written by Alfray_Stryke

WARNING: This is a long dev diary, grab a coffee and enjoy!

Hello, it’s Alfray Stryke again! Some folks might recall that back in DD#257 that we went over some of our plans for summer experiments. In particular, I planned to look at what could be done with tradition trees and gating them behind various requirements.


These are looking at how gating tradition trees behind various triggers might influence the game. There have been some ideas suggested about introducing tradition trees that are locked behind ascension perks or origins, and we're interested to see where these may lead.

Now what wasn’t mentioned is that I’ve been wanting to rework how the Ascension Paths from Utopia have worked for quite some time, with the original design framework written during Summer 2021, and this seemed like a good opportunity.

For those of you who attended PDXCON, Eladrin and I gave a presentation previewing our summer experiments which some members of our community were kind enough to share.

It turned out that these experiments proved successful internally and we’ll be moving to test them in the 3.6 “Orion” Open Beta. As a note, due to the length of this dev diary, I’ll be splitting sections into spoiler tags to make it slightly easier to read. Note that the numbers and effects of these changes may still change depending on testing results.

I’ll start by summarizing the current state of the Ascension Paths in 3.5:


Ascension Paths Summary (Live)
[expand type=details]
Psionics

• Only available to regular empires.
  
• Requires Utopia
  
• Two routes:
  
• Mind over Matter AP followed by the Transcendence AP.
  
• Teachers of the Shroud origin followed by the Transcendence AP.

Genetics

• Available to regular empires and hive-minds.
  
• Requires Utopia
  
• Engineered Evolution AP and Evolutionary Mastery AP.

Synthetic Evolution

• Only available to regular empires.
  
• Requires Utopia
  
• Flesh is Weak AP and Synthetic Evolution AP.

Synthetic Age

• Only available to machine intelligences.
  
• Requires Synthetic Dawn

Synthetic Age AP.

• This isn’t really an ascension path, but I’m including it for completion’s sake.

[/expand]

So we (sort of) have between three to five ascension paths depending on how you look at things (mostly if you consider being cyborgs to be on the route to becoming synthetic or a separate thing). These have now been reworked so instead of an Ascension Path having a structure of two Ascension Perks which require various technologies or special projects, they each have an Ascension Perk which gives a guaranteed research option upon selection and grants access to the Ascension Path in the form of a tradition tree. Thus, under the rework we have the following:

Ascension Paths Rework Summary
[expand type=details]

Psionic Ascension

• Only available to regular empires.
  
• Requires Utopia
  
• Mind over Matter AP OR Teachers of the Shroud origin.
  
• Psionic Traditions.

Genetic Ascension

• Available to regular empires and hive-minds.
  
• Requires Utopia
  
• Engineered Evolution AP
  
• Genetic Traditions

Cybernetic Ascension

• Available to regular empires, hive-minds and driven assimilators.
  
• Requires Utopia
  
• The Flesh is Weak AP (regular empires) OR Organo-Machine Interfacing AP (hive-minds) OR assimilate 30 pops (driven assimilators).
  
• Cybernetic Traditions

Synthetic Ascension

• Available to regular empires and machine intelligences.
  
• Requires Utopia for regular empires
  
• Requires Synthetic Dawn for machine intelligences
  
• Synthetic Evolution AP OR Synthetic Age AP.
  
• Synthetic Traditions

[/expand]

Each of these tradition trees has incorporated all of the benefits of the previous Ascension Paths, with some new goodies added for those that we felt needed them. Due to how traditions within the trees are unlocked we’ve found that this leads to a more gradual route through the paths instead of saving up Ascension Perk slots and then taking an entire path while the game is paused!

As expected, all values and art shown here are not final, things can and most likely will shift about during testing.


With all that preamble out of the way, let’s dive into the Psionic Ascension Path.

And thus by the commutative property of multiplication, Mind over Energy

We shall unlock the power within the [Root.GetSpeciesAdj] mind.

Psionic Ascension Flow Chart
[expand type=details]
[expan="Psionic Ascension Flow Chart"]

Flow charts, now in purple
[/expand]

To access this tradition tree we either need to take the Mind Over Matter AP or have the Teachers of the Shroud origin (from Overlord) and have researched Psionic Theory.

• Mind over Matter still grants Telepathy as a Research Option, requires Psionic Theory and can’t be taken as your first Ascension Perk.
  
• For Teachers of the Shroud empires, the path is still partially unlocked at the start of the game and to progress requires the Psionic Theory technology.

• Mind over Matter has had the bulk of its boons either moved to the opener (the Latent Psionic trait) or the Psi-Corps tradition.
  
• Transcendence has had its boons shared between the three remaining traditions.
  
• The +5%/+10% Energy from jobs provided by the Latent Psionic and Psionic traits have been replaced with +5%/+10% Unity from jobs as this was more in-line with the desired focus for Psionic and particularly Spiritualist empires.
  
• Telepaths previously provided a planet-wide +5% Resources from Pops modifier, this has been replaced with a +5% Resources from Psionic Pops so that non-Psionic pops in your empire no longer have their performance improved by the presence of Telepaths. However, this modifier increases to +10% when the Breach the Shroud tradition is taken, meaning that the two Telepath jobs from a Psi-Corp building will provide +20% to the resource output of the planet if all pops working are Psionic. So although a Psionic empire may have fewer pops than the other Ascension Paths, those pops should be more efficient.

• Thought Enforcement is now a guaranteed research option, with the Psi-Corp tradition.
  
• The Mind Readers tradition grants a new empire edict, Sight Beyond Sight. This provides some rather nice bonuses as your navy’s navigators are supplied with an abundance of Zro.:
  
• +1 Sensor range
  
• -15% Hyper Drive Charge Time
  
• -15% Hyper Drive Cooldown
  
• -15% Jump Drive Cooldown
  
• +15% Quantum Catapult Accuracy.
  
• The finisher for the tradition tree grants 50 edict fund and more importantly a Special Project that when completed will allow you to form a Covenant with a random Shroud Entity.

In comparison, the Genetic Tradition tree is slightly simpler as the traditions themselves aren’t locked behind special projects. This is because to get the most use out of it, you’ll likely be doing a fair few special projects to modify species.


Sometimes a guiding hand is needed

What if we could obtain genetic perfection?

Genetic Ascension Flow Chart
[expand type=details]


Reprogram your genetic code

[/expand]


The boons from Engineered Evolution and Evolutionary Mastery have been arranged to follow a logical progression through the tradition tree, with you gradually unlocking more and more advanced species modifications.

• Efficient Cloning doubles the output of Clone Vats without increasing their upkeep, which should make them somewhat more competitive with empires that favour a more metallic path.
  
• Enhanced Expression allows you to add another trait pick on your modified species, meaning you can cram more traits onto a species.
  
