Stellaris Dev Diary #229 - Aquatics Species Pack

[Miles Invictus]

I love the potential of this; however my one sole niggle is simple - shouldn't their city background be underwater? It would more suit an aquatic species, and concimitant with the pre-existing ocean planets would also allow the "oceanic worlds" backdrop to remain for other, terrestrial species.

 

[Earth Dragon]

Are we sold on the “+20% Ocean Habitability” thing? This doesn’t actually make sense.

It’s essentially assumed that most species living on an ocean world was aquatic/amphibious before anyway. But water isn’t water isn’t water isn’t water. Just on Earth we have dozens of clearly different biomes determined by different factors.

Salt vs Fresh
Warm vs Cold
How close to the beach are you
Coral reefs
What’s the depth

Etc.

It’s not hard to imagine an Ocean world that is colder then what a certain Ocean species is used to, and with varying pressure based on depth, their preferred depth wouldn’t match up with the preferred temperature.

This is also falsely assuming that all ocean worlds would have high levels of salt there. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that a planet could have higher amounts of Potassium in the water instead, which could easily be an irritant to any species used to one over the other. This may take time to adjust, or even force natural birth in that environment for those members of the species to be comfortable on that planet.

Maybe there are no predators your size or larger on your home world. Having to adjust to having Sharks, what would be “standard fare” and not even warrant the “hostile wildlife” planet perks, might be so out of your comfort range, it’s causes huge amounts of adjustment (represented by increased amenity needs and decreased production due to spending increased time ensuring your people’s safety).

When you start to combine all of these factors, giving auto 100% Habitability of seems inappropriate just because your species comes from another Ocean world. There are already traits for players to bridge this gap fully. Even a 10% increase mark would be much more appropriate, and avoid an “auto 100%” for this species type.

thanks for reading!!

 

[Tamwin5]

Why is the new civic exclusive with agrarian idyll and certain origins? Combining it with agrarian idyll was my first thought, to get some more interesting pacifist playstyle but its excluded. There are way stronger things in stellaris than an angler+idyll synergy and I don't think it warrants an exclusion. Same with the origins. If I want to play as anglers living in an habitat where there are no agrarian districts that could benefit from the civic, why shouldn't I be allowed to. If I want to "waste" a civic slot in this let me do it. It feels like the Devs unnecessarily make desicions for th players in the above cases.
Players should be allowed to make suboptimal or synergistic choices.

In my opinion there is just one case when Devs should restict the combination of options during empire creation and that's balance considerations.


Will there be an equivalent to anglers for hive minds that does something similar?


Will special planets like Gaia, habitats, ring world, ecumenopolis, relic, hive etc. count as wet planets, non-wet planets or neither?

The new ascension perk seems to be intended as an alternative to world shaper and hive worlds. In my opinion it doesnt succeed at this yet. Gaia worlds get 10% resource output to all resources and more happiness, which further increases all resources production. Hive worlds also get 10% to all resources plus other benefits. The new ascension perk can't compete with that yet. It needs some additional benefits like also 10% resources or something else.


How often can you take the ascension perk desicion? Just one time, a fixed amount of times, until the planet reaches a certain size, is it purely limited by the amount of ice asteroid mining sites?


I really like the desicion not to bind the aquatic trait to a certain portrait, but can it be combined freely? Is it possible to create sentient sea weeds species that it phototrophic or some stone coral species that feeds on minerals?


Any plans to improve life seeded origin so it won't be just a worse version of ocean paradise?

Can ocean paradise origin roll zro deposits in the home nebula? Would be really cool if it is guaranteed to roll at least 1 zro deposit in your home nebula. That would make it a nice origin for spiritualists and help them to fuel their psionic ship components.

The reason the civic is exclusive with a agrarian Idyll is that agrarian Idyll only gives bonuses to farmers, which anglers remove. There is also a bit of a flavor clash, but I could totally see the role of being a fisher being idolized in the same way, so hopefully they extend the amenity bonus to anglers as well and let both civics be picked.

You can play as anglers living in any habitat. It's the aquatic trait that is limited.

 

[Pale Blue]

Anglers is not compatible with void dwellers and aquatics trait isnt either.
My dream of a goldfish species living in space fishbowls is dead

 

[moscal]

 

[Vorpaliminal]

And with thrifty, Merchant Guilds looks like an excellent civic choice that would work really well. Since you're adding civics which give trade value to other jobs, could the mercantile tree give +1 or +2 additional trade value to those jobs as well as clerks?

Thinking about it, the Trickle Up Economics Tradition should be reworked to add +1 TV to all worker stratum jobs, so that Prosperity Preachers and any new jobs with TV can benefit. Could also make it apply to specialists so that Managers would see a buff, but that would also help Artificers too.

 

[Ffc]

Very cool, I love all of it !

As we say, PARADOX TAKE MY MONEY PLEASE !!

I see that there is a new aquatic city background which isn't mentioned in your list (except if you count that on the "ship set"), is there also a new aquatic-themed room image?

Also, what is "Hull strenght from admirals" ?

