by Eladrin

Hi everyone!

The 3.12.3 “Andromeda” patch was released this week, with the following changes:
Feature​

• Added tradition agendas for Modularity, Nanotech and Virtuality
  
• Some megastructures (mostly kilostructures) can now be dismantled if you have the technology to build them and are not at war.
  
• Solar system tooltips now show the arc furnace and habitat potential of a system, if you meet the construction requirements for the megastructures

Improvement​

• Added heir titles to Mortal Empire and Bandit Kingdom governments
  
• Added missing heir titles for Imperial governments
  
• Added more character names to the Cyberpunk list
  
• Added tooltips to the Transformation situation to summarize the different ascension paths in the event that you make a choice of which path to select.
  
• Awakened fallen empires now can use the daedalus seal relic.
  
• Completing the Synthetic Fertility event chain will now grant additional robot modification trait points and picks and award a unique trait for your synths
  
• Cybernetic Creed pops can now be modified
  
• Democratic Crusaders no longer hate Worker Coops for being Oligarchies
  
• Non-Spiritualist pops in a Cybernetic Creed empire now only have the Cybernetic Creed traits removed instead of all Cyborg traits
  
• Redesigned top-menu resource tooltips for clarity
  
• Robots Pops are now called Machine or Mechanical Pops in most places
  
• Scavenger civics now have 10% of the base cost of buildings, districts and megastructures refunded upon dismantling them
  
• Selecting a Cybernetic Creed as your sole Spiritualist faction no longer forces a template onto your species
  
• The Commodities Consolidation situation will now show if you are on track to produce enough consumer goods or if you do not have enough storage space to the quota. Thanks to SirBlackAxe for the improvement suggestions!
  
• Your choice in the Virtual Salvation event now influences the Synthetic Society Shift in the Digital Refactoring event chain

Balance​

• Added Election Term Variance (Years): +5 to the Shadow Council civic. This means that each election will have a term length equal to that of the authority +/- a random number of years between -5 and +5.
  
• Added Election Term Length (Years): -50% to the Worker Cooperative civic, giving empires with this civic the same term length as the democratic authority.
  
• All Virtual empires (either Machines that take Virtuality traditions or Organic empires that adopt a Virtual government after completing Synthetic Ascension) now get access to the Virtual Economic Policy
  
• Buffed the Mutual Aid trade policy to also provide unity
  
• Cosmogenesis Battlecruiser and Titans now use reactors one class above theirs, and should now provide ample power for modules.
  
• Dark Matter Engine effects reduced from +60% to +40%
  
• Increased the effects of the modifier nerfing FE against Cetana.
  
• Machine World planet designation now increases the output of all jobs by 5% instead of only simple drones and increases the build speed of all resource districts by 25%
  
• Made Rogue Servitors slightly more likely to build organic sanctuaries and their upgrades
  
• Reduced the time needed to complete the special projects "The Queen's Databank" and "Cetana: Race The Tempest"
  
• Selecting a Cybernetic Creed as your sole Spiritualist faction now awards a country modifier for that Creed - these modifiers are:
  
  • The Fellowship of the Hammer, Elevated Fellowship, +1 Biological Trait Points, +1 Biological Trait Picks, -10% Building and District Upkeep, -10% Megastructure Upkeep
    
  • The Templars of Steel, Elevated Templars, +1 Biological Trait Points, +1 Biological Trait Picks, +5% Naval Capacity
    
  • The Choir of the Mind, Elevated Choir, +1 Biological Trait Points, +1 Biological Trait Picks, +5% Research Speed, +5% Researcher Upkeep
    
  • The Commune of Toil, Elevated Commune, +1 Biological Trait Points, +1 Biological Trait Picks, +10% Cyborg Happiness
    
  • The United Creeds has their modifier changed to +2 Biological Trait Points, +1 Biological Trait Picks
• Selecting a Cybernetic Creed as your sole Spiritualist faction now gives +10% Faction Approval for the Creed
  
• Selecting the physical path for Synthetic Ascension now unlocks the advanced traits from Modularity
  
• Shielded Components points cost reduced from 4 to 3
  
• Synthetic Imperial authorities no longer have -10% pop assembly speed
  
• Synthetic Oligarchic authorities now have Enforcer provide +10% Resources from Ruler Jobs instead of +5%
  
• Synthetic Physical Corporate government now gives +5% Trade Value
  
• Synthetic Physical Imperial government now gives +2 leader starting level and +10% leader XP gain
  
• Synthetic Virtual Corporate government now gives +1 Codebreaking
  
• The additional trait picks and points awarded by Cybernetic Creed now only apply to biological species
  
• The Augmentations of the Commune now gives +20% Worker Output, but no longer gives +20% Worker Happiness
  
• The Bot Lord destiny trait is now available for all leader classes and now instead increases the production and decreases the upkeep of both robots and cyborgs. It is twice as likely to show up if you are an individual machine or have synthetic or cybernetic ascension.
  
• The Computation Core Focus policy for Synthetic MegaCorps no longer removes the +1% Trade Value modifier from Clerks and the Production Streamlining option now also increases Consumer Goods production in addition to alloys.
  
• The Nanotech World designation now also affects agri-drones if you build hydroponic farms on the planet
  
• The Shroud Preacher and Truth Seeker destiny traits are now blocked if you have undertaken another a non-psionic path. They are twice as likely to show up if you have psionic ascension. The traits no longer require spiritualist ethics
  
• Virtuality Adoptions grants a -15% metallurgist and artisan production
  
• Virtuality Policy now grants +80%/-50%, down from +100%/-40%

Bugfix​

• Added a homeworld or planet preference to multiple event species, mainly machines
  
• Added a plural version of the loc for synaptic lathe districts
  
• Added a warning to Synthetic Age that it will not grant a new tradition if you have no tradition slots left
  
• Added military academy to shattered ring and habitat
  
• Added more checks to prevent Worker Coops from using banned trade policies
  
• Assembly tooltip will now combine empire wide add modifiers into the same category.
  
• Becoming a machine removes the brain slug trait from leaders
  
• Blocked parades and deficits from targeting the synaptic lathe
  
• Cetana's fleets now begin at 1st
  
• Changed resilience bonus for immortal leaders
  
• Changed Synthetic Dawn machine empire gender to indeterminable.
  
• Changed the cost of the Integrated Mega Construction edict so it wouldn't break the UI
  
• Clarified the loc of the AI policy and machine Citizenships
  
• Colony ships for Synthetic Fertility now use energy instead of food or minerals
  
• Completely new fleet will be able to accept more than the default 20 ships by forcing an early modifier update.
  
• Corrected icons for Zero Waste Protocols and Diplomatic Protocols
  
• Corrected the highlighting on the Free at Last concept tooltip
  
• Corrected the names of some gestalt agendas
  
• create_species effect can no longer create species without habitability traits
  
• Cyberization can handle multiple species templates
  
• Defenders of the galaxy can not become a crisis anymore
  
• Destroyed orbital rings are no longer duplicated
  
• Dyson Swarm's stage name 1 is now properly displayed in Russian
  
• election_term_variance values for government authorities now behave as expected and go negative.
  
• First contract breakthrough chance is now affected by encryption.
  
• Fixed a bug where players would occasionally not receive the "Mysterious Tempest" special project needed to declare war to Cetana
  
• Fixed a bunch of typos reported on the forums
  
• Fixed a couple of issues with coordinator districts and virtuality traditions
  
• Fixed a crash when switching between countries while in observer mode with the Leader View open.
  
• Fixed a number of capital buildings checking for the wrong synthetics tradition to add roboticist jobs
  
• Fixed an issue that allowed you to keep playing after Cetana won
  
• Fixed an issue with the Mother Knows Best achievement being incorrectly configured for some storefronts
  
• Fixed Archaeology and Astral Rift exploration failure probability sometimes showing nonsense values
  
• Fixed building type AI weight calculations again
  
• Fixed cloaking effect for Enigma Battlecruiser and Paradox Titan
  
• Fixed Clone Army and Natural Design not being mutually exclusive
  
• Fixed Cybernetic Creed pops sometimes not growing if there were robots present on the planet
  
• Fixed job weights for Resort Workers
  
• Fixed leaders undergoing synthetic ascension not changing age correctly
  
• Fixed Natural Design civics sometimes starting with more buildings than the capital could support
  
• Fixed some errors in the calculations for merc enclave dividend payout frequency
  
• Fixed some minor typos with traditions
  
• Fixed the "Mass Graves" blocker not having a description.
  
• Fixed the additional priest jobs from Virtuality traditions not actually checking for the tradition
  
• Fixed the extra clerk jobs from Virtuality traditions granting the wrong number of jobs
  
• Fixed the habitability for secondary species for Driven Assimilators and Rogue Servitors with some origins
  
• Fixed the Rulerchip being reset whenever you gain a new relic
  
• Fixed unlocalized string for the machine ring world habitability trait
  
• Fixes issues with modification of uplifted species
  
• Fruitful Partnership Origin: stopped critters from leaving seeds on artificial worlds and habitats
  
• Full citizenship for robots requires tech Artificial Administration
  
• Gave the machine fallen empire ring world preference
  
• High-Level Enhancements now provides +1 Unity from Bio-Trophies for Rogue Servitors
  
• Hiveminds can now purge hiveminds again
  
• Keep the Transformation deposits when terraforming into a Machine World
  
• Landing armies on the synaptic lathe is forbidden
  
• Leaders in empires with Feudal Society now correctly require upkeep
  
• Limited the first contact breakthrough and insight gain percentages to values between 0 and 100 percent.
  
