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Stellaris Dev Diary #100 - Titans and Planet Destroyers

Hello everyone and welcome to this very special triple digit Stellaris development diary! Today's dev diary marks the start of talking about the Apocalypse Expansion that will be accompanying the 2.0 'Cherryh' update. We still can't give you an ETA on the release of either, and there's a fair bit to cover in the expansion before then, but we're getting closer. As this is the start of talking about paid features, I just want to take a moment to reiterate that everything talked about in dev diaries 91-99 (with the exception of Dev Diary #95 which was about Humanoids) were about the Cherryh update and all features and changes mentioned in these previous dev diaries are part of the free update, NOT the expansion. Everything mentioned in this dev diary will be part of the paid Apocalypse expansion, however. Please note that some of the screenshots in this dev diary feature placeholder art and icons.


Planet Destroyers (Apocalypse Feature)
As mentioned all the way back in Dev Diary #50 and again in Dev Diary #69, Planet Destroyers have been on our wish list for quite some time, but wasn't something we could make work with restrictive nature of the old warscore system. Now that this is no longer a concern thanks to the new war system we talked about in Dev Diary #93, we finally have our chance to implement this beloved sci-fi staple.

Planet Destroyers come in the form of a new ship class called a Colossus. Though nominally a military ship, the Colossus has no actual fleet combat capability, but is instead a single massive weapon solely dedicated to the purpose of laying waste to enemy planets. To build a Colossus, you must first already know how to build Titans (more on those below) and then take the Colossus Project Ascension Perk, which unlocks a special project to research and design your first Colossus. Each Colossus mounts a single World Devastator-class weapon, and during the course of the project you will be given the option to choose which such weapon you want to focus on, with five potential options to choose from:
  • World Cracker: Shatters a planet, leaving behind a broken debris field that can be mined for resources. Available to non-Pacifists.
  • Global Pacifier: Encases the planet in an impenetrable shield, permanently cutting it off from the rest of the galaxy. A research station can be built to study the planet afterwards.
  • Neutron Sweep: Destroys most higher forms of life on the planet but leaves the infrastructure intact for colonization. Available to non-Spiritualist, non-Pacifist empires.
  • God Ray: Converts all organic Pops on the planet to spiritualist and destroys all machine/synthetic pops, as well as massively increasing spiritualist ethics attraction on the planet for a time. Available to Spiritualist empires.
  • Nanobot Dispersal: Assimilates all Pops on the planet, causing it to defect to your empire with its newly cyborgized population. Only available to Driven Assimilators (and thus requires Synthetic Dawn as well).
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(Weapon icons are placeholders)

Additional types of World Devastator weapons that are potentially available to your empire can be researched as rare technologies after finishing the Colossus project. Once the project is complete, you will be able to build a Colossus at any Starbase with a shipyard where you have the Colossus Assembly Yards building built. Once built, the Colossus functions similar to a civilian ship, in that it is own fleet, and cannot be merged with other fleets. Each empire can only have a single Colossus active at the same time, but can build a new one if their active one is destroyed.

Colossi have no conventional armaments (though we are discussing a few medium/PD turrets to them), and their real purpose is to target enemy planets. When a Colossus is ordered to target a planet, it will travel straight towards it, ignoring enemy ships entirely even if they fire on it. The Colossus will travel to the planet, take up position and begin charging its weapon. The weapon takes quite some time to charge, giving enemy fleets a chance to try and destroy the Colossus to stop it from firing (though Colossi naturally can take a great deal of punishment, they are not invincible). Once the weapons is fully charged, it will fire, executing its effects (as described above) on the hapless planet. The Colossus is then free to continue on to the next planet if you so wish. Most Colossi weapons can only target planets owned by empires you are at war with, though some of them can target primitive worlds and the World Cracker can be used on uncolonized rock-type worlds (but will not always generate a mineral deposit in that case).
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(Animations & interface are partly WIP)

The system for creating World Devastator weapons is fully scriptable, and modders will be able to create their own planet-destroying/changing effects.

Titans (Apocalypse Feature)
Titans are another new ship class available in the Apocalypse expansion, but unlike the Colossus they are much more like conventional warships. Titans are researched through a regular tier 5 technology, and can be built in any Starbase with a shipyard and the Titan Assembly Yards building. Titans are massive flagships that come equipped with an array of heavy long-ranged weaponry and layer upon layer of shields and armor. Their front section has a single Titanic-size slot that can fit weapons even stronger than XL weapons, such as the immensely powerful Perdition Beam that can fire across a whole system and potentially destroy a battleship in a single shot. Titans also have an aura slot that can fit a single offensive or defensive aura that can buff friendly ships in the same fleet or debuff nearby enemy ships. Titans are intended to be the flagships of your fleets, and as such are limited in number: You can always field at least one Titan, plus an additional amount dependent on your overall naval capacity.
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Ion Cannons (Apocalypse Feature)
Finally, there is one last Apocalype feature to talk about for today: Ion Cannons. Ion Cannons are stations that can be built as part of the defense platform fleet of a Starbase. Each Ion Cannon is essentially a single massive gun emplacement that mounts a single Titanic weapon, allowing the Starbase to engage enemy fleets at massive ranges and greatly improving the Starbase's ability to deal with enemy Battleships and Titans.
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That's all for today! Next week we'll continue talking about Cherryh and Apocalypse expansion, on the topic of Marauders, Pirates and the Great Khan.
 
