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Stellaris Dev Diary #249 - New Friends

Hi again!

Last week’s dev diary introduced the Specialist Empires with a detailed examination of the Prospectorium and showed off a few new holdings.

This week we’ll meet the three Enclaves coming in Overlord (examining one of them closely), take a deep dive into the Bulwark, and finish off with a few more Holdings and a summary of the origin Nivarias revealed earlier this week.

As with all previews, numbers, text, and so on are not quite final and are still subject to change.

The Industrious Salvagers​


The Salvagers are a friendly and pacifistic bunch of scrappers and mechanics. Focused on engineering, these tinkerers love nothing more than scrapping old ships, refurbishing them, and sending them on to find new homes.

Salvager Enclave

Though eager to help, they’ve been burned in the past and are thus cautious at first, offering only a few services - scrapping old fleets you no longer require, or offering you bargains on slightly used ships.

Early Salvagers Dialog

As you gain their trust, they’ll provide a wider array of options.

Late Salvagers Dialog

From providing their insights regarding Engineering Research to offering salvage services for debris fields following battles, the Salvagers do their best to please their valued clients.

The Mysterious Shroudwalkers


The Shroudwalkers are a monastic enclave that delve into the deepest mysteries of the Shroud, seeking to understand the unknowable. Their true natures and desires are difficult to divine.

Shroudwalker Enclave


Shroudwalker Dialog

I won’t spoil too much about this very story focused enclave, but their prophecies and visions make use of the Situations system described in Dev Diary #245.

They’re willing to instruct others in the ways of the Shroud…


Shoudwalker Teacher effects

…and just as they are willing to look into possibilities of your future, they’re quite willing to gaze into the Shroud, to provide insights about other empires.

Shroud Insights

The bravest can also seek knowledge about travel through the Shroud itself, asking them to create a wormhole-like bypass from one of your systems to their own.

Shroud Beacon

Everything will be fine.

One of the Origins, the Teachers of the Shroud, has a close link to this Enclave, but that too, is someone else’s tale to tell.

Shroudwalker Loading Screen Art

The Mercenary Mercenaries​


Unlike other enclaves, Mercenary Enclaves are not found randomly in the depths of space. Instead, they can be founded by regular empires that are not Fanatic Purifiers.

Convert to Mercenary Fleet

There’s a long list of requirements to release a fleet in this way - it must be at least size 50, have an admiral, be in a system under your control with no other enclave in the system, and have an appropriate place for them to build their station.

Founding a Mercenary Enclave


Mercenary Enclave

By default, Mercenary Enclave Capacity starts at zero. In addition to their normal effects, the Warrior Culture, Barbaric Despoilers, and Private Military Companies civics each add one potential Mercenary Enclave, while the Naval Contractors civic adds two.

Lord of War AP

The Lord of War Ascension Perk also allows one additional Mercenary Enclave, increases Diplomatic Weight from Fleet Power, and increases the rate at which you receive dividends from your Mercenary Enclaves.

The newly formed Mercenary Enclave has a few options for those interested in procuring security services. The empire that controls the primary starbase of the Mercenary Enclave’s system is considered their Patron, and has additional interactions with them. If business is going especially well, the Patron will even receive dividends from the Enclave.

Mercenary Dialog

Anyone that has communications with the Mercenary Enclave can rent their fleet for ten years if they can afford the cost. Prices may vary depending on what the Mercenaries think of you, and whether you are their Patron or not.

Hiring a Mercenary Fleet

As time goes on, the Mercenaries will research technologies, reinforce, and build up their fleet, but their Patron can reach out and provide a helping appendage.

Patron Options

If they have an excellent relationship with the Mercenaries, a Patron can even ask them to break an active contract - but they’ll have to provide some recompense to their current client and won’t be very happy about it. Reputations are everything in this business.

Breaking a Contract

Naturally, the Mercenary Enclaves have lobbied the Galactic Community to regulate their trade.

One of the new resolution categories in Overlord is Defense Privatization.

Defense Privatization Resolution Category

This line of resolutions focuses on encouraging the empires of the Galactic Community to leave the fighting to professionals. It allows empires to create more Mercenary Enclaves, increases the rate Mercenary Dividends are paid out, and places significant limits on non-Mercenary navies.

