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Stellaris Dev Diary #286 - Fear and Archaeotechs in First Contact

Hello everyone! I am PDS_Iggy, and I’m here to tell you all about Fear of the Dark!

This new narrative origin for First Contact focuses on a people divided. After a planet in your solar system blew up, fear and xenophobia spread to such a degree that a large portion of your population decided to flee your homeworld. Their goal? To hide from the rest of the galaxy.


Incoming Transmission:​

You mean, “The sane individuals of our species took the only prudent action possible when being attacked by an alien force capable of destroying planets!
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This split in your population is reflected in the effects of the origin. With a sizable section of your empire living on a neighboring world, your research alternatives and choices for leaders are reduced. Yet, even more inquisitive than a regular empire, you will have no difficulty discovering more anomalies as you explore the void.

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No doubt you’ll return from your galavantings the next time we reach a breakthrough! Our scientific research is one of the few way we can even hope to delay you from dooming us all. Once you lead the aliens back to our home, it will all be over.

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Additionally,Fear of the Dark starts with quite a unique system, one that will have you starting with binary planets - your ‘cousins’ are living just a rocket jump away. (a Sol start will have them placed on Mars).

It will be up to you to make the best of this situation. Your partner planet can be a powerful ally, yet they are also very skittish. Ensure that they don’t torpedo your entrance on the galactic stage.

Perhaps you will stop treating the alien threat so lightly when our upcoming study of ‘the Divider’ is finished. Just you wait. We won’t be hunted.



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Whatever happens, remember that you are one people and you are stronger together. Oh, and your partner planet has cloaked ships.


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Now off to MrCosmogone and his wondrous archaeo-technologies for this patch's custodian update!



Did you ever think, as you pass by an old laser cannon in a glass case, that not everything belongs in a museum? That perhaps, the Irassian tractor beam could be used for your cause instead of gathering dust?

Well, so do I. And if you own Ancient Relics, I have good news!

Excavated dig sites will now sometimes generate minor artifact deposits that can be exploited by orbital stations, or by colonizing the planet.

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There could always be more trinkets to find!

Your income in minor artifacts can then be put to good use with the new archaeo-technologies that will unlock buildings, starbase modules and ship components, all costing minor artifacts to build.
There are several ways to acquire these archaeo-technologies. Completing the Secrets of the [PRECURSOR] special projects will now give you a research option to unlock some unique archaeo-components:
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The power of a precursor in the palm of your hand.

Several of our dig sites can now grant you access to one of the new technologies. This is a very reliable way of acquiring them.

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Get to work, Oxygal, I want this research on my desk by the end of the week!

All these new technologies are found in the society field, in an all new “Archaeostudies” category which is all about fitting ancient tech into your machines and weapons. Discovering these archaeo-technologies by yourself is a long and hard process, but luckily, you can be assisted by dedicated researchers who share your interest in ancient things.

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They largely just make old things go boom.

Should you decide to pick the Remnants origin that starts you on a relic world, you will now start the game with the Faculty of Archaeostudies unlocked and replacing your starting research lab.

And if this still does not quench your thirst for specialization in archaeo-technologies, if you still want to dig deeper, we even have a new ascension perk for you!

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For all you history lovers!



With increased minor artifact generation, the scale of the existing economy needed to be increased, but we also took this opportunity to now display artifacts in the topbar alongside the other strategic resources.

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Bigger numbers mean better game, right?

And while you still can’t buy them on the market, you can trade them to other empires!

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It belongs in MY museum!

I don’t really have the space here to show you ALL the things, but here, have a tease.

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Archaeotitan go brrrrrrrr

Oh and one last thing before we wrap things up. I might have made a Devolving Beam for colossi, to return those pesky humans from the UNE back to their origins:

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Return to Monke!

