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Stellaris Dev Diary #146 - The Baol and The Zroni

Hello everyone!

As promised last week, we’re back to talk about something old that’s new – which, as many of you correctly guessed, is about new precursors. Adding new precursors has been something we’ve been wanting to do for quite a while now, and we’re very happy that we can now finally provide what’s been asked for.

In the next DLC you will be able to explore the fate of two new precursors, namely the Baol and the Zroni. To not spoil too much, I’ll only give a basic description of their respective backgrounds and lore.

The Baol
The Baol Organism was once a sprawling interstellar Hive Mind comprised of trillions of psychically-linked plantoids. With their ability to slowly terraform a planet's ecosystem and atmospheric gases via centuries of sustained photosynthetic processes, the Baol civilization produced a plethora of rich flora and fauna on otherwise unremarkable worlds. The Baol Organism curated lush planetary gardens and arboretums across many systems, forming mutualistic symbiotic relationships with local alien wildlife.

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The Zroni
The Zroni were possibly the most powerful psionics to have ever existed, or at least they were the first to discover the dimension which has come to be known as The Shroud. Once the Zroni population reached a certain critical mass it seems that their collective unconscious minds began to make contact with the proto-shroud in dreams, leading to mass lucid dreaming. Soon the phenomenon was studied and the Zroni discovered how to psionically project themselves into the Shroud, where they found that they could manipulate the very fabric of reality with their psionic powers. It wasn't long before the Zroni discovered they could physically enter the Shroud and live like Gods, transforming the dimension to suit their whims.

Precursor changes
One of the more impactful changes we’ve made is that we have now made the precursor spawns randomized so that they will no longer spawn in a specific part of the galaxy.

We have also added some more features and rewards to the old precursors. For example, after having found the Irassian home system, you can now spend minor artifacts to unravel some of the secrets of the Irassians. The new artifact actions aren’t the only new things though, and there’s some more cool things that you will be able to find.

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Additional precursor plans
Some of you have been asking about archaeology and adapting some of the old precursor content to use the new system. In regards to that question I will say that it is something that I always planned to do, but due to other things taking priority we can’t promise that it will happen immediately. If those changes don’t make it into the next update, it's very likely they will appear in the next big update after that. Changing that content would of course still be a part of the base game.

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That is all we had to share for this week’s dev diary. Next week we’ll be back again, which also happens to be the 3 year anniversary for Stellaris :)
 
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"One of the more impactful changes we’ve made is that we have now made the precursor spawns randomized so that they will no longer spawn in a specific part of the galaxy."

Noooo! My first league save scumming!
 
Would it be at all possible to (at some point) have unique rewards from precursor events if you're playing a race that aligns with them (ex. machine empire finding Cybrex, xenophile finding first league world, etc.). I think it would add an interesting variable to games with the new randomized precursor locations.
 
Yeah xD I assume that their home system will have Zro. And then you get a higher, or guarenteed chance of getting psionics. But I wonder what the reward should be if you're a hive mind or ME.
They should have Zro on their home system. Maybe it can be a Gaia World, or Tomb World. That resource is too much of a pain in the buttocks to try to find. Sometimes it won't even spawn in the galaxy!
 
Looking cool, and explains where the heck the name "zro dust" comes from, but... I just realized "zroni" rhymes with "brony", and this terrible revelation has infested my mind, if not my soul like something out of an Alexis Kennedy game. I'm so sorry for telling you all this.
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They should have Zro on their home system. Maybe it can be a Gaia World, or Tomb World. That resource is too much of a pain in the buttocks to try to find. Sometimes it won't even spawn in the galaxy!
I mean, logically speaking, it kind of has to be a shrouded world. Although perhaps you could have a chance to turn it into a gaia world like that other one.
 
"One of the more impactful changes we’ve made is that we have now made the precursor spawns randomized so that they will no longer spawn in a specific part of the galaxy."

Noooo! My first league save scumming!
With this week's DD, we discover just how many people reroll until they get a First League start :D
 
Will their AI actually have them do something or will their AI have them just sit there like War in the Heavens?
They won't have any AI at all because they're precursors. You know, the ones you find the decrepit home systems of but don't actually find them themselves?
 
Looking cool, and explains where the heck the name "zro dust" comes from, but... I just realized "zroni" rhymes with "brony", and this terrible revelation has infested my mind, if not my soul like something out of an Alexis Kennedy game. I'm so sorry for telling you all this.

That was supposed to be fun or what? o_O
 
With this week's DD, we discover just how many people reroll until they get a First League start :D
It is kind of a must if you add in mods and stuff that increases difficulty. Lower the crisis start dates as low as possible and you'll have problem knocking on your door. Had a Khan that spawned after 50 years and my border stronghold barely held against the onslaught of his fleets as he ate 5 other empires before he got assassinated. The surviving Khanate is only weaker than the Fallens and all my effort is put into fortifying the only system that borders them.
 
@grekulf

how do you name the plureal for Baol, "Baols", "Baole", anything else?
same for Zroni, "Zronii", "Zronis", "Zronix"?

I don't want to misspell that in my french translation ^^
 
I think this could work really well with the other precursors once you've completed the anomaly quest line. You could then station a scientist on one of the worlds and generate minor artefacts fairly often, which would then either outright give or give you a boost towards specific technologies.

The Vultaum came to realise their world is a simulation and committed mass suicide, which makes for a nice boost towards society techs or physics/engineering ones that rely on groupthink like Deep Space Black Site. It could also have one that gives an outright bonus to influence, which would make it a much less disappointing precursor to get.

The Yuht were xenophobes and a bit daft, but they had powerful weaponry that we could re-purpose the designs for, giving a boost to certain weapons techs.

The Irrassians were destroyed by a possibly bio-engineered plague that targeted their weakened immune system. We could be put on the fast track to genetic modification this way, with a scientist on their homeworld having a chance to give 10/20% to the next genemod tech.

Not huge bonuses by any means, but they'd be useful for people looking to rush certain techs. Also, I'd make these available for anyone who occupies a precursor world that had an anomaly, not just the homeworld. That way there'd be areas of the galaxy that lean towards certain types of technology due to reverse engineering precursor tech.
 
I'm sorry if this question has been asked, but are there plans to convert at least some anomalies into archaeological projects?

You cannot tell the depth of the river, until you see the bottom
Though a candle burns in my house, there's nobody home.