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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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If I might make a suggestion, perhaps you could allow mining/research stations to be upgraded to a habitat (possibly at a slightly reduced price?/without the need for a construction ship?) instead of having to disassemble them?
 
Or paradox can just make the AI not bonedead stupid to appeal to lesser players.
Well, good on you for not being a lesser player. Now kindly excise your head from your rear entrance.
 
Thanks again for trying to make this game always better. :)

I think most stuff looks good, but I wonder about the RW changes...

Could you show off all other segment options please? Also, does this 5% bonus stack? I.e. if I build 5 Agri segments in the same section, will all farmers working here get +25% bonus? In this case it's begging for section specialization...

Yes, that would be interesting to know.

Though one thing I'm a bit worried about is Amenities, given you can have like 20 Researcher Slots to fill before your pops taking Clerk worker jobs but uh, I guess just build a holotheater?

I was telling me the same, but I think it ties in to another question :

Will the buildings still be capped at 75 pops ?

Because if the segments are just size 10 districts, and just one urban/habitation/residential/housing segment is providing 80 housings and 20 jobs, it's the same scalability issue as now.
- 400 housings possible, but only buildings for 75 pops... best case scenario 258 jobs (same as current version if 80 housing comes with 20 jobs).
- even with 5 farming segments, you get 100 pops and 100 jobs, so you can't use any buildings if you can't build additional housing as buildings in a RW to put in relation with the building-generated jobs.
EDIT: you can in the current, which makes for flexibility in the builds but still feels off... in terms of layout.

I understand that you need a limit on the number of buildings because otherwise you'd grow indefinitely using Luxury Residences/Paradise Domes on planets or place where they are allowed.

But Why not tie the cap to the pop number AND the size of the urban area size that is built? And/Or allow more buildings (or certain type of buildings) depending on the types of Districts/Arcology/Segment types that are built on the Planet/Habitat/RingWorld/Ecumepolis ?

It would feel more related with the districts and actual layout of activities on the planet.

Currently, to a lesser extent than on RW:
- It feels odd to allow to build so many buildings on small planets.
In my current game I have small 10-sized planets that just have 10 resource (energy, mining and farming) districts, no space left for city districts, However you can still spam paradise domes to add more pop and megaplexes for amenities and jobs.

- It feels odd to limit on large planets when you have to build a large number (26+) of city districts due to lack or resource districts (or you neither need energy/minerals/food but something else), because you need the buildings that are the job providers, (when resource districts all provide the job and the housing...), and even filling all slots with Megaplexes don't provide enough jobs for more than 26 city districts.

- It feels odd for Habitats, that currently also have 16 slots, most of which will not get unlocked... unless you stack 8 Habitation Districts (with Master Builder Voidborne perk), but then you don't have the megaplex to spam enough jobs.

I admit that I'm using extreme examples that are not most cases for the planets and habitats, but this really shows with RW...

So I hope buildings will scale better too. But maybe that's not the problem. Or maybe there's no problem.
 
Not related to the Dev Diary, but could you overhaul some of the other civics? Nationalistic Zeal seems very meh, and Barbaric Despoiler seems weak and in need of something extra. There are others, but these are the ones on my mind.
 
Not related to the Dev Diary, but could you overhaul some of the other civics? Nationalistic Zeal seems very meh, and Barbaric Despoiler seems weak and in need of something extra. There are others, but these are the ones on my mind.
They have said in the past - around the time Warrior Culture got reworked - that they're looking into giving some other civics a facelift too.
 
Each district is 10x as powerful as planetside districts. So that's still 50 districts basically, but with the sprawl of 5. So no nerf.
Your point being? I never talked about balance, I talked about esthetics -mainly- and about flexibility. I don't care how overpowered those 5 districts are, it stay just 5 districts.
 
Your point being? I never talked about balance, I talked about esthetics -mainly- and about flexibility. I don't care how overpowered those 5 districts are, it stay just 5 districts.
Who cares?

Like, seriously. Ringworlds getting special "Segment" districts that are ultra-powerful works fine for me. The fact that they're super-powerful is what makes them impressive, not the raw number- especially when the "raw number" was what was making Ringworlds subpar.
 
Would these changes be available soon in stellaris_test branch, or will them only be available in next major version?

By the way, I think the technology to build gateways should also be easier to reach. There should also be some more ways to establish new wormhole pairs.
 
Who cares?

Like, seriously. Ringworlds getting special "Segment" districts that are ultra-powerful works fine for me. The fact that they're super-powerful is what makes them impressive, not the raw number- especially when the "raw number" was what was making Ringworlds subpar.
Sure, I agree, but 5 is too few. It means no modularity at all, and yes, at some points ethetism does matter, Stellaris is still very barebone in a lot of area, it needs a better ambiance.
 
Yep, definitely. But there's some things in between that need to be fixed first. Like just knowing how to specialize (or at least properly balance) their worlds will probably make a great difference.

I agree. There's a LOT of the AI's game that's got room for improvement. Then again having brute force [mega structures & arcology + difficulty bonuses] won't hurt :)
 
Sure, I agree, but 5 is too few. It means no modularity at all, and yes, at some points ethetism does matter, Stellaris is still very barebone in a lot of area, it needs a better ambiance.
I disagree with... well, just about everything.
 
Not related to the Dev Diary, but could you overhaul some of the other civics? Nationalistic Zeal seems very meh, and Barbaric Despoiler seems weak and in need of something extra. There are others, but these are the ones on my mind.
Read between the lines. That's the next DLC/story pack. I'm excited.
 
Are you kidding me with these Ringworld changes?

They are Ringworlds they are supposed to feel vast.

I mean really from 50 to 5? How is that not a completely unwarranted nerf, regardless of how powerful the districts are?

I mean a habitat has 6 and each Ringworld segment has 5. I mean abstraction aside why does the much smaller habitat have more space then a single Ringworld segment?

Maybe I'm missing something but I'm floored by this change?

Why are we turning the great Ringworlds into slightly better habitats. They are supposed to feel vast not like 4 Habitats strung together.
Dont forget they will be MUCH more admin cap efficient, exactly what a tall ring world playthrugh would need. I just hope those 5 districts will be powerful enough.
 
Dont forget they will be MUCH more admin cap efficient, exactly what a tall ring world playthrugh would need. I just hope those 5 districts will be powerful enough.
Yes but this segment didn't seem particularly impressive. I hope they are indeed strong enough. Also perhaps it would be better if finally they combine the 4 parts of the ring world into one made out of 20 such segments. Then it will still feel big. Though those segments will then have to be made even stronger to make up for the loss of building slots. :D
 
Habits have a base habitability of 80%? I assume this will be affected by the various +5% technologies (otherwise it'd be quite inconsistent); which means by the time you get habitats, there's a good chance they will be at 100% anyway, which makes Voidborne kinda pointless. Maybe drop the base number to 60% instead?
 
Habits have a base habitability of 80%? I assume this will be affected by the various +5% technologies (otherwise it'd be quite inconsistent); which means by the time you get habitats, there's a good chance they will be at 100% anyway, which makes Voidborne kinda pointless. Maybe drop the base number to 60% instead?
If though they increase the penalties of habitability which they stated is sth they consider then will habitats still be worth building without Voidborne? They are kinda weak already.