Hello everyone!

Hopefully this will come as a pleasant surprise to all of you! Last week I posted the changelog for 3.0.0 and talked a bit about the fact that we were already working on the 3.0.1. The details I left out were that we were actually close to being done, but for the sake of not making promises I wouldn't be able to keep, I decided that I would err on the side of caution. However, now that the 3.0.1 has gone through all the necessary checks and processes I am happy to announce that we will launch Nemesis, and by extension the 3.0 'Dick' Patch, with this 3.0.1 patch!

This means that there will never be a 'live' version of the 3.0.0., and instead you will all receive all the fixes that we've worked on for the 3.0.1. in addition to the massive changelog of the 3.0.0. For some perspective, the 3.0.1 contains roughly 8 pages of fixes and balancing, bringing the entire 3.0.0 and 3.0.1 to roughly 27 pages of new content, balancing changes, UI tweaks, AI fixes, Improved Stability, many new modding features, and of course general bug fixes.

So the moment you have all been waiting for, here's the changelog for the 3.0.1 that will be released tomorrow along side Nemesis!

• Added several new diplomatic messages for Becoming the Crisis empires

• A wormhole now connects Scions to their Fallen Empire overlords.
  
• Aetherophasic Engine now grants increasing amounts of energy, minerals and Naval Capacity with each upgrade.
  
• Scaled down the Unity rewards of various espionage events which now award a value based on existing, monthly Unity income.
  
• Imperial Security Directorate updated such that it now offers the Emperor +2 to Decryption and +4 to Encryption only.
  
• Reverted change to special resource edicts' one-time costs: their costs now increase with empire sprawl as well as overextension, as opposed to just overextension. Also clarified the tooltip a bit.
  
• The new Special Projects for the final step in the base game Precursor event chains now take 30 days to research.
  
• The Indentured Servitude slavery type no longer applies Slavery based production modifiers if the pop is working in a Specialist job. Other slavery based modifiers such as reduced Housing and Amenity usage continue to apply.
  
• Lowered chance of Unbidden spawning as they can spawn early, so were appearing a lot more often than other crises
  
• Reintroduced Slave Processing Facility requirement to recruiting Slave Armies.

• Fixed potential CTD when partial failure to connect to host in MP view.
  
• Stopped research_all_technologies console command from crashing the game.
  
• Right click unassigning a spymaster envoy no longer desyncs the game in MP.
  
• Improved efficiency of the code for picking what to build via planetary automation scripts.
  
• Reduced the “destroy galaxy” performance impact by not destroying each pop individually.
  
• Remade destroy colony so it is destroying any pops before changing owner/controller to no country just to reduce the amount of per pop calculations.
  
• Removed ai_weight fields from buildings, as the AI was periodically evaluating whether they added up to less than -1 (which they never did) to see if they should be destroyed. (Note: ai_weights were replaced by economic_plans so were not used for evaluating which building to build; note 2: if for some reason as a modder you really want to use them, you can still do so by disabling economic_plans)
  
• Fixed crash on Linux when joining a game through steam friends while the game was running.

• Filter out ill suited empires from the top right target Empire drop down in the Diplomacy view. E.g. The Shroud and Curator Enclaves.
  
• Galactic focus selection window is now hidden when changing tab in the galactic community.
  
• Rename Build ship and Build Defensive Platforms buttons on Starbases and Megastructures to Open catalog, which better describes the actual action.
  
• Disable newly renamed Open catalog buttons in Starbase and Megastructure ship builder UI when they have no effect.
  
• The Special Deposit tooltip now lists the effects that the special deposits have.
  
• UX rehaul of the MP Game Lobby making it clearer what to do and who's ready.
  
• Excavation sites are now greyed out when fully excavated.
  
• Remade planet view locked building slot tooltip to refer to actual capital building name and district with highest building slot add modifier
  
• Details for fleet, pops, economy, and technology are now hidden in the breakdown of diplomatic weight if you don't have enough intel
  
• Tidied up the tooltip for a planet's habitability in the planet's interface to clearly state what each number is.
  
• Intel value text should now be displayed better in all languages.
  
• The espionage operation categories filter is now hidden if there are less than 2 operations available.
  
• Only showing espionage operation category filters for potential and/or ongoing operations
  
• You can now use "go to capital" on Marauders in the Contacts menu (it will take you to their home system).
  
