Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary will be about changes and new additions for Fallen Empires in the 1.8 'Čapek' update and its accompanying (unannounced) Story Pack, about which we cannot currently provide any information except what's in this dev diary (there will be info about other features in the pack coming in later dev diaries). We also cannot currently provide say anything about the release date for the update other than to say that it's not coming out anytime soon. After what happened with 1.6, we want to take our time with this one and make sure we get it to you in a good shape.

Ancient Caretakers (Story Pack)
Those with the Story Pack will be able to encounter a brand new Fallen Empire - the Ancient Caretakers. The Ancient Caretakers is a fallen synthetic civilization that appears to be the remnant of some great conflict in the distant past. From what they tell you, they appear to have been part of something called the 'Custodian Project', an initiative to construct and maintain a number of ringworlds as a refuge for biological sapients fleeing some unknown menace. Their erratic behavior and speech, however, suggests that something may be very wrong indeed with this Fallen Machine Empire.

The Ancient Caretakers have a new attitude called 'Enigmatic' and an obscured opinion score to represent their bizarre and unpredictable nature. They may help you with gifts of ships of technology, request your assistance with tasks that may make little apparent sense, or even make demands of your empire that you would be unwise to ignore. They do not awaken like a regular Fallen Empire, but instead have a particular 'triggering event' that, if it happens during the course of the game, will automatically awaken them... though they will not always awaken in the same way. All in all, they behave quite differently from the other Fallen and Awakened Empires, and have their own backstory to explore, as well as unique interactions when dealing with other synthetic civilizations.

Fallen Empire Tweaks & Changes (Čapek Update)
In addition to the Ancient Caretakers, there are also some changes coming to the current batch of Fallen Empires. First of all, because the Ancient Caretakers also make use of ringworlds, we decided that you'd end up with just a few too many ringworlds to conquer and restore kicking around. Thus, for those with the Story Pack, we made a new initializer for the Keepers of Knowledge with a more traditional Fallen Empire setup of Gaia Worlds and outlying colonies, including some unique features and buildings to suit their archivarian ways. The old initializer with its three ringworlds still exists, however, and will spawn for those that do not have the Story Pack, so those without do not have their Fallen Empire ringworlds taken away.

Other than that, the following changes were done to the existing Fallen Empires:
- Keepers of Knowledge were changed to have their behavior (Hatred of AI) no longer directly conflict with their ethos (Materialist). Both their Fallen and Awakened variants no longer hold a grudge against AI, but instead have doubled down on their obsession with collecting and hoarding knowledge. Satellites of Awakened Keepers of Knowledge are no longer required to ban AI, but will have to contribute a major share of their research to their overlord.
- Holy Guardians were changed to be a bit more interactive, and are now able to offer tasks and give gifts to the younger races, though they will mostly only deign to do so to fellow Spiritualists. They have also taken over some of the Keepers of Knowledge's hatred of AI, and you can expect their Awakened variant to offer no quarter to synthetic civilizations.
- Militant Isolationists and Enigmatic Observers have mostly been left unchanged, asides from some updates to their initializers and ship designs, such as removing the Synths previously used by the Militant Isolationists and giving them to the Keepers of Knowledge instead. They will now also start with more trait points for their species than the other Fallen Empires, to represent their focus on the biological.

Finally, a change was done to the way you establish contact with Fallen Empires. Previously, unless you had done something to anger them (for example colonize a Holy World) FEs would open communications only when you directly entered their space. This has been changed so that Fallen Empires will now instead contact you when your ships enter any system adjacent to their space. This should make it harder to accidentally colonize next to Militant Isolationists and also make it so that your exploring science ship isn't immediately hurled back to your capital just because it happened to take a wrong turn after Omicron Persei.

That's all for today! Next week we'll be discussing some changes coming to Hive Minds and Devouring Swarms, as well as the addition of Dynamic Tradition Swapping in 1.8 'Čapek'.

 

[Atlantians]

Basically, having both of them spawn a bunch of ringworlds would mean any medium or larger galaxy would be virtually guaranteed to have a lot of ringworlds. We want to keep them somewhat rare and special, not have them be all over the galaxy.

@Wiz,
Here is a Compromise: Have Keepers spawn with Ring-worlds if no Caretakers Spawn, and give Keepers, Enigmatic Observers, and Isolationists a small chance to spawn with a Ringworld in their Empire. That way it all makes more sense, Ringworlds are still relatively rare, but they scale with the size of the Galaxy.

 

[Atlantians]

Or for an alternate type of synth ascendancy becoming a hive mind.

Borg Confirmed!

 

[Falendor]

Basically, having both of them spawn a bunch of ringworlds would mean any medium or larger galaxy would be virtually guaranteed to have a lot of ringworlds. We want to keep them somewhat rare and special, not have them be all over the galaxy.

Would you consider giving the materialist FE some other mega structure, like a full Dyson sphere, or science nexus?
Or do you already have some plan to give them something special? You already said your giving them a gaian world, but that seems more like the spiritualist and/or standard FE thing.

 

[Deleted user]

I assumed that they couldn't handle it before and that's why they are a fallen empire. Now they want to prevent younger races from falling into the same trap they did

Interpretations and ambiguity should be completely acceptable, especially for FE - which need an air of mystery.

But whether they are using synths or not, they should still believe that they are superior to everyone else and other races can't handle the dangerous tech, at the very least in the early game.

