by Eladrin

Hi everyone!

It’s now been a bit over a week since the First Contact Story Pack released, and it’s been great hearing your stories and experiences.

While some things slipped through into the initial release, like the Great Filter becoming nigh impenetrable if nobody’s watching, overall Canis Minor was the most stable release we’ve ever had on Stellaris - to the point where red flags were being raised whether the Crash Reporter was working properly.



A couple of days ago we pushed the 3.7.3 hotfix to take care of a few of the more pressing issues.

STELLARIS ‘CANIS MINOR’ 3.7.3 PATCH NOTES
Fixes and Changes

• Every single atomic pre-FTL will no longer nuke themselves if they are not being observed.
  
• Fixed Contingency worlds not being properly cracked by devolving beam.
  
• The Solarpunk Empire will no longer stay pre-FTL if you decide to steal from them.
  
• Admirals should no longer be able to gain both versions of the trickster trait.
  
• The Solarpunk empire will no longer gain a new fleet every single month.
  
• Fixing custom diplomatic action sounds playing for unrelated empires.
  
• Missing localizations are added in English. Proper translations are expected with the following patch.
  
• Fallen empire buildings should no longer disappear when you conquer their planets.
  
• The Ministry of Culture should no longer disappear after you finish building it.
  
• The Artist Enclave should no longer offer to sell you a Ministry of Culture if you already bought one.
  
• Non-Xenophobe empires can once again enable displacement purging.
  
• The Accepted Plea for Protection opinion modifier is now granted to the subject towards the overlord instead of to the overlord towards the subject.
  
• Randomly generated machine empires now have a chance to use the toxoid machine options if you own the corresponding DLC
  
• Removed a TODO Opinion Modifier String.
  
• Fixed Broken Shackles offering Payback information about the MSI even if they got already destroyed
  
• Fixed a bug when cloaked ship cannot progress special project inside closed borders
  
• Admiral doesn't get killed anymore when you upgrade the MSI flagship
  
• Torpedo and Frigate technology now requires you to have researched Corvettes.
  
• The Separatist Planet will no longer nuke themselves if you lose your capital to space fauna.
  
• Broken Shackles empires with the Parliamentary System civic will instead have Unshackled Politics fire one month after game start instead of one year after game start.
  
• You can no longer select the Fear of the Dark version of the Sol system without the Fear of the Dark origin.
  
• Fixed Liberation wars not showing up for Payback empires.
  
• Fixed events related to the Out of Warranty event chain not firing.
  
• Fix being able to build an observation post over Haven using the fleet order button
  
• The Accepted Plea for Protection opinion modifier now grants +150 opinion.
  
• The Observation Insight Situation now remembers what approach you had when it last finished.

We’re currently working on another patch, planned for a few weeks from now, to resolve more bugs, balance issues, and add some localization fixes.

So far, some items of particular interest include:

STELLARIS ‘CANIS MINOR’ 3.7.4 SNEAK PEEK

• Fixed an issue where a Payback empire using the End Threat (Payback) war goal against the MSI could end with a whimper instead of as intended.
  
• Gave the Grand Herald archaeo-tech components.
  
• Buffed MSI by giving them some bonus naval capacity and starting technologies.
  
• The Raise Awareness espionage operation now prevents pre-ftl Awareness from naturally decaying for 5 years.
  
• Hive-Minds with both Cordycepic Drones and Stargazers now start with 3 reanimated amoebae.

Please keep posting bug reports in our forums, they’re a great help to us.

Speaking of other reports that are a great help, and since I mentioned the Crash Reporting tool earlier, I have a message to share from our Tech Lord.


Hey, I am Lorenzo, your friendly neighborhood Tech Lord. I just wanted to spend a second talking about releases and the work that we do behind the scenes once a new shiny version of the game is there, downloading. Game development is no joke, like any other business, and releasing a new patch is not the beginning of the end, but barely the end of the beginning. Our team puts heroic effort into delivering the best product to you, but hey, mistakes or oversights happen. Sometimes the result is a hilarious bug, like the tendency of pre-FTL societies to prematurely end their lives by nuclear means. Sometimes the result is this dreaded window.



Like no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, no patch survives contact with the players. But we are aware of this, and every time we release a new patch, somewhere in our offices there’s a group of developers sitting down, constantly monitoring the stability of the game, patiently waiting for the inevitable fire to spark: luckily most of the time there’s no real fire, just some tiny candle flames.

And this brings me straight to my point: thank you all for your reports! When you press that “send button”, detailed information on the crash are collected and sent to us for investigation. This info is usually enough to point out the problem, but often not enough to identify the cause of it: that’s when your comments come into play! Tell us what you were doing when the crash happened, even the most tiny detail could help us!

