The Machine Age is a time of unbridled progress.
As cybernetic augmentation transcends the limits of the body, synthetic ascension beckons with the promise of eternal life. Structures of immense size and power appear between the stars with shocking regularity. Scientists race to unlock the secrets of creation even as individual machines compete for resources and prestige.
It is a period of technological marvels, rapid change, and unchecked ambition... But from the ashes of a Fallen Empire, a danger unlike any before encountered is about to emerge, a looming threat that will throw the very meaning of life into question.
Welcome to The Machine Age!
New Crisis: The Synthetic Queen
In house, we’ve always loved our Rogue Servitors - the idea of a powerful AI that somehow turns on its creators, not in a violent or destructive way, but out of a misguided sense of purpose. We wanted to do something that felt both apocalyptic but not inherently militant, a crisis that wasn’t exclusively about shooting something on first contact. The first phases of this Crisis are decidedly non-combat.
How might an all-powerful being react to the directive to 'eliminate suffering?' Obviously, because this is Stellaris, our antagonist is going to take her answer way, way too far. What happens next is up to the player. Will you try to oppose her directly, or play the part of a loyal pupil?
This all came together in a terrifying, driven entity: The Synthetic Queen. There are some very obvious spiritual and historical influences in her design, and philosophical ideas regarding the nature of suffering and awareness are woven through her narrative.
We won’t spoil the story for you, however, and we look forward to hearing about your experiences with this new End-Game crisis!
Become the Crisis: Cosmogenesis
Cosmogenesis has a bit of a different philosophy than the previous crisis path. Where the Galactic Nemesis (renamed from “Become the Crisis”) operates through explicit malice, intentionally attempting to maximize the amount of suffering they can cause, an empire following the path of Cosmogenesis is more of a crisis to the galaxy due to callous indifference while pursuing what is theoretically a more noble cause.
Cosmogenesis can be selected as your fourth Ascension Perk. You cannot take Cosmogenesis if you are Custodian or Emperor, or are not independent. Unlike the previous crisis path, however, this one is not ethics locked. Even a Xenophile Pacifist can delude themselves into thinking that a small amount of possible, unintentional suffering now may be a worthwhile sacrifice for a better future.
One of the shortcuts you can use to get there is the Synaptic Lathe. A powerful research facility, it harnesses the power of minds to compute and store data, with the slight downside of burning them out over time. It can be upgraded twice. The more Neural Chips you have contained within the Lathe, the more effective it becomes, as every chip improves the output of every other chip, resulting in a nonlinear productivity growth curve but make sure that there is always pops for the lathe to process, or risk seeing it break down for lack of suitable components.
At Crisis Rank 4, you’ll gain the ability to experiment upon reality through your Applied Infinity Theses. Applied Infinity Theses allow you to attempt to make improvements on a stubborn reality, which can have galactic or localized effects. Sometimes these go well… But other times things don’t go quite as planned, and the simple folk from other empires that just don’t understand may get upset. Frustratingly, reality is resilient, and does not take kindly to “adjustment”.
The aftereffects of your final experiment will ripple across the galaxy, causing significant problems for those that were left behind. A control group that elects to stay behind and observe from your former empire will protect itself well. The rest of the galaxy isn’t quite as prepared.
Origins
Cybernetic Creed
Embarking first on our divine odyssey of silicon and the soul, we introduce you to Cybernetic Creed, a spiritualist fast track to Cybernetics. Your spiritualist pops and leaders will start with the Ritualist Cybernetics Trait, representing your people's long dedication to attempting the perfect fusion of flesh and steel.
Eschew the mundane traditionalist factions of more standard empires for a quartet of Creeds, each a pillar of your economy and spiritual ethos.
Though united in their quest for divine fusion, harmony is a rare commodity among the Creeds. Dissonance and debate fuel their fiery passion for transcendence, and often, you will be asked to make choices that will make one Creed joyous at the expense of the others.
Will you elevate a single Creed to celestial prominence or attempt to weave a tapestry of unity among them?
To fuse is divine.
Augmentation is worship.
