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Stellaris Dev Diary #262 - Ringworlds, Reliquaries, Relics, and More

Hello again!

This week we’re going to look at some more things that are going into the upcoming Stellaris 3.5 “Fornax” release.

Megastructures in the Outliner​

One of the things going into Fornax is something we’ve wanted for a very long time on PC - a Megastructure section in the Outliner.

Megastructures in the Outliner


As shown here, the Megastructures section will list all megastructures within your territory, including ruined ones as well as Gateway Sites (but not completed gateways, as that would be too much clutter).

Never again will you lose track of where you left that Gateway Site or Ruined Sentry Array!

Accessibility Improvements​

We talked about some accessibility improvement goals before the summer, and some of them are going into Fornax.

Accessibility Settings


When enabled, Mouse Side Button Mode allows Mouse 4 and Mouse 5 to toggle pause state and galactic/system views.

Page Up and Page Down will also now adjust the camera zoom level.

Other accessibility improvement projects are ongoing for future updates. I hope to have text to speech available in an Open Beta later on in the year for the 3.6 “Orion” update.

Golden Tiyanki Status​

The Caravansary Caravan Coalition will now reward their most loyal patrons with Golden Tiyanki status. Those who have purchased a sufficient number of Reliquaries will now be granted the honor of being able to purchase as many as they like, directly for credits, with no more cooldowns for their best customers.

Golden Tiyanki Status with the Caravaneers


Good luck, the Galatron is waiting!

(This should make a couple of related achievements significantly less painful to acquire. They do eventually get pretty expensive, however.)

More Achievements​

Continuing from last week, here are the rest of the new Species Pack achievements we're planning for Fornax.

Aquatics:
Holy Water

Holy Water - Drench a Fallen Empire’s holy world.

There Be Dragons

There Be Dragons - Have at least 13 dragons you own in your capital system.

Necroids:
With Great Power

With Great Power - As a Necrophage, do not invade any pre-ftl civilisations until you defeat the crisis OR have at least 10 observation stations around pre-ftl worlds.

Recent History

Recent History - As a Memorialist empire, have Galactic Memorials on five tomb worlds that did not start the game as tomb worlds.

Lithoids:
Room for Desert

Room for Desert - Consume another empire’s desert homeworld.

Can you Smell What the Lithoids are Cooking?

Can You Smell What the Lithoids are Cooking? - As a Lithoid empire, keep another Lithoid pop as Livestock or Process them.

Plantoids:
 Growing Like Weeds

Growing Like Weeds
- As a budding species that does not have the Clone Army origin, achieve a base organic pop assembly of at least 10/month on your capital.

Tend the Garden

Tend the Garden - Become the custodian of Wenkwort Artem, designating it a resort world with a Ranger Lodge and all original blockers present.

Humanoids:
Directive 67

Directive 67 - As a Clone Soldier empire, denounce a Spiritualist fallen empire as a crisis in the Galactic Community then destroy them, without blowing up their final planet.
(We're so mean to the Spiritualist Fallen Empire!)

Destroy the People of Earth!

Destroy the People of Earth! - As the Commonwealth of Man, destroy the United Nations of Earth with your ruler being a human with a symbiotic brainslug, without blowing up their final planet.

We also have one more being added to Synthetic Dawn:
Machine Supremacy

Machine Supremacy - Win the game as a machine uprising.

Now I’ll turn it over to Iggy for an update on Relics.

Relic Updates​

Hello everyone! I am Iggy and I am back to show you the fruit of our collaboration from back earlier in the summer. Firstly we reviewed some of the feedback about the untouched relics so please enjoy even more relics with enhanced flavor and fewer pain points.

Khan's Throne


The Khan’s Throne now grants you access to the Satrapy Subject Preset letting you extort fleet capacity from your subject.

Also the Defragmentor will now have a usage for non-robot empires granting 10% energy upkeep reduction to all jobs buildings and districts.

Head of Zarqlaan


And finally the Head of Zarqlan now has the spiritualist ethics attraction locked to the active, and the size of the fleet increases with activation, up to a max after 5 uses. Also due to popular demand the head will now spawn for the AI instead of the player 25% of the time and the AI will colonize holy worlds when they possess the relic.

Further Changes to Already Balanced Relics:
  • The Psionic Archive now allows Gestalt Empires to find Psionic Theory which in turn will grant them access to Zro Mining.
  • The Brood Queen will now grant a stacking empire modifier to swarm type weapons (Missiles and Strike Craft) for each use and will also spawn the Carrier variant on use.
  • The Pox Sample will increase the likelihood that you find Biological Technologies
  • The Omnicodex now gives +25 relation with non robot empires if you are a robot one.
  • The Reality Perforator active modifiers now last 2-5 years instead of 1-5 years

For the rest of the changes please see Dev Diary #259.

Next Week and PDXCon​

Next week is PDXCon at Münchenbryggeriet here in Stockholm, but we’ll still have a dev diary taking a peek at some of the content coming out with Fornax. If you come visit us at the convention, we’ll have Fornax up and running, a Stellaris Q&A Panel where we'll be taking questions from the audience, and I’m planning on holding a small workshop where we’ll reveal how our summer experiments have gone.

There are still a few tickets left if you're in the area.

See you next week!
 