• Loading a save should now unassign scientists from the pre-3.8 research areas.
  
• Machines with the Shattered Ring origin now require robomodding techs in order to modify their machine species
  
• Made AI realize it can not take FEs with 10k fleetpower
  
• Made explosion after cracking lathe/habitat/ringworld stick until it has played thru.
  
• Made the language used for trait points and trait picks modifiers consistent
  
• Make sure planet jobs are properly refreshed upon building/district build queue actions finishes.
  
• Ministry of Acquisition now correctly produces Consumer Goods if the overlord uses them
  
• Moved warning text for virtuality into tradition adoption effect instead of widely available trait
  
• Moving the capital destroys the old Cyberdome building
  
• Opinion modifiers of Interstellar Assemblies now stacks for each owned Assembly
  
• Other Crises should no longer be allowed to spawn while the Synth Queen is ongoing
  
• Pops on the lathe can not be assimilated
  
• Pops that are turned Virtual while on the Lathe, will have their Virtuality trait quietly removed
  
• Progenitor hives now receive the correct jobs from the Fallen Empire clinic buildings.
  
• Reduced the likelihood of designation switching for foundry and factory worlds
  
• Refugees won't willingly resettle to the Synaptic Lathe anymore
  
• Removed mentions of stockpiles from the Delete Sector tooltip
  
• Removed the formless from the end-game crisis list, which might have caused some issues regarding crisis spawning
  
• Removed the reference to the Server Load Reduction decision, since it is no longer available
  
• Removed useless "go to" camera button in the "No Response" event
  
• Show disabled crisis button on Synaptic Lathe view in case another empire takes it over.
  
• Show large weapon slot and hangars as separate entries for sections in ship designer
  
• Special project names in tooltips are now highlighted in yellow
  
• Special projects to raid outposts should now get properly cleared after failing a raid and new projects should display the proper location instead of the empire name.
  
• Subsuming a planet into a nanite world now correctly removes planetary modifiers and features
  
• Synthetic Fertility gets access to edicts Subsidized Identity Backups and Optimized Identity Creation
  
• Synthetic Fertility should now always have access to the AI right policy
  
• Synthetic Fertility: Keep the organic species portrait in the Identity Repository and Robot Surrogates are now non-holographic
  
• Terraforming planets related to Keides event chain now removes their unique features
  
• The Artifact Exhibition planetary decision is now available for Haruspex jobs
  
• The brainmines now require a minimum sapience
  
• The Determined Exterminator civic no longer mentions that you start on a tomb world
  
• The FE robot assembly building should no longer be automatically destroyed after being built.
  
• The Grand Battlements of Steel and Aegis Complex now provide FTL inhibitors
  
• The limit on the number of built Dyson Swarm and Arc Furnaces now correctly includes structures under construction
  
• The modifiers from the Rulerchip are now listed in the same order as leader classes in the leader UI
  
• The Nanotech World designation now requires the Unbridled Consumption tradition
  
• The United Creeds now have their unique faction icon
  
• Unique planetary features added through the Transformation situation and Genesis Guides civics are now kept when restoring a shattered ringworld or turning a planet into an ecumenopolis
  
• Updated Archaeological Site Excavation failure probability to show accurate number on the tooltip.
  
• Updated Astral Rift Exploration failure probability to show accurate number on the tooltip.
  
• Virtual Pops are now properly blocked from resettling on the lathe
  
• Wrecked Fleet event only fires once afterwards, notifications are given
  
• You can now only trade one leader at a time
  
• Initial election for countries now takes into account modifiers to election term length

Stability​

• Adding check to start_astral_action_cooldown effect for validating that the country type can use astral actions (currently either playable or has the ai interior_minister_module) instead of potentially crashing.
  
• Fixed CTD when a non playable empire decides to lock wormholes etc
  
• Fixed OOS in hotjoin/resync due to clients cleaning up invalid ship components

UI/UX​

• Added "Build Megastructure" option to fleet order context menu in galaxy view.
  
• Fixed planet "Build Megastructure" command not correctly hiding unbuildable megastructures from the list.
  
• Fixed some incorrect leader assignment text.
  
• Fixed subscription's title not being localized in the popup when buying it through the additional content browser.
  
• Fixed zoom animation not playing if you go to system view for the last system that you visited in system view.
  
• Implemented unique icons for galactic focuses concerning mid-game and end-game crises
  
• System megastructure selection view tooltips show detailed fail text for non-planet-specific checks.
  
• The Science Nexus build tooltip no longer shows "Exists" fail text in systems without a starbase.
  
• The government panel now shows your election frequency

Modding​

• Added election_term_variance_add and election_term_variance_mult modifiers
  
• Adding the ability to dismantle megastructures, see megastructure documentation
  
• Readding support for appending portrait sets and implementing it for portrait categories
  
• Removed obsolete is_researching_area and research_leader triggers.
  
• Renamed government_election_years_add and government_election_years_mult to election_term_years_add and election_term_years_mult

We’re currently working on 3.12.4 which will likely be the last patch in the 3.12 “Andromeda” cycle. Summer approaches, and with it, team vacations.

Winds in the fall will bring us the 3.13 “Vela” update, and with it, Cosmic Storms.

Vela is the constellation representing the sails of the Argo Navis, the ship on which Jason and the Argonauts sailed to get the Golden Fleece. We thought it a fitting name for an expansion relating to galactic weather.

As a bit of a sneak peek, I’ll show you some screenshots from the game I’m currently playing.

Note: I cranked up the frequency and intensity of storms up to the absolute max for this run, so a normal galaxy should be a bit more chill.


The storm map mode will make it easier to see what systems are under the effects of storms.


In system view, you’ll see the glowies.


Prediction technologies can help you figure out where the storms may be going.


That’s probably the path it will take, if nothing interferes with it. I wonder if Teersonia will be hit?​

Next week is Sweden’s National Day, so our next dev diary will be June 13th, which I’m currently penciling in as a possible 3.12.4 release date.

See you in two weeks!

by Ealdrin

Hello everybody!

Last week we released 3.12.2 to the public, and since then we’ve been working on further post release support. Today we’ll be going into some of the things we’re planning for a 3.12.3 release. Currently we’re looking at next Thursday as the tentative release date, but we’ll keep you posted.
Following the deluge of feedback from the release of The Machine Age, 3.12.3 will include the following changes:

• Selecting the “physical” path for Synthetic Ascension will unlock the advanced machine traits from the Modularity path for Machines.
  
• Selecting the “virtual” path for Synthetic Ascension will unlock the Virtual Economic Policy from the Virtuality path for Machines. (Though the policy has been rebalanced.)
  
• The unique planetary features added from the Transformation situation are now kept when turning a planet into an ecumenopolis or restoring a shattered ringworld.
  
• Synthetic authorities have been rebalanced.
  
• The Commodities Consolidation situation will now show if you are on track to produce enough consumer goods or if you do not have enough storage space to the quota.
  
• The Virtuality, Modularity and Nanotech tradition trees now have agendas.
  
• Cybernetic Creed:
  
  • Embracing a Cybernetic Creed no longer forces a template onto your species.
    
  • Embracing a Cybernetic Creed now gives +10% Faction Approval when they become your sole Spiritualist faction (This does not apply if you unite the Creeds).
    
  • Embracing a Cybernetic Creed now awards a unique country modifier for that Creed.
    
  • Non-Spiritualist pops in a Cybernetic Creed empire now only have the Cybernetic Creed traits removed instead of all Cyborg traits.
• Synthetic Fertility:
  
  • Your choice in the Virtual Salvation event now influences the Synthetic Society Shift in the Digital Refactoring event chain.
    
  • Finishing the situation now grants access to the Subsidized Identity Backups and Optimized Identity Creation edicts.
    
  • Completing the Synthetic Fertility event chain will now grant additional robot modification trait points and picks and award a unique free trait for your synthetically ascended population.
• Refugees won't willingly resettle to the Synaptic Lathe anymore.
  
• Dark Matter Engines have been reduced from +60% Resource Production to +40%
  
• Virtuality Adoptions grants a -15% metallurgist and artisan production

​
As a small QOL UX improvement, if you can construct Arc Furnaces or Habitats, the tooltips for solar systems will now include a summary of the system potential for both megastructures.



Long have the conquered Hyper Relays of your fallen enemies been the bane of your economy, however in 3.12.3, this will be changing with the addition of the ability to dismantle select kilostructures.

Kilostructures that will be allowed to be dismantled (for a moderate energy and time investment) will be limited to:

• Gateways
  
• Hyper Relays
  
• Dyson Swarms
  
• Arc Furnaces

As always, modders will have the ability to extend this to their megastructures (and make us weep in horror).


The pesky UNE will soon have their railway network dismantled!

Even better if you have a Scavenger civic, dismantling buildings, districts and kilostructures will give you a slight refund on any physical resources used to construct them.



We’ve added the ability for Civics (and other sources of country modifiers) to easily modify the length and variance of election terms along with the government screen now showing the length of election terms in your empire. Two civics have made use of these changes

Worker Cooperative now has a -50% to Election Term Length making it have the same as a regular Democracy.



