Hello Console Edition Community!
I guess by now most of you have heard the news, but just in case:
The First Contact Story Pack and Galactic Paragons will be released on November 21st!
We’re here today to talk about the features coming in the First Contact Story Pack. First Contact is all about telling stories of your (or empires in your galaxy) first contact with extraterrestrial visitors.
First Contact achieves this in a number of different ways, from changing up your starting technologies and giving you the feeling of a “pre-FTL” start, to adding new features and mechanics to Pre-FTLs in the galaxy.
The Origins
First Contact comes with three new Origins, two of which are considered “challenging” starts due to starting at a technological disadvantage.
Broken Shackles Origin
Our first challenging origin, Broken Shackles tells the story of a slave ship that successfully rose up and overthrew their captors. You will start with an assortment of species on your planet in addition to your selected species; the are the other freed slaves. The species you start with will be randomly selected from existing species in the galaxy, so you will generally start with a wide variety of traits and habitabilities, which in turn makes expansion easier. Your selected species will also have a pre-FTL civilization created for it somewhere in the galaxy.
In exchange, you start without a starting fleet, and only primitive buildings on your capital - which will be upgraded automatically when you get the prerequisite technology for the FTL version of the structure and the planet your pops currently reside on is none of your pops’ homeworld.
Payback Origin
Our second challenging origin is Payback. Payback follows the story of a pre-FTL civilization that was invaded by its first contact, but successfully banded together and repelled them, destroying their mothership in orbit.
This civilization will start with 10 fewer pops than normal (war against a technologically superior foe does not come cheap), and with limited starting technologies, but with leftover advanced infrastructure on their homeworld.
However, they also start with the ruins of their invader’s mothership in orbit around their home planet - and a special archaeology site to investigate the ship and repurpose it for their own needs.
But nothing in the galaxy comes cheap, and collectors may show up looking for recompense for damages inflicted.
Minamar Specialized Industries
The Minamar Specialized Industries will spawn as an advanced empire in your galaxy from choosing either of the two origins above (or having AIs spawn with them), and empires with either origin will have unique interactions with them.
Minamar Specialized Industries styles itself a benevolent corporation that provides technological enlightenment for a nominal fee. Some might say that they take advantage of the naivety of the species they propel to the stars, but business is business. In any case, it’s likely that the rank and file at MSI believe the company line, even if the Board of Directors considers itself above such petty issues as morality.
Fear of the Dark Origin
In the Fear of the Dark origin, one of the planets in your system exploded before your species developed spaceflight. A large portion of your population decided to flee your homeworld, with the goal of hiding from the rest of the galaxy.
You will start with a sizable amount of your population living on a separate planet in your home system.
This planet will occasionally interfere in your relationship with other empires, but it is important to remember that you are more powerful when you work together than when you are divided.
New Civic
The Eager Explorers civic presents a civilization that has discovered faster than light travel earlier than most. Starting with a reduced number of pops, and a primitive jump drive (but no hyperdrive technology), these empires throw caution into the wind, in favor of getting out there and exploring the galaxy.
This civic comes in four distinct flavors - one for each government type, with varying and thematic effects based off of the type of civilization you’re playing as.
Pre-FTL Awareness
Pre-FTL Awareness is a measure of not only the civilization’s observations that “something is out there”, but them correctly attributing it to interstellar, alien life. Thus Renaissance-era (or something akin to it) astronomers might observe your uncloaked observation post in orbit of their world, but are unlikely to attribute its presence to an alien civilization. On the other hand, an Early Space Age civilization that has constructed a planetary array of radio telescopes will almost certainly correctly attribute the light pollution and radio traffic from your colonies in their solar system to be evidence of alien life.
A core part of how interactions with pre-FTL Civilizations now function is their Awareness. Awareness is a value that ranges from 0-100 in five stages.
In order to engage with either Diplomacy or Espionage with pre-FTL civilizations you will need an Observation Post in orbit of their homeworld and the types of interactions your empire has access to is determined by your relevant policies on both Interference and Enlightenment.
