This week on the Mod Roundup, I have perhaps predictably rounded up some mods for you. For Skyrim, a mod adds a monster-hunting contract system inspired by The Witcher 3. A mod for Stellaris lets you board enemy ships, capture them, repair them, and add them to your fleet. Finally, a mod for Fallout 4 adds real shrapnel to frag grenades and other explosives.

Here are the most promising mods we've seen this week.

Monster Contracts, for Skyrim

Nexus Mods link

Inspired by The Witcher 3's monster-hunting contracts, this mod brings a similar system into Skyrim. Head to Solitude and join The Protectors, a faction of monster-stalking badasses, and your career as a contracted creature hunter will begin. The mod is recommended for players above level 20, and while there are only a handful of contracts at the moment, there are more planned for the future.

Currently, this mod is only available for the original version of Skyrim, not the special edition. If that changes, we'll let you know.

Board That Ship! for Stellaris

Steam Workshop link

Sometimes destroying your enemies isn't enough. Sometimes you want to take their stuff and make it yours. This mod for Stellaris gives you the opportunity to board and capture some enemy ships once you've weakened them enough during battle. You'll have to repair the damage, naturally, but once you do, you can add them to your fleet.

True Frags, for Fallout 4

Nexus Mods link

We all love using explosives in Fallout 4. We'd love them more if the ones that were supposed to hurl shrapnel around actually did. Thanks to this mod, now shrapnel-based explosive weapons really work as they're supposed to. Instead of just an explosion, your frag grenades and frag mines, MIRV grenades, bottlecap mines, and baseball grenades will send a cloud of projectiles through the air, shredding the hell out of anyone within range. Duck and cover.

Looking for more mods? Check out our list of the best mods for Terraria and the best total conversion mods.

Yesterday we reported on the fact that Skyrim: Special Edition's audio is a significant downgrade from the vanilla version of Bethesda's RPG. Now, a Bethesda staffer has responded on Reddit that the developer is on the case (via Kotaku).

"We're currently testing a fix and hope to have an update out next week," Reddit user Gstaff wrote. Gstaff claims to work for Bethesda, having spoken for the developer in the past. We've contacted Bethesda for an official statement on the issue and will update this article as we receive more information.

The audio issue was originally explained by Reddit user LasurArkinshade, who said the Special Edition's sound assets were "very aggressively compressed."

"The vanilla game has sound assets (other than music and voiceover) in uncompressed .wav format," the post states. "The Special Edition has the sound assets all in (very aggressively compressed) .xwm format, which is a compressed sound format designed for games. This isn't so bad, necessarily it's possible to compress audio to .xwm without significant quality degradation unless you crank the compression way up to insane levels."

Bethesda did exactly that, the post stated. LasurArkinshade compared the original game's audio with the Special Edition, and the difference is quite noticeable through good speakers or headphones. Listen for yourself below.

While Bethesda works on a fix, Reddit user TI36X posted about a solution that could work in the meantime.

"I extracted my original Skyrim Sounds.bsa, packed it with 7zip and installed it with NMM in SSE. Seems to work fine," they wrote. "There are two folders in the bsa. Sound and Music. Just pack them into a archive and install by NMM [Nexus Mod Manager]. Someone just uploaded a bsa extractor on the SSE nexus that works for this."

We haven't tested the bsa extractor ourselves, so practice caution if you try it out.

Twitch has revealed November's free games and content for Twitch Prime, a name given to additional benefits for Amazon Prime subscribers. This month's loot includes exclusive in-game content for Watch Dogs 2, in addition to digital copies of This War of Mine: Anniversary Edition and Punch Club.

Anyone who's subscribed to Amazon Prime during the month of November can get themselves an in-game Twitch hoodie for Ubisoft's open-world action game. It also comes with an XP boost and two skin packs. The first is pixel art-themed, while the other is titled, "Guts, Grit, and Liberty." Unfortunately, no images of the skins were released.

This of War Mine's Anniversary Edition brings three new areas, which introduce new characters and alternate endings to the stealth-survival game. PC Gamer's review of the base game scored it an 80/100. You can also currently pick This War of Mine up on Steam for $5.

Punch Club, on the other hand, doesn't include any additional content, but it did receive a free expansion, The Dark Fist, earlier this year.

