by Eladrin

Hello again!

The Machine Age will be arriving on Tuesday, May 7th, and is available for pre-purchase on its own or as part of Stellaris: Season 08.

Stellaris: Season 08 includes all of this year’s major Stellaris releases at a 20% discount, plus includes the Rick the Cube machine portrait as an immediate unlock. I do a quick rundown of the things that are in it in this video:



Today we’re going to look at the new Become the Crisis path, Cosmogenesis.

Back in Nemesis, we introduced the Become the Crisis Ascension Perk, which let an empire choose to embrace their darkest impulses, manipulating and concentrating fluctuations in the Shroud created by horrific acts in a bid to ascend to a higher existence.

That Crisis, now renamed Galactic Nemesis, accumulated a resource called Menace by committing evil deeds in order to advance through its crisis path.

Cosmogenesis has a bit of a different philosophy. Where the Galactic Nemesis operates through explicit malice, intentionally attempting to maximize the amount of suffering they can cause, an empire following the path of Cosmogenesis is more of a crisis to the galaxy due to callous indifference while pursuing what is theoretically a more noble cause.



Cosmogenesis can be selected as your fourth Ascension Perk. (In 3.12, Galactic Nemesis will also be moved to become available as a fourth perk.) Like Galactic Nemesis, you cannot take it if you are Custodian or Emperor, or are not independent. Unlike the previous crisis path, however, this one is not ethics locked. Even a Xenophile Pacifist can delude themselves into thinking that a small amount of possible, unintentional suffering now may be a worthwhile sacrifice for a better future.


Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.​

Galactic Nemesis dealt with quantity over quality. Cosmogenesis empires are the opposite. They seek the secrets of the Fallen Empires, desiring to reach the power they had in their prime.




Some of the Crisis Perks.

One of the shortcuts you can use to get there is the Synaptic Lathe. A powerful research facility, it harnesses the power of minds to compute and store data, with the slight downside of burning them out over time. It can be upgraded twice, and uses a simplified variant of the planet interface.


Yes, you can (and should) Ascend the Lathe​

The districts unlock building slots, and either increase Research or Advanced Logic generated by the Neural Chips. The buildings can significantly modify many aspects of the Synaptic Lathe, whether it be Synaptic Preservers that reduce the burnout rate of Neural Chips, Neural Stabilizers that keep the Chips content and less rebellious, or even Synaptic Overclockers which will increase the effectiveness of the Neural Chips but burn them out much more quickly.

The more Neural Chips you have contained within the Lathe, the more effective it becomes, as every chip improves the output of every other chip, resulting in a nonlinear productivity growth curve but make sure that there is always pops for the lathe to process, or risk seeing it break down for lack of suitable components.


A brief overview of the Synaptic Lathe

To streamline the process of recruiting “volunteers” for the Synaptic Lathe, you can set species to use the Synaptic Service purge type, which will automatically resettle pops to the Lathe over time.


Service Guarantees Citizensh... Actually, Never Mind.

At Rank 4, you’ll gain the ability to experiment upon reality through your Applied Infinity Theses. These allow you to attempt to make improvements on a stubborn reality, which can have galactic or localized effects. Sometimes these go well…


For our next experiment, let’s round pi to 3. It’ll make calculations so much easier.

But other times things don’t go quite as planned, and the simple folk from other empires that just don’t understand may get upset.


At least we still learned something!

Frustratingly, reality is resilient, and does not take kindly to “adjustment”. But the Infinity Sphere has been nice enough to provide a potential solution. A new universe would be much more malleable than this ancient one that is stuck in its ways.



Once the Horizon Needle is completed, the Exodus begins. It’s time to embark the people from your colonies onto the ship, and go into a bold new world.



Should you succeed, a perfect new universe will be created to your specifications, and your people will have endless and true understanding. Based on some of the choices you make during the Exodus, there are several endings to your journey.



Oh, what happens to this universe? That’s not really your problem anymore at that point, is it?

It doesn’t all explode, if that’s what you’re asking. That would be a terrible, senseless waste. (Okay, parts do, but that’s really just collateral damage.)

​

The aftereffects of your final experiment will ripple across the galaxy, causing significant problems for those that were left behind. A control group that elects to stay behind and observe from your former empire will protect itself well. The rest of the galaxy isn’t quite as prepared.


Their grammar was also damaged in the time stop.

With the ability to select a new empire to continue the game after losing the game (or winning, in this case), we’ve chosen to let you continue to explore the fate of the universe after the Cosmogenesis empire completes its mad goal. Your old empire will remain in the game as a true Fallen Empire.



Another feature we’re adding in the 3.12 “Andromeda” release is a Multiplayer Resync button.

This button, as the name suggests, resyncs a game to hopefully allow you to continue if an Out of Sync error occurs. It won’t always solve the issues, but when it does, it’ll save you some time as you’ll no longer have to quit and rehost the game.


Normally a reason for the Out of Sync is listed, but I forced the desync so nothing is actually wrong.


Transferring data!

The Machine Age is getting close!

Next week will be the first Art of The Machine Age dev diary. The artists have so much to show that they’ll have another one post-release.

See you then!

Hi everyone!

I wanted you to be the first to be introduced to the new End-Game Crisis coming in The Machine Age, but it seems that a Fallen Empire’s fleet beat us to it, let’s see how they’re doing…




As mentioned at the end of the video, The Machine Age will be arriving on Tuesday, May 7th.

It is now available for pre-purchase for $24.99 or regional equivalents.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2840100

But there’s more - based on the popularity of Crusader Kings’ Chapter III, we’ve decided to celebrate our eighth anniversary by offering a similar expansion pass including all of the major Stellaris releases of the year for $39.99, which comes out to over a 20% discount.

There’s a chance that we might experiment with some other ideas that might or might not come out later this year, but Stellaris: Season 08 will include all of the major releases of 2024.

Players that have a Stellaris: Expansion Subscription will have access to Rick the Cube and the rest of Stellaris: Season 08 (as they release), while their subscription is running. (As with all DLC purchases, remember that while your subscription is running you count as owning everything so storefronts will block your purchase. If you are a subscriber that wants to buy Season 08, you will need to let your subscription lapse to make the purchase, after which you can re-subscribe.)