• Completing Genetic traditions allows you to research special Transgenesis technologies. These technologies allow you to add Lithoid traits to non-Lithoids, Plantoid traits to non-Plantoids/Fungoids, and if you’ve harvested the DNA from certain Leviathans, you can splice some rather special traits into your species’ genetic code. The Leviathan traits available are:
  
• Drake-Scaled (Ether Drake, Shard, Sky Dragon)
  
• This trait requires that the player has harvested the genetic material from a space dragon (Ether Drake, Shard, or Sky Dragon). This is presented as an event option when the leviathan is slain.
  
• Cost: 3
  
• Each pop produces 0.025 monthly Alloys.
  
• +50% Army Health
  
• Mutually exclusive with other resource generating traits.
  
• Voidling (Voidspawn)
  
• Cost: 3
  
• This trait requires that the player has harvested the genetic material from the Voidspawn. This is presented as an event option when the leviathan is slain.
  
• Replaces all Food or Mineral upkeep with Energy Upkeep.
  
• Habitability Floor on all planets of 50%.
  
• Mutually exclusive with Phototrophic, Radiotrophic traits.
  
• Polymelic (Tiyanki Matriarch)
  
• Cost: 3
  
• This trait requires that the player has harvested the genetic material from the Tiyanki Matriarch. This is presented as an event option when the leviathan is slain.
  
• As budding but 0.05 assembly per pop.
  
• We’ve also added a few new Advanced traits that are unlocked by Genetic Creation to cover some missing bases.
  
• Vat-Grown
  
• Cost: 3
  
• -25% Pop Growth Speed
  
• +25% Pop Assembly Speed
  
• -10% Housing Usage
  
• Felsic
  
• Requires Lithoid
  
• Cost: 2
  
• Minerals from Livestock and Processing: +2
  
• Natural Machinist
  
• Cost: 2
  
• +10% Alloys from Jobs
  
• +10% Consumer Goods from Jobs
  

Now onto Cybernetic and Synthetic Ascension. To start with, we’ve split the Synthetic path into the two paths because it felt like a better fit to be able to wholly devote your empire into embracing cybernetics without going down the mind-uploading route.

Cybernetic ascension is no longer unlocked via the robotics line of technologies, instead there are new technologies to represent basic cybernetic upgrades that your population has access to. This comes with a change to the Powered Exo-Skeletons technology as well.

Powered Exo-Skeletons Technologies/Improved Servomotors
Tier 1, Engineering - Industry
+5% Army Damage
+5% Worker/Menial Drone Output

Integrated Cybernetics/Adaptive Cybernetics
Requires: Powered Exo-Skeletons Technologies/Improved Servomotors
Tier 2, Engineering - Industry
+5% Habitability

Neuro-Quantum Links
Requires: Integrated Cybernetics Technologies
Tier 3, Physics - Computing
+5% Specialist/Complex Drone Output
This technology is not available to driven assimilators

Since Cybernetic ascension is now available to Hive-Minds and Driven Assimilators, they too get access to The Flesh is Weak, albeit with a changed name and description.

The Flesh is Weak/Organo-Machine Interfacing Ascension Perk
Available to regular empires, hive-minds and driven assimilators

• Regular Empires and Hive-Minds:
  
• Requires Integrated Cybernetics Technology
  
• Driven Assimilators:
  
• Requires: Have assimilated 30 pops.
  
• Regular Empires and Hive-Minds:
  
• Gain Neuro-Quantum Links research option
  
• Driven Assimilators:
  
• Gain Adaptive Cybernetics research option
  
• Allows taking Cybernetic Traditions.

Because Cybernetic traditions are available to multiple empire types, there’s a number of tradition swaps used here to ensure they each get something different.


But the machine is strong

Our future lies in the fusion of flesh and machine.

Cybernetic Ascension Flow Chart
[expand type=details]

So many tradition swaps!
[/expand]

Regular Cybernetic Traditions
[expand type=details]
Opener
Gain access to The Flesh is Weak Special Project

• Tradition 1: Transubstantiation Synthesis
  
• Requires that The Flesh is Weak Special Project has been completed.
  
• Can assimilate organic species to Cyborgs (Including into/out of Hive-Minds).
  
• Tradition 1: Organ Harvesting (Swap for Fanatic Purifiers)
  
• Requires that The Flesh is Weak Special Project has been completed.
  
• Planets with ongoing purges gain +10% pop growth speed.
  
• Tradition 2: Metabolic Reprocessing
  
• -10% Cyborg Upkeep
  
• Tradition 3: Integrated Anatomy
  
• Allows add/remove cyborg traits (based off of robot traits) to cyborgs
  
• Tradition 4: Assembly Standards
  
• Unlocks Assembly Standards policy, allowing roboticists to assemble cyborgs instead of robots.
  
• Tradition 5: Modular Cybernetics
  
• -50% Modify Species special project cost
  
• +1 Biological Trait Picks
  

Finisher:
+10% cyborg output
+1 Biological Trait Picks
[/expand]

Hive-Mind Cybernetic Traditions
[expand type=details]

Opener
Gain access to The Flesh is Weak Special Project

• Tradition 1: Transubstantiation Synthesis
  
• Requires that The Flesh is Weak Special Project has been completed.
  
• Can assimilate organic species to Cyborgs (Including into/out of Hive-Minds).
  
• Tradition 1: Organ Harvesting (Swap for Devouring Swarms/Terravores)
  
• Requires that The Flesh is Weak Special Project has been completed.
  
• Planets with ongoing purges gain +10% pop growth speed.
  
• Tradition 2: Metabolic Reprocessing
  
• -10% Cyborg Upkeep
  
• -10% Empire Size from Cyborgs
  
• Tradition 3: Integrated Anatomy
  
• Allows add/remove cyborg traits (based off of robot traits) to cyborgs
  
• Tradition 4: Synaptic Sub-Processing
  
• -50% empire size from districts.
  
• Tradition 5: Modular Cybernetics
  
• -50% Modify Species special project cost
  
• +1 Biological Trait Picks

Finisher:
+10% cyborg output
+1 Biological Trait Picks
[/expand]

Driven Assimilator Cybernetic Traditions
[expand type=details]
Opener
Assimilating Organic Pops now provides Engineering Research,
All resources provided from Assimilation are increased..

• Tradition 1: Inevitable Assimilation
  
• Can now assimilate Hive-Minded pops.
  
• +1 Pop assimilated (per planet, per year).
  
• Tradition 2: Metabolic Reprocessing
  
• -10% Cyborg Upkeep
  
• -10% Empire Size from Cyborgs
  
• Tradition 3: Integrated Anatomy
  
• Allows add/remove cyborg traits (based off of robot traits) to cyborgs
  
• Tradition 4: Crucible Worlds
  
• Gain access to the special Crucible World planetary designation.
  
• Crucible Worlds have greatly increased pop growth, provided by Crucible Drones, but have penalties to pop upkeep and output and have restrictions on certain buildings.
  