The Watch Dogs 2 content is available from November 7 to December 12, but a schedule for the two games has not been released. When they become available, the games will be downloadable through the Twitch Launcher.

Twitch Prime also offers ad-free viewing, in addition to free monthly games and content. As mentioned earlier, they're additional benefits to an Amazon Prime subscription, so you only need to pay one monthly or yearly fee to access both services.

In 2019, it's safe to say everyone and their grandma has played Skyrim. The base game is a great RPG, but Skyrim console commands let you fine tune the world's rules to your liking. Become a god, summon a specific item, make yourself a giant, fly, walk through walls, level up—pretty much nothing is off limits. The console commands are pretty easy to input, too.

Here's how it's done:

Skyrim console commands

To enable the console, just hit the tilde (`) key and enter the appropriate codes, which are listed below. You can turn on more than one at once, too, so you can become invincible, fly, and teleport all at the same time.

Some of these commands require additional codes, and we've compiled lists of those too. Just grab the desired number from our Skyrim item codes or Skyrim NPC codes posts.

Be warned, some of these console commands may cause glitches, problems, or crashes, so it's definitely worth saving your game first and using the codes with a separate save. You don't want to make some change and get stuck with it.

Console Commands

tgm

Good ol' God Mode means you're completely invulnerable to everything, and pretty damn god-like.

tcl

No clipping lets you walk through walls, ceilings, and mountains like some sort of ghost. Use the code again to return to normal.

unlock

Can't find that vital key? Lockpicking skill too low? Open the console, click on the door or chest you want to unlock, and type "unlock" into the console. If only this worked in real life.

psb

Every single spell in Skyrim is now yours! It's like graduating magic school in under a second.

player.advlevel

Automatically gain one level.

caqs

Automatically complete all the stages of your primary quest. Perfect if you hate playing games.

showracemenu

Unhappy with your blind, inbred-looking Bosmer chap? You can adjust the way your character looks just like you did at the start of Skyrim—but this will reset your level and skills.

player.modav skill X

Where "skill" is the skill you want to modify, and X is the amount you want to modify it by. Skills are inputted via their in-game names without spaces, apart from Archery which is "Marksman", and Speech, which is known as "Speechcraft".

player.additem ITEM ###

Every single item in Skyrim has a code, a bit like an Argos catalogue of fantasy objects. You'll find them in our list of Skyrim item codes. Replace "ITEM" with the item's code, and "###" with the number of items you want. Now your dreams of owning 47 cabbage potato soups can come true.

player.additem 0000000f ###

A simple way to get some free gold. Any number between 001 and 999 will do.

player.additem 0000000a “###”

Running low on lockpicks? Enter the number you require here and they'll magically appear.

addshout

Combine with the codes on this Wikia page to add your selected shout.

tm

Toggles all in-game menus, perfect if you want to take some screenshots to convince elderly relatives that Skyrim is where you went on your holidays. Note that this also hides the console commands menu, meaning you'll have to type it again without being able to see the console.

tmm

Followed by 0 or 1 turns all map markers on or off.

tfc

Not Team Fortress Classic, unfortunately. However, you will be able to access the flycam, essentially leaving your host body behind and sailing through the air. Great for screenshots.

tai

Toggles AI on and off, which means NPCs won't interact with you, or do anything at all.

tcai

Turns combat AI on or off, turning dragons into placid beasts who act like you aren't there. A bit like cats.

tdetect

This one lets you behave like a little rapscallion, as it turns naughty business detection (stealing, murdering, doing a poo in the woods etc) on or off. You'll still get caught if you try pickpocketing, though.

player.setcrimegold ###

Adjust your wanted level with this handy command - setting it to zero resets removes your wanted level completely.

player.setlevel ##

Up or down your player level as you see fit.

player.setav speedmult ###

Want to run like The Flash? Set this number to anything more than 100 to speed up movement.

movetoqt

Go straight to your quest target.

kill

Look at the thing you want to kill, open the console, click on the target, and type this command. They'll fall over in a very dead manner.

help

Lists every single console command. We've put this further down the list because we want you to actually read this article.

resurrect

Target the thing you want to bring back to life, and they'll get up in a very alive manner.

player.modav carryweight #

Tired of getting tired? Up your carryweight and you'll be able to transport more goodies. Toggling god mode (tgm) also lets you carry as much as you like.

player.setav health #

Up your health here.

coc qasmoke

Bethesda's handily included a room with every single in-game item in it—type this command to go straight there. It might take a while to load: there are thousands of items here. Type " coc Riverwood " to return to the game.

qqq

Quit the game without having to go through any of those pesky menus.

removeallitems

Target a character and type this and you'll get all their items—including their clothes. Note: does not work in real life.

sexchange

Change your character's gender.

set timescale to #

This defaults at 20. Up it to experience crazy timelapse-style Skyrim.