Rick the Cube is a Machine portrait. Creating an empire using this portrait will require the Synthetic Dawn Story Pack (or The Machine Age, when it releases). Synthetically ascending (requires Utopia) will allow you to choose the Rick the Cube portrait without Synthetic Dawn, or without any DLC it can be used by researching and building robots and robomodding.




Initially announced in Stellaris Dev Diary ∛338, Rick the Cube is no joke.

Unlocked immediately with the purchase of Stellaris: Season 08, this Machine species portrait is a cube and definitely not a human. Behold those lines, those flat sides, those runes, and tremble before their ineffable polygonal nature.


You’ve all been reading these dev diaries and thus should have a good understanding of what The Machine Age includes, but they’re making me write it again.

The Machine Age is the heart of the Stellaris: Season 08. This major expansion allows you to explore cyberpunk fantasies of technological augmentation and digitalization of consciousness, expanding the possibilities offered in game by the Cybernetic and Synthetic Ascension Paths. You can address the moral and social challenges that communing with the machine brings to your space-faring empire, and face a new threat looming over the galaxy… or become a new threat yourself, as you tear through time and space to shape reality to your image.

The Machine Age expansion includes:​

• Individualistic Non-Gestalt Machine Empires​
  
• Gestalt Machine Intelligence Empires (also unlocked by the Synthetic Dawn Story Pack)​
  
• Three new Origins​
  • Cybernetic Creed​
    
  • Synthetic Fertility​
    
  • Arc Welders​
• Civics​
  
  • Guided Sapience​
    
  • Natural Design​
    
  • Obsessional Directive​
    
  • Protocol Droids​
    
  • Tactical Cogitators​
    
  • Augmentation Bazaars (Requires Megacorp)​
• Two Mid-Game Structures​
  
  • Arc Furnace​
    
  • Dyson Swarms​
• Three New Machine Ascension Paths
  
  • Modularity
    
  • Nanotech
    
  • Virtuality
• Cybernetic and Synthetic Ascension (also unlocked by Utopia)​
  
• Exploration of the effects of the cyberization or synthesization of society, with Advanced Government Forms for those who complete it.​
  
• New Species Traits for Cyborgs, Machines and Robots​
  
• Cybernetic portraits that change based on advancement through cyberization​
  
• Synthetic portraits with both organic and synthetic variants that changed based on synthesization, usable by either organics or machines​
  
• Two new Shipsets, Diplomatic Rooms, and City Sets​
  
• 7 new synthetic and cybernetic inspired music tracks​
  
• A new Become the Crisis Path​
  
• …And a new End-Game Crisis.

A strange galactic phenomenon has been observed in the galaxy, Cosmic Storms have begun sweeping through the systems of the galaxy. Check the forecast, prepare your Empire to weather this new threat, and leverage the possibilities these storms give you as they weaken your enemies.

Discover multiple types of Cosmic Storms that travel from system to system in the galaxy, wrecking havoc (or bringing powerful bonuses) on empires throughout the galaxy. Discover new technologies allowing you to forecast, and influence the direction of these storms, and play with new civics and a new origin featured around taking advantage of this mysterious galactic phenomenon.

Includes:

• 8 Galactic Storms with unique visual effects
  
• 1 Origin
  
• 2 new Relics
  
• 2 new precursor story arcs

The Grand Archive is vast and full of wonders, and it's up to you to fill its halls with the records of the unique lifeforms and marvels you meet in the galaxy. Construct a new megastructure, and collect exotic specimens from your space-faring adventures, what military applications might await you, and what unique life forms might you construct from the specimens you find is up to you.

In the Grand Archive Story Pack you will collect specimens from throughout the galaxy, and discover technologies allowing you to genetically modify the galaxy’s indigenous space fauna, and then breed these creatures to further your own agenda.

Includes:

• A new Megastructure: “The Grand Archive”
  
• 200 specimens to collect
  
• A vivarium with space fauna capturing mechanics
  
• Hatchery starbase and cloning facilities to alter space fauna and use them as fleets
  
• 2 new types of spaceborne fauna - Voidworms and Cutholoids
  
• A new Mid-Game Crisis - the Voidworm Plague
  
• 2 Origins
  
• 2 Tradition trees

Stellaris: Season 08 and The Machine Age are both available for pre-purchase now!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2863190
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2840100

​
Not every existential threat is overtly hostile, or even desires you harm.

In house, we’ve always loved our Rogue Servitors - the idea of a powerful AI that somehow turns on its creators, not in a violent or destructive way, but out of a misguided sense of purpose. We wanted to do something that felt both apocalyptic but not inherently militant, a crisis that wasn’t exclusively about shooting something on first contact. The first phases of this Crisis are decidedly non-combat.

How might an all-powerful being react to the directive to 'eliminate suffering?' Obviously, because this is Stellaris, our antagonist is going to take her answer way, way too far. What happens next is up to the player. Will you try to oppose her directly, or play the part of a loyal pupil?

This all came together as a terrifying, driven entity. There are some very obvious spiritual and historical influences in her design, and philosophical ideas regarding the nature of suffering and awareness are woven through her narrative.

Expanding upon some of the interactions originally created in Galactic Paragon, all of your conversations with the Synthetic Queen will have full, generated audio voice-overs.

Our Audio Director, Ernesto López, has a bit to say about how we went about it:

Designing the voice for the Synth Queen was an entertaining adventure. While we had access before to use Advanced Text to Speech to do prototypes and characters, this time, we tried to use the tool like a music synthesizer. We created multiple takes, arranged them, and compiled them, creating a good result. We were excited to create an AI character with an AI voice since this would allow some creative leeway. If the result felt odd or non-human, that could fit the character perfectly, but also when the results had specific emotion, that helped us to create what we believe is a fantastic character and an enjoyable and exciting narrative arc for players that have been waiting for a new and exotic crisis.

We’re extremely happy with how this all came out, it takes encounters with her to another level.

