Hello everyone!

I hope the word about the release date for Nemesis has already reached you, but in case it has somewhat eluded your perception, here is a refresher:

Nemesis will release on April 15th, and here is the second story trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o86MFZPb_WI

As per usual, our expansions are released together with a significant free update, and this time is no different!

We’re happy to announce that Nemesis will release together with the 3.0 ‘Dick’ Update on April 15th! The update is of course named after author Philip K. Dick, famous for works which inspired, among other things, movies like Blade Runner and Total Recall (which also happens to be one of my favorite movies!).

Why 3.0?
We felt that the changes introduced with the new Intel system and the reworked First Contact system has enough impact on how different the game feels to warrant the change. Early- and mid game feel quite different now, in a very positive manner. Alien empires feel so much more mysterious, and charting the entire galaxy is no longer so easy. Changes like the pop growth system and the addition of industrial districts also felt impactful enough to want us to make the change.

Going forwards, we’re also gearing up to be able to be a bit more agile and deliver updates to the game a bit more frequently. I don’t want to make any grand promises quite yet, but 2021 is looking to be a very good year for Stellaris!

3.0 ‘Dick’ Features:

• New Intel system
  
• Reworked First Contact
  
• Reworked Pop Growth
  
• New Industrial Districts & some changes to production of Alloys/Consumer Goods
  
• New Espionage system & Gather Intelligence Operation (other Operations will be a part of Nemesis)
  
• Numerous bug fixes & improvements

Espionage Update
The Espionage system has undergone some changes since the Dev Diaries that previewed them. Based on playtesting and qualitative feedback, we simplified a few of the systems that seemed to be adding unnecessary complexity or were difficult or awkward to understand. The way Encryption, Decryption, and Counter-Espionage all interacted were one of these points of frequent confusion, so we decided to scrap Counter-Espionage entirely, renamed Decryption to Codebreaking, and apply standardized rules when using them:

Encryption is always used as "Espionage Defense"
Codebreaking is always used as "Espionage Offense"

In earlier iterations, which modifier was being referenced varied based on the exact circumstances, which muddled the stats a bit and made it difficult to tell which one would help you more when you're attempting to infiltrate an empire. We renamed Decryption in order to further reduce confusion. Relative Encryption is used often in the system, and will now always compare the "offensive" Empire's Codebreaking with the "defending" Empire's Encryption.


Relative Encryption tooltip. In this example, our Codebreaking is lower than their Encryption and their Codebreaking is higher than our Encryption.


The refined Operations UI. Envoy on the top left, Infiltration Level (current/max) as progress bar & value. Intel categories in the top-right.

We've streamlined the Operations UI significantly, reducing the sheer amount of numbers associated with a network and the Operations themselves. As part of this streamlining, we've removed the concept of spy power and bandwidth, so it's no longer possible to run multiple simultaneous Operations on a single Empire simultaneously - you'll have to run them one at a time. This change also alleviates a problem we had where it wouldn't always be immediately perfectly clear which mission random events were affecting, so the "mental burden" of running Operations is lower.

Upon completion, Operations will now almost always cause a significant hit to Infiltration to represent lost contacts and heightened security. Operations also used to have varying difficulty per chapter - we've standardized them so we can now list the Operation difficulty on the UI, and let you know if you have an Asset that is especially good at this one.

First Contact Update
Although not much has changed with the system itself since we first showcased it in dev diary #193, there’s still some changes that can be interesting to see.



The finished first contact UI. The silhouette in the bottom-right is supposed to be generic, and will reveal a portrait once you’ve progressed far enough into the first contact chain.​

Early hostilities can now lead to pre-contact conflicts as well. If you anger a neighboring alien civilization, there’s the chance that they will come and visit you.

More aggressive empires like fanatic purifiers or devouring swarms are also less likely to take your encroachment into their lands very kindly early on.


Abducting aliens is no longer a risk-free undertaking.


It seems like they weren’t too happy about our abductions…

Outliner Update
We’ve added some small quality-of-life improvement to the outliner. One of these improvements lets you reorder planets in the outliner.


Planets will be reordered within the sector listing or planet listing, depending on which option is active.



The outliner can also be toggled to show the icons for the designations instead of the icon for the planet class.​

With these two options it's now possible to list all your planets as you wish, and to show the designation icons. Our product manager, Simon, can now finally list his Mining 01, Mining 02, Mining 03 etc. planets in the correct, and fanatically organized, order.

---------

That’s all for this week folks! I hope you’re as excited for the upcoming Nemesis release as we are!

"Hi all! I’m Caligula, our resident scripting language magician. As someone who works with our scripting language - both using it and improving it - on a daily basis, I’m very happy to be able to show off some of the new stuff that modders (and us inhouse) will be able to use going forwards, once the upcoming patch hits.

I’ll begin with a rundown of the new features:

• Espionage: modders can add new operations, much like arc sites
  
• First Contact: script driven, so modders can change much of the system, but all first contact is now technically one long event chain, so overwriting could be an issue. Luckily we have a new effect, “fire_on_action”, which has been inserted into various places that should alleviate this
  
• Become the Crisis: code features e.g. the interface are all activated by script. So in theory, one could overwrite the whole feature to be whatever sort of progression to a goal you happen to want to mod in.
  
