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

[Abdulijubjub]

The modifiers shown should only affect "farmer jobs". Pearl divers are considered an "artisan job", so they shouldn't benefit from it at all. Anglers should though.

Agrarian Idyll does both though, which I why I referenced it.

Under the hood, Pearl Divers are planet_artisans. But they still have amenities from Agrarian Idyll because they're in the agricultural district, so both jobs got the amenities through triggered modifiers.

Which path they go with depends mostly on the mood of the person who implemented it, I think. Abstractly, it would be most balanced to give it to both Anglers and Pearl Divers: other empire gets +4 food and +1 CG from the two jobs than an agricultural district provides when they use the Baol building. So Anglers should presumably get the same benefit. The question is whether the thematic weirdness of Pearl Divers producing their own upkeep is enough to make them nerf the Anglers civic by giving them half the benefit.

Maybe they'll go with an intermediate solution: Pearl Divers have reduced upkeep instead. It's weaker than giving them food output (upkeep doesn't scale), but it would mean they'd never reverse and start producing food once you have enough modifiers. More thematically appropriate, and certainly less weird looking.

We'll just have to wait and see.

 

[ASGeek2012]

I agree that the Moon would freak out humans more, but the problem is the moon were destroyed it would probably cause earth to spiral outward from its current orbit, and then everyone on earth would freeze to death, would it not be so?

The destruction of the moon would not cause any significant aberration to Earth's orbit but could drastically affect axial tilt. The prevailing theory is that the tilt of Earth's axis remains relatively stable due in part to the presence of a large moon. So over time, Earth's tilt may destabilize, causing havoc to weather patterns.

 

[Commander Tobe]

Maybe I'm missing something here but what is tje Devolving Beam good for? It doesn't make sense to me. Thoughts?

 

[NilsFabian]

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...

Yeah I know what you mean, but maybe it's me, but I've only build Mega art, Sentry Array and Science Nexus once, cause they are either useless in my opinion or game breaking in case of the Sentry Array due to slowing down the game.
The Sentry Array MIGHT be more useful now with Cloaking

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Maybe I'm missing something here but what is tje Devolving Beam good for? It doesn't make sense to me. Thoughts?

It doesn't have to be good. It just has to be fun. Colossi are generally the "to hell with it, I've basically already won, let's just get this over with" option for most games.

But it is actually good, just not compared to invasion. Currently, your options are:

• Encase/crack the planet. You get society research/minerals, don't have a colony of sprawl or manual management, but don't get all the economic power of a colony with a bunch of pops. This is objectively bad, but involves little mental effort. which is great. These are the colossi-est of the colossi options.
• Neutron Sweep/Drench the planet. Everything dies (unless the pops were Aquatic for Drench). You get an empty planet. This is a little better than the first option (you get more options), but it's still quite bad in terms of power compared to invading and keeping all pops.
• Doctrinal Enforcer/Nanobots. If you have this option (psionic spiritualists or Driven Assimilator), it's the best. It instantly conquers the planet, and gives you the organic pops. This is basically invading, but instantaneous. Plus, you get the option of either +999% spiritualist attraction on your own worlds.

Now you get another option: revert all the pops to presapients. This is like neutron sweeping, but once you've built up the infrastructure (and when you feel like it), you can re-enlighten them to get all those pops back. It's like instantly invading, but without you having to switch gears to worry about integrating something you've conquered in the middle of a war, lest it rebel against you.

Plus, apparently they can work in alien zoos. Since presapients cause 0 sprawl and have 0 upkeep (though they do add to your growth required, I think), this is basically like getting pop-free <whatever the job yields>. Whether that's actually good will depend on the specific implementation.

Edit: I really thought Divine Enforcers conquered the planet, but apparently they don't. That makes them... very not colossus-y. I suppose it speeds integration by switching ethics.

 

[ruhrbaron]

super cool dev diary but it's kinda weird that archaeotechs are impossible to improve upon or are the pinnicle. Younger specieis should be able to, in principle, to pick up the torch and surpass the precursors learning from them. So i guess these tech make sense to require minor artefacts as tier 5.5 techs to represent that it's not yet fully understood technology but a tier 6 should then become available surpassing these archaeotechs definitively

 

[RabbaDooDabba]

Can we actually get rid of the devovled trait or will this be like the zombie trait where you cannot apply a template without the trait and because it's your founder species you are never allowed to purge the pops and are basically stuck with them ?

 

[Mcgan]

Agrarian Idyll does both though, which I why I referenced it.

Under the hood, Pearl Divers are planet_artisans. But they still have amenities from Agrarian Idyll because they're in the agricultural district, so both jobs got the amenities through triggered modifiers.

I was really just talking about the modifiers themselves, which definitely only affect planet_farmers jobs and do not need triggered modifiers. But I suppose they could do the same thing they did with the turtle_miner job, yeah...

Thing is, this new "Baol Organic Plant" building looks a lot like it may be an optional replacement for the "Food Processing Centers" building. Giving only +1 food production to farmers instead of +2, but with the added benefit of producing some consumer goods instead.

Also, it will make farmers slightly less valuable on a ringworld because their "Agriculture Ring World" designation only boosts food productions from farmers, while the standard "Agri-World" designation boosts all farmer output... I wonder if it's intended.

 

[Wendigo514]

• Doctrinal Enforcer/Nanobots. If you have this option (psionic spiritualists or Driven Assimilator), it's the best. It instantly conquers the planet, and gives you the organic pops. This is basically invading, but instantaneous. Plus, you get the option of either +999% spiritualist attraction on your own worlds or instant terraforming as a perk.

