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Stellaris Dev Diary #351 - Storm Chaser Origin, Civics, and Precursors

Hi everyone,

Today, we’ll review the Origin and Civics of the Cosmic Storms Mechanical Expansion and provide some information about the new Precursors (without spoiling everything!)

Cosmic Storms is going to be released on September 10th.

Passing it over to @PDX_Ferry and @Gruntsatwork to take over from here.

Storm Chasers​

Don’t make unnecessary journeys, don’t take risks on treacherous roads, and don’t swim in the sea! This is PDX_Ferry, braving the winds to deliver you a report on the new "Storm Chasers" Origin. For those who thrive on danger and yearn for the thrill of the unknown, this Origin was designed with you in mind.

Start your game as a civilization that has always sought out the extremes. Born on a world ravaged by relentless storms, the Storm Chasers are daredevils and thrill seekers who push themselves to the limits and beyond. They’ve grown strong and daring, turning their chaotic environment into a crucible of innovation and tenacity. But when every storm has been weathered, and every mountain has been climbed, where does an enterprising thrill-seeker turn next? The answer, of course, is the stars.

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The screenshot above was taken from the new pre-scripted empire Yatunan Radicals, which starts with the Origin and a couple of storm-related Civics. While not driven to outmatch others in acts of bravery, hive minds, and machine intelligences may also want to test themselves with this Origin.

From the very beginning, your empire will be propelled into the thick of the DLC’s content, facing down cosmic phenomena that would make even the most seasoned explorers hesitate. Yet, with great risk comes the potential for great reward.

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This Origin is designed to quickly get you into the think of the DLC's action. At game start, your Empire is thrown into the Stormfall situation:

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With early access to storm manipulation technology and by starting in a system with unique conditions to kickstart a storm, the Storm Chasers have the first opportunity to unleash a storm. From there, the Origin's storyline includes a gauntlet of Challenges, and the chance to summon "the Big One." What's left of your civilization in the aftermath rests entirely in your hands (or tentacles!)

So be warned – this is not a path for the faint-hearted. The thrills your people have chased for centuries pale in comparison to the cosmic tempests that await you in the void. Will you harness these forces and lead your empire to greatness, or will you burn out in a blaze of glory? The choice, as always, is yours.

Do You Know What Happens to a Blorg When It’s Hit by Lightning?​

Hello there xeno-freshmen, could we interest you in Astrometeorology 101?

As the first of the three new civics coming in Cosmic Storms, Astrometeorology focuses on the science behind the storms. It grants you a new building, the Astrometeorology Observatory, which in turn gives you Astrometeorologist jobs.

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You can build one of those fine institutes per planet and their jobs are similar enough to normal researchers with a slight focus on physics. However, their true potential shows itself only when the Observatory can behold a storm from up close.

In addition, the council position further boosts the job output by up to 20%.

What, you prefer something more societal? Maybe have a look at our second new civic then.

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The spiritualistic mirror to Astrometeorology, Storm Devotion gives you access to the Storm Summoning Theater, with its Storm Dancer jobs.

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In addition, those devoted to Storms also bear this mark as a new species trait called “Storm Touched”, which further boost all pops while inside of a storm. As if that weren’t enough, the Council Position for Storm Devotion reduces the upkeep of all Storm Buildings.

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Storms this, Storms that, is there anything for people who’d rather not see the word Storm plastered over all of their buildings?

Absolutely, let’s talk about Planetscapers.

Planetscapers are the complete opposite of Environmentalists. They want every planetary blocker gone, natural accidents have no place in their carefully planned garden utopias.

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You yearn to make all these rugged, overgrown planets into something beautiful and pristine. For some, Mastery of Nature is enough, but your need requires something more drastic, something more impressive.

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As you expand, every world with natural blockers that you colonize will allow you to quickly unlock more ways to remove those eyesores.

IT IS A CELEBRATION | PAIN | RAGE | GRIEF | FEAR​

You get a Precursor and you get a precursor, everyone gets a precursor!

We have two new Precursors for you all to experience.