The Synthetic Queen gave us an opportunity to build upon existing stories of the Fallen Empires, answering some more questions about the ancient past.

We don’t want to spoil too much about the story, but we’re really looking forward to seeing you meet her.


The Synthetic Queen’s ships​

​
In next week’s dev diary we’ll be looking at the Become the Crisis path in The Machine Age, Cosmogenesis.

See you then!

by PDX-Loke

Hello!

Our latest and greatest patch, 3.11.3, is now live and ready for download.

You will recognize this changelog from that of the open beta we made available a few weeks back, just one more crash fix has been included.

Please find the patch notes below.

Improvement

• The Plasmic trait can now be removed from species if you want to clean up your species tab.

Bugfixes

• Fixed global ship designs country type restriction so awakened empires are not allowed to use ai transports
  
• Fixed refugees happening every day instead of every 90-180 days
  
• Fixed secondary species in random empires not having a habitability trait.
  
• Fixed the Abandoned Gateway event not taking into account ruined gateways from the Galatic Doorstep and Imperial Fiefdom origins
  
• Fixed the accidental nerf to Civilian difficulty
  
• Fixed the Luminary Bloodline not being inherited
  
• Fixing council positions not being kept for Gestalt Consciousness empires after adding civics.
  
• Made removal of expired leader from leader pool only happen on refresh
  
• S875.1 Warform no longer disappears from leading their ship
  
• The Grave Guardians will no longer trap you in an infinite first contact loop.
  
• The Kaleidoscope no longer double dips in your income from trade
  
• The Parvus event chain will no longer end too early removing all in progresses special projects.
  
• Updated some text on the Galactic Community UI that was still referring to envoys instead of Delegates
  
• Various anomalies and dig site events no longer try and give leaders the Hyper Focus trait if they already have it, instead they level the trait up.
  
• Fixed a crash from Situation progress.

Please note save compatibility is not guaranteed between versions. Should you experience bugs or other issues, please first create a new, unmodded save and see if the issues persist. If the issues persist on a new unmodded save, please make a bug report!

by Eladrin

Hello Stellaris Cube-munity!

Today’s dev diary looks at the civics and “kilostructures” in The Machine Age, as well as looking at a 3.12 “Andromeda” feature - Auto-Modding.

As with all of our previews, some of this is still in development, so there are still some placeholder icons and some details may still change before release. (Which is good, since it lets us incorporate some of your feedback.)


Let’s go through each of the new civics that are coming in The Machine Age in detail.

Guided Sapience civics​
The Guided Sapience civics focus on coexistence with natural or created pre-sapient species and the environment around them. Their homeworld and Genesis Ark colony ships uplift some of the most promising local wildlife to pre-sapient status, creating a Genesis Preserve that increases Society Research and Unity.

The bonuses from the Genesis Preserve are doubled on Gaia worlds.


Not listed in these screenshots, but other “hostile” civics like Devouring Swarm and origins like Necrophage are also excluded from these.​

Natural Design civics​
While other empires seek to improve themselves through genetic modification or through ascension, others are quite certain that they are already at the apex of evolution.


02_INSULT_CLOTHES:0 "Behold the [From.GetSpeciesAdj] form, glorious and bared for all to admire. Contrast with the paltry [Root.GetSpeciesNamePlural], cowering under their layers of cloth, knowing that the world does not want to see their sad frames."​

Obsessional Directive​
In 2003, human philosopher and professor Nick Bostrom created a thought experiment about the potential existential threat an artificial general intelligence could pose even if given seemingly harmless directives.

Nick Bostrom said:
Suppose we have an AI whose only goal is to make as many paper clips as possible. The AI will realize quickly that it would be much better if there were no humans because humans might decide to switch it off. Because if humans do so, there would be fewer paper clips. Also, human bodies contain a lot of atoms that could be made into paper clips. The future that the AI would be trying to gear towards would be one in which there were a lot of paper clips but no humans.

Available to gestalt machine intelligences, Obsessional Directive lets you enjoy faulty programming that drives you to produce ever increasing numbers of useless Consumer Goods... At any cost.


Object permanence is not necessarily one of your strengths.
The directive was to acquire the consumer goods, now that you’re done, there’s nothing preventing you from digging them back up again.​

If you meet or exceed your quota, you will have options regarding what to do with your stash of office supplies, toasters, handheld electronics, or whatever other form you imagine your Consumer Goods take. Until you make friendly contact with other empires you will only have the option to create a Spire of Commodities, but later on you could trade them away for various resources. Most of your consumer goods will be removed, but the reward will scale with the amount that you produced.

Failing to meet your quota will result in a bit of a breakdown until your new, lower quota is met. On the other hand, the experience of failure does unlock a new “direct to Consumer Goods” purge type to make it easier to achieve your next goal. (Determined Exterminators start with this purge type unlocked.)

Diplomatic Protocols​
In The Machine Age, gestalt Machine Intelligences will also be getting their own variant of the diplomatic civics.


The other diplomatic civics have also been buffed to match the Diplomatic Protocols.​

Tactical Algorithms​
Some machines were designed to study war in all its forms.


How about a nice game of chess?​

These gestalt Machine Intelligences can create Mercenary Enclaves (if the game host has Overlord), have immortal Commanders, and gain military benefits from getting the opportunity to study the strategy and tactics of other empires.

Augmentation Bazaars​
At the Augmentation Bazaars, you can build a better you, and all it will cost is an arm and a leg.



Now I’ll let Gruntsatwork talk about some new space structures.

​
The path to a Dyson Sphere of your own is long and arduous, filled with empty building platforms and non-functional intermediate stages, or at least, it used to be.

Fresh with the Machine Age, we are introducing the Dyson Swarm, a predecessor and proof of concept for your Dyson Sphere plans. By putting many small satellites into orbit around a star, you can collect some of its output and enhance your research capabilities. But Paradox you say, we don’t get research from Dyson Spheres. Correct, but you do get it from Dyson Swarms, IF you place them correctly.

