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Stellaris Dev Diary #377 - MEAT SHIPS MEAT SHIPS MEAT SHIPS

Hello everybody! Welcome to our first BioGenesis development diary!

Today we will talk to about ships. That are made of meat!

—

Several weeks ago, Eladrin mentioned that the ship designer changes originally planned for 4.0 "Phoenix" would not be included in the Open Beta, as they’re now needed for our upcoming Q2 DLC release. We’ve since seen a fair amount of speculation as to what we might have been cooking that’d require such changes… So please allow me to introduce our Biological Ships!

MEAT SHIPS! MEAT SHIPS! MEAT SHIPS!​

In BioGenesis, we are adding two distinct Biological shipsets, with unique ship classes and technology.

Our goals in adding Biological Ships to Stellaris were to ensure that they are not only different in appearance from mechanical ships (and space fauna), but also in gameplay. Thus, the key mechanical differences are:

  • When using Biological Ships, Corvettes, Frigates, Destroyers, Cruisers and Battleships are replaced with Maulers, Weavers, Harbingers, and Stingers, each of which have three growth stages.
  • Biological Ships, including Starbases, Megastructures and Stations, have their primary construction resource converted from Alloys (or Minerals) into Food and their Energy upkeep likewise replaced with Food upkeep.
  • Overwhelmingly, Biological Ship technologies fall in Society Research (Biology) instead of the familiar Engineering Research (Voidcraft).

And in classic Stellaris fashion, we’ve kept the flavor and narrative around Biological Ships intentionally vague, just enough to let you roleplay them however you like. Maybe they’re an extension of your Devouring Swarm, just another drone in space. Or maybe they’re advanced bio-machines, the pinnacle of your scientific achievement.

In order to use Biological Ships, you’ll need to select one of the shipsets during empire creation.

New shipset selector

Different types of ships prompted our UX designer to give the Shipset selector a fresh coat of paint!​

Growth Cycles​


Similar to Space Fauna from Grand Archive, Biological Ships have growth stages, but unlike Space Fauna, they do not naturally progress through these by aging. Instead, these ships have a unique component slot for supplementary organs that can be researched. Generally speaking, the Juvenile and Mature growth stages will likely be occupied by Growth Organs that allow the ships to progress to the next stage.

Growth Glands!


The accumulated growth progress for ships is shown in both the ship’s tooltip and the ship details window.


Growth Progress Tooltip


Growth Progress Details

When Biological Ships are designed (either automatically or using the ship designer), all researched Growth Stages are configured as part of a single ship design. Once a Biological Ship has acquired sufficient Growth Progress, it will automatically change to using the next Growth Stage in its design. Alternatively, Biological Ships can be constructed at a shipyard at a later Growth Stage.

Mauler Growth Stages

The three growth stages of the Spinovore Weaver

MEAT SHIPS! MEAT SHIPS! MEAT SHIPS!

​
Although all Growth Stages of Biological Ships use the same Fleet Command Limit for their ship class, later Growth Stages use more naval capacity, with the Mature stage using 1.5× and the Elder stage using 2× the Naval Capacity of the Juvenile stage.


SHIPS MADE OF MEAT​

Maulers primarily focus on short-range combat with shield penetration and high damage to armor and shields. Equipped with melee-range mandible weapons and either short-range S-slot or PD-slot weapons, these ships will form the bulk of your navy in the early game. Their unique mandible weapons have similar damage scaling against starbases and larger ships as torpedoes.

Mauler Designs


Mauler Designs

The unique Organ components that Maulers have access to are the Corrosive Fluids and Metabolic Recycler (and their upgraded versions)

Corrosive Fluids


Metabolic Recycler


Weavers are support ships, making use of unique weapons to apply powerful buffs to their allies or debuffs to their enemies.

Weaver Designs


Weavers have unique access to an array of six support components, each with six tiers that belong in the PD-slot.

Weaver Support Weapons


Weaver Suppressor Weapons

The unique Organ components that Weavers have access to are Symbiotic Amplifiers and Developmental Pheromones


Symbiotic Amplifiers



Developmental Pheromones


Harbingers are carriers capable of deploying large amounts of strike craft and supporting them with point defense or long range missiles.

Harbinger Designs


Harbinger Designs


Strike craft for empires using Biological Ships are deployed in greater numbers per fighter wing, but have reduced hull points and armour instead of shields.

Biological Strike Craft

The unique Organ components that Harbingers have access to are Chitin Growth Regulators and the Incubation Matrix

Chitin Growth Regulators



Incubation Matrix


Stingers are powerful late-game warships, equipped with multiple XL weapons or capable of unleashing heavy broadside barrages.

Stinger Designs



Stinger Designs


The unique Organ components that Stingers have access to are Exhaust Spiracles and Rangefinder Clusters.

Exhaust Spiracles



Rangefinder Cluster


As each of the different Growth Stages of each of the classes of Biological Ships can be built at a shipyard, we’ve taken the opportunity to implement collapsible headers when selecting which ships to build.