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the Megastructures outliner addition is a great move on the right direction!

will we be able to define which items are shown on the outline ? that would be neat
like a tickbox for "show complete megastructures"
 
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Please list gateway sites separately from other megastructures in the outliner, i often find myself spamming them later in the game and that list would be nice to collapse
 
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I don't know what ringworlds you are building. Any modifier you can get on a ringworld you can get on planets as well. Except the base resource production which is multiplied by all your production modifiers. Pops on planets are far far more efficient than pops on planets. The only exception is tech, because there is no orbital ring building that improves tech.
Yes, you get the same advantages, but way higher job count - a specialized agri-ringworld will make more food than specialized size 25 Gaia with Lush modifier.
Don't get me wrong - I'm all for buffing ringworlds, they do feel underpowered considering the cost to make them and upkeep in strategic resources, but I'm pretty sure they outperform any size 25 planet. It is also true I play 99% of my games as a Machine empire, so perhaps the difference in pop output is because of that.

I can say that a Generator Ringworld with 8 Generator districts and 2 Housing districts will absolutely demolish a site 25 Machine world with 5 Nexus districts and 20 Generator districts & a planeatry ring with the Atmospheric ionizers building (funny because machine worlds have negligible atmospheres, according to their tooltip :p)
 
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Please list gateway sites separately from other megastructures in the outliner, i often find myself spamming them later in the game and that list would be nice to collapse
They only populate the list while incomplete/ruined, once completed/fixed they are expunged from the list. As per OP ;)
 
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Is there a chance Satrapies could become an advanced subject type at some point?
It coming with the Apocalypse DLC would be pretty fitting and having them be an advanced subject type could also indirectly buff the Khan.
Maybe something along the lines of a subject that grants higher bonuses the more of em you possess or something?
 
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Wait, Ranger Lodge? Does that mean we have to be a vassal of an Environmentalist empire, and we need to count on the Environmentalist empire building a Ranger Lodge?

No. (Spoilers ahead.)

You'll be able to achieve this as a player empire with the Environmentalist civic as well - we'll be adding a Ranger Lodge building you can build on your own worlds in Fornax.
 
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Megastructures in the Outliner? Nice

Accessibility Improvements? Nice

Golden Tiyanki Status? Finally!

Relic Updates. The new ones look good.

Psionic Archive... HALLELUJAH! Now I will no longer despair upon getting the Zroni as a precursor when playing Rogue Servitors!
 
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Yes, you get the same advantages, but way higher job count - a specialized agri-ringworld will make more food than specialized size 25 Gaia with Lush modifier.
Don't get me wrong - I'm all for buffing ringworlds, they do feel underpowered considering the cost to make them and upkeep in strategic resources, but I'm pretty sure they outperform any size 25 planet. It is also true I play 99% of my games as a Machine empire, so perhaps the difference in pop output is because of that.

I can say that a Generator Ringworld with 8 Generator districts and 2 Housing districts will absolutely demolish a site 25 Machine world with 5 Nexus districts and 20 Generator districts & a planeatry ring with the Atmospheric ionizers building (funny because machine worlds have negligible atmospheres, according to their tooltip :p)
Total amount of resources sure, but I never care about those. Pop efficiency is what matters. Pops are a limited resource by themselves and more limited than available jobs. When was the last time you actually run out of Pop Jobs across your empire, because I have too many pops?
 
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the Megastructures outliner addition is a great move on the right direction!

will we be able to define which items are shown on the outline ? that would be neat
like a tickbox for "show complete megastructures"
No. (Spoilers ahead.)

You'll be able to achieve this as a player empire with the Environmentalist civic as well - we'll be adding a Ranger Lodge building you can build on your own worlds in Fornax.
Does this mean more civic specific buildings are coming?
 
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Those who have purchased a sufficient number of Reliquaries will now be granted the honor of being able to purchase as many as they like, directly for credits, with no more cooldowns for their best customers.
So now if I throw enough chips at the roulette and slots, I get comped the high roller suite :cool:
 
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Does this mean more civic specific buildings are coming?

No, this one's a straggler that was originally intended to come out with Cepheus but didn't quite make it.

A nice thing about the Custodian model is that we can punt it to the next release when that happens.
 
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So, similarly to the Ranger lodge I got question regarding these two:


Aquatics:
View attachment 869925
There Be Dragons - Have at least 13 dragons you own in your capital system.

Currently when playing with the "Here be Dragons" origin you can get Hrozgar, 10 of their young and the Ether Dragon Hatchling normally with a little bit of luck.

Does this achievement thusly require us to either get a lucky L-Dragon spawn or play as Reanimators? Or will there be more dragons?

Plantoids:
View attachment 869930
Growing Like Weeds
- As a budding species that does not have the Clone Army origin, achieve a base organic pop assembly of at least 10/month on your capital.

Currently Budding is incompatible with the Clone Soldier Origin. Is this just a redundant phrasing for the moment or is that one of the upcoming changes?
 
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Total amount of resources sure, but I never care about those. Pop efficiency is what matters. Pops are a limited resource by themselves and more limited than available jobs. When was the last time you actually run out of Pop Jobs across your empire, because I have too many pops?
Without ringworlds, I'll usually cap out my worlds (40-60 planets) with pops by 2350-2400. Again, machine empire numbers :)

EDIT:
Oh and I should note I always disable the progressive pop cost!

As far as efficiency goes - yes, in that, Planets with orbital rings (with the correct building ofc.) will outperform ringworlds. I misunderstood your OP, I thought you were talking about the total production.

And again, regardless, I do agree with you - ringworlds are due for a buff, either by increasing their pop performance or by reducing their upkeep.
Honestly, I am leaning more towards decreasing upkeep, but a resource output buff would be just fine :)
 
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Could we have a setting where for all megastuctures only the non-completed ones are in the outliner? We cannot interact with completed once anyways. That being said, it is great to have the megastructures in the outliner, way better to keep track of all the structures you are building and/or can upgrade.