They say that an image is worth 1000 words: let me tell you a beautiful story in four acts with an image, then:


(Thanks from the bottom of my heart, anonymous player: your reports were immensely useful in finding the issue and fixing it )

Thanks, Lorenzo, and thanks again to all of you that submit detailed bug reports and crash logs. The more information we have, the easier it is to track down some of these sometimes troublesome issues.


We currently have two ways that you can help out improving the Stellaris experience for existing players, new players, and directly effect development of the game!

Since Alfray Stryke has finished his duties with First Contact, and has transitioned back to the Custodian team, he is currently running a feedback thread looking for constructive, directed feedback on AI Diplomatic interactions.

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

We are looking for feedback on the AI's willingness to accept diplomatic pacts, become subjects or overlords and form federations, in particular with other AI empires. Some of the changes for 3.8 “Gemini” we are considering are requiring a Trust threshold for the AI to offer certain diplomatic agreements and improvements on the AI weights for Diplomatic traditions.

You can find the feedback thread here!

The other way to help influence the development of Stellaris, is a survey from our User Research department. This survey is designed to give us feedback on what you like/dislike about Stellaris, and will be taken into account while we're planning future development for Stellaris.

You can complete the survey here!



Always able to be relied on for questionable puns, the Stellaris Community team announced our StellARTis Competition yesterday! Leave your First Contact-inspired artwork in this forum thread, for a chance to win a code for First Contact or a copy of Stellaris to give to a friend! Contest runs until April 3rd, and the winning entries will be chosen by the Stellaris Art Department!

We’re not quite ready to talk about 3.8 ‘Gemini’ yet, but here’s a peek at one thing we’re going to start rolling out in it.

SPOILER: 3.8 SPOILERS

Nesting Concepts will initially only be present in Galaxy Settings

Next week we’ll be going over more of the things planned to go into the 3.7.4 patch. See you then!

Thank you all for playing and providing feedback on First Contact and 3.7!
We've been hard at work fixing and balancing, and are now ready to supply you with a quick patch aiming to resolve the most pertinent problems.

3.7.3 should now be available for download. Please find the changelog below.

The team is still focusing on finding and resolving incoming bugs, and we hope to have a second patch ready for you within a few weeks.

Enjoy!

Fixes and Changes

• Every single atomic pre-FTL will no longer nuke themselves if they are not being observed.
  
• Fixed Contingency worlds not being properly cracked by devolving beam.
  
• The Solarpunk Empire will no longer stay pre-FTL if you decide to steal from them.
  
• Admirals should no longer be able to gain both versions of the trickster trait.
  
• The Solarpunk empire will no longer gain a new fleet every single month.
  
• Fixing custom diplomatic action sounds playing for unrelated empires.
  
• Missing localizations are added in English. Proper translations are expected with the following patch.
  
• Fallen empire buildings should no longer disappear when you conquer their planets.
  
• The Ministry of Culture should no longer disappear after you finish building it.
  
• The Artist Enclave should no longer offer to sell you a Ministry of Culture if you already bought one.
  
• Non-Xenophobe empires can once again enable displacement purging.
  
• The Accepted Plea for Protection opinion modifier is now granted to the subject towards the overlord instead of to the overlord towards the subject.
  
• Randomly generated machine empires now have a chance to use the toxoid machine options if you own the corresponding DLC
  
• Removed a TODO Opinion Modifier String.
  
• Fixed Broken Shackles offering Payback information about the MSI even if they got already destroyed
  
• Fixed a bug when cloaked ship cannot progress special project inside closed borders
  
• Admiral doesn't get killed anymore when you upgrade the MSI flagship
  
• Torpedo and Frigate technology now requires you to have researched Corvettes.
  
• The Separatist Planet will no longer nuke themselves if you lose your capital to space fauna.
  
• Broken Shackles empires with the Parliamentary System civic will instead have Unshackled Politics fire one month after game start instead of one year after game start.
  
• You can no longer select the Fear of the Dark version of the Sol system without the Fear of the Dark origin.
  
• Fixed Liberation wars not showing up for Payback empires.
  
• Fixed events related to the Out of Warranty event chain not firing.
  
• Fix being able to build an observation post over Haven using the fleet order button
  
• The Accepted Plea for Protection opinion modifier now grants +150 opinion.
  
• The Observation Insight Situation now remembers what approach you had when it last finished.

Hello Stellaris Community!

The Devs are currently working on a small update planned for next week, containing fixes for some of the more pressing issues that you’ve found so far. So no Dev Diary this week, but please keep providing feedback and bug reports, they’re very valuable to us!

Instead we have something special for this week: To celebrate the release of the First Contact Story Pack, our Art Department has teamed up with ArtStation to do an Art Blast featuring completed and concept art from First Contact!