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Synthetic Fertility
Boosted by a deep understanding of artificial intelligence and advanced virtual reality, your empire starts the game with 37 Pops. But despite your success, your people are on the brink of extinction. An incurable genetic affliction ravages your species, stopping them from being able to produce offspring.
In a daring leap of innovation, your civilization constructs the Identity Repository. It's a race against time as minds are uploaded, seeking refuge in the digital expanse before death takes them. Parallel to this digital exodus, you're thrust into the urgent quest for the pinnacle of synthetic salvation - constructing robotic brains and bodies sophisticated enough to host your digital essences.
Will you seek aid? Will you engineer Synthetic Frames in time to reclaim your place among the stars? Or is this the dawn of an eternal digital slumber for your people?
Arc Welders
Arc Welders is available to any Machine empire - whether a Gestalt Consciousness or Individualistic Machines. In some ways, it is the opposite of Resource Consolidation. Rather than having an exceptional homeworld where all of the resources of your home system are gathered, these celestial architects hail from a small, resource-poor planet and set their eyes on the skies.
The Arc Welders began constructing an Arc Furnace on a molten world in their home system before achieving Faster-Than-Light travel. This new megastructure lets them exploit the rest of their system for minerals and, once complete, for alloy production. As expert engineers, it will only take a little more practice before they figure out the basics of Mega-Engineering. However, it may take a while before they can finish researching that technology.
More details on the Arc Furnace below!
Civics
The Guided Sapience civics focus on coexistence with natural or created pre-sapient species and the environment around them. Their homeworld and Genesis Ark colony ships uplift some of the most promising local wildlife to pre-sapient status, creating a Genesis Preserve that increases Society Research and Unity.
While other empires seek to improve themselves through genetic modification or through ascension, empires with the Natural Design Civic are quite certain that they are already at the apex of evolution and get bonuses to improve their main species at empire creation..
Available to gestalt machine intelligences, Obsessional Directive sets you in charge of a malfunctioning AI, who’s been given the task of producing Consumer Goods... At any cost. Create a spire of Commodities to demonstrate your commitment to creating office supplies, toasters, handheld electronics, or whatever other form you imagine your Consumer Goods take. Failure to meet your quota will result in a bit of a breakdown until your new, lower quota is met.
Empires with the Diplomatic Protocols civic were initially designed for cross-cultural interpretation, and excel at translation and protocol support. They can suggest new strategies and calculate odds at a moment’s notice, and get extra Envoys and Diplomatic weight to represent this.
Pops in a Machine Empire with Tactical Algorithms were designed for war games and fleet support, and their leaders excel at generating war strategies and combat analysis. These gestalt Machine Intelligences can create Mercenary Enclaves (if the game host has Overlord), have immortal Commanders, and gain military benefits from getting the opportunity to study the strategy and tactics of other empires.
In Empires with the Augmentation Bazaars Civic (requires MegaCorp), your pops can pay a visit to the Augmentation Bazaar and purchase cut-rate augmentations and visit shady mod clinics. You too, can build a better you, and all it will cost is an arm and a leg!
Megastructures
Dyson Swarm
Fresh with the Machine Age, we are introducing the Dyson Swarm, a predecessor and proof of concept for your Dyson Sphere plans. Dyson Swarms function slightly differently than Spheres. Instead of producing energy all on their own, they amplify whatever resources their star produces, up to 30 times, so placing a Dyson Swarm to capture the correct resource is very important. That delicate little 3 energy star will now produce 90 energy and if you were to put it on a 3 physics star, that would be a decent 90 physics research from 1 star.
But with all that said, there are certain restrictions on building Dyson Swarms: you may not build Swarms around Black Holes, Neutron Stars nor upgrade them past Swarm state in systems with thriving colonies. Those restrictions exist for a simple reason. You can upgrade one of your Swarms directly into a Stage 2 Dyson Sphere, for a cool 1000 energy per month.
Arc Furnace
A splendid planet-based megastructure, meant to help you alleviate your industrial needs.
Just like the Dyson Swarm, to get the most out of your shiny new Arc Furnace requires a bit more effort than merely finding a molten world and putting it down. Instead of producing resources itself, it allows you access to more of the system's resources.