Security Contractors
High Consequence Protection
Neutral Defenders

Like most other major resolution categories, Federations adds two extra tiers…

Galactic Risk Management
Corporate Peacekeeping

…and as usual, the final tier is perhaps a bit extreme.

That’s not all the GalCom is up to, but we’ll go into more detail on their other resolutions another time.

The Bulwark​


Standing firm against the overlord’s enemies is the Bulwark, the second of the Specialists coming in Overlord.

The Tebbran Citizen Regime serves our glorious republic as a Bulwark.

The Bulwark

With strong benefits when it comes to defense, the Bulwark is a natural shield against the overlord’s enemies, but relies on overlord subsidies for basic resource acquisition.

Bulwark Tier 1
Bulwark Tier 2
Bulwark Tier 3

We’ve made some adjustments to Defense Platforms - while everyone will benefit from their faster build speed and increased range, fire rate, tracking, and hull points, Bulwarks receive additional bonuses when using them.

Having a Bulwark advisor improves starbase costs and upgrade times.

Bulwark Advisory

The Bulwark Watch perk is another Hyper Relay Network effect so we’ll hold off on revealing all of that just yet.

Bulwark Watch

Fighting in a Bulwark’s systems is extremely advantageous...

Bulwark Shield Magnifier

…and like the Prospectorium, they too gain access to some technologies - this time those most useful for defense.

Bulwark Insight I
Bulwark Insight II
Bulwark Insight III

Like the Prospectorium, at tier 2 the Bulwark also adds special traits to some of their leaders. Admirals, in their case.

Bulwark Traits

And they can trade them with their overlord as well.

Bulwark Admirals

At tier 3, the Bulwark can create an improved variant of the Construction Ship, which repairs other friendly ships in the system and are a bit sturdier than regular Construction vessels.

Bulwark Battlewright

And they also have managed to turn the Shield Magnifiers from Tier 1 against invaders. If they have completed the Unyielding tradition tree, this effect is increased.

Bulwark Disintegrator Field

Don’t worry - if you don’t have Apocalypse, the Unyielding traditions will also unlock with Overlord.

Holdings, Part Three​


This week’s holdings include the Emporium, which forces the subject to buy Consumer Goods from the overlord, providing Amenities in exchange for Energy Credits.

Emporium

More holdings also exist that tax subject production, such as the aptly named Ministry of Production and the Ministry of Energy.

Ministry of Production


Ministry of Energy

The Materials Ministry revealed two weeks ago has been renamed the Ministry of Extraction, and now has Volatile Motes upkeep.

Constructive overlords can help build up a world using the Orbital Assembly Complex and a small fleet of Construction Ships.

Orbital Assembly Complex (without a tooltip blocking half the name)

And Reanimators can bring out the dead to defend a subject’s world…

Dread Outpost

…while Megacorps with Permanent Employment can ensure that nobody is just lying around when they could be working.

Reemployment Center

Lastly for today, Megacorps with the Franchising civic can choose to exert direct control and micromanage subject planets where they also have a Branch Office, much to the dismay of the workers there.

Franchise Headquarters

The Ethics Attraction on this holding will change to match any fanatic ethic the overlord may have. (Non-fanatical overlords aren’t quite as thorough with the indoctrination during the team-building exercises.)

As a reminder, these previews are still subject to change and balancing. (Prices and upkeep on several of the holdings have changed since I took the screenshots.)

The Imperial Fiefdom​


Imperial Fiefdom

In the Imperial Fiefdom origin, your first steps into space were brutally short. Immediately subjugated alongside several others, you can begin the game as a Specialist Empire of your choice, with a few additional gifts from your overlord.

Will you ever break free?

If multiple players select this origin, they will all start as minions of the same Advanced AI Empire.

Next Week​

Next week we’ll examine some of the new constructions you’ll be able to build, research the Scholarium, look at Specialist holdings, revisit the Galactic Community, and reveal another Origin.

We’re doing video versions of these dev diaries on the Stellaris Official YouTube Channel. Subscribe so you don’t miss them, and wishlist Overlord if you haven’t already!
 
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If you have multiple competing ideas for a Psionics rework / Expansion, would it make sense to float the possible options to the community to see interest and response?

If we’re compiling suggestions I’d love to see the RNG removed, or minimised, and replaced with a levelled XP system. As level up your psychic abilities you unlock new perks, and finalise it by picking a covenant (or going it alone).
 