Go to page two for NPC spawning, making people fight and becoming a giant.

placeatme

Use this to spawn NPCs and monsters at your location. Just replace actor/object ID with a Base ID (not a Ref ID) from our list of Skyrim NPC codes. This is the command we used to crank out a horde of dragons around Whiterun. Note that this command spawns new creatures, rather than moving old ones, so if you use it on an NPC, you'll clone them.

moveto

Use this to move yourself next to an NPC, useful for Kharjo, the nomadic Khajit, who can be hard to find as he follows the caravans around Skyrim. In this case you replace the words 'actor ID' with the Ref ID (not the Base ID), the opposite of placeatme. You can find the ID in our list of Skyrim NPC codes.

setrelationshiprank

Select two NPCs and set the relationship between them, the values range from 4 (lover) to -4 (archnemesis). Use it to make NPCs fight or do other er... more worrying things.

addtofaction

Click on an NPC and use this command to add them to a faction. It's not just about Stormcloaks and Imperials though. Using 0005C84D will add a character to the follower faction, giving them the necessary dialogue to join you, while 00019809 will add them to the 'potential spouse' faction, allowing you to marry them. This won't work on NPCs with unique voices however, so you won't be able to wed Esbern or General Tullius any time soon.

disable

Also known as the 'I have no mouth and I must scream' command. Disable banishes the selected NPC to some sort of weird coding limbo. They become invisible, have no collisions and AI won't interact with them, but they're still technically there. Horrifying.

enable

Undoes the effects of the Disable command. Disabling and then Enabling your follower will reset them to your current level, which is a handy way of making sure they stay useful in a fight.

setessential

It might be fun putting on god mode and becoming immortal, but don't you get a little lonely knowing that one day all the other characters you love will die? I know I do. Thankfully there's a solution: simply use this console command with a 1 to set characters to 'essential', which means they'll take damage until they fall on their knees, but then get up again. Using it with a 0 will turn essential characters mortal, but be careful with that, Bethesda probably made them immortal for a reason.

setownership

This command sets you as the owner of the targeted item, removing all those annoying 'stolen' tags from your ill gotten gains.

setstage

This allows you to move the quests you're playing back to a prior stage or forward to a new one. Useful if you've somehow broken it by murdering the wrong NPC. Skyrim wiki has a useful list of quests, along with IDs and stages.

setscale

Changes the size of the player or NPC. You start out at level one, which is normal sized, while zero is small. It goes all the way up to an absurdly huge ten.

unequipitem

Click on an NPC and type this to force them to put the item they're holding away. Useful if they're holding a sword you want.

fov

Sets your field of view.

tfow

Turns off the fog of war on your local map, filling it in completely.

player.Drop

Forces the player to drop items, even usually undroppable quest items. Try just 'drop' to drop absolutely everything you're carrying.

dispelallspells

Unsurprisingly, dispells all spells on the target NPC. This won't work on werewolves, as they technically become a different NPC when they transform.

MarkForDelete

Marking an item for deletion sends a contract to the Dark Brotherhood, ensuring it will never been seen or heard from again. It will be removed from the world the next time you load an area. A useful way to get rid of annoying things like ash piles that never seem to go away.

setgs fJumpHeightMin

Sets the player's jump height. A high value means enormous moon hops.

I'm just about to place my head on the chopping block when, all of a sudden, I hear a noise. "You say you don't know where the Macho Man is coming from," it sounds like. My captors ignore it, ordering me to place myself mere inches from the severed heads of those who went before me. That's when I see it. Introduced by a "Macho madness, sky's the limit," the cowboy-hat-and-sunglasses-wearing dragon lands on a nearby tower, sending everyone into a frenzy with a triumphant, "Yeah!" before wreaking havoc on the village of Helgen.