That means at each stage, the Arc Furnace will create deposits on every planet or asteroid in the system:
In addition to the deposits, the Arc Furnace also makes mining in general more effective in the system, which manifests as a small bonus to your mining station output, of 100% bonus output at the final stage. To get the most out of your Arc Furnace, you want to find molten worlds in large systems, with plenty of planets and asteroids.
Ascension Paths
Virtuality
Embrace a virtual existence for the majority of your pops. From the cloud, your pops are created and to the cloud they return when their job is done.
Spreading your servers across the stars is an expensive endeavor but your concentrated efforts are unmatched. Your pops will gain access to the unique “Virtual” trait. This trait’s effects are reduced as you accumulate more colonies for your servers to run pops on, and the more expensive those servers are to run.
Once you finish the tree, you will transition from a pop-limited playstyle into a planet-limited playstyle, as open jobs will be instantly filled with virtual pops as needed, while unemployed virtual pops will be turned off.
Nanotech
By becoming a flood of nanites, your empire changes not just its makeup, but also its economy and growth strategy. Grow. Exploit. Replicate.
While Virtual Machines may seek a “Tall” playstyle, Nanotech Machines flood across the galaxy like an off-white or silvery tempest, specializing in the physical.
You will transform basic resources into nanites and nanites into advanced resources. Consume worlds with nanites, activate powerful edicts to increase your production or combat capabilities, and build Nanite probe ships to bolster your fleets.
Modularity
The most advanced traits require the most advanced minds. By embracing Modularity, your empire will have access to traits other machines can only theorize at. The rarest of resources will fuel your enhanced shells.
Unlock access to powerful Modularity Machine traits, plus extra trait picks and points, and a reduced modification cost. Utilizing the galaxy’s rarest resources, and cutting-edge technology, your empire will perfect mechanical augmentations.
Full list of Features:
Get The Machine Age today!
Stellaris: Season 08 includes The Machine Age (Available now!), Cosmic Storms (coming Q3 2024), and The Grand Archive Story Pack (coming Q4 2024). As a bonus, you will also get a new Rick the Cube Machine Portrait and over a 20% discount when compared to buying all the content separately!
Stellaris: The Machine Age (Available now!)
Explore the Cyberpunk Fantasies of technological augmentation and digitalization of consciousness by expanding the possibilities offered in game by the Cybernetics and Synthetics Ascension. Address the moral and social challenges that communing with the machine bring to your space-faring empire, and face a new threat looming over the galaxy… or become a new threat yourself, as you tear through time and space to shape reality to your image
Stellaris: Cosmic Storms (Releases Q3 2024)
A new phenomenon has been observed around the Galaxy - storms are sweeping through systems. Prepare your Empire and brace to face this new upcoming threat, and leverage possibilities that open when your opponents are weakened by it.
Stellaris: The Grand Archive Story Pack (Releases Q4 2024)
The Galaxy is vast and full of wonders, and it is up to you to store records of all the unique lifeforms and marvels you will meet. Build a new megastructure, and collect examples of specimens you will meet in your space-faring adventures!"
Bonus: Rick The Cube Species Portrait
An exclusive portrait for you species, to play as the most enigmatic species in the galaxy. As every Stellaris Species Portrait, it comes with three different variants (phenotypes) and custom animations. Players will be able to select this portrait in the empire creation skin before starting a new game session.
Rick the Cube is benevolent. No really. No, he's not making me say this. Why are you looking at me like that?
Get Stellaris: Season 08: https://pdxint.at/4a8raMe
Thanks for reading and thanks for playing Stellaris!
As cybernetic augmentation transcends the limits of the body, synthetic ascension beckons with the promise of eternal life. Structures of immense size and power appear between the stars with shocking regularity. Scientists race to unlock the secrets of creation even as individual machines compete for resources and prestige.
It is a period of technological marvels, rapid change, and unchecked ambition... But from the ashes of a Fallen Empire, a danger unlike any before encountered is about to emerge, a looming threat that will throw the very meaning of life into question.
Welcome to The Machine Age!
New Crisis: The Synthetic Queen
In house, we’ve always loved our Rogue Servitors - the idea of a powerful AI that somehow turns on its creators, not in a violent or destructive way, but out of a misguided sense of purpose. We wanted to do something that felt both apocalyptic but not inherently militant, a crisis that wasn’t exclusively about shooting something on first contact. The first phases of this Crisis are decidedly non-combat.
