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Stellaris Dev Diary #144 - Megastructures, Habitats and Minor Artifacts

Hello everyone!

First of all, I’d like to follow up on last week’s dev diary by sharing some more things we’re trying out with Megastructures (and habitats!).

After all of that, we also have something new to talk about!

Let’s start from the beginning – which of course leads us to the Mega-Engineering technology itself.

As always, numbers may not be final and temporary things may be sighted.

Mega-Engineering
Mega-Engineering is still a rare technology, but will now be more likely to appear as you build more Habitats and Citadels. This means it is way more likely to appear if you are performing actions in the game that would lead you towards the route of building larger and more powerful structures.

Master Builders
The Master Builders ascension perk no longer unlocks mega-engineering or adds size to habitats, but instead increases the number of megastructures you can simultaneously build by +1. What about increased habitat size you ask? Well, keep on reading!

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Habitats & Voidborne
Habitats are no longer locked behind the Voidborne ascension perk but is rather a technology that branches off from the Star Fortress technology. Habitats now have a default of 80% habitability. We’re also experimenting with that some of the habitat’s districts will depend on which planet they are built over. In case you build one above a planet with mining deposits, this could happen:

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Voidborne ascension perk now increases habitat size by +2 and increases Habitat habitability by 20%. This should mean it becomes more of a choice for specialization, rather than feeling it is a non-choice.

As a final note on habitats, it might be worthwhile to reiterate my thoughts that I eventually want to add different levels/sizes to habitats. It is however not something for the immediate future, but a little further down the road.

Ring Worlds
We didn’t quite like how Ring Worlds ended up feeling like a vast farm, so we’re making some changes. Instead of being a size 50 with regular districts, we’re changing it to a size 5 with a unique type of districts – segments. A Ring World, as you know, has 4 planets. Each planet can now build 5 segments, which are very powerful districts with many jobs and a lot of housing.

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Minor Artifacts
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Some of you might recognize the icon for what was supposed to become arcane technology, that partially got into 2.2. It was something that I was personally working on, but that didn’t work out as I had imagined it, and that I didn’t get enough time to finish with other things taking priority.

In the next upcoming DLC, you will be able to come across Minor Artifacts. “Minor Artifacts” is a broad term that includes any smaller and nameless artifact left behind by ancient civilizations. They are never gained passively every month, but will rather have to be found.

What are they used for, I imagine you asking? Well, the basic functionality is that they can be consumed in so-called artifact actions. There are a bunch of different actions that can be performed by consuming Minor Artifacts, with varying effects for each.

Some of these actions will be locked behind a technology, which some may also recognize.

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Arcane Deciphering allows you to consume Minor Artifacts for a random technology-related bonus.

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That’s it for this week! Happy Easter everyone! Next week we’ll be back again :)

P.S. Attaching an Easter present

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You still have to upgrade every step in sequence, if that is what you mean.

Consider reworking this, now that the build capacity is increased.

A Dyson sphere is not a cake, where layer is built upon layer.
It's a frame, with sets of panels covering it. Once the frame is in place, there is no logic that the upgrades should follow in sequence until the whole star is entombed.
 
I think so too, but take into account that would mean an indirect buff to machine empires.
It'd also be interesting to have some negative habitability modifiers on robots. These would only be visable to robots, but some could have too corrosive of an atmosphere, or too high/low of a temperature. Not sure what kind of effects this would have though. More maintenance, and lower production maybe? I don't know.
 
I still believe that main weight of Mega-Engineering can be safely increased as it would just unlock the research options for building megastructures, which are rare technologies themselves, rather than allow to build all the megas.

Your proposed approach is interesting but wouldn't it lead to a situation, where wide conquerors more likely get the research option as they simply have more starbases through conquering rather than building them?




YES! Thank you so much for this. It's the buff, RWs needed terribly. Fair buffs for Dyson Sphere and Matter Decopressor. Would Science Nexus yeild be encreased as well?

Science Nexus can be buildt without using a perk, unlike Dyson's Spheres, so my guess is they wont be buffed, at least not by 4 like the Dyson.
 
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Consider reworking this, now that the build capacity is increased.

A Dyson sphere is not a cake, where layer is built upon layer.
It's a frame, with sets of panels covering it. Once the frame is in place, there is no logic that the upgrades should follow in sequence until the whole star is entombed.