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Very good, for a moment after thinking of the new meta, realized it's just going to be pure Hull builds with like a billion Battlewrights, ship gets hit -> full heals like it's Sword Art Online.

I was going to mention that if it hadn't already been caught that they needed to be non-stacking (on-self), would have been funny for sure though, I don't expect it to have lasted more than a day or two before being patched.
i always suggest ( in dev diary ) to enable the "only dev response" before messaging .

anyway, as stated before by a dev, the effect doesn't stack with itself . it does stack with other effect ( like the titans repair aura , etc... )

while the meta is not realy different from what we have ( we still point to HULL to increase ship survivability) its not realy going to be OP . even more considering the requirement to achive such building ship .
 
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There... IS one thing I don't really like or understand about this, and that's the special techs that Bulwarks and such get, like their Disintegration Field.

This, in fact, kinda adds on to something from the Galactic Community. Agrarian Idyll empires, if all 5 Industrial acts are passed, can turn their planets into low-habitability hellholes, but a Determined Exterminator can't ever figure out how to stripmine?

Similarly, how does a 2-planet subject figure out a defensive measure even AWAKENED EMPIRES don't have?
Agreed, some elements of the new features are too "video gamey" where things don't make any kind of realistic sense, which is something I always dislike in games like this.

If Vassals get special tech that other empires don't, they should have to research them as actual techs, with appropriate prerequisites (Disintegration Field should be a late game tech for sure), and should be able to keep those techs after they stop being vassals. No illogical nonsense like "you have invented a super special deadly weapon just because someone is your overlord, and only as long as they remain your overlord, after which you forget how to build it".
 
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Agreed, some elements of the new features are too "video gamey" where things don't make any kind of realistic sense, which is something I always dislike in games like this.

If Vassals get special tech that other empires don't, they should have to research them as actual techs, with appropriate prerequisites (Disintegration Field should be a late game tech for sure), and should be able to keep those techs after they stop being vassals. No illogical nonsense like "you have invented a super special deadly weapon just because someone is your overlord, and only as long as they remain your overlord, after which you forget how to build it".

mhh... they should totaly give you the possibility to make that research, at the cost of 50% of all your resource production .

so it make sense that ANY EMPIRE would dodge it , apart from a vassal forced into it.
 
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Can I influence the design of the Mercenary fleets, or do they use the generic (quite sub-optimal) AI design? If I have a rare tech such as Dragonscale armor, can I apply those to the fleets I hire?
 
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That Scrapper portrait looks better than most of the mammalians. I'll be seeking a way to make it playable.

That reminds of an old pet peeve of mine: not being able to change flags after game start. This is galling when vassals I create choose hideous flags. I savescum over this. Plus it only makes sense to allow since an empire can change its ethics. Becoming the Imperium even changes your flag, so it's absolutely possible! There are lots of other great imperial flags to choose from.
 
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That reminds of an old pet peeve of mine: not being able to change flags after game start. This is galling when vassals I create choose hideous flags. I savescum over this. Plus it only makes sense to allow since an empire can change its ethics. Becoming the Imperium even changes your flag, so it's absolutely possible! There are lots of other great imperial flags to choose from.
Yea, time to steal ck3 CoA editor idea lol
 
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It has probably been stated, but the scavenger Enclave seems to suggest that after a battle we can no longer send in the Science ship to gain technology

Only if you transfer those debris piles to the Salvagers.

The fact that Level 5 resolutions are really bad for a lot of factions is a point. If you're passing them, you're doing them to hurt other people.

Agreed. Tier 5 GalCom Resolutions are the political equivalent of war, like how A Defined Purpose from The Divinity of Life chain outlaws being a Machine Intelligence that isn't a Rogue Servitor.
 
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Been thinking about making it massively increase the chance of stealing relics when you invade empire's capitals.
Does this indicate we might finally have a method for acquiring relices from other empires. This is quite relavent for psionics since the psionic precusor artifcacts is quite important to play an effective psionic empires.

Also on the topic of psionics i wouldnt mind the ability to be able to focus down on a covenant particuarly some method to foucs into the end of the cycle for some galaxy dominating gamble particuarly while using the become the crisis accesion perk.
 
Does this indicate we might finally have a method for acquiring relices from other empires.

There's always (since relics were added, I think) been a method of stealing relics - if you successfully invade the capital of an empire that has a relic there's around a 10% (15% for Barbaric Despoilers) chance to steal it.
 