The adAkkaria Convention of Benevolence and The Inetian Traders, both steeped in Storm Lore, with several archaeology sites and special projects to progress through as you uncover their secrets, diggin’ deeper into what sorts of empires would meddle with storms so devastating they are notable on the cosmic scale.

So without giving out too many spoilers, from their names at least you know they were benevolent people and peaceful traders with little chance for tragedy.

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Next Week​

Next week we’ll have the preliminary release notes for the 3.13 ‘Vela’ update and Cosmic Storms! It’s almost here!

See you then!

 
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To be fair, the precursors might not necessarily have storm related modifiers

Just like the First league doesn't have federation stuff, baol don't have hivemind stuff and the killer robots have no mecha hivemind stuff

If anything it sounds like the new guys may have trade or space travel related stuff
 
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Planetscaper + Relentless Industrialists + Post-Apocalyptic + Radiotrophic...

If nothing else, it'll make for a hell of an RP build. Utter bastards who desire to sculpt a perfect world for their toxin-loving selves, and screw every other species that might have been there first or otherwise objects.
 
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Relaying something that a user on Reddit brought up, and I think is worth getting an answer to here: will any of these civics come with a Branch Office building? Are any of them available to MegaCorps in the first place? I feel like it'd be a huge missed opportunity and big blow if the answer to both was "no," but that's just me (and this other guy).
 
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Did they rebalance science a while back just to add loads into DLC again making it unbalanced again.

Science is pretty well balanced as long as you're on the Extreme tech cost scaling setting. The powercreep is still insane in general though. Dyson Swarms and Arc Furnaces come around early and just snowball your economy out of control, especially with the new ascensions and/or Cosmogenesis.
 
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Chaotic influences like bees are not acceptable in our perfect garden.

The intent is the feeling that Planetscapers are not coexisting in a natural sustainable ecosystem, they are bending the planet to their will.
It still thematically feels off. Why not have the decision add a decent amount of devastation like the Yuht Decision. And/Or make the habitability malus be temporary say 10 or 15 years. It just hurts my brain to think about how a civilization to turn a planet into a paradise would intentionally make it less habitable for themselves.
 
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It still thematically feels off. Why not have the decision add a decent amount of devastation like the Yuht Decision. And/Or make the habitability malus be temporary say 10 or 15 years. It just hurts my brain to think about how a civilization to turn a planet into a paradise would intentionally make it less habitable for themselves.
Because it's not paradise

They're turning it into a well structured artificial landscape

Like those American suburbs where you have super long roads with identical houses like a liminal space with a bio diversity of like 3 species of plants and wildlife maximum
 
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Because it's not paradise

They're turning it into a well structured artificial landscape

Like those American suburbs where you have super long roads with identical houses like a liminal space with a bio diversity of like 3 species of plants and wildlife maximum

That's fine except it doesn't match the description, which I've noticed to be a trend with this DLC. Some of the storm descriptions mentioned things completely at odds with the mechanics too.

It's understandable that a description of eons of effort to create "perfect balance" when actually it's the complete opposite is going to be confusing. Sure the end line talks about perfect beauty but that's not a justification for being misleading at first.
 
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That's fine except it doesn't match the description, which I've noticed to be a trend with this DLC. Some of the storm descriptions mentioned things completely at odds with the mechanics too.

It's understandable that a description of eons of effort to create "perfect balance" when actually it's the complete opposite is going to be confusing. Sure the end line talks about perfect beauty but that's not a justification for being misleading at first.
To be fair, the civic has no drawbacks in itself, it's only when you intentionally take it too far by doing the decision that you slightly suffer
 
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To be fair, the civic has no drawbacks in itself, it's only when you intentionally take it too far by doing the decision that you slightly suffer

Sure, I'm not saying it's the end of the world and it might be coincidence but there seems to be an oddly high number of flavour text that doesn't match mechanics in this DLC. Even in the description of the event doesn't match the mechanics. How is a "near perfect" home less habitable?

I totally get the idea that this could be taking a jab at environmentally unfriendly landscape design but if that's what its meant to be then describe it as such. As it stands it feels like it's trying to be sarcastic without it being clear.
 