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Yes.

Life-Seeded, at least, I think there might have been some other ones, not sure.

Wiz did talk about Tomb World preference as well, which will work remarkably well with Fanatic Purifiers and Armageddon bombardment.

Question is, how will they expand before getting terraforming, habitability techs or (in the case of FP with tomb world) armageddon'd a xeno world? I mean, having Extremely Adaptive gives +20%, which is the bare minimum...

Oh well, I'm sure they'll give us something.


P.S. Nice avatar picture

Why, thank you. You're pretty handsome yourself.
 
Wiz did talk about Tomb World preference as well, which will work remarkably well with Fanatic Purifiers and Armageddon bombardment.

Question is, how will they expand before getting terraforming, habitability techs or (in the case of FP with tomb world) armageddon'd a xeno world? I mean, having Extremely Adaptive gives +20%, which is the bare minimum...

Oh well, I'm sure they'll give us something.
Currently, tomb world preference give +80% habitability to tomb worlds (including your homeworld) and +60% for all other types of planets.
Is probable that the +60% will be sligthly nerfed.

About gaia preference, they will not expand early, they will need conquer xeno pops, terraform, build habitats or research droids first.
 
Currently, tomb world preference give +80% habitability to tomb worlds (including your homeworld) and +60% for all other types of planets.
Is probable that the +60% will be sligthly nerfed.

Oh, it does? That's good, then.

But what about Gaia World Preference?o_O According to Wiz in the stream, they will have 0% for non-gaia worlds
 
But what about Gaia World Preference?o_O According to Wiz in the stream, they will have 0% for non-gaia worlds
With the borders rework planets are less important, you can stay in one planet and expand your borders with frontier outposts (that dont require influence maintenece anymore).
To colonize new planets you will need conquer xeno pops or sign migration treaties or terraform or build habitats or research droids.
 
This looks rather awesome!

Queries though...


1- Is there any chance we're going to get to see more types of special mega weapons, like Bioweapons that one can unleash upon a planet?
2- Will Hive Mind's get something akin to the Nanobot mega-weapon if they go down the Biological Ascension path?
3- Since this expansion and update focus a great deal on war and battle, will we be getting more events for such? Such as perhaps events during planetary invasions and space battles, and more border skirmishes and troubles with neighboring races?
 
This looks rather awesome!

Queries though...


1- Is there any chance we're going to get to see more types of special mega weapons, like Bioweapons that one can unleash upon a planet?
2- Will Hive Mind's get something akin to the Nanobot mega-weapon if they go down the Biological Ascension path?
3- Since this expansion and update focus a great deal on war and battle, will we be getting more events for such? Such as perhaps events during planetary invasions and space battles, and more border skirmishes and troubles with neighboring races?
  1. a chance? definitely, but nothing is planned right now
  2. in the future? maybe
  3. it's likely, but I haven't heard anything about it.
 
1: the colosus super weapons can be balanced and wont nessisarilly be either useless or OP. consider other changes in 2.0. For example star fortresses, which are immune to super weapons (not being a planet) and other new and revived defensive measures which will both make it impossible for a lone colossus to attack any planets without support. In addition becuase the starfortresses can only exist in systems with colonizable planets and because much more of a systems economic and stratigic value comes from the starfortress than the planets themselves, the act of destroying planets could cripple you future expansion as well as the rewards from your own war goals. Consider that new galaxy generation rules, hyperlanes and fortress limits will likely create empires with much fewer colonized planets in the early and mid games at the very least... which means that destroying planets and therefore star-bases (which could be easily captured and which are likely set up at strategic choke points or wormhole entries or jump gate network hubs) can be both a beneficial or crippling move for your own future plans. Destroying your foes planets might win you that war but at the same time create an indefensible back door as you expand. I imagine that most wars will be fought in order to gain crontrol of stratigic star fortresses, lock down choke points and secure.

I don't remember there being any limitations on where you can expand an outpost into a fully fledged starbase. It wouldn't make much sense anyway. One of the core ideas with massive defense-oriented starbases is the ability to wall off critical chokepoints and routes between your empire and the enemies, whether these systems have a planet or not.