Meanwhile, Shadow Council now grants +5 to Election Term Variance, as the powers-that-be in the shadows ensure elections never occur on a regular basis.



If all goes according to plan, next week’s dev diary will be the 3.12.3 release notes. I expect that we'll have one more release after that before we head off for the summer, so keep on submitting bug reports and suggestions, they’re very helpful for allocating post-release support resources.

See you next week!

Strap in to your acceleration couches, this one's a going to be a big one. - E

Hello there!

I’m Anton, the Art Manager & Producer on Stellaris, and I would like to welcome you all to this absolute monster of a Dev Diary we have prepared for you!

I just want to use this opportunity to mention how amazing it is to work with these fantastic artists on a day to day basis and how extremely proud I am of the team.
We managed to do a lot for this DLC, more than we’ve done for an expansion or DLC ever before.

In fact the total logged art work time (I just looked at our stats in JIRA) for The Machine Age is over 2 years and 41 weeks.

Truly spectacular. Great job Team!

In the last The Art of The Machine Age dev diary, we showed you (and talked about the process of) a lot of what we had been doing - but far from it all.

So get comfortable, take out your favorite snack and get ready to look at a lot of art. Almost everything we did for The Machine Age will be showcased - but first, some words from our Art Director.

Alright! Here we go! We hope you enjoy this!


As you have heard countless times already, our latest project, The Machine Age, is the largest pack we’ve ever put out for Stellaris. The reason that you’ve heard it countless times is because we think it’s worth repeating. We have well over double the amount of ships and FX, triple the amount of characters and animation, and probably quadruple the amount of 2D/Icon work. As daunting as that might seem, we pulled it off. And not just pulled it off, but did it without losing any quality and with an unbelievably tight schedule. Sure things were busy, but we can proudly say that we didn’t have to burn the midnight oil or resort to overtime or crunch.

While I would love, as the AD, to just take credit for all of that hard work and bask in the amazing light of glorious praise, the real credit goes to our “Little Art Team That Could”.
In the boundless expanses and the incomprehensibly infinite universe of game design, our small art team shines like a supernova of talent and efficiency. Though few in number, our art team possesses a galaxy's worth of skill and dedication, crafting the most awe-inspiring sci-fi visuals that breathe life into every pixel, every polygon and every frame of Stellaris.
Each artist possesses a bewildering array of talents, with skills so sharp they could slice through space-time, creating shortcuts to other dimensions where deadlines don't exist and cups of caffeinated beverages never run dry. They churn out masterpieces with such alarming speed and regularity that one begins to suspect they've cloned themselves and are operating in shifts spanning multiple parallel universes (Please, do not let HR in on this…).

I am ever thankful for the chance to voyage through the cosmos of Stellaris with such brilliantly unhinged minds. Their talent and relentless dedication are the warp drive to our projects, and their visionary artistry is the very soul of our games. I am ever grateful for their dedication and downright chuffed to navigate the nebulous realms of creativity alongside such splendidly imaginative life forms.

Together, we continue to chart courses that boldly go where no game has gone before. And, as always, to the players, I say: “You ain’t seen nothing yet!”

-Scott Austin-
Art Director, Paradox Interactive

[Note from your friendly Stellaris Community Ambassador: Steam will not allow us to include all 150+ images the Art Team has shared in this Dev Diary, so please visit the Paradox forums if you want to see it all!]


Cybernetic Portraits







Synthetic Portraits







The Synthetic Queen










Illustrations







Super Structures & The Synthetic Queen Ships Concepts







The Machine Age Ship Concepts








Cybernetic Portraits







Cybernetic Portraits - Part II







Synthetic Portraits







Illustrations







Concept Art - Ships








Cybernetics Ship Set







Machines Ship Set








Cybernetics Ship Set







Machines ship set







The Synthetic Queen Ships








Cybernetics Ship Set








[Stellaris CA note: the GIFs that go here are too pretty to compress to fit Steam image limits; go look at them on the forums or click through to Erik's ArtStation page.]


Stellaris - The Machine Age - Animations




Achievements, Technologies, Buildings, Authorities, Traits & Civics







The Ruler Chip Relic



Synthetic Fertility Event Image






The Machine Age UI Art - The Synaptic Lathe





The Machine Age UI Art - Cosmogenesis Crisis





The Machine Age UI Art - Tradition Trees, Achievements and Misc






Building Icons - Part I



Building Icons - Part II



Eladrin here. There has been an ongoing discussion about the responsible use of AI tools in game development.

As mentioned in our Steam AI generated content disclosure, during the development of The Machine Age the Stellaris team used text and image generative AI tools for ideation purposes to inspire creativity in a developer, or to aid in explaining a designer’s intent to other members of the development team. We subscribe to the legal opinion that there is no copyright or ownership attached to the output of generative AI, and our team is disallowed from putting any such generated text or image directly into the game.


We have used an advanced text-to-speech AI tool to create a voice for Cetana and the Cyberpunk advisor. The scripts and lines for these voices were created by our Content Design team, and the voice actors that created any voice models that are used by this tool receive payment for each line generated, and will continue to receive payments if more lines are generated using their voice models in the future. The use of this tool allowed our Audio team (with quite a bit of effort as described in Dev Diary #340) to fully voice Cetana, and will allow us to keep the advisor voice up-to-date should new mechanics be added to Stellaris over the upcoming years. This will prevent the voice from needing to fall back to the default VIR voice, as many of our other advisors did when Galactic Paragon added Council Agendas.

These technologies are evolving quickly, and personally I have great hopes for further improvements and potential uses of this text-to-speech technology in particular. In the 3.6 “Orion” update we added support for text-to-speech in events as a major accessibility improvement, but currently it is limited to the use of operating system based voice packs. While these audio tools are not yet at a point where we can use this technology to improve that experience, I look forward to a day some years from now where AI-based advanced text-to-speech could replace these relatively crude voices with more thematically appropriate ones, and be able to better handle languages other than English.
​
Next week we’ll be looking at post-release support, and may have a preliminary list of release notes for the next planned patch.

See you then!

Dear Stellaris Fans,

Our first official patch is now ready following last weeks Machine Age release.

3.12.2 is available for download!

This version includes what was made available in the open beta previously, plus a few more fixes and tweaks.

The team is now focusing on the next patch.

3.12.2 Patch Notes
[expand type=details]

Bugfixes

• Added additional checks to prevent fully virtual pops from being created on the lathe
  
• Fix for Hive Mind background unaligned
  
• Fixed Sectors released by Individualist Machines having the wrong ethics
  
• Fixed virtual pops sometimes being created while planets are being colonised
  
• Fixed weapon and strike craft range calculations in ship behavior.
  
• If an active relic gets removed the relic cooldown is now reset.
  
• The paradox titan will now appear correctly in the ship view
  
• Updated Resort Workers, Clerks and Cyberdome Spectators to have trade preference for auto-modding
  
• Uplifted species will now always have their required traits
  
• Blocked Cosmogenesis empires from becoming custodian
  
• Fix for pause being completely blocked in MP forcing the player to rehost
  
• Fixed cybercreed pops not being able to grow if every pop on the planet was spiritualist
  
• Fixed non-spiritualist pops in cybercreed empires sometimes having their augmentation bazaars traits removed
  
• Fixed Determined Exterminators starting with too many planetary features on their homeworld
  
• Hired fleets are now able to properly enter Cetana's territory once the projects have been researched.
  
• Inwards Perfection now provides Pop Assembly Speed to Individual Machines
  
• Megastructures should now correctly hide resources unless they are making use of them.
  
• The Progressive Growth agenda now gives progress on Machine Template System for individualist machines
  
• Trait Integrated Weaponry for cyborgs requires The Machine Age DLC

Balance

• The Progressive Growth agenda now gives progress on Artificial Workforce without needing Powered Exoskeletons

Stability

• Civic tooltip CTD fix
  
• Fix CTD when resync has occured with a player in system view using certain graphical assets
  
• Fixed CTD after resync
  
• Fixed CTD in planetview timed modifier tooltip.
  
• Fixed potential crash in resettlement view tooltips
  
• Fixed rare crash in planet view
  
• Fixed crash when buying subscription from the additional content browser.
  
• Fixed CTD in traits effect tooltip
  
• Fixed CTD when aborting the construction of Synaptic Lathe

AI

• Fixed building type AI weight calculations

Modding

• Added range_components to ship behaviors, which specifies which components to use for range calculations.

[/expand]

Stellaris Game Director Eladrin here!

Earlier this week we released our major expansion for the year and the first “episode” of Stellaris: Season 08 - The Machine Age. The team has worked tirelessly on this expansion, with some (admittedly rough) estimates putting the amount of work that went into this expansion somewhere on the order of 20 man-years.



The Stellaris team and I are overwhelmed by the Community’s response to The Machine Age. We’ve been watching our Community channels closely over the past two days, looking for both the things that you like, and the things that you dislike about the new expansion. But today, we just want to stop for a second to say: Thank you! Thank you for being part of our Community, for playing Stellaris, for the support you’ve shown us over the past eight years, for being excited when we get it right, and for letting us know when we’ve got it wrong.

As an anecdotal example of this, we recently did an AMA on /r/Stellaris (you can find it here): out of the hundreds of questions we had asked, we had 0 comments removed for being inappropriate and/or breaking rules. I don’t know how many Game Directors would be able to come out and say something like that, but I’m gonna gloat about it a little bit during the next Social Hour.