Dyson Swarms function slightly differently than Spheres. Instead of producing energy all on their own, they amplify whatever resources their star produces, up to 30 times. Yes, that delicate little 3 energy star will now produce 90 energy and if you were to put it on a 3 physics star, that would be a decent 90 physics research from 1 star.

And if you get really lucky and have an event spawn an even rarer resource on a star? Go right ahead, collect it all.


So swarmy.​

But with all that said, there are certain restrictions on building Dyson Swarms. Those restrictions exist for a simple reason. You can upgrade one of your Swarms directly into a Stage 2 Dyson Sphere, for those juicy 1000 energy per month.

That is why you may not build Swarms around Black Holes, Neutron Stars nor upgrade them past Swarm state in systems with thriving colonies.
For our second new Kilostructure, allow me to introduce the Arc Furnace to you. A splendid planet-based megastructure, meant to help you alleviate your industrial needs.

Just like the Dyson Swarm, to get the most out of your shiny new Arc Furnace requires a bit more effort than merely finding a molten world and putting it down. Instead of producing resources itself, it allows you access to more of the systems resources.

In less flowery language, that means at each stage, the Arc Furnace will create deposits on every planet or asteroid in the system. First 1 Mineral deposit, then another 1 Mineral deposit. Third 1 Mineral and 1 Alloy and for the final and fourth stage, 1 more Alloy deposit.

This gives you a total of 3 Minerals and 2 Alloys on every planet or asteroid in the system, however, in addition to the deposits, the Ard Furnace also makes mining in general more effective in the system, which manifests as a small bonus to your mining station output, at the final stage a measly 100%.

So to get the most out of your Arc Furnace, you want to find molten worlds in large systems, with plenty of planets and asteroids.


Hot.​

Both of those Kilostructures will become available in the early midgame, hopefully around the time you start to feel the constraints on your expansion as borders solidify and you begin to get cut off from the resources you desperately need.

Now in contrast to most Megastructures you are not limited to merely 1 of each, however, unlike Relays and Gates they have some limits. You will unlock the capacity to build 5 of these in total, spread out through the relevant technologies (6 for Arc Welders).


I’m back now to talk about Auto-Modding. No, we’re not automatically updating your outliner mod for you when an update releases. (Sorry modders!)

Biological and Cybernetic Ascensions were particularly vulnerable to being very micromanagement heavy playstyles. You had a lot of power available to you if you adjusted, tweaked, and applied various species templates to your pops. This was effective, but very time consuming and often tedious.

With the 3.12 “Andromeda” update, we have introduced a new class of traits that will, over time, replace themselves with temporary versions of other traits based on the job the pop is currently filling. For example, a Machine pop filling a Farmer job will eventually have their Adaptive Frames change to replicate the Harvesters trait, and if they move to a Mining job they’ll eventually switch to mimicking Power Drills.

AutoMod traits have a defined list of available traits to choose from for each trait, and one pop per month will adapt to their jobs, modified by buildings like the Robot Assembly Plants or Gene Clinics.



AutoMod traits exist for Mechanical (Adaptive Frames), Biological (Vocational Genomics), Cybernetics (Universal Augmentations), and Overtuned Traits (Fleeting Excellence).

Vocational Genomics becomes available with the Targeted Gene Expression technology, and the others are immediately available once you have access to the appropriate category of traits.

We recognize that these traits are extremely strong, but the quality of life benefits of having your pops modify themselves to fit their jobs is very high. As such, Auto-Modding and the associated traits are part of the free 3.12 “Andromeda” release.


MODDING INFORMATION
Traits can now be categorized into normal/cyborg/robotic/psionic/advanced_genetic/overtuned.

Here’s the script for the biological auto_mod trait:
TRAIT_AUTO_MOD_BIOLOGICAL

Traits themselves should also include a category if you want them to be included as auto_mod possibilities:
TRAIT_AGRARIAN

Jobs themselves need to have a list of traits associated with them. We’ve created a number of inline scripts to handle these.

So our farmer job has the following inline script at the end of the script block:

Which expands into:
AUTO_TRAIT_PRIO


Next week we’ll explore the new End-Game Crisis that’s coming in The Machine Age.

See you then!

Hello Stellaris Cube-munity!

I know today wasn't in the dev diary cube-endar we posted earlier, but I felt like today was a special day.

In the finest of traditions of Stellaris cubeture, we are happy to introduce a new character portrait: Rick the Cube!



Cube Rick will never threaten to stab you and, in fact, cannot speak

Rick the Cube will be available Soon™ for purchasers of an unannounced future Stellaris DLC bundle (and also subscribers). We will be revealing more about this DLC bundle in the near future!

Watch the Rick the Cube Short!
I am Rick the Cube!



Features:

• Somehow contains more than Eight vertices
  
• Six faces
  
• a cube to take a shining to
  
• a pleasing clockwork interior that is, at times, orange
  
• definitely not a Human, cubed
  
• not a sphere
  
• will never give you up

For those of you who find the Stellaris portraits too anthropomorphized, we hope you will enjoy this new addition to the Stellaris portraits lineup! Encased in rune-covered cube armor, a sort of fully surrounding jacket made of metal, Cube Rick will be an excellent companion to take on a space odyssey.

by Eladrin

Hello again!

Today we’re looking at some general gameplay changes being made to Machine Empires, Individualistic Machines, and the new Machine Ascension Paths. Some of these still include placeholder assets, and values will continue being adjusted until release.

Take it away, @Gruntsatwork.

History Traits​
One of the first things you’ll find in The Machine Age when creating a Machine empire are the history traits we’ve added for Machine species. These 0 point traits let you choose a little more of your backstory - these define your original purpose.

Were you originally created as Research Assistants, Conversational AI chatbots, Workerbots, or perhaps a domestic servant Nannybot meant to make life easier and pass the butter? Six backgrounds with relatively minor bonuses are available for you to choose from. These are available to both gestalt and individualistic machines.



You’ll find a handful of other new traits or variants of existing biological traits for Machine species as well, including having a dedicated Engineering or Sociology Core or Integrated Weaponry to a Delicate Chassis or Scarcity Subroutines.