• Tradition 5: Modular Cybernetics
  
• -50% Modify Species special project cost
  
• +1 Biological Trait Picks

Finisher:
+10% cyborg output
+1 Biological Trait Picks
[/expand]

To expand upon Cybernetic Ascension, we have added Cybernetic Traits that are only available to Cybernetic pops, after taking the Integrated Anatomy tradition. These traits make use of normal biological trait point and pick limits, but are not blocked by any biological traits. The traits available to cyborgs are based off of the traits available to robotic species, however they are slightly cheaper in terms of trait points while giving the pops a small amount of energy upkeep. These traits are as follows:

Cybernetic Traits
[expand type=details]

Positive traits

These all increase pop upkeep by 0.5 energy/month.

• Power Drills, Cost 1, +15% minerals from jobs
  
• Harvesters, Cost 1, +15% food from jobs
  
• Superconductive, Cost 1, +15% energy from jobs
  
• Efficient Processors, Cost 2, +5% resources from jobs
  
• Logic Engines, Cost 1, +10% research from jobs
  
• Loyalty Circuits, Cost 1, +10% happiness
  
• Double-Jointed, Cost 1, -10% pop housing usage, +15% pop growth from immigration, -25% resettlement cost
  
• Enhanced Memory, Cost 1, +2 leader level cap,
  
• Durable, Cost 1, pop amenities usage -0.5
  
• Learning Algorithms, Cost 1, +25% leader experience, +1 leader level cap
  
• Streamlined Protocols, Cost 1, -10% empire size from pops
  
• Trading Algorithms, Cost 1, +25% trade value from jobs.

Negative traits

• Bulky, Cost -2, +10% pop housing usage, -15% pop growth from immigration, +25% resettlement cost
  
• High Maintenance, Cost -2, pop amenities usage +0.5
  
• Power Intensive, Cost -1, increases pop upkeep by 1 energy/month.
  
• Neural Limiters, Cost -2, -25% leader experience, -1 leader level cap
  
• High Bandwidth, Cost -2, +10% empire size from pops

[/expand]

Additionally, the Trading Algorithms trait is available to both robots and cyborgs.


The first thing with this that I want to address is comparing the Synthetic Age AP with the options available to regular empires was rather damning. Only +2 trait points and -33% species modification cost left a lot to be desired for any machine intelligence. Thus one of the first things I wanted to do with this was make the Synthetic path available to machine intelligences. The APs required to access this tradition tree are

Synthetic Evolution Ascension Perk
Available to regular empires

• Requires: Droids Technology
  
• Gain Synthetics as a research option
  
• Allows taking Synthetic Traditions.

Synthetic Age Ascension Perk
Available to machine intelligences

• Requires: Machine Template System Technology
  
• Gain Binary Motivators as a research option
  
• Allows taking Synthetic Traditions.

We're all just cogs in the machine

It is the dawn of a Synthetic Age.

Synthetic Ascension Flow Chart
[expand type=details]

A synthetic dawn approaches
[/expand]

Regular Synthetic Traditions
[expand type=details]

Opener
Allows recruitment of robotic leaders

• Tradition 1: Maintenance Protocols
  
• −10% Robot Amenities Usage
  
• Tradition 2: Optimization Algorithms
  
• +10% Robot Output
  
• Tradition 3: Synthetic Age
  
• Requires the Synthetics technology to be researched
  
• For Non-Purifiers:
  
• Grants the Synthetic Evolution Special Project
  
• Can assimilate organic, robotic and machine species to Synths (after completing the special project).
  
• For Fanatic Purifiers:
  
• +10% Robot Assembly Speed
  
• Tradition 4: Prefabricated Components
  
• -50% Modify Species special project cost
  
• Tradition 5: Solid-State Actuators
  
• +2 Robot Modification Points

Finisher:
+1 Trait Pick for Robots.
+1 Roboticist job added to capital building
[/expand]

Machine Synthetic Traditions
[expand type=details]

Opener
Can assimilate robot and machine species into your primary machine species.

• Tradition 1: Maintenance Protocols
  
• −10% Machine Amenities Usage
  
• Tradition 2: Optimization Algorithms
  
• +10% Machine Output
  
• Tradition 3: Efficient Power Systems
  
• +1 Trait pick for Machines
  
• Tradition 4: Prefabricated Components
  
• -50% Modify Species special project cost
  
• Tradition 5: Solid-State Actuators
  
• +2 Machine Modification Points

Finisher:
Machine leaders gain the Synthetic trait.
+1 Replicator jobs added to capital building
[/expand]

Some of the changes we’ve made here could be considered fairly spicy as we’ve reduced the sheer amount of robot assembly that you could gain by no longer scaling the number of roboticists by the tier of the capital building. Though, of the changes we’ve made, the ability to convert all species (including other empires’ robots) into your synths is one of my favorites.

Another change we made alongside this rework was that the Mechanists origin has lost their -5% robot upkeep modifier in exchange for +15% robot build speed, +1 robot trait pick and having the Machine Template System technology available as a research option from the start of the game.

That's it for this week! Be sure to join us Monday, October 10th, on http://twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive at 3 PM CEST (UTC + 2) where Game Director Eladrin will be showing off the Combat Rebalance live on Stream!

written by CheerfulGoth and Caligula Caesar

Hello there!

I’m CheerfulGoth, a content designer on Stellaris, and today I’m excited to share the design process behind the Tiyanki Grave Mound that was added in the Fornax patch!

To allow new content designers to familiarize themselves with all aspects of the game, they are usually assigned some onboarding tasks. The Tiyanki Graveyard was a combination of two such tasks: designing a unique solar system with new ships on patrol, and creating an arc site.

Stellaris already includes a massive amount of content, and one of the hardest things as a new content designer is to avoid retelling stories. I decided to focus on space critters, because they have relatively few events associated with them, and most of these haven’t been touched in years. We already have a system where Tiyanki are born, so why not show where they die?

Something that struck me while rereading all our Tiyanki-related content was that killing them allows you to research the Regenerative Hull Tissue, but their superior healing abilities don’t have any narrative impact. This gave me the idea of a sort of ‘elephant graveyard’ full of wriggling corpses that don’t stop growing even if they’re dead.

After getting the main concept approved, it was time to build the event chain. The onboarding tasks required me to create new ship types, so I decided to make some static Tiyanki gravekeepers protecting the arc site. I knew some players would never hurt a Tiyanki, though, and I wanted to keep the content accessible to different playstyles. A special project was thus added, allowing pacifist players to lure away the gravekeepers without hurting them.

Communication between different departments is crucial when working on a team. I wanted my ball of corpses to look the part, but the art team was busy working on Toxoids — so instead of requesting art assets for a minor onboarding task, I experimented with what was already in the game. After all, we already have a perfectly good Tiyanki Matriarch corpse. Why not scale it down and spawn a couple copies around a planet, wrapping it in tentacles?

