• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

Stellaris Dev Diary #185: Announcing Necroids

Hello everyone!

Today we bring you some exciting news about our upcoming Species Pack! We’re happy to announce that our next species pack will be themed around death and should allow you to live death to the fullest! Check out the trailer below:


Necroids will feature:
  • 15+1 new portraits (the +1 being machine)
  • 1 new Ship Set
  • 1 new City Set
  • 1 new Room background
  • 1 new Origin
  • 3 new Civics
  • 1 new pre-scripted Empire
  • 1 new Advisor Voice
We wanted to add ships that had a more sinister or evil appearance, and I’m very happy to say we’ve made something really great. We’ll go into more detail about the ships, and give you a peek into the art process, in a future dev diary.

True to the theme, we wanted the portraits to revolve around death, but not look outright undead or decaying. We never intended the Necroids to be specifically undead, but rather themed around death. Similar to the ships, we will be doing a dev diary in the future to give you a peek into the art process, and also reveal all the new portraits. Stay tuned!

Regarding the other features, we have already shown you some of them, such as the Death Cult Civic and the Memorialist Civic. The remaining features will be revealed over the next couple of weeks, and maybe you'll even get to learn about Jeff. But for now, let’s pass the Mishar Cabal into our memories.

---

General Donnten threw her bloodied axe next to Ostiir’s severed head. The others in the Leadership Council would remember this the next time they considered interrupting her in the Mishar Althing.

She pushed past the acolytes that were coming to deal with the corpse. They were annoyed - the rites were always harder if the head was removed - but they would just have to stitch it back together.

Smiling to herself, she left the arena. At least Ostiir would be an obedient little soldier now.


1600944622276.png
 
Last edited:
  • 199
  • 138Like
  • 51Love
  • 8
  • 6
  • 2Haha
Reactions:
Looking all the comments on these thread, why the game has very positive reviews on steam when the game has all these problems?
Because at some point. The game was actually nearing a pretty decent state. Sure, it had it's flaws but stuff at large was working. Then they decided to take the sledgehammer to it. And completely broke some aspects, while making others much much much worse. Many of these issues haven't been addressed in over a year. And people are, getting fed up.
 
  • 19
  • 1Like
Reactions:
How can a species be dead? If it is part of their biology then it simply is a phase of life.
 
  • 4Like
  • 2
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
  • 18
  • 3Like
Reactions:
Well, congratulations.

This thread has managed to kill off the enthusiasm I had even for the concept of the new race pack.

Congratulations on being collectively toxic and mean spirited enough - and insulting enough about someone who might just find the new pack interesting and want to discuss *that* rather than rehashing the "this isn't being fixed", or "that is still broken" discussions - to push me back out of the forum for this game.

I'm not addressing the simple "this needs to be fixed" posts. I'm not addressing the "can we please get some attention to these areas" posts.
I'm addressing the ones where people are actively and pre-emptively attacking anyone who might dare to have an even vaguely positive interest in the pack, or find it interesting.


___

And for the repeated question about why Paradox can't just use the fixes some modders have used in their mods, it's because a lot of them are dirty hacks that don't play nicely with the ability to rework systems at a later date, or do unpleasant things to optimisation (the *other* bugbear of the forum).
 
  • 22
  • 10
  • 5Haha
  • 1Like
Reactions:
I think that's why people are complaining.

For me as someone who has been with Stellaris from the start, I think part of the problem is there isn't nearly as much dev communication on ongoing problems as their used to be. Undoubtedly with people working from home a lot more under the current circumstances, I don't expect devs should feel pressured to constantly answer community questions/concerns when there is other work to be done, and certainly not when off work. Still, comms on where the fixing on some lingering problems like crisis AI are really few and far between, and that's coming from someone who has really appreciated the last major update and work on the AI.

The toxicity certainly seems to be a function of frustration on such stubbornly persistent issues, and silence on whether they have been acknowledged, noted and worked on in some form for the update that drops alongside the new species pack (which does look super cool).
 
