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Stellaris Dev Diary #183 : Memory Allocation

Chronicle Drone Unit-W3 swept the plaza, as it did once every ten days since its creation. Before that, Unit-V3 had performed this duty until a piece of crumbling masonry crushed it beneath tons of rubble. Unit-W3’s first assignment was to remove that debris.

The Mollarnock Commonwealth was once a mighty empire of a dozen planets, ruled from the glistening spires of their ecumenopolis capital, Azure Chalice. The Chardin Process created Director, a gestalt consciousness that could coordinate the many machine servants of the Mollarnock. They toiled so their Mollarnock masters could spend their time on arts, sciences, and philosophy.

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But all things fall.


The colonies had been destroyed during the Discovery War, reduced to radioactive rubble by an unforgiving foe. To deny their enemy the victory they craved and to prevent them from seizing the jewel of the empire, Chancellor Rhosen chose to end things on their own terms and released a terrible bioweapon, rendering Azure Chalice uninhabitable for centuries.

Those centuries passed.

The Chardin Mechanicals collected the dead and interred them with the Sanctuaries of Repose. Their struggle to maintain the planet was admirable but doomed - scavenging, repurposing, and reallocating materials could only do so much. Without a stream of resources coming from the colonies, they were losing the battle to keep it from decaying.

A program to return to the stars once controlled by their creators was begun.

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The Mollarnock may have destroyed themselves four hundred and eighty seven years ago, but they would never be forgotten.

---

Stellaris is full of stories - some that we tell you, but so many more that you tell us that emerge from the gameplay.

This is the story of the Mollarnock, destroyed by a terrible enemy and those that were left behind.

Memorialist is a new civic we have planned to bring you in a future release. Unlike many current civics, it will be available to regular, machine, and hive empires. (They say that Megacorps try to resist remembering anything unless it directly impacts the next Quarterly Report.)

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Machine Empire Memorialist Civic

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Regular Empire Memorialist Civic

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Hive Empire Memorial Civic

Dedicated to remembering the fallen and studying the inevitability of death, Memorialists replace the Autochthon Monument set with a different series of buildings: the Sanctuary of Repose, Pillar of Quietus, and Galactic Memorial. These buildings provide Stability and Chronicler jobs, with additional benefits for Relic or Tomb Worlds. (Government Ethics Attraction for normal empires, and Deviancy reduction for gestalts.)

Gestalt Memorialists may take a slightly different and more philosophical view of death, seeking to learn the nature of something that they cannot truly understand.

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Sanctuary of Repose Building - Gestalt

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Sanctuary of Repose Building - Normal

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Pillar of Quietus Building - Gestalt

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Pillar of Quietus Building - Normal

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Galactic Memorial Building - Gestalt

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Galactic Memorial Building - Regular

Flat stability boosts of these magnitudes are extremely rare, especially in gestalt empires. The added benefits on Relic and Tomb Worlds provide a little bit of extra flavor.

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Chronicle Drone Job (Machine - the Hive version is similar but eats food or minerals as appropriate.)

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Death Chronicler Job

Memorialists (including gestalt ones) will also find that occasionally they may have access to more solemn responses (such as those sometimes restricted to Spiritualists) to certain events that happen throughout the game, perhaps making it attractive to those wishing to roleplay a kinder (if not necessarily gentler) hive. I’d recommend combining Memorialist and Empath for maximum fluffiness.

Next week we’ll see how far a Megacorp will go to maximize profits and also take a glimpse into life in the Mishar Cabal.

---

Chardin was the name of the Scientist I started with in charge of Engineering research when I made the Mollarnock Commonwealth, so got all the credit for the Chardin Process.
 
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This is the first time that different empire types have had the same (more or less) civic, isn't it? That's pretty neat. Did you just make three different versions of the same civic, or is there some tech under the hood that lets everyone share the same civic with the appropriate alterations?

Actually no. Diplomatic Corp/Empath/Public Relations Specialists for Normal/Hive/Corp.
 
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Actually no. Diplomatic Corp/Empath/Public Relations Specialists for Normal/Hive/Corp.
those are each their own civic even if they are near identical. memorialist will likely work the same since i don't think that a civic can be shared between gestalts and non gestalts code wise
 
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Oh man I have a great idea for this civic.