If this sounds familiar, then you've likely seen or used the Macho Dragon mod, which turns all of Skyrim's dragons into a monstrous recreation of late WWE wrestler "Macho Man" Randy Savage. The YouTube video has accrued over four million views, and it's often one of the first things brought up whenever a conversation about video game mods strikes. Its creator, who goes by the alias FancyPants, got his start with mods by turning Will Smith's character from Men in Black: The Game into Ronald McDonald, and he says that he built the Macho Dragon mod simply because it made himself laugh.

"Originally, I was testing some of the tools that had been released for Blender," FancyPants said. "I was doing it just to see if I could get the model exporters to work properly. And in fact, originally, it wasn't going to be Macho Man; it was going to be Tommy Wiseau [from The Room]. But I had the cowboy hat and I thought, 'You know, it would be funny to put in Macho Man's audio and see how that works.' I tried it in game, laughed my ass off, and put it out there... and it kinda blew up.

"It was just a test that kinda spun outta control."

With the popularity of Macho Dragon, he added a similar mod to Fallout 4, which replaced a Death Claw with something that looks a little bit more like Savage. If it wasn't already obvious, FancyPants doesn't need more than a laugh to publish a mod on the internet. He told me that most of the stuff he works on comes from him testing something, thinking it's funny, and uploading it.

"It's really just one long train of thought of weird ideas," he said. "There's nothing particularly serious, to be honest."

Despite his inclination for the wildly goofy, FancyPants has found himself pushed by the community to create mods that are more serious or, at the very least, they can use. He did this with his Crimes Against Nature Skyrim mod, which he says is the project he's spent the most time on. It started out as an assortment of bizarre head parts and outlandish models one of these being a Wiseau horse created only to make himself laugh. But hopeful players encouraged him to turn these unconventional heads into proper playable races. He did just that, allowing people to play as races such as a chair, My Little Pony, or even the Space Core from Portal 2.

"It's goofy, it's obviously not 'lore-friendly,' but people pushed me to set it up a bit more properly, so I did," he said.

The talented modder found himself creating another "serious" mod when he took the faces of Fallout 4 and exaggerated them to ridiculous lengths. The mod, titled Immersive Facial Animations, caused the faces to ignore basic human anatomy, breaking the rules of everything you know about human expression and creating pure, unadulterated nightmare fuel.

"I went in there and started messing with the vanilla files and, you know, see if I could exaggerate it, if I could increase the intensity," he explained. "Once again, I found it hilarious and said, 'Okay, fine. I'll release that.' But afterwards some people were messaging me saying 'Hey, this is really funny, but it would be nice if you could increase the intensity slightly and release that as a serious mod.'"

What he came up with was three different versions of the mod, which turn the dull, sometimes lifeless faces of Fallout 4 into more enthusiastic ones that are full of expression. It's a different kind of project for FancyPants, but he's unlikely to stray too far from the ones that make him laugh, especially his most popular one. When asked if he was going to make sure Macho Dragon worked with Skyrim Special Edition, he surprised me by saying he was actually working on it at the time of our interview. However, he said it won't be exactly how you remember it.

"It's getting a bit of an overhaul," FancyPants said. "When it was first released, it was just a silly joke of the same model for every dragon. I'm hoping to differentiate them a little bit with little outfits.

"I'm looking into adding a crown and cape for Alduin, he'll be the Macho king," he continued. "I'm seeing if I can make Paarthurnax look like Hulk Hogan, but I'm not sure if I can get him to use separate Hulk Hogan audio."

For someone as dedicated to his Skyrim mods as FancyPants, it's perhaps surprising that he still hasn't spent much time actually playing the game.

"It does look like an interesting game," he said. "I should take the time to play it someday."

Laughing, he says that he spends most of his time in Skyrim testing out mods, and by the time he's done, he doesn't want to play it. He tells me this isn't uncommon amongst modders, that it's a bit of a recurring problem in the community.

For what's in his future, FancyPants says he's looking at bringing Macho Man to other games. He briefly mentioned Dragon Ball Xenoverse during our conversation, but he can't commit to the idea of a Macho Man spirit bomb just yet. Nevertheless, he did provide one answer with a little more confidence.

"Whatever Bethesda game comes out next, I'll probably put him in that, too."