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Sure, I'm not saying it's the end of the world and it might be coincidence but there seems to be an oddly high number of flavour text that doesn't match mechanics in this DLC. Even in the description of the event doesn't match the mechanics. How is a "near perfect" home less habitable?

I totally get the idea that this could be taking a jab at environmentally unfriendly landscape design but if that's what its meant to be then describe it as such. As it stands it feels like it's trying to be sarcastic without it being clear.
it's a quote from the point of view of your people
and clearly they value perfect use of space and resources higher than something vague and non-tangible as "habitability"
 
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report on the new "Storm Chasers" Origin.
This... is REALLY bad. Like, it's not an origin. It's a bloody civic. Not to mention the shoe-horned dialogue like 'chill' and 'shredding'. Or how being 'brave with storms' magically makes you get more storms. It's... it's just so bad that this origin, ALONE, is nearly enough to put me off from buying this.
and the chance to summon "the Big One."
I mean JESUS, enough with these 'prebaked story' origins. I want to decide my own empire's story. I don't want Knights of the Toxic God, I want Void Dwellers. I don't want Cybernetic Creed, I want a more generic cyber-spiritualists. STOP IT.
What, you prefer something more societal? Maybe have a look at our second new civic then.
And THIS civic is a god-damn technology! And so's the third one! Hell even the first!

Like, I like the precursors and I like the storm themselves, but this was just such an immeasurable let-down.
 
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it's a quote from the point of view of your people
and clearly they value perfect use of space and resources higher than something vague and non-tangible as "habitability"

I read that justification on the previous page and don't find it convincing tbh. There's nothing wrong with tongue-in-cheek descriptions that ironically mean the opposite, most of the megacorp flavour is like that. But it still has to be clear. If that was the intent here it doesn't work.

Imagine if there was a science civic/modifier with these descriptions:

After eons of carefully cultivating their perfect scientific method, this society is ready to tackle the most challenging mysteries among the stars..

Let us develop this world into a near-perfect laboratory

Now imagine if the mechanical effect was -20% research, and if you questioned that I said "ahh but you see it's the scientific method from their perspective. It's not actually good" you'd rightly roll your eyes at me, because the text reads as sincere rather than satirical.
 
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I'm a little concerned that these two new precursors are also archaeology based. Currently the Baol and Zroni already have issues with their dig sites spawning in hard to reach places essentially locking you out of progressing your precursor.

Having new dig sites spawning in systems guarded by for example leviathans or worse (like on the border of the xenophobic fallen empire) which lock you out of accessing them in any reasonable time frame is quite the mood killer.

Is this something you're looking into? For example a way to spend minor artifacts to help similar to how the original 5 precursors can help you deal with bad RNG?
 
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The pettiest of complaints:

Planetscapers getting explicitly compared to Environmentalist makes the fact that they start with two natural blockers while Environmentalist still gets none a bit more galling.

It would be really easy to just start (natural planet, non-relic origin) Environmentalists with a mountain and volcano blocker instead of e.g. collapsed_infrastructure. And skip their starting unity building, unless it's tied to a civic.

Alas.
 
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I am curious about some of the definitions in the civics.

I assume Cosmic Storms include the 8 storms present in the DLC as well as the Zroni Storm Caster in the system it takes place?

For the Astrometeorology Observatory, it says Environmental Effects which I also assume includes all environmental effects beyond storms, correct? i.e. Nebulas, Pulsars/Neutron Stars, Black Holes, Toxic God's star, and the crisis nanite system effect.

Also, is it possible for multiple environmental effects to coexist? For example, a nebula and a cosmic storm?
 
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Finally a civic to make planets conform to my interests
 
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Astrometeorologist sounds incredibly weak, what the hell. How much is the potential increase? And are nebulas counted as an Enviromental Effect? I noticed you suspiciously didn't use "Storm" in the tooltip.

And uhhhh Planetscapers shouldn't have Natural Blockers in their home planet lmao. They should probably be two extra artificial blockers (collateral effects from their first tries at planetscaping).
 
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