• Emperor/Custodian: feature designed by the most experienced Content Designer at PDS. Brought with it many collateral scripting improvements, such as far more flexibility with galcom resolutions and the ability to spawn federation / community fleets via script.

Now, it’ll be exciting to see what modders do with this, but there’s so much more that we’ve done since 2.8 hit, so...


It would be fair to say that the Stellaris scripting language has grown incrementally according to the game's needs. This is not unexpected - Stellaris itself has grown incrementally. But it has had the side effect that a lot of different people have contributed to it, and so inconsistencies between different implementations have arisen. On the user side, this would show itself in, for example, things which work in one place but do not work in other, equivalent places.

For the upcoming patch, we had time to take a holistic view of certain things and implement some general improvements and standardisations.

A quick win in this regard is what is known internally as "script lists". These are a code system which generates random/every/any/count_whatever_object from a single section of code - guaranteeing that the way that array is built is the same between them, i.e. any_owned_pop checks exactly the same pops as every_owned_pop would execute on. We have been using these for quite a while, but there were still some very old implementations for certain scopes that predated them. The result of this was in some cases confusion - for example, x_pop and x_planet did sometimes radically different things depending on whether you used every, random, any or count (e.g. working in different scopes, sometimes referring to all the objects in the game and sometimes all of those belonging to the current scope...). Disturbingly, it was found that any_ship referred to "any ship in the game" and was in fact used wrong 100% of the time in our scripts. Another result was that in some cases one of the versions (usually the "count" version) was simply missing.

With the next patch, nearly all of the pre-script list implementations have been removed and replaced with script lists. In some cases, the opportunity was taken to clarify what the script list did, e.g. the "planet" script list is now split between "galaxy_planet" and "system_planet". (This will break some mods, for which I am a bit sorry, but not very :D It was worth it, and the patch notes will give details on what changed. In most cases, a batch-replace will suffice. Also, because of script lists, a fair few count_x triggers have changed names to lose an "s" at the end, which is slightly regrettable from a grammatical point of view). Some have also had some functionalities expanded, e.g. owned_pop, owned_planet and system_within_border now all work in sector scope.

A further area singled out for improvement was references to scopes in effects and triggers, e.g. create_pop = { species = <whatever> }. It turned out that there were quite significant variations as to what <whatever> in that example could be, depending on the effect or trigger. In some cases, only the species was allowed; in others, perhaps species or leader or country or pop; in others, the same but not pops… In some cases, we even used something called “owner_main_species”, which worked in just those places (unlike “owner_species”, which was the same but worked everywhere…). Our solution was to go through each and every trigger and effect and enforce standardisation - with the same code functions used in each case - for any script call to a species, country, planet, leader, or solar system location. No more shall we be confused that something works in one place but not in another!

This also lets us make sure that errors are correctly (and usefully) logged each time a scripter gets one of these wrong. (N.B. for modders not in the know: the error log can be found in Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/logs/error.log). In a similar vein, error logging has generally been improved across the whole scripting language. A large number of error messages lacking essential information (e.g. file location) have been updated to include that - as guardian of our overnight testing error logs, I have gone on a personal crusade against useless error log messages. Furthermore, we have fixed a disturbing number of cases where something didn't work but didn't warn you - e.g. doing something wrong in a trigger so it is always false, or messing up an effect so it did nothing. I'm not going to promise that this will never happen anymore, but a concerted effort has been made to eliminate such cases. Modders should expect the error log to warn them of a lot more issues both during startup and during the campaign. This has also made us somewhat more effective in fixing script bugs, since many more are now caught in the aforementioned overnight tests.


Onto something a bit different. On Stellaris, inhouse scripters and modders alike have long looked with envy upon the capabilities of the newer PDS game engines, compared to our own ability to do maths in script. We did have variables, but their functionality has been a bit more limited than we may have desired. In fact, I’ve seen some of the ways that modders get around their limitations, which have been incredibly motivating to make such horrible scripts no longer be necessary!

In 2.8, the following was possible with variables:

• You can check, set, add, subtract, divide or multiply variables against values, other variables on the same scope, or the same variable on other scopes
  
• You can export various galaxy generation settings as variables
  
• You can refer to variables in localisations, but if the variable’s value is 0, it will show as blank because the variable is cleared
  
• Variables can be used as a parameter in a handful of places, such as the count in a “while” effect

Quite a lot of improvements have been made since then, and further ones are planned for the near future. In the upcoming patch:

• You can also check, set, add, subtract, divide or multiply variables against different variables on other scopes
  
• There are new effects to modulo (% operator), round up, round down and round to the closest full number
  
• A new trigger check_variable_arithmetic checks the value of a variable if you’d perform some arithmetic to it in a certain way, e.g. multiply it by another value or variable (add, subtract, multiply, divide and modulo all work)
  
• New effects to export various game values to variables have been added. These are: export_modifier_to_variable (check_modifier_value trigger also exists now), export_resource_stockpile_to_variable, export_resource_income_to_variable
  
• add_modifier, add_resource, resource_stockpile_compare now have “mult” parameters where a variable is accepted. So you can scale resource costs and bonuses in effects by a variable now.
  
