Stellaris Dev Diary #318 - Announcing Astral Planes

[Calvax]

It's all interesting, space fantasy, all that...


However, the question is: is there still any point in being a materialist? I mean, you go out into space, and there are straight up spiritualists doing D&D stuff, traveling along the astral planes and all that

Other than the terms being similar to D&D this doesn't seem overtly space fantasy. Plenty of science fiction has involved travel to alternate dimensions/universes.

Yeah it makes no sense at all, they see enemy ships using psionic shields and they simply negate the existence of this superior technology, that's childish, flawed worldbuilding.

Agreed that the flavour text for materialists dismissing the existance of psychic phenomena is odd. It should be rethemed to be them dismissing the explanations of it. I also have no problem with worldbuilding that the shroud, as a dimension of consciousness, doesn't behave in a reproducible way. Materialists could be able to measure that someone has an authentic spiritualist/faith based psychology leading to a connection with shroud entities without being able to replicate it artificially.

In that respect it's a softer version of cosmic horror that often derives it's horror from the idea empirical science can't explain everything and that there are fundamental truths incompatible with human psychology.

 

[Dragatus]

One issue I have with archeology sites is that you have to own the system before you can excavate them, but many of the sites I discover either start out or end up in the territory of my neighbors. Will the rifts be any different?

Also, how many rifts can we expect per game?

 

[Eladrin]

The producer did say people on the team were helping out the Star trek game

He's the only person on the team that spent significant amounts of time on Star Trek: Infinite.

[Discussion about Spiritualists and Rifts]

There is nothing explicitly Spiritualist about alternate dimensions.

 

[Kainser]

Can anyone tell me about Abrakam? Paradox outsourced content has been a bit hit and miss historically (looking at you Hoi4 Battle for Bosporus).

I do like the pack thematically at least.

 

[Nyrael]

Yay! Now would be the perfect time to bring back warp especially to coincide with the recent release of Star Trek Stellaris edition.

(It would fit the theme of this expansion perfectly, too.)

The multiple FTLs were kicked out of the game for very good reasons.
Not to mention that the Warp Drive implementation in STI ain't exactly stellar.

 

[ashbery76]

Looks like a poor man's distant stars.

 

[rubert]

Slightly fancier archeology sites does not seem very interesting to me. The storylines might be interesting few times, but otherwise I don't see appeal for this. Hopefully the gameplay mechanics are more interesting.

 

[Quant]

So this is basically archeology 2.0, hopefully with some choices. I wish at least some of the rifts will interact with the crisis mechanics.
Also new music is always more than welcome!

My only concern is that this is developed by an external studios. First of all, I am afraid the mechanics to be cluncky at first and require adjustments (like with Paragons). Second - what was the PDX team doing? Last big expansion was Overlord. Are they secretly working on a mega-expansion, or we are moving towards mini-expansion flood market strategy?

 

[Corpus Festerheart]

A quick reminder that Archaeology was a verypoor release, with gross mismatch in effort-reward aspect. Where you got 1000 researchfor a long excavation and later all rewards had to be remade from scratch.
I hope thiswill not be the case for upcoming DLC

 

[Harvey_James]

hopefully its something that occupies science ships so they have something to do in late game besides assist research or occasional spying if thats ever useful..
really hoping for sabotage rework and leader consolidation asap

 

[JacketReturns]

A quick reminder that Archaeology was a verypoor release, with gross mismatch in effort-reward aspect. Where you got 1000 researchfor a long excavation and later all rewards had to be remade from scratch.
I hope thiswill not be the case for upcoming DLC

I disagree that it's release version was poor, and the other idea that it was universally weak. Archeology through Ancient relics had a lot of really good rewards, some even overwhelmingly strong, It's certainly got a lot better all these years and updates later though (as some were fairly pitiable bonuses, but not most).

 

[Kuzma Minin]

Can anyone tell me about Abrakam? Paradox outsourced content has been a bit hit and miss historically (looking at you Hoi4 Battle for Bosporus).

I do like the pack thematically at least.

On steam they are: store.steampowered.com/developer/abrakam
They have their own website: abrakam.com
Maybe somebody has played their games and knows better.

 

[Elomire]

Stellaris has really become an impressive game.

It is the perfect mix between strategy, "realm" management, story/events generator... and all this with great/numerous mechanics and a great AI.

 

[juanigas]

I was hoping for a dlc to expand the machine empires. but the astral planes are also good.

 

[Foxosaur]

Stellaris has really become an impressive game.

It is the perfect mix between strategy, "realm" management, story/events generator... and all this with great/numerous mechanics and a great AI.

It’s come a long way in 3 years from where it was. I don’t own many PDX games but I feel like I can say it might be one of their better ones now, maybe even top 3.

 

[Rafss]

There is nothing explicitly Spiritualist about alternate dimensions.

Yet Materialists, Hive Minds and Machine Intelligences refuse to study the Shroud, even within a DLC about astral planes. If they were any coherent, they would refuse to study those rifts as well.
Of course it sounds absurd for an empire to not study an astral plane, yet we have had that exact situation for years with the Shroud.
All I am asking is for change, I don't care with all the disagrees, I want people to question, to think, and I know it can be an uneasy process. Astral Planes is so much more than a DLC with a bunch of events and rewards.

 

[zZander56]

Archeology sites.

Oh, they're just arch sites with a specific flavor. Can't say I was too intrigued by archeology sites past my first playthrough. I assume the same will be true here. Hopefully the civics will be good.

 

[Vorpaliminal]

I recall a reddit post just over a week or so ago which described what the poster thought the dimensional structure of Stellaris was, and one of you fellows gave a tidbit about the Eldritch Horror being from the Dimension of Suffering. I suppose we know why they revealed that now. I'd like to see how existing alternate dimensions are handled in this, and wouldn't be surprised if The Doorway event was changed again because of this expansion.

 

[zZander56]

Gonna be a bit cynical here: This just seems like 'we try and fix archaeology, but instead of improving the existing ones we just charge you for it again'.

They even added in new relic equivalents with the astral actions.

 

[lilsaihah]

Mindflayers confirmed next crisis? Githyanki are the Cybrex of the expansion?