Please put down your weapon. You have twenty seconds to comply.

Machines, Aging, and Unplanned Obsolescence​

Immortality is a funny thing in Stellaris - under some circumstances (especially as the game goes on), due to the accident and death events that could target machines, you can end up in a state where a theoretically “immortal” machine leader is actually far more vulnerable to death as the years went on than a normal biological leader.

Machine leaders will now instead use lifespan rules, but enjoy some extra benefits:

• As real go-getters, their starting age lies between 5-10 years, so at the age of 30 they can run your science department with 20 years of experience.
  
• All machines also have an additional +20 years to their default lifespan of 80, resulting in a base lifespan of 100 years.
  
• They are now affected by lifespan-increasing technologies and modifiers, for example, those from Ascension Paths, which we will cover later in this dev diary.

In summary, your machine leaders no longer need to fear random death and will live to the ripe old age of 100 years without any additional improvements.

Some forms of immortality, however, have been retained, like the Gestalt Councils and some special ascension traits. All Virtual machine leaders are immortal while Modularity has access to advanced lifespan-increasing traits that can be applied to your machines.

Similar rules will apply to robots, though they have a starting age of 1-5 years, and do not get the +20 lifespan bonus that machines have.

Both biological empires going Synthetic and Machine empires will also reset their age upon completing Ascension to reflect receiving their new bodies. Somewhat paradoxically, all together, these changes should actually result in your Machine leaders being able to better withstand the test of time than they could were when they were theoretically “immortal”.


100 years is a lot better than how long my last smartphone survived.​

Habitability​
Habitability is also undergoing some changes. Having +200% Habitability as a base for all machines limited what we could do with them - it was what previously prevented us from allowing them to be Void Dwellers or using several other Origins, for instance. We still wanted to retain the flavor of Machines having an easier time dealing with alternate climates though, so Machines now use habitability systems similar to organics, with some significant changes:

• As a base, all machines have a 50% Habitability floor, so they will never have below 50% habitability on any world. We felt that this was important because we wanted to retain the feel that machine empires could colonize anywhere reasonably well.
  
• Machine habitability traits cover entire planet categories rather than a specific biome.
  
  • They start with Dry, Wet, or Frozen Habitability, which provide a base 75% habitability on all three biomes associated with the trait and 50% for all other natural biomes.
    
  • As usual, these habitability traits can be changed through robo-modding.
    
    • Most machine empires will have access to robo-modding from game start.
      
    • Origins like Life-Seeded or Subaquatic Machines will start with Gaia World or Ocean World Habitability and will have to research the technology to change their habitability trait, but retain the 50% Habitability floor for being a machine.
• Just like for Lifespan, they will now also gain bonuses from technologies, extra habitability from ascensions and new traits. They now also have access to the standard array of habitability technologies.

We believe this will still give them a simplified but more nuanced gameplay experience, with niches and combinations that will come close to the old playstyle while also allowing new fantasies. (Subterranean Machines, for instance, have a 100% Habitability floor and thus are guaranteed perfect habitability everywhere.)




Using partial habitability mechanics opened up the ability to use origins such as Ocean Paradise.
​
Assimilation​
An important quality of life improvement for Machine empires - we have extended the capacity to assimilate other machines or robots into your main species to all machine empires.


They may have shared our name, but they did not share our form. These false Zenak will soon become actual Zenak, including adhering to our charging standards.
(This is what I get for not being careful with my force-spawned empires.)

The Aging, Habitability, and Assimilation changes (and Origin improvements listed later) are all part of the free 3.12 “Andromeda” update.

Individualistic Machines​
Gestalt Machine Intelligences were originally introduced in the Synthetic Dawn story pack, but the authority and most of the civics (other than Determined Exterminator, Driven Assimilator, and Rogue Servitor) will also be unlocked by The Machine Age.

The Machine Age will also allow you to create non-Gestalt Machine Empires, using regular authority, ethic, and civic choices. These individualistic machines are not guided by an overall gestalt intelligence, and thus have their own motivations, desires, and disappointments. Individual machines possess happiness like fully recognized synthetics, can and will form factions, and consume consumer goods.

As non-Gestalts, their leaders will draw from the standard array of leader traits. This of course includes fan-favorites like Substance Abuser.

With all ethics available to you, your empire can be spiritualist machines, fully capable of rationalizing their own spiritual superiority compared to lesser machines and organics. Your factions have been adjusted to fit your mechanical existence, since it makes no sense for spiritualist robots to despise all robots. (It’s okay to hate some.)

You will receive roboticists from your capital building with the additional option of building an assembly plant to boost your production even more. This all comes at the cost of alloys, so carefully decide between expansion, war, and pop assembly.

As individual machines are very much capable and willing of entertaining unique needs, they have no restriction on allowing organics in their empires and can even start the game with Syncretic Evolution as their Origin of choice. As such, they have access to technologies for food production, genetic modification, and other organic focused technologies, with a sharply reduced, but not zero, chance at drawing those technologies if you have no organics in your empire. You are at the very least capable of theorizing about meat and its needs compared to gestalt machines.

Depending on your ethics and authorities, you can enfranchise, disenfranchise, enslave, or empower organics or even other machines in your empire as you wish. The only limits to your ability to tread upon those fragile organics and your fellow machines are the limits of your imagination.

Individual Machines have access to most civics organic empires have access to, as well as a few machine civics, like Warbots and Static Research Analysis, which have been adjusted for them.


Decadent, Deviant, Hedonistic Crime-Bots? Sure, why not.

As part of the 3.12 “Andromeda” release, we’ve done a pass on Origins to see if there were any that could have their restrictions on Machines relaxed.