• Variables are no longer cleared when they are 0, but instead when you use the clear_variable effect, so they can be reliably used in localisations.
  
• Certain usages of variables now have error logging, in case you try and use one that hasn’t been set.

Additionally, we have started making it possible to use variables way more widely. The idea is that we want to change how simple numerical effects and triggers (i.e. ones which accept a number as the right hand side parameter and do not have any “{ }”) work:

• Effects should allow you to use a variable, and should grab the number from that variable
  
• Triggers should also let you use a variable, and should check themselves against the value of that variable
  
• Triggers should by default also let you check them against another scope for which that trigger would work. So “num_pops > from” should check if the current object has more pops than “from” does
  
• It should be possible to export the current value of a trigger to a variable via an effect, i.e. “export_trigger_value_to_variable = { trigger = num_pops variable = my_var }” => sets the my_var variable to the number of pops the current scope has.

Unfortunately, it only recently became possible for us to pursue these changes, and while the groundwork has been set for them, they are not yet fully implemented - finishing the Nemesis expansion and accompanying patch has rightly taken priority (the changes are not without danger: it’s a lot of lines of code that have to be modified for it). So consider this a preview for how it will look in the hopefully near future, and in the meantime, the fleet_power trigger already works in the way specified, and export_trigger_value_to_variable is in the patch, albeit working with only that trigger.


Inhouse, we made the UI by assigning a function to buttons in the source code. But there’s also support for interface buttons that you mod into the game. In previous versions, these did not take the scope of the object that they were attached to, so if you added a button to a planet, it would still execute the effect on your country rather than that planet. We have fixed that for a bunch of cases: they will now be able to deduce their interface's planet, fleet, ship, system, ambient object, megastructure, federation, archaeology site, first contact site, spy network or espionage operation. (Incidentally, debug console commands like “effect …” and “trigger …” now work in those same scopes)

Disclaimer: The way it works is a tad hacky and it may be possible to confuse it by opening multiple interfaces at once. I recommend checking “is_scope_type = planet/whatever” in the allow and/or effect sections of the button effect. But the signs are that it should work with no problem in most cases, which is better than none!

• In most places where you could previously use logical operators such as >, >=, =<, <, you can now use != for “is not equal” too.
  
• Message types now have their own folder, so mods can add to them without overwriting the file (great for intermod compatibility, and also for modders being able to add QoL without overwriting each other)
  
• Messages spawned by the create_message effect now support using loc commands such as [This.GetName] (where “This” is the specified target of the message).
  
• Also, since we had to fix a large number of cases where there were references to the “Galactic Community” rather than the “Galactic Imperium”, [ ] locs now work in quite a variety of extra places.
  
• The effects “add_victory_score = <number>” and “win = yes” now exist. I’m sure no one will misuse them.
  
• Added new event types: leader_event, system_event, starbase_event, first_contact_event, and espionage_operation_event. Though mean time to happen does not work for any of them at the moment - fixing that wasn’t a priority, as it is generally better to avoid mean time to happen anyway.
  
• Hardcoded juggernaut behaviour is now tied to a ship size being a starbase that is mobile, rather than the “juggernaut” key. I.e. mod-made juggernauts are now possible without crippling bugs
  
• It’s now possible to hide a static modifier from the list of country modifiers
  
• You can check the distance of objects within the same solar system now by adding “same_system = yes” to the distance trigger
  
• There’s quite a lot of new on_actions, and you can make your own ones with fire_on_action effect
  
• And a lot more.

Finally, I'll leave you with the new trigger docs (as of today), which are now found in their own file down in the forum post here called trigger_docs.log, and which really speak for themselves. Also, don't forget Paradox Insider will premier this Saturday at 8 PM CET (7 PM UK, 2 PM ET, 11 AM PT) on https://www.twitch.tv/twitchgaming

"Hey folks!

My name is Erik Forsström and I’m the VFX Artist for Stellaris and I’ve been here since the release of Lithoids. VFX stands for visual effects, which means that I’m the guy who’s responsible for anything from small ship engine effects, to big system effects such as the nebulas that we added to the game last year. If it’s animated and it’s not a 3D model, then there’s a fairly high chance that a vfx artist is responsible for it.

What does a VFX Artist do?​
My workflow is a bit different compared to the other artists, because compared to 3D Artists I’m not working as much with 3D models.The main tool for me to use is particles, which pretty much is just flat planes that I work with to make cool explosions! I won't go into the technical details about particles, but just to give you a quick idea about the difference between us VFX Artists and others. While 3D Artists are sculpting and creating cool 3D models, I’m pretty much simulating planes and telling them which direction to travel and changing the size and color over time. That’s not to say I never do 3D modelling, but as I mentioned before it’s not my main tool as you’ll notice in what we’ll be showcasing below.

The cool and interesting stuff!​
So with that explained, time to get to the effects that we’ll be adding in Nemesis!
If we’re starting off with the ships in Stellaris, something that I’ve aimed to do is to give the different shipsets a bit more unique feeling when it comes to the effects. Some of you might have noticed that both Lithoids & Necroids have some unique ship effects, anything from ship engines to explosions. I’ve tried to make them all look at least slightly different to each other to varying degrees and to make them fit the style of the ships.
I usually try to give them some different shapes, color schemes or anything cool that I can come up with that makes it look unique and fit the style.