 

[Insane Commander]

Would you consider giving the materialist FE some other mega structure, like a full Dyson sphere, or science nexus?
Or do you already have some plan to give them something special? You already said your giving them a gaian world, but that seems more like the spiritualist and/or standard FE thing.

They should have all types of megastructures, even if they are so ruined that they can't be repaired.

 

[TheDungen]

I think the keepers should still mind dangerous technologies being researched by people who aren't their vassals.

 

[Anschau]

Are we going to see any polishing of previous DLC before this comes out? Like ironing out all the War in Heaven problems?

 

[LycenYao]

Hmm...Another story pack, DLC +1.
I hope it will be as interesting as the Leviathans does.

 

[Summon3r]

would be really nice if all the FE's didnt have the same looking ships

that said looking forward to these changes

 

[VoidEmperor]

would be really nice if all the FE's didnt have the same looking ships

that said looking forward to these changes

i agree, the different colorization of ships makes them feel a bit more unique but not enough. They should at least have some different flavors. Like.... the xenophobic ships should be a bit.... spiky. You know what i mean? Their ships arent spiky enough. And they should generally be a bit dark. Like a spiky, black/dark red ship. Nothings says Xenophobe like that. The spiritualists could use some more gold, maybe golden triangles or small pyramids incorporated in their ships style. Materialists could have some sort of visible, blue-ish "energy field" around their ships. Im not sure about xenophiles but im sure someone will have an idea on that too.

@Wiz

 

[Summon3r]

They need to be entirely different not just colors imho. And spikes? That wouldn't do a whole lot for me personally

 

[Darustet]

Considering that they are all machines, the ships have no need for life support systems and needs no crew but maintenance and repair droids. Could result to very alien looking ships, with zero aesthetics.

 

[Darkspysrival]

If we can finally play as a robot hive mind, I can finally play as Skynet without a need for mods! Wiz, so far you are the best thing that has happened to Stellaris since.... Stellaris.

 

[clockworkBabbag]

In addition to the Ancient Caretakers, there are also some changes coming to the current batch of Fallen Empires. First of all, because the Ancient Caretakers also make use of ringworlds, we decided that you'd end up with just a few too many ringworlds to conquer and restore kicking around. Thus, for those with the Story Pack, we made a new initializer for the Keepers of Knowledge with a more traditional Fallen Empire setup of Gaia Worlds and outlying colonies, including some unique features and buildings to suit their archivarian ways. The old initializer with its three ringworlds still exists, however, and will spawn for those that do not have the Story Pack, so those without do not have their Fallen Empire ringworlds taken away.

Will Keepers of Knowledge be affected by this if the Ancient Caretakers don't spawn in your game?

 

[MrJade]

Also, there will be a new form of AI uprising that's more of a mid-game event than an end-game crisis. More on that in a later DD though.

Is this going to be free, or for the DLC only?

 

[Trutty]

On another hand i agree with the change for spiritualist empire but that dig up the problem we can have in Stellaris with the ascension perks. Spiritualist empires who can't proced to cybernetic augmentation (i understand that they are not going to change themselves to synthetics but some cybernetics implants don't seems wrong for me coz they just use technology for remplace a missing arm, leg etc...) or some materialist empire who can't have a basic psionism (like in mass effect with implant for amplify brain waves, or star wars where jedi can use force and have cybernetic augmentations...). I'm ok to let the second level (total psionism and synthetic transformation) specific for an ethos but cybernetism and latent psionism should be availible without an ethos restriction..

As someone who's really into the idea of robotic spiritualists à la the Adeptus Mechanicus from 40K I really hate that ascension is locked to ethos. Honestly I feel like a lot of things are as someone put it earlier too "knee jerk" in the sense that a lot of things arbitrarily boil down to "I hate you because you're on the opposite end of the ethics wheel from me and nothing will ever change that!"

Of course I understand making too many sub "flavors" of things could get complicated quickly and that much of it is a necessary evil, but I still feel like ascension perks could be relaxed a little more at the very least. Maybe just with the narrative fluff changed depending on your empire.

 

[LizardCommander]

There will be a way to assimilate Pops into a ascended Synthetic Empire in 1.8.

Hopefully this means there will be more Synthetic portraits added in addition? (The Geth for example :3)

 

[Mavkiel]

I'd actually like fallen empires to have unique things about them. The move on removing their ring worlds, is great, it did make them to common. That being said, them just having gaia worlds just makes them a very unattractive targets. By the time you can take them over, do you even care what type of world they have?

My suggestion, would be unique planets or star bases.

Star bases:
Imagine a habitat orbiting their world that doubles as a star base? It could work in the same way enigmatic fortress works, you disable the fortress, then invade it.

Unique planet:
High population planets. There was a suggestion thread floating around about subterranean cities. Just anything to make those planets attractive for takeover.

Unique units or abilities:
Take over a spiritualist world, get the ability to make psi troops(on that world). A biological path, allow for you to modify your species on that world. Or an automated spaceport to create a limited number of fallen empire ships. Basically the idea is controlling that world provides a real, but limited bonus.

 

[Hype]

Is this going to be free, or for the DLC only?

It better be free, nothing worse than removing something from a game only to release it as DLC.

 

[VoidEmperor]

It better be free, nothing worse than removing something from a game only to release it as DLC.

that makes no sense. of course the "AI crisis", this ancient ai that wants to sterilize the galaxy, will be free. Im not sure about the midgame uprising though. We will know more in future dev diaries as wiz said.