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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.

upload_2019-5-2_11-37-8.png


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.

upload_2019-5-2_11-37-45.png


upload_2019-5-2_11-37-59.png

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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I really hoped that Diplomacy rework will be the next thing and what most people agree is lacking in current game and makes it feel shallow in mid-late game, but instead we get this, sigh...
 
I really hoped that Diplomacy rework will be the next thing and what most people agree is lacking in current game and makes it feel shallow in mid-late game, but instead we get this, sigh...
Dude. We JUST had an enormous game-changing rework in 2.2, and you're expecting another one immediately after?

2.0 - Big Change
2.1 - Smaller Stuff
2.2 - Big Change
2.3 - Looking Like Smaller Stuff
2.4 - Looking Like Bigger Stuff (And devs have all-but-confirmed this will be the diplomacy thing people keep harping on and on about)
 
Again, this looks like interesting content, but I'm still going to post here clamoring for a diplomacy overhaul or galactic congress DLC. Interacting with other empires is pretty bland right now and improving this would really make the galaxy feel more alive.
 
I really hoped that Diplomacy rework will be the next thing and what most people agree is lacking in current game and makes it feel shallow in mid-late game, but instead we get this, sigh...
This is likely just a break between major reworks. They already had 2 (Apocalypse/Megacorp) within a year. That's a lot of work. And you know what was in between that? Distant stars. I suspect a similar thing is the case here. And a lot of people, including me, think they're using this smaller update to give them more time to work on the next overhaul.
 
The two new precursors sound really promising and I am looking forward to discover them!

However I would like to state that the new artifact system seems extremely bland to me. You use some resource, get an instant bonus, no story or explanation. In the case of Irassian it's just and only "They were good biologists, now we will be good biologists"... It seems arbitrary to me, and if it will be introduced like this I'd rather not have it. Just my honest opinion, I respect if others disagree with this.
 
Again, this looks like interesting content, but I'm still going to post here clamoring for a diplomacy overhaul or galactic congress DLC. Interacting with other empires is pretty bland right now and improving this would really make the galaxy feel more alive.
Look at it this way: the post above yours mentioned that the next big update (2.4) will be this diplomacy overhaul.
However, before we rework the Living Galaxy, let's rework the Dead Galaxy!
 
The thought alone that I will have to remember this and constantly apply this manually is already rather tiresome.
I don't think you'd have to. Looking at the event, I can't see a time limit on the bonus. It seems a one-time permanent deal.
 
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.



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.


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.

---

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 :)
Any chances we'll get a chance to find more than one precursor chain per game?
 
That's a new concept in this game. At present hivemind is quite aggressive.

Non hive-minded pops can't coexist with the hive.

Hivemind can also easily appear to be hostile to other empires and rarely coexists with others.

So how about making a "peaceful" type of hivemind which focus more on diplomacy rather than expansion?

Even the ME contains both Rogue Servitor and Determined Exterminator while HM has only Devouring Swarm and normal HM which is also aggressive.
 
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Looks like fun, but I'm also afraid you will make this DLC more expensive than it should be, but we'll see I guess. I hope it's not €10 unless there's much more here.
 
The precursors should be a game long event chain, even possibly tying into the crisis. I'm envisioning you find the home world, and you can keep having events where things are found, possibly tying into an overall narrative. Also some precursors may have dealt with different crises, and studying them might help you.

It could make sense that certain precursors would have a connection to a crisis, and increases the chance of that crisis appearing.
Especially if that crisis was related to the precursor's fall.
 
Will the home system spawn like it does currently?
I would love for them to be added to the same star cluster as the star they connects to rather than always being their own.
So now there will be 6 precursors to find? Ooh, that's cool. Looking forward to finding them! Some questions first

- Could the First league homeworld be made smaller? Like 15 instead of 25? Still powerful, but not ridiculously powerful? I've also seen things about making it a ruined Ecum instead, that can be fixed without the perk
- Could some precursor systems get things like tomb worlds with special features? Could tie in well with digsites.

- The changes to current precursors like Irrasians is good, but wouldn't that make Cybrex/1st league even more powerful as well? Making it almost a neutral change? Or is there more to it you haven't said? (I find that likely)​
I really think this is the wrong way to do this, the right way is two fold
  1. Buildings on Ecumenopoles cost alloys rather than minerals, the way you usually get them it doesn't matter you have plenty of alloys at that point anyway, but it makes the early one a lot weaker.
  2. Fen Habbanis' tileblockers can only be cleared with the right techs.
    (Edit: Screw clearing titleblockers by tech, make them unclearable by normal means and place one of these archeological things on the planet, then you have a series of events for gradually unlocking Fen Habbanis)

Give the ringworld one intact segment covered in blockers, like the First League has.
That's not a bad idea, give all of the precursor systems more of a ramp into being good.
Will the AI now go out and discover precursor systems? Being able to go on a stellar crusade to conquer home systems would be cool. But the only one that gets discovered is the one in your part of the galaxy, because the ai seems to never get the anomalies.
Yeah that would be really cool.
The Zroni kinda reminds me of The Ancient in Stargate series.
You cannot tell the depth of the river, until you see the bottom
I already hate you for it! :mad:
Yeah my reaction was also "Noo" but then I realized it's probably better for balance, but I will miss getting the chance to restart when I am in the territory of one of the boring ones.
 
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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.
That would be amazing as an end-goal for a Psionic Ascension empire - reminiscent of the Transcendence victory condition from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.
 
What i find lacking about precursors, is that they can potentially be a large part of early mid game, and afterwards, its like they never exsisted.
Gaining acces to their homeworld is one thing, but would it be possible to have events or technologies connected to them or their homeworlds? they could start between 50-100 years after colonization, afterwhich a random pop discovers something :)
 
Is the "Secrets of the Irassians" effect subject to expiration, or is it permanent? Will the research bonus scale with tech output or is it fixed (it seems small!)?
 
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.
This, right here, makes the entire DLC better than sex with a trained professional.
 
That would be amazing as an end-goal for a Psionic Ascension empire - reminiscent of the Transcendence victory condition from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.

Eternity lies ahead of us... and behind. Have you drunk your fill?
 
So tangentially related to the dd (the bonus to society tech made me think it), will you give us more ways to customise our tech production? Not sure why you removed the different research labs but as things stand I always have loads more society than the others, especially engineering.
 
Do anyone know or remember, if all the precursors lived in the same time? If so, i have an idea for some adittional fluff. Let's add some story about how they interfered with one another and give us the option to find some places where they have fought or where they any other kind of interaction. Certainly that has to be more specifically, but sounds interesting to me. What you think about it?