My first attempts, however, produced... Unintended results:


Space in Stellaris is actually flat: all planets and spaceships are bound to an invisible 2D plane. We can offset the coordinate of ambient objects (decorations) to make them appear above or below the plane, but we usually use this kind of trick only for temporary VFX, like when a planet cracker hovers over a planet.

Figuring out how to wrap a planet in corpses took a bit of experimentation, but eventually we got there!


Once implemented in-game, the content gets tested for bugs by QA. While testing, we noticed a curious issue: the graveyard looked fine when you encountered it the first time:


But if you closed the system view and opened it again...


...It ballooned into a fleshy monstrosity whose size rivaled the Sun!

The cause, as fellow Content Designer Caligula Caesar discovered, turned out to be an obscure bug that resulted in offset decorations being incorrectly sized during initialization.. As mentioned above, we usually use offset for temporary VFX, so this bug has never been noticed since release!

At this point, the art department stared at my work in mild horror and decided it was best to create an unique asset for it. The graveyard looked fine, but smashing ambient objects together is not standard practice and could potentially create performance issues. Nevertheless, the horrible mishmash provided a useful reference for the concept art and the final model:




My graveyard was dismantled, but I hope it will inspire you to create even worse abominations.
Here’s a handy summary on how to offset ambient objects. When spawning an event object, make sure sure to use use_3d_location = yes to be able to adjust its position.
Example Result

Objects spawned with random horizontal offset.

Example Result

Objects spawned with random vertical offset.

Objects spawned with random angles.
Example Result

Left group is set to face the star (not in the screen). Second group is set to face this (the planet they spawned from).
Example Result

Both Tiyankis have an angle of 0°. One is set to base_angle_towards = star, and is aligned to its "face" like the planets. The second is set to base_angle_towards = this, where this is a planet with an angle of 180°

No tiyankis were harmed in the making of this dev diary.

-------

But that is not all! For I, Caligula Caesar, have something quite cool to show off, namely some experimentations with galaxy shapes.

We haven’t made any changes to the available galaxy shapes for… I think since release, unless I am mistaken. Anyway, we wanted to spice things up a bit, and took a look at whether we could persuade our galaxy generator to create new shapes.

First we taught it a few new tricks. Now you can define a new galaxy in script and feed parameters into it, and it will be available to select in the galaxy generation screen. This means that when modders inevitably decide we didn’t go far enough in this dev diary, they can make their own combinations without replacing existing ones. It now also doesn’t determine its behaviour based on what the galaxy shape is called. With this I mean, in the current version the 2-spiral galaxy will always have two spiral arms, and you can merely tweak how thick and twisting these arms are - this is no longer the case. Now you can freely define how many arms you wish to have, and also combine them with a ring if you so please.

As a result, we could add a few new shapes. For instance, we could add some spiral galaxies with different numbers of arms:



But there was more we could do. In particular, we wanted to make a few galaxy shapes that would create some unusual galactic terrain, and some potentially interesting asymmetric starts. For instance, we could make a twist on the two-arm spiral galaxy that has very thick, slightly winding arms, resembling a bar galaxy:


Credit: NASA and STScI​

Yes, those two halves are connected by a single hyperlane

A ring galaxy and a spiral galaxy could be combined to make a “cartwheel” galaxy:


Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI and Webb ERO Production Team​


Alternatively, we could omit an arm of a 4-arm spiral, and create something we dubbed the “hedgehog”:


Finally, in a bout of silliness, I also added the “starburst”, which is a shape that is actually impossible in reality, but might create some interesting gameplay:


Another thing related to galaxy shapes which we’ve looked at a bit is static galaxies. This is the system modders use to generate a specific preset galaxy, for instance certain total conversion mods. It turns out that the code for generating a random galaxy (i.e. those we usually generate) and that used for static galaxies differ completely, which specifically became an issue during galaxy generation: the two different versions of the code probably did the same thing once upon a time, but inevitably the code has diverged, so modders reported numerous issues with static galaxies. For instance, it was not possible to use secondary species, and there were a number of small issues with starting setups, such as starbases and sectors not automatically spawning. It also wouldn’t call the empire_init on_actions, which would cause further divergence from how things would be if a regular galaxy was generated.

Anyway, I probably shouldn’t talk about this, since the code has not yet even been approved, but I tried to combine as much of the random galaxy and static galaxy code as possible, resolving a fair few issues with the latter, and hopefully making it more robust in the future. (Also, on the prompting of a modder, I added the ability to specify "effect = { }" in a particular system’s entry in a static galaxy. And you should now be able to create several static galaxy maps rather than being limited to one).

So, basically, for players who enjoy mods that create bespoke galaxies, you will probably be able to get access to much improved versions of these in the near future. (Can't promise it will definitely be in the next patch).

written by Eladrin

Hello scavengers!

This week marks the launch of the Toxoids Species Pack in all its poisonous goodness, with many quests undertaken, debris fields scavenged, planets relentlessly industrialized, and an uncountable number of leaders dead from old age at the ripe old age of childbirth. We hope you've been enjoying it.




Today we have a small hotfix for a couple of problems that immediately arose.

3.5.2 "Fornax" Patch Notes:
[expand type=details]
#################################################################
########################## VERSION 3.5.2 ###########################
#################################################################

Bugfix

-The Toxic Entity will no longer bless those unworthy. (You cannot select a Toxic God solar system initializer without the Knights of the Toxic God origin)
-Crisis will now destroy the starbases of the systems it invades, fixing an issue where the AI would sometimes not land their armies on colonies properly.
-You can no longer put the Toxic God's strike craft on your ships if you defeat the Prethoryn
[/expand]

We'll be continuing to watch your feedback for things that may go into a possible 3.5.3 in a few weeks.


What, already? Can't you give them a week or two with what we have before starting the future dev diaries?

OK, fine. We'll save most of it for a little while.

Next week we can have CheerfulGoth's talk about Space Whales, after which Caligula Caesar can then tell them about the new Galaxy Shapes or the Spiritualist Federation planned for Orion. Then Alfray Stryke, Gruntsatwork, and I will talk about the potential Ascension Path changes, Combat Balance work, and the Orion Open Beta.

We'll of course have to include a disclaimer about how some of those latter changes Alfray Stryke, Gruntsatwork, and I are working on are planned for Orion, but could get delayed or even removed entirely if the Open Beta feedback indicates that's the correct move.


There's this: Toxoids Discord Dev Q&A Transcript!

Thanks to everyone that came and asked questions!

We'll see you next week with CheerfulGoth's tales of the Tiyanki. Until then, stay toxic!

The Toxoids Species Pack is Available Now!

Rise from the primordial ooze all the way to the stars! The Toxoids Species Pack gives players the chance to inhabit toxic worlds, gamble the future of their planets for immediate gains, and make the tough sacrifices necessary to survive a hostile galaxy.