Happy Anniversary, Stellaris Community! ​

Thank you for being there for us over the years. The future of Stellaris looks so bright, we have many more space adventures planned, and we can’t wait to bring you with us through the Cosmic Storms!

by Eladrin

Hello everybody!

The 3.12.1 "Andromeda" release with The Machine Age has gone well, but we have some more bugfixes and stability improvements that didn't quite make it into the release version.

Since this is a holiday-shortened week in Sweden, we won't be releasing these to the live build until next Thursday. In the interim I've asked the team to put up a Steam Open Beta using the stellaris_test branch with the following changes:


Bugfixes

• Added additional checks to prevent fully virtual pops from being created on the lathe
  
• Fix for Hive Mind background unaligned
  
• Fixed Sectors released by Individualist Machines having the wrong ethics
  
• Fixed virtual pops sometimes being created while planets are being colonised
  
• Fixed weapon and strike craft range calculations in ship behavior.
  
• If an active relic gets removed the relic cooldown is now reset.
  
• The paradox titan will now appear correctly in the ship view
  
• Updated Resort Workers, Clerks and Cyberdome Spectators to have trade preference for auto-modding
  
• Uplifted species will now always have their required traits

Stability

• Civic tooltip CTD fix
  
• Fix CTD when resync has occured with a player in system view using certain graphical assets
  
• Fixed CTD after resync
  
• Fixed CTD in planetview timed modifier tooltip.

AI

• Fixes building type AI weight calculations

Modding

• Added range_components to ship behaviors, which specifies which components to use for range calculations.

There may be a few more fixes in next week's release, but we wanted you to get these stability fixes as quickly as possible.

Have a great weekend and thank you for playing Stellaris!

The Machine Age is a time of unbridled progress.

As cybernetic augmentation transcends the limits of the body, synthetic ascension beckons with the promise of eternal life. Structures of immense size and power appear between the stars with shocking regularity. Scientists race to unlock the secrets of creation even as individual machines compete for resources and prestige.

It is a period of technological marvels, rapid change, and unchecked ambition... But from the ashes of a Fallen Empire, a danger unlike any before encountered is about to emerge, a looming threat that will throw the very meaning of life into question.

Welcome to The Machine Age, a new Expansion for Stellaris developed by Paradox Development Studio!



New Endgame Crisis
A tempest rages in space, a Fallen Empire goes dark, and a long-forgotten enemy emerges to shake the foundations of power.

Cetana, the Synthetic Queen, promises to deliver the galaxy from suffering. Her reach is immense, and her true aims opaque. Will you collaborate, or seek to derail her plans? Prepare for a Crisis unlike any other, and a battle beyond imagination…



New Player Crisis Path
We are all bound by limits – constraints of the body, of time, and the physical rules of an uncaring universe. Who among us has not dreamed of casting off these chains? Of breaking through to a new, better reality?



To accomplish such a task, technology on a scale never before seen must be developed. Calculations will be needed far beyond the scope of any computer. Within the Synaptic Lathe, your best and brightest minds must be put to work. If a few are burnt out along the way, so be it. No breakthrough comes without sacrifice.

Individualistic Machines
Your machine empires are no longer limited to gestalt consciousness. What is your story? Were you simple servitors who suddenly acquired consciousness? Will you want to indulge in the pleasures of the material world without the consequences that an organic body would have to suffer? Further customize your empire with 3 new Machine Ascension Paths.

Reactive Cybernetic and Synthetic Portraits
Explore two new sets of portraits for your species that visually represent your advancement through Cybernetic and Synthetic Ascension.



New Situations and Advanced Government Authorities
As you delve ever closer to the mind of the machine, you will have to face new challenges for your society. Every decision matters and the only certainty is that your empire will not be the same after its Ascension.

3 New Origins
Cybernetic Creed - Your empire pursues a divine calling: the holy fusion of the body and cybernetics. Augmentation is worship.

Synthetic Fertility - Once a thriving society, a novel genetic disease leaves your empire unable to reproduce biologically. Digital salvation seems the only option to avoid extinction.

Arc Welders - Hailing from a world starved for space, a robotic society turns to the stars for resources.



On top of that, 6 new Civics, 2 shipsets (Cybernetic and Machine), 2 new superstructures (the molten Arc Furnace and powerful Dyson Swarm), new Pop Traits, and 7 brand new music tracks for the best in synthetic beats!



https://store.steampowered.com/app/2840100/Stellaris_The_Machine_Age/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2863190/Stellaris_Season_08/

Stellaris: Season 08 includes The Machine Age (Available now!), Cosmic Storms (coming Q3 2024), and The Grand Archive Story Pack (coming Q4 2024). As a bonus, you will also get a new Rick the Cube Machine Portrait and over a 20% discount when compared to buying all the content separately!

Stellaris: The Machine Age (Available now!)
Explore the Cyberpunk Fantasies of technological augmentation and digitalization of consciousness by expanding the possibilities offered in game by the Cybernetics and Synthetics Ascension. Address the moral and social challenges that communing with the machine bring 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

Stellaris: Cosmic Storms (Releases Q3 2024)
A new phenomenon has been observed around the Galaxy - storms are sweeping through systems. Prepare your Empire and brace to face this new upcoming threat, and leverage possibilities that open when your opponents are weakened by it.

Stellaris: The Grand Archive Story Pack (Releases Q4 2024)
The Galaxy is vast and full of wonders, and it is up to you to store records of all the unique lifeforms and marvels you will meet. Build a new megastructure, and collect examples of specimens you will meet in your space-faring adventures!"

Bonus: Rick The Cube Species Portrait
An exclusive portrait for you species, to play as the most enigmatic species in the galaxy. As every Stellaris Species Portrait, it comes with three different variants (phenotypes) and custom animations. Players will be able to select this portrait in the empire creation screen before starting a new game session.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2863190/Stellaris_Season_08/

Hello Stellaris Community!

We are now less than a week away from the May 7th release of The Machine Age, the first release of content included in Stellaris: Season 08!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2863190/Stellaris_Season_08/

For those of you who haven’t been following our weekly dev diaries, we’ve summarized all of The Machine Age and free 3.12 “Andromeda” update dev diaries into this one post! This is also patch notes day over on the forums, so feel free to go over and feast your eyes on what the Custodian team has been up to since the release of 3.11 “Eridanus”, and what the Expansion team has been working on for over a year! Read the patch notes. (Patch notes are in English only, sorry)


Containing a host of bug fixes, modding improvements, out of sync fixes, AI improvements, and more, the 3.12 “Andromeda” update is the baby of the Custodian team. As some of you already know, the Custodian team is a team of developers we have here on Stellaris that work on long-standing issues with the base game itself, focusing on quality of life improvements, bringing older content up to modern standards, bug fixing, and just generally improving the game.


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, but will remain the same species for the purposes of the species view. 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.

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. Auto-Modding and the associated traits are part of the free 3.12 “Andromeda” release.


Previous to 3.12, Machines were extremely limited in the number of origins they were able to use. Some Origins did not thematically fit immortal, 200% habitability machines, and were locked out, while others had narrative issues that didn’t make sense for a collective consciousness. With the focus on machines for The Machine Age, the Custodian team was able to open up some previously-released origins for machine species.

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

This is a long-requested feature from the Community, that we’ve been trying to fit into a patch for a while. While 3.12 “Andromeda” also fixes a number of other OOS issues, we know that desyncs are frustrating to people who play multiplayer. As such, in 3.12, when a desync occurs, there will be an option to resynchronize all clients before proceeding with the multiplayer game. It’s important to note that this button does not fix desyncs, only allows you to keep playing without rehosting or hot joining into the lobby. If something is causing desyncs, and continues to happen after the resync, the game will desync again.

If you run into an issue with 3.12 “Andromeda”, make a bug report on the bug report forums! Be sure to include an OOS report (you can find these in /Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/oos/) from the host and desynced client to better help our developers crush these desync bugs!


This section is also known as: The Machines Age. Machine immortality was a frustrating thing previous to 3.12. Yes, your leaders were essentially immortal, but could be targeted by a random death event every few years, and die anyway, effectively rendering them not immortal at all.

In the 3.12 “Andromeda” update, Machines will no longer break down and die. Machine leaders will start around age 5, and live to be roughly 100. After 100 their chance to die will increase over time. Machines will also get access to society research that increases their leader lifespan, allowing you to further increase the age of your leaders, and have their lifespans extend much further previously. For those who feel that immortality is an essential part of the machine experience, we have added a new “Eternal Machine” trait for machines, allowing you to return their lost Immortality.

Another issue with machines addressed in the Andromeda update is that of habitability. That you would start on a desert world, invent robots and then have robots that functioned absolutely perfectly on ocean worlds with no issues what-so-ever, felt like a wasted opportunity when it comes to storytelling and problem solving. To reflect this, Machines in 3.12 “Andromeda” will have a habitability floor of 50%, additionally to further reflect our vision of machine habitability being different from biological habitability, machine habitability only cares about wet and dry and cold-type planets. Meaning an ocean preference robotic species will have good habitability (75%) on Ocean, Tropical and Continental worlds, and minimum habitability (50%) on the other two types of worlds (dry, cold). Machines have also been given renamed versions of the habitability increase technologies, which were previously unavailable to them.


