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Stellaris Dev Diary #112 - The L-Cluster

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today, we're going to be covering the headline feature of the Distant Stars Story Pack that will be accompanying the 2.1 'Niven' update.

The L-Cluster
In Distant Stars, some Black Hole systems are home to mysterious "L-Gate" structures that the player can find while exploring the galaxy. Originally part of the regular Gateway network, these L-Gates were heavily modified shortly after the initial construction of the network. The gates are operable but stuck in perpetual maintenance loops, possibly due to intentional sabotage. L-Gates cannot be activated by the usual Gateway technologies, instead requiring the collection of insights relating to subspace and the nanite technology used to activate the gates. Insights can be collected in a wide variety of ways - from anomalies and exploration, from defeating certain enemies, and from researching a repeatable technology that becomes available once your empire is sufficiently advanced to conduct independent research on nanites.
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Once an empire has amassed enough insights, they will be able to open an L-Gate and access the L-Cluster, a cluster of stars located just outside the galaxy and entirely inaccessible from the regular hyperlane network. What precisely you will find there, we are not going to be spoil in this dev diary, but suffice to say that there are several possible outcomes, and that the gates may have been locked down for a reason...
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On a technical level L-Gates are a new and fully moddable bypass type, distinct from Wormholes and Gateways. L-Gates cannot be built and there is a finite number of them (up to 10) in the galaxy. They use a hierarchical (or hub-and-spoke) connection design, where all roads lead to the L-Cluster. This means that an L-Gate can only send a fleet to the L-Cluster, but once in the L-Cluster the fleet can travel to any L-Gate in the galaxy. This bypass type, along with the ability to create whole new areas of the galaxy (and specify their location relative to another system or the galactic core) is available for modders to use as part of the free Niven update.
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That's all for today! Next week we're going to continue talking about the Distant Stars Story Pack, on the topic of new anomalies, new systems and new Leviathans.
 
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I just got an idea - I suppose crisis factions (Unbidden, Contingency, Prethoryn) can not pass through a gate if you conrol its other end, am I right?
If so, then you can attempt to run for the (preferably already discovered and cleared) L-cluster when losing a crisis, lock the doors behind you and become the last vestige of previous galactic civilizations to once return and take back what is yours. Research might be quite fast for such a vestigal empire, because there are not that many systems in the L-cluster, keeping a large fleet might be harder, so you need a huge tech advantage.

Basically, you become a Fallen Empire in this moment.
 
klingonadmiral said:
What the L-Cluster do?
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It can't really do much of anything because the empire which first unlocks it is likely to be already ahead, so if it gains a further advantage from L-Cluster that causes a snowball effect which is something Stellaris tries to avoid - it's the reason behind the per-system penalties, for example.
 
Darn you and your teasing about new stuff without actually fully explaining it! Now I'll have to wait until a day or two after release when Aspec gets around to uploading an L-Cluster mechanics video! I'm assuming you can build regular gateways once inside the L-cluster... also, is there a special modifier preventing you from jumping there? Because in the photo you gave it absolutely looks like you could jump from Nuranka to the L-Cluster. Maybe you might need psi humps drives to make it, but that looks like an exploit. I'm sure yippy guys'll fix this nt release though, either by making it farther out or just saying you can't jump there. How many insights do you typically need to activate the L-Gates? Other than that, thanks for the DD, and looking forwards to next week.
 
Will there be many different things to discover in the L-cluster meaning you need repeated playthroughs to discover everything? Or is all content in the L-cluster available in a single playthrough?
 
Prebral said:
I just got an idea - I suppose crisis factions (Unbidden, Contingency, Prethoryn) can not pass through a gate if you conrol its other end, am I right?
If so, then you can attempt to run for the (preferably already discovered and cleared) L-cluster when losing a crisis, lock the doors behind you and become the last vestige of previous galactic civilizations to once return and take back what is yours. Research might be quite fast for such a vestigal empire, because there are not that many systems in the L-cluster, keeping a large fleet might be harder, so you need a huge tech advantage.

Basically, you become a Fallen Empire in this moment.
Click to expand...

1. Unleash the End of the Cycle
2. Retreat to the L-Cluster
3. Grab a coffee while you witness the slaughter
4. Win the game
 
I like this idea. It would be neat if, in the future, you could also have galaxies where the clusters are larger, large enough to house one or two spacefaring empires.
 
I could see a few things in the L sector past the L gate, and just off the top of my head a once ancient powerful civilization was in a war and was pushed back through the L gate and the L gate was locked to never be opened again. Or an Ancient living dooms day weapon sitting somewhere past the L gate ie like the Doomsday weapon from The Original Star Trek series that Kirk went up against with help from the crew
 
Lemont Elwood said:
I like this idea. It would be neat if, in the future, you could also have galaxies where the clusters are larger, large enough to house one or two spacefaring empires.
Click to expand...
The size of the L-Clusters has to be somewhat limited, else modders could just create a second galaxy by adding a 1000-stars cluster...
 
Sounds like this expansion is like Leviathans adding a bunch of optional things to explore, what is exactly what i'd like from an expansion. Im looking forward to this. But more than this, i hope Stellaris will stabilize soon, balance and bugwise. I cant' realy enjoy the game, if my playthroughs are always interrupted by something major like warscore not working and other bugs and imbalances. :/
I don't think i will buy another expansion until i can have an uninterrupted ironman playthrough. It's too frustrating atm again.
 
I just thought of something could use the L cluster as i'm just going to call it for now, what if the L cluster was/is a staging area for an empire or empires from another galaxy to use as a temporary staging point before going into our galaxy and we could do the same. Use the L cluster to go to another galaxy, if the L cluster was in a perfect spot to do so
 
Es57 said:
The size of the L-Clusters has to be somewhat limited, else modders could just create a second galaxy by adding a 1000-stars cluster...
Click to expand...

That would not be a bug, but a feature. Why should the modding be limited? If anything it should be as much customisable for modders as possible.
 
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