• If you have sufficient intel, hovering over the button to form or cancel a research agreement will now tell you how many technologies you and the other country may learn from it.
  
• Hovering over the button to form or cancel a commercial agreement now tells you how many credits you will gain from it (rather than you having to propose the agreement to find out).
  
• When you are offered a commercial agreement, you will now hear about the energy credit benefits.
  
• Removed superfluous "Are you the baddie?" tooltip for the Crisis tab, only displayed when not Becoming the Crisis.
  
• Improved consistency of Diplomatic Stance policy options being hidden or unavailable; visibility is now determined by government type and DLC ownership, while other factors determine availability.
  
• Changed tooltip for starbase buildings/modules in starbase view buildables to show calculated value and hide base if value is not affected by modifier.
  
• The tooltip for Crisis Objectives now contains information for how much Menace you have gained from this Objective.
  
• Added variety to the "unknown species" cardboard cutout in the first contact interface.
  
• Fixed inappropriate line breaks in "Intel" labels for some languages,
  
• Show diplomatic pacts an Empire has even if they're only known via a second hand Intel source. E.g. You having high Intel on A and thereby knowing it has a Commercial Pact with B will now show that Commercial Pact in the diplomacy view of B even if you don't have full Intel on all of B's diplomatic pacts.
  
• Cost/upkeep/production breakdown tooltip should not show mult modifiers for "empty" resources.
  
• Opinion map mode now properly hides opinion breakdowns unless enough Intel is gained.

• AI war strategies are now recalculated more often to make it respond better to changes in ally fleets.
  
• The AI now better accounts for the value of different resources when deciding what to buy on the market.
  
• Allow the AI to trade with Living Metal, Dark Matter, and Zro on the market.
  
• Added cooldown before AI considers responding to a proposal, set in define DIPLOMACY_RESPONSE_COOLDOWN_DAYS
  
• Increased randomness when AI responds to proposals, will still do a daily roll if it should but chance for responding starts at none and then rapidly increases each day until proposal expiration date.
  
• The AI now better take into consideration that Federation and GDF ships have no upkeep when deciding which ships to build.
  
• The independent GDF AI will now remember which capital systems it has visited upon reloading a save file.

• Added on_army_killed_in_combat / no_combat on_actions.
  
• Using "pop" scope change in army scope now takes you to the pop that spawned the army.
  
• Added export_resource_income_to_variable effect.
  
• Added export_trigger_value_to_variable_effect.
  
• Added trigger is_current_first_contact_stage.
  
• Fixed various issues with setting species archetype restrictions for government elements (civics, authorities) so that it is now checked in every case and can be used safely.
  
• Enabled triggered descriptions and gametext ([ ] commands) in espionage operation descriptions.
  
• Fixed a bug in scripted effects/triggers that meant that you'd get weird startup errors if you ever used more than one "[" in a scripted effect/trigger.
  
• Added is_total_war trigger.
  
• Fixed issue where owned_species and enslaved_species scope script lists would not always work in planet events.
  
• Added abort trigger on espionage operation type for killing of an active operation.
  
• Added has_active_building trigger (checks if a planet has the building in a non-ruined and non-disabled state).
  
• Added effect for postponing modifier calculations, useful when executing a lot of effects where individual result of them is not important.
  
• Fixed cases of missing modifier names (where a modifier would show up as "<blank>: +X") in pop jobs (triggered modifiers) and deposits (country modifiers).
  
• Fixed any_owned_species so it also works on day 1 of a new game now.
  
• Added remove_invalid_civics option to change_government effect to force incompatible civics to be removed from the government.
  
• Made is_majority_species make sense.
  
• Fixed some minor documentation issues brought to our attention by eagle-eyed modders.

• Fixed rare case of frontend background not covering the entire screen.
  
• Fix occasional fullscreen flickering when running with the -dx11 flag.
  
• Zro Distillation now always becomes a tech option if Extradimensional Experimentation resolution is enacted.
  
• Removed superfluous information about default country types in the tooltip for forming a research agreement.
  
• Event "The Fumes Lie Thick" now tells you about the scientist's new trait.
  
• Fixed an issue where habitat auto-designation would not pick energy specialisation when that was clearly the right choice.
  
• Fixed some grammar errors in "Wind Back and Proceed" archaeology event.
  
• Molluscoid Integration event now no longer refers to "tiles" (what on earth is a tile?? :) ). It now also only gives you 6 new pops.
  