  • 17
Reactions:
How do people not complain about optimization.
I used to be able to play on a laptop with an i5-5200u processor.
I was able to play until 2450. (Thanks to the console tweakergui draw.dust borders.usemesh: etc.) But for two years they blocked the use of these commands.
Currently, you can play until 2250, then it's a nightmare ... the next 10 years is about 3 hours and it gets longer every year.

The DLC is cool, although instead of Necrons, I would prefer Tyranids. But we'll probably wait another year for bio-ships.
 
  • 5
  • 1Like
Reactions:
I don't see any new trait, so I guess they work exactly the same as any ordinary empire.
I hope they do, an undead species makes no sense.
So will there be a sci-fi explanation for these or we going fantasy?

I know we got the Shroud, but reanimated undead armies seems to be a step towards World of Warcraft fantasy.
Yaah I agree. I hope they're just undead looking creatures.
Could be similar to the protoss in star craft. They put lethally wounded soldiers in their war machines to continue fighting
They still aren't undead though, because the concept of undead really doesn't work in sci-fi. You're either living or you're dead.
If you have an issue with a message another user has posted, try speaking to them directly - don't hide behind the Like/Dislike system like a child. Better yet, don't dismiss legitimate grievances with the state of the game as "whining."

View attachment 631267

EDIT: The more you stack those dislikes up the stronger my point drives home. Talk to people, chaps - it's good for you. ;)
People don't always have the time to get into a 17 pages argument. They have every right too. Thye should fix the damn thing where you can see who liked dislikes and so on. Toxic people trying to call people out for disliking their posts is really appaling.
We are complaining about the current pity state of military/crysis AI
Ok fair enough, what do you want a content designer to do about it? Paint it in a pretty colour?
or i dont look at the comments my guy
That must be so good for your mental well being.
You people, the game is broken by years, no species pack helped to fix it so far, not even close.
No, but you know all those free patches that has improved the AI of so many paradox games? You know how they paid for the programmers who did those? By selling content packs! You bought the game they don't owe you squat after that, any improvements will have to be funded somehow and content packs is how they do it.
Yes I perfectly understood what you said, my point is that they don't fix stuff from a while, 6 months? 1 year? I lost the count. The corporate is never satisfied, it can only be afraid to lose customers due to the flaws of the product. So nobody in the high floors will say to the devs to fix the game, because they may not even know/care about the issues we are experiencing untill we attire the attention somehow.
They were working on other issues, as we've already been told. You may not agree with those issues but you're not running Paradox and they are at perfect liberty to prioritise mechanical improvements for the free patches as they see fit.
And they have seen your ten pages of complaining. Why they haven't made a sticked thread where you can complain about it like they did with the FTL rework complaints I don't know. Because I am sick and tired of you lot flooding every thread with complaining about offtopic things.
I too think the AI could use some work, I too am not all that excited about undead in space, but you know, only one of those things is on topic for this topic and it's not the AI.
No. It does not work that way. Artists cannot work on the AI.
Thank you!
dont you love it how machine empires and hiveminds still have no shipsets, or mechanics for that matter

meanwhile, they are now dropping necrons on us
Hiveminds have a phenotype from their portraits they don't need hive mind ships, and machines were intentionally left without one because they felt the machines would just keep on using the designs of whoever created them.
Looking all the comments on these thread, why the game has very positive reviews on steam when the game has all these problems?
If you look at facebook and youtube this content pack has been well received. This forum is just a negative echochamber.
 
  • 17
  • 5
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Just spent my morning coffee catching up on thread, amazing to see 17 pages of pure gold appear overnight.

Going to be interesting to see how much of this gets scrubbed out by reptilian bureaucrats in the next few hours.

Honestly would love to buy the dlc.

But only if it funds undoing all the changes from 2.2 and hiring starnet man.

But since it's only going to fund megacorporate shareholders doing spaceblach off the flarm of an underage xlarnor then I think I'll keep my (steam) wallet closed.
 
  • 15
  • 5
  • 4Like
  • 1Haha
Reactions:
As far as species packs go, I like the fact that it contains more thematic content than just portraits. Feels like a better investment that plantoids or humanoids. That being said, I kind of wish we would get a story pack, rather than a portrait pack, but I guess it's fine enough to buy at some point in the future for some extra variety.
 