Shipyard Headers

This works for mechanical ships and space fauna too!​



Since Biological Ships have their own weapons, armour, shield and core components, we’ve gone through and ensured that the technologies use the appropriate icons depending on if you are using a Biological shipset or not.

Technology Swaps


Modding Notes​

As part of the work required to implement Biological Ships there have been a lot of changes to how ship components are scripted. Here’s some highlights:
  • class_restriction, size_restriction and slot_restriction are deprecated in favour of using the possible and potential trigger blocks instead.
  • Core Components now have an upgrade_path parameter, components that have the same upgrade path are shown on the same row.
  • Ship components now support the show_tech_unlock_if = { } field, like buildings.
  • New targeting parameters:
    • use_ship_main_target: if yes, overrides target_type and target_focus when ship's main target is within range, default no
    • target_type (target_enemies (default) / target_allies / target_controlled / target_own)
    • target_focus (single (default) / spread)
    • target_type: only valid if component_set has affects_target_type = yes
    • target_focus: only valid if component_set has affects_target_focus = yes
  • New parameters for weapons:
    • on_hit: apply effects to target on hit. Scope = ship (target), from = ship (shooter)
    • hide_damage_values_from_tooltip = yes/no # If yes, it will hide Damage and Average Damage from weapon component tooltip (default = no)

Next Week​

Next week we’ll be looking at Ascension, Traditions, and Advanced Governments. See you then!

PRIME CUTS FROM ART!​


They're made out of meat.


Meat?



Meat. They're made out of meat.



Meat?


There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They're completely meat.


That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars.


They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines.


So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact.


They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines.


That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat.


I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they're made out of meat.


Maybe they're like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage.


Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?
 
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Spaceman78 said:
I am curious about this too. I wonder if you have bioships, will space fauna still interest you? Or will they be less desirable. Perhaps the choice between bioships and space fauna is competitive with each other. I do hope there is a certain interaction; either antagonistic ( kill fauna to gain bioship improvements research) or cooperative ( fauna are friendly towards bioship or having first bioship then will get cost reduction in managing fauna.)
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Depending on what you like out of fauna ships. I personally like spamming amoeba carriers once I've got mutations and computers unlocked. I think the meat ship carriers might be deeper into tech options if it follows a similar path to the metal ships. I think both will likely have their place and I'm assuming cordyceps probably only works on reanimated and cloned fauna, not on bioships, so that bonus wouldn't apply if you enjoy that build.
 
I really hope this means a minor rework, for all ships, because firstly mech ships will become much weaker and have a lot of unique cool models, secondly already weak fauna ships will become a joke, why CAN'T I USE FAUNA FROM MY ZOO???

in addition we have a few special ships, 2 types of crisis ships, empire or nanites,

Crisis from science, has good ships with unique slots but maybe some special modifiers just for them?

Original crisis well, these ships are good for mass production that's for sure, but they could have reduced maintenance cost and used supplies depending on whether they are in your or enemy territory, something like DURING FIGHT YOU FEED ON ENEMIES,

Nanites already have their perks and really cool weapon layouts, but what if instead they had points to give away on any type of weapon they want? nanites can replicate everything, and the upgrade cost should be greatly reduced in my opinion.

and finally, Lidoid ships, let's be honest, these ships are unique in appearance and the fact that they don't have a changed cost is only because such things didn't exist when they were introduced and updated.

Also, plantoids, I think plantoids and water ships could have their own small changes, plantoid ship types would have 30% energy cost replaced and no maintenance in alloys but triple energy maintenance or something like that, and water, honestly water are now the closest to living ships and would easily pass for hybrid ships

I think all 3 existing models could be in the 3rd hybrid category where each would have its own small unique thing, like slightly changed construction costs or a small bonus, but they would still be almost standard mechanical ships.

AND YES I know that the maintenance cost will be changed but it's just an idea about how the game works now, it could be replaced with something else.

because really lidoites are very inucal and their super structures from mods are so great that I don't understand why we don't have it in the original game,

Plantoids literally have solar panels everywhere and look partially alive, and water ones literally look like they are made of some hybrid fiber e.g. some coral using metal in its structure.

and I forgot about the empire, I think that as ships created from the cooperation of many races they could have some maintenance cost instead of being completely free under this account but in return they would have a few general bonuses.

edit: if somewhere is feet not alloys, welp thos words are one in my language and i may miss some translation erros :p
 
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Morbid Gerbil said:
Hmmm.
I wonder if ... View attachment 1272626
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I have been wondering about that as well.

Would Reanimators work like Scavengers, but for bio ships, kind of how you can resurrect your own space fauna with it?
And would you be under the same restrictions, i.e.: would zombie ships be incapable of being upgraded (as per the 3.99 patch note "Reanimated space fauna ships cannot upgrade no matter what")?
 
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I so so so so love that the elder versions cost roughly double the material resources due to doubled slots, but the time to build quadruples. Or or or put them out early and have upkeep costs contribute to their growth. I wonder if they should cost extra upkeep while they are growing. The Weavers think so.