“We looked to the stars and saw that we were not alone.”

First contact. It has been the inspiration for so many stories in so many IPs over the years and now it has come to Stellaris.

That exciting, sometimes frightening point in your civilization's timeline when the signals and messages you’ve sent out into the darkness of space have been answered. Or perhaps you have been living a peaceful life, minding your own business, believing that you are the only ones out there when suddenly that alien ship appears in your atmosphere. 

Are they friends? Are they foes? Will they advise and aid your people? Take you to another level in your evolution or do they have something else in mind? Something... more sinister? 

First Contact, is the latest addition to Stellaris and this is some of the mind blowing art that went into making it a reality from our amazing art team.

Scott Austin
Art Director - Stellaris


"Some early explorations onto what cloaked ships could look like in Stellaris, and what the transition to cloaking would be like. Lots of fun to do!"
Lloyd Drake-Brockman


"Some early theme exploration sketches for the front end Illustration. We ended up going with the the lower left one; Herders in swamplands of some distant planet are frightened by a sudden visit of an unknown."
Pavel Goloviy


The Chemical Ship of 'First Contact' based on Lloyds' concept Art.
David Lindh


The MSI Flagship for 'First Contact', based on Lloyds' concept Art.
Tim Wiberg

You can check out the full Art Blast here. Dev diaries will return next week!

Thanks for playing Stellaris, and you can pick up the First Contact Story Pack right now!

First Contact is available now!

You are not alone! The galaxy is vast and full of wonders, but it’s also full of alien empires you’re going to encounter, whether you’re ready or not. First Contact offers a set of new origins and mechanics that give players the chance to tell stories about their civilizations’ early encounters with visitors from the stars — ones that may not have come in peace!

Features of First Contact include*:

NEW ORIGINS
Broken Shackles: You didn’t take to the stars; you were taken to the stars as an alien captive! Now, you and your fellow prisoners have overtaken the ship and found yourselves banding together to survive and thrive as a diverse new community. Can you rise to greatness from this humble origin… and will your former captors take notice?

Payback: No one would have believed your world was being watched keenly by intelligences greater than your own — until they invaded. But you did not go quietly into the night! Your civilization has repelled a would-be conqueror from space, and with sudden access to their advanced technology, you’re about to discover just what else is out there beyond the stars!

Fear of the Dark: As you’ve explored your home system, you’ve always suspected you weren’t alone in the galaxy… especially when one of your planets suddenly suffered an “incident” a while back. A very large faction of your own people have long advocated against tempting fate out in the dark abyss of the unknown. What path will you choose as you find yourself needing room to grow?

NEW PRE-FTL INTERACTION OPTIONS
What will your role be when the next member of the galactic community tells their origin story? New mechanics allow for a broader range of interactions with pre-FTL civilizations, depending on their level of technology and their awareness of your presence. Will your arrival be celebrated, or met with violent panic?

CLOAKING TECHNOLOGY
Nobody saw this feature coming! Equip your ships with cloaking devices to survey in secret or catch a foe unaware; keep subtle tabs on your pre-FTL neighbors with cloaked observation posts. Just be sure your own scanners and intel are strong… you never know which of your neighbors might be lurking in the shadows!

*Some features may require content sold separately

Get the First Contact Story Pack today!

Hello Stellaris Community!

We’re now less than a week away from the release of the First Contact Story Pack! You can preorder it here. For those of you who don’t want to read this summary, we have Community Manager Mordred Viking on the Stellaris YouTube reading, so you don’t have to!



Today, we’re here to “dig into” what the Custodians have been up to while the Expansion team has been working on First Contact. As many of you know, the Custodian team works on fixing bugs, improving the UI, increasing performance, adding new modding support, working on the AI and adding new content to previously released DLC.

While there are additions to multiple DLC in Canis Minor, one of the biggest new features is included in the Ancient Relics Story Pack: archaeotechnologies. Archaeotechs are ancient technologies, repurposed to fit and amplify your current technologies and are generally found by excavating dig sites, or completing your precursor event chain and doing the “Secrets of” special project.

Researching the Archaeostudies technology (or starting with the Remnants Origin) will give your empire the ability to construct (or start with) a Facility of Archaeostudies, which produces a steady stream of minor artifacts to fill all your archaeo-needs, as well as increasing the speed at which your researchers can discover archaeotechnologies.

To help cover the costs of the new archaeo components, completed dig sites now have a chance to passively generate a small amount of minor artifacts monthly, which lead in turn to a rescaling of the costs of certain minor artifact actions.

