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Stellaris Dev Diary #100 - Titans and Planet Destroyers

Hello everyone and welcome to this very special triple digit Stellaris development diary! Today's dev diary marks the start of talking about the Apocalypse Expansion that will be accompanying the 2.0 'Cherryh' update. We still can't give you an ETA on the release of either, and there's a fair bit to cover in the expansion before then, but we're getting closer. As this is the start of talking about paid features, I just want to take a moment to reiterate that everything talked about in dev diaries 91-99 (with the exception of Dev Diary #95 which was about Humanoids) were about the Cherryh update and all features and changes mentioned in these previous dev diaries are part of the free update, NOT the expansion. Everything mentioned in this dev diary will be part of the paid Apocalypse expansion, however. Please note that some of the screenshots in this dev diary feature placeholder art and icons.


Planet Destroyers (Apocalypse Feature)
As mentioned all the way back in Dev Diary #50 and again in Dev Diary #69, Planet Destroyers have been on our wish list for quite some time, but wasn't something we could make work with restrictive nature of the old warscore system. Now that this is no longer a concern thanks to the new war system we talked about in Dev Diary #93, we finally have our chance to implement this beloved sci-fi staple.

Planet Destroyers come in the form of a new ship class called a Colossus. Though nominally a military ship, the Colossus has no actual fleet combat capability, but is instead a single massive weapon solely dedicated to the purpose of laying waste to enemy planets. To build a Colossus, you must first already know how to build Titans (more on those below) and then take the Colossus Project Ascension Perk, which unlocks a special project to research and design your first Colossus. Each Colossus mounts a single World Devastator-class weapon, and during the course of the project you will be given the option to choose which such weapon you want to focus on, with five potential options to choose from:
  • World Cracker: Shatters a planet, leaving behind a broken debris field that can be mined for resources. Available to non-Pacifists.
  • Global Pacifier: Encases the planet in an impenetrable shield, permanently cutting it off from the rest of the galaxy. A research station can be built to study the planet afterwards.
  • Neutron Sweep: Destroys most higher forms of life on the planet but leaves the infrastructure intact for colonization. Available to non-Spiritualist, non-Pacifist empires.
  • God Ray: Converts all organic Pops on the planet to spiritualist and destroys all machine/synthetic pops, as well as massively increasing spiritualist ethics attraction on the planet for a time. Available to Spiritualist empires.
  • Nanobot Dispersal: Assimilates all Pops on the planet, causing it to defect to your empire with its newly cyborgized population. Only available to Driven Assimilators (and thus requires Synthetic Dawn as well).
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(Weapon icons are placeholders)

Additional types of World Devastator weapons that are potentially available to your empire can be researched as rare technologies after finishing the Colossus project. Once the project is complete, you will be able to build a Colossus at any Starbase with a shipyard where you have the Colossus Assembly Yards building built. Once built, the Colossus functions similar to a civilian ship, in that it is own fleet, and cannot be merged with other fleets. Each empire can only have a single Colossus active at the same time, but can build a new one if their active one is destroyed.

Colossi have no conventional armaments (though we are discussing a few medium/PD turrets to them), and their real purpose is to target enemy planets. When a Colossus is ordered to target a planet, it will travel straight towards it, ignoring enemy ships entirely even if they fire on it. The Colossus will travel to the planet, take up position and begin charging its weapon. The weapon takes quite some time to charge, giving enemy fleets a chance to try and destroy the Colossus to stop it from firing (though Colossi naturally can take a great deal of punishment, they are not invincible). Once the weapons is fully charged, it will fire, executing its effects (as described above) on the hapless planet. The Colossus is then free to continue on to the next planet if you so wish. Most Colossi weapons can only target planets owned by empires you are at war with, though some of them can target primitive worlds and the World Cracker can be used on uncolonized rock-type worlds (but will not always generate a mineral deposit in that case).
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(Animations & interface are partly WIP)

The system for creating World Devastator weapons is fully scriptable, and modders will be able to create their own planet-destroying/changing effects.