Void Dwellers + Fanatic Materialist + Xenophobe + Technocracy + Memorialist >> New Kryptonian Republic with Argo City as the capital habitat.

Someone make a DC Comics Namelist + Cityscapes and Shipset mod lol. Please? :p
 
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Thanks for this DD, got jabaited too with that title! :D

Anyways, can we just take a moment of silence that there are actually 2 devs answering questions and even QA got involved?

It was about the damn time! I hope it will stay this way for future DDs too. :)
 
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I always like to get new civics.

How does this compare to other stability increasing civics from a balance point of view? +15 stability is a lot, even if it is initially gated behind a tech. Assuming it is like other unity buildings it can be spammed for even more stability!
Previous stability civics give a lot less stability. Police state gives a static +5 and the unity from enforcers isn't really good. Shared burden is better by giving you the best housing buildings and a good living standard, but it also requires you to be fanatic egalitarian.
Byzantine bureaucracy is okay. It gives you stability for something you would do anyway.

The new civic looks like it is better than all of them. Can you take a look at the numbers again of improve the old ones? Eg make faction suppression cost no influence for police state or outright prevent non government factions from forming for a happiness malus to wrong ethic pops.
It seems a bit silly that a society of historians is more stable and state conform than a police state or communist utopia.

If this replaces the unity building how does it interact with spiritualists that get a unique unity building too? Is there a special memorial temple for them?

Edit: I forgot aristocratic elite, which is also a stability civic. A building slot and a working pop are needed to get 5 stability. It's advantage is you can build more buildings for more stability. Meanwhile the new civic gives 15 stability for a building slot and doesn't require working pops to work. It even saves you building slots, because you probably built culture buildings anyway. It gives you a bonus on tomb/relic worlds and more pop jobs that produce resources. Aristocratic elite is just in all ways inferior.
 
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01. So, the recent dev-diaries had just talked about ( ingame )-performance-optimisations, but without any actual results, right number one ? ( And yeah, I'm aware of the ( supposed ) results about ( outgame )-loading-times ). And now, we're starting again with business-as-usual and Paradox starts to present its new content ( civics, buildings, jobs etc. ) and most likely in preparation for DLC number 12, right number two ? Just a reminder, but civics, buildings, jobs etc. can be implemented by any hobby-modder him-/herself in order to bloat Stellaris with new content, but it's still stuff like ( ingame )-performance-optimisations that need to be solved by Paradox itself.

02. A civic that gives a building that A. increases stability, B. decreases deviancy / governing ethics attraction and offers jobs that produce C. society-(research)-points and D. unity: This is pretty much a prime-example on what Stellaris does "wrong": Too many indistinct options ( like this civic ) that don't concentrate on one production ( like just A or B or C or D ), but mixes too much stuff ( like A and B and C and D ) together.
 
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I always like to get new civics.

How does this compare to other stability increasing civics from a balance point of view? +15 stability is a lot, even if it is initially gated behind a tech. Assuming it is like other unity buildings it can be spammed for even more stability!
Previous stability civics give a lot less stability. Police state gives a static +5 and the unity from enforcers isn't really good. Shared burden is better by giving you the best housing buildings and a good living standard, but it also requires you to be fanatic egalitarian.
Byzantine bureaucracy is okay. It gives you stability for something you would do anyway.

The new civic looks like it is better than all of them. Can you take a look at the numbers again of improve the old ones? Eg make faction suppression cost no influence for police state or outright prevent non government factions from forming for a happiness malus to wrong ethic pops.
It seems a bit silly that a society of historians is more stable and state conform than a police state or communist utopia.

If this replaces the unity building how does it interact with spiritualists that get a unique unity building too? Is there a special memorial temple for them?
stability is useful but it's bonus resources aren't that amazing, and max stability can be achieved with amenity spam and not treating your people like crap. though of course that comes at the cost of the pops who produce the amenities and the opportunity cost of the extra resources you can get from treating your pops like crap
not to mention the fact that unless a world is stupidly populated(100+) the stability bonus isn't worth the cost in pops required to get it. unless you are seriously abusing your people
 
stability is useful but it's bonus resources aren't that amazing, and max stability can be achieved with amenity spam and not treating your people like crap. though of course that comes at the cost of the pops who produce the amenities and the opportunity cost of the extra resources you can get from treating your pops like crap
not to mention the fact that unless a world is stupidly populated(100+) the stability bonus isn't worth the cost in pops required to get it. unless you are seriously abusing your people

As a slaver you can treat your pops like crap and benefit from high stability, because slaves have barely any political power.