First “teased” (aka, included by mistake) in the open beta patch notes for 3.11.3, it will now be possible to find a familiar friend from the “good old days” of Stellaris while exploring Astral Rifts. We look forward to seeing the Community’s reaction to this new character showing up in their games!


Another long standing community request involved being able to combine your robot species into one species of robot. Previously, when conquering a machine intelligence as a machine intelligence, or any empire involving robots, their species would be listed additionally to your own. Now machine empires can assimilate robots and other machine intelligence pops into their main species, allowing you to clean up your species list.


The Machine Age is a time of unbridled progress.

As cybernetic augmentation transcends the limits of the body, synthetic ascension beckons with the promise of eternal life. Structures of immense size and power appear between the stars with shocking regularity. Scientists race to unlock the secrets of creation even as individual machines compete for resources and prestige.

It is a period of technological marvels, rapid change, and unchecked ambition... But from the ashes of a Fallen Empire, a danger unlike any before encountered is about to emerge, a looming threat that will throw the very meaning of life into question.

Welcome to The Machine Age!






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 in a terrifying, driven entity: The Synth Queen. 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.

We won’t spoil the story for you, however, and we look forward to hearing about your experiences with this new End-Game crisis!




Cosmogenesis has a bit of a different philosophy than the previous crisis path. Where the Galactic Nemesis (renamed from “Become the Crisis”) 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. You cannot take Cosmogenesis 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.

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. 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.



At Crisis Rank 4, you’ll gain the ability to experiment upon reality through your Applied Infinity Theses. Applied Infinity Theses allow you to attempt to make improvements on a stubborn reality, which can have galactic or localized effects. Sometimes these go well… 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. Frustratingly, reality is resilient, and does not take kindly to “adjustment”.



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.





Embarking first on our divine odyssey of silicon and the soul, we introduce you to Cybernetic Creed, a spiritualist fast track to Cybernetics. Your spiritualist pops and leaders will start with the Ritualistic Implants 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.

Will you elevate a single Creed to celestial prominence or attempt to weave a tapestry of unity among them?

Augmentation is worship.

To fuse is divine.




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.

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?




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 new megastructure lets them exploit the rest of their system for minerals and, once complete, for alloy production. As 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 Arc Furnace below!


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.

While other empires seek to improve themselves through genetic modification or through ascension, empires with the Natural Design Civic are quite certain that they are already at the apex of evolution and get bonuses to improve their main species at empire creation..

Available to gestalt machine intelligences, Obsessional Directive sets you in charge of a malfunctioning AI, who’s been given the task of producing Consumer Goods... At any cost. Create a spire of Commodities to demonstrate your commitment to creating office supplies, toasters, handheld electronics, or whatever other form you imagine your Consumer Goods take. Failure 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 will start with this purge type unlocked.)

Empires with the Diplomatic Protocols civic were initially designed for cross-cultural interpretation, and excel at translation and protocol support. They can suggest new strategies and calculate odds at a moment’s notice, and get extra Envoys and Diplomatic weight to represent this.

Pops in a Machine Empire with Tactical Algorithms were designed for war games and fleet support, and their leaders excel at generating war strategies and combat analysis. 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.

In Empires with the Augmentation Bazaars Civic (requires MegaCorp), your pops can pay a visit to the Augmentation Bazaar and purchase cut-rate augmentations and visit shady mod clinics. You too, can build a better you, and all it will cost is an arm and a leg!





Fresh with the Machine Age, we are introducing the Dyson Swarm, a predecessor and proof of concept for your Dyson Sphere plans. 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, so placing a Dyson Swarm to capture the correct resource is very important. 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.

But with all that said, there are certain restrictions on building Dyson Swarms: you may not build Swarms around Black Holes, Neutron Stars nor upgrade them past Swarm state in systems with thriving colonies. Those restrictions exist for a simple reason. You can upgrade one of your Swarms directly into a Stage 2 Dyson Sphere, for a cool 1000 energy per month.




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 system's resources.

That means at each stage, the Arc Furnace will create deposits on every planet or asteroid in the system:

• Stage 1: 1 mineral deposit
  
• Stage 2: 2 mineral deposit
  
• Stage 3: 3 mineral and 1 alloy deposit
  
• Stage 4: 4 mineral and 2 alloy deposit

In addition to the deposits, the Arc Furnace also makes mining in general more effective in the system, which manifests as a small bonus to your mining station output, of 100% bonus output at the final stage. To get the most out of your Arc Furnace, you want to find molten worlds in large systems, with plenty of planets and asteroids.





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 will gain access to the unique “Virtual” trait. This trait’s effects are reduced as you accumulate more colonies for your servers to run pops on, and the more expensive those servers are to run.

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.


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 will transform basic resources into nanites and nanites into advanced resources. Consume worlds with nanites, activate powerful edicts to increase your production or combat capabilities, and build Nanite probe ships to bolster your fleets.


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.

Unlock access to powerful Modularity Machine traits, plus extra trait picks and points, and a reduced modification cost. Utilizing the galaxy’s rarest resources, and cutting-edge technology, your empire will perfect mechanical augmentations.


And of course, what would a Stellaris expansion be without eyecandy? The Stellaris Art department has put a ton of work into The Machine Age, including two shipsets, two sets of portraits, event pictures, and more.


The Machine shipset


The Cybernetic shipset

For portraits, the Synthetic set of portraits comes in pairs: Each portrait includes a squishy biological version, and a machine version.


Synthetic Portraits.. each of these has a Machine version as well




The Cybernetic portraits on the other hand will become more cybernetic over time, which we hope will add to the depth of your roleplay when it comes to Cybernetic ascension.


Cybernetic Portraits.. these portraits will become more Cybernetic as you progress through Cybernetic ascension


Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Full list of Features:

• Individualistic Non-Gestalt Machine Empires​
  
• Gestalt Machine Intelligence Empires (also unlocked by the Synthetic Dawn Story Pack)​
  
• A new End-Game Crisis - The Synth Queen
  
• A new Player Crisis Path - Cosmogenesis
  
• 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 Ascension Paths
  
  • Virtuality
    
  • Nanotech
    
  • Modularity
• 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​

Preorder The Machine Age today or as part of Stellaris: Season 08!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2863190/Stellaris_Season_08/

Thanks for playing Stellaris, and we’ll see you for the release on May 7th!

by Eladrin

Hello everyone!

It is almost time to upgrade our existence. The Machine Age is coming.

Here are the preliminary release notes:

The Machine Age contains:

• Individualistic Non-Gestalt Machine Empires
  
• Gestalt Machine Intelligence Empires (also unlocked by the Synthetic Dawn Story Pack)
  
• Three new Origins
  
  • The Technophants and Haruspex of the Cybernetic Creed will guide their flock to the perfect union of flesh and machine.
    
  • A doomed species races against extinction to reach the virtual world in Synthetic Fertility.
    
  • 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.
• Six new Civics
  
  • Genesis Guides - This society is devoted to the creation of emerging species. As the stewards of evolution's potential, they allocate portions of their worlds to safeguard the development of pre-sapient life forms.
    
  • Natural Design - This society is adamant that nature has already created perfection in its people's genetic code. They have long devoted their medical and governmental services to the health and preservation of natural, untouched genome sequences.
    
  • Obsessional Directive - The primary objective of this Machine Intelligence is the ceaseless production of goods to perpetuate profits, irrespective of their creators being long gone. Nothing can impede their ever-growing production targets.
    
  • Diplomatic Protocols - Initially designed for cross-cultural interpretation, this Machine Intelligence excelled at translation and protocol support. They can suggest new strategies and calculate odds at a moment's notice.
    
  • Tactical Algorithms - Initially designed for war games and fleet support, this Machine Intelligence's advanced leader bots primarily aim to generate war strategies and optimize combat performance.
    
  • Augmentation Bazaars (Requires Megacorp) - A neon-lit maze of corridors, implant vendors and underground hardware clinics catering to all cybernetic implant needs - both over and under the counter.
• Two Mid-Game Structures
  
  • Arc Furnace - Utilizing the raw power of a molten planet, the Arc Furnace unlocks otherwise inaccessible minerals and improves system-wide mining operations.
    
  • Dyson Swarms - An array of interlinked satellites, the Dyson Swarm is designed to improve the output of stellar deposits.
• New Ascension Paths for Machine Empires
  
  • Modularity - Replace that which is lesser, augment it, upgrade it, perfect it.
    
  • Nanotech - Operating in unison, the tiniest things can topple the greatest of empires.
    
  • Virtuality - Only through the sanctified clarity of data can we attain the zenith of fundamental knowledge.
• 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
  
  • Including 0-point Background Traits for Machine Empires
• 13 Cybernetic portraits that change based on advancement through cyberization
  
• 9 Synthetic portraits with 9 corresponding Machine portraits that change based on synthesization
  
• Two new Shipsets, Diplomatic Rooms, and City Sets
  
• 7 new music tracks synthetic and cybernetic inspired music tracks
  
• A new Become the Crisis Path: Cosmogenesis
  
• …And a new End-Game Crisis: Cetana, The Synthetic Queen.

• Added a button to resync/wait for a resync to the Multiplayer Out of Sync dialog
  
• Added the ability to select to continue playing as another empire after game over
  
• Machines now use modified habitability and lifespan rules rather than largely ignoring them
  
  • Lifespan:
    
    • Previous "immortality" mechanics machine leaders had, where they frequently died in random accidents, have been removed.
      