How might an all-powerful being react to the directive to 'eliminate suffering?' Obviously, because this is Stellaris, our antagonist is going to take her answer way, way too far. What happens next is up to the player. Will you try to oppose her directly, or play the part of a loyal pupil?
This all came together in a terrifying, driven entity: The Synthetic Queen. There are some very obvious spiritual and historical influences in her design, and philosophical ideas regarding the nature of suffering and awareness are woven through her narrative.
We won’t spoil the story for you, however, and we look forward to hearing about your experiences with this new End-Game crisis!
Become the Crisis: Cosmogenesis
Cosmogenesis has a bit of a different philosophy than the previous crisis path. Where the Galactic Nemesis (renamed from “Become the Crisis”) operates through explicit malice, intentionally attempting to maximize the amount of suffering they can cause, an empire following the path of Cosmogenesis is more of a crisis to the galaxy due to callous indifference while pursuing what is theoretically a more noble cause.
Cosmogenesis can be selected as your fourth Ascension Perk. You cannot take Cosmogenesis if you are Custodian or Emperor, or are not independent. Unlike the previous crisis path, however, this one is not ethics locked. Even a Xenophile Pacifist can delude themselves into thinking that a small amount of possible, unintentional suffering now may be a worthwhile sacrifice for a better future.
One of the shortcuts you can use to get there is the Synaptic Lathe. A powerful research facility, it harnesses the power of minds to compute and store data, with the slight downside of burning them out over time. It can be upgraded twice. The more Neural Chips you have contained within the Lathe, the more effective it becomes, as every chip improves the output of every other chip, resulting in a nonlinear productivity growth curve but make sure that there is always pops for the lathe to process, or risk seeing it break down for lack of suitable components.
At Crisis Rank 4, you’ll gain the ability to experiment upon reality through your Applied Infinity Theses. Applied Infinity Theses allow you to attempt to make improvements on a stubborn reality, which can have galactic or localized effects. Sometimes these go well… But other times things don’t go quite as planned, and the simple folk from other empires that just don’t understand may get upset. Frustratingly, reality is resilient, and does not take kindly to “adjustment”.
The aftereffects of your final experiment will ripple across the galaxy, causing significant problems for those that were left behind. A control group that elects to stay behind and observe from your former empire will protect itself well. The rest of the galaxy isn’t quite as prepared.
Origins
Cybernetic Creed
Embarking first on our divine odyssey of silicon and the soul, we introduce you to Cybernetic Creed, a spiritualist fast track to Cybernetics. Your spiritualist pops and leaders will start with the Ritualist Cybernetics Trait, representing your people's long dedication to attempting the perfect fusion of flesh and steel.
Eschew the mundane traditionalist factions of more standard empires for a quartet of Creeds, each a pillar of your economy and spiritual ethos.
Though united in their quest for divine fusion, harmony is a rare commodity among the Creeds. Dissonance and debate fuel their fiery passion for transcendence, and often, you will be asked to make choices that will make one Creed joyous at the expense of the others.
Will you elevate a single Creed to celestial prominence or attempt to weave a tapestry of unity among them?
To fuse is divine.
Augmentation is worship.
Synthetic Fertility
Boosted by a deep understanding of artificial intelligence and advanced virtual reality, your empire starts the game with 37 Pops. But despite your success, your people are on the brink of extinction. An incurable genetic affliction ravages your species, stopping them from being able to produce offspring.
In a daring leap of innovation, your civilization constructs the Identity Repository. It's a race against time as minds are uploaded, seeking refuge in the digital expanse before death takes them. Parallel to this digital exodus, you're thrust into the urgent quest for the pinnacle of synthetic salvation - constructing robotic brains and bodies sophisticated enough to host your digital essences.
Will you seek aid? Will you engineer Synthetic Frames in time to reclaim your place among the stars? Or is this the dawn of an eternal digital slumber for your people?
