• 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 #85: Decadence and Ascension Path Changes

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary is the last dev diary for the 1.8 'Čapek' update, and will be going over the introduction of Awakened Empire Decadence and some changes coming to the three Ascension Paths and Megastructures. Decadence is a free feature in the 1.8 update, while the Ascension Path and Megastructure changes require the Utopia expansion.

Awakened Empire Decadence
Awakened Empires were added to the game as a way of throwing a new challenge at the player in the late-game. They are intended to be formidable foes, and only the absolutely most powerful player empires are meant to be able to take them on alone. However, this could lead to an unintended game state where the Awakened Empire had conquered or subjugated all regular empires and effectively 'won', with the player being stuck as an AE subject until the end of time. In order to address this, we've added a new mechanic called Decadence for Awakened Empires. Decadence is effectively a meter, going from 0 to 100, that starts filling up for Awakened Empires once a certain amount of time has passed since awakening. The larger they are (both in terms of owned planets and subjugated empires), the faster it builds up. Decadence reduces Awakened Empire resource income and fleet power, and also increases the rebelliousness of their subjects, and has very large penalties at high levels of Decadence. What this means it that while an Awakened Empire might start very strong, and grow even stronger as they expand, that very expansion will eventually turn into decline, until they're weakened to the point where the rest of the galaxy can rebel and overthrow them - if you end up their subject, you just have to be patient, build up your forces, and wait for the right moment to take back your freedom. Awakened Empires have also been changed so that they prefer to subjugate other empires (though still taking some planets as well) to conquering them outright, so there should always be a collection of subjects chafing under the precursor yoke and biding their time.
2017_09_07_1.png


Ascension Path Changes
One of the most loved features in Utopia is the Ascension Paths - the ability to choose an 'end goal' for your empire and species in the form of Psionic, Synthetic or Biological Ascension. However, the decision to restrict the Psionic and Synthetic paths based on ethics was less popular, and though I think the reasoning for it is sound (making ethics more diverse), this is a case where I think there is a valid case to say that balance should take a step back in favor of letting the player decide the path or their own empire. For this reason, we've lifted the Spiritualist-only restriction on psionics and have opened up for Spiritualists to research robotics and synthetically ascend. We have also removed the Materialist-only restriction on AI Citizen Rights.

To compensate for this loss, Spiritualists have received a buff in the form of stronger Temples, and Materialists have been given a new living standard called 'Academic Privilege' that boosts happiness and research output at the cost of more consumer goods. However, though we've lifted the hard restriction, the impact of the ascension paths on ethics attraction and faction happiness remain. This means that, for example, a Spiritualist empire that decides to Synthetically Ascend will have significant troubles with unhappy factions and materialist ethics drift, and similarly, the pursuit of Psionics will cause increased Spiritualist attraction and the likely creation of a strong Spiritualist faction.

In addition to these more general changes, there's a few more path-specific changes and additions:
Psionic: Buffed traits and Psi Corps building, and added an alert to tell you when the Shroud is ready for use. Additionally, psionically awakening other species in your empire now happens more often.
Synthetic: Added the ability to assimilate new biological pops into synthetic bodies, and the addition of robomodding significantly buffs this path. Synthetic and Cyborg leader traits were nerfed a bit to compensate.
Biological: Increased the total trait points by 1, and reduced the cost of advanced traits such as Robust.
2017_09_07_2.png


Megastructure Changes
The headline feature of Utopia was the Megastructures, massive constructions requiring tens of thousands of minerals and decades to construct. A frequent criticism we have received for the Megastructures is that they simply do not feel significant enough, with comments on how the Dyson Sphere should realistically be producing millions of energy, and so on. We've made some changes in 1.8 that we hope will address some of these complaints, though I want to preface this by saying that Megastructures are not and will never be 'realistic', nor is Stellaris meant to be a realistic game in the first place. However, they are meant to feel impressive and special, and when a handful of Habitats with solar power processors can match a Dyson Sphere in output, that impressiveness tends to fade, no matter whether it's actually balanced or not.