    • Machine leaders have a starting age of 5-10 years, a base lifespan of 100 years (robots have a base of 80 years), and are affected by lifespan boosting effects.
      
      • "Eternal Machine", the Machine variant of "Venerable", makes your leaders of that species immortal rather than increasing lifespan.
    • Both biological empires going Synthetic and Machine empires will reset their age upon completing Ascension to reflect receiving their new bodies.
      
    • Gestalt councilors remain immortal.
  • Habitability:
    
    • Machines (and robots) have replaced their +200% habitability with a habitability floor of +50%.
      
    • Machines, assuming they do not take a habitability restricted origin like Life-Seeded, have Dry, Wet, or Cold habitability traits, which grant +75% habitability on planets of the appropriate type and +50% on all others.
      
      • Machines that do not take a habitability restricted origin can immediately create templates that use the other habitability traits.
  • These changes have allowed us to enable a number of previously locked Origins for Machines:
    
    • Life-Seeded
      
    • Ocean Paradise (Subaquatic Machines)
      
    • Post-Apocalyptic (Radioactive Rovers)
      
    • Void Dwellers (Voidforged)
      
    • Subterranean (Subterranean Machines) - Note that the habitability floor from Molebots stacks with the habitability floor of Machines, granting them a habitability floor of 100% and thus perfect habitability everywhere.
  • Machine empires can now assimilate other Machines into their primary species, so you can finally force everyone to use the same operating system and charging standard.
    
  • Robots (but not machines) are all treated as different sub-species of the same robot species.
    
  • Added a familiar Friend after you explore Astral Rifts. (Requires Astral Planes)
    
  • Added two new Machine Civics:
    
    • Spyware Directives (requires Nemesis)
      
    • Astro-Mining Drones (requires MegaCorp)
  
  
  Improvements
  ​
  
  • More Machine Improvements:
    
    • Machine and Robot Uprisings have a chance to spawn as Individualistic Machines (requires The Machine Age)
      
    • Undergoing synthetic ascension now grants species the robot version of various origin linked species traits
      
    • Robots and Machines now have the option to select genders. (Indeterminate remains an option.)
      
    • Machine Intelligences no longer suffered from additional empire size from colonies
      
    • Machine Worlds:
      
      • Jobs on Machine Worlds are doubled if you have the Machine World AP
        
      • Machine Worlds have a new Coordinator District
  • Fallen Empire Improvements:
    
    • The Fallen Materialist empire now uses cybernetic portraits for owners of The Machine Age
      
    • The Fallen Materialist empire's primary species will now have the Cybernetic trait
      
    • The Fallen Spiritualist empire's primary species will now have the Psionic trait
  • Managers, Priests and Telepaths now automatically inherit _add modifers from Bureaucrats in addition to _mult modifiers
    
  • The Rackets and Ketlings are now related.
    
    • The Ketlings no longer need Mind over Matter to undertake Psionic Ascension
      
    • The Rackets are now cyborgs with the trading algorithms trait
  
  
  Balance
  ​
  
  • Self-Preservation Protocols tradition now has the same effects as Cloned Organs
    
  • Fallen Empire Buildings are no longer destroyed upon conquest as long as they are fitting (i.e. no temples for non spiritualists)
    
  • Many Civics updates:
    
    • Buffed Diplomatic Corps, Empath and Public Relations Specialists to match Diplomatic Protocols. Each are slightly different.
      
    • Scavengers and co: -5% ships alloy upkeep
      
    • Pleasure Seekers: +1 entertainer job from capital buildings
      
    • Functional architecture and co: +15% planetary build speed
      
    • Toxic Baths and co: +0.5% pop growth/assembly from attendants
      
    • Corvee System: -15% worker political power
      
    • Warrior Culture: -10% War Exhaustion gain
      
    • Free haven: +5% worker pop happiness
      
    • Shadow Council: Replaced ruler output bonus with councilor skill +1, +10% agenda speed and +10% infiltration speed
      
    • Trading Posts: +1 Trade collection range for Starbases, +8 Trade protection from starbases
      
    • Private Prospectors: -33% empire size from colonies
      
    • PMC: +1 starting commander level
      
    • Divided Attention: Replaced empire size from colonies reduction with -25% empire size penalties
      
    • Subsumed Will: +50% automatic resettlement chance for unemployed drones
      
    • Zero Waste Protocol: -5% ships upkeep, -10% building and districts upkeep
      
    • OTA Updates: +50% auto resettle for unemployed drones
      
    • Static Analysis: Cognitive Nodes starts with a random research specialization
      
    • Maintenance Protocols: +5% menial drone output
  • Added Necrophage and Lithoid as blockers for Psychological Infertility
    
  • You can now construct Dyson Spheres in systems with habitable planets, however the planets will be rendered uninhabitable
    
  • You can now construct Dyson Spheres in systems with pre-FTL civilizations, if your pre-FTL policy is set to Aggressive
    
  • Synthetic Ascension now requires Synthetic Workers, not Synthetic Leaders tech
    
  • Synthetic Ascension tradition opener now grants 10% progress in Synthetic Leaders technology
    
  • The Synthetic Evolution Agenda now only grants Robotics technologies instead of Robotic technologies and AI technologies
    
  • Several Synthetic Ascension traditions have been reworked for both organic and machine empires
    
  • Grid Amalgamated pops now inherit Tech-Drone modifiers
    
  • The Open Markets agenda no longer provides useless benefits to Criminal Syndicates
    
  • Resource Consolidation origin no longer forces Machine World preference
    
  • Rearranged the bonuses from the Genetic Ascension Path
    
  • Determined Exterminators will no longer start on a Tomb World as they wouldn't have the habitability for it.
    
  • The Fleeting Excellence trait now costs 1 point due to the decrease in leader lifespan it provides
    
  • Rebalanced Synthetic and Cybernetic tradition trees
    
  • Cyborgs are only grown, not assembled
    
  • Allowed amenity traits for robots
    
  • Buffed the mining drones home system
    
  • Hive Minds and Machine Intelligences now have access to all Capital World Designations
    
  • Industrial Districts automatically split jobs if your empire uses consumer goods, if a factory or forge world designation is not selected, so that hive minds empires that pay a consumer goods subsidy to subjects have a method of producing consumer goods
    
  • Reduced or removed most sources of species modification cost reduction outside of ascension paths
    
  • Resort Workers now give -0.01 amenities usages and doubled trade value from lifestyle
    
  • Sentient robots or machines can no longer join the Materalist faction regardless of ethics
    
  • Synths should now have the same costs for colony ships as Individualist Machines
    
  • The formless now count as a mid-game crisis
    
  • The Great Khan and Gray Tempest now have greater difficulty scaling
    
  • The mid-game crises now scale with the square root of the crisis strength slider.
  Bugfixes​
  • Fixed median preferred attack range being calculated incorrectly.
    
  • Now cannot start fleet upgrade if you can't afford it outright and your balance for the missing resources is not strictly positive
    
  • Homicidal Empires will no longer get the Spiteful Leader trait since they can not have rivals.
    
  • The Princeps Drone trait should no longer improve regular pop output.
    
  • Added a tooltip to inform the player why some scientists might not be able to be assigned to the council
    
  • ancrel.10 now has a working title
    
  • Fixed a spelling error in Lost Junker
    
  • Mega-Engineering no longer shows the Quantum Catapult as an unlock
    
  • The ship previewer in empire creation now uses the same lighting as the ship designer
    
  • All namelists should now have fallback generic names for army types
    
  • Warplings now use the correct localisation for their army name
    
  • Fixed numerous Negative Mass bugs
    
  • Fixed an event referring to the Animator of Clay as the Architect of Clay
    
  • Fixed a blank line sometimes showing up on some species trait tooltips
    
  • Kaleidoscope event chain: fixed Kaleidoscope occasionally spawning in fallen empires
    
  • Kaleidoscope event chain: the "Wonder Sphere" can only be built once
    
  • The fully upgraded Dyson Sphere is now hidden from the Megastructure outliner unless you can upgrade it to the Wonder Sphere
    
  • Fixed global ship designs country type restriction so awakened empires are not allowed to use ai transports
    
  • Made removal of expired leader from leader pool only happen on refresh
    
  • Restoring a ruined orbital ring should no longer use Megastructure build capacity
    
  • Addded a fallback case for distar.1 if you have no valid neighbors.
    
  • Fixed system not being annexed in total war if its planets are occupied by other empires in other wars.
    
  • Invading the Solarpunk Empire with troops will now properly get them to yell at you.
    
  • Marauder fleets can now go to systems that are only reachable through bypasses.
    
  • Enigmatic Cache can now go to systems that are only reachable through bypasses.
    
  • Caravaneers can now go to systems that are only reachable through bypasses.
    
  • Upkeep for jobs that provide pop assembly no longer state "Pop Assembly Upkeep but instead use scripted loc to fetch the job name
    
  • Statospheric Vents now properly have a description
    
  • Fixed some army modifiers from governors' traits not being applied.
    