The full list of Origins that Machine Empires have access to as of the 3.12 “Andromeda” release is:

• Syncretic Evolution (Individualist Machines only)
  
• Life-Seeded
  
• Post-Apocalyptic (Radioactive Rovers)
  
• Void Dwellers (Voidforged)
  
• Hegemon
  
• Ocean Paradise (Subaquatic Machines)
  
• Subterranean (Subterranean Machines)
  
• Arc Welders
  
• Prosperous Unification
  
• Remnants
  
• Shattered Ring
  
• Galactic Doorstep
  
• Resource Consolidation (Gestalt Machine Intelligence only)
  
• Common Ground
  
• Doomsday
  
• Lost Colony
  
• Here Be Dragons
  
• Slingshot to the Stars
  
• Imperial Fiefdom
  
• Riftworld

With The Machine Age, Individualistic Machines and Gestalt Machines have access to 3 new Ascension Paths (which replace the current Synthetics tree). By taking the Synthetic Age Ascension Perk, you will begin a new Situation to guide them through this momentous transformation.



Virtuality​
Embrace a virtual existence for the majority of your pops. From the cloud, your pops are created and to the cloud they return when their job is done.

Spreading your servers across the stars is an expensive endeavor but your concentrated efforts are unmatched.

• Your pops gain a unique Virtual Trait that becomes stronger as you progress through the tree
  
  • You gain a massive bonus to production that is reduced by the number of colonies you have
    
  • Your housing usage is reduced by 90%
    
  • Your habitability floor is increased
    
  • The more colonies you gain, the weaker your Virtual Trait and the bigger its upkeep will become
    
  • Your leaders become immortal
• You gain a new Policy to focus your intangible virtual economy
  
  • You may choose to focus intensely on Research, Unity or Governance, at the sufferance of the 2 categories you did not choose
• You gain a bonus to encryption and decryption
  
• You gain additional districts and jobs from districts

Once you finish the tree, you will transition from a pop-limited playstyle into a planet-limited playstyle, as open jobs will be instantly filled with virtual pops as needed, while unemployed virtual pops will be turned off.



Nanotech​
Big Things are made of Small Things.

By becoming a flood of nanites, your empire changes not just its makeup, but also its economy and growth strategy. Grow. Exploit. Replicate.

While Virtual Machines may seek a “Tall” playstyle, Nanotech Machines flood across the galaxy like an off-white or silvery tempest, specializing in the physical.

You gain access to:
• Ways to transform basic resources into nanites and nanites into advanced resources
  
• A new decision, similar to Terravore world consumption, to turn colonies into nanite worlds
  
• A new starbase building to harvest nanites from uninhabitable worlds
  
• New Edicts to vastly increase your productions or combat capability at the cost of nanites
  
• Nanite probe ships, to bolster your fleets

Modularity​
The most advanced traits require the most advanced minds. By embracing Modularity, your empire will have access to traits other machines can only theorize at. The rarest of resources will fuel your enhanced shells.

• Your Metallurgists will produce Living Metal
  
• Your roboticists will be boosted by utilizing living metal as an upkeep
  
• Your workers/simple drones will be boosted by your priest equivalent
  
• Your soldiers and enforcers will grant more stability and be stronger
  
• You unlock 9 advanced machine traits, several trait picks, points, and reduced modification cost
  
• All your leaders will gain the Synth leader trait

If you have Synthetic Dawn but do not have The Machine Age, you will retain access to the Synthetics Tree, but with reworked Traditions. These will include bonuses to lifespan, habitability and pop assembly.



For owners of Synthetic Dawn, Driven Assimilators will gain two advanced authority possibilities in The Machine Age, the Memory Aggregators and the Neural Chorus. Upon completing the Cybernetic tradition tree, the Assimilator will receive the option to determine their stance on the variance of thought permitted within the gestalt consciousness.

This is the Neural Chorus:



In last week’s dev diary we snuck the Machine Corvette into the Arc Welders screenshot.

Here’s a “glamor shot” of the Machine ships that was arranged by our artists:

We finally have a Machine shipset.

Next week we’ll look at the Civics and Structures of The Machine Age, as well as Auto-Modding.

See you then!

Hello Stellaris Community!

In time for the weekend (a long one, in some cases), the dev team has prepared a 3.11.3 "Eridanus" Open Beta! This beta addresses some issues that have been left over from the 3.11 release.


[expand type=details]
[Improvement] The Plasmic trait can now be removed from species if you want to clean up your species tab.
[Bugfix] Fixed global ship designs country type restriction so awakened empires are not allowed to use ai transports
[Bugfix] Fixed refugees happening every day instead of every 90-180 days
[Bugfix] Fixed secondary species in random empires not having a habitability trait.
[Bugfix] Fixed the Abandoned Gateway event not taking into account ruined gateways from the Galatic Doorstep and Imperial Fiefdom origins
[Bugfix] Fixed the accidental nerf to Civilian difficulty
[Bugfix] Fixed the Luminary Bloodline not being inherited
[Bugfix] Fixing council positions not being kept for GC:s after adding civics.
[Bugfix] Made removal of expired leader from leader pool only happen on refresh
[Bugfix] S875.1 Warform no longer disappears from leading their ship
[Bugfix] The Grave Guardians will no longer trap you in an infinite first contact loop.
[Bugfix] The Kaleidoscope no longer double dips in your income from trade
[Bugfix] The Parvus event chain will no longer end too early removing all in progresses special projects.
[Bugfix] Updated some text on the Galactic Community UI that was still referring to envoys instead of Delegates
[Bugfix] Various anomalies and dig site events no longer try and give leaders the Hyper Focus trait if they already have it, instead they level the trait up.
[/expand]

The 3.11.3 full release will come at a later date, but we wanted to get these fixes into our players' hands as soon as possible. If you experience bugs or any other issues with the 3.11.3 open beta, please make a bug report!

Thanks for playing Stellaris and have a great weekend!


Edit: a previous version of this post contained the line: "[Feature] Added a familiar Friend after you explore Astral Rifts." This was mistakenly added to these patch notes, and is not included in the 3.11.3 "Eridanus" Open Beta.

by Eladrin

Hello everybody!

Today, we’ll go through the three Origins, Ascension Situations, and advanced government Authorities in The Machine Age expansion.

Rejoice, for the The Machine Age beckons!

It's your digital prophet, Gatekeeper, dialing in to decode the mysteries of The Machine Age's upcoming Origins.