For this reason, we have decided to make a change to the Dyson Sphere and Science Nexus. Both of these Megastructures have been majorly buffed, with a finished Dyson Sphere now producing 1000 energy and a fully upgraded Science Nexus outputting a total of ~750 science. However, they have been changed so that each empire can now only build one of each, similar to the Sentry Array. This means that they can be very powerful without having to massively increase the build time or cost to prevent them from simply being spammed. Ringworlds have not been changed, and can be built in any number you want, indirectly buffing the effectiveness of the Circle of Life perk.

Additionally, we've made a tweak to the Master Builders perk. This perk, when taken, will now give you the Mega-Engineering technology if you do not already have it, similar to how World Shaper gives Atmospheric Manipulation and Mastery of Nature gives blocker techs. This allows for reliable access to Mega-Engineering for empires that want to focus on Megastructure construction.
2017_09_07_3.png


That's all for today! Next week we'll post the full patch notes for 1.8 and Synthetic Dawn. See you then!
 
Last edited:
What about Zro deposits? Is it reducing cooldown of Shroud usage?

What if you build one and then found ruins of the same structure, can you not restore it? What happens if you acquire second structure through conquest?
Well since you did not "Build" either of those other 2 then you should be good to go one would think. ;)
 
in any case, to impose that every empire can build a single megastructure does not prevent one from gaining more: can conquer them. hoped that you will find a better solution in the future
 
Is it possible to get living metal without either the anomaly or warring a fallen empire? I don't get it in half my games and it seems to never fail that when I want to go tall with habitats I don't get it, but when I go wide and don't care about megastructures I end up with 4 deposits. Could you please add a weight for the tech if the player already has unlocked a megastructure? Thank you.
 
I'm screaming with happiness in every conceivable language!
YEEEESSS!
 
I like to imagine that if you find yourself with two Dyson Spheres, one spontaneously explodes.
Wiz confirmed on stream that you can have multiple Dyson Spheres, but you can build only one.

Whether or not that includes restoring and finishing I have no idea, but you definitely can conquer a second one.
 
You can not. They're only for Machine Empires.

Would be cool if you could get it as a synthetic ascended late game and/or having to jump through a few hoops/have mega structures as a requirement.
Would be cool to be able to build a transformer cybertron like planet after you robo-ascend.
 
why are they so terrified of all these hypothetical OP things you can do with mega-structures when they're late game and still pretty weak?
 
why are they so terrified of all these hypothetical OP things you can do with mega-structures when they're late game and still pretty weak?
I just think that strict limits without any sensible reason are silly. Especially when you can circumvent them anyway. For example, presumably you can build a dyson sphere, hand it off to a newly created vassal, repeat a few times, and then integrate all those vassals. It just stupid, that's all there is to it. Why not give us an organic limit based on the size, power and scientic understanding of our empire?

Besides, they aren't that late game. I often have a sentry array and a dyson sphere or two before the awakening happens. If dyson spheres will now give 1K instead of 400, that's going to make a significant difference.
 
I have a question about Ringworlds, sorry if already answered, but will they get higher deposits values on minerals, energy, etc. or will that just apply to Gaias?
 
I actually liked how ascenscion paths were locked to certain ethics, but the paths should have been more powerful and the ethics have deeper differences. There is a great variation in the game, and I'm not sure about the idea of making them more similar like this. I hope the ethos drift is sufficently problematic for the player. :)
 
I just think that strict limits without any sensible reason are silly. Especially when you can circumvent them anyway. For example, presumably you can build a dyson sphere, hand it off to a newly created vassal, repeat a few times, and then integrate all those vassals. It just stupid, that's all there is to it. Why not give us an organic limit based on the size, power and scientic understanding of our empire?

Besides, they aren't that late game. I often have a sentry array and a dyson sphere or two before the awakening happens. If dyson spheres will now give 1K instead of 400, that's going to make a significant difference.

Even with a 1000 energy, they still compare unfavorably with habitats. Granted, the buff might mean that now there are specific circumstances where a dyson sphere might be a better investment, but I don't get why they gotta be, like "woah, better put a hard cap on these babies in case the player goes crazy and collects energy in a way that is less efficient than other ways there are to collect energy, except in some circumstances, maybe"

Also, they take forever to build and you can only get one at once.

