Home Trending Latest threads New posts Developer diaries
Jump to latest Follow Reply
  • 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 53130 Bug Reports 34481 Console edition 1307 Suggestions 21167 Tech Support 3153 Multiplayer 391 User Mods 4771 Stellaris AAR (After Action Reports)
Previous dev diary Next dev diary
Show only dev responses

Stellaris Dev Diary #56 - Ascension Perks

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today we'll be talking about a feature that was hinted at in last dev diary, Ascension Perks. Ascension Perks are related to the Traditions and Unity system, but is a paid feature in the (unannounced) expansion accompanying the 1.5 'Banks' update, rather than a part of the update itself. Those without the expansion will get full access to the Traditions and Unity features, but not to the Ascension Perks themselves.

Ascension Perks
The idea behind the Ascension Perks is to provide more unique unlockable features for Empires, and to provide the player with the ability to determine an 'endgame' for their species: What their empire is striving towards. Perhaps your goal is to go all-in on AI, replacing the frail biological bodies of your pops with immortal machines, or to harness the psionic potential of your species and reach a higher form of existence, allowing your empire to tap into other planes of being? All these and more are covered by the Ascension Perk system.
2017_01_12_2.png


Each time you complete a Tradition tree, you will unlock one Ascension Perk slot, of which there are 8 in total. There may also be other ways to unlock slots, such as from certain rare technologies or as a reward for a particular event chain. This slot can then be filled with any of the Ascension Perks available to you. The final number of perks is not yet set down, but there are currently more than 20 and there will likely be more added. Ascension Perks have pre-requisites, which can for example be a particular technology or tradition, a certain number of Ascension Perk slots to be unlocked, or a specific ethos or government type. Some Ascension Perks are one-offs that simply provide a bonus to a particular area of your empire: For example, a bonus to border range, or cheaper terraforming. Others unlock new features, such as the ability to construct new types of space structures (more on in later dev diaries).

Finally there are the three 'Species Endgame' paths: The biological path, the spiritual path and the synthetic path. These three paths each consist of two perks, the first of which unlocks access to the second once a number of other pre-requisites have been met. The paths are mutually exclusive, and once you start heading down one of them, the other two are locked off.
  • The Biological Path focuses on mastery over biological evolution. The first level of it gives access to more gene points and significantly cuts the cost of genemodding projects, while the second level expands the options available during genemodding in addition to further providing more points and less cost.
  • The Psionic Path focuses on developing the psionic potential of your population. The first level unlocks new psionic technologies and benefits, while the second level allows your empire to reach a higher level of existance and communicate with the beings present there.
  • The Synthetic Path focuses on the replacement of biology with machinery. The first level allows you to turn your population partly synthetic through the use of cybernetics, while the second level replaces your biological pops with robots, turning your empire entirely synthetic.
2017_01_12_1.png


That's all for today! Next week we'll be talking about the concept of species rights and obligations.

Also about eating pops.
 
  • 259
  • 32
  • 2
Reactions:
Sort by date Sort by reaction score
Another question, would it be possible for a spiritual race to go down the non-spiritualistic paths? Like becoming completely mechanized or focusing on biological evolution? and the other way around for materialistic empires?

I want my priesthood of mars damnit :p
 
  • 4
Reactions:
The_Meme_Man said:
It causes the most bad-ass confrontation in the galaxy in the entire history of galaxies. What is more badass than "Cyborgs" vs "Robots".
Click to expand...

Well, technically humans are monkeys...
 
  • 5
Reactions:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH, so the ascensions thing is a paid DLC bit. Was hoping that it would be free, but that's fine I suppose. As long as the DLC is pretty substantial.
 
I hope adopting the endgame perks will create a lot of stability problems in diverse, multiracial empires instead of everyone magically agreeing with becoming robots, etc.
 
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
The only concern I have about it right now is that ascension paths may add nothing to empire uniqueness, i.e. all materialists turn into synths, spiritualists into unbidden, everyone else just go Hak-Hak. All this would be just linear upgrade path for already existing entities.
 
  • 7
  • 2
Reactions:
Milten said:
The only concern I have about it right now is that ascension paths may add nothing to empire uniqueness, i.e. all materialists turn into synths, spiritualists into unbidden, everyone else just go Hak-Hak. All this would be just linear upgrade path for already existing entities.
Click to expand...