Click here: to see the Nemesis Titan with new effects for the perdition beam and the engines

The big effects, in other words the system effects!​
Another thing that you might have noticed is that we’ve added quite a few different system effects over the last year, such as the nebulas, space storms and the endgame crisis system effects when they’re expanding their territories. It was one of those things that I always felt that was missing while playing Stellaris, the systems felt a bit empty. With Nemesis we’ve added a few new system effects, such as for the Aetherophasic Engine Frame that we mentioned in an earlier dev diary.
When you’re upgrading it you’ll get a system effect that changes through the different stages, getting bigger and more powerful the higher the stage you’ll get. To really show it off I'm cheating a bit in the video below (by using max resources and finishing the construction instantly), and I’ll let you see how it changes and develops through the different stages.
From a fairly small effect, to a huge effect covering the system with more detail, shapes and movement in it to really give you the feeling that something powerful is going to happen in this system.

How is it made?​
System effects are one of those effects that most of the time are made with a mix of particles and 3D models, the sheer size of them requires more complex shapes then what you can get with only particles. So the effect below is created with the help of these meshes that you can see in the image below, and then I’ll apply some animated shaders on them that creates the movement of the textures that you can see in the video. Add on top of that some particles and you get a complete effect!


The meshes used for the visual effects for the Aetherophasic Engine


Click here to watch the Aetherophasic Engine Frame going through the different upgrade stages

Destroying a star​
And finally the highlight for me in Nemesis! Blowing up the stars!
It’s made of a few different parts, the chargeup that rely mostly on the animation of the Star Eater with some glow in the middle of it. And then comes the firing stage, which is a pretty big effect. As you can see it goes through different stages in strength, that helps with creating more of a buildup until the big explosion.
At first while prototyping it was at full power at once, which looked cool but it didn’t create the anticipation for the explosion. You “only” ended up looking at a cool effect for ~20s without any buildup or knowing how close it’s to firing, if you were only looking at the visuals.
So in the end we ended up splitting up the effect in different stages, and added or tweaked parts of it to make it really feel like you’re getting closer to blowing up a star.

And last but not least, the star explosion. I’ll keep this short because I think the explosion pretty much speaks for itself. But I just want to say that this is probably one, if not my favorite effect I’ve done so far in this game.
So I really hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I do!


Click here: to watch the The death of a star!

And that was all from me! Hopefully it gave you some insight of what I do, and how I do some of the things. Thanks for reading!

Next week a content designer is going to write about script improvements that’s coming in the next update!"

"Hello, my name is Simon Gunnarsson, I'm the Art Lead and acting Art Director for Stellaris. I wanted to go through our process of developing a style for a new ship series that will be added to the game when Nemesis is released. I'll go through the steps from the initial meeting with our game director, Daniel Moregård, through the visual development (vis-dev), concept art production and finally end at 3D production, that includes animation and VFX.

Initial Art Direction
For this time around, we had a player fantasy to cater to, so our mission statement became our guiding star throughout the process. We sat down with the game director that resulted in the imperial thematic direction. Which was enough for us to start doing some word associations to kick off the creative process.



The closer the top a word is, the more influence it should have in our direction. We held ourselves to these words even when we changed our visual direction in the middle of the vis-dev.

These first associations were part of the first brief we put together to the concept team. The theme invites for interpretations so it's important that we also define the initial art direction with supporting images, splitting the line between "what it is" and "what it isn't" is equally necessary.

With these things in mind, we curate an initial aesthetic that we think is worth exploring, so the concept team has some anchor to the vision. For the imperial aesthetic we wanted them to explore a bright and ornamental direction at first. We always enable our team to add their own touch to these curated directions, but also encourage them to also explore other paths.

Vis-dev
We had several people working with the vis-dev, all bringing their own unique take on the brief we gave them. This process is quite hard, closing doors on designs and actually drive the art direction forward is a difficult task, with all the viable options at hand, we have to be quite picky, and measure against the words that we came up with.

Asking questions like, is this conveying an imperial and dominant feeling, what works well with this specific design and what doesn't. These questions are crucial in driving the vis-dev forward.



Concept-art made by Alessandro Bragalini



Concept-art made by Ecbel Oueslati



Concept-art made by Mattias Larsson



Concept-art made by Simon Gunnarsson (me!)



Concept-art made by Ylva Ljungqvist

There were concerns towards the mid-point of the vis-dev. The way the light works in Stellaris could make it so that white looks quite muddy. There's a chance that white takes too much color from the light and makes it look quite weird in some occasions.

So we iterated the curated art direction into a dark aesthetic. We made it more forgiving no matter what empire color the players chose, the ships will most likely look appealing in every instance.

The new aesthetic still had to hold true towards the associated words from the beginning. So we focused on more brutalist style, dark with silver details.



Final concept-art made by Simon Gunnarsson

Style Guide
The end of the vis-dev should result in a style guide, a document that should communicate the vision and the aesthetic, with extracted details and breakdowns. It is used by the whole team, from animators to VFX so it needs to be quite descriptive.