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Can you add the ability for the patron to edit the design of mercenary ships? As it happens with the forces of the galactic Custodian.
Is it possible to allow mercenary enclaves to fight for their overlord if he has claims to another empire?
 
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There's always (since relics were added, I think) been a method of stealing relics - if you successfully invade the capital of an empire that has a relic there's around a 10% (15% for Barbaric Despoilers) chance to steal it.
Excuse me if I am going to sound like a broken record but a wargoal to specifically steal a relic would be much preferable than having a 10%/15% chance of maybe, perhaps, eventually you will get a relic - if you get a lucky roll. If you do not, you just let the enemy retake their capital and try again.

As far as I can tell people have asked since the introduction of relics if there could be a 'Take Relic CB', are there arguments against an implementation of such CB?
 
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We actually played around with this for a little bit and it was surprisingly painful at times, since retaking a bastion ended up being very difficult. Though I'd like to revisit them at some point in the future and make them less painful to rebuild somehow.
How about the defense stations being deactivated until the end of the war? This way they do their defensive purpose, but the starbase can be reaquired by the defender without fighting its own forces too much.
You might also add an option for the occupant to repair them during war... for a cost of course and maybe only half the strenght or somthing, because foreign technology and stuff... This way the attacker can jury-rig the defense stations if need be by paying alloys, or they repair for free after the war ends for whomever owns the starbase now.
If the defender gains back the starbase and holds it for some time he could repair them for free OR must pay like the attacker to repair them during the war, BUT cheaper of course and full power.... they are their defenses after all
 
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As far as I can tell people have asked since the introduction of relics if there could be a 'Take Relic CB', are there arguments against an implementation of such CB?

It causes empires that start snowballing to snowball harder.

Yes, so does conquest, but we don't want it to be "normal" to have every relic in the galaxy.
 
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It causes empires that start snowballing to snowball harder.

Yes, so does conquest, but we don't want it to be "normal" to have every relic in the galaxy.
What about a steal relic operation?
Very hard, very time consuming (10+ years), requires many assets to potentially be sacrificed, very resource intense, high likelyhood of discovery (at least after the fact) and no guarantees of success. (maybe just steals a few minor artifacts on a not-quite success)

Might even require the subterfuge tradition tree to be unlocked. This way access to this tool would be massively limited to specialised empires. I don't think it's normal for war mongers (the most likely snowballers) to pick subterfuge, or is it?
 
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How about the defense stations being deactivated until the end of the war? This way they do their defensive purpose, but the starbase can be reaquired by the defender without fighting its own forces too much.

total war take control of the system asap , you should think of all possible CB . and what if another war start meanwhile? and another one before the previous one finish? when are you going to be able to have DP back?
 
It causes empires that start snowballing to snowball harder.

Yes, so does conquest, but we don't want it to be "normal" to have every relic in the galaxy.
But...but my collection...
Oh well but is there a chance a few chosen relics could get the Galatron treatment, I could see a few empires waging war over the Kahn's throne or the Blade of the Huntress.

I had a game once where the Galatron constantly switched hands and that was quite the fun experience actually but with the Galatron being so rare it is an experience you seldom get.
 
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Will Criminal Heritage Megacorps be able to prevent their subjects from fighting crime on their planets, whether it be a term in the contract system or some other way?
 
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Will Criminal Heritage Megacorps be able to prevent their subjects from fighting crime on their planets, whether it be a term in the contract system or some other way?

do crime syndacate have crime on theyr planets ? asking because i never played that actualy..

when a crime organizzation become the state , should they stop being called criminals? who are the criminals of a criminal empire? those that oppose the crime syndicate or those that don't follow theyr rule and steal from the stealer?

are they call it tax or protection payment ? do they keep a fake govern that keep calling them criminals so they can call themself crime syndicate?

crime syndicate vassals should totaly have a particolar status like tributaries , something like " crime syndicate ghetto" ... that have the effect of increasing all crime on planets or something on the line .
 
One more question for bulwarks:

The vast majority of bonuses are for defending their own territory. (defenses and all that stuff)
Won't they have a massive drop in usefulness once jump drives are a thing? After all, it would be extremely hard to have all non-bulwark territory so far away and encircling the overlord that you couldn't get to them without having to cross at least some bulwark territory.
Or am i missing something?