Unless something changed recently, the Divine Enforcer doesn't conquer the planet unlike the Nanobot Diffuser unfortunately, so it's strictly worse. I've even made a suggestion about it some time ago.

 

[OnyxAbussos]

I love this entirely.
THANK YOU!

 

[zZander56]

If the benefits of the isolationist partner planet are primarily going to be technology, I hope they scale with tech speed settings.

 

[Idle America]

I would like to take this opportunity to request that all slave species in Fallen Empires have a base template that doesn't include "Nerve-Stapled" by default. Right now, I have to take the Bio ascension path to remove it and free them, whereas soon we'll be able to return a species to sapience by swapping templates. It puts a damper on my psionic ascension when I can't save some of the worst victims of tyranny in the galaxy.

 

[Elfwind]

Can spies steal archaeo, and primitive surveillance techs?

 

[Bergest]

Me, upon seeing the Devolving Beam and realizing I could finally do my dream RP campaign as a xenophobe technocracy that views it as its holy mission to unlock the secrets of genetics and break the faulty cycle of evolution by creating perfected species to then life-seed them as new primitives all around the galaxy, so that they could dominate the next cycle, only to see that the Beam doesn't turn them back to the stone age, but into particularly stunted pre-sapients:

 

[PDX_Cosmogone]

Will this mean a change to the Rubricator?

Yes, the Rubricator should still be very appealing to anyone wo likes to dabble in archaeology!

Will some of the fallen empire technologies come under this too?

Not at this point, no.

So Arcane Deciphering thech is now Archeostudies, right?

Yeup

Will archeo techs get some tech that can be show up in research choices normally? otherwise scientists that specialize in that category will be utterly useless.

Yes! The chances are low so don't expect to see all of the archaeotech pop up in your research this way though.

How would the devolving interact with genocidal empires? Since pre-sapient purging is technically a different policy from normal species purging, would this force fanatic purifiers/devouring swarms to kill off their devolved brethren by default?

What can I say, they have very unfortunate standards about purity, and very little patience.

Will Devolving Beam reset the trait of pops? I say, if we devolve some pops on a tomb world, for example, will they lose all additional traits and get pre-sapient trait, like irradiated?

No trait reset, it only adds the "Forcefully Devolved" trait that might be tricky to get rid of.

What happens if you build an Habitat over a minor artifact deposit? Does it still mine by itself like nanites, zro and living metal? Does it allow for Research districts?

It just works™ (it mines it by itself and allows research districts)

Will the archaeo tech be much stronger than late game techs normally are or will they have specific unique benefits?


Also this storm generator, can that Technologie also be found in other ways it seems very strong.

As a rule of thumb, expect archaeo components to be between tier 3 and tier 4, with several ways to buff them, and usually an uncommon effect or spin on things. Think late game sidegrade more than straight up upgrade

Precursor tech however are precursor exclusive. I think your only other shot at getting them is by spying on an empire that has them.

But then what happens when you restore the ecumenopolis on your homeworld or any other relic world? Do you loose the minors artifacts income? You need to move the faculty?

If the planet changes class for whatever reason, you will lose the bonuses yes. Better not bulldoze everything and encase it all in concrete if you want to study the ruins of old in peace

Would it be possible to research precursor tech even if you get beaten to their homeworld?

You get the precursor tech after delving into the "Secrets of [PRECURSOR]"



Thank you all for your replies! I'm still just one man so I can't fix all the things in the blink of an eye, but I'm hyped to see you hyped, and I hope you'll have tons of fun with our new additions!

 

[Lamppost in Winter]

So, the relic changes look very fascinating, the origin seems interesting as well. But I gotta be honest, the way the Cybrex Tech is worded...it sounds kinda worthless, unless it also affects the Matter Decompressor. Boosting Mineral stations is not overly useful, since most systems typically have like 10 mineral production at most? Sometimes you get really mineral rich deposits in systems but still never anything really large. So 100% of 10 minerals (on average) hardly seems even worth researching

 

[SirBlackAxe]

So, the relic changes look very fascinating, the origin seems interesting as well. But I gotta be honest, the way the Cybrex Tech is worded...it sounds kinda worthless, unless it also affects the Matter Decompressor. Boosting Mineral stations is not overly useful, since most systems typically have like 10 mineral production at most? Sometimes you get really mineral rich deposits in systems but still never anything really large. So 100% of 10 minerals (on average) hardly seems even worth researching

It's not about the minerals, it's for your mining stations over deposits of nanites, living metal, zro, and other rare resources!

 

[Metallichydra]

So, the relic changes look very fascinating, the origin seems interesting as well. But I gotta be honest, the way the Cybrex Tech is worded...it sounds kinda worthless, unless it also affects the Matter Decompressor. Boosting Mineral stations is not overly useful, since most systems typically have like 10 mineral production at most? Sometimes you get really mineral rich deposits in systems but still never anything really large. So 100% of 10 minerals (on average) hardly seems even worth researching

With how good cybrex is compared to the rest, I don't see this as a bad thing.

 

[Turnil]

Will you get 500 influence by re-evolving the pops after you hit them with the Devolving beam just like normal pre-sapients?

 

[Wendigo514]

If the planet changes class for whatever reason, you will lose the bonuses yes. Better not bulldoze everything and encase it all in concrete if you want to study the ruins of old in peace

I admit that's a pity, but it would be cool if the Former Relic World planetary feature could at least have the "minor artifact from Archeoengineers" modifier. I really like that the Remnants Origin is finally getting more flavour (however I'd love some more narrative events imo) and buffs, so I hoped it could keep some of these even in the mid-/late-game.