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Stellaris Dev Diary #266 - Rise a Knight!

Greetings squires!

Mr. Cosmogone here, on behalf of the Lord Commander Eladrin who gave me his blessing to tell you more about the mysterious Knights of the Toxic God.

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“Pledge thy Life to Realm and Quest”​

The Origin is content oriented, but it does come with some unique mechanics to support the narrative and put you in charge of an empire dedicated to a quest.

Starting with your Homeworld, which still bears the scars of the passage of the Toxic God in the form of five unique blockers:

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I hope you brought your swimsuit!​

As the quest progresses, you might get a chance to upgrade these into powerful assets, but at the beginning of the game, they will be a thorn in your side, reducing the number districts you can build on your homeworld.

Fear not however, for the Order has built you a brand new habitat to serve as your springboard to galactic dominance!

The habitat comes with several unique features, including an imposing building:

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“No fearsome Foe nor Vastness black,
No moat or wild shall hold thee back.”​

Knights are expensive specialists who will provide you with quest progress, and increasingly powerful boons as time goes on, while the Lord Commander is a ruler stratum job which is basically a super knight.

Both of these jobs are supported by Squires, who mainly come from the habitat’s unique districts:

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“Let Faith and Honor be thy Guide,
To Chivalry and Oath abide.”​

All of this is done in service of the Quest, a unique situation which will slowly progress towards, well towards something.. Well, actually, multiple somethings which will be up to you to discover.

Let’s just say that it’s going to take a while, and cost you a considerable amount of money and alloys.

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1819 months is about 150 years, but there are ways to speed up the quest.​

The Quest, the Knights and the Order will definitely put some stress on your economy in the early game, but having the elite of your nation ready to serve also comes with a few benefits, like the Knightly Duties policy:

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“Now raise thy Sword, take up the Fight”​

And while your start will be rougher than most, should you overcome the challenges thrown your way, you will find that the knights can prove very valuable. That’s all for today, I’ll leave you with a peek at a late game habitat setup that occurred during one of our playtest, with only a little bit of minmaxing involved:

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“Swear thy Vow, and Rise a Knight!”​

What's Next?

Is it time already? This Thursday we'll have @PDX-Loke providing the Patch Notes for the Toxoids Species Pack and the Stellaris 3.5 "Fornax" update!

See you then!
 
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Lorenerd11 said:
This feel very weird. Interesting, but weird.

It all seems very… specific? I'm not sure if it's inspired by something, but there's a very predetermined theme to all of this that is somewhat unusual for origins. It's got unique jobs and everything, but it just makes me wonder why a civilization that had their homeworld devastated by a toxic colossus must necessarily be a knightly order, and why we can't play as a knightly order otherwise?
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Because when one writes a story one needs to write a story i.e. it has to have a plot. And apparently whoever wrote the story decided to have it go in this direction (or was told to go there).

You could just as well ask "Why do we have to have the Worm love us, when it could instead be disgusted by us or it could be a Dog instead of a Worm". Sure it could be something else, but it would always be one thing and not any other.
 
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I can already hear all the Monty Python memes. "I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed Vhein food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a blorg and your father smelt of zro dust."
 
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Not sure about this one.

These story-based origins are interesting and worth playing at least once, but then what?

They’re not terrible and I’ll definitely play this one, but highly specific story-based origins feel like they’re at odds this game’s emphasis on customization and emergent storytelling.
 
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It is all nice. BUT - should not we be able to colonise previously inaccessible acid/toxic worlds as Toxoids? For example Venus in the Solar System?
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There's a special ascension perk for that.
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Think people just find it a little odd that a "toxic species pack" didn't come with a set of species whose shtick is to inhabit the toxic worlds from the get-go, and then struggle to (or can never) colonise none-toxic planets.

I believe the ascension perk you're referring to "allows toxic planets to be colonised" in the sense that it gives you the option to terraform them into something not toxic first.
 
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It sounds like a really cool origin, and the quest system might be a truly amazing thing to apply to more anomalies and strange events. This origin might have little replayability, but it seems flavorful as heck (and it might live on as a modded civic, who knows).
 