• Fixed an issue where the special project fail event "Smuggler Weapons Trade" would talk about a spaceship rather than a planet.
  
• Fixed Machine Synchronicity Traditions lacking a line break at the end, causing it to be fairly unreadable.
  
• Fixed an issue where you could break the Necrophage origin by having your prepatent species as a subspecies of the main species
  
• Random Spy Network event "An Operative Resurfaces" no longer refers to the empire's leader getting hands-on in extraction of operatives, and preparing security reports.
  
• Added a missing tooltip from random Operations event "Excess Noise".
  
• Corrected a missing tooltip from Spy Network event "Hostile Infiltration Detected".
  
• Leaving federations through events no longer generates opinion penalties unless we deliberately want those penalties set.
  
• Resolutions to repeal the banning of slave trade now have their correct icons.
  
• Corrected Fallen Empires in their mistaken assumption that they have 16 building slots instead of 12 on their starting planets.
  
• Added various government types which were not fully recognized by VIR during the first stage of the tutorial.
  
• Selecting an Oligarchic authority type with the Death Cult civic is now consistently recognized as a Grim Council government.
  
• Fixed several cases where Alloy Mega-Forges and other similar buildings providing +X jobs per Y district would sometimes be unspecific or wrong about how many jobs they'd get from you building which district.
  
• Fixed several fallen empires lacking housing due to having no city districts.
  
• You can no longer get the “Scandalous Insult” event on yourself.
  
• Improved tooltip for when a Spy Network has become overextended.
  
• Subjects that are in a federation with their overlord should now be able to declare a war for independence on them.
  
• Make diplo action positive/neutral/negative background shown in UI again.
  
• Reanimated Armies is now fully incompatible with Synthetic Ascension, rather than just quietly doing nothing as before.
  
• Cosmic Nudge arc site now no longer gives you 10% progress on a habitability tech way beyond what you have researched (essentially useless as it costs so much), but instead gives you progress on the next tech in that line that you can research
  
• First Contact event "A Terrible Sight to Behold" no longer shows a happy handshake as its event picture
  
• Guarantee independence now displayed properly in the diplomacy view (them guaranteeing our independence does not make it work the other way around).
  
• The tooltip for Society Management now correctly mentions the Crisis tab if the player has Nemesis installed.
  
• Fixed a reference to the "Traditions and Relics" interface in the tutorial (it is now "Society Management").
  
• Fixed AIs unintentionally spawning Advanced Empires through the Lost Colony origin even when Advanced AI Starts have been disabled by the player.
  
• Galaxy Generator now uses correct starbase types for marauders and FE when it needs to connect the empire through a non owned system.
  
• Fixed the AI sometimes having sectors with no planets in them.
  
• Operation Arm Privateers may only be conducted against the same target once every 3 years. The operation will conclude early if another empire has successfully armed the brigands before you have.
  
• If the other side finishes the first contact site before you, but you had successfully started a hostile first contact event chain and were merely awaiting the outcome (e.g. completing the vivisection), you will now get the rewards and flavour event anyway.
  
• Operation event "Smear Campaign Exposed" now makes references to the proper empires in its description.
  
• Reworked the final step of the Vultaum, Yuht, First League, Irassian, and Cybrex precursor chains. They now provide a one-day Special Project on the discovered homeworld rather than the last event being fired on-survey. This should improve visibility and increase robustness in situations where e.g. the star system changes ownership or is colonized.
  
• Added bespoke event descriptions for scenarios in which Operation Spark Diplomatic Incident is conducted against a target who, in turn, causes offense to your own empire.
  
• Fixed some cases of starbases incorrectly respawning on loading a save.
  
• AI will now give AI full rights in some circumstances.
  
• Fixed Adaptability Tradition "Survival of the Fittest" not using its own art.
  
• Fixes a bug in events not creating random outcomes properly in some cases.
  
• Fixed missing event title when declaring Tiyanki to be galactic pests (frankly uncalled for).
  
• Clarified some references to target Encryption in events "Contact Lost" and "A Surprise Catch".
  
• Votes now display as a popup so that they are not as easily missed and auto-declined.
  
• Empires who receive the event "An Operative Resurfaces" and who maintain a Spy Network on the empire in question are now able to attempt an extraction of said operative, assuming they have a sufficient Infiltration Level.
  