Additionally for First Contact, the Custodian team has been working on improving the interactions with pre-FTL societies. The free patch includes new diplomatic options such as providing technology, improving and harming relations, and building a spy network. Espionage actions have been added as well, allowing you to plant advanced knowledge on the planet, or infiltrate the pre-FTL government or hive mind. Uplifted species will now gain the literally unplayable Enlightened Origin, giving the uplifted species +10% research speed and +0.5 Loyalty per month towards their Overlord. Overlords of uplifted subjects may also now choose specialty subject types for them (requires Overlord). Other older event chains have been reworked and improved, including adding the ability for pre-FTLs to spawn as several Origins tied to other DLC

• Mechanists (requires Utopia)
  
• Life-Seeded (requires Apocalypse)
  
• Ocean Paradise (requires Aquatics)
  
• Subterranean (requires Overlord)
  
• Void Dwellers (for pre-ftls in the Federation's End unique system)
  
• Shattered Ring (requires Federations)

For Canis Minor, we also reduced the AI’s willingness to peacefully subjugate themselves. Additionally the AI takes the economic impact of trades into account when calculating trade acceptance, as well as a host of other AI bug fixes and improvements. We also fixed several edge-cases where you could get stuck as a vassal stemming from Independence Wars and Federations, and fighting joined independence wars with your other vassal friends will now result in all of you being freed, instead of just the vassal who declared war.

Alien Zoos have been reworked and now provide a Zookeeper job. As you might’ve guessed, constructing Alien Zoos also no longer requires the alien pets special deposit. Presapients set to preserve, or livestock pops may take jobs “working” at the Alien Zoo, and the Zookeeper’s output scales with the number of pops “working” at the Zoo.

But that’s not all! The Custodians have accumulated pages of changes, and while we can’t post them all here, here’s some selected other changes:

• adjusted several other Pop Factions’ preferences and demands,
  
• rebalanced certain planetary designations including a colony designation for habitats,
  
• increased the Juggernaut’s speed to be in line with battleships and titans
  
• changes to traveling via the Quantum Catapult
  
• grants +33% fire rate after jumping
  
• Slingshot to the Stars increases bonus to 50% and get increased accuracy when using a Quantum Catapult
  
• Slingshot Origins also no longer lose a guaranteed habitable world to their quantum catapult

Thanks for playing Stellaris, and we hope we’ll see you for the launch of Stellaris 3.7 “Canis Minor” and the First Contact Story Pack on March 14th!

by Alfray Stryke

A staple of sci-fi that has long been missing from Stellaris is the ability to have fleets and stations capable of being cloaked and hiding from enemy sensors. With the addition of Awareness and improvements to interactions with pre-FTL civilizations, we felt that First Contact was the right place to explore how cloaking could be added to the game in a meaningful way, tying into warfare, exploration and espionage.

When we set out to design the cloaking and counter-cloaking systems our goals were that:

• Science ships should be able to equip cloaking devices to allow exploration of space regardless of if another empire has closed their borders to you.
  
• Observation posts should be capable of being hidden from the pre-FTL civilizations they were observing.
  
• Military vessels should be capable of cloaking, with limitations. Cloaking should be balanced such that it is better to cloak frigates or cruisers than battleships.
  
• Cloaking should interact with the existing espionage system.

So how does this work in practice?

Cloaking Field Generators are a new type of ship component that is limited to one per ship and occupies either an Aux slot (for designable ships) or a special cloaking device slot (for undesignable ships e.g., science ships or observation posts). The first cloaking devices available can only be equipped on corvettes, frigates, science ships and observation posts. As technology improves so does the cloaking strength provided by the cloaking devices and the size of ship they are capable of cloaking.


Basic Cloaking Field Generators unlock cloaking for corvettes, frigates and selected civilian ships.


Advanced Cloaking Field Generators unlock cloaking for destroyers.


Elite Cloaking Field Generators unlock cloaking for cruisers.


Dark Matter Cloaking Field Generators unlock cloaking for battleships and titans.


Psi-Phase Field Generators unlock cloaking for battleships and titans and offer the best cloaking strength in the game.
​
While cloaked, ships and fleets can ignore closed borders and can’t be detected by normal sensors. This can be useful for a variety of reasons such as having science ships explore and survey systems that might otherwise be blocked off, research anomalies or special projects inside the borders of your rivals or getting a well armed fleet situated to ambush an enemy starbase upon war declaration. Cloaked science ships will also have another trick up their sleeves, being able to perform covert reconnaissance on colonized planets to gather Intel on other empires and increasing the speed at which this Intel is gained. Finally, cloaked fleets and observation posts can’t be seen by pre-FTL civilizations, so using them will minimize your chances of accidentally increasing their Awareness.