Arc Welders
Arc Welders is available to any Machine empire - whether a Gestalt Consciousness or Individualistic Machines. In some ways, it is the opposite of Resource Consolidation. Rather than having an exceptional homeworld where all of the resources of your home system are gathered, these celestial architects hail from a small, resource-poor planet and set their eyes on the skies.
The Arc Welders began constructing an Arc Furnace on a molten world in their home system before achieving Faster-Than-Light travel. This new megastructure lets them exploit the rest of their system for minerals and, once complete, for alloy production. As expert engineers, it will only take a little more practice before they figure out the basics of Mega-Engineering. However, it may take a while before they can finish researching that technology.
More details on the Arc Furnace below!
Civics
The Guided Sapience civics focus on coexistence with natural or created pre-sapient species and the environment around them. Their homeworld and Genesis Ark colony ships uplift some of the most promising local wildlife to pre-sapient status, creating a Genesis Preserve that increases Society Research and Unity.
While other empires seek to improve themselves through genetic modification or through ascension, empires with the Natural Design Civic are quite certain that they are already at the apex of evolution and get bonuses to improve their main species at empire creation..
Available to gestalt machine intelligences, Obsessional Directive sets you in charge of a malfunctioning AI, who’s been given the task of producing Consumer Goods... At any cost. Create a spire of Commodities to demonstrate your commitment to creating office supplies, toasters, handheld electronics, or whatever other form you imagine your Consumer Goods take. Failure to meet your quota will result in a bit of a breakdown until your new, lower quota is met.
Empires with the Diplomatic Protocols civic were initially designed for cross-cultural interpretation, and excel at translation and protocol support. They can suggest new strategies and calculate odds at a moment’s notice, and get extra Envoys and Diplomatic weight to represent this.
Pops in a Machine Empire with Tactical Algorithms were designed for war games and fleet support, and their leaders excel at generating war strategies and combat analysis. These gestalt Machine Intelligences can create Mercenary Enclaves (if the game host has Overlord), have immortal Commanders, and gain military benefits from getting the opportunity to study the strategy and tactics of other empires.
In Empires with the Augmentation Bazaars Civic (requires MegaCorp), your pops can pay a visit to the Augmentation Bazaar and purchase cut-rate augmentations and visit shady mod clinics. You too, can build a better you, and all it will cost is an arm and a leg!
Megastructures
Dyson Swarm
Fresh with the Machine Age, we are introducing the Dyson Swarm, a predecessor and proof of concept for your Dyson Sphere plans. Dyson Swarms function slightly differently than Spheres. Instead of producing energy all on their own, they amplify whatever resources their star produces, up to 30 times, so placing a Dyson Swarm to capture the correct resource is very important. That delicate little 3 energy star will now produce 90 energy and if you were to put it on a 3 physics star, that would be a decent 90 physics research from 1 star.
But with all that said, there are certain restrictions on building Dyson Swarms: you may not build Swarms around Black Holes, Neutron Stars nor upgrade them past Swarm state in systems with thriving colonies. Those restrictions exist for a simple reason. You can upgrade one of your Swarms directly into a Stage 2 Dyson Sphere, for a cool 1000 energy per month.
Arc Furnace
A splendid planet-based megastructure, meant to help you alleviate your industrial needs.
Just like the Dyson Swarm, to get the most out of your shiny new Arc Furnace requires a bit more effort than merely finding a molten world and putting it down. Instead of producing resources itself, it allows you access to more of the system's resources.
That means at each stage, the Arc Furnace will create deposits on every planet or asteroid in the system:
- Stage 1: 1 mineral deposit
- Stage 2: 2 mineral deposit
- Stage 3: 3 mineral and 1 alloy deposit
- Stage 4: 4 mineral and 2 alloy deposit
In addition to the deposits, the Arc Furnace also makes mining in general more effective in the system, which manifests as a small bonus to your mining station output, of 100% bonus output at the final stage. To get the most out of your Arc Furnace, you want to find molten worlds in large systems, with plenty of planets and asteroids.
Virtuality
Embrace a virtual existence for the majority of your pops. From the cloud, your pops are created and to the cloud they return when their job is done.
Spreading your servers across the stars is an expensive endeavor but your concentrated efforts are unmatched. Your pops will gain access to the unique “Virtual” trait. This trait’s effects are reduced as you accumulate more colonies for your servers to run pops on, and the more expensive those servers are to run.