For example, below is a breakdown of materials that 3D artists will use as a guide to creating them.



Production

The actual concept art production is the bulk of our workload. It's where we create actual blueprints for 3D artists to follow. But it's really just a linear but iterative process to get to a final result. We start with sketching some ideas, and we slowly commit more and more to certain aspects until we have a design we like, then we refine it, add materials and ultimately a final asset sheet is created.


Initial sketches



Concept artist use 3D to easier present the ship and get a better feel for the design



Laying down material patterns, starting with a broad design then adding secondary and tertiary level of material details





Finalized asset sheet, complete with materials and material ID for the 3D artists to follow




In-game final asset

The end, but not quite!

This is our process with every new ship aesthetic, but the ships have a few more stops on the road before they're truly final, both animation, VFX and audio will get their hands on these before the full process is complete!

Thank you for taking the time to read this long post, here's a Nemesis (imperial style) titan! You will hear from our VFX artist, Erik Forsström, in a Dev Diary in a near future! "

PS. If you want to see a short video of the Nemesis (imperial style) titan, scroll down to the bottom of the forum post here!

Hello everyone!

Last week we talked about how the Galactic Community can elect a Custodian to unite them against an ongoing crisis, and this week we aim to continue that story.

The Unbidden invaded the galaxy, and in order to defeat the crisis you needed to ask for additional powers, and the length of the war underlined the need for more permanent powers. Those powers were very nice to have, and they are powers that you may not want to give up so easily.



Remember that time when you needed to make your custodianship perpetual? Those were the days.​

It would be better if you could find a more permanent and legitimate solution. Besides… wouldn’t the galaxy be safer under your leadership anyway?



When a Custodianship is granted on a perpetual term limit, the Custodian can propose a resolution for the creation of a Galactic Imperium.​

Proclaim the Galactic Imperium
Citizens of the galaxy! On this day we make history as we transition into a new, and brighter future! Under this New Order, our ideals and rights will be protected. We hold these rights to be self-evident and we will defend them by force of arms. No star shall be lost to the enemies of our Community and together we will repel all attacks from within or without. Let our enemies learn to fear us: those who challenge our resolve will be crushed.
– High Chancellor Nilapatep, during the proclamation of the Galactic Imperium



Long live the Imperium!



Long live the Emperor!​

When the Galactic Imperium is created, all federations that were previously in the Galactic Community will be disbanded.



There is a New Order in town.​

The Galactic Imperium cannot be proclaimed during a War in Heaven.

Galactic Imperium
Once created, the Galactic Community ceases to exist and turns into the Galactic Imperium instead. Some things will be familiar, and some things will be entirely different.



Will the Imperial Senate Comfort the Fallen?​

The Galactic Emperor will gain access to a number of new resolutions, and a number of resolutions that are similar to those that were available to the Custodian.



There is much work to be done in the Galactic Imperium.​
The Galactic Emperor retains the powers available to the Custodian, e.g. such as Conclude Session and Freeze Resolution. They will also have a permanent Intel bonus against members, and gain an additional bonus to Diplomatic Weight.

Your Ethics will shift towards Fanatic Authoritarian, shift your Authority to Imperial, and you will get a new government form. Your Civics that are incompatible with your new position will be removed and you will gain a new unique Civic.



The emperor will gain a new unique Civic that doesn’t occupy a Civic slot.​

Hive Minds, Machine Intelligences and Megacorps are not blocked from proclaiming the Galactic Imperium, and have their own slight twist on it.

A Megacorp that forms the Galactic Imperium gains access to regular civics as well as corporate civics.

Imperial Armada
If there was a Galactic Defense Force during the previous Custodianship, it will be converted into the Imperial Armada instead.

Imperial Authority
The power that the Emperor holds over the Galactic Imperium is reflected in Imperial Authority. Depending on the strength of the Imperial Authority, different things can happen.



Members of the Galactic Imperium can choose to Strengthen or to Undermine Imperial Authority.

The Galactic Emperor gains access to a new Operation – Target Seditionists – which will prevent the target from undermining Imperial Authority with their envoys for a certain amount of time.

Those opposing the lawfulness of this New Order will also gain their own tools. The Weaken Imperial Authority Operation will do exactly what it promises. Should Imperial Authority fall below 50, they also gain access to the Spark Rebellion Operation, which will also do exactly what you would expect.

Rebellion
The rebels have chosen to light the flame, and the galaxy is in turmoil once again.

Those who refuse to join the rebels will join a loyalist federation instead, and a war will be declared that pits these two federations against each other. All rebel empires will leave the Imperium for the duration of this war.

If the Rebels win the war, the Imperium is dismantled and reverts back into the Galactic Community. All Rebels will rejoin the Community, Council members lose their seats, and all Loyalists get a temporary debuff to their diplomatic weight for a few years, meaning their influence in the reborn Galactic Community will be limited to begin with. The former Emperor will get even greater diplomatic weight penalties which will also last longer.

If the Loyalists win, the Rebels are all forced back into the Galactic Imperium and they get temporary debuff which lowers their diplomatic weight for a few years. In addition, Imperial Authority is greatly increased.

Regardless of who wins, the Rebel and Loyalist federations are disbanded.