Before you reveal yourself to a pre-FTL civilization, you have the opportunity to carry out a number of Espionage Operations. However, once they are Fully Aware of the existence of alien life some of these operations will no longer become available.
Additionally, after a Pre-FTL becomes aware of your presence, the Observation Post around their planet will be converted into an Embassy.
One of the new additions to the list of pre-FTL interactions is being able to form a Commercial Agreement with them, this will have a minor upkeep in minerals, but your Observation Post will generate some local trade value. The benefits of such a partnership will scale with how advanced the civilization you’re trading with is, so it might be useful to teach a Stone Age society what exactly economics is before trading with them. Additionally, if a civilization is in the Atomic or Early Space Age, signing such agreements will allow MegaCorps to open branch offices on these pre-FTL worlds.
Pre-FTL Observation Events
The First Contact Story Pack introduces new events for those who build Observation Posts around pre-FTL worlds.
These events give you the opportunity to gather research on pre-space-faring civilizations in various technological ages, and- if it takes your fancy- interfere with the development of their society.
Your chosen ethics will affect the types of events you can be presented with, along with the choices you will face when dealing with the inhabitants of these worlds. There are a variety of rewards to gain from studying the pre-FTLs, including the brand new Insight technologies.
Insight Technologies
Insight Technologies are gained when you study pre-FTLs without making them aware of you. They are unique paths their society takes which you have dismissed as dead ends.
This is all tracked through a situation which, once completed, will make a future observation event grant you a new Insight.
Cloaking
A staple of sci-fi that has long been missing from Stellaris is the ability to have fleets and stations capable of being cloaked and hiding from enemy sensors. With the addition of Awareness and improvements to interactions with pre-FTL civilizations, we felt that First Contact was the right place to explore how cloaking could be added to the game in a meaningful way, tying into warfare, exploration and espionage.
When we set out to design the cloaking and counter-cloaking systems our goals were that:
Cloaking Field Generators are a new type of ship component that is limited to one per ship and occupies either an Aux slot (for designable ships) or a special cloaking device slot (for undesignable ships e.g., science ships or observation posts). The first cloaking devices available can only be equipped on corvettes, frigates, science ships and observation posts. As technology improves so does the cloaking strength provided by the cloaking devices and the size of ship they are capable of cloaking.
While cloaked, ships and fleets can ignore closed borders and can’t be detected by normal sensors. This can be useful for a variety of reasons such as having science ships explore and survey systems that might otherwise be blocked off, research anomalies or special projects inside the borders of your rivals or getting a well armed fleet situated to ambush an enemy starbase upon war declaration. Cloaked science ships will also have another trick up their sleeves, being able to perform covert reconnaissance on colonized planets to gather Intel on other empires and increasing the speed at which this Intel is gained. Finally, cloaked fleets and observation posts can’t be seen by pre-FTL civilizations, so using them will minimize your chances of accidentally increasing their Awareness.
In order to be detected or revealed a fleet needs to be within sensor range of an enemy starbase with a Detection Strength equal to or greater than the Cloaking Strength of the fleet. Detection Strength is normally gained by building Detection Array modules on a starbase, though certain rare technologies can unlock buildings or orders for science ships to further increase this.
When a fleet is detected by a starbase, it is either detected or forced to decloak depending on these conditions.
If a cloaked fleet is inside another empire’s borders (and thus is not detected) when you declare war, it will not be forced to go MIA like normal.
That’s it for this week! We’ll be back next Tuesday for the first of our Galactic Paragons development diaries.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for playing Stellaris: Console Edition!
I guess by now most of you have heard the news, but just in case:
The First Contact Story Pack and Galactic Paragons will be released on November 21st!
We’re here today to talk about the features coming in the First Contact Story Pack. First Contact is all about telling stories of your (or empires in your galaxy) first contact with extraterrestrial visitors.