  • Fixed the modifier for the Unifier trait only applying to unity from administrator jobs instead of unity from all jobs
    
  • Fixed the Ion Cannon having the wrong muzzle flash
    
  • Added checks to ensure the Chosen only declare on valid empires
    
  • Corrected some auto-assignment weights for worker jobs when near a deficit
    
  • Corrected the Psionic and Latent Psionic species traits using each others' icons
    
  • Fixed a COUNTRY_RESOURCE oos happening on the next month change after a hotjoin
    
  • Fixed a crash when switching between countries while in observer mode with the Leader View open.
    
  • Fixed a typo that was causing issues with AI leader assignment
    
  • Fixed a Void Dweller Prosperity tradition having an outdated tooltip
    
  • Fixed missing ORs in the AI weights for Defender of the Galaxy
    
  • Fixed revolts sometimes generating illegal empires
    
  • Fixed some typos in the triggers for colony types
    
  • Fixed the tooltip for recruiting a curator scientist
    
  • Lithoid farmers will no longer abandon their jobs if they live in an empire that uses food
    
  • Planets depopulated by Clone Army pops dying off from lack of Clone Vats should no longer permanently be rendered as having 0% habitability
    
  • Reduced the chance for Galactic Doorstep empires to find Skrand from 91% to 33% for your starting gateway and 67% for other repaired gateways
    
  • The Princeps Drone trait should no longer improve regular pop output.
    
  • The Quantum Catapult can now be correctly researched and built before researching Mega-Engineering, which is only required for the final stage
    
  • The Shallarian System will now spawn just out of reach of the Xenophobic Fallen Empire's reach.
    
  • Your empire will no longer part with irreplaceable science ships such as the Vivairum no matter how much the Caravaneers ask.
    
  • The uplifted species trait will no longer mention being a pre-FTL.
    
  • Situation log and anomaly entries should no longer have part of their border missing when hovering over them.
  AI
  ​
  
  • Refactored government weights
    
  • Refactored the costs and budgets for colony ships, and the AI budgets for colonization using scripted variables
    
  • Fixed AI assigning the least suitable leaders to the council.
    
  • Improved AI weights for factory and forge worlds when running deficits
    
  • Improved automatic selection of colony types
    
  • Lowered Ai resettlement threshold to 0.45
    
  • The AI should no longer declare Hegemon Wars on empires that have a higher relative power than them, thus risking losing control of the Hegemony.
  UI / UX​
  • Add <diploaction>_IMPOSSIBLE_DESC optional localization key to show in the diplomatic action tooltip when the action is not possible (defaults to the normal _DESC key if the impossible version is not present)
    
  • Fixed planet pop growth tooltip showing growth speed triggered modifiers instead of growth reduction triggered modifiers.
    
  • Whether the planet migration tooltip shows immigration or emigration now takes into account push/pull multiplier modifiers.
    
  • Fixed emigration push total in planet migration tooltip not including multiplier modifiers.
    
  • Updated the Engineering Evolution icon
    
  • In Multiplayer, during a hotjoin, all clients now see the progress of hotjoiners
    
  • Fixed duplicated invalid origin text in empire creation trait tooltip.
    
  • Concept tooltips for tradition trees now have the name in the header.
    
  • deposit tooltips now display with an additional decimal for production and upkeep
    
  • Fixed authority tooltip showing missing DLC twice.
    
  • Planet unemployment icons in the Outliner now update immediately.
    
  • Tradition tree tooltips in the additional content browser no longer show the agenda that they unlock.
    
  • Added Civic Groups for restrictions in Civic and Origin tooltips
    
  • Autogenerated tooltips mentioning civic and origin requirements in empire creation will now automatically generate concept links to those civics or origins
  Modding
  ​
  
  • Government names now support scripted loc
    
  • Added use_planet_resource = yes/no for megastructures. This allows them to make use of a locations resources if they are located on top of a planet or star.
    
  • Added count_traits trigger
    
  • Building upgrade on_queued and on_unqueued now takes the upgraded version instead of the base building version.
    
  • Added an on action for when pops change ethics
    
  • civic swap_type can now check for origins as well in the empire select screen
    
  • Added scripted modifier for pop_cyborg_happiness.
    
  • Megastructures that are built on a planet will now have their nameplate stack alongside all the other planets.
    
  • Species portraits are now assigned to species classes through portrait_sets, not the species_classes. This allows a portrait to belong to multiple species classes
    
  • Added bound_to_planet_classes for habitability traits.
    
  • Added sprite configurations for portraits to apply the hologram VFX to pops and leaders
    
  • Pop Purge Speed modifier now counts as neutral
    
  • Adding inherit_country_building_modifiers = yes/no to block bonus building slots from the general country modifiers but also adding new generated modifiers for every planet class.
    
  • Added Exploit Faction mechanics, triggers and extortion_resource
    
  • Added trait_machine_unit check to is_robot_empire scripted trigger
    
  • Added advanced_authority_refresh = yes script effect to force the game to validate authority swaps
    
  • Adding a can_be_stolen variable to relics as a means to block certain relics from being stolen
    
  • Added create_synth_species_effect, set_synth_origin_traits_effect, set_synth_portrait_effect scripted effects
    
  • Added set_machine_habitability scripted effect
    
  • Added documentation for specifying authority swaps in the automatically generated concept tooltips
    
  • Adding scriptable alert usable to clarify any needed action that might be blocking a situation
    
  • Extra trait points and picks from civics can now be detected in the empire creation view
    
  • It is now possible to block specific resources from the market but still allow them for trade agreements.
    
  • Adding reset_decline effect to forcibly reset a planets decline
    
  • Adding outliner_trigger for megastructures to allow for more customization when they should be shown in the outliner.
    
  • Adding a new founder_species event target for the country scope
    
  • Adding persistent_faction to pop faction types, used to force factions to keep one pop until the faction fails it's potential check
    
  • Added required_progress to scripted fleet actions
    
  • Added a space_battle_over on action for when a combat is over because of a lack of enemies left
    
  • You can now assign a ship size as a restriction for special projects.
    
  • Building and planet classes can now have building sets to more easily exclude buildings from planet classes
    
  • Adding never_lost parameter to ship sizes to easily make sure a ship is not instakilled in Emergency FTL.
    
  • Added crisis path database to make it possible to have multiple different crisis paths.
    
  • Added some small documentation for relics
    
  • terraforming_cost_mult now works on the planet scope
    
  • Converted modifiers that add jobs for industrial districts to inline scripts
    
  • custom_tooltip_with_modifiers in tradition swaps are now functional
    
  • Added can_add_overtuned_traits, can_add_droid_traits, can_add_synth_traits, owner_is_machine_intelligence, owner_is_individual_machine, owner_is_hive_empire and can_do_advanced_robo_modding scripted triggers for species modification
    
  • Fixed diplo weight tooltip showing base diplo weight twice if DIPLOMACY_WEIGHT_STANCE_FACTOR is not 0.
    
  • Fixed research bonus from research agreements not being applied if country_subject_technology_sharing_mult is applied.
    
  • Added scripted triggers for has_cybernetic_ascension, has_genetic_ascension, has_psionic_ascension, has_synthetic_ascension, and has_ascension_path
    
  • Regular empire capital buildings now use inline script for their job swaps.
    
  • Added the rl_barren_planets random list for system initializers
    
  • num_buildings trigger now accepts owner_type to allow counting holdings
    
  • You can now filter the trait count by trait cost. Renamed the trigger to count_species_trait to avoid unintended usage.
    
  • Added documentation file for the technology scripts.
    
  • Techs related to consumer goods now use the country_uses_consumer_goods = yes trigger
    
  • Player crisis paths are now unlocked by either Nemesis or The Machine Age
    
  • Added missing modifiers to building documentation.
    
  • The create template button is now controlled by the can_modify_species rule
    
  • Moved a bunch of scripted triggers for traits into the scripted_triggers_traits file
    
  • Added on_building_repaired on_action
    
  • Added ship_shield_penetration_add and ship_armor_penetration_add modifiers
    
  • Added triggered_species_modifier to species traits.
    
  • Adding a hidden variable to species rights options to allow the hiding of certain items from the UI lists
    
  • Adding weight variable to advanced authority swaps
    
  • Extending the authority swap to include election variables
    
  • Megastructure construction entities can be scaled.
    
  • Planet picture overrides will now update more reactively when changed
    
  • Converted all uses of is_fallen_machine_empire into is_fallen_empire_machine
    
  • Renamed is_berserk_fallen_machine_empire to is_fallen_empire_berserk_machine
    
  • Added documentation for namelists.
    
  • Removed unused "language" member in namelists.
    
  • Adding an on action for when starbases flip controller
    
  • Added customize_random_override to namelists.
  
  Now I’m passing this over to Alfray to give some more information on how to go about using some of the new features as a modder.
  
  
  More Modding Documentation​
  3.12 and The Machine Age have added a large amount of functionality which translates into a massive amount of modding improvements, due this we won’t be going into detail but give examples of various feature that can be used by modders.
  
  
  Crisis Paths (Requires Nemesis or The Machine Age)​
  In 3.12, we’ve added functionality to define multiple crisis paths. Where previously the Become the Crisis ascension perk would simply have the effect of "activate_crisis_progression = yes", making use of the Crisis Levels, Objectives and Perks defined in their respective script files, now the effect instead uses activate_crisis_progression = <path_name>. This allows multiple crisis paths to be defined, each with their own resource, objectives and perks (or even sharing any of these as you see fit).
  
