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Stellaris Dev Diary #264 - Damn the Consequences

‘Sup, trash bangers?

Today we’ll be taking a look at some of the features coming in the Toxoids Species Pack. As we’re on an accelerated dev diary schedule, there’s no time to lose! Let’s jump straight into this and turn it over to @Gruntsatwork .

Overtuned​


One of our two new Origins for Toxoids, Overtuned is the grim but exalting reminder that a brief life burns the brightest. Through invasive surgery and by modifying biochemical pathways you can impart your pops with 13 new overtuned traits. Each of these traits is a mirror to an already existing, far more survivable trait.

An Overtuned Empire being made


As you can see, the overtuned traits can even be picked with their “natural” opposing traits, or stacked with their mirrors for all your double-dipping needs. There are next to no restrictions on mixing them with other traits, so feel free to create whatever biological monstrosities you can imagine.

In practice, the overtuned traits are all about as strong or slightly weaker than their mirror traits, usually cheaper in trait point cost and reduce your leader lifespan depending on their point cost.

In addition to their normal effects, the origin will also grant you access to a new edict called “Damn the Consequences”.

This edict doubles the positive effect of all overtuned traits, but also doubles the upkeep of those pops. Its unity cost is a percentage of your own unity income, so you will always be able to damn the consequences. Furthermore, the edict has a lock-in period of 5 years, which means you will not be able to cancel the edict until it has been active for those 5 years.

New Traits​


With Toxoids, we are adding 4 new traits to the game, available to all portraits and 3 of these traits will be available at gamestart.

Incubators
Incubators

Incubator pops will enjoy only a modest bonus on their capital worlds given their starting number of pops but fresh colonies will quickly reveal its full power.

Inorganic Breath
Inorganic Breath

A small but flavorful addition to our trait roster, to better support your exotic needs.

Noxious
Noxious

Noxious pops will decrease the happiness of all non-noxious pops on the same planet, while in turn receiving a happiness bonus for every non-noxious and therefore unhappy pop. Talk about toxic neighbors.

Exotic Metabolism however, is an advanced Trait and will thus require fully finished Genetic Ascension, as it requires a robust economy to support their exotic upkeep.
Exotic Metabolism

Its benefits are strong, its upkeep severe and it requires a deep investment into biological enhancements, we hope to see some interesting builds with this.

Civics​


Toxoids will also bring 3 new civics with it, to give you more of that slimy but satisfying feeling.

Mutagenic Spas
Mutagenic Spas and Gestalt variants

Our first civic that does not start you out with its special building, Mutagenic Spas, and all of its alternate versions, give you the option of boosting your pop growth on highly industrialized worlds, as your pops enjoy the fruits of your pollution.

Relentless Industrialists
Relentless Industrialists

Relentless Industrialists will have to deal with an ongoing situation about the environmental effects of their increased efficiency in alloy and consumer goods production. Of course, should you be cold-hearted and profit-oriented enough, it becomes a self-solving problem, if you can afford to work in such a hostile environment.

Scavengers
Scavengers

Arriving hand in hand with one of our changes for the free patch, namely the ability to choose what you wish to gain from debris, alloys or research, the new Scavenger civic will allow an empire to gain both benefits as well as salvage some actual ships from the debris.

Megacorps have access to all three civics.

Detox Ascension Perk​

Detox Ascension Perk

Detox Ascension Perk

Even the toughest species can’t quite survive in a world that is entirely poisonous.

50% poisonous however is another beast altogether.

With the Detox ascension perk, empires will be able to turn those giant balls of death into giant balls of not-quite-death.

Given how perilous toxic worlds are, this act of terraforming will be a bit more involved than normal, since even after the initial phase makes them colonizable, there will be remnants of their toxic pasts interfering with their prosperity.

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Next Dev Diary​

This Thursday we’ll have a dev diary from the Artists, including some interesting things about the character’s outfits and what we’ve done differently there.

See you then! Don't forget you can Pre-Order Toxoids Now!
 
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Something I've commented on earlier is that the Overclocked traits won't be very useful unless accompanied by a rework of how genetic modification works. Do we still have to select entire planetary populations to modify, and then have no control over which pops grow afterwards? Species templates as they are make it hard to dedicate individual templates for specific purposes.

And then, no choice about which pops we get leaders from, or even any indication of a leader's species traits.

Create a+100% habitability template (+%50% doubled by edicts) and colonize everthing. Soon slap also +30%x2 or more pop growth on it to colonize everthing.
Once a planet is grown enough, rechange the population according to planetary specialization, aka full mining juiced and more.
 
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it's cool and all but when you anounced colonisation of toxic worlds i was really hoping for a brand new view from my window. if you don't want to make an entirely new planet type, just recolor the old ones. turning the ocean red, and the sky green shouldn't be that hard
 
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Overtuned really sounds overpowered. Leaders matter, but they aren't /that/ important, especially once the unity is flowing.

Likewise the population increase on low population worlds from incubators sounds very strong and if it works beyond 10 pops will supercharge the current strategy of feeder worlds. I'm not seeing the downsides as nearly equal to the upsides.
 
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Overtuned really sounds overpowered. Leaders matter, but they aren't /that/ important, especially once the unity is flowing.

Likewise the population increase on low population worlds from incubators sounds very strong and if it works beyond 10 pops will supercharge the current strategy of feeder worlds. I'm not seeing the downsides as nearly equal to the upsides.