Titans (Apocalypse Feature)
Titans are another new ship class available in the Apocalypse expansion, but unlike the Colossus they are much more like conventional warships. Titans are researched through a regular tier 5 technology, and can be built in any Starbase with a shipyard and the Titan Assembly Yards building. Titans are massive flagships that come equipped with an array of heavy long-ranged weaponry and layer upon layer of shields and armor. Their front section has a single Titanic-size slot that can fit weapons even stronger than XL weapons, such as the immensely powerful Perdition Beam that can fire across a whole system and potentially destroy a battleship in a single shot. Titans also have an aura slot that can fit a single offensive or defensive aura that can buff friendly ships in the same fleet or debuff nearby enemy ships. Titans are intended to be the flagships of your fleets, and as such are limited in number: You can always field at least one Titan, plus an additional amount dependent on your overall naval capacity.
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Ion Cannons (Apocalypse Feature)
Finally, there is one last Apocalype feature to talk about for today: Ion Cannons. Ion Cannons are stations that can be built as part of the defense platform fleet of a Starbase. Each Ion Cannon is essentially a single massive gun emplacement that mounts a single Titanic weapon, allowing the Starbase to engage enemy fleets at massive ranges and greatly improving the Starbase's ability to deal with enemy Battleships and Titans.
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That's all for today! Next week we'll continue talking about Cherryh and Apocalypse expansion, on the topic of Marauders, Pirates and the Great Khan.
 
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I assume using Death Stars comes with a massive treat generation. Perhaps Xenophile FE/AE (or even regular powerful empires) could demand the ban on these weapons from other empires?
 
I still think that the Biomass converter to transform a planet to an uninhabitable planet that generates food and society research proportional to the population is best. You can even give non-hive mind empires a penalty if they exploit it because they are basically feeding off soylent green.

Maybe give other empires the option to terraform it back, or something.
 
@Wiz - Since your adding Weapons Range bonuses to Fleet Doctrines in 2.0 and existing traits use the modifier, will the broken modifier be fixed in 2.0? Currently it is utterly broken and does not work, I know its been reported several times for various versions of Stellaris, I reported it recently with 1.9.1 and no response in the bug report section.
 
Can the planet destroyer be used to get rid of uncolonised (but potentially habitable) planets? Would this allow us to build Ringworlds in Systems, that originally had a colonisable planet?
 
@Wiz

Can we set a colossus to fire at single reactor ignition levels when we need a statement, not a manifesto? :p
 
@Wiz
If a World Cracker destroys a ringworld, will we be able to:
  1. repair it
  2. build a new one in it's place
Also, will a Planet Pacifier even work against a ringworld? I mean, it would have to encase either the entire ringworld like a donut, or become a massive sphere that blocks out the system's star as well.
 
Lets have a look back
From DEV Diary #69 my remarks in [..]

Beyond Utopia
Back in Dev Diary #50, I listed a number of priorities for us going forward from Heinlein/Leviathans. A number of these things have since been added to the game, so I'm going to go ahead and list it again to give you an idea of where our focus will lie in future updates, expansions and story packs, with the items that are already completed noted with a strikethrough. The list is NOT in order of priority, and something being crossed out does NOT mean we aren't going to continue to improve on it in future updates, just that we consider it to be at a satisfactory level.

As before, THIS IS NOT AN EXHAUSTIVE OR FINAL LIST, AND NOTHING BELOW IS CERTAIN TO HAPPEN (unless it already did)!
  • Ship appearance that differs for each empire, so no two empires' ships look exactly the same.
  • More potential for empire customization, ability to build competitive 'tall' empires.
  • Global food that can be shared between planets.
  • Ability to construct space habitats and ringworlds.
  • 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.
  • Ability to set rights and obligations for particular species in your empire.
  • Deeper Federations that start out as loose alliances and can eventually be turned into single states through diplomatic manuevering.[pending]
  • Superweapons and planet killers.[CHECK-Apocalypse]
  • More story events and reactive narratives that give a sense of an unfolding story as you play.[Kind of always ongoing I guess]
  • More interesting mechanics for pre-FTL civilizations.[pending]
  • A 'galactic community' with interstellar politics and a 'space UN'.[pending]
  • Buildable Dreadnoughts and Titans.[CHECK-Apocalypse]
  • Reworking the endgame crises to be more balanced against each other and the size/state of the galaxy.[CHECK-1.8-Cherryh 2.0-somekind ongoing see Dev Diary #72]
  • Reworks to war to address the 'doomstacks' issue and make the strategic and tactical layers of warfare more interesting and less micro-intensive.[CHECK-2.0Cherryh]
  • Deeper mechanics and unique portraits for synthetics.[CHECK -Synthetic Dawn]

With Utopia and Banks, we decided that rather than divide our focus, it was better to have the update and expansion focus almost exclusively on empire customization and internal politics, and this is the policy we intend to continue with for future expansions. As always, I can't tell you specifically what the next expansion, update or story pack is going to be about, but the above list should at least give you some ideas of where you can expect Stellaris to go in the future.