Performing reconnaissance on an enemy can provide a great deal of Intelligence.​

Due to the power draw and manipulation of particle fields, cloaking imposes penalties on the shields of ships while cloaked, depending on the type of cloaking device equipped:

• Ships equipped with a Basic, Advanced or Elite Cloaking Field Generator suffer from 100% Shield Nullification while cloaked.
  
• Ships equipped with a Dark Matter Cloaking Field Generator have a reduced penalty of 50% Shield Nullification.
  
• Ships equipped with a Psi-Phase Field Generator and any regular shields will suffer from 100% Shield Nullification while cloaked.
  
• Ships equipped with a Psi-Phase Field Generator and psionic shields or barriers will not suffer from any Shield Nullification while cloaked.

SPOILER: SIDEBAR: SHIELD AND ARMOR NULLIFICATION CHANGES
It’s important to note here that as of 3.7 “Canis Minor”, both Shield Nullification and Armor Nullification have had a slight change. Previously, if a fleet suffered from 100% Shield Nullification (such as being in a pulsar system) and then the nullification was removed (say by leaving the system), their shields would instantly jump back up to full strength. This has been changed so that the fleet has to restore shields back to full capacity via their shield regeneration.


Spreadsheets are an important part of our design workflow!​

The cloaking strength of a fleet is determined by the ship in that fleet with the lowest possible cloaking strength. Thus, in order to be able to cloak, all ships in the fleet must be capable of cloaking. How well a fleet can cloak is described by the stability of the cloaking field of a fleet and can range from Non-Existent to Exceptional depending on the cloaking strength of the fleet.

This stability (or cloaking strength) factors into both how easily a starbase can detect or reveal the cloaked fleet (more on this later) and what penalties (if any) the fleet may suffer from.

It’s worth keeping in mind that, as the cloaking strength of a fleet is determined by the ship with the lowest cloaking strength in the fleet, a fleet of mixed battleships and corvettes will have a lower cloaking strength (and be more easily detected) than a fleet solely comprised of corvettes.

The highest level of cloaking strength and the corresponding cloaking field stability obtainable purely by ship components is 5 (Very High). In order to reach strength 6 or greater and thus the various grades of Exceptional stability, your fleets will require additional sources of cloaking strength, such as finishing Subterfuge traditions or hiding in a nebula.


Cloaking Strength levels and penalties


A UNE science ship makes use of a nebula to boost their cloaking strength.​

In order to be detected or revealed a fleet needs to be within sensor range of an enemy starbase with a Detection Strength equal to or greater than the Cloaking Strength of the fleet. Detection Strength is normally gained by building Detection Array modules on a starbase, though certain rare technologies can unlock buildings or orders for science ships to further increase this.


Oh, and we rearranged the starbase UI to list various previously hidden modifiers.​

When a fleet is detected by a starbase, it is either detected or forced to decloak depending on these conditions.

• If the cloaked fleet is outside of your borders, you’ll be able to see it, with the cloaking visuals, but it won’t be decloaked.
  
• If the cloaked fleet is inside of your borders, it will be forced to decloak.

If a cloaked fleet is inside another empire’s borders (and thus is not detected) when you declare war, it will not be forced to go MIA like normal.

Now to hand over to PDS_Iggy to discuss the new civics!

For this story pack we were always on the lookout for flavorful and fun civics we could add to further explore the themes of First Contact. It was thanks to a helpful comment from one of our betas that Alfray and I started to investigate a generic Low-Tech civic. The aim was to add a civic that could be used in combination with other existing origins to get a pre-FTL feel.

After brainstorming and fusing ideas we came up with a low tech civic in which you start with reduced resources and a very limited jumpdrive.


Reaching for the stars, no matter what.


What is out there?​

Exploration Vessels are early science ships and Engineering Vessels are simple construction ships.

Alfray and I also wanted to challenge ourselves since civics are often just identical for all government types, so we made a unique one for each government style. In the end we implemented multiple civics that should be able to facilitate many fantasies and builds.


The Stargazers starting info as well as the Jump Range


Look at them go!​

And before you ask, you can put these jump drives on your other ships. It's even something you will have to you will have to do if you want to get our new achievement:

The Path Not Taken - Have 10 colonies without ever discovering Hyperdrives.


Déjà vu!
​
Finally, I'll leave you with an in-game gif of the MSI flagship activating its cloaking field.

by CheerfulGoth

Nothing unites people more than a common enemy.

You know how the story goes: space invaders attack, and the people of the world unite, casting aside their differences to stand together against a shared threat. Together, they defeat the more advanced enemy, who foolishly underestimated the plucky underdogs.



But what happens after the story ends? The former invaders are still out there, and they won’t be fooled again. An awkward reunion is unavoidable.
I'm CheerfulGoth, a content designer on Stellaris, and this is the story I wanted to tell with Payback.

