Stellaris Dev Diary #349 - A Storm is Brewing: Announcing Cosmic Storms

[Eladrin]

A phenomenon is sweeping across the galaxy.​

I’m excited to announce that Episode 2 of Stellaris: Season 08, the Cosmic Storms mechanical expansion, will be released alongside the Stellaris 3.13 ‘Vela’ update on September 10th, 2024.

Note: Tooltips shown in the video were from a development branch that has already been updated, more info next week.
​

Dark Clouds Gather ...​

For some time we have been unsatisfied with the Space Storm that currently exists in Stellaris. Cosmic Storms gave us the opportunity to revamp the system entirely, providing a deeper experience with strategically meaningful gameplay and beautiful upgraded visuals.

With this expansion, eight new storms with varying positive and negative effects are set to spiral across the galaxy.

We’ve also added a new weather map mode for forecasting these storms and predicting their motion, with technologies and buildings to attract, repel, or with an Ascension Perk, even create storms.

​

... But Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining​

Storms may pass through your planets with intriguing effects, leaving behind a changed landscape or unearthing long buried treasures.

​

"Burn Fast and Die Radically - That's Always Been Our Way"​

What's life without the rush?

Other empires may obsess about heinous things like economy and population. The Storm Chasers have long since mastered the challenges of their homeworld. The time has come to blast off screaming into the void.

At last, a whole new opportunity to shred the limits of experience!

​

Embrace the Storms​

Prepare your empires to weather the cosmic tempests with three new Civics, each offering unique strategies to harness the power of the elements.

The Corporate, Hive Mind, or Machine Intelligence versions of these Civics require access to their Authorities - MegaCorp, Utopia, and either Synthetic Dawn or The Machine Age, respectively.

​

Uncover the Past​

Embark on a journey through the annals of time with two new Precursor Event Chains, each offering a glimpse into the ancient history of the Stellaris universe. These chains weave tales of civilizations long lost to the cosmic winds, with untold secrets buried beneath the stars.

​

Stellaris: Cosmic Storms includes:​

• Cosmic Storms that ravage the galaxy​
• Storm Chaser Origin​
• Civics​
  • Planetscapers​
  • Astrometeorology​
  • Storm Devotion​
• Two new Precursor narratives, with two new Relics​
• Events, Anomalies, and Archaeology Sites​
• Storm-related technologies, Edicts, Galactic community resolutions, and an Ascension Perk​

​

Dev Diary Schedule​
Aug 15​	Announcing Cosmic Storms​
Aug 22​	The Storms and their Aftermaths​
Aug 29​	Storm Chaser Origin, Civics, and Precursors​
Sept 5​	3.13 "Vela" and Cosmic Storms Release Notes​

Cosmic Storms can be purchased as part of the Stellaris: Season 08 Expansion Pass, or as a standalone purchase for $12.99 (regional pricing may vary).
It is also included as part of the Stellaris Expansion Subscription

Pre-purchase Stellaris: Cosmic Storms alone or with a discount as part of Stellaris: Season 08!​

 

[Eladrin]

The storms in the video are from an old build.

Here's a teaser for next week:

 

[Eladrin]

Just to clarify, the two new precursor events are actual fully fledged precursors to uncover the same way we would the baol or yuht etc rather than standalone situations or event chains or whatnot?

They're precursors like the others, with relics.

if storms last 80 years, can multiple storms be in effect at once? Does 80 years seem excessive to anyone but me?

I used dev commands to spawn that one because I wanted a tooltip as quickly as possible.

 

[CGInglis]

Looks really cool!

Just to clarify, the two new precursor events are actual fully fledged precursors to uncover the same way we would the baol or yuht etc rather than standalone situations or event chains or whatnot?

They are indeed fully-fledged chains!

 

[Eladrin]

Will there be new premade empires as part of this dlc?

Yes, the Yatunan Radicals. (The surfer dudes in one of the pictures.)

I hope the storms are slow-moving enough that they become a kind of galactic terrain for war strategies.

That's a major part of their intent.

OK, here's one more partial spoiler for next week.

(This one actually had an entertaining bug at one point during development where it would cause you to lose intel on your own colonies. That wasn't good.)

Anything to avoid reworking ground combat.

We have no plans to rework ground combat. There are at least fifty other systems that would have more impact and be a much better use of development time.

Secret change: the instant you declare war, a storm will start in the most inconvenient location possible

Stop looking at the release notes early.

A few questions: First, is it possible to completely isolate yourself from the entire galaxy by creating storms?
Second, after the storm is over, will it be possible to re-explore the system in which it occurred to search for anomalies?
(I apologize for any errors in the text as I am using a translator).

It's possible to make a mess of things with multiple storms and clever use of attraction and repulsion effects, but they won't fully isolate you. They're not impassable.

Storms can leave things behind in their wakes. We'll talk about the aftermaths next week.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

This looks very cool.

But if there's going to be storms that impact shields on stations, will we be given the ability to change the loadout of a station to avoid using slots on now-useless shields?

When we last investigated this, we noticed there's several assumptions the game makes about starbases that causes issues if we make them designable, however I've got it flagged as something worth investigation when we get the time to do so. As always #nopromises.

Will storms feature have adjustable settings? Like modifying storms frequency/severity galaxy wide?

If there is a constant devastation ticker over a very long time due to the tempests, it will be possible to keep it under control?

We should cover these in the next DD.

 

[Eladrin]

But cosmic storms were already a thing and one of the least fun mechanics in the game?

That's a major reason why we wanted to make them better.

will these new precursors have lore expansions into Astral Rifts like we got for Baol and Zroni?

Because I really liked that part of Astral Planes.

Not at this time.