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Stellaris Dev Diary #146 - The Baol and The Zroni

Hello everyone!

As promised last week, we’re back to talk about something old that’s new – which, as many of you correctly guessed, is about new precursors. Adding new precursors has been something we’ve been wanting to do for quite a while now, and we’re very happy that we can now finally provide what’s been asked for.

In the next DLC you will be able to explore the fate of two new precursors, namely the Baol and the Zroni. To not spoil too much, I’ll only give a basic description of their respective backgrounds and lore.

The Baol
The Baol Organism was once a sprawling interstellar Hive Mind comprised of trillions of psychically-linked plantoids. With their ability to slowly terraform a planet's ecosystem and atmospheric gases via centuries of sustained photosynthetic processes, the Baol civilization produced a plethora of rich flora and fauna on otherwise unremarkable worlds. The Baol Organism curated lush planetary gardens and arboretums across many systems, forming mutualistic symbiotic relationships with local alien wildlife.

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The Zroni
The Zroni were possibly the most powerful psionics to have ever existed, or at least they were the first to discover the dimension which has come to be known as The Shroud. Once the Zroni population reached a certain critical mass it seems that their collective unconscious minds began to make contact with the proto-shroud in dreams, leading to mass lucid dreaming. Soon the phenomenon was studied and the Zroni discovered how to psionically project themselves into the Shroud, where they found that they could manipulate the very fabric of reality with their psionic powers. It wasn't long before the Zroni discovered they could physically enter the Shroud and live like Gods, transforming the dimension to suit their whims.

Precursor changes
One of the more impactful changes we’ve made is that we have now made the precursor spawns randomized so that they will no longer spawn in a specific part of the galaxy.

We have also added some more features and rewards to the old precursors. For example, after having found the Irassian home system, you can now spend minor artifacts to unravel some of the secrets of the Irassians. The new artifact actions aren’t the only new things though, and there’s some more cool things that you will be able to find.

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Additional precursor plans
Some of you have been asking about archaeology and adapting some of the old precursor content to use the new system. In regards to that question I will say that it is something that I always planned to do, but due to other things taking priority we can’t promise that it will happen immediately. If those changes don’t make it into the next update, it's very likely they will appear in the next big update after that. Changing that content would of course still be a part of the base game.

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That is all we had to share for this week’s dev diary. Next week we’ll be back again, which also happens to be the 3 year anniversary for Stellaris :)
 
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Will the AI now go out and discover precursor systems? Being able to go on a stellar crusade to conquer home systems would be cool. But the only one that gets discovered is the one in your part of the galaxy, because the ai seems to never get the anomalies.
Wasn't it removed because people complained that AI beat them to it or something?
 
Wasn't it removed because people complained that AI beat them to it or something?
AI is disabled from getting them. But I did see some code I think that even slows down AI getting them if it were enabled.

If people lose precursors to the AI, they need to get good. Also, its fine if AI gets them? Go forth and conquer!
Player always getting precursor homesystem feels very cheaty, not to mention boring!
 
AI is disabled from getting them. But I did see some code I think that even slows down AI getting them if it were enabled.

If people lose precursors to the AI, they need to get good. Also, its fine if AI gets them? Go forth and conquer!
Player always getting precursor homesystem feels very cheaty, not to mention boring!

How can you 'get good' when it's completely RNG?
 
How can you 'get good' when it's completely RNG?
Ah, yeah: might have something to do with the fact that there's a finite number of precursor anomalies, so when AI spawned one, player would be unable to get it. And since there was no additional "hey we found artefact here!" events, it often ended with no precursor worlds found.
 
Ah, yeah: might have something to do with the fact that there's a finite number of precursor anomalies, so when AI spawned one, player would be unable to get it. And since there was no additional "hey we found artefact here!" events, it often ended with no precursor worlds found.

Yes.

Also the system could spawn anywhere the galaxy. Any by 'anywhere' I mean 'always on the other side of the galaxy in an empire with closed borders' so even when you did manage to finish the chain the an AI empire would always get the benefits.
 
Looks cool. Will there be any changes to the existing precursors so that the First League isn't far and away the best precursor to get?

It's randomized now. Getting the First League will be like getting the jackpot.

It will also be possible now to NEVER get it after hours of play due to RNG.
 
So I think we can now assume that Zro is just the powdered remains of the Zroni. Our Psionic empires have been snorting dead aliens all this time...
If you've played the Halo games and/or are familiar with the lore, you'd also know that the Flood are essentially spolied, powdered Precursors.

EDIT: Might make a good idea for a new crisis, if the supply of Zro gets high enough, the Zroni might come back, and come back wrong...
 
The precursors should be a game long event chain, even possibly tying into the crisis. I'm envisioning you find the home world, and you can keep having events where things are found, possibly tying into an overall narrative. Also some precursors may have dealt with different crises, and studying them might help you.
 
Eh, the randomness of precursors should be an option while customizing the game, sort of like crisis strength. Some people may want to get the First League system, or the Cybrex, and now we have to keep resetting until we randomly get it. But right now, we just have to keep resetting until we spawn in that particular section of the galaxy. But in the next DLC we cannot do that. Can we please have the randomness set as a option in the main menu when we first start the game? We can have it set so the precursors are random, or set at specific galactic locations?
 
I'd really like it if the precursors end up being "little Acensions" perks that ultimately shape and influence the civilization investigating them. It would also make for very interesting gameplay choices if precursor had more of an impact and could add replayability.

Also, Baol/Ba'ul - Discovery much :p?
 
Will Zroni event chain grant Psionic Theory technology? Even for Fanatic Materialists?