First Contact achieves this in a number of different ways, from changing up your starting technologies and giving you the feeling of a “pre-FTL” start, to adding new features and mechanics to Pre-FTLs in the galaxy.
The Origins
First Contact comes with three new Origins, two of which are considered “challenging” starts due to starting at a technological disadvantage.
Broken Shackles Origin
Our first challenging origin, Broken Shackles tells the story of a slave ship that successfully rose up and overthrew their captors. You will start with an assortment of species on your planet in addition to your selected species; the are the other freed slaves. The species you start with will be randomly selected from existing species in the galaxy, so you will generally start with a wide variety of traits and habitabilities, which in turn makes expansion easier. Your selected species will also have a pre-FTL civilization created for it somewhere in the galaxy.
In exchange, you start without a starting fleet, and only primitive buildings on your capital - which will be upgraded automatically when you get the prerequisite technology for the FTL version of the structure and the planet your pops currently reside on is none of your pops’ homeworld.
Payback Origin
Our second challenging origin is Payback. Payback follows the story of a pre-FTL civilization that was invaded by its first contact, but successfully banded together and repelled them, destroying their mothership in orbit.
This civilization will start with 10 fewer pops than normal (war against a technologically superior foe does not come cheap), and with limited starting technologies, but with leftover advanced infrastructure on their homeworld.
However, they also start with the ruins of their invader’s mothership in orbit around their home planet - and a special archaeology site to investigate the ship and repurpose it for their own needs.
But nothing in the galaxy comes cheap, and collectors may show up looking for recompense for damages inflicted.
Minamar Specialized Industries
The Minamar Specialized Industries will spawn as an advanced empire in your galaxy from choosing either of the two origins above (or having AIs spawn with them), and empires with either origin will have unique interactions with them.
Minamar Specialized Industries styles itself a benevolent corporation that provides technological enlightenment for a nominal fee. Some might say that they take advantage of the naivety of the species they propel to the stars, but business is business. In any case, it’s likely that the rank and file at MSI believe the company line, even if the Board of Directors considers itself above such petty issues as morality.
Fear of the Dark Origin
In the Fear of the Dark origin, one of the planets in your system exploded before your species developed spaceflight. A large portion of your population decided to flee your homeworld, with the goal of hiding from the rest of the galaxy.
You will start with a sizable amount of your population living on a separate planet in your home system.
This planet will occasionally interfere in your relationship with other empires, but it is important to remember that you are more powerful when you work together than when you are divided.
New Civic
The Eager Explorers civic presents a civilization that has discovered faster than light travel earlier than most. Starting with a reduced number of pops, and a primitive jump drive (but no hyperdrive technology), these empires throw caution into the wind, in favor of getting out there and exploring the galaxy.
This civic comes in four distinct flavors - one for each government type, with varying and thematic effects based off of the type of civilization you’re playing as.
Pre-FTL Awareness
Pre-FTL Awareness is a measure of not only the civilization’s observations that “something is out there”, but them correctly attributing it to interstellar, alien life. Thus Renaissance-era (or something akin to it) astronomers might observe your uncloaked observation post in orbit of their world, but are unlikely to attribute its presence to an alien civilization. On the other hand, an Early Space Age civilization that has constructed a planetary array of radio telescopes will almost certainly correctly attribute the light pollution and radio traffic from your colonies in their solar system to be evidence of alien life.
A core part of how interactions with pre-FTL Civilizations now function is their Awareness. Awareness is a value that ranges from 0-100 in five stages.
- 0: Completely Unaware
- 1–30: Low Awareness
- 31-60: Partially Aware
- 61-99: High Awareness
- 100: Fully Aware
In order to engage with either Diplomacy or Espionage with pre-FTL civilizations you will need an Observation Post in orbit of their homeworld and the types of interactions your empire has access to is determined by your relevant policies on both Interference and Enlightenment.
Before you reveal yourself to a pre-FTL civilization, you have the opportunity to carry out a number of Espionage Operations. However, once they are Fully Aware of the existence of alien life some of these operations will no longer become available.