Planets have been, in general, made less important to your empire. They will most likely generate the majority of your resources (at least when late-game rolls in) but they no longer set your territorial capability or warfare production. In all honesty, I don't really see the value in a planet destroyer Colossus unless the user is playing an EXTERMINATE empire with no intention of colonization, or they are dealing with a Fortress World. Militarily planets just don't have much value otherwise.

Of course, the mere existence of a Death Star looming over a war might be enough motivation to accept a peace offer.
 
as a counterpoint:

1: the colosus super weapons can be balanced and wont nessisarilly be either useless or OP. consider other changes in 2.0. For example star fortresses, which are immune to super weapons (not being a planet) and other new and revived defensive measures which will both make it impossible for a lone colossus to attack any planets without support. In addition becuase the starfortresses can only exist in systems with colonizable planets and because much more of a systems economic and stratigic value comes from the starfortress than the planets themselves, the act of destroying planets could cripple you future expansion as well as the rewards from your own war goals. Consider that new galaxy generation rules, hyperlanes and fortress limits will likely create empires with much fewer colonized planets in the early and mid games at the very least... which means that destroying planets and therefore star-bases (which could be easily captured and which are likely set up at strategic choke points or wormhole entries or jump gate network hubs) can be both a beneficial or crippling move for your own future plans. Destroying your foes planets might win you that war but at the same time create an indefensible back door as you expand. I imagine that most wars will be fought in order to gain crontrol of stratigic star fortresses, lock down choke points and secure.

As for doom stacks, we will not be able to 'thow everything at the colosus' becuase players cant assign individual targets in combat. furthurmore no one will be able to invade or superweapon a planet without first captureing teh star fort in the system... so blowing up the planet destroy's the star fortress which by that time you have already captured and are reaping economic boons from. in this context colosuss become less of an offensive weapon and more of a scorched earth weapon, used to weaken a foe before retreat and truce. Or used a sort of 'fleet in being' you could start the fireing sequence or simply move the ship into a captured system in order to draw a foes fleet toward the colosuss while at the same time your own raid fleets strike at vacated systems. either way, the colosuss is really only useful in situations where there is no battle: destroying already captured planets, threatening and teasing opponant reactions Or cracking a heavily fortified fortress world with an interdictor feild (which you would only do to a larger enemy that you were trieing to rush down)

I don't see how anything you said changes the "throw everything at the colossus" problem. Yes, you can't target it directly, meaning you have to fight you way through the fleet protecting it. Because that fleet is protecting the 'I win' button, it's going to be huge, therefor the only way to beat it is with a huger fleet that can destroy the fleet protecting the colossus and then the colossus itself. This just makes the doom stack problem worse by a thousand fold, because now you don't just lose the war in one space battle, you lose the ability to ever recover as your former planets and anything you could make claims on is destroyed.
 
Is the AI's infinite vision being fixed at any point? It really robs the game of any fun when ambushes are entirely impossible, and when the AI knows exactly when it should send Science ships to rush a system after you've cleared it of hostiles. Honestly, I really couldn't care less about apocalypse weapons or whatever, that sort of content is what mods are for. What I want from the actual team is to make sure the nuts and bolts are working, and they simply aren't.
 
I don't see how anything you said changes the "throw everything at the colossus" problem. Yes, you can't target it directly, meaning you have to fight you way through the fleet protecting it. Because that fleet is protecting the 'I win' button, it's going to be huge, therefor the only way to beat it is with a huger fleet that can destroy the fleet protecting the colossus and then the colossus itself. This just makes the doom stack problem worse by a thousand fold, because now you don't just lose the war in one space battle, you lose the ability to ever recover as your former planets and anything you could make claims on is destroyed.
This isn't a doomstack problem, this is a you-losing-the-war problem. It wouldn't matter if it was 5 ships or 500 ships. You're talking about being unable to fight back against a superior force.

The Colossus takes months to charge and activate. This isn't losing one battle. If you can't take back in that time, if you can't start raiding the enemy's own worlds to gain more than you're losing or lure them away, you're effectively losing multiple battles.
 
I want this so badly now, as I am doing my semi-annual Stellaris playthrough right now. I guess I'm just gonna have to make a fascist and xenophobic Imperium of Man and cleanse the galaxy from scourge of non-humans. Good thing Stellaris already allows us to navigate the Warp.. our enemies will never expect it. Exterminatus.
 
Oh, it does? That's good, then.

But what about Gaia World Preference?o_O According to Wiz in the stream, they will have 0% for non-gaia worlds
Remember, Gaia world have a production bonus, and the perk starts you on a size 25, so you have what is the single best planet you can get. So you have a very good start, and can get more powerful than your neighbors early through not needing to expend resources on colonization, and simply go forth and conquer. Or uplift filthy primitives if that suits your fancy.
 
Regarding the Global Pacifier, perhaps the planet can become unshielded not through a special project, but brute force?
Like, If you have a world cracker, you can simply have it blast and destroy the shield... along with the planet's atmosphere and surface, turning it into a terraformable barren world.