Embarking first on our divine odyssey of silicon and the soul, I will introduce you to Cybernetic Creed, a spiritualist fast track to Cybernetics. Your spiritualist pops and leaders will start with the Ritualist Cybernetics Trait, representing your people's long dedication to attempting the perfect fusion of flesh and steel.





Eschew the mundane traditionalist factions of more standard empires for a quartet of Creeds, each a pillar of your economy and spiritual ethos.



Though united in their quest for divine fusion, harmony is a rare commodity among the Creeds. Dissonance and debate fuel their fiery passion for transcendence, and often, you will be asked to make choices that will make one Creed joyous at the expense of the others.



The Conclave of Fusion Situation will unfold after you embrace your sacred mission and interface with the Cybernetics Tradition Tree.



Here, you must guide your faith, defining its doctrine and the final form of your physical vessel.

Will you elevate a single Creed to celestial prominence or attempt to weave a tapestry of unity among them?
The fuse is divine. Augmentation is worship.

Next, we delve into the bittersweet digital saga of Synthetic Fertility, our fast track to the Synthetics Tradition Tree.



Boosted by a deep understanding of artificial intelligence and advanced virtual reality, your empire starts the game with 37 Pops. But despite your success, your people are on the brink of extinction. An incurable genetic affliction ravages your species, stopping them from being able to produce offspring.



In a daring leap of innovation, your civilization constructs the Identity Repository. It's a race against time as minds are uploaded, seeking refuge in the digital expanse before death takes them.



Parallel to this digital exodus, you're thrust into the urgent quest for the pinnacle of synthetic salvation - constructing robotic brains and bodies sophisticated enough to host your digital essences.


The final version of this will not have that beautiful magenta image.

Will you seek aid? Will you engineer Synthetic Frames in time to reclaim your place among the stars? Or is this the dawn of an eternal digital slumber for your people?
It wouldn’t feel right not to have a Machine origin in The Machine Age. Arc Welders is available to any Machine empire - whether a Gestalt Consciousness or Individualistic Machines. In some ways, it is the opposite of Resource Consolidation. Rather than having an exceptional homeworld where all of the resources of your home system are gathered, these celestial architects hail from a small, resource-poor planet and set their eyes on the skies.



The Arc Welders began constructing an Arc Furnace on a molten world in their home system before achieving Faster-Than-Light travel. This “kilostructure” lets them exploit the rest of their system for minerals and, once complete, for alloy production. Expert engineers, it will only take a little more practice before they figure out the basics of Mega-Engineering. However, it may take a while before they can finish researching that technology.

More details on the molten world Arc Furnace will be revealed in the April 4th dev diary.



With all of the focus The Machine Age is giving to mechanical empires of all forms, it is appropriate to improve the Mechanist origin as well… Mechanist now grants +2 machine trait points as well as an extra trait pick, and fills that by starting your robots off with the Adaptive Frames trait, taking advantage of the new auto-modding system we’re introducing in 3.12 “Andromeda”. You’ll have to wait until April 4th for complete details on how that works.



I am Ferry, one of the Content Designers on The Machine Age, here to talk about the new narrative Ascension Situations. Utopia introduced the special projects to transform the population into cyborgs or synths. The Machine Age provides you with choices to shape the cyberization and synthesization process, as well as their ultimate effects.

When the Cybernetics tradition tree is adopted, the Cyberization Situation (the Cybernetic Creed Origin has its own version) kicks off with the question who will control the implants in society: the government, private corporations, or will the public be allowed to hack their own implants?

The Augmentation Center building, which is the focus for research and development during the Situation, stays after the situation to boost the cybernetics on the planet it’s on.



However, not everyone is excited about augmentation. Any Spiritualists will either have to be forced to become full cyborgs or be allowed to install the minimum amount of implants necessary to function in this new world according to the Cyberization Standards policy.



For Synthetics, in the Synthesization situation (the Synthetic Fertility origin has its own version), it’s not only Spiritualists who are wary of the planned changes. For some reason, even more people are concerned about scanning their mind to put into a mechanical body. Does your society allow those reluctant to stay around in quaint Old Towns or do they have to go into Biological Enclaves to escape becoming a part of the new machine species?

The Identity Complex building provides Identity Designer jobs across the empire, who boost mechanical assembly speed.




Empires that start as machines, Machine Intelligence or Individualist Machines, get their own ascension situation called Transformation. What this means will be explained in next week’s dev diary.



After the Situation has concluded and the Tradition Tree has been filled, an event chain kicks off to shape society into a new Advanced Authority. Does the cybernetic society allow the individual to flourish, or are implants used to bring the population tighter together? Each of the four base Authorities and MegaCorp, as well as Gestalt Hives, can transform into a cybernetic version of the original Authority, or opt to stay the same.

Let’s have a look at the Imperial Authority. One path through the cybernetic societal shift ends with the Imperial Chipset Authority, where implants are inherited within families to carry strength and knowledge forward through the generations.



The empire Ruler gets access to a new relic called the RulerChip, which contains the memories and experiences of previous rulers. As each ruler dies, their class of Official, Commander, or Scientist will grant different bonuses for the heir as they ascend the throne.



The Cybernetic Creed Origin has its own set of advanced cyber governments, one for each Authority.

For Synthetics, the main question of the societal effects event chain is if the new machine society will put a focus on the physical or the virtual world. One example for the Democratic Authority is Democratic Surrogacy, which replaces soldiers and pilots with remote-controlled bodies.



Next week we’ll look at Individualistic Machine Empires, gameplay changes we’re making to Machine empires, and go through the new Machine Ascension Paths and Transformation situation.

See you then!

It’s my pleasure to announce that The Machine Age major expansion will be released alongside the Stellaris 3.12 ‘Andromeda’ update.

Focusing on cybernetic, synthetic, and machine themes, The Machine Age will begin during the second quarter of 2024.




The Technophants and Haruspex of the Cybernetic Creed will guide their flock to the perfect union of flesh and machine.


Cybernetic augmentation is not solely the province of the materialists.


