyson Spheres and ring worlds, bringing both prestige and major advantages to your race.
Habitat Stations: Build “tall” and establish space stations that will house more population, serving the role of planets in a small and confined empire.
Rights and Privileges: Set specific policies for which of the many species under your thumb will have the rights and privileges of full citizenship. Build an egalitarian paradise or follow a caste system.
And even more improvements and updates, including (as is traditional with all of our paid content releases) free updates for every Stellaris owner!
Stellaris: Utopia brings even greater depth and variety to a game already celebrated for its story-telling power and near endless possibilities. Are you ready for perfection?
Do you want to read more details about the features coming with Stellaris: Utopia, as well as the free Update 1.5 Banks that accompanies the expansion? Then check out the Development Diaries.
Price and Release Date will be revealed at a later date