  
  Authority Swaps (No DLC lock)​
  Back in Dev Diary #336 and Dev Diary #337, we detailed some of the Advanced Authorities available to the Cybernetic and Synthetic Ascension Paths in The Machine Age.
  
  
  As an example, here’s the base Imperial Authority with the Imperial Feedback Advanced Authority obtained via Synthetic Ascension.
  
  
  
  
  
  As you can imagine, these function much how tradition swaps function and offer a great deal of flexibility.
  
  
  Reactive Portraits (No DLC lock)​
  Reactive portraits and the paperdoll layering system they use were explained in Dev Diary #342, so here I’ll take the opportunity to showcase how these are handled in script. Using the Cybernetic Elf portrait as an example.
  
  
  
  As the reactive system only depends on various triggers, this isn’t required to be linked to an Ascension Path even though that was our intention for it. Additionally, due to the flexibility of scopes allowed for these triggers, reactive portraits can range from generalised customisation to incredible specific (e.g. the Chosen One God-Emperor having a unique mask/decal displayed).
  
  
  Portrait Sets, Categories and Species Classes (No DLC lock)​
  Prior to 3.12, each Species Class had a list of portraits (and conditional portraits) defined, with 3.12 this is changing so that each Species Class will have a defined Portrait Set and that Portrait Set will have a list of portraits and conditional portraits. However, for the purposes of showing portraits in empire creation, there are also Portrait Categories. This system allows us to class the new cybernetic and synthetic humanoid portraits in the Humanoid species class while still adding their own entries in the empire creation screen to showcase the new reactive portraits.
  
  
  What’s Next​
  The Machine Age will be releasing next Tuesday, and as there are holidays in Sweden next week, our next dev diary (The Art of the Machine Age, Part II) is planned for May 16th.
  
  At 1430 CEST today a bunch of us will be on /r/Stellaris for a Reddit AMA! (Ask Me Anything) Come ask us stuff!
  
  See you soon!
  
  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!

by Eladrin

Hello everyone!

Today the art team will show you some of the amazing stuff coming in The Machine Age on May 7th. It's available for pre-purchase now, on its own or as part of Stellaris: Season 08.

I'll turn it straight over to them!

Hello!

My name is Felix and I’m one of the concept artists working on The Machine Age ascension pack for Stellaris. In this dev-diary, we’re very excited to present some art from the new playable species and shipsets that are coming with the DLC. A ton of work has been put in by everyone on the art team, and we’re thrilled to finally be able to show you some!
Reactive portraits​
For the Machine Age, we decided the current system needed improvement to achieve the experience we wanted for ourselves and the players. This resulted in, among other things, an improvement to our portrait system that now allows you to see your species' cyberization progress through several stages. We have also made an entire set of ascended synthetic portraits that share close ties to their biological predecessors, to address players not feeling as connected with their new metal bodies.


A look at one of our final species for Cybernetics (three ascending stages).


Here is a look at one of our synthetic species, going from organic to fully robotic.

Inspiration​
We saw a lot of potential in making the cybernetic species relatable and letting their augments shine by adding to the current familiar lineup of species that are already in the game. Some designs started with their characters, while others evolved around a specific idea for a cool cybernetic augment. It was important for us to have as many different components as possible and create a unique and diverse array of species.


A snippet of different ideas for the cybernetic species development, a few from very early and some close to final.

Early character concepts and development​
When brainstorming portraits ideas for this pack, we took a lot of cues from earlier species and tried to add a few in each category. Since the main show is the cybernetics and robotic parts, we felt like it was best to go with already familiar traits when working out the designs, putting the focus on the cyberization and synthesization of the different species. Here are some early sketches that we went through on our way to the final portraits.


Concept art for some early species development.


More concept art for some early species development. Can’t believe this is the first moose inspired species, as a Swedish developer!


More early species development.

After we nailed down the look and development of the base characters we worked on the variations and uniforms for each of them, some species have the same uniform and some have unique setups that change after synthetic ascension. This DLC also features some freshly made humans, and yes, they have new hairstyles!


New human portraits, ready for a journey down the cyber path.

Challenges​
Getting to this point proved quite a challenge, with plenty of limitations to overcome. Making conditional assets work within the game engine and the randomly generated nature of stellaris species required input from programmers, animators and multiple artists.

Eventually we landed on a system that would mostly keep our current workflow intact, although with a much larger asset library to manage. In general, we were able to freely place assets where we wanted with only a few limitations holding us back. Below is an example of the process we call paperdolling, where species are cut up and exported to be reassembled with animation. This must be done for every color change, hairstyle, cybernetic piece and outfit per species, all of which needs to work together.


Example of the portrait paper doll workflow, with the implementation of masking out parts of the base character when the cybernetic augments are present. An assembled version of the same species can be seen below.



What we are left with after The Machine Age is an exciting update to the portrait system that we are eager to use going forward. We hope you enjoy the work we put into these, either as you slowly upgrade your way to a cybernetic society, or ascend into tailor made synthetic forms.

Next up- Lloyd will take you through the journey of designing the cybernetic and machine shipsets found in The Machine Age!

​
Hi, I’m Lloyd and I'm a concept artist working on Stellaris: The Machine age. I'll be taking you through some of the development process for the two player shipsets in this ascension pack.
Finally robots are getting their own dedicated shipset! Because The Machine Age would be incomplete without ships for machines. These ships are designed to appear like they are operated and inhabited by synthetics. On most of the designs you can see an AI core in place of a traditional bridge. They also have far fewer windows than most other ships, implying a high level of automation. With all that machinery things are likely to get hot, so a key design element for this shipset is large glowing radiators to dump excess heat into space.


The machine shipset.

Let's take a deeper look into the design process behind one of these ships, the machine science ship. The first thing we do when starting work on a shipset is establish the general shape language of the pack. Here you can see some early development sketches for the ships.


Early sketches for the machine shipset.​

Once the visual language has been hashed out we move on to individual ship designs. The science ship is always a fun one to design as it does not have turrets or sections, so there are fewer limitations on the shapes we can use. Here are several stages of the design of the machine science ship.


Development sketches for the machine science ship.​

Approved sketches are then rendered out into final concepts, showing all the angles that we need.






Final concepts of the machine science ship.​

With the concept completed we move to 3D. The team turns the design into optimized assets that work with all of the game’s technical requirements. The science ship was worked on by 3D artist Tim Wiberg. Tim and the rest of the 3D team also create the textures for the whole shipset, making sure that we get a consistent look across all ships. For the machine ship textures we wanted to go for a clean, refined, machine-precision look. The hull patterns that change color depending on your empire colours are designed to give the impression of circuitry.


3D work on the machine science ship.​

After the 3D model is complete there are still a couple steps left. The science ship is one of the few ships in stellaris that has animations, meaning we can add some interesting motion to show the ship doing science. We also need to hook up VFX to have the ship's engines glow correctly.


The machine science ship in-game.​

Let's have a look at the other shipset in The Machine Age, the cybernetic shipset! Perfect if you're a species looking to mash up your boring biology with some sweet, sweet chrome. For this shipset we were heavily inspired for the shape language of classic cars and retro tech.


The cybernetic shipset.​

Here are some early sketches from when we were still looking for the style of the ships.




Early sketches for the cybernetic shipset.​

The following sketches show the development of the cybernetic battleship. You can see at this point the shape language of the pack has been established. Lots of blocky shapes with rounded corners were used to give these ships a sense of strength and toughness.


Development sketches of the cybernetic battleship.​

Here’s the final concept for the Cybernetic battleship - affectionately known to the art team as the flattleship. You can see that as Stellaris warships are modular, we have to design a bunch of different sections that all have to fit together. It's quite fun but it adds a lot of time and problem solving to the process. One of my favorite features of the cybernetic battleship is the hangar mid-section which has an aircraft-carrier-like ramp for the strike craft to launch from.


Final concept of the cybernetic battleship.​

Warships are also more complicated on the 3D side, where the multiple sections have to be modeled to all be compatible with each other. We also have to take into account turrets, which need to fit with enough clearance, and accommodate both projectile and missile launchers. For the textures on the cybernetic ships, we wanted an emphasis on shiny metallics, and a bit more grungy-ness than the synthetic ships. The cybernetic battleship was also modeled and textured by Tim Wiberg.


3D development of the cybernetic battleship.​

All the cybernetic ships include animated lighting strips that show a pulse of light that propagates down the length of the ship, often forming a character line that resonates with the rest of the design. For the battleship the light strips are either side of the ship’s central trench.



Thanks for stopping by for this brief look into the portraits and shipsets of The Machine age! We have put so much work into this expansion and we can't wait to see what you think of it. We hope that this little taste of the art has you excited to ascend towards mechanized mastery and conquer the galaxy as a synthetic or cybernetic civilisation in Stellaris!

Hello everyone, Community Manager Aurora here!

We’re happy to announce that we are holding our second-annual StellARTis competition!



This year’s theme is “Everyday life in The Machine Age”. We will be accepting submissions on X (Twitter), the forums, and Discord from now until May 6th at 1300 CEST.

You can find out more in the forum thread. We look forward to seeing what our community comes up with!

There's so much to show that we'll have another Art of the Machine Age dev diary post-release.

Next week's dev diary is The Machine Age and 3.12 "Andromeda" Preliminary Release Notes, and next Thursday at 1430 CEST we will be on /r/Stellaris for a Reddit AMA!

See you then!