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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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Will the precursor home planet of the first league be a abondened ecumenopolis? The Story behind that precursor empire implies that, with the former inhabitants all dead, because of lack of Food. Always thought that the Buildings and the planets ability to enable life there shouldnt be harmed just by its former Population starved.
 
I really don't like how much stuff is locked behind ascension perks. Stuff like Colossi, Habitats, and City Planets are pretty standard stuff for late-game empires and should be unlocked via tech trees. Ascension slots should be saved for Ascensions that give your empire a particular defining flavor like bio/psi/cyber.
 
Interstellar Assembly seems a bit weak, right?
Worst part is not even "weak" it's also too late.
If you want to make federation and stuff, then you most likely go into diplomacy as 1-2 pick and begin collecting allies around 2230-50 (and same happens in dev stream of 2.2).
The diplomacy building of the late game should be about totally different thing instead of "opinion modifier" (which is also totally useless in MP)
Some ideas:
- more federation fleet
- a federation fleet war doctrine, based on how to use diversity of the ships
- an option to use some of your allies techs, traditions and options - like asking them to tech your pops on your planets to be psionic, if they went psi path; or to build habitats for your ally, if he skiped this perk
- more trade value from trade pacts
- better research agreement bonuses
- maybe spawning new anomalies in your territory for your allies (like "we found here something, but we could not understand this at all, maybe you'll try?)
 
So, if we can turn planets into cities, how about adding the ability to Eicumenopolize habitats and ring-worlds? Kinda tired of the boring and unpractical "let's place lakes and forests in a space station" eco-trope. And how about an ability for the machine empires to machineworldize those space structures?
 
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. :)

Driven Assimilators aren't locked out of machine worlds at all. Of course, if your choosing to only expand by conquest or if you migrate and colonize alot with cyborg pops then you won't be able to build them but thats a pretty reasonable trade off for their ridiculous CB that can be used against any organic.
 
Driven Assimilators aren't locked out of machine worlds at all. Of course, if your choosing to only expand by conquest or if you migrate and colonize alot with cyborg pops then you won't be able to build them but thats a pretty reasonable trade off for their ridiculous CB that can be used against any organic.
AFAIK Driven Assimilators can't get the tech. Or was that change reverted?
 
AFAIK Driven Assimilators can't get the tech. Or was that change reverted?

Oh sorry, guess I never noticed they removed they option and replaced it with gaia worlds. Havent played an assimilator for a few months. If thats the case then they certainly should be able to make city worlds, or have modified machine worlds with life support for organics at some kind of cost. Or, you know, just add machine worlds back in and make it so they have to be very careful that there are no organics on the planet, like before the change.
 
You know, the more I think about megastructures, the more I’m leaning toward the ‘anyone should be able to build them’ camp. I think they should be prohibitively expensive in materials and time to build, but with perks like Master Builders making them reasonable, particularly for tall empires. Compare to CK2/EU4 and missionaries. Anyone can use that mechanic, but its a waste of time and effort if you’re not planning around it - and there are builds (confucian) for which it makes sense no to.

EDIT: Also, such perks could make them cheaper to research (each megastructure would have its own tech). Put a bunch of soft caps in, in other words.
 
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Will Ecumenopolis count as a planet class like tropic vs tundra vs gaia or will we be able to have planets that are both Gaia AND Ecumenopolis? If you terraform a planet into a gaia world and then into Ecumenopolis will it lose its gaia bonuses?
 
The city planet is here.
To create a Ecumenopolis, you first need to unlock the associated Ascension Perk (Arcology Project).
The ascension perk is only available for non-gestalt empires, and requires the new Anti-Gravity Engineering technology.
01. I'm fully on board in regards to the city-worlds, but it seems to be, that the terms "arcology" + "anti-grav-engineering" are very inappropriate ...
(As far as I know, an "arcology" contains the aspects of architecture and ecology (in the sense of self-sufficiency), but such a city-world is certainly not self-sufficient (food-production for example (for its POPs)) + "Anti-grav-engineering" seems to be not that necessary at all) ...
(If any, I would relate this to habitats and ring-worlds) ...
02. Rethink your technology-/(tradition)-/ and ascension-perk-system since it becomes more and more a mess, why "what-ever" is a technology, tradition or a-perk + Overlaps or / and rather inappropriate terms don't make this situation better + It's certainly not necessary to restrict limited or mutually exclusive choices (only) into the a-perk-system.
 
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Will Ecumenopolis count as a planet class like tropic vs tundra vs gaia or will we be able to have planets that are both Gaia AND Ecumenopolis? If you terraform a planet into a gaia world and then into Ecumenopolis will it lose its gaia bonuses?
Probably. A Gaia world isn't really a gaia world if you've paved it over :p
 
I love the new mega-structures, but I worry a little about balance. Specifically, it seems like there's very little reason for any empire not to pick galactic wonders as an ascension perk.

I get that maybe this will even out as more "cool" ascension perks get added to the game and competition increases for the slots, but with all the megastructures tied to one perk the potential bonuses are really big.
 
I need of this update and DLC and I need them NOW!