If the war ends in a Status Quo/White Peace, the Rebels secede from the Imperium, and their Federation stays intact.

A Galaxy on Fire
With Nemesis we wanted to focus on the things that can go wrong, we wanted to focus on disruption and chaos. With one crisis defeated, the next crisis might be just around the corner, and it will be up to you to navigate the delicate balance of the galaxy.

Will you light the flame, or will you restore the balance?

Who will be your Nemesis?

Hello everyone!

Today we’re back again with yet another dev diary; number 200 in fact. It sure has been a very exciting journey for Stellaris, and I think it is only going to get better! Nemesis is shaping up to be a very interesting addition to Stellaris, and today we thought we would talk about another headline feature for our upcoming expansion – namely the Custodian.

While some empires seek to set the universe on fire, others need to find their destiny as its defender. As we mentioned last week, the Galactic Community will get their own tools to fight the crisis, and that is what they can do by electing their chief crisis fighter.

We are setting the stage for these two nemeses to battle over the fate of the galaxy, and it is up to you who will win.

Becoming the Custodian
As soon as there is a Galactic Council, the Galactic Community can propose to elect one of the council members to become the Custodian. It is possible to have multiple proposals going at once, but as soon as a resolution is passed that elects a Custodian, others cannot be proposed anymore, as the choice has already been made.



Concrete evidence that my lithoids should rock the Custodianship.​

The AI is more likely to vote for a Custodian when there is some sort of crisis going on, which can be a Marauder crisis, end-game crisis, “Become the Crisis”-crisis or any of the other things that can happen.



Time to get to work.​

Powers of the Custodian
In order to be effective at their role, the Custodian must gain access to some special powers. The Custodian may need to be able to affect which resolutions move to the Senate Floor, so they have extended powers to be able to influence that more directly.



The Custodian in the Galactic Community.​

Prematurely End Session: A Custodian can end the current session after half of its voting period, which will pass or reject the resolution being voted on depending on the voting situation at the time.

Emergency Measures: The Custodian can use the Emergency Measures power to send a proposal to the Senate Floor, but has a much lower cooldown than regular council members.

Shared Intel: The Custodian will gain some Intel on all other members of the Galactic Community, such as knowing their Relative Fleet Power.

Freezing proposals: The custodian can pay 200 influence to freeze a resolution for 4 years, making it impossible for the resolution to move to the Senate Floor for the duration.



Brrrr. Will you be resolute and wait it out..?​

Custodial Resolutions
There are a number of new Resolutions that are tied to the Custodian. Let’s take a look at some of them:



Wanna read more about the Galactic Resolutions and Galactic Defence Force? See the forum post here!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfBJjAhaJXw

Paradox Interactive is proud to announce the new expansion coming to Stellaris - Nemesis!
Determine the fate of the galaxy by pulling strings behind the scenes with new espionage mechanics. Choose to become the Galactic Custodian to counter Galactic threats, or take the menace option to BECOME the crisis - Nemesis gives you the most powerful tools ever available in Stellaris.

Ultimately, you will have to decide whether to grasp the reins of a galaxy spiraling into chaos – or ferment the chaos yourself.

Will you find a way to take power through diplomacy and subterfuge, or will you stand on the sidelines as the stars go out one by one?

You can wishlist Nemesis now here!

Hello everyone!

Today we’re back with another exciting dev diary to talk about a new feature in the upcoming Nemesis expansion for Stellaris.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfBJjAhaJXw&feature=emb_title

For far too long has the galaxy remained safe from player hands. In fact, more often than not, the player has needed to be the defender of said galaxy. No more! Finally has your time come to become the crisis!
​
Becoming the Crisis
Your first step towards becoming the biggest threat to the continued existence of the galaxy is to pick the associated ascension perk. You need to have 2 other Ascension Perks unlocked before you can select Become the Crisis. The Ascension Perk is available to most types of empires, but xenophiles, pacifists and rogue servitors are unable to have the color purple as their favorite.

There is no limit to the number of players that can pick it, but the AI will be less likely to do so if there is another empire that already has it.



Donning the purple, the Stellaris way.​

Upon picking the Ascension Perk, your path of destruction has begun. You will forfeit other opportunities to focus on your newfound goals.

Becoming more menacing
As soon as you have chosen to Become the Crisis, you get access to a new UI tab where you can see your current crisis perks, and menace objectives.



Work in progress. Names or descriptions may not be final.​

As you perform certain evil deeds, you’ll be rewarded with Menace. Some of these are rewarded upon reaching an objective, while others are rewarded over time while certain conditions are met (such as having a vassal).

To reach the next Crisis Level you will need a certain amount of Menace, and you will also need to finish a special project to take you to the next level. You will need to repeat the process of gaining more Menace and finishing a special project 4 times before you can reach the final Crisis Level.


Finishing the 1st special project, which takes you to Crisis Level 2.​

Crisis Perks
Each Crisis Level unlocks certain Crisis Perks, which can unlock bonuses or new types of ships. As you become more menacing, you’ll also become more powerful through these perks.




A crisis needs to keep its options open.



Some of these ships cost minerals to build. Crazy concept, isn’t it?

You can unlock the following ships:

• Menacing Corvette
  
• Menacing Destroyer
  
• Asteroid Cruiser
  
• Star-Eater

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[/list]
The further you progress, the more interesting things start to become.