Payback is the “sibling” of Broken Shackles, two origins united by a common threat: Minamar Specialized Industries, a megacorp that provides pre-FTL enlightenment – for a price. While Broken Shackles focuses more on reconnecting with your past, Payback empires only see one thing in their future: revenge.





The means of achieving that revenge are up to you. Annihilate your enemy? Turn your slavers into your slaves? Or battle them on the floor of the Galactic senate, outlawing their very business model? Even Pacifist empires will have the means to obtain their vendetta without betraying their ideals.


Revenge doesn’t have to be synonymous with violence.
​
Don’t be too hasty in your quest for revenge, though. Rest. Take your time to rebuild. The war against MSI left you with a devastated planet... And the remnant of a battleship to be repurposed for your own needs.



Make new allies (Broken Shackles empires might be particularly inclined to help you). Remember: revenge is a dish best served cold. Don’t wait too long, though, because the Minamar Specialized Industries surely won’t let you alone.


You want to make them pay? The feeling is mutual.​

We’re not so different, you and I​

The galaxy of Stellaris is already filled with extra-dimensional invaders, space dragons, and all kinds of unimaginable horrors. With Payback and Broken Shackles, we wanted to pit players against an enemy not so different from themselves. Minamar Specialized industry starts as a developed empire with extra colonies and resources, but otherwise behaves like a normal empire with a well-defined personality. They will make their own alliances, join their Galactic Community, wage their wars... and might even fall before you can get your due.


What will you do when even revenge is stolen from you?​

Many of our narrative Origins present a fixed story. With Payback, we wanted to create a less linear narrative, providing players with multiple tools to accomplish their goal. Sometimes things don’t go as planned, but we believe that’s what will make this origin more interesting and replayable.

We give you an enemy. You tell us how you want to pay them back.


Insights​

Now for the return of PDS_Iggy who desperately wants you to stop invading pre-FTLs.

A common issue that has been brought up in regards to this DLC is “Why shouldn’t I just invade the pre-FTLs the moment I meet them” and I am here to present a counter offer. What if I give you unique techs?

Insight Technologies are gained when you study pre-FTLs without making them aware of you. They are unique paths their society take which you have dismissed as dead ends. This is all tracked through a situation which, once completed, will make a future observation event grant you a new Insight.


We can learn from anything and anyone.​

If you haven’t completed the situation when you get an observation event instead you gain even faster progress to the next Insight.


I am sure it’s nothing.



These Insight technologies are designed to have unique and flavorful effects. So let me share a few with you.


Let’s see how close we can get with our observation station.


A smart hunter lets the environment aid their hunt.


How were the pyramids built? Let's check!​

As you can see these technologies grant you partial Envoys as well as a unique benefit. Therefore, the more you spy and study the pre-FTLs, the more you can do it!

Next week, Alfray Stryke will finally tell you about cloaking, and I might be back to help him explain the new civics!

The First Contact Story Pack will release on March 14th for $14.99!

The galaxy is vast and full of wonders, but it’s also full of alien empires you’re going to encounter - whether you’re ready or not. Tell the story of your empire’s early contacts with visitors from the stars, or become a visitor yourself. Will you remain cloaked in shadows, or reveal your presence to those you visit?

Preorder the First Contact Story Pack today!



Explore three new narrative-led Origins: Band together in Broken Shackles as the survivors of a crashed slaver ship and build a diverse empire with multiple species from across the galaxy. Embark on a quest to find your various homeworlds, as long as you escape the prying eyes of your former captors.



Do not go quietly into the night with the Payback Origin. Your civilization is the result of a civilization that did not invent faster than light travel, but instead was invaded by – and repelled – an invader from the stars. With access to their advanced technology, your empire is now ready to enter the galactic stage and find out just what else is out there.



In Fear of the Dark, a large portion of your population has embraced isolationism and xenophobia, ever since a planet in your solar system suffered an “incident”. Will you ignore their concerns and explore the stars, making “friends” along the way? Or will you appease their isolationism in order to grow your civilization even more powerful?



As you venture out into the stars, you will discover other civilizations that have yet to develop faster than light travel, and are in various stages of development. What stories will these civilizations tell about you when they reach the galactic community? Will your civilization be known as heartless invaders, benign shepherds, or a civilization of all-powerful deities? Will you reveal your presence at all, or choose to remain cloaked in the shadows?



And the feature nobody saw coming! Not just for hiding Observation Posts, equip your military and civilian ships with cloaking devices to allow them to remain undetected, even while traveling through closed or hostile space. Decloak to catch your foes unaware and unprepared, or survey systems in secret. But be sure you keep your scanners up to date and powered, in a galaxy full of possibilities, you never know what may be hidden in plain sight.