  • 6
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Yeah, cause anybody who agrees with me is a hero, standing up for all the players, but anyone who disagree's, or is just stoked to have a new racepack to play is a shill........... you have NO IDEA whether or not the accompanying patch will fix/change anything. 6 months of pdx working on this game, ever consider the fact they've been quiet for months because they are TRYING TO ADDRESS THE ISSUES??? The whining about the AI has no place in an announcement thread for a racepack. They know there are issues. The same group of people creating threads on it all the time is just pointless and boring.

Excuse me if I'm sceptical, but the AI (especially crysis) is in a brain dead state by a year. 6 months ago they announced that they reworked it, still got nothing and they didn't address that from since, acting like everything is fine when a considerable part of the fanbase is not enjoyng the game wich paid for.
If you defend the game in the state it is right now, you are the cause for all of this.
 
Last edited:
  • 13
  • 6
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Excuse me if I'm sceptical, but the AI (especially crysis) is in a brain dead state by a year. 6 months ago they announced that they reworked it, still got nothing and they didn't address that from since, like everything is fine.
If you defend the game in the state it is right now, you are the cause for all of this.

For me, my poor reaction to future dlc is mostly based around the fact that the AI can't even handle the base game, nevermind any new mechanics.

Infact half the time I see an empire with an origin I just know its not gonna last longer than its first war, as the AI can't even play it. Instead of being excited to see a new and diverse empire my reaction is a big eyeroll.

Will be the same with whatever this introduces. Oh cool a new empire type to try for 10 minutes before I realise the games still a steaming pile of spacewhale manure.
 
  • 20
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
And one time again, they come with an empty shell of a DLC to charge us money.
Nothing said about the desastrous state of the game, just hypocritical Dev diaries about pseudo performances no one care about, and now this...

How dare they selling DLC for this game regarding how crippled it is by all the bugs and bad design they don't even acknowledge? 0 communications, except for taking players money.

Did they ever test their own game to see at wich point it is broken without using free mods who make a twice better job than the Dev team at fixing the game (Starnet, Glavius...)

I hope people will see how cynical and uncaring for their product and community they have become.
 
Last edited:
  • 13
  • 3
  • 1Like
Reactions:
why so many negatives?

(I don't play stellaris for a long time)

AI is dead performances passed mid game aweful, there is a série of terrible game design choice who make the all mid end game a tedious micromanagement simulator, there is no more crisis end game because their AI is also dead for more than a year now.

I'm pretty sure I've forgotten other issues, but you see the pictures. And the Dev team just keep ignoring all the problems, only communicate for charging money with useless things like cosmetics DLC, the last thing this game need.
 
  • 8
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
why so many negatives?

The AI is completely broken. So, you have to play multiplayer to have some fun with Stellaris, which isn't also fun either cause everyone is tech rushing by playing FMaterialis and is going down Synthetic Ascension, cause its op. After reaching a certain empire size you also have to do a lot of micromanagement by pressing the same buttons over and over. This game isn't fun anymore. There is no challenge in SP. There is no empire diversity in MP. There is not even an optional smaller outliner in the options to improve at least viewability and accessibility. That's the status quo for almost 2 years.
 
  • 10
  • 2Like
  • 1
Reactions:
It's so irritating to see every dev diary swarmed with people bringing up their pet grievances which have nothing to do with the topic and (often rudely) demanding employees work on issues that aren't in their area of jurisdiction.

I am always in favour of new species packs and flavour, and this looks pretty neat. I'll look forward to it.

"It's so irritating to see every dev diary swarmed with people bringing up their pet grievances which have nothing to do with the topic" thats not whats happening

"and (often rudely)" thats definetly not whats happening

"demanding employees work on issues that aren't in their area of jurisdiction." thats ABSOLUTELY not whats happening

instead of intentionally taking things out of context, how about reading up on what people are talking about here
 
  • 22
  • 5
  • 3Like
Reactions: