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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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Best part of this dlc for me? It isn't likely to ONCE again completely ruin the AI, making the game unplayable for months.

I'd say this is intentional, as this is likely going to be a minor DLC in which you only absolutely need artists and content creators, while the programmers may focus on more complex issues such as the AI.
 
I will repeat what I said earlier.

We JUST had an enormous game-changing rework in 2.2, and you're expecting another one immediately after?

Expecting? No. Hoping? Yes.

But it might be that my memory was clouded and I mixed up Distant Stars with Megacorp. Although both Packs had some deep changes
 
I'm hoping the five old precursor systems get a rebalance. Currently fen habitis is too good and will continue to be so ...

Yes, it would be nice if you can lock it behind some tech like the ringworld of the cybrex. On the other Hand, colonizing the econompolis to early is going to wreck your economy because there is no way you will manage to get the raw material and Food quick enough up to feed the planet when it fills up.
 
For the THIRD TIME:

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)

Not really *expecting*. However, what I am saying is that if this company wants me, as one player and customer, to buy further DLC, then these are some of the things I will be expecting at some point. I might buy the next DLC - depending on the full content - I'll wait and see. Doubtful, though, if it's only about the sort of stuff discussed so far. I'll wait for the DLC and updates I'm looking for before spending another penny. Still, I expect Paradox will have plenty of players who will buy the upcoming offering - fair enough. I'm voting with my wallet.
 
still waiting for them to do a diplomacy/federation rewrite - overhaul. That to me should have been next not this
For the FOURTH TIME:

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)
 
Why everyone still complain when they say that they working on diplomacy and so one, be patient. I'm very hype on this DLC because as I can see we'll be giving so much more flavor and possibility to roleplaying (my favourite thing btw).
Stop complaining and just like in the others Dev Diary think about posibilities that this DLC will give us, please. I'm just so tired waiting for someone to write something worth reading here... and still seeing nothing productive
 
I'd say this is intentional, as this is likely going to be a minor DLC in which you only absolutely need artists and content creators, while the programmers may focus on more complex issues such as the AI.
It's like Daniel said. This DLC is planned in a way that will still let them address feedback about the core gameplay elements in the accompanying patch. I think it's a priority and sentiment that most of us here can agree with. :)
 
Adding more flavour is always welcome! Really like the sound of the archeology mechanics so far, for some slower, narrative-based players like it could really be fun
 
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 :)

this would be awesome! Personally I'd like to find weird outposts some of which might be colonisable, perhaps some special megastructures, perhaps a full on way to trigger them into being another crisis (like how the ancients left loads of questionable shit to be found).

I would love to colonize a planet only to discover afterwards that it has a Cybrex Outpost hidden on it which gives the planet a boost to something, perhaps giving bonusses to AI pops/races or switching pops into becoming full on synthetics. Or possibly an automated shipyard which allows you to build a special buidling on the starport to get more shipyard slots added. Or perhaps something which grants energy production, or science.

Perhaps you colonize a world only to unlock a failed research attempt by one of the great precursors which become a scourge on the galaxy or triggers a civil war in your empire, such as a people being taken into a failed hive mind or machine intelligence which you can then accept in full or try and fight.

I'd love storylines to be had for them
 
I'm hoping for:

2.3 - Looks Like smaller stuff (as you said)
2.4 - 64bit
2.5 - small stuff / races / stories / bugfixes / ai...
2.6 - diplomacy

Get Diplomacy done first so then you have the final base mechanic in, then spend ages rewriting everything for 64bit later and utilise the full functionality that provides. Stellaris without diplomacy atm feels like a really good 'Command & Conquer' in space. I want that added empire simulation it currently lacks outside of warfare.
 
still waiting for them to do a diplomacy/federation rewrite - overhaul. That to me should have been next not this
I'm fairly sure we all want those things too. Smaller content packs allow the programmers and game designers time to do the big things like that.

I also want more things like this too though. So I'll be getting this day one too.

I'd expect the next big update will focus on diplomacy. My only wish for that is that management actually give them the devs the time needed instead of it being out the gate a couple of months too early as they've done with the last two major updates.
 
I'm hoping for:

2.3 - Looks Like smaller stuff (as you said)
2.4 - 64bit
2.5 - small stuff / races / stories / bugfixes / ai...
2.6 - diplomacy
Not likely. IIRC Stellaris is not planed to migrate onto Clausewitz x64 because that would require too much work which hardly can be funded via DLC.

If it ever does, I reckon that will be Stellaris 3 (or 4) :)
 
Not likely. IIRC Stellaris is not planed to migrate onto Clausewitz x64 because that would require too much work which hardly can be funded via DLC.

If it ever does, I reckon that will be Stellaris 3 (or 4) :)
A 64 bit update will be coming. They don't really have much choice seeing as they're selling the game on Macs which I believe when the new Mac OS releases close to the end of the year will only support 64 bit apps.
Just because they haven't announced it yet doesn't mean it's not happening. EU4 is going to be 64 bit, as is HOI4 apparently, Stellaris will too.