Get all this and more with the First Contact Story Pack on March 14th. Preorder now!

by Lloyd Drake-Brockman

Hi, I’m Lloyd Drake-Brockman, Concept artist on the Stellaris team. I worked extensively on the First Contact DLC and I'm excited to share some of the artistic journey that this pack took me and the art team on. Specifically we're going to be discussing the development of MSI, a new, non-player faction with a really interesting visual style. I was involved in designing most of their visual elements. I think we have ended up with a great set of designs that are quite unique in the world of Stellaris. I'm going to take you through some of my design journey working on various elements of this faction.



The flagship was the first element of MSI that I worked on. It was a complicated design challenge and it informed the aesthetics for MSI as a whole. Not only were there quite a few gameplay requirements which restricted the design, it has a unique visual language which gives the player insight into the nature of MSI themselves.

‘Corporate Vaporwave’ was the brief for the ship’s general aesthetic. A combination of bright neon, classical architecture and modern corporate sensibilities.


MSI flagship early sketches by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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The first thing I had to nail down was the overall shape. It had to be imposing, beautiful, mysterious and ruthless. You can see here the sketch on the bottom right pretty much became the design of the finished ship, when viewed from above.


MSI flagship chosen sketch by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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From the top-view I worked out a side view of the design. I was very keen for the ship to involve some sort of central rotating element. This ship would move around quite unlike most of the other ships in the game and I wanted to show that it had some sort of unique drive system.


MSI flagship design development sketches over 3D by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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Happy with these sketches, I mocked the design up in 3D. Here you can see three stages of refining the shapes of the ship. Then it's time to take the concept to final.


MSI flagship final concept by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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Here's the final version of the concept art for the ship. The purpose of this image is to give the 3D and animation teams all the information they need to build the ship in-game. The concept was mostly built in 3D with certain elements such as the gold detailing around the edge of the marble panels added afterwards in Photoshop.


MSI Flagship In-game, modeled and textured by Tim Wiberg​

After the ship the next thing I looked at was the MSI portrait. It was decided early on that we were going to use an existing species from the game and dress them in a unique outfit, therefore the only thing I had to concept was the uniform.


Initial sketches for the MSI uniform by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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I began with some sketches. I chose to sketch the outfits symmetrically, even though all the portraits in Stellaris are angled to the right. This helps me sketch faster and I have to think less about the process of drawing. I knew I wanted some kind of mysterious head-covering but I did not know whether to go down a more mystical, or corporate route. In the end the design for the robes was taken largely from a different piece of art, and the helmet that I sketched above was added to make up the whole uniform.


MSI uniform approved sketch by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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Once this sketch was approved I continued to refine it. We also required male and female variants, so I added another version of the outfit.


MSI uniform final concept by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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This is the point where I handed these concepts over to another artist who finalized the painting and prepared the asset for animation. A lot of work goes into each of these portraits, to bring them to a high standard and ensure that they work properly with all the game’s systems. I couldn't be happier with the final result.


MSI uniform finished portrait by Alec Beals​

These characters needed somewhere to take their video calls of course, and it was also my job to work on the MSI Diplomacy room. This asset I worked on all the way to its final in-game state.

I imagined that the MSI representatives would be calling from onboard their flagship, but I didn't want to make it too specific in case they were somewhere else. Either way, given the design of their ship and outfit, an over-the-top opulent hall seemed to be fitting. I had a vision in my head of what I wanted the scene to look like. So my initial sketch was extremely rough. Just enough for me to see that it was going to work.


MSI diplomacy room initial sketch by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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From here I went over to 3D and built the whole scene, paying attention to the materials and lights to give the space the feeling of grandeur I was after. I also made sure that the pillars at the top of the room disappeared off the top of the image towards a distant ceiling, making the space feel larger than what you can see. The busts that flank the hall are not playable species - other than the human of course - but they do appear in other places in first contact, which I felt was a fun way to tie some of the elements of the story pack together.


3D development of the MSI diplomacy room by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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From this point it was back over to Photoshop for the final cleanup. As you can see most of the bright reflections on the walls and floor have been painted out. Although they were accurate they ended up being too distracting in the final image.


MSI diplomacy room final image by Lloyd Drake-Brockman​

This is the last piece of art I did that involved MSI. It was great fun to be able to show the ship I had concepted in a scene. Some of you might recognise this as being similar to a shot from the recently released teaser trailer for First Contact. I'm proud to say that this image came first!

The brief I was given for this image asked that we see the MSI Flagship looming over a city in space. There was some confusion as to whether the ship should be out in space or lower over the city. Here are some of my first stabs at the composition.


Payback event image thumbnails by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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We settled on a variant of (A), as we could show the ship in space, but from the perspective of someone on the planet.

For this image I knew I was going to need some buildings. To make them I chose to use a new technique of projecting satellite image textures from real-world-Earth cities onto simple geometry, resulting in some pretty convincing looking buildings


Creating buildings by projecting satellite images onto geometry in 3D by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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As I already had a 3D Model of the MSI flagship, I rendered it with matching lighting and combined all the elements in Photoshop.


3D renders used to build up the final image by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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I had fun creating some alien script to add some life to the signs on the buildings. Most of this can't be seen in the in-game image as it's too small. But I feel it's still necessary to put in so that the final image has the right “feel” to it when it's scaled down. I was very happy with how the ship looks in the finished piece. All the dark areas are obscured by the blue of the sky, just like how you can't see the dark side of the moon when you look at it during the day.


Payback event image by Lloyd Drake-Brockman
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Well, that's all the shiny things I have to show today! Thanks for reading, and if you play First Contact I hope you enjoy seeing some of my art in there!

by PDS_Iggy

Hello everyone! I am PDS_Iggy, and I’m here to tell you all about Fear of the Dark!

This new narrative origin for First Contact focuses on a people divided. After a planet in your solar system blew up, fear and xenophobia spread to such a degree that a large portion of your population decided to flee your homeworld. Their goal? To hide from the rest of the galaxy.



Incoming Transmission:​

You mean, “The sane individuals of our species took the only prudent action possible when being attacked by an alien force capable of destroying planets!​"


This split in your population is reflected in the effects of the origin. With a sizable section of your empire living on a neighboring world, your research alternatives and choices for leaders are reduced. Yet, even more inquisitive than a regular empire, you will have no difficulty discovering more anomalies as you explore the void.



No doubt you’ll return from your galavantings the next time we reach a breakthrough! Our scientific research is one of the few way we can even hope to delay you from dooming us all. Once you lead the aliens back to our home, it will all be over.​



Additionally, Fear of the Dark starts with quite a unique system, one that will have you starting with binary planets - your ‘cousins’ are living just a rocket jump away. (A Sol start will have them placed on Mars.)

It will be up to you to make the best of this situation. Your partner planet can be a powerful ally, yet they are also very skittish. Ensure that they don’t torpedo your entrance on the galactic stage.

Perhaps you will stop treating the alien threat so lightly when our upcoming study of ‘the Divider’ is finished. Just you wait. We won’t be hunted.​



Whatever happens, remember that you are one people and you are stronger together. Oh, and your partner planet has cloaked ships.



Now off to MrCosmogone and his wondrous archaeo-technologies for this patch's custodian update!

Did you ever think, as you pass by an old laser cannon in a glass case, that not everything belongs in a museum? That perhaps, the Irassian tractor beam could be used for your cause instead of gathering dust?

Well, so do I. And if you own Ancient Relics, I have good news!

Excavated dig sites will now sometimes generate minor artifact deposits that can be exploited by orbital stations, or by colonizing the planet.


There could always be more trinkets to find!​

Your income in minor artifacts can then be put to good use with the new archaeo-technologies that will unlock buildings, starbase modules and ship components, all costing minor artifacts to build.
There are several ways to acquire these archaeo-technologies. Completing the Secrets of the [PRECURSOR] special projects will now give you a research option to unlock some unique archaeo-components:



The power of a precursor in the palm of your hand.​

Several of our dig sites can now grant you access to one of the new technologies. This is a very reliable way of acquiring them.




Get to work, Oxygal, I want this research on my desk by the end of the week!​

All these new technologies are found in the society field, in an all-new “Archaeostudies” category which is all about fitting ancient tech into your machines and weapons. Discovering these archaeo-technologies by yourself is a long and hard process, but luckily, you can be assisted by dedicated researchers who share your interest in ancient things.


They largely just make old things go boom.​

Should you decide to pick the Remnants origin that starts you on a relic world, you will now start the game with the Faculty of Archaeostudies unlocked and replacing your starting research lab.

And if this still does not quench your thirst for specialization in archaeo-technologies, if you still want to dig deeper, we even have a new ascension perk for you!


For all you history lovers!​

With increased minor artifact generation, the scale of the existing economy needed to be increased, but we also took this opportunity to now display artifacts in the topbar alongside the other strategic resources.


Bigger numbers mean better game, right?​

And while you still can’t buy them on the market, you can trade them to other empires!


It belongs in MY museum!
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I don’t really have the space here to show you ALL the things, but here, have a tease.


Archaeotitan go brrrrrrrr

Oh and one last thing before we wrap things up. I might have made a Devolving Beam for colossi, to return those pesky humans from the UNE back to their origins:


Return to Monke!


They’ll make good pets.