NEW ORIGINS
Knights of the Toxic God: In the depths of your homeworld, rumors rumble of a true power buried under the toxic sludge. Do you dare to dredge up the secrets of your past - and potentially unleash a biological colossus?

Overtuned: Play as a species that can gain more and more traits at the cost of its own lifespan, and live for today without worrying about sticking around for tomorrow!

NEW CIVICS
Toxic Baths: Grow your population fast with a fresh infusion of mutagenic sludge - so long as you’re willing to tolerate the costs to your planet and your people!
Scavengers: Harvest debris and destruction for quick construction projects of your own.
Relentless Industrialists: If you’re going to keep up with demand, you’re going to have to learn to ignore all of those petty regulations and negative opinions. The surviving population will thank you for all of the resources you gain!

NEW TRAITS
Incubator: Repopulate quickly when your planet is empty, but those growth facilities can fill up fast!
Inorganic Breath: Your own people are a source of valuable exotic gasses! It’s a shame the respirators are so expensive.
Noxious: Other species can’t stand being around you, and it seems like your mere existence is making your planets awful places to live. On the other hand, other empires have a very difficult time wanting to fight or subjugate you!
Exotic Metabolism: You’ve adapted to ask “are you going to eat that?” where other species would be calling the hazmat team. Eat faster, live longer, and enjoy a terrifying rainbow of flavors!

COSMETICS
New ships, species portraits, and cityscapes to remind the galaxy that beauty is in the stinging, burning eye of the beholder
A new toxoids advisor voice, helpfully providing news and advice dripping with noxious sarcasm
…and much more!

*Some features may require content sold separately

The Ends Justify the Ruins in the Toxoids Species Pack. Get it today!



Click here to read Full Patch Notes and Known Issues.

Hello Stellaris Community!

Today we’re here to talk about the new free features and improvements coming in the 3.5 “Fornax” update, named after the Constellation Fornax, which was initially named le Fourneau Chymique (the Chemical Furnace) in 1756 by French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille. A very suitable name for the free patch associated with the Toxoids Species Pack.

The free 3.5 “Fornax” Update will release alongside the Toxoids Species Pack on September 20th!

You can also read the full (English Only) patch notes here.


With the improvements that have been made to the AI over the past few updates, we’ve noticed that new players are finding things a bit more challenging and there have been some requests for an easier difficulty setting. As such, we’re adding a Civilian Difficulty Setting, and making Cadet the default difficulty. Civilian difficulty further increases the bonuses that players receive from Cadet difficulty, as well as an additional bonus towards completing First Contact.

We also know that a good many of you reading this may be looking for additional challenges, and for us not to be making the game easier, so we have added new options for Scaling Difficulty. Scaling Difficulty can now be set to Off, Mid-Game or Late-Game. If set to Mid-Game, AI bonuses will scale from zero to the selected difficulty by the Mid-Game Start Year. Late-Game will provide the same behavior as previously enabling Scaling Difficulty.

Difficulty Adjusted AI Modifiers is a new toggle that can dramatically increase the strength of the AI on higher difficulty levels as the game progresses. If enabled, the AI bonuses apply to all other modifiers the AI accumulates. As an example, the Geothermal Fracking technology grants +20% Minerals from Miners. On Grand Admiral difficulty with this setting enabled, this technology would instead grant AI empires a 40% bonus.

The Crisis Type setting will now have an option for All, which will spawn every crisis sequentially, with each subsequent crisis being stronger than the previous. The galaxy is counting on you. No pressure.


The 3.5 “Fornax” Update will also come alongside some new story events and prescription systems. There are 2 Systems with Unique Archaeological Sites, 3 Systems where one might pick up some ship technology, and 3 systems with extra habitable planets. Additionally, there are 2 new Archaeological Sites (Larionessi Refuge and Zevox), as well as the “Singing Planet” anomaly.


Back in the Unity overhaul in 3.3, a lot of you wanted Culture Workers to remain, for roleplay and flavor reasons. While we didn’t have time during the 3.3 Unity Overhaul to re-add the Culture Worker, we’ve done so over the summer!

Culture workers now have a base output/upkeep, and variable effects based on your governing Ethics (which are doubled for Fanatic Ethics). Culture worker jobs are provided by Monuments in addition to the Ministry of Culture.

• Base Output/Upkeep:
  • 10% governing ethics attraction.
    
  • 4 Unity Output
    
  • 3 Consumer Goods Upkeep
• In addition, Culture Workers have variable outputs depending on your empire ethics. These modifiers are doubled for Fanatic ethics.
  • Spiritualist: -2.5% Amenity Usage (Planet)
    
  • Materialist: +2 Amenities (Planet)
    
  • Militarist: +1 Naval Capacity (Empire)
    
  • Pacifist: +2.5% Trade from Living Standards (Planet)
    
  • Xenophobe: +2.5% Citizen Happiness (Planet)
    
  • Xenophile: -2.5% Pop Upkeep (Planet)
    
  • Egalitarian: -2.5% Pop Housing Usage (Planet)
    
  • Authoritarian: +3 Edict Fund (Country)

As Galactic Memorials replace normal Monuments, Death Chroniclers have been changed as well, they are now considered Culture Worker jobs and as such inherits the same ethics-based modifiers given above, with the following base output and upkeep:

• 4 Unity Output
  
• +2.5% Stability
  
• 3 Consumer Goods Upkeep

The gestalt equivalents of Monuments now give Evaluator jobs that produce Unity and Amenities. As expected, Chronicle Drones are now in the Evaluator category and likewise produce Unity, Stability, and Amenities.


Lithoid pops will now gain access to the Radiotropic and Crystallization traits, provided you own the Plantoid Species Pack as well.

Lithoid pops with the Radiotrophic trait exchange 50% of their mineral upkeep for energy, and pops living on Tomb worlds have no energy upkeep. This trait also gives pops +10% Tomb World habitability, and get +10% pop growth speed on Tomb Worlds.

The Crystallization trait is the Lithoid version of the Plantoid Budding trait, each pop working as a slave or better produces 0.02 Organic Pop Assembly, this growth will stack with other sources of Organic Pop Assembly.


In the 3.5 “Fornax” Update, you’ll find a lot of Relics Active and Passive Effects have changed! There were several main objectives for this rebalance:

• Crisis Relics were supposed to be your “Victory Lap”, but were relatively balanced overall. Buff the Crisis Relics!
  
• Precursor Relics are hit or miss at best, with many players restarting games until they got a Precursor that they liked. Buff the least popular Relics!
  
• Event Relics used to vary from very powerful to forgettable, here the main goal was to Buff the Forgettable Relics! So they would be useful for a wider variety of playstyles.
  
• Several Relics were extremely overpowered if you got them early, and remained powerful throughout the game. Bring these Relics into line with the current balance of all the other Relics.