8rA6Cq62fXkJkMccZdGfylOhAhq4l0nX32rI_9cwX0vKVEqAAOUdct0_K4LlI7f4PN_nh695KKAzuHd7n2ek6iGXswUu9Bl-dZWll9tSXAD-pFuiFRuf9u2AkYC-AJwJ6eoKyqjhO5ruMoSOQhRAuaI

They’ll make good pets.
 
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society research is pretty full these days already. what might've been fun and likely ALL the scope creep would be making minor artifacts into it's own research resource thereby expanding research into 4 categories.

at any rate this sounds like a story pack i'll want immediately

edit: seems my idea's unpopular XD. ya'll will hate my other ones then: I was dabbling on how to consume zro for psi related research, dm for enigmatic related research and lm for a few of the advanced engineering ones like dragonscales and megastructures

food for food tech and so on. don't worry, I doubt the devs will absorb the idea
 
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Any possibility of establishing a Branch Office on our partner planet? Are they capable of regular diplomacy?

Edit: Also, if it hasn't been asked already: how much can we customize this partner planet at empire creation?
 
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I'd love an achievement for returning a fallen empire world to monke.
Haha. That is a great idea!
Show them that they could fall even further :p
 
Oh and one last thing before we wrap things up. I might have made a Devolving Beam for colossi, to return those pesky humans from the UNE back to their origins

Question regarding the Devolving Beam: what happens if we use it on a synthetically ascended or gestalt consciousness world? Do we get pre-sapient robots?
 
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Uuuh
I love this, especially the fact that we can now generate minor artifacts.
Now it is just waiting time to achieve something and not, oops thats all folks you can't build the final stage of the art piece anymore

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This looks very promising. So the three green dots next the the eagle symbol seem to represent the stealth level.Would be cool if our ships are always cloaked and if enemy detection is lower than my three dots they will never see me, until I open fire upon them :D
 
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I wonder how your isolationists cousins would react to you getting your own colossus and start cracking planets in your home system for the lols? :D

I may have done this before.
 
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The fear of the dark origin certainly looks interesting here, although I do wonder if for the sol system Mars could retain its name instead of being given a different one. The archeotech expansion to ancient relics is looking quite exciting too (especially nice to see it finally being a thing!), very much looking forwards to unearthing all these new technologies! All-in-all, the perfect dev diary for one to wake up to on their birthday! :p
 
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Ah, so now we have Archo-tech.

Now you have my attention and exitement for the DLC. I always thought that minor artifacts where kind of useless as i would never spend them expect for the precursor insight and then was too afraid to spend them for anything else because i could maybe build the megaart installation and that would require these few minor artifacts.

Also, everytime i read Fear of the dark the intro of the Iron Maiden song started in my head.
 
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Looking at that archaeostudies department, it seems like it's extremely lopsided towards civics research.
From the removal of engineering research from Masterful Crafters (rather than the actually OP part where you get building slots for building industrial districts), I had gotten the impression that there was an effort to pull back from asymmetrical research jobs.

I suppose it doesn't matter one way or the other when it's only one per empire.

On a different note, wasn't Remnants already considered one of the more powerful origins? Maybe I'm out of date.
 
Great a origin where a third of your population consists of those doomsday preppers who get all their "information" from some guy on youtube who refuses to shower :p
But then they are also scientists?
Seems a bit muddled, tbh.
 
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Ah, so now we have Archo-tech.

Now you have my attention and exitement for the DLC. I always thought that minor artifacts where kind of useless as i would never spend them expect for the precursor insight and then was too afraid to spend them for anything else because i could maybe build the megaart installation and that would require these few minor artifacts.

Also, everytime i read Fear of the dark the intro of the Iron Maiden song started in my head.
I've always ditched the mega art thing and went for tons and tons of reverse engineering. Now I can do both
 
Great a origin where a third of your population consists of those doomsday preppers who get all their "information" from some guy on youtube who refuses to shower :p
But then they are also scientists?
Seems a bit muddled, tbh.
Justified paranoia has nothing to do with conspiracy theories
We have scientists irl too who warn against trying to contact aliens too, Stephen Hawking for example
 
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