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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.
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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.
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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.
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That's all for today! Next week we'll post the full patch notes for 1.8 and Synthetic Dawn. See you then!
 
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Delicious, yeah. Come on.

One could at least analyse before dismissing it.
With livestock getting buffed to 6 food output, delicious livestock will provide a whopping 12 food without a building (or maintenance) needed and minimal consumer goods. A level 4 farm (the highest available outside the capital) produces only 6 food and also requires 2.5 energy maintenance. Unlike Livestock the pop working the farm will profit from other bonuses, but only when stacking all available tile and slavery bonuses you can expect to become to a similar number.
At least for Hiveminds, Delicious will be a useful trait - if you can tell your sector to replace the inefficient farms. But I read somewhere that one will be able to build (and thus likely also to replace) buildings in sectors now. Maybe also useful to add it to pops being processed, which was also buffed.
 
One could at least analyse before dismissing it.
With livestock getting buffed to 6 food output, delicious livestock will provide a whopping 12 food without a building (or maintenance) needed and minimal consumer goods. A level 4 farm (the highest available outside the capital) produces only 6 food and also requires 2.5 energy maintenance. Unlike Livestock the pop working the farm will profit from other bonuses, but only when stacking all available tile and slavery bonuses you can expect to become to a similar number.
At least for Hiveminds, Delicious will be a useful trait - if you can tell your sector to replace the inefficient farms. But I read somewhere that one will be able to build (and thus likely also to replace) buildings in sectors now. Maybe also useful to add it to pops being processed, which was also buffed.

It depends if food is relevant or scarce in the game on how valuable that is...

As a devouring swarm it meant nothing to go and eat other populations... I didn't need to do it... my swarm was well fed on farms. It just served to boost my growth rate.

I thougth hiveminds can't have livestock... just process or purge?
 
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Is it possible so that maybe Spiritualists can only go for cyborg level 1 ascension, instead of being able to go full robotic, and same thing for materialist only being able to go level 1 psionic ascension but not level 2? I feel like you shouldn't be completely locked out of one but completely lowering all the barriers from ethics make them less meaningful. I personally would prefer if ethics still meant something. On a related note, if you do this what you could also do is make it so that you can choose to only go completely level 2 down one path or go level 1 to 2 or all 3 different paths. I think this would open up more choices and make ascension more interesting. Also, I've always thought it would be cool if you could have becoming a fallen empire as an ascension perk and make time fast forward and see the crises happen and new empires start to rise.
 
It depends if food is relevant or scarce in the game on how valuable that is...

As a devouring swarm it meant nothing to go and eat other populations... I didn't need to do it... my swarm was well fed on farms. It just served to boost my growth rate.

A devouring swarm is never fed well enough if it's expanding as I can tell from my current game. All these now low populated conquered worlds really hurt my tech speed because I need to fill them starting from 1 pop with neither robots nor migration being available.

You are better off just assimilating them as it's faster then going new pops.

Can devouring swarms do that?
 
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A devouring swarm is never fed well enough if it's expanding as I can tell from my current game. All these now low populated conquered worlds really hurt my tech speed because I need to fill them starting from 1 pop with robots and migration not available.
Yep, militaristic expansion as devouring swarm is real pain in the ass. You have to micromanage all new planets (as usual for purger) AND can't speed up population growth through migration. Also "with robots"? I'm pretty sure swarms can't build robots.
 
Megastructures actually sound worse off with this patch. The problem is with the one per empire and it still requiring perk points to build.

One suggestion would be to simply combine master builder with say voidborn. As it stands, with the nerf to habitats, requiring a perk point just to get inferior buildings is less than attractive.

As for dyson spheres, the energy output does make it more attractive, but if you flat out offered a player 1k energy output for one of their ascension perks, I think folks would balk at that. I'd suggest turning the spheres into a single 20+ tile colonizable world. It would at the very least make the spheres defensible.
 
Megastructures actually sound worse off with this patch. The problem is with the one per empire and it still requiring perk points to build.
As for dyson spheres, the energy output does make it more attractive, but if you flat out offered a player 1k energy output for one of their ascension perks, I think folks would balk at that. I'd suggest turning the spheres into a single 20+ tile colonizable world. It would at the very least make the spheres defensible.
1k energy worth planet that works WITHOUT pops (and not considered to be a planet) is better, then 20+ tile colonizable world.
 