If stability is worth the civic slot is a discussion I don't want to have. My main issue with the civic is that other stability civics are nearly equal. Why should I take any of the others if this one is clearly superior?
 
because
As a slaver you can treat your pops like crap and benefit from high stability, because slaves have barely any political power.

If stability is worth the civic slot is a discussion I don't want to have. My main issue with the civic is that other stability civics are nearly equal. Why should I take any of the others if this one is clearly superior?

rp. the devs have given up on balance altogether and thus you must either mod the game to re balance things or simply use rp to justify it. even with a competent ai the advantage a human has over an ai is enough to compensate for terribly balanced mechanics. in multiplayer it's a bit more of an issue but that's what Stefan's perfectly balanced mod is for.
honestly when compared to the robot meta i would say that some civics being crap is near meaningless in terms of balance
 
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Why can't Determined Exterminators or Fanatic Purifers have the Civic? They're murdering everyone and setting up memorials celebrating that fact and/or proving the inferiority of the massacred population. Like how a certain dictator was planning to set up exhibits for the people he planned to have genocided.

A mixture of reasons, really — not least, wanting to make the civic relevant to a broader range of empires. There's quite a shift in tone, comparing an inward-looking and kind of morbid empire with one which seeks to revel in its own bloody victories! I dare say that also places different expectations on the kind of modifiers one would expect. Perhaps Exterminators and Purifiers would crave something a tad more... invigorating.

This is the first time that different empire types have had the same (more or less) civic, isn't it? That's pretty neat. Did you just make three different versions of the same civic, or is there some tech under the hood that lets everyone share the same civic with the appropriate alterations?

In a way, neither: there are subtle differences between each type of Memorialist civic, and so they stand alone to a certain extent. The hive and machine civics play out very similarly to each other and the 'regular' variant, of course — but we use script and loc. to help 'localise' them somewhat, making them more relevant. So the game treats them as separate civics, but with some shared elements.
 
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Pros:
-Flavor Based Civic
-Enough Modifiers to become relevant
-Gestalt Stability
-Unity for Machine empires.
-Promoting Remnants and especially the worst origin in the game, post apocalypse
-Strong overall stats.
-New Species Background + Cities.


Cons
-Slightly too specific flavorwise (does it have to be death centered?)
-Partially relying on Society and Unity output, an asset used over and over again.
-Overlapping with spiritualist niche
-Modifier based
-Downright outclassing other civics with the "take a building slot" cons invalidated since it's an uppgradable building.



Overall i'd say it's a welcome addition to stellaris, though it is a bit redudant and there are better sci-fi tropes out there.

Also lmao the tittle i almost didn't want to read it until friends of mine started mentionning "new civic", swap your xeno profile for the ketling you sneaky mamalians :p
 
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Small text thing: maybe it would be better to refer to "upgraded Sanctuaries" or something instead of Galactic Memorials in the Effects tooltip, since they're a nonstandard building? I know I racked my brains wondering if that was some Leviathan- or endgame-related thing I'd forgotten about, or if I'd missed another new feature.

(Related idea: Leviathan- or endgame-related memorials.)
 
More ways to play Gestalts that aren't:
A) Genocide (I like having Galactic Community and Market, TYVM)
B) No Civic (Gee Wiz, I sure love trying to hop around the Galaxy on one servo-motor!)
C) Assimilation (Stop making me build farms!)
D) Pampering (Stop making me build farms AND consumer goods factories!)

I like. Looking forward to it.
 
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A mixture of reasons, really — not least, wanting to make the civic relevant to a broader range of empires. There's quite a shift in tone, comparing an inward-looking and kind of morbid empire with one which seeks to revel in its own bloody victories! I dare say that also places different expectations on the kind of modifiers one would expect. Perhaps Exterminators and Purifiers would crave something a tad more... invigorating.

Like bones and blood shrines dedicated to the god of battle ? Just saying x)

For every pops exterminated on the planet +0.25 stability and -0.25% attack army moral ? xD
 
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