That's all for today! Next week we'll start going into specifics of the 1.6 'Adams' update so until then, I leave you with this picture of some of the free graphical content coming in Adams:
View attachment 258753
 
@Wiz - Since your adding Weapons Range bonuses to Fleet Doctrines in 2.0 and existing traits use the modifier, will the broken modifier be fixed in 2.0? Currently it is utterly broken and does not work, I know its been reported several times for various versions of Stellaris, I reported it recently with 1.9.1 and no response in the bug report section.

It's fixed in 2.0.
 
Any word on a Dreadnought class ship? With both the Pirates and the ancient dreadnought both having one I was wondering if we finally got the chance to build them ourselves. Possibly as a sub Titan?
 
@Wiz
If a World Cracker destroys a ringworld, will we be able to:
  1. repair it
  2. build a new one in it's place
Also, will a Planet Pacifier even work against a ringworld? I mean, it would have to encase either the entire ringworld like a donut, or become a massive sphere that blocks out the system's star as well.
Mmm, stellar donut.
 
I have already gone back to EUIV until this is released. My appetite to start a new game is non-existent due to anticipation of the new changes!

I have seen a lot of negativity (FTL modes mainly) but I for one am optimistic that these sweeping changes will improve the game markedly.

Keep up the good work!
 
Not every type of empire gets its own planet destroyer, though we may very well add more later. What weapon would you suggest for Hive Minds (besides the basic ones they already have access to)?

From Tyranids: Spores that terraform the planet (and usually wipe out the population) giving the hive mind player a world that is more useful for them in addition to turning the populace/buildings into resources. So you'd get an immediate burst of resources and a planet that you can then build up into something better (albeit with equal slots) without habitat penalties. Perhaps also make it available for organic-specialized factions?

You could also tag in a single-use "cheap" Colossus -- a meteor lobbed from a hive world into an enemy world to catastrophically damage the inhabitants, but without needing its own fleet as it is essentially just a huge, dense rock that would require a big enough fleet/enough damage to destroy. Basically the minigame event where a meteor is going to hit a planet, but with a ton more HP and more severe consequences, perhaps? Maybe even the option to build several of them to attempt to strike several planets simultaneously, if they don't seem powerful enough. The idea, obviously, from Starship Troopers. Sneaky meteor strikes from those darned Arachnids.

Otherwise I think you guys have pretty effectively covered the gamut of noteworthy planet-killers. I do agree that some PD & medium mounts would be appropriate -- nothing nearly potent enough to kill things of its size or take on a fleet, but rather to deal with destroyers and fighters that might sneak past the defending fleet or some meager planetary defenders from a non-militarized station.

Now take my money and release this thing already FFS.
 
SPORE INFESTATION - it infest all biosphere with neural parasites that turns all bio-pops into your own hiveminded pops.

Too similar to the robots for my taste.

What about something more asymetrical? Like the Mycon Deep children, where the Behemoth consumes itself (cost balanced), and turns the planet into a living hive-mind, turning all pops into bio-mass cocoons, and offering a specialized structure pallet like a Habitat for them to work?

Or just turns it into a Hive World that produces a flat food/bio/mineral output.

In either scenario, it eventually dies when the connection to the hive mind is severed; reverting to a Barren world in need of terraforming.
 
What sci fi trope does "god ray" belongs to? Never heard of it.
Chronicles of riddick. It doesn't have a world destroying weapon per se, but the necromongers did go to planets, forcibly converting or killing the entire population. That said, I kind of agree with you. I dunno. Possibly turning the planets into lava planets with the "God ray" evolving into "divine punishment" would be cooler. *shrugs*

But a conversion ray also seems cool in that I picture an admiral of my legions walking onto the deck and saying "we will bring these heathens from the darkness into the light. Fire the God Ray and let them see the wonders of our galaxy." A great beam of psionic light then hammers onto the planet and begins to send intense telepathic images into the minds of the population, who either break down from the mental strain and die bleeding from their eyes and what not, or fall to their knees finally open to psionics and a new understanding of the galaxy. Simultaneously, thus Divine Judgment beam sends out enough energy to fry the circuits of every synthetic/robot on the planet. Not necessarily a sci fi trope, but it could become part of one hell of a story about galactic crusaders.
 
Temporal Shifter: scrambles the tile sets, buildings and people to different eras of Technology and species, making it both neutral and colonizable with a local species. Can be used on own worlds.
 
and it'd be very halo-y if it was shot from a ring world.
I mean, given the way hyperlanes are being baked in, the system-wide "weather" modifiers, and the intent of modability... I imagine it might actually be possible to implement something where a wave of destruction propagates from a ringworld through the hyperlane network, killing all life on the planets in systems it passes through.