1k energy worth planet that works WITHOUT pops (and not considered to be a planet) is better, then 20+ tile colonizable world.

I was thinking of both, a planet with 1k output and get a world. Considering the cost and time to build and limit of one per empire, it doesn't seem unreasonable.
 
Megastructures actually sound worse off with this patch. The problem is with the one per empire and it still requiring perk points to build. [...]
They may sound worse to you, but they will actually be much more powerful, since they can now:
(a) be obtained consistently with much less RNG.
(b) provide much higher yields much earlier.

You can think of Galactic Wonders as a tempo perk, akin to Mastery of Nature. MoN has no significant effect outside of the early / early mid game, and yet it is a popular pick.
 
Gene Ascension has access to "Erudite", which boosts leader levels. It's not *as* big of a benefit as the special traits, but certainly more useful now, since the potential max level cap was increased to 10. Together with some of the other ascension trait nerfs and some misc changes, the gap has gotten quite a bit smaller.

Sorry, but I don´t think this is correct. Lets recap the Leader bonus for Synth and Psionic Leaders, and compare;

Synthetic: +30% Naval Capacity and +10% Happiness for Leaders. -10% Tile Blocker Cost & Time, +25% Build Speed, +5% to all sciences for Governors. +10% Research Speed, +25% Survey Speed for Scientists. +15% Fire Rate for Admirals. +10% Army damage & Morale.

Psychic: +10% Ethics Attraction for Leaders. -15 Unrest for Governors. +10% Research Speed and +25% Survey Speed for Scientists. +15% Evasion for Admirals. +15% Army Morale and +15% Army Morale on attack. And please remember, the numbers for Psychic leaders are getting Buffed for 1.8.

Are you honestly saying that any of these are comparable to +1 Leader level Erudite gives? Or even close, for that matter?

Allow me to give a suggestion, that I believe is lore friendly and not balance upsetting:

Biologically Ascended Empires have, at least for lore purposes, made evolution, nay, LIFE ITSELF their tool. So its reasonable to assume that Medicial techniques in those empires have simply erradicated any kind of disease, cronic conditions, birth defects, etc. It is reasonable to assume that said Empires´s doctors are capable of keeping any organism in peak condition, as close of perfection as biologically possible. It is also reasonable to assume that Leaders have access to the best healthcare the Empire can offer.

That said, then perhaps Biologically Ascended Leaders should receive a baseline perk reflecting this (Name could be Peak Condition? Mens sana corpore sana?). Giving +5% to all relevant stats for the Leader profession.
 
[...] Are you honestly saying that any of these are comparable to +1 Leader level Erudite gives? [...]
No, I was saying: "[...] the gap has gotten quite a bit smaller."
 
Are you honestly saying that any of these are comparable to +1 Leader level Erudite gives?

It isnt about that one level - but you can stack that stuff without reducing the other resource traits on your main race. You can also use other talents such as Conservative and Talented to get to +3 Levels- which on admirals is equivalent to the Synth Firepowerbonus for example. Also - nothing stops you from useing Synths leaders if you want to - even as a Genetically Ascended Empire.
 
They may sound worse to you, but they will actually be much more powerful, since they can now:
(a) be obtained consistently with much less RNG.
(b) provide much higher yields much earlier.

You can think of Galactic Wonders as a tempo perk, akin to Mastery of Nature. MoN has no significant effect outside of the early / early mid game, and yet it is a popular pick.
Except Mastery of Nature can be picked super early and makes sense as a buff to quickly grow in the early game, while Galactic Wonders has as many requirements as the late game perks.

If you're set on keeping the limit of mega-structures at least make them available with Master Builders instead, everyone who is going to build them is going to pick it anyway to get the technology.
 
It isnt about that one level - but you can stack that stuff without reducing the other resource traits on your main race. You can also use other talents such as Conservative and Talented to get to +3 Levels- which on admirals is equivalent to the Synth Firepowerbonus for example. Also - nothing stops you from useing Synths leaders if you want to - even as a Genetically Ascended Empire.

Psionic Empires can have Conservative and Talented, so this point is not valid. And I am pretty sure that Machine Empires (and Synthetic Ascended ones) will have robomidding options for +Leader levels.

If I am Biologically Ascended, but must go out of my way to get Synth leaders for their bonuses, then it is pretty strong evidence that Bio ascended Empires are at a disadvantage in in Leader Traits, don´t you think?