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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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Fear of the Dark may become my new favorite origin. I liked the flavor of a semi-separate political entity working closely with my empire in the Knights of the Toxic God origin, but this one goes all the way and provides a completely separate planet. Very neat imo. I just hope they're relevant throughout the game. We'll see if the benefits of the origin get even close to compensating for starting with only two thirds of the regular amount of pops or not.
 
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It might be generally a good way to improve some of the weaker precursors. Makes me wonder how it'll influence some existing stuff. Rubricator. 30 Artifacts on a 10 year CD suddenly seems, very very very weak.
Maybe the Rubricator provides a passive income of Minor Artifacts now, and a random Archaeo-tech or Archaeo-tech-enhanced ship on Activation.

Or maybe you can assemble the countless Pokemon figurines it churns out into giant Pokemon that serve as Mega-Warforms you can put into space.
 
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I'm no astronomancer, but I'm pretty sure that's not how that works. It would be damned awful, the debris and tidal effects would be literally apocalyptic, but my laymans understanding of orbital mechanics tells me the only way the earth will spiral outward is if something accelerates the earth-moon system in precisely the right direction. Any astrologers in the audience please feel free to correct me.

If the Moon exploded, astrologers would probably predict you a VERY bad future according to your horoscope.
 
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WAIT A MINUTE

Um... Will Fear of the Dark give you base-level Terraforming tech to start with?

Or will this be "Subterranean Civs start without Subterranean Colonization" all over again?

Or will you get base-level Terraforming tech as a reward for destroying the separatists?
 
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Any chance on revisiting the final dig site for the Baol? Currently, it will still spawn on the colonized worlds of AI empires, if the game deems that you don't have any eligible habitable worlds within your borders and it's really annoying. Not sure if there is something in the code that deems former remnant colonies as ineligible, which if so, removing it would be a start and maybe good enough.

Also any change on put something in the code to ensure that Zroni and Boal digsites will spawn in a more compact manner? As a fan of tall play, I hate getting these precursors, when no other empire spawns near me because the game really like sto spawn the dig sites really far apart, when all the systems are unowned. Hate how that tends to encourage people that don't want a sprawling empire to have to sit on the dig site in hopes that they can avoid having the final digsite spawn like 20 systems away from the first digstie. Would even settle for that being in the galaxy setting.

Is it possible for anomalies to also sometimes spawn a minor artifact deposit? Seems like a chance to add some player choice in regards to a few anomalies. Like some that currently just give minerals, research or alloys deposits, could now present the player with the option to make a choice. For instance do you opt to get engineering research from a ship graveyard or do you salvage it for minor artifacts?

Finally, any chance of make nanites a little more accessible? Would be need if part of research L-Gates allowed for the discovery of making nanites in very small quantities. Maybe a research lab that had an empire limit of one. I know there isn't much that can be done with nanites, but I've had some disappointing games where I'll take the entire L-Cluster and only get one nanite deposit and not be able to do anything fun with it because my sprawl is too high to do much with the edicts that use nanites and I'm good on strategic resource production and don't really want tear down stuff to eek out a tiny bit more efficiency for the strategic resource production building that uses nanites. That said, more uses for nanites would also be welcome.
 
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Also, everytime i read Fear of the dark the intro of the Iron Maiden song started in my head.
Your friendly Stellaris Community team also has this happening -- one of the reasons I was tickled to use lyrics from it on some of our social posts this morning.
 
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Wait so Fear the Dark starts the game with 1/3 less pops ouch that makes it the worst origin in the game.
I'm pretty sure they start with extra orbital deposits to make up the difference, if the 5 alloy one displayed in the teaser images is anything to go by.
 
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Any possibility of making namelists no longer attached to the checksum? It would be very nice for RP purposes!
 
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I'm no astronomancer, but I'm pretty sure that's not how that works. It would be damned awful, the debris and tidal effects would be literally apocalyptic, but my laymans understanding of orbital mechanics tells me the only way the earth will spiral outward is if something accelerates the earth-moon system in precisely the right direction. Any astrologers in the audience please feel free to correct me.
I was thinking some sort of attack that didn't just break up the moon, but rather something that deleted it--utterly destroyed it in which no mass was left. However, I'm not a physics guy or math guy either, so maybe it's not as bad a problem as I thought it would be.
 
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Artificial Storm nullifies shields... great.
Do starbases know about this and change their shields and anti shield weapons to actually something more useful?


 
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I've always ditched the mega art thing and went for tons and tons of reverse engineering. Now I can do both

I cant just ditch the mega art. The very first time i build the mega art and not so long before i reached the the final step of the building i thought to myself "hmm, those minor artifacts i have and never use. Surely i can just use some and just see what happens if i buy the various options". And you can guess it, once i would have been able to build the final step, i was missing like 20 minor artifacts which i would have had if i didnt try all the other options and couldnt get any more.

I never got to build the mega art installation again up to now, but in the back of my head there is always this big stop sign which tells me to not spend the minor artifacts, because you never know. Maybe this time i can build the mega art...
 
Can't you just make blueprints for defense platforms?
The main starbase doesn't do much work in the first place

On another note, could be fun to play isolationists, fortify your borders with the storms and then just sit there with highly specialized fleets that have undeniable home advantage in the storm
My understanding is that if the starbase falls, any remaining platforms are immediately lost.

So while yes, you can stock up on platforms, having valuable slots on the starbase taken up by shields instead of armour makes it disproportionately fragile.
 
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