Additionally, we know how some of you have struggled with the Reliquary limit to get the Galatron, and its associated - yet elusive - achievement. The Caravansary Caravan Coalition will now reward their most loyal patrons with Golden Tiyanki status. Those who have purchased a sufficient number of Reliquaries will now be granted the honor of being able to purchase as many as they like, directly for credits, with no more cooldowns for their best customers.


The Stellaris Dev team has been hard at work all summer, adding various UI Improvements to the game for 3.5 “Fornax”. We won’t go through all of them, but we’ll briefly discuss some of the biggest changes:

• Megastructures and Megastructure Construction Sites will now show in the Outliner!
  
• Starbases will now indicate they can be upgraded in the outliner
  
• The tooltip and description for Commercial Pacts will now give info on the best locations for new Branch Offices in their empire if you are a Megacorp and have sufficient intel
  
• Tooltip for cannot afford fleet reinforcement now says what resources you are lacking
  
• Added an icon to the situation progress elements that more clearly shows if situation progress has halted
  
• Situation tooltips will now display time until the next stage as well as time until the situation is completed
  
• Added planetary designation icon to the species modification UI

Improving the AI is something that we are constantly iterating on, and trying to get right. While we could just make an AI that plays the meta, and wins every time, it wouldn’t feel very good to players if that’s the way the game played out every time -- there are mods that do this already and to great effect. Our goal is to make the AI competitive, but also make it believable from the perspective of the empires you’re interacting with inside Stellaris.

• Added a 10-year cooldown before AI can propose a Diplomatic Action which was previously timed out by the player.
  
• AI will now try to assign otherwise idle fleets to the nearest fleet group as auxiliaries during war, which will make them follow other fleets with current military objectives, effectively reducing the amount of AI fleets idling during wars
  
• AI will now actively attempt to increase its fleet capacity via buildings such as strongholds when they have researched a repeatable technology in the end game
  
• AI will now downgrade Bastion-type Starbases which are no longer close enough to a valid threat in order to free up their Starbase capacity.
  
• AI will now have a higher acceptance of Status Quo Peace if they are in an unreachable war for an extended period, fixing issues where AI empires need to wait for war exhaustion to reach 100% before setting a status quo
  
• Fixed AI not being able to use defense platforms and made it focus on building those in the capital system and on Bastion starbases
  
• Fixes an issue where AI would rather downgrade an existing starbase rather than cancel the construction of a new one when over the starbase cap
  
• Hive mind AI will no longer build solar panels on their anchorage starbases
  
• Improved AI's budgeting and rationale for building orbital ring modules and buildings, so it will now build the most useful ones more consistently
  
• Improvements to AI logic for building megastructures. It will no longer cease building any other megastructures because it is currently making a hyper relay, and it will now build habitats and hyper relays even if it is capped by the megastructure build limits.
  
• Made the AI more likely to build defensive platforms if it is near but not at the naval cap
  
• Made the AI more likely to try and upgrade orbital rings (and less likely to attempt to downgrade them, which was meant to be impossible)
  
• Necroid Empires will now force grow their subservient species on their planets
  
• Necrophage empires will now correctly use their special Necroid purge type on all species that are not their subspecies
  
• Pacifists now have an increased desire to build bastion starbases, changed from Militarists
  
• Removed AI directive to delete all its upgraded buildings using a special resource if it fell into a deficit in that resource. Going bankrupt will downgrade all those buildings anyway, and downgrading is less disruptive than deleting

These are not all the AI improvements coming in 3.5 “Fornax”, you can read the full patch notes here (in English only).


Performance is one of the big three issues that we are constantly iterating on and trying to improve in Stellaris. In 3.5 “Fornax”, we have made some progress in this area, which will hopefully improve the late-game performance for at least some of our Community.

• Parallelised batch modifier updates (large reduction of lag spike potential in the late game), Situations progress, strike craft movement, country migration, spynetworks' daily updates, ship jump drive and experience calculations, checks of policies' validity, country opinion caching and some parts of planets' handling of monthly pop growth
  
• Multithreaded working out trade value and resources for systems' map icon displays on the galaxy map
  
• Added Caching of colonies in system, starbase types, and wars, things that were previously calculated “on the fly”
  
• Optimized AI decision-making for where to build Megastructures and Branch Offices
  
• Optimized checking whether a country can use a certain hyper relay or gateway
  
• Improved performance of the game checking if a planet is a colony, slightly (it does this a lot, so this speeds up e.g. intel updating non-negligibly)
  
• Optimized a few events frequently called via on_planet_surveyed (since planets can be surveyed and unsurveyed via the intel system)
  
• Reduced the performance cost of auto migration on the monthly tick (by about half)

We hope to hear your feedback on how much this has helped when 3.5 “Fornax” releases on September 20th!


Our Art Department had so much fun making art for the new achievements in Overlord that they have demanded that we add even more achievements. We have added a total of 19 new achievements, 3 for each Species Pack (including Toxoids), as well as 1 for Synthetic Dawn.. because.. Well, why not?

We didn’t design the achievements based on puns. We swear.


Accessibility is something we always try to be conscious of when designing new systems for Stellaris, and while there is more in our development pipeline for Accessibility Improvements, with 3.5 “Fornax” we have added:

Mouse Side Button Mode

• Maps Mouse 4 and Mouse 5 to toggle pause state and galactic/system views
  
• Options are Normal, Inverted, or Off

Keyed Zoom Level

• Page Up and Page Down will now also change the Camera Zoom Level

Keep in mind this is not all of the Accessibility Improvements that we have planned, this is just what we were able to fit in for this patch and if you have an Accessibility issue, we want to hear from you!


The 3.5 “Fornax” update will release alongside the Toxoid Species Pack (which you can Preorder Now!) on September 20th!

You can also read the full (English Only) patch notes here.

Thanks for reading, and we hope you enjoy these latest additions to Stellaris!

Hello Stellaris Community!

We have some videos here that we thought we would share, for those of you who haven't been keeping up with the Toxoids Dev Diaries. If you'd prefer text versions of these videos, you can find Overtuned here and Knights of the Toxic God here.

The Toxoids Species Pack will feature:

• 15 New Portraits (+1 Machine Portrait for owners of Synthetic Dawn)
  
• New Toxoid Shipset
  
• 2 New Origins
  • Knights of the Toxic God
    
  • Overtuned
• 3 New Civics
  • Mutagenic Spas
    
  • Scavengers
    
  • Relentless Industrialists
• 4 New Species Traits
  • Incubators
    
  • Inorganic Breath
    
  • Noxious
    
  • Exotic Metabolism
• 1 New Ascension Perk
  • Detox
• New Toxoid Advisor Voice
  
• New Toxoid City Set, Room Backdrop

Overtuned Origin Highlight with Colonel Damneders


Knights of the Toxic God Highlight with Colonel Damneders


Toxoid Species Pack Feature Highlights


Toxoid Species Pack Feature Highlights #2


Still want more? We recently streamed both of these Origins on YouTube, you can find the links below:

First Look Overtuned Stream with gruntsatwork


First Look Knights of the Toxic God with Mr. Cosmogone


Thanks for watching! The Toxoids Species Pack will release on September 20th, and is available to Pre-Order now!

written by Mr. Cosmogone

Greetings squires!

