• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

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.
 
  • 107Love
  • 76Like
  • 3
  • 3
  • 2Haha
Reactions:
We I could do with some context with the "Control Splinter." It asks us to abandon our control of the Hazra system. Would that be a system that's adjacent to the fallen empire's borders, just like how the militaristic fallen empire don't like it when you expand next to them? Or will they demand we just randomly abandon a system nearish to them, because we have the audacity to exist?

The Hazra system offended the Control Splinter's aesthetic sense. Worse than being next to them. Bordergore.
 
  • 59Haha
  • 7Like
  • 4Love
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
So this is why the colony screen needed to be changed.

This looks pretty cool.
 
Would those with bio shipsets going cosmogenesis get these FE bioships? Or would they not be able to go through cosmogenesis at all?
 
So, if we take Cosmogenesis with a bio-shipset, do we also get access to that new shiny FE shipset/tech?

Those fallen hive ships are sick. Please tell me you can unlock them with Cosmogenesis if you use bioships.
Not as of now, it's something we know people will want so I wouldn't be surprised if the Custodians come and fix it sooner rather than later.


Are Lithoid Wilderness Hives allowed? I'd love to try it for a living planet themed empire, but the restriction to bio-ships might then feel weird.
Lithoids are fine! Be the soil that nourishes the world!
Both things look amazing!

Can you clarify how you can influence which hive to influence? Also does Scion work with them?

What types of lore are available for them regarding their “internal” split? Just that they split due to some disaster?

Does wilderness work with any planet type? And if so is there unique flavor based on climate? Also how does colonization work? Do you terraform and upon completion just get the planet? Is there a terraform time reduction?
Won't tell you how to inlfuence it ;) Tho I bet the wiki will have the answer shortly. And sadly no Scion interactions.

There are explanations.

Wilderness works on any planet type. You start the game being able to terraform worlds of your current climate preference into themselves. So If you choose arid, you start with the tech to terraform arid into arid, desert into desert, and savannah into savannah. To do more invasive terraforms you will need to research it!
 
  • 30
  • 6Like
Reactions:
Does Wilderness has any limits when it comes to colonizing? For example can colonize/terraform planets planets above 70% of habitability or something? Or is it like Gaia Seeders where they can colonize any planet and over time it will terraform to the "default" planet type?

EDIT: Damn, Wilderness is not compatible with Genetic Symbiotes. :(
Kinda sad, cause I really wanted to terraform new planet into new me, but also create new species of wildlife there.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Wilderness works on any planet type. You start the game being able to terraform worlds of your current climate preference into themselves. So If you choose arid, you start with the tech to terraform arid into arid, desert into desert, and savannah into savannah. To do more invasive terraforms you will need to research it!
What about Gaia worlds?
 
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
I hope that Control fragment awakening means it will try to take over the Galactic Community using the GC's own mechanics, not just automatically be put in charge.
 
  • 6
Reactions:
If the wilderness cityset is separate, does this mean they got a unique ecu appeareance too?
Also do wilderness empires get different looking hive worlds?
Every living planet is in essence ecu....

And rings or habitats should probably be uncolonizable, no?

SPacestations are therefore also a space-biological construct?
 
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Does Wilderness has any limits when it comes to colonizing? For example can colonize/terraform planets planets above 70% of habitability or something? Or is it like Gaia Seeders where they can colonize any planet and over time it will terraform to the "default" planet type?
to ad to this, can the wilderness take control of habitats and ringworlds?
 
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
Not as of now, it's something we know people will want so I wouldn't be surprised if the Custodians come and fix it sooner rather than later.



Lithoids are fine! Be the soil that nourishes the world!

Won't tell you how to inlfuence it ;) Tho I bet the wiki will have the answer shortly. And sadly no Scion interactions.

There are explanations.

Wilderness works on any planet type. You start the game being able to terraform worlds of your current climate preference into themselves. So If you choose arid, you start with the tech to terraform arid into arid, desert into desert, and savannah into savannah. To do more invasive terraforms you will need to research it!
Ty Iggy!
 
View attachment 1284963View attachment 1284964

Something I forgot to include is the unique Wilderness Authority and Announcer. Hope you all enjoyed the diary!
Those are some pretty hefty increases on empire size from districts and planets! Are we intended to focus more on getting space resources from systems, or are those Districts more powerful than those of regular empires?
 
Also question unrelated to the Dev Diary itself, but still on the theme of it ("animals, wilderness" etc). Will the 4.0 also include the button to release Space Fauna into the wild or is it still something for the future update?
 
Lithoids are fine! Be the soil that nourishes the world!
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.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
What happens to the buildins and stuff if planet gets conquered by non-wilderness hive mind? And non hive-mind?
I was about to ask the same.

I would wish for there to be a longer period of taking over the planet as they need to devastate it to purge all of the wilderness out of it.
 
EDIT: Damn, Wilderness is not compatible with Genetic Symbiotes. :(
Kinda sad, cause I really wanted to terraform new planet into new me, but also create new species of wildlife there.
I don't get your point here. Of course Genetic Symbiotes doesn't work.
You are all. The main species. The plants. The wildlife. All of that is you.
Why would you grow an inferior non-hive species of wildlife and have them live off of feeding on you?
 
  • 1
Reactions: