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Stellaris Dev Diary #381 - Time to Get Wild

Hello there everyone, PDS_Iggy here! We’ve had a busy week, now let's see what Eladrin wanted me to talk about… The Hive Fallen Empire and the Wilderness origin? In the same diary?


Okay… Buckle up for a Wild ride!

Hive Fallen Empire​

For the first time since Synthetic Dawn, a new ancient will join us in the galaxy: a Hive Mind, once united in purpose, now lies fragmented. Each embodiment is stuck trying to execute its own directive. Each has plans for becoming the dominating force within their former collective… and you might be able to nudge who ends up in charge.
image11.png

Stellaris supports conference calls now?

After an uncertain but definitely horrible disaster splintered their consciousness, The Hive was left in 3 fragments: Growth, War, and Control. Each one with its distinct personality, system, and tasks. Though don’t let differences fool you. They are all in a federation with each other, and declaring war on one will see you fight all three.
image1.png

So different, yet refusing to be far apart.

This Fallen Empire will spawn surrounding a central system. Each of the fragments branches off with its own unique system. They all surround the central system, Last Thought, but refuse to claim it. Curious. Like most Fallen Empires, they are content seeing the universe pass by them by… unless you do something that interests or annoys them.

image4.png

Pretty reasonable imo

image9.png

No, you really can’t refuse

image10.png

I made some of these events work on AIs. Don’t worry about the fragment’s Traits.


Each fragment has multiple tasks, and each one is quite a bit more reactive than the old “Hey, give us your scientists” events from Fallen Empires in the past. So, make friends where you can and try not to unleash something horrible on the galaxy.
image6.png

This shipset had the working name of “Antagonist” in-house.

Something that has always distinguished Fallen Empires from regular empires is that their ships are extra advanced. Well, the same is true here, but instead of using the same old technology of the other Fallen Empires, the fragments use Biological Ones! A special, older, and more intimidating version of the Spinovore shipset.

Just like all other Fallen Empires, this will be your primary source for Dark Matter technology.


image13.png

Politics is an old species game.

When the sleepers awake, one must end up on top. Absorbing the other fragments, one of three awakened empires will form, each with different goals and behaviors. Two of them will be participating in the war in heaven, the third one has other plans. Here is Control.

Wilderness​

This, without a doubt, is the most transformative Origin we have ever added to the game. The Wilderness is a Hive Mind exclusive origin, requiring you to play with Biological Ships, and leaves behind mechanical buildings and nasty things like colony ships. The experience we want to bring you here is experiencing the galaxy as a living planet.
image5.png

How do you show in a tooltip that everything is different?

As you can see in the tooltip, and what I want to emphasize is that you don’t share a single base building or district with regular empires. You do have some overlap when it comes to civics and such, but in general, you will live as a planet.

image12.png

Greetings from Tellon
image8.png

Not an asphalted road as far as the planet can feel.

The Wilderness comes with a unique City Set and Diplomatic room; any empire can play with it, but it was made for the Wilderness. The avian-eyed among you might have spotted that we have a new resource icon up there, Biomass. Biomass is gained by growing new pops and is used for developing your planets and colonizing new ones. Since you are spending Biomass to grow buildings, we won’t expect you to have enough around to work them. That is why all Wilderness pops come with a +1000 Workforce modifier. Please don’t figure out some exploit to smuggle them out of the empire.

image2.png

Everything is used and reused in the Wilderness.
image7.png

The Wilderness does not need colony ships. If they can terraform it, they can become it.

Once you have relearned how to navigate the economy as a living planet, you can spread your spores outward, terraforming a new world by using Biomass, awakening a new colony in your image.

image3.png

Plant Houston, we have liftoff!

The Wilderness Origin is compatible with most civics available to hiveminds, but I managed to satisfy an edgy little primal part of myself when I designed the automatically generated names for the Devouring Swarm variant: the Blood Forest.

image14.png

People making reaction videos to these, please read them with the intensity and melodrama they deserve.

There is so much more we could show you about the Wilderness, the tradition swaps, the altered technologies, the many unique buildings, but at this point I would like you to find it out on your own!

Next Week​

Next week, it will finally be time to reveal our most primal secrets. Join @Cosmogone as he shares all our new civics and the Behemoth Fury crisis path!

Meanwhile, I have some Hive Minds to appease.
 
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I suppose the idea is that all the buildings and ships are still bio-mass, the lithoid part is just the pops that "staff" the jobs?