You're not required to go down any of these paths, nor will every AI-controlled empire do so.
 
  • 25
  • 6
Reactions:
What about religion/spiritualism, or is that filled by the psionic thingies?

Also, since this is part of the paid DLC/expansion, would that destroy the chance of say additional (new) Ascension Perks in the future in other DLCs? As the Ascension perks look like a great idea, but having a one-time system like this without the possibility of expanding upon it further later on sounds a little odd to me.
 
  • 3
Reactions:
Wiz said:
You're not required to go down any of these paths, nor will every AI-controlled empire do so.
Click to expand...
You said that going down ascension require unique techs\quests\special projects etc. Anything special for those who want to stay "normal" in the end? Like some special major social events late game?
 
  • 5
Reactions:
Will there be additonal psionic techs coming with this patch? Psionic weapons maybe and ways to move away from the more base weapons?
 
  • 2
Reactions:
  • 2
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
As the mod author of Synthetic Empire I'm not sure I am a fan of these ascension goals. Especially given the interest from the community in playing as a purely synthetic species from the beginning. This popularity have been observed from the various synthetic/robot mods that have popped up since the release of the game. Mods such as Playable Robots, Playable Robots (Fixed), Networked AI and Robots+ among others.

Having an end goal of a transformation to synthetics sounds like a nightmare in having to mod around those goals, or modding vanilla files which was never my desire in the first place.
With Synthetic transformation as an end goal, it would suggest that there is no desire from the devs in implementing native support for a vanilla robotic species from the beginning of the game.
 
  • 28
  • 3
  • 2
Reactions:
Another question, how will psyonic ability be decided? By spiritualist ethos? A Racial trait you can aquire later? What happens to the pops with a different ethos when you go down that ascension path?
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Morell said:
With Synthetic transformation as an end goal, it would suggest that there is no desire from the devs in implementing native support for a vanilla robotic species from the beginning of the game.
Click to expand...
Have you seen ascension perks and paths for robotic start? I haven't.
Madzai said:
You said that going down ascension require unique techs\quests\special projects etc. Anything special for those who want to stay "normal" in the end? Like some special major social events late game?
Click to expand...
I'd personally would love to see some downsides for these paths, so one would think twice before taking them.
 
Last edited:
  • 2
Reactions:
Well, I really hope that Ascension Perks benefit from other additions, like new, more diverse traits (genemodding already being something that you just do once, and there aren't many traits to pick from anyway), or specific gameplay for Synths (to avoid the "yayyy, I'm now playing with Synths! Which can do amazing things, like... being immortal... fighting harder... and not eating food... yay....).
More techs and events are also nice, but that's not really gameplay if it just provides bonuses and modificators.

I'm not really hyped by Ascension Perks that just provide you plain bonus like border range. I can't really imagine a sci fi universe with something like "By all my positrons, the Metagurd have ascended! - What does this mean, CI80-rg? Do they control the atoms by the power of their minds? Did they become gods? Are they going to... - Their border grew and they claimed our world. Now we are ascended too. Look at that nice border range on the map.".
It feels more like a Tradition. Well, except probably if it's something like a +100% border range, but it doesn't seem fun.

I also hope that this means there's a point in playing in end game. Most of these Ascension Perks seem to provide bonus and new abilities, but if they don't provide new challenges, or if it cannot change the course of things... meh. It would be amazing if the first empire to achieve transcendence could become a threat for the rest of galaxy, even if they are a tiny 3 systems-empire at this point. Not necessarily on the military field, btw. But they could hack the economy of all the other empire without an efficient enough AI to protect them, for example. Or possess the ability to shield their world thanks to their psionic powers. Well, I do hope we'll have these kinds of abilities.
I would really be hyped if, as the first empire to reach the end of the synthetic path, we could embark with our synthetic pops in gigantic nomadic planet-consuming space fortresses, not caring for the lifes of biological pops, and if the other empires could form a galaxy council to oppose us, while the robotic beings of the galaxy could choose between joining our way of life or helping those poor bio units. Basically, becoming the end game crisis.
 
  • 12
  • 2
Reactions:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back