• "An Operative Resurfaces" events are now part of a more easily trackable event chain.
  
• Removed various instances of an extra exclamation mark appearing in notification messages.
  
• Added a prolog step to the tutorial for establishing First Contact. Players will now be directed to the Situation Log in order to begin the process.
  
• Fixed a case where you sometimes wouldn't get the Does Not Compute achievement if multiple countries' fleets were bombarding the last AI planet.
  
• Wipe Em Out war goal will now no longer destroy starbases that previously belonged to your vassals, but will instead return them.
  
• Fixes num_species and num_unique_species triggers. This affected, but is not limited to the Tourist Trap achievement not working.
  
• Fixed an edge case where The Surveyor relic would rarely fail to spawn a resource deposit.
  
• Fixed a trigger check in Operation Smear Campaign which may not produce the expected results for campaigns involving xenophilic empires.
  
• Refined script for Operation Smear Campaign such that it should now be able to handle multiple campaigns targeting the same empire at once.
  
• Fixed an error in which targets of Operation Smear Campaign who do not have an active Spy Network may fail to receive any event at all, and thus would not have any of their opinions changed.
  
• Fixed a faulty reference to the country being targeted by Arm Privateers in the notification event, "Privateers Already Engaged".
  
• Fixed broken Go To buttons in a couple of Caravaneer events.
  
• Fixed Xenophobes welcoming aliens with open arms in the "Caravaneers: A warm welcome!" event.
  
• Scripts which may apply reinforcements for the Galactic Defense Force on an annual basis are now only enacted so long as a playable country remains a member of the Galactic Community.
  
• Improved a tooltip on the Operations panel, explaining when and why Crisis Beacon is subject to a cooldown period.
  
• Fixed a reference to the Spymaster in localisation, for the finalé event in which Operation Crisis Beacon is set to work on the Unbidden.
  
• Fixed an error which caused the random Operations event "Snuffed Out" not to fire "Hostile Infiltration Detected", if the empire in question falls foul of their target's Encryption level.
  
• Auto-upgrade for Federation and GDF ship designs now properly applies the technology of all member empires when choosing components.
  
• Fixed planetary automation sometimes failing to build anything if there was unemployment but multiple free jobs.
  
• Fixed several edge cases where precursor systems could spawn outside of your borders.
  
• * Fixed an exploit where you could mod the game to get a button giving 500 minerals for free without changing the checksum.
  
• Fixed dialog references to the Great Khan's vanquisher in "The Great Khan Meets Defeat", such that even an unknown empire is referred to by its proper name.
  
• Fixed the tooltip for the event when you Become Emperor showing erroneous information if you did so as a Gestalt of Megacorp empire.
  
• Updated modifier names when switching ruler since title is depending on ruler and heir roles.
  
• Fixed a scripted check which is used to ascertain whether or not the empire in question has an active Spy Network.
  
• Fixed missing modifier name for tradition swap tr_diplomacy_insider_trading_megacorp (Insider Trading as a Megacorp) - made it correctly inherit the parent's modifier name.
  
• Fixed envoy event "Gone Native" sometimes missing a description entirely.
  
• Fixed the tooltip for Pop Assembling Capacity (below Pop Assembly in the planet interface) not showing all information and not taking into account organic assembly.
  
• Fixed a bug where buildings that increased the number of jobs offered by other buildings or districts would do this even if they were ruined or disabled.
  
• Fixed it being possible to recruit Imperial Legions infinitely (it is now capped to 12).
  
• Fixed event icons in event for opening communications presenting wrong information when concerning Fallen Empires.
  
• Fixed Subterranean Refugees event failing to create a pop.
  
• Fixed information for resource gain from Commercial Pacts while proposing it showing the information the wrong way around, i.e. it would say the other side would get what you would get and vice versa.
  
• Curbed the Galactic Emperor's extreme paranoia - not everyone is a seditionist (i.e. the Emperor can now only run the Operation Target Seditionists against rivals and countries actually undermining their authority).
  
• "Leviathan Down" anomaly event now gives the planet a Metal Boneyard deposit if it is inhabited, instead of granting an unlocalised one meant for orbital deposits.
  
• Made the "Falling Intel" alert more helpful.
  
• Improved a descriptor for relatively weak encryption/decryption.
  
• Fixed the Mineral Extraction Operation's mining stations proving an insurmountable obstacle to AI expansion.
  