 

[LystAP]

Anglers replace farmers on wet worlds for agri districts, hydroponics and the food processing buildings.

Wouldn't Arctic worlds have oceans under their frozen surface?

Does this also mean that the preset Scyldari Confederacy will be updated with the Aquatic trait and Anglers civic? It seems to fit them, considering you had also updated the Maweer Caretakers preset empire as well.

The Scyldari are a perfect example of an Aquatic species not using a molluscoid or the new Aquatic species portrait. They been around almost forever as a preset empire, and have it in their description from the start that they inhabit the deep sea and exploited ocean resources sustainably.

 

[xking]

Reserved for dev replies

Please make a portrait DLC for mammals and avians.

 

[Earth Dragon]

Please make a portrait DLC for mammals and avians.

Or just fill them all in period. This is a fairly simple thing that shouldn’t take too many resources, in particular if there are still folks designing ships and the like.

 

[FleetMaster]

If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day.

If you teach a man to acquire the Anglers Civic, you feed him and his empire for a lifetime.



PS: Please devs, tell me there's a To Hell or High Water event chain.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

Wouldn't Arctic worlds have oceans under their frozen surface as well?

Not necessarily ones that are significant enough to count for anglers.

Your sub-surface could be primarily land based (ice caps sat on large, otherwise dry, continents) - and indeed the description suggests that the major water deposits are frozen into glacial ice. Think antarctica rather than the arctic circle.

 

[Kaoru Sen'nin]

I was kind of hoping for the new Leviathan to be more unique and I would prefer for the trait to be tied to portraits. I am already annoyed at all the "underwater butterflies" AI empires that I will encounter.

Could we at least add a galaxy generation option "only Aquatic Aquatics"?

Overall though, this seems very nice. I think we are all wondering if the new Advisor will be a pirate.

I second this.

Let the option for player and custom empire but for randomly generated empire make it so that only aquatic / Molluscoid portait can be aquatique.

Meeting an aquatic ape would be weird.

 

[klopkr]

That is a beautiful eather drake!

Those submarine ships look fun too an the roundness of the buildings is a nice change of pace!

Too bad I can't turn my ocean world into a deep sea world with no land though.

 

[Nincotic]

Marine biologist here, this is SUPER exciting, i have been restricted to rollplaying with molluscoids for so long it is amazing to finaly have the game embrace my love of fish. great job devs! cant wait to see the portraits and ships

 

[Earth Dragon]

Shouldn't the Aquatic trait give bonus evasion rather than hull strength? It would make far more thematic sense. I get why there are stronger hulls, but a fluid interior of a ship would also allow a *massive* advantage of manuverability given that g-forces would be significantly reduced on the occupants. (In the case of inertial dampeners, this would mean having to work less-hard, which in turn means more power to things like thrusters)

I read the bonus hull as the additional thickness needed to store a giant aquarium. Naturally, that could offer additional protection.

Just because you swim gracefully in an ocean doesn’t mean your engineering out of the ocean can maintain that same fluidity.

(though I REALLY would like to see species inspired tradition trees that feed into all of those things. Bonus armor for the reptiles, bonus speed for the Birds, bonus HP on your projectiles for the Lithoids etc)

 

[Nincotic]

I'd go further and say stuff like this cheapens the genetic path. If species had locked traits at start (e.g. aquatic for acquatics or lithoid for Lithoids) pursuing gene ascension could let you create a silicone human, or an aquatic blorg, and other weird combos - without them appearing randomly/nonsensically.

honestly yeah, i didnt think about it at first but that makes a lot of sense. maybe restrict the acquatics and lithoids to their respective traits for AI so we can make our weird combos if we want to but we wont run into aquatic butterflies and silocone based humans

 

[Mitchz95]

the Expand Planetary Sea decision, which will increase the planet size by 1.

Is there a maximum size? I'm giggling at the mental image of an oceanic moon that's got so much water it's now larger than the gas giant it orbits.

Also, can you expand an ocean world and then terraform it into something else?

Aquatic Species Trait
We’re adding a new (zero point cost) Aquatic species trait. It doesn’t require you to have an Aquatic portrait, but it will require your species to start on an Ocean World. We hope that this covers those of you who want more freedom of choice for your species portraits, while still keeping the aquatic theme intact.

Glad to see aquatic portraits aren't tied to aquatic mechanics! Lots of RP value here.

You will also start in a nebula and with ice asteroids in your home system.

Does this mean modders can now spawn nebulae? Can we rename them and set their size as well?

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

As you could see in the trailer, the Deluge Colossus Weapon can be unleashed to create a watery grave for your enemies! Ice Mining stations will increase mining station output in a system, as well as enable the Expand Planetary Sea decision, which will increase the planet size by 1.

Did you guys ever fix the thing where increasing a planet's size will physically increase its size in system view?

 

[LadyEleanor]

I was hoping the aquatic trait wouldnt be tied to ocean world, i rly liked the idea of jungle fish especially
itd b more fun to make it open to all, or at least to all wet worlds?

especially since earth would b a continental world and has multiple intelligent forms of aquatic life