Existential Crisis
The final level for the crisis is no mere label, as you will be able to threaten the very existence of the galaxy.



As the final level is unlocked, an Aetherophasic Engine Frame appears in your capital system. The frame requires a lot of dark matter to upgrade, and upgrading is something that you definitely want to do. Other empires may be less happy about the outcome.



Getting such a large amount of dark matter is no easy task, so a special gathering device has to be used – let us present the Star-Eater. Star-Eaters do exactly what it sounds like – they eat stars.


Behold! A large dark matter deposit.​
Your new goal as a crisis is now to gather as much dark matter as you can, so that you can upgrade your Aetherophasic Engine. The stars are now your fuel towards a different future.

Should you succeed, everyone else will lose.

The galactic community will also get their own tools to try to stop you, which is something we’ll dive deeper into next week

Hello again!

Now that we've gone over several of the basic Operations, this week we want to go over Provocations.

Operations vary in risk and consequences. The simplest Operations such as Gathering Information and Acquiring Assets will only rarely cause major issues between the two Empires, while Stealing Technology or Sabotaging Starbases is more frowned upon and can cause some diplomatic issues. Provocations are the types of acts that the galaxy as a whole will generally take a dim view to, treating them as war crimes. Expect blowback and repercussions from them, even when they are successful.

Part of these repercussions is modelled by the loss of Infiltration - whether it be that parts of your Spy Network are compromised, security holes have been closed in response, or "friends" within the empire stop being quite as friendly. The flashier and messier the operation is, the more your network will be impacted.

Provocations will usually cause the greatest losses of Infiltration, making it difficult or impossible to run other operations in that network until it is built back up.

One Provocation that we're planning is Arm Privateers (Provocation, Economy). It's a fairly advanced Operation requiring an Infiltration level of 60, and has the primary objective of disrupting the target empire by providing weapons and funding to violent and unstable individuals.



Surely nothing will go wrong with this plan.

The weapons are untraceable, so it'll be fine.



These are a trustworthy group, right?

Your spymaster makes a good point there though.



Last chance to back out.



Privateers or pirates?

The Privateer fleet disabled the local starbase and set up their own little pirate base. Their fleet strength is based to a degree on the fleet strength of the empire it was created in, so while it is likely to be only a temporary annoyance, it can prove incredibly useful if deployed at the right time.

As noted during the events, these fleets are hostile to everyone, including their original patrons.

The nastiest Operation to date is the Crisis Beacon (Provocation, Technology).



Surely nothing will go wrong with this plan either.

Crisis Beacon is an extremely difficult Operation to pull off, but if successful, will add the target's capital system as a target of interest to an ongoing End-Game Crisis. It currently has the highest Infiltration level requirement (80) and cost of any Operation. This will typically require an extremely well developed Spy Network with numerous Assets.

If all goes according to plan, this will usually result in the Crisis sending a fleet to "investigate" it in the friendly way that they do when visiting systems.



Goodbye! We'll miss you!

As with many Operations, things can develop in different ways depending on what's going on.



The last time we'll hear from them.

Shortly thereafter, the bait is set.



It's like Prethoryn catnip.

The sacrifice of our operatives (and the rest of the Spy Network that we had built up in the Anathurian Nation) bought us a bit of time as it diverted a Prethoryn fleet away from our own territory. The Swarm chose to support that fleet with other resources, leading them away from our border nicely.

Now, this sort of Operation is definitely an act of war, and we're currently discussing exactly what the consequences should be if you get caught performing such a heinous deed. At the very least, your target is not going to be happy at all with you. (And if you have a Xenophilic faction they might not be too pleased.)

That's this week's dossier of secret information. Next week we'll continue to talk about the Crisis a bit.

Hello!

Today we’re going deeper into some of the things you can do with the Spy Networks your envoys carefully built up last week.

As noted there, building up a Spy Network will passively provide Intel on the empire they are in as their Infiltration Level increases. (This was previously called “Spy Network Level” but has been renamed for clarity.) Once they've built up enough strength, you can choose to run Operations within the empire. A strong Spy Network can have sufficient bandwidth to run multiple Operations simultaneously.

Like First Contact, Operations use a variant of the Archaeology system first introduced in Ancient Relics. Unlike Archaeology and First Contact, however, when Operations complete objectives necessary to complete their mission, they usually do not require your intervention unless something important has come up.

When starting an Operation, you have the option of assigning a single Asset to the mission.

Operations have an energy credit cost to initiate as well as energy upkeep while ongoing. Most Operations pause for your final approval before they initiate their final step, but your operatives can be given permission to launch as soon as it is ready in the UI.

Covert missions are a little tricky, and sometimes things are a little unpredictable. If problems arise during the mission, your spymaster may contact you seeking guidance. Do you provide them with additional resources to bribe the problem away, have them dedicate a larger portion of the Spy Network to the mission (assuming they have any unallocated Infiltration available), or do you scrap the mission and leave the Asset assigned to the mission out to dry? Likewise, even when things go according to plan, sometimes your operatives have to take what they can get - while other times they may stumble upon far more than they expected.



Yes, you can run operations within a hive.