• You now no longer gain menace per month while purging, but instead upon a pop finishing being purged.
  
• Enabled the overlay for assigning envoys in Spy Network view.
  
• Fixed a Crisis Beacon operation event falling back to the wrong event text in a certain situation.
  
• Added indicator for recurring menace objectives.
  
• If you have the "Lost Amoeba" anomaly event, you no longer need to establish communications with space amoebas. That event's options now give you the space amoeba buffs/projects in that case.
  
• Fixed some cases where you could not interact with a colony because it was occupied by factions such as the CARE Mechanocalibrator.
  
• Having claims on a subject now means you can use the Claims casus belli on their overlord.
  
• The "Form Galactic Council" resolution will no longer appear as active after the Galactic Imperium has fallen
  
• When forming the Galactic Council again after it has been abolished, the time until the next election will be the expected 180 days instead of the longer time that is normally between elections
  
• Fixed tutorial sometimes opening and closing in rapid succession.
  
• Fixed an issue where government data of Custodians and Imperium rulers would not be restored when they lose their position.
  
• The AI and player default for very strong syncretic servile slaves is to have them as Chattel rather than as Battle Thralls.
  
• Fixed Isolationist faction's first contact policy demands to be for not having a Proactive policy, rather than for explicitly having an Aggressive one.
  
• Inwards Perfectionists' Materialist faction will no longer demand Research Agreements (since that demand cannot be fulfilled).
  
• Slaves that are working Specialist jobs now gain Specialist production modifiers rather than Worker production modifiers. (Necrophages will no longer suffer penalties in the Specialist tier as Indentured Servants, and the Authoritarian worker bonuses will no longer apply at the Specialist tier either.)
  
• Fixed the Shoot to Kill achievement (its logic was flipped, so you had to be the victim to get it!).
  
• Fixed Sic Semper Tyrannis achievement.
  
• Forming the Galactic Imperium no longer triggers a government cooldown.
  
• Script controlling the expansion of Ancient Mining Drone fleets has been reworked so as to no longer create excessive event scope backlogs.
  
• Mining Drone Expansion Fleet and Aggressive Drone Expansion Fleet have been reworked such that every 10 years, for as long as the Mining Drones persist, 3 fleets will spawn and seek out suitable systems into which they can expand. The fleets favor systems which lie within 1-6 hyperlane jumps from their system of origin.
  
• Fixed an issue where the government would not reform properly when the Imperium is formed if the government had civics that were incompatible with the "Imperial" authority.
  
• Recruitable leaders may no longer possess the Psionic or Chosen trait directly alongside either the Synthetic or Cyborg trait.
  
• Fixed (Become the) Crisis Level 5 sharing one trigger condition with Crisis Level 4.
  
• Script controlling the expansion of Ancient Mining Drone fleets has been reworked so as to no longer create excessive event scope backlogs.
  
• Portraits in the empire designer should now animate properly.
  
• Fixed spawned Star-Eaters having too many shield components instead of armor components, and made sure the owner receives the relevant armor technologies.
  
• Fixed Mass Extinction Through the Ages breaking sometimes in MP.
  
• Fixed duplicate colons in espionage operation tooltips.
  
• A conditional event description for "Final Disavowal", part of the "Disavowed Operative Resurfaces" chain, now displays correctly more often for those who have an active Spy Network, and for those who do not.
  
• Subjects are no longer able to become presidents of federations through rotation or random succession.
  
• Fixed Diplomatic Map Mode leaking information you do not have intel on.
  
• Fixed various error log messages relating to Crisis Objectives, along with several edge cases where the rewards were not granted when they should have been.
  
• Fixed an issue where the acceptance breakdown for diplomatic actions was available even if you didn't have sufficient intel.

Hello there!

We're just about a week away from releasing Nemesis, our next big Expansion for Stellaris. So big in fact, that we're naming it after one of the most renowned Science-Fiction authors, Philip K. Dick, and calling it 3.0! This has been one of the most fun expansions I've personally gotten to work on and I can't wait to see your reactions when you get to play it yourselves!

With this post we're of course bringing you the changelog today, but I also wanted to talk a bit about how we've been handling bigger releases lately and what's going on with Nemesis specifically. For those of you that have followed us for a while, you know that since Federations we internally start working on the first patch for a major release before its actual release date (If you're curious why we do this, you can read about it here).

For Nemesis it's no different, however the patch that we're working on is currently undergoing testing so we cannot yet reveal what's in it, nor when it might become available to you all. But we'll let you know more as soon as we are confident in the build that we have!

But in all honesty, considering how big the 3.0 change log is, it should take you all plenty of time to read through ;) For the full 3.0.0 patch notes see the forum post here!

We've also just released the Expansion feature breakdown video. Watch it now!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOJ26b3906Q

Lastly, don't forget to watch our Stellaris: Nemesis Feature Stream today at 6 PM CEST (5 PM UK, 12 PM EDT, 9 AM PDT) on http://twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive !

Hi! Happy April Fool's Day!

This week we want to show off some of the challenging new Origins that are not coming soon.

The first, titled Surviving the Aftermath, is a variant on Void Dwellers.

The Surviving the Aftermath origin starts with the premise that a construction ship and colony ship were lost in MIA when a Crisis nation activated the Aetherophasic Engine and destroyed the galaxy, and you're left in a habitat to pick up the pieces.


Your home system.

As the galaxy has been destroyed and there are no resources anywhere, we expect this to be an exciting and challenging origin to play.


The local cluster.


The galaxy. So alone. So very alone.

The next is the Crusader King Origin, where you begin the game as the ruler of a primitive civilization in the late medieval time period.


Living in luxury.

This origin starts at a significant tech disadvantage, but our playtests suggest that you should achieve spaceflight within a few hundred years.

Several events have been added in case another empire wishes to enlighten your civilization, as well as a "burn the alien at the stake" minigame.


Includes special diplomatic options!

Winning the game as a Crusader King grants the new Universe Universalis achievement.

The Prison Architect Origin is restricted to Rogue Servitors only, and drastically changes their gameplay. Instead of pampering their organic charges, they seek to collect all organics and like the Criminal Syndicate, are affected by and gain bonuses for having high Crime. They also gain extra Unity for each Criminal Syndicate pop they collect.


Gotta catch ‘em all!

Some minor changes to the Organic Sanctuary.

Open to all empire types, the This is Fine origin has a new twist - your empire thinks it’s hot stuff and is limited to colonizing stars.


Is it warm in here, or is it just me? Looking pretty radiant though.

Your buildings have a chance of being ruined each month due to fires, but your energy production is vastly increased.

Last but not least, the AI Custodianship Origin is our most challenging yet, where you and the AI both control your empire simultaneously. This Origin is also open to all empire types, and represents a fractured leadership or gestalt intelligence where two leaders struggle for power, sometimes issuing contradictory orders. The AI Custodian will act to implement its flawless and foolproof algorithms, undoubtedly bringing your empire success in the long run, if you would only listen to it.


The AI has great plans for my homeworld. The greatest of plans.

That's all for this week. As a reminder, the Stellaris 3.0 'Dick' update and Nemesis arrive two weeks from today on the 15th of April.

What Origins would you create if you wanted a special challenge?

Hi everyone!

We've brought together some of the galaxy's mightiest empires to take part in the Nemesis: Cold War on April 10th and 11th on https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive!

ASpec and The Templin Institute are our first team and are here to show you the power of the new Espionage features in Nemesis. See what a few capable agents are able to achieve as the Divine Imperium begins its ascension.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90igLxuxaDk
Pre-Purchase Nemesis now!

"Hello everyone!

Today I thought I would talk more about the process of directing an expansion such as Nemesis.

As we’ve talked about in the past, finding a strong theme is one of the most important things that we do. Whenever we’ve had ideas (and there are many) we usually categorize them in a “box”. Each of our expansions has picked features from different “boxes”; Utopia was about internal politics and customization, Apocalypse was about warfare, Megacorp was about economy, and Federations was about diplomacy.

Along the way there’s usually more ideas in a box than we can fit into an expansion, so many of the ideas we’ve had for previous expansions get moved to a new expansion. For example, the “diplomacy box” contained too many good ideas that we wanted to work with, so Federations focused more on “good” diplomacy, whereas Nemesis focuses more on “evil” diplomacy.

Maintaining a strong theme for an expansion is very important, as it makes it easier for the players to forge strong fantasies and to build up excitement for those ideas. A more focused expansion also has more opportunities for features to interact, so it's also possible to have those deeper interactions in the game that we know many of you appreciate.

Although it is important to maintain a strong theme for a DLC, we also want to make sure that any expansion we create also contains something that caters to different types of players. For example, if Federations has a lot of focus on cooperation and diplomacy, it was a good idea to add the Juggernaut so that players who enjoy the more belligerent side of the game also get some new toys to play with.

Nemesis
Becoming the Crisis, and forming a Galactic Imperium through the Galactic Community, are both examples of ideas we had that were related to diplomacy is some fashion. With the Galactic Community in place, it made sense to allow players to play “the baddies” which aims to destroy the galaxy, and by continuation it made a lot of sense to add a feature that aims to be the counterforce to such threats.

Where Federations focused on cooperation and more friendly diplomacy, the goal of Nemesis was to focus more on building up conflicts between opposing forces. We really wanted to underline how a crisis can threaten the galaxy, and then a champion (the custodian) can rise to attempt to stop it.

We also wanted to create more opportunities for a balance of power to shift, so we wanted to continue with the idea of the custodian and how power can corrupt. By allowing the custodian to turn the galactic community into the galactic imperium, we were able to continue the trend of different types of crises that can occur in the galaxy. Although not perhaps a threat to all life in the galaxy, the Galactic Imperium (and a possible rebellion) was still intended to very much be considered a diplomatic crisis of sorts.

From my perspective I’m very happy with how we’ve managed to take these ideas from earlier and really bind them together in a very thematic sense in Nemesis. It’s not often that we can take so many powerful fantasies and put them together in such a way, so it's very fun to have been able to take this holistic approach.

Espionage
I’ve wanted to make an espionage system for quite some time, as it's been a goal for me as a designer. I don’t like when espionage systems are too deterministic, or when you just sit and wait on a progress bar, after which you’ll either succeed or fail.

I wanted our espionage system to contain more storytelling and the archaeology system that I originally designed for Ancient Relics really allows for that. I like that the system plays out in phases, similar to a siege in EU4, but allows for a lot more storytelling by inserting random events and stories in the “main story” of the content itself.

With the learnings from the archaeology system, I wanted to make our espionage system work similarly. As a game director, I’m not only responsible for the creation vision of the game, but also for scope (how large a feature can be, and where we spend our development time). I knew that by basing the system on what we did with archaeology, we would be able to save time that could be better spent elsewhere. Implementing UI is actually quite time consuming with the tech Stellaris uses, so any time we can save by not having to make UIs from scratch is a good idea in my opinion. By reusing certain parts, you can also reduce the amount of risk because we already have a pretty good idea of what to expect from the system or feature. Any time we spend reusing parts can be spent on polish, bug fixing or implementing cool new UIs for other features. It doesn’t come entirely free though, and you need to make sure you make enough adaptations where it's needed.

When it comes to what the espionage system itself should achieve, I wanted information gathering to be a large part of it. Espionage systems are hard to get right, because they can feel too predictive or boring, and you also have to constantly be considering the experience of the one being targeted by espionage.

Something we also have to consider when adding a new system like this is that the player only has so much capacity to interact with existing systems. We need to create a system that is fun and engaging when you choose to use it, and be aware that it's quite risky to add new systems that the player is forced to interact with. Cognitive load is definitely something that is tricky when designing for GSG games. I feel like the espionage system has hit a good mark with not being mandatory to play the game, but also being fun and interesting when you want to use it.

We couldn’t achieve everything I could have dreamed of, and although I would very much liked to have seen a more interactive counter-espionage part of the system, I’m very happy overall with how espionage turned out. Although not perfect, the content we have there and the way it works feels very good.

The basic system of espionage, just like the archaeology system, is a part of the free update to the base game, which makes it easier for us - or modders - to add more content later down the line. Trying to make the systems themselves a part of the free update has helped us a lot in the past, and sometimes we’ve even changed systems that were entirely a part of a DLC to become free. Ascension Perks (introduced in Utopia) were originally exclusive to Utopia, but we really wanted to use the system so we made it a part of the free game and changed it so that only some of the Ascension Perks themselves (like biological ascension) were a part of Utopia. We really like this approach, and hopefully you do too. Everyone wins!

Intel
Because we wanted information-gathering to be such an important part of the espionage system, we also thought a new Intel system would be necessary to make that a really good experience for the player.

I never liked how you’d find out so much about another alien empire as soon as you established communication with them. I wanted alien empires to feel more mysterious, and just as you explore the galaxy, you have to “explore” these alien empires to learn more about them.

The focus of the Intel system was very much to enhance the early- and mid game by focusing on this new angle of “exploration”. Even if you are not a warlike or diplomatic player, it should still be fun to learn more about the galaxy and its inhabitants. Because of all the things that the Intel system touches, and how it interacts with other features, it needs to be a free update to the game. The entire Intel system is a part of the free update and should be quite moddable.

From a scoping aspect, Intel definitely ended up being way more expensive than we had originally thought due to all the edgecases and all the small places in the game where the new system would interact with current existing features. Reworking UIs to sometimes hide information is not as easy as it may sound, especially in a game as large as Stellaris.

As a game director I also need to consider where I spend my development time, and if I put too much development time on working on a free feature like Intel, then the DLC features may become too thin and that players may consider the value of the DLC to be low. It’s a careful balance between adding enough new features in the free update vs. adding new features to a DLC, because both are important for different reasons.

In the end though, I think it was definitely worth spending the extra time to make the Intel system as it currently is.

Become the Crisis
The idea to allow players to become the crisis is not a new one, but it's one that has been with us for quite some time. It’s not until now that we’ve finally been able to give it a go, and I can’t think of a better expansion for it than with Nemesis.

The goal with the “BtC” feature was to allow the player to perform “evil” deeds and unlock more powerful rewards along the way to galactic domination.

The system went through a couple of different iterations, but it wasn’t until we added a more clear progression path with “crisis levels” that I felt like we were truly on the right track.

The new UI for BtC feels very awesome and with a very visible progression path it also feels better as a more explicit challenge. Within game design, explicit challenges are those that are posed directly to the player (like a quest), while implicit challenges are those that the player can make up themselves (like befriending all other empires as the Blorg).

An inherent weakness with many of our GSG games is that we do not have a lot of explicit challenges, which can make it hard for new players to figure out what they are supposed to do. If you are entirely new to the game, it can be hard to come up with implicit challenges yourself. National Focuses in HOI4, Missions in EU4 or Imperator are examples of features where we’ve successfully added more explicit challenges to our games. Implicit challenges go hand in hand with replayability, and they can also be more powerful experiences to the player, because the player is the sole reason behind it.

With the BtC feature, we’ve added objectives to help lead the player in becoming more menacing and an increasing threat to the galaxy. Although not as direct as perhaps a quest or a mission, they should help a lot and hopefully motivate the player.

We originally had ideas for the BtC feature to come in multiple shapes (ranging from a destructive force like an end-game crisis, to a subjugating force like the marauder, or a manipulative force that preys in the shadows), but due to time constraints we had to make the choice of either making one fantasy stronger and more engaging, or to have multiple versions that felt more watered-down. I had to make the choice, and focusing on the destructive fantasy made the most sense to me, due to multiple reasons, but simply put it's also the fantasy that makes the most sense.

After the dust has settled I’m very happy with where the Become the Crisis feature is, and I hope you will all enjoy deploying your Star-Eaters to consume the galaxy, going from one star to the next.

Custodian & Galactic Imperium
With the risk of sounding like a broken record, I want to highlight how much I enjoy the cycle of electing a custodian to fight a crisis, and then for the custodian to take power and become a new, diplomatic crisis. It’s very thematic, and it's a fantasy that we’re very aware of from popular culture (and to some degree, history).

I don’t have as many insights to share for these two features, as they were largely handled by one of our trusted and senior content designers. The idea and rough design for the Galactic Imperium was borne in association with the Galactic Community, and we’re very happy for the chance to add it to the game in Nemesis.

Although the Galactic Imperium is perhaps not the most ubiquitous and common feature to come across while playing, it's very evocative and fits like a glove when it comes to player fantasy.

Rounding up
In the end I don’t think you can ever really create a perfect expansion, and it takes a lot of experience to know what gives you the best chance with the resources you have. There’s a lot more detail that goes into all of the things I talked about, but I hope this dev diary was somewhat interesting to you, as I tried to give some more insights into how to direct an expansion and some of the thoughts one may come across while doing so.

I also want to thank my team for doing such fantastic work with Nemesis. Without them, none of this would have materialized.

----

That’s it for this week, folks! We’ll be back next week on April 1st, the day most famous for being exactly 2 weeks before the release of 3.0 ‘Dick’ and Nemesis"

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?