Sure... but having 2 cooks on one cake doesn't make it much better :p
 
It'd also be interesting to have some negative habitability modifiers on robots. These would only be visable to robots, but some could have too corrosive of an atmosphere, or too high/low of a temperature. Not sure what kind of effects this would have though. More maintenance, and lower production maybe? I don't know.

It would also make sense. A robot built by a desert-dwelling species would not be built to withstand high air humidity, making worlds with vast oceans highly inhospitable to them.
 
Consider reworking this, now that the build capacity is increased.

A Dyson sphere is not a cake, where layer is built upon layer.
It's a frame, with sets of panels covering it. Once the frame is in place, there is no logic that the upgrades should follow in sequence until the whole star is entombed.

Hi lad. They just increased the Dyson Sphere output by 4, and you think it's a good idea to be able to build it twice as fast as well?
 
Love the changes on habitats, i'd love to get the same approach with the other megastructures, something like: research mega engineering-----> research dyson sphere---->build a dyson sphere (or a debuffed version of that) ---->get galactic wonders to get a bonus to the income for the dyson sphere (and other megastructures) but nothing more.

It would be like "everyone can build a big station but your empire it's able to build a really good one"

Or just move some megastructures on other perks/tradition/don'tknowwhere.
Right now the galactic wonder ascension perk is just too good compared to most of the other perks, maybe the best one for the late game, with the ability to build 2 megastructures at the same time and the bigger chance to get mega engineering it will be even better.
 
Sure... but having 2 cooks on one cake doesn't make it much better :p

Hi lad. They just increased the Dyson Sphere output by 4, and you think it's a good idea to be able to build it twice as fast as well?

Yes. Because it makes sense with the +1 build capacity.
It's a megastructure whose size is comparable to major stellar objects.
There's room for plenty of chefs to cooperate in finishing it, once the frame is in place.

I get that construction of ringworlds vs construction of other megastructures differ from a game mechanics perspective.
But with extra build capacity, reworking the construction mechanics is relevant in order to make use of the build capacity.
 
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While this will probably be buried...

"Minor" Artifacts? Does this mean there will be "MAJOR" Artifacts?

One of my favorite little things in Megacorp is the Galatron. Rare chance to get it, that can lead to wars being fought over it's possession.

Adding more Major Artifacts in the same vein would be an incredibly fun reason to go to war in the midgame, especially if you're playing Tall and don't particularly want to expand all that much
 
While this will probably be buried...

"Minor" Artifacts? Does this mean there will be "MAJOR" Artifacts?

One of my favorite little things in Megacorp is the Galatron. Rare chance to get it, that can lead to wars being fought over it's possession.

Adding more Major Artifacts in the same vein would be an incredibly fun reason to go to war in the midgame, especially if you're playing Tall and don't particularly want to expand all that much

The prefix "minor" was only really added to signify that they are anonymous, not individually important. The future will have more information :)

Also, the Galatron is cool, yes. Very cool.
 
Looking into doing that, yeah.

I had another thought regarding habitat districts: would the planet type impact potential "deposits" for the habitat. Like, if I build the habitat around a gas giant, I can find some Rare Gases for extraction. Maybe go so far as to have special Extraction districts that produce Rare Gases on their own. The limited number of districts in the habitat helps keep that from getting too out of hand.
 
Ring Worlds
We didn’t quite like how Ring Worlds ended up feeling like a vast farm, so we’re making some changes. Instead of being a size 50 with regular districts, we’re changing it to a size 5 with a unique type of districts – segments. A Ring World, as you know, has 4 planets. Each planet can now build 5 segments, which are very powerful districts with many jobs and a lot of housing.
So how does making farms larger makes Ring Worlds less of a "vast farm", again? Were you to, say, double amount of building slots (to match ridiculous amount of pops) - that would make Ring Worlds feel more unique.
 
1) I like this although I still think base megastructure build limits should be connected to the number of pops you have. A 2000 pop empire should naturally be able to build more in parallel than a 20 pop empire, even if the latter has Master Builders.


Yeah. China should be able to build 7 times more Space rockets then Russia, since they have more people in China.
 
I like the idea of the artifacts quite a bit, but if all it does is give tech boosts for existing techs it feels like a missed opportunity. These should lead to unique techs, events or even limited-time-use buildings or even limited equipment on ships.