What a long, strange, wondrous journey it s been. We ve gone from the early hype and expectations heading into the 2016 Worlds tournament to just one best of five series remaining. We ve made some wonderful memories along the way: ANX s wild ride through Groups, North American favourites TSM falling just one game short of making the playoffs, Samsung Galaxy s progression from third seed to Worlds finalist, SKT and ROX battling it out in a legendary semifinals showdown, and a ton of trash talking, tears, and emotional moments from our favourite players.

It ll all end at Los Angeles Staples Center on October 29th. SK Telecom T1 will be facing off against Samsung Galaxy in a Best of 5 series, and both teams have shed the initial questions about their performance. Samsung and SKT are both historic teams, and even though the rosters have changed, there s a historic rivalry between the two teams. While the odds are in SKT s favour, there s still a shot for Samsung to take the Summoner's Cup home.

The unstoppable force

There s a reason that people are rallying behind SK Telecom T1 as we head into the finals; the team has appeared unstoppable on the international stage so far in 2016. They picked up a victory over Counter Logic Gaming at MSI, scored a win at Intel Extreme Masters, and now they have just one tournament left to win: Worlds.

SKT stumbled domestically, falling in the LCK playoffs, which allowed the ROX Tigers to become the Korean summer champions and the favourites heading into Worlds. Now that SKT has eliminated the Tigers, any questions about their strength have been answered. Sure, they dropped two games to the Tigers, but that was based off the surprise support Miss Fortune pick. Every time SKT and ROX played a standard game, SKT were able to control the game and keep a boot on the Tigers throat to choke them out.

So much ink has been spilled about SKT s dominance: their strong lanes, their wealth of experience, their coaching and infrastructure, the legendary mid laner Faker. When Faker was asked how he held up during such an intense series against the Tigers, the only show of strain he allowed was that he needed a chocolate bar in between games 4 and 5. SKT looks like, depending on your perspective, either Gods or Terminators. Unstoppable, unkillable, and unconstrained by mortal concerns like fear or tilt.

The upcoming stars

Samsung Galaxy, on the other hand, very nearly didn t make Worlds. The team was sloppy when it first started out, and the roster is made up of players who seemed to have either missed their shot or just shown up on the scene. Gone are the glorious rosters of Samsung s prime. Instead, Galaxy was formed by what seems to be a set of space cadets: Crown has gotten most of the hype and media attention at Worlds, but he was once considered a one trick pony who could only show up on mages like Azir or Viktor. Ambition is a veteran mid laner who never managed to really cut it, but now he s a jungler on Samsung. Ruler is a rookie who was once critiqued for his shallow champion pool. CuVee has never earned the praises of Smeb or Ssumday. Even CoreJJ swapped roles, going from a North American ADC for Dignitas to a support for Galaxy.

Some teams with this kind of history might be shy, or at least terrified of displaying hubris. They might focus entirely on how lucky they are to make it to Worlds, or on downplaying their achievements. Samsung Galaxy is not one of these teams. The group eagerly plays the role of David to SKT s Goliath, making bold promises. Their post-game press conference after 3-0ing H2K reads more like a WWE promo in places; they say that Wolf, infuriated at the Miss Fortune pick, will be angry all the way back to Korea. Ambition is eager to face off against two time World Champion Bengi, citing bad memories that the SKT legend inspired and wanting revenge for them. CoreJJ has bragged that the true last hope of the West lies in Samsung; as a Dignitas alumni, he has the spirit of NA within him. While SKT are a lean, mean, fighting machine, Samsung Galaxy are firebrands and underdogs.

Measuring up

Samsung Galaxy seems weaker in nearly every category than SKT, except for two possibilities: first, the surprise pick. ROX surprised SKT and the world with support Miss Fortune, and SKT dropped two games in shock. Samsung has faced a much less challenging path to the finals than SKT; they handily won both their series, especially against H2K. It could be possible that they have an ace or two hidden up their sleeve that might allow them to gain an element of surprise.

SKT s top lane is also a vulnerable spot, as showcased in their battle against RNG. Looper, on Jayce, was able to blow the game open for RNG by pushing hard and picking up an insurmountable lead. Of course, this only lasted for one game before SKT responded by putting them down. A clever team might be able to push on that weakness and create a bigger schism; especially if paired with a surprise pick.

