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Stellaris Dev Diary #132 - Ecumenopolis and Megastructures

Hello everyone!

On this stellar day you will be able to read another of our dev diaries about the upcoming expansion - MegaCorp.

Like always I have to mention that we’re not yet ready to reveal when MegaCorp is due to being released, and that this article may contain placeholder art, interfaces and non-final numbers.

For this dev diary we will be exploring some of the new cool features in the MegaCorp expansion – namely Ecumenopolises and new Megastructures.

Ecumenopolis
“Thus shall we make a world of the city, and a city of the world”.

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The city planet is here. To create a Ecumenopolis, you first need to unlock the associated Ascension Perk. The ascension perk is only available for non-gestalt empires, and requires the new Anti-Gravity Engineering technology.

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Once you have the ascension perk, a decision will appear on your colonized planets. To be able to enact the decision, you need your planet to be entirely filled with only City Districts, in addition to the cost.

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Ecumenolopises replace the regular districts with special districts available only to the ecumenopolis. These districts are Residential Arcology, Foundry Arcology, Industrial Arcology and Leisure Arcology. These districts are more powerful and provide a lot more jobs than regular districts. Additionally, Ecumenopolisis provide a bonus to pop growth and resource production for all jobs on the planet.

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The Arcology Project is a must for anyone wishing to build a truly "tall" planet.

Megastructures
MegaCorp is releasing with 4 new Megastructures:
  • Matter Decompressor
  • Strategic Coordination Center
  • Mega Art Installation
  • Interstellar Assembly
These new megastructures will be unlocked by the Galactic Wonders Ascension Perk.

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Megastructures have also received a balance pass to fit the new economy, and thus they now cost alloys to build instead of minerals.
Matter Decompressor
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The Matter Decompressor works similar to the dyson sphere, but using technology far too complex to try to explain here, it extracts minerals instead of energy. It has 4 levels which provide:
Minerals: 250/500/750/1000

Strategic Coordination Center
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The armored hull of the Strategic Coordination Center houses the cream of our military command, who devote their time to strategy and planning in this state-of-the-art facility. It has 3 levels and provide the following effects:
Naval Capacity: 75/150/225
Starbase Capacity: 5/10/15
Defense Platforms: 8/16/24
Sublight Speed: 5%/10%/15%

Mega Art Installation
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An artistic beacon on a stellar scale, this installation inspires and represents the spirit of its creators. The Mega Art Installation also has 3 levels, but with the following effects:
Unity: 100/200/300
Amenities: 5%/10%/15%

Interstellar Assembly
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A meeting place for galactic powers, increasing immigration attraction and global opinion of us. The Interstellar Assembly has 4 levels with the following effects:
Immigration Pull: 25%/50%/75%/100%
Other empire's opinion: 10/20/30/50

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Don’t forget to tune in today to our Twitch stream at 15:00 CET for the Stellaris dev clash. The campaign will begin its second session, and you would not want to miss it!

That's all for this week, folks. Come back next week when we will be talking about The Caravaneers.
 

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Ecumenopoli are the best way to play tall you say, but I just want to confirm: they cannot create their own food, no? It doesn't read like they can from your list of districts and it wouldn't make much sense for them to do so somehow but just checking.

Seconding the question about megastructure build times. Are they being shortened or are we allowed to build in parallel now? After all, if I am a huge empire, why wouldn't we be able to bulid multiple at once? Or is this being adjusted, now that pops actually have more jobs to fill, by having to have enough pops to devote to temporary "megastructure construction" jobs? If not, would you consider that? It'd provide even a smaller empire of the option of building in parallel, at a cost of course - those pops aren't doing anything else while they build the megastructure, of course.
 
Ecumenopoli are the best way to play tall you say, but I just want to confirm: they cannot create their own food, no? It doesn't read like they can from your list of districts and it wouldn't make much sense for them to do so somehow but just checking.

Seconding the question about megastructure build times. Are they being shortened or are we allowed to build in parallel now? After all, if I am a huge empire, why wouldn't we be able to bulid multiple at once? Or is this being adjusted, now that pops actually have more jobs to fill, by having to have enough pops to devote to temporary "megastructure construction" jobs? If not, would you consider that? It'd provide even a smaller empire of the option of building in parallel, at a cost of course - those pops aren't doing anything else while they build the megastructure, of course.
Megastructure construction jobs sound like a great idea to balance them for bigger empires. In any case I would love to be able to construct at least gateways and such on the side of the big ones.
 
I think that I would be cool to see a megastructure for ship building such as a deep space shipyard. Something similar to the star forge in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Rrpublic. Also what if the interstellar assembly was something that only be built once in the galaxy and that empire who controlled it got other bonuses for it since it would become the de facto place for negotiating peace treaties in the galaxy.
 
Does a Ecumenopolis have any downsides besides to turn all districts into city districts before turning the planet into an Ecumenopolis?
Can special districts still be build on City-Worlds or only arcology districts?
 
Two questions, will the habitability of an Ecumenopolis be 100%? It feels a bit strange that a city world has the same habitability as a Gaia world, maybe 80% like worlds similar to your home world, so that with the 4 habitability technologies reach 100%.

And the other question is about the Gaia worlds, are they going to change just like the Machine worlds with the 2.2?
 
So Driven Assimilators are locked out of both Machine Worlds as well as the Ecumenopolis?

Maybe they and Hives could get some kind of Central Mind World?
Other than that, loving it all. :)
 
I hope that the hiveworld idea becomes a thing, machines have their machineworlds if non machine empire are getting those citywide planets then hiveminds must get something similar !

Can we turn a ring world into giant Ecumenopolis?

I love your idea i imagine a ringworld covered in metal and cities with a pop capability of 500 or something like that i hope it can be moddable at least.

Ecumenopolis for driven assimilators would be nice.
 
Can we turn a ring world into giant Ecumenopolis?

I expect not, as ringworlds already have unique districts.

Two questions, will the habitability of an Ecumenopolis be 100%? It feels a bit strange that a city world has the same habitability as a Gaia world, maybe 80% like worlds similar to your home world, so that with the 4 habitability technologies reach 100%.

Arcologies are totally self contained environments, they're more like habitats than a planet.