Mr. Cosmogone here, on behalf of the Lord Commander Eladrin who gave me his blessing to tell you more about the mysterious Knights of the Toxic God.


“Pledge thy Life to Realm and Quest”

The Origin is content oriented, but it does come with some unique mechanics to support the narrative and put you in charge of an empire dedicated to a quest.

Starting with your Homeworld, which still bears the scars of the passage of the Toxic God in the form of five unique blockers:


I hope you brought your swimsuit!

As the quest progresses, you might get a chance to upgrade these into powerful assets, but at the beginning of the game, they will be a thorn in your side, reducing the number districts you can build on your homeworld.

Fear not however, for the Order has built you a brand new habitat to serve as your springboard to galactic dominance!

The habitat comes with several unique features, including an imposing building:


“No fearsome Foe nor Vastness black, No moat or wild shall hold thee back.”

Knights are expensive specialists who will provide you with quest progress, and increasingly powerful boons as time goes on, while the Lord Commander is a ruler stratum job which is basically a super knight.

Both of these jobs are supported by Squires, who mainly come from the habitat’s unique districts:


“Let Faith and Honor be thy Guide, To Chivalry and Oath abide.”

All of this is done in service of the Quest, a unique situation which will slowly progress towards, well towards something.. Well, actually, multiple somethings which will be up to you to discover.

Let’s just say that it’s going to take a while, and cost you a considerable amount of money and alloys.


1819 months is about 150 years, but there are ways to speed up the quest.

The Quest, the Knights and the Order will definitely put some stress on your economy in the early game, but having the elite of your nation ready to serve also comes with a few benefits, like the Knightly Duties policy:


“Now raise thy Sword, take up the Fight”

And while your start will be rougher than most, should you overcome the challenges thrown your way, you will find that the knights can prove very valuable. That’s all for today, I’ll leave you with a peek at a late game habitat setup that occurred during one of our playtest, with only a little bit of minmaxing involved:


“Swear thy Vow, and Rise a Knight!”


Is it time already? This Thursday we'll have PDX-Loke providing the Patch Notes for the Toxoids Species Pack and the Stellaris 3.5 "Fornax" update!

See you then!

written by Alec Beals

Hey all!

My name is Alec Beals, one of the several concept artists who worked on the Toxoids Species Pack. Today I’ll be taking you on a very fashionable walk through the seriously expanded clothing component of this pack. In a later dev diary we will go into more detail examining the design process of a species, so this will be an informally focused look at our experiences creating the clothing of Toxoids.




At the end of our visual development process we found ourselves with a diverse array of species for the Toxoid pack. Our intention was to give around a third of them something to wear. By and large, we don’t specify which species will or won’t be clothed at the start of this process. Most artists generate concepts for creatures designed to wear nothing at all, as well as many with clothing designed specifically for that species in mind.

Once we are sufficiently satisfied with how much we’ve explored what is and is not a ‘Toxoid,’ the actual process of deciding the characteristics of our species begins. This is a fairly quick process where we assign common traits (scholar, brute, aggressive, needs pants, etc.) To everyone, after that’s done it’s time to start the clothing process!


Toxoids represented a great opportunity for us to try out some aesthetic choices that had either been missing or only slightly touched on before in Stellaris. It also represented a recurring challenge: “How do we create a series of space-faring civilizations that maybe aren’t so neat and tidy without making them look like a bunch of post-apocalyptic hitchhikers?” In the end, we vaguely defined three broad areas of inspiration: High Tech Survivalism, Wasteland Toxpunk, and Protective Fashion. While we drew from each, we decided to avoid the wasteland aesthetic since it clashed the most with our sci-fi setting.


After this, we are at the point where we feel comfortable with both having a unique style while also ensuring that it fits well into the grander scheme of Stellaris.

For this pack, we especially wanted to reference some of the great work done on the ships in the clothing we designed. Another decision made early on was in keeping with the visual and narrative theme that roles like Scientist and General should have a decidedly more roughed-up appearance. After all, Toxoids aren’t afraid to get their numerous hands dirty.


Initially we do not focus too much on what roles each outfit will end up as and more with what makes interesting design. Here are some rough sketches I did using a basic human to explore quite a few styles.


“What’s so special about all this!” You say, between rounds of Caravan Slots. For all prior Species Packs, clothing has been a relatively straightforward process of creating a single outfit per role, and giving it several different sizes. These have always done a great job but they come with drawbacks; they mask the creature from the neck down and generally come with more limited animation opportunities.


A comparison of a role outfit amongst multiple species from earlier Stellaris and Toxoids.

With the new camera settings requiring clothing designs far beyond the original scope as well as our diverse cast of candidates, we felt that in order to do these designs justice we were going to need to create outfits more specific to each species:


Some early stages of concept and refinement. Some designs such as the Ruler seen here lasted for quite a while before being changed.

We also decided that robots shouldn’t be left out of the fun, so Toxoids is introducing the first ever clothed machine! With support of our fantastic animators, we even discussed the idea of introducing masks, backpacks, and more as ways of adding variety. Eventually it was decided that each species would get more or less a tailor-made outfit.


A continuation from the above image, this time with color and material passes, as well as figuring out how to apply each design uniquely to each of our clothed species.


An example of how assets are re-used and modified and also how small details can make noticeable differences between species.

Achieving this would require re-using as many assets as possible while still making enough changes, new details, and species-conforming components that each one felt as if it was designed for the individual wearer.


An example of ways we were looking to expand the clothing even more, also look how many artists are on this single page!

As previously mentioned, we wanted to explore add-ons such as masks, backpacks and more. Some of these concepts were not new to Stellaris, but we still felt like they could be expanded.

For the most part, during our initial development phase these proved to be costly in terms of time (complicated with the layering of species, gender, role and color variant) or in terms of the in-engine animation budget. This is the nature of the job, and it’s important to know when to push towards a solution and when to recognize something isn’t feasible.


As mentioned above, we have a robot with clothes! This was an aspiration I specifically wanted to see as a long time Stellaris player. After all, even a cold and calculating near-immortal machine might want to try on an outfit or two for a change.

Initially, I had hoped we could have both different heads and unique back components for each role, as well as animated sub-components. However, as with some of the other designs for non-machine clothing, these added up substantially, and quickly exceeded what can be done in-engine. Eventually it was settled on using different heads as well as a specific back component for the Ruler.


Personally I think this adds a nice variety to our machine species, and I hope you agree because I would love to draw robots with pants next.