In the end, the Samsung Galaxy crew will have nothing to be ashamed of if they fall at the finals. They ve already surpassed expectations and astounded fans with their run from a struggling team to an unexpected third seed to Worlds finalists. SKT remains the final obstacle between Samsung and total glory, and it may be impossible to take down the titans. Samsung seems to have removed impossible from their vocabulary, however, and the team is clearly eager to take on the challenge. While SKT is the favourite to take its third World Championship home, there s always that slim possibility that this is Samsung s year. I m eager to see if the squad of upstarts can walk the walk after talking some of the best trash talk of the year.

Earlier today, following more than a month of inactivity, the Hello Games Twitter account tweeted that under-fire space explore 'em up No Man's Sky was "a mistake." The tweet was quickly deleted and the account made private which, alongside Murray's own account's renewed activity (until today, Murray hadn't posted since August), led some to believe one of the accounts/both had been hacked.

Amid the confusion, Polygon, Mashable, Forbes, and Kotaku reported Murray had responded via email telling the former "The tweet is from me, but somebody from the team took it down. We have not been coping well".

The others, however, reported being sent emails which suggested a "disgruntled employee" was to blame the most comprehensive of which was published by Kotaku. The replies were however inconsistent and all sites reported follow-up mails falling on deaf ears.

PC Gamer reached out for comment, however Hello Games has tweeted this in the meantime:

A strange afternoon in the videogame Twittersphere, indeed.

Those of you familiar with Civilization 5's modding scene will likely know of Gedemon's Yet (not) Another Earth Maps Pack which added planet Earth to the 4X 'em up in varying sizes. Those of you who aren't, know that its Giant Earth 180x96 map was blooming huge. And know that it's now coming to Civilization 6 alongside a new Ludicrous 230x115 map option.

Released last week, the latest of Sid Meier's strategy games is for now without Steam Workshop support but that obviously hasn't stopped modders getting to work. Across both sizes, over 50 civs can be set in YnAEM, and, while the mod is currently in 'alpha 3' state, its creator has put the Ludicrous map through 500 turns in autoplay with 32 civs without issue (Gedemon's build is pretty powerful, mind: i7 4770K CPU, 16GB RAM, GTX 980 ti GPU).

Gedemon does however lead with a warning:

"The giant map is already way above the size of the huge map, it may or may not load on your PC (and will take some time to do so), the Ludicrous map is the max map size before the game refuse to load, and will take more than 4-5 minutes to load (or crash). I'd suggest to lower the textures size in the video option, the game use almost all the 6GB of VRAM of my GPU."

Hitting turn 240, the average turn time was two minutes, while at 470 turn times averaged four minutes. As it stands, true starting locations aren't implemented.

Strategy aficionado T.J. Hafer described Civilization 6 as the "most engrossing, most rewarding, most challenging 4X in any corner of the earth" in his review last week, and I do wonder with so much going on in this mod, could Tyler really play Civ 6 without ever founding a city?

Details on how to install can be found here.

Since launch in May, Paradox's sci-fi 4X grand strategy has bore witness to a slew of enduring mods, updates, and official DLC much like the rest of the developer's back catalogue. Off the back of its first story pack and substantial Heinlein patch the Swedish studio has now outlined where the game stands now, where it's going and what Paradox want.

If you've been following Stellaris' developer diaries over the past wee while, you might have spied mention of a 'Banks' a major patch which will be accompanied by a "full-sized" expansion. Paradox say that's still the case, however in the interim another update, named 'Kennedy', is planned before the end of this year.

"This will be a small update targeting a few specific key issues, such as precursor event chains and endgame crises, that we did not have time for in Heinlein," reads an update post on the Stellaris blog. "After that will be Banks, and while we will not be providing any details about the Banks update or accompanying expansion at this time, I will say that the author name chosen for this update may offer some clues." (Which might mean the 'Kennedy' update is in reference to Alexis' work on the game.)

As Phil noted in his review, while busy in its early stages, Stellaris stagnates a little come mid-game which is something Paradox aims to improve with the "addition of more interesting narratives and 'galactic events' akin to Awakened Fallen Empires that shake up the galactic scene."