Completing Operations often has an impact on your Infiltration Level - some resources get compromised or otherwise unusable, and depending on the Operation you performed, a hornet’s nest of security may have been stirred. If you had an Asset assigned to the Operation, you will often be given a chance to use them as a scapegoat, burning them to protect the rest of the Network.


We’ve split Operations into four different categories, and here’s a more detailed summary of each type and a few of the Operations we’re planning. (As always with in-development sneak peeks, these are subject to change.)

Subterfuge Operations are common Operations that work to improve the state of the network or do good old fashioned spying on the target empire. Gather Information, Acquire Asset, and Steal Technology are examples of planned Subterfuge Operations.

Sabotage Operations are dedicated to destruction of tangible or intangible things. Sabotage Starbase and Diplomatic Incident are examples of planned Sabotage Operations.

Manipulation Operations twist the truth and replace it with better truths that serve your empire’s needs. Smear Campaign and Extort Favors are examples of planned Manipulation Operations.

Provocations are the most extreme Operations that are almost guaranteed to have blowback. These tend to be relatively difficult to pull off but have major results. Arm Privateers is an example of a Provocation.


Gather Information (Subterfuge) is one of the simplest Operations, requiring an Infiltration of 20 or higher to initiate. Your spymaster will send their operatives out to, well, covertly gather information. After a relatively short period of time the spymaster will deliver a dossier containing the intelligence to you, which might grant a bonus to current Intel level or provide an Intel Report granting increased Intel on a category for a time period.

It’s not the most glamorous of missions, but should rarely backfire in a spectacular manner. Since Intel decays slowly (currently set to 1 point per year), the Gather Information Operation provides a fairly consistent way to learn more about the galaxy.

Assigning an Asset to the mission will skew the results towards the Asset’s interests, significantly increasing the chance of getting an Intel Report targeting the empire’s Government, Diplomacy, Military, Economy, or Technology.



Many Jeferians died to bring us this work-in-progress screenshot.




Operations do not always produce the same results.

Steal Technology (Subterfuge, Technology) is another one that has created a stir on the forums. Through a variety of means, your agents will attempt to gain access to the research databases of the target. Depending on how things go, several outcomes could occur - they might be able to get some hints as to how a technology works (granting it as a research option and providing some progress), they may be able to leave a backdoor (increasing your empire’s research speed for a time), or if things get messy, they could just destroy whatever research they can (inflicting penalties on the target). Your operatives can only take research that your empire has the hope of understanding, so you must meet all appropriate prerequisites.

This leads to an interesting situation where you ideally want to be spying on an empire of greater technological prowess than your own, but that in itself is riskier since they may have a better chance of catching your operatives.



These blueprints are like an Escher drawing.

The Enigmatic Engineering Ascension Perk will block these attempts, as it makes your technology impossible for other empires to reverse-engineer. The spying empire will not know this, however, until they try.



The Sensor Range effect has been replaced as well.

Smear Campaign (Manipulation, Diplomacy) is dedicated to working against the relationship two empires may have. After the first chapter completes, you'll have the choice of which relationship you wish your operatives to attempt to diminish. Later, your agents will inform you of the tactics they want to use, with different schemes proposed based on the nature of the selected empires.

In this example, I'm trying to create rifts within a nearby federation by running Smear Campaigns.



And finally my agents have informed me that they're ready to unleash misinformation upon an unsuspecting foe.





Meanwhile, over in the Ztrakpor Confederated Domains...



Since their Counter-Espionage measures did not detect our shenanigans, it seems that our agents chose to kick things up a notch and add sabotage of research facilities to the false charges. They've caught wind of our false-flag operation as if they had actually uncovered an operation being being performed by their so-called ally!

The galaxy shall hear of this!


Assets have been mentioned a few times now, and the Acquire Asset (Subterfuge, Government) is the most consistent way to gain them. It’s possible to gain Assets through random events during other Operations, but tempting them into your service is much more reliable.

Each Asset has two categories they excel at - one of each from Subterfuge, Sabotage, or Manipulation, and Government, Diplomacy, Military, Economy, or Technology. When an Operation is initiated, you can assign the Asset to be part of it, and for each category that matches, the Asset will make completing the mission easier.

Assets in regular empires are generally everyday people - a disgruntled bureaucrat, an ambitious criminal underling, or a sympathetic pop icon. In gestalt empires, they may be deviant drones that your operatives have found a way to utilize to their advantage, or they might be objects that they have taken control of - a damaged pheromone emitter, a deviant labor drone, a hacked coordination system, or a virus introduced into an engagement protocol.



Blorg. James Blorg.

Hask'Endek here specializes in Subterfuge and Government related activities, making them especially effective when assigned to the Acquire Asset mission. It turns out that having a bureaucrat able to sift through government records to find other potential marks is incredibly helpful!

If complications arise, having an expendable lackey around to take the fall for your operatives can also be attractive. While you may lure them into service with promises of support and glory, they’re really just pawns in your greater galactic schemes. Often, their true fate is to be "cleaned up" as a loose end to preserve the Spy Network's Infiltration Level after an Operation completes.

That's it for this week. Next week I plan on going over some of the other, nastier Operations. redacted.png

See you then!