Additionally, after a Pre-FTL becomes aware of your presence, the Observation Post around their planet will be converted into an Embassy.
One of the new additions to the list of pre-FTL interactions is being able to form a Commercial Agreement with them, this will have a minor upkeep in minerals, but your Observation Post will generate some local trade value. The benefits of such a partnership will scale with how advanced the civilization you’re trading with is, so it might be useful to teach a Stone Age society what exactly economics is before trading with them. Additionally, if a civilization is in the Atomic or Early Space Age, signing such agreements will allow MegaCorps to open branch offices on these pre-FTL worlds.
Pre-FTL Observation Events
The First Contact Story Pack introduces new events for those who build Observation Posts around pre-FTL worlds.
These events give you the opportunity to gather research on pre-space-faring civilizations in various technological ages, and- if it takes your fancy- interfere with the development of their society.
Your chosen ethics will affect the types of events you can be presented with, along with the choices you will face when dealing with the inhabitants of these worlds. There are a variety of rewards to gain from studying the pre-FTLs, including the brand new Insight technologies.
Insight Technologies
Insight Technologies are gained when you study pre-FTLs without making them aware of you. They are unique paths their society takes which you have dismissed as dead ends.
This is all tracked through a situation which, once completed, will make a future observation event grant you a new Insight.
Cloaking
A staple of sci-fi that has long been missing from Stellaris is the ability to have fleets and stations capable of being cloaked and hiding from enemy sensors. With the addition of Awareness and improvements to interactions with pre-FTL civilizations, we felt that First Contact was the right place to explore how cloaking could be added to the game in a meaningful way, tying into warfare, exploration and espionage.
When we set out to design the cloaking and counter-cloaking systems our goals were that:
- Science ships should be able to equip cloaking devices to allow exploration of space regardless of if another empire has closed their borders to you.
- Observation posts should be capable of being hidden from the pre-FTL civilizations they were observing.
- Military vessels should be capable of cloaking, with limitations. Cloaking should be balanced such that it is better to cloak frigates or cruisers than battleships.
- Cloaking should interact with the existing espionage system.
Cloaking Field Generators are a new type of ship component that is limited to one per ship and occupies either an Aux slot (for designable ships) or a special cloaking device slot (for undesignable ships e.g., science ships or observation posts). The first cloaking devices available can only be equipped on corvettes, frigates, science ships and observation posts. As technology improves so does the cloaking strength provided by the cloaking devices and the size of ship they are capable of cloaking.
While cloaked, ships and fleets can ignore closed borders and can’t be detected by normal sensors. This can be useful for a variety of reasons such as having science ships explore and survey systems that might otherwise be blocked off, research anomalies or special projects inside the borders of your rivals or getting a well armed fleet situated to ambush an enemy starbase upon war declaration. Cloaked science ships will also have another trick up their sleeves, being able to perform covert reconnaissance on colonized planets to gather Intel on other empires and increasing the speed at which this Intel is gained. Finally, cloaked fleets and observation posts can’t be seen by pre-FTL civilizations, so using them will minimize your chances of accidentally increasing their Awareness.
In order to be detected or revealed a fleet needs to be within sensor range of an enemy starbase with a Detection Strength equal to or greater than the Cloaking Strength of the fleet. Detection Strength is normally gained by building Detection Array modules on a starbase, though certain rare technologies can unlock buildings or orders for science ships to further increase this.
When a fleet is detected by a starbase, it is either detected or forced to decloak depending on these conditions.
- If the cloaked fleet is outside of your borders, you’ll be able to see it, with the cloaking visuals, but it won’t be decloaked.
- If the cloaked fleet is inside of your borders, it will be forced to decloak.
If a cloaked fleet is inside another empire’s borders (and thus is not detected) when you declare war, it will not be forced to go MIA like normal.
That’s it for this week! We’ll be back next Tuesday for the first of our Galactic Paragons development diaries.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for playing Stellaris: Console Edition!
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