Once you finish the tree, you will transition from a pop-limited playstyle into a planet-limited playstyle, as open jobs will be instantly filled with virtual pops as needed, while unemployed virtual pops will be turned off.
Nanotech
By becoming a flood of nanites, your empire changes not just its makeup, but also its economy and growth strategy. Grow. Exploit. Replicate.
While Virtual Machines may seek a “Tall” playstyle, Nanotech Machines flood across the galaxy like an off-white or silvery tempest, specializing in the physical.
You will transform basic resources into nanites and nanites into advanced resources. Consume worlds with nanites, activate powerful edicts to increase your production or combat capabilities, and build Nanite probe ships to bolster your fleets.
Modularity
The most advanced traits require the most advanced minds. By embracing Modularity, your empire will have access to traits other machines can only theorize at. The rarest of resources will fuel your enhanced shells.
Unlock access to powerful Modularity Machine traits, plus extra trait picks and points, and a reduced modification cost. Utilizing the galaxy’s rarest resources, and cutting-edge technology, your empire will perfect mechanical augmentations.
Full list of Features:
- Individualistic Non-Gestalt Machine Empires
- Gestalt Machine Intelligence Empires (also unlocked by the Synthetic Dawn Story Pack)
- A new End-Game Crisis - The Synthetic Queen
- A new Player Crisis Path - Cosmogenesis
- Three new Origins
- Cybernetic Creed
- Synthetic Fertility
- Arc Welders
- Civics
- Guided Sapience
- Natural Design
- Obsessional Directive
- Protocol Droids
- Tactical Cogitators
- Augmentation Bazaars (requires Megacorp)
- Two Mid-Game Structures
- Arc Furnace
- Dyson Swarm
- Three New Ascension Paths
- Virtuality
- Nanotech
- Modularity
- Cybernetic and Synthetic Ascension (also unlocked by Utopia)
- Exploration of the effects of the cyberization or synthesization of society, with Advanced Government Forms for those who complete it.
- New Species Traits for Cyborgs, Machines and Robots
- Cybernetic portraits that change based on advancement through cyberization
- Synthetic portraits with both organic and synthetic variants that changed based on synthesization, usable by either organics or machines
- Two new Shipsets, Diplomatic Rooms, and City Sets
- 7 new music tracks synthetic and cybernetic inspired music tracks
Get The Machine Age today!
Stellaris: Season 08
Stellaris: Season 08 includes The Machine Age (Available now!), Cosmic Storms (coming Q3 2024), and The Grand Archive Story Pack (coming Q4 2024). As a bonus, you will also get a new Rick the Cube Machine Portrait and over a 20% discount when compared to buying all the content separately!
Stellaris: The Machine Age (Available now!)
Explore the Cyberpunk Fantasies of technological augmentation and digitalization of consciousness by expanding the possibilities offered in game by the Cybernetics and Synthetics Ascension. Address the moral and social challenges that communing with the machine bring to your space-faring empire, and face a new threat looming over the galaxy… or become a new threat yourself, as you tear through time and space to shape reality to your image
Stellaris: Cosmic Storms (Releases Q3 2024)
A new phenomenon has been observed around the Galaxy - storms are sweeping through systems. Prepare your Empire and brace to face this new upcoming threat, and leverage possibilities that open when your opponents are weakened by it.
Stellaris: The Grand Archive Story Pack (Releases Q4 2024)
The Galaxy is vast and full of wonders, and it is up to you to store records of all the unique lifeforms and marvels you will meet. Build a new megastructure, and collect examples of specimens you will meet in your space-faring adventures!"
Bonus: Rick The Cube Species Portrait
An exclusive portrait for you species, to play as the most enigmatic species in the galaxy. As every Stellaris Species Portrait, it comes with three different variants (phenotypes) and custom animations. Players will be able to select this portrait in the empire creation skin before starting a new game session.
Rick the Cube is benevolent. No really. No, he's not making me say this. Why are you looking at me like that?
Get Stellaris: Season 08: https://pdxint.at/4a8raMe
Thanks for reading and thanks for playing Stellaris!