In general I am still a bit unclear on how our actual pops/species fit into this origin.
The way I understand it, the pops are flora and fauna of the planet - and lithoid will mean silicon-based flora, fauna and biomass rather than carbon-based...
 
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Probably! (Almost certainly.)
will u also be covering how workforce modifiers work with the +1000 workforce, as in, would intelligent only apply to the base 100 or do they apply to the whole 1100

also this seems to be a great possible fix for the virtual problem make them have more workforce per pop instead of instant pops
 
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Since your authority is "Mutualistic Intelligence" instead of the regular Hive Mind, does this mean there's also a unique advanced authority like with the "Evolutionary Predators" origin? Or rather, a unique version of the hive purity one?

Sidenote: The wilderness origin doesn't seem to forbid "Mycorrhizal Ideal" (hive version of Idyllic Bloom)!
Being a planet wide symbiosis that elevates itself into paradise planets should make for a fun RP combo!
 
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Neat. I'mnot sure if I should be more excited about playing as Pandora or having fun with those nice Fallen Empire fragments.
Well anyway this update / DLC is good for at least 200+ hours of Stellaris fun for me.
 
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Sounds like a cool "Leave me alone, I'm more trouble than I'm worth" - mechanic.
a idea for a scorched earth tactic i had as swarms is to take a world, use your saved up biomass and the ability to build 5 things at once to rapidly build up the world then abandon the defence of it to keep fighting since u dont care if the enemy retakes the world as it will be useless to them
 
a idea for a scorched earth tactic i had as swarms is to take a world, use your saved up biomass and the ability to build 5 things at once to rapidly build up the world then abandon the defence of it to keep fighting since u dont care if the enemy retakes the world as it will be useless to them
You probably waste more resources on that then they use on undoing it
 
It's not evolution if it's just reckless mutation

Also remember the example of "how many arms are too many arms?"

No hivemind would ever risk its body and mind on such silly party tricks - ESPECIALLY IF THERE'S ONLY ONE SINGULAR BODY

if you want tentacles then just intentionally create them with regular purity gene-modification and don't hope to get them from gacha mutations
 
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Since your authority is "Mutualistic Intelligence" instead of the regular Hive Mind, does this mean there's also a unique advanced authority like with the "Evolutionary Predators" origin? Or rather, a unique version of the hive purity one?

Sidenote: The wilderness origin doesn't seem to forbid "Mycorrhizal Ideal" (hive version of Idyllic Bloom)!
Being a planet wide symbiosis that elevates itself into paradise planets should make for a fun RP combo!
Empires with the Evolutionary Predators Origin will have access to special Advanced Authorities available only to them, just like Empires with the Cybernetic Creed Origin

Dunno if the new Mutualistic Intelligence will have the same, but I'm guessing it'll have a Purity-focused Advanced Government of its own
 
Hello there everyone, PDS_Iggy here! We’ve had a busy week, now let's see what Eladrin wanted me to talk about… The Hive Fallen Empire and the Wilderness origin? In the same diary?


Okay… Buckle up for a Wild ride!

Hive Fallen Empire​

For the first time since Synthetic Dawn, a new ancient will join us in the galaxy: a Hive Mind, once united in purpose, now lies fragmented. Each embodiment is stuck trying to execute its own directive. Each has plans for becoming the dominating force within their former collective… and you might be able to nudge who ends up in charge.
View attachment 1284941
Stellaris supports conference calls now?

After an uncertain but definitely horrible disaster splintered their consciousness, The Hive was left in 3 fragments: Growth, War, and Control. Each one with its distinct personality, system, and tasks. Though don’t let differences fool you. They are all in a federation with each other, and declaring war on one will see you fight all three.
View attachment 1284931
So different, yet refusing to be far apart.

This Fallen Empire will spawn surrounding a central system. Each of the fragments branches off with its own unique system. They all surround the central system, Last Thought, but refuse to claim it. Curious. Like most Fallen Empires, they are content seeing the universe pass by them by… unless you do something that interests or annoys them.

View attachment 1284934
Pretty reasonable imo

View attachment 1284939
No, you really can’t refuse

View attachment 1284940
I made some of these events work on AIs. Don’t worry about the fragment’s Traits.