Once the designs and rendering are done, the next step is to separate and export files for animation. Breaking out and cleaning up each separate layer can take a while. Across all our species there’s around 150-200 total assets just for the clothing. Separating these for animation can also be a finicky process. Depending on the complexity of the costume, the method used requires all assets to line up with one another, since they will have to be layered over the original character.

Any additional components (such as the cape for a governor) need to also fit in a space unfilled by anything else. Below is a .gif showcasing how this works across an entire set:


Not shown: the dozens of stray pixels I had to hunt down during cleanup

The next step is animation, which deserves its own Dev Diary for all the effort and complexity it entails, but for now I would like to shout out our amazing animators Hannah and Mota for all the work they’ve done on this and everything else for Toxoids.

For the clothing, assets just shown being broken apart are reconstructed and layed in a 3D program (by Maya in our case). Here’s an example of what that looks like outside of the normal in-game Stellaris view:


Here you can see the robot being re-constructed in Maya

Extensive work is then done rigging and preparing the 2d images to actually be able to warp and bend in a way to help stimulate more fluid animation. This can take a variety of forms, such as creating nodes where fabric and banners can bend to areas where the 2d art will stretch and pull during animation. This is also where the animation budget I mentioned before rears its ugly, if not sensible head. All the points of articulation you see add up quite fast when you also include the character beneath the clothes.


The art can take quite a beating in the process of being rigged for animation


You’ve heard of T-pose, and A-pose, but have you ever heard of the ‘You want HOW MUCH for alloys!?’ pose?

Further complicating everything is the need for the clothing to work with some pretty dynamic animations for characters. Luckily, our animation team is amazing and was able to pinpoint any clothing that may have needed to be removed before this part of the process began. Originally there were way more hanging banners than we see now.


Finally it’s all pieced together, beautifully animated, and in game! After the requisite amount of corrosive sludge, sweat and tears, we’ve got some finely attired Toxoids. Minor tweaks aside, at this point the work is done:


This individual has never once considered if there’s more to life than being really, really, ridiculously well dressed.

Believe it or not, there are even more steps and miscellaneous details that I’ve completely passed over as to not turn this into a novel. To my knowledge, this was the most intensive and experimental clothing development cycle of any pack so far. For a variety of reasons, quite a bit of what was attempted wasn’t able to make it into the final build. However, I still feel like everything done for Toxoids can push Stellaris even further going forward.

Thanks for reading. I hope you learned something and best of luck in your future space endeavors!


Next Tuesday we'll be back with The Tale of the Questing Knights.

See you then! Also, Pre-Order Toxoids Now!

Rise from the primordial ooze with the Toxoids Species Pack on September 20th for USD9.99/GBP7.19, and is available to preorder now!

In Toxoids, you will gain the chance to detoxify toxic worlds, sacrifice the long-term survival of your species for short-term gains, and make the tough choices necessary to survive a hostile galaxy.

The Toxoids Species Pack includes:

• 15 New Species Portraits (+1 for the owners of the Synthetic Dawn Story Pack)
  
• 2 New Origins
  • Knights of the Toxic God
    
  • Overtuned
• 3 New Civics
  • Toxic Baths
    
  • Scavengers
    
  • Relentless Industrialists
• 4 New Species Traits
  • Incubators
    
  • Inorganic Breath
    
  • Noxious
    
  • Exotic Metabolism
• New Toxic Shipset, cityscape, throne room backdrop, and advisor voice

* Some content may require content sold separately

See what features await you in the toxic depths of this Species Pack - just check the seals on your hazard suit before digging in!

Preorder the Toxoids Species Pack today!

written by Eladrin and Gruntsatwork

‘Sup, trash bangers?

Today we’ll be taking a look at some of the features coming in the Toxoids Species Pack. As we’re on an accelerated dev diary schedule, there’s no time to lose! Let’s jump straight into this and turn it over to Gruntsatwork.


One of our two new Origins for Toxoids, Overtuned is the grim but exalting reminder that a brief life burns the brightest. Through invasive surgery and by modifying biochemical pathways you can impart your pops with 13 new overtuned traits. Each of these traits is a mirror to an already existing, far more survivable trait.



As you can see, the overtuned traits can even be picked with their “natural” opposing traits, or stacked with their mirrors for all your double-dipping needs. There are next to no restrictions on mixing them with other traits, so feel free to create whatever biological monstrosities you can imagine.

In practice, the overtuned traits are all about as strong or slightly weaker than their mirror traits, usually cheaper in trait point cost and reduce your leader lifespan depending on their point cost.

In addition to their normal effects, the origin will also grant you access to a new edict called “Damn the Consequences”.

This edict doubles the positive effect of all overtuned traits, but also doubles the upkeep of those pops. Its unity cost is a percentage of your own unity income, so you will always be able to damn the consequences. Furthermore, the edict has a lock-in period of 5 years, which means you will not be able to cancel the edict until it has been active for those 5 years.


With Toxoids, we are adding 4 new traits to the game, available to all portraits and 3 of these traits will be available at gamestart.




Incubator pops will enjoy only a modest bonus on their capital worlds given their starting number of pops but fresh colonies will quickly reveal its full power.




A small but flavorful addition to our trait roster, to better support your exotic needs.




Noxious pops will decrease the happiness of all non-noxious pops on the same planet, while in turn receiving a happiness bonus for every non-noxious and therefore unhappy pop. Talk about toxic neighbors.


Exotic Metabolism however, is an advanced Trait and will thus require fully finished Genetic Ascension, as it requires a robust economy to support their exotic upkeep.



Its benefits are strong, its upkeep severe and it requires a deep investment into biological enhancements, we hope to see some interesting builds with this.


Toxoids will also bring 3 new civics with it, to give you more of that slimy but satisfying feeling.




Our first civic that does not start you out with its special building, Mutagenic Spas, and all of its alternate versions, give you the option of boosting your pop growth on highly industrialized worlds, as your pops enjoy the fruits of your pollution.




Relentless Industrialists will have to deal with an ongoing situation about the environmental effects of their increased efficiency in alloy and consumer goods production. Of course, should you be cold-hearted and profit-oriented enough, it becomes a self-solving problem, if you can afford to work in such a hostile environment.




Arriving hand in hand with one of our changes for the free patch, namely the ability to choose what you wish to gain from debris, alloys or research, the new Scavenger civic will allow an empire to gain both benefits as well as salvage some actual ships from the debris.

Megacorps have access to all three civics.




Even the toughest species can’t quite survive in a world that is entirely poisonous.

50% poisonous however is another beast altogether.

With the Detox ascension perk, empires will be able to turn those giant balls of death into giant balls of not-quite-death.

Given how perilous toxic worlds are, this act of terraforming will be a bit more involved than normal, since even after the initial phase makes them colonizable, there will be remnants of their toxic pasts interfering with their prosperity.




This Thursday we’ll have a dev diary from the Artists, including some interesting things about the character’s outfits and what we’ve done differently there.

See you then! Don't forget you can Pre-Order Toxoids Now!