ZomgK3tchup said:
These story-based origins are interesting and worth playing at least once, but then what?
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There are some important choices to make during your quest - things may be very different for your empire at the end of one playthrough than another.

jayparadoritox said:
Think people just find it a little odd that a "toxic species pack" didn't come with a set of species whose shtick is to inhabit the toxic worlds from the get-go, and then struggle to (or can never) colonise none-toxic planets.
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Toxic worlds are an extremely common planet category, which is why we went with the toxic terraforming candidates. Allowing simple colonization of them would be too strong, especially if your rivals could not effectively benefit from taking them from you.
 
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Eladrin said:
Toxic worlds are an extremely common planet category, which is why we went with the toxic terraforming candidates. Allowing simple colonization of them would be too strong, especially if your rivals could not effectively benefit from taking them from you.
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Thanks for replying, this does make a lot of sense! :)
 
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Ok, this actually looks pretty interesting to me, between this and teachers of the shroud, I guess I can be a bit more patient for any potential story pack dlc (which I'm hoping will be situations based) that we've been somewhat overdue for, not that what we've been getting in the meantime has been bad though!

I do wonder if there'll be any new army type associated with this origin though, despite the knightly commanders policy option, perhaps it should give access to a new army type while active, or some new trait for generals? I'm also rather surprised that this origin doesn't require some degree of spiritualism and/or militarism too.
 
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Eladrin said:
Toxic worlds are an extremely common planet category, which is why we went with the toxic terraforming candidates. Allowing simple colonization of them would be too strong, especially if your rivals could not effectively benefit from taking them from you.
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Could you provide numberic context, please?

I don't believe the wiki breaks down the planet spawn %, so 'extremely common' is very vague and would depend on how the categories are structured.
 
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I am quite happy with toxoids, this does stress genetic ascension with overtuned and hiveminds can only genetically ascend... Though exotic metabolism is gonna seem a good replacement for aquatic imo... Although I wish genetic was also announced to the galaxy as well... You know how like when you cybernetic ascend it let's the galaxy know that you have infused yourself with cybernetics or when you psionically ascend it says some people are showing psychic protentional and all. I wonder if there will be like a middle trait for bio ascension... Like how if you cybernetically ascend you get +5% more research and if you become Erudite you get +5% research speed and from jobs. If you're a hivemind you get +10% research speed. which is not bad, but it costs a LOT of society research to fully ascend... You have to research genetic resequencing then change the template and use more society research... I worried a little bit for overtuned though for this reason.
 
Eladrin said:
It was yesterday's stream.


Overtuned had one the week before.
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I have to say this must be the most disappointing origin ever. There is no interactivity to the story, just waiting for events to happen and occasionally choosing which bonus one gets. No actual sending of ships anywhere, no interactions with anyone, no Archeological sites, no projects. :(

Was all the effort just so that people would say "Such a waste."?
 
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Lorenerd11 said:
This feel very weird. Interesting, but weird.

It all seems very… specific? I'm not sure if it's inspired by something, but there's a very predetermined theme to all of this that is somewhat unusual for origins. It's got unique jobs and everything, but it just makes me wonder why a civilization that had their homeworld devastated by a toxic colossus must necessarily be a knightly order, and why we can't play as a knightly order otherwise?
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I mean yeah I immediately agreed after reading this dev diary. This seems like a mechanic I would absolutely enjoy with many types of empires, but the specificity it has to toxoids means that its really lost alot of versatility. I kinda wish they would rewrite this whole origin to be basically the same but removing all references to toxicity, so if you want to play it as a toxoid you can, but you can also just play it as some feudal human kingdom. I want to play as Bretonia, but I dont want to play as some weird garbage Bretonia. This also just seems like the perfect origin to use if you wanted to become some galactic knightly order like the Jedi, only instead you have to play someone's weird pre-written lore instead of being to create your own story.
 
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Interesting but I can't help but feel like the Arthurian knights trope is being wasted on a Captain Planet villains themed species pack. Like it should be a more general authoritarian civic. Maybe adapting the story to a more non-specific context would be too demanding?
 
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I love this origine, but I would have loved it even more as a generic knight origine or civic, so that we could have make holy knights in space, jedis and stuff like that.
 
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omg this looks amazing. i know army damage is not really super relevant in this game, but i plan on making my toxic nights super powerful soldiers just for the roleplay.
 
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