Each fragment has multiple tasks, and each one is quite a bit more reactive than the old “Hey, give us your scientists” events from Fallen Empires in the past. So, make friends where you can and try not to unleash something horrible on the galaxy.
View attachment 1284936
This shipset had the working name of “Antagonist” in-house.

Something that has always distinguished Fallen Empires from regular empires is that their ships are extra advanced. Well, the same is true here, but instead of using the same old technology of the other Fallen Empires, the fragments use Biological Ones! A special, older, and more intimidating version of the Spinovore shipset.

Just like all other Fallen Empires, this will be your primary source for Dark Matter technology.


View attachment 1284943
Politics is an old species game.

When the sleepers awake, one must end up on top. Absorbing the other fragments, one of three awakened empires will form, each with different goals and behaviors. Two of them will be participating in the war in heaven, the third one has other plans. Here is Control.

Wilderness​

This, without a doubt, is the most transformative Origin we have ever added to the game. The Wilderness is a Hive Mind exclusive origin, requiring you to play with Biological Ships, and leaves behind mechanical buildings and nasty things like colony ships. The experience we want to bring you here is experiencing the galaxy as a living planet.
View attachment 1284935
How do you show in a tooltip that everything is different?

As you can see in the tooltip, and what I want to emphasize is that you don’t share a single base building or district with regular empires. You do have some overlap when it comes to civics and such, but in general, you will live as a planet.

View attachment 1284942
Greetings from Tellon
View attachment 1284938
Not an asphalted road as far as the planet can feel.

The Wilderness comes with a unique City Set and Diplomatic room; any empire can play with it, but it was made for the Wilderness. The avian-eyed among you might have spotted that we have a new resource icon up there, Biomass. Biomass is gained by growing new pops and is used for developing your planets and colonizing new ones. Since you are spending Biomass to grow buildings, we won’t expect you to have enough around to work them. That is why all Wilderness pops come with a +1000 Workforce modifier. Please don’t figure out some exploit to smuggle them out of the empire.

View attachment 1284932
Everything is used and reused in the Wilderness.
View attachment 1284937
The Wilderness does not need colony ships. If they can terraform it, they can become it.

Once you have relearned how to navigate the economy as a living planet, you can spread your spores outward, terraforming a new world by using Biomass, awakening a new colony in your image.

View attachment 1284933
Plant Houston, we have liftoff!

The Wilderness Origin is compatible with most civics available to hiveminds, but I managed to satisfy an edgy little primal part of myself when I designed the automatically generated names for the Devouring Swarm variant: the Blood Forest.

View attachment 1284944
People making reaction videos to these, please read them with the intensity and melodrama they deserve.

There is so much more we could show you about the Wilderness, the tradition swaps, the altered technologies, the many unique buildings, but at this point I would like you to find it out on your own!

Next Week​

Next week, it will finally be time to reveal our most primal secrets. Join @Cosmogone as he shares all our new civics and the Behemoth Fury crisis path!

Meanwhile, I have some Hive Minds to appease.
… they’re always gonna use the same species portrait and same flag, aren’t they? Oy.



and each one is quite a bit more reactive than the old “Hey, give us your scientists” events from Fallen Empires in the past. – So any hope of them being improved?



Something that has always distinguished Fallen Empires from regular empires is that their ships are extra advanced. Well, the same is true here, but instead of using the same old technology of the other Fallen Empires, the fragments use Biological Ones! – Wait, so theirs are going to be even MORE overpowered than regular Bioships? Bioships and FE combined?! What are you guys smoking???



Absorbing the other fragments, one of three awakened empires will form, each with different goals and behaviors. – So on this topic, have you guys actually, ya know, FIXED THE BEHAVIOR OF AWAKENED EMPIRES?!?! Or are these guys just gonna sit on their keyboard, drooling, until you poke them with an event?



This, without a doubt, is the most transformative Origin we have ever added to the game – Okay, but is it FUN? When the AI picks it, does it still have plain-old Hive Mind personality? Or is this effectively just a player-use thing?



awakening a new colony in your image. – Grammar error. “Our terraforming spores has” should be “Our terraforming spores have”



“There is so much more we could show you about the Wilderness” – Their reaction to getting World Cracked?
 
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Question, how are the shown examples better than the old Fallen Empires?

"Abandon your system" and "give us a paw" are basically just the equivalent of "colonize that world over there" and "give us one pop"

And the forced combat encounter isn't exactly the peak of interaction

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the three silly beans, but I don't think they reinvented the wheel there
 
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