It is an origin though, so that does have a significant (potentially, not all origins are equal) oportunity cost
 
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Robotics != Energy Lifeforms, we're talking about energy constructs without a hard body. Hard light and/or perhaps Plasma based lifeforms.
I'm well aware of the concept. However, from a gameplay perspective, if it eats ec and works a job, it's functionality no different to a robot. Only the art really changes - and maybe some inherent trait like they grow faster when there are more of them.

With the way planetary economies work it wouldn't really play any differently. And to make the concept fit I would not be surprised if such a pack has energy beings inhabiting dead matter - rocks, corpses, rusting long-failed machines, to give them corporeality.

Asking for a energy being pack can just as easily be substituted with an MI start - or asking for starting as Individualist synths if the energy things aren't gestalts.
 
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TBH… materialists and spiritualists have become weird. The materialists believe in “science” yet ignore the hard evidence of psionic powers. The spiritualist xenophiles on the other hand are also weird. Yes, robots can’t use psionic abilities, but does that bar them from sentience? Maybe some will believe in that but wouldn’t some contest? Now, this makes it even weirder.
Materialists do not ignore psionic powers, they're just bad at proving they exist. Once there are obvious proofs (a psionic pop exists in the empire), they can roll the tech like everyone else.
 
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I hope noxious is a negative trait. We really need more negative traits especially since they are adding more and more traits.

I'm well aware of the concept. However, from a gameplay perspective, if it eats ec and works a job, it's functionality no different to a robot. Only the art really changes - and maybe some inherent trait like they grow faster when there are more of them.

With the way planetary economies work it wouldn't really play any differently. And to make the concept fit I would not be surprised if such a pack has energy beings inhabiting dead matter - rocks, corpses, rusting long-failed machines, to give them corporeality.

Asking for a energy being pack can just as easily be substituted with an MI start - or asking for starting as Individualist synths if the energy things aren't gestalts.

I could imagine them working different, for one they would have pop growth rather then assembly, unless they are hive mind. Yes they would use energy but they could be half energy, half exotic gas upkeep. They would start with the ability to produce exotic gas. They could also have very frail pop, orbital bombardment would damage them more then most. We could also add a unique world type for them, where there pops become the atmosphere of the planet, on such a world housing is not needed. I also imagine mining is hard for them.

Energy beings should just be trait or origin or a ascension path of a gasoid pack with floating gaseous creatures. Thinking about it ascension path seems the best way to go that way any species can become them and get powerful traits from it. Since they are commonly seen in media as a higher state of being or a almost instinctual one.
 
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So how do noxious subterraneans work?

Minimum habitabilty 50%+30% = 80% yet -30% habitability cap = 70%

Does the reduced habitabily cap only influence other species? Or will my pc get an existential crisis and collapse into a black hole writing poetry?
 
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Hmm trash bangers... Overtuned+All possible pop growth traits, salvagers civic, repugnant... :cool:
 
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I'm well aware of the concept. However, from a gameplay perspective, if it eats ec and works a job, it's functionality no different to a robot. Only the art really changes - and maybe some inherent trait like they grow faster when there are more of them.

With the way planetary economies work it wouldn't really play any differently. And to make the concept fit I would not be surprised if such a pack has energy beings inhabiting dead matter - rocks, corpses, rusting long-failed machines, to give them corporeality.

Asking for a energy being pack can just as easily be substituted with an MI start - or asking for starting as Individualist synths if the energy things aren't gestalts.
Energy beings would presumably grow rather than being constructed and would not be a gestalt unless you were playing as hive minds. They would also not necessarily be immortal, and could get a bunch of cool unique traits that wouldn't "make sense" for robots or organics. Such a pack would also come with amazing ascension potential: organics ascending to "a state of pure energy" is an old scifi trope I don't personally find currently fulfilled by the shroud, as well as the flavour of energy beings becoming corporeal by "inhabiting" synths through synthetic ascension.
 
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Such a pack would also come with amazing ascension potential: organics ascending to "a state of pure energy" is an old scifi trope I don't personally find currently fulfilled by the shroud, as well as the flavour of energy beings becoming corporeal by "inhabiting" synths through synthetic ascension.
An energy being pack and ascension path both sound awesome. Though I hope they would split such an ascension path from psionic the same way cybernetics and synthetics are being split.

Bonus points if both paths are tied to the shroud for lore purposes. But that could be optional.
 
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@Eladrin how does the "create ships out of wreckage" works?

Many months ago, I suggested that *all* battles should create a debris field in system (only 1 each system, that after each battle gets merged), as a means of expanding gameplay and recovering minerals, alloys or food, depending on the ships that fought there.

i.e some kind of salvaging & recycling gameplay. So is that in right now? Or are we still on wreckage created just for tech?
 
Relentless Industrialists
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Relentless Industrialists will have to deal with an ongoing situation about the environmental effects of their increased efficiency in alloy and consumer goods production. Of course, should you be cold-hearted and profit-oriented enough, it becomes a self-solving problem, if you can afford to work in such a hostile environment.
Are the Chinorr going to be updated to use this? It certainly matches their history.
 
An energy being pack and ascension path both sound awesome. Though I hope they would split such an ascension path from psionic the same way cybernetics and synthetics are being split.

Bonus points if both paths are tied to the shroud for lore purposes. But that could be optional.
Wait, when was it confirmed that cybernetics and synthetics are gonna get split?