Improving the internal workings of empires, making pops and leaders more interesting, expanding the ethics system and making empires feel more lived in are also among the developer's top priorities. The developer diary can be read in full this way, however here are the key points moving forward as per the devs themselves:

• Ship appearance that differs for each empire, so no two empires' ships look exactly the same.
• More story events and reactive narratives that give a sense of an unfolding story as you play.
• More potential for empire customization, ability to build competitive 'tall' empires.
• Deeper Federations that start out as loose alliances and can eventually be turned into single states through diplomatic manoeuvring.
• Ability to set rights and obligations for particular species in your empire.
• Global food that can be shared between planets.
• Superweapons and planet killers.
• Ability to construct space habitats and ringworlds.
• More interesting mechanics for pre-FTL civilizations.
• Factions that are proper interest groups with specific likes and dislikes and the potential to be a benefit to an empire instead of just being rebels.
• A 'galactic community' with interstellar politics and a 'space UN'.
• Buildable Dreadnoughts and Titans. 

Paradox makes a point of noting the above is not a list of promises per se, yet, having played many an acrimonious multiplayer bout of Stellaris, mention of a galactic community and space UN sounds fantastic and something I probably need to see to believe.

In other Stellaris news, hotfix 1.3.1 landed yesterday.

I've been messing around with the Skyrim Special Edition this evening, and along with comparing how it looks to the (unmodded) original, I've also got some information on the available settings and how well it performs. (You might also be interested in knowing how the Special Edition works with existing saved games and mods.)

Here's a look at the settings:

You can see there are three options for anti-aliasing: None, FXAA, and TAA. In other words, high, low, or off. There are tickboxes for screen space reflections, ambient occlusion, precipitation occlusion, snow shader, lens flare, and 64-bit render targets.

The in-game settings menu provides sliders for the fade distances of things like NPCs, items, objects, and grass, and there's also a depth of field slider.

One thing that stands out sort of immediately: there's no FOV slider. You can quickly adjust the FOV while playing by opening the console (~) and typing, for example, "FOV 90 90" or "FOV 110 110" (no quotes) but the absence of a slider is a bit perplexing considering the fact that the functionality is already there and has been for years.

As with the original Skyrim, Special Edition has a cap of 60 fps, though I get that 60 fps almost constantly on my GeForce GTX 980. Everywhere I go, whether running through the woods, riding across the plains, and even in Solitude where I started a fight that resulted in about a dozen guards and citizens all whomping on me at once, both indoors and outdoors, I never lost more than a few frames, and then only momentarily. It's been a smooth ride so far.

Which isn't to say this isn't still a Bethesda RPG. While the visuals have been improved, Skyrim is still Skyrim and the bugs and glitches that shipped with the original game are still there. Above, you can see the opening sequence, and how a random horse winds up getting in the way of the actors who are busy trying to execute me.

The horse became such a problem that the sequence stalled before the dragon could show up, so we all just stood around staring and waiting. After several minutes it was clear Mr. Ed wasn't going to be moved, so I had to restart. Skyrim! It hasn't changed much after all.

Finally, let's take a gander at how the Special Edition actually looks.

The images below were taken using the same saved game, first taking a screenshot in the original Skyrim, saving the game there, then transferring the save file to Skyrim Special Edition and loading it. So, what you're seeing is me standing in the same spot at the same time of day with the same weather conditions in both games. The image from classic Skyrim is on the left, and Special Edition is on the right. A handy slider lets you compare them.

This was taken near Riften, and you can see the colors in Special Edition are much richer. The sky is more blue and the yellow of the leaves is brighter. The water looks less greasy and oily as well.

Here's a glance toward Solitude, and in addition to slightly lusher plants and considerably bluer skies, you can see some additional details on the buildings, particularly the windmill in the top left corner. The lighting looks much better as well: it feels much more like actual daytime.

Here's the waterfall near Dragonbridge. Again, the skies are a much deeper blue, trees in the far distance look a trifle less cartoony, and the lighting of the landscape in the background gives more feeling of depth than the original.

Sunrise outside Markarth. Again, improved lighting makes the details of landscape in the distance, as well as the horse and cart, much easier to see. And we can also see some added details here and there, like the foliage along the staircase and cobblestone path.

It appears there haven't been improvements to the character models they're still pretty uggo though they look a bit better under the improved lighting. You can also see a few little bits of added foliage along the road.

Below, the images can be enlarged individually for a closer look.