Like, it's ok guys, you can relax, I don't think dyson sphere spam is going to be the new meta any time soon.
 
Even with a 1000 energy, they still compare unfavorably with habitats. Granted, the buff might mean that now there are specific circumstances where a dyson sphere might be a better investment, but I don't get why they gotta be, like "woah, better put a hard cap on these babies in case the player goes crazy and collects energy in a way that is less efficient than other ways there are to collect energy, except in some circumstances, maybe"

I agree in that I don't think a hardcap on the number of Megastructures is necessary, when you can only build one at a time anyways.
But with the buff, I think Dyson can be pretty viable now. Sure, you will always find some metric to make it appear inferior to Habitats, but now that you can build Wonders reliably (change to Master Builders perk), you could start on a Dyson relatively soon, getting juicy energy boost whilst they matter relevantly. And without the need to build, upgrade and populate habitats.
I'm definitely going to run a science-tall machine empire of crazy constructicons.
 
That's not really what I said though, my point is that if everything is available to everyone then they are all effectively the same. The ethics system in this game was so promising yet they have been gradually making it a single homogeneous mess, this is just a further step in that direction.
I understand your point, but in the end, it's all perspective. Where you see uniqueness in limitation, I see duplication due to lack of variety. And that is aside from the (perceived) arbitrary limitation of player creativity.

To put it in another way, I do like the idea of unique bonuses and even mechanics, but not just for the sake of them being there. They should make sense for the Ethos they are attached to, and their exclusivity should feel obvious. With psionics, that just wasn't the case. I feel much less strongly about synthethic Ascension for this exact reason: there, the expectation remains inviolate. Although I still feel that the 1st tier of each Ascension Perk should have been available to everyone; exclusivity would have still been a thing just with the final step, too.

So perhaps we just differ in perception. When I look at the empires in Stellaris, I do not see them as being defined by a single special mechanic like "the psi guys". I see them being defined by a vast array of options and possibilities concerning their cultural (civics, ethos, government), biological (phenotype, traits, preferences) and technological characteristics. The uniqueness comes from the bigger picture, and a well-thought out non-Spiritualist empire making use of psionics can easily seem just as interesting and unique as a Spiritualist one. Or would you say Star Wars Jedi and XCOM's Sectoids, hypothetically placed in the same universe, are too much alike?

With the old way, all Spiritualist and Materialist empires had a very high likelihood of going down their exclusive Ascension path, with the Ethos often being picked specifically for this goal. This results in sameness. Now at least we can have religious miracle-workers and those that view it as a science or even just an innate biological gift, making room for way more interpretation and worldbuilding. Uniqueness stems from variety, not from forcing everyone into a pre-assigned box.

I mean, why would we even have an option to customize species and empires otherwise?
 
and added an alert to tell you when the Shroud is ready for use.

After-much-consideration.jpg


How many opportunities to use the Shroud have I lost over the centuries because I didn't know my idiot telepaths were ready to try again?

"Maybe if we don't tell the Emperor of Mankind that the sanctioned telepaths he demanded from the empire are ready for use, he'll forget all about the Warp, err, Shroud."

"It's worth a try. Given what happened to the last batch of telepaths, I'm not really eager to access the Shroud again. Besides, he's busy fighting the Unbidden."

a fully upgraded Science Nexus outputting a total of ~750 science.

Woah.gif


That's a decent chunk of science. If built early enough, you could double or triple your research speed even if you are running a hard core materialist empire.
 
I agree in that I don't think a hardcap on the number of Megastructures is necessary, when you can only build one at a time anyways.
But with the buff, I think Dyson can be pretty viable now. Sure, you will always find some metric to make it appear inferior to Habitats, but now that you can build Wonders reliably (change to Master Builders perk), you could start on a Dyson relatively soon, getting juicy energy boost whilst they matter relevantly. And without the need to build, upgrade and populate habitats.
I'm definitely going to run a science-tall machine empire of crazy constructicons.

I'm prepared to agree that Dyson spheres have a shot at being competitive with habitats with the new numbers - will have to try them out to know for sure.

However, if a Dyson sphere is merely competitive with habitats rather than superior to them it does lead to the question of why dyson spheres are hard capped but habitats not...