A doomed species races against extinction to reach the virtual world in Synthetic Fertility.


Blur the lines between the physical and virtual worlds.


Originally designed to build mighty constructions in space, the Arc Welders must utilize that advantage to the fullest to overcome the deficiencies of their homeworld.


These masters of Mega-Engineering began exploiting their home system before discovering faster-than-light travel.


The creators may be gone, but society endures. Your chassis may have begun identical to trillions of others in your empire, but you are no drone - you are an individual.

With The Machine Age, you can explore the game as non-Gestalt, Individualist Machine Empires!


Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.


The Machine Age explores how Cybernetic and Synthetic Ascension affect society within your empire.
Advanced government forms are available to empires that navigate the process.


The Cybernetic Creed Origin has an additional variant for each standard Authority.


Six new civics provide additional choices for your empires.

Corporate and Hive Mind civics require MegaCorp or Utopia respectively.



Two mid-game structures are introduced in The Machine Age - exploit systems with the molten world Arc Furnace, and start your work towards a Dyson Sphere early by building the Dyson Swarm.


And so we came forth and once again beheld the stars.


Building upon the system introduced in Nemesis, The Machine Age introduces a second player crisis path, focused on technological ascendancy at any cost.


The time has come to be part of something greater.


For the first time since the Contingency was introduced in the Stellaris 1.8 “Čapek” release, a new end-game crisis has been unleashed.

An ancient threat, sealed away for countless millennia, has returned.

• Individualistic Non-Gestalt Machine Empires
  
• Gestalt Machine Intelligence Empires (also unlocked by the Synthetic Dawn Story Pack)
  
• Three new Origins
  
  • Cybernetic Creed
    
  • Synthetic Fertility
    
  • Arc Welders
• Civics
  
  • Guided Sapience
    
  • Natural Design
    
  • Obsessional Directive
    
  • Protocol Droids
    
  • Tactical Cogitators
    
  • Augmentation Bazaars (Requires Megacorp)
• Two Mid-Game Structures
  
  • Arc Furnace
    
  • Dyson Swarms
• New Ascension Paths for Machine Empires
  
• Cybernetic and Synthetic Ascension (also unlocked by Utopia)
  
• Exploration of the effects of the cyberization or synthesization of society, with Advanced Government Forms for those who complete it.
  
• New Species Traits for Cyborgs, Machines and Robots
  
• Cybernetic portraits that change based on advancement through cyberization
  
• Synthetic portraits with both organic and synthetic variants that changed based on synthesization, usable by either organics or machines
  
• Two new Shipsets, Diplomatic Rooms, and City Sets
  
• 7 new music tracks synthetic and cybernetic inspired music tracks
  
• A new Player Crisis Path
  
• …And a new End-Game Crisis.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2840100/
Wishlist The Machine Age today!

by PDX-Loke

Hello,

Our latest patch is now live and ready for download, fixing most but not yet all of the issues reported from the 'Eridanus' release last week.

Please find the patch notes below.


Balance

• The Opener for Domination now gives +5% Worker Output and +5% Slave Output instead of +10% Slave Output so Egalitarians and Xenophiles aren’t sad.
  
• Versatility Operational Proxies now gives +1 Unity production to Maintenance Drones so that Rogue Servitors aren't left out.
  
• Decreased the cost to study (-25%) and pacify (-40%) space fauna.

Bugfixes

• Ensure dead leaders are properly removed from their location so that new leaders can replace them.
  
• Fixed Federation Emissaries and GalCom Delegates not assigning correctly and not being replaceable when dead.
  
• Acquiring the Colonization Drones from the Chemical Wasteland Astral Rift will no longer lead to discovering Noxious Swamps (or other natural blockers) on Habitats (or other planets that shouldn't support these blockers)
  
• Corrected Adaptability Enhanced Recycling tooltip listing a 10% reduction instead of the 15% reduction.
  
• Corrected the finisher effect for Domination giving -15% Empire Size from Pops in some cases
  
• The finisher for Diplomacy now correctly says it gives +10% Diplomatic Weight instead of +10 Diplomatic Weight
  
• Fixed an issue where the "On the Origins of Nanites" special project didn't spawn.
  
• The Chosen will now declare a war of Cleansing on whoever breaches their wormhole
  
• Fixed habitat capital buildings given the wrong number of defensive armies
  
• Mining districts on machine worlds should no longer claim to give scrap miner drone jobs
  
• Fixed anomaly.7200 having repeated flags in their switch.
  
• Cartographer II and Cartographer III are now correctly recognised as councilor traits
  
• Fixed modifiers to mining and research station upkeep incorrectly attempting to reduce the upkeep of the planet they were orbiting
  
• Science ship auto explore feature with astral rifts sometimes skipped unexplored ones
  
• Fixed the icon for the Great Researcher trait
  
• Fixed Holy Covenants not giving High Priest jobs in some cases
  
• The Shallash system will now spawn properly again.
  
• You will no longer be able to engage in pre-FTL diplomacy with pre-FTLs not within your borders
  
• Homicidal empires will now properly annex pre-FTLs that are foolish enough to become space faring.
  
• Bio-trophies are no longer affected by Noxious Twice.
  
• Fix lack of evasion on sapient torpedo comp.

UI

• Fixes the background selector for rulers being set incorrectly in the leader category of the background selectors

AI

• Fixed AI leaving federations only if the federation has 2 members or the AI empire's type is unplayable.
  
• Fixed AI never asking to leave Hegemony federations.

Stability

• Fixed potential CTD in quantum catapult rendering
  
• Fixed crash upon startup that could be caused by write-protected user directory.
  
• Fixed CTD that sometimes happens when finishing species modification.
  
• Fixed CTD when using console command dump_event_data and the output file is not writable
  
• Fixed CTD in leader names after loading a savegame
  
• Fixed CTD that may occur when updating diplomacy for countries without diplomacy

Modding

• Added FEDERATION_DISBAND_THRESHOLD and FEDERATION_DISBAND_PLAYER_THRESHOLD defines, which define the AI's threshold for leaving a federation if it would be disbanded.