I also love love love that these blend across the classic ship sizes. They generally have fewer defense slots, but they generally match with Corvette-to-Destroyer, Destroyer-to-Cruiser, Cruiser-to-Battleship, and Battleship-to-Titan.

I'm very curious to know if mechanical ships have been changed at all, particularly to take better advantage of customizable sections. These bio ships notably do not have any section divisions. That could be an important difference between them.

For love of the Worm, does "spread" target_focus allow weapons to deal AoE damage??? This could break doomstacks.
 
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SkyGuy7617 said:
Will we eventually get more bioship sets in the future? Maybe some themed around the Infernal species pack or even Plantoids or Aquatics?
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I can't imagine we will  never get more skins for bioships. But I don't expect any more to be announced until well after Biogenisis launches.

But for the record, I also like the idea of tree/Plantoid ships.
 
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Everybody talking about meat ships, but nobody talking about plant ships!

Including me, because if those happen at all they'll probably be added to Plantoids, and I am a patient blorg.
 
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Alfray Stryke said:
IMG_0155.png
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Taking a look at this pictures more I hope the auto designer is improved, because this design mixing plasma/kinetic(?) weapons and disrupters is quite bad.

IMO this is a symptom of there being way too many bypass weapons making the ship design a boring choice of going full bypass or not (and usually you want full bypass). But it’s also a trap for new people to mix them since you just end up splitting damage.
 
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It would've been more coherent for bioships to have been locked behind genetic ascension, with maybe hiveminds getting some special orgin that speedruns them to genetic ascension and gives them bioships from the get go. Genetic ascension had the whole recycling space monsters and making use of their genomes as their side-gimmick, represented by some unique traits that required hunting fauna. It makes no sense for an empire to have the know-how for bioships right away.
 
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user192823 said:
It would've been more coherent for bioships to have been locked behind genetic ascension, with maybe hiveminds getting some special orgin that speedruns them to genetic ascension and gives them bioships from the get go. Genetic ascension had the whole recycling space monsters and making use of their genomes as their side-gimmick, represented by some unique traits that required hunting fauna. It makes no sense for an empire to have the know-how for bioships right away.
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Being able to mix and match is so much more fun. Bioships as is add hundreds of combinations, but with the restriction you're proposing it would only add a handful. No thanks
 
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Fantastic work devs! looking forward to playing those.

A small HUGE detail though:

One of the causes of late game lag was that each pop's production is calculated individually. Now each bio ship will have it's own growth calculated individually. Is this going to be a new source of late game lag?
 
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user192823 said:
It would've been more coherent for bioships to have been locked behind genetic ascension, with maybe hiveminds getting some special orgin that speedruns them to genetic ascension and gives them bioships from the get go. Genetic ascension had the whole recycling space monsters and making use of their genomes as their side-gimmick, represented by some unique traits that required hunting fauna. It makes no sense for an empire to have the know-how for bioships right away.
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There is no reason for Hive Minds specifically to get bioships sooner than anybody else. Why would you be okay for them to get them from the get go but for others to unlock them later?

And how does it not make sense for them to know how to make bioships right away? What is it intrinsically about living ships where you draw the line, rather than, say, FTL tech or deflectors or other starting techs?
 
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I do not like that you can build fully grown ships, the downside should be having to wait for them to grow
otherwise everything looks fantastic
 
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Akkadian said:
Fantastic work devs! looking forward to playing those.

A small HUGE detail though:

One of the causes of late game lag was that each pop's production is calculated individually. Now each bio ship will have it's own growth calculated individually. Is this going to be a new source of late game lag?
Click to expand...
i dont see how, its no diff from every ship having its own experience, health, shields, etc
 
talented_progenitor said:
Being able to mix and match is so much more fun. Bioships as is add hundreds of combinations, but with the restriction you're proposing it would only add a handful. No thanks
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It is a matter of game coherence. Cheat yourself all hull types and all of the weapons techs from the get go, that will surely give you more mixing and matching fun from game start too, instead of just a handful of weapons and a single ship hull type.
Bitzo said:
There is no reason for Hive Minds specifically to get bioships sooner than anybody else. Why would you be okay for them to get them from the get go but for others to unlock them later?

And how does it not make sense for them to know how to make bioships right away? What is it intrinsically about living ships where you draw the line, rather than, say, FTL tech or deflectors or other starting techs?
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I specified that it could've been an origin, a major investment, and tied to genetic ascension, which would be speedran by the origin, much like teachers. Not inherently for hive minds without investment. As for Hive minds in particular, it is a common trope. Hive minds control drones and a grown space outgrowth of the mind makes sense. It is also a trope shared ingame too, with the prethoryn being represented as a massive extragalactic hive mind that commands bioships.

As for the second part. Well, how does it not make sense to start with the know-how to build battleships or cruisers? It does not because it requires major hull development know-how, represented by tech quite deep into the tree. How is an empire able to build prethoryn-like space behemoths capable of ftl from the getgo before even meeting one?
 
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Can't wait for all the meat ship meet cutes!
 
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