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This will be my first major patch as an active Stellaris player (only been playing for a few months but got a couple hundred hours of gameplay in during that time), so I was perhaps speculating without a lot of hard data on precedent. Fortunately, the wiki exists so there's a place I can look to get that hard data.

Looking at the wiki, it seems 2.0 launched with Apocalypse and 3.0 launched with Nemesis, both of which look to be pretty extensive to me.

I suppose there's probably a universe where the open beta ultimately includes the new DLC even if it's just at the tail end, but I don't know.
 
Yeah, Apocalypse and Nemesis were the big DLCs of those times, granted the DLC structure has changed somewhat since and it doesn't mean that they can't do it differently this time. I just personally think that they won't be changing from that release structure, mainly because it'll get the big changes done and they can focus on fixing the whole thing at once instead of having to first fix whatever bugs and changes are left from 4.0 release and then releasing the "big DLC" and having to deal with another relatively big change again.

I also don't think the DLC is ever going to be a part of the open beta. Just wouldn't make sense to me.
 
I suppose when it comes down to it, the actual nuts and bolts of the 4.0 changes are pretty fundamental, so DLC could probably be layered on top of them without too much trouble depending on what it is. The only endgame stuff that needs to be tested is basically "does it actually give the hoped for performance increase?"

One other thing about speculating for me is doing abrupt 180's when I find new information, which given my relative inexperience with Stellaris will probably happen a lot.
 
My gut feeling is that the next DLC will be a fleshing out of internal politics. Perhaps they are overhauling the game for this.
Sounds interesting, I don’t know why you got downvoted. If I’m not mistaken, they mentioned that they plan to update internal politics at some point. The rework of how pops function might be related to that. Maybe they’ll improve optimization in 4.0, but the new internal politics could slow the game down, so overall game speed might stay the same.
 
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I think if the next DLC was going to reorganize internal politics, we'd see more traces of the plans in 4.0 content. Could have one later in Season 9 though.

Personally I would love to see the factions have leaders attached to them. You wouldn't have to recruit them, but doing so would greatly please that faction and increase their influence. In Democratic nations it would be the faction leaders rather than your recruited leaders that would be running in the election, and it would influence the results of oligarchic and dictatorial elections (though the results of those could of course be more readily "adjusted").
 
more traces of the plans in 4.0 content
As far as I know, we have absolutely no traces of any future DLC in 2025. People are fantasizing about a Bio Ascension expansion, but no one ever promised a separate DLC for it. A rework of Bio Ascension could just be a free patch, and by "rework," they might have simply meant an update. They could slightly adjust the process of reaching Bio Ascension and replace +10% bonuses with +30% ones. Maybe they'll also tweak the numbers for Psionic Ascension. I'm not saying they will 100% rework internal politics, but I think it's at least as likely as a separate Bio Ascension DLC with organic ships and ascending your species into intelligent microorganisms (a sort of organic counterpart to Virtual Ascension).
 
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Internal politics do need a rework and I could easily see them do a DLC dedicated to politics systems, something like this years story pack, but I do not think it's the next one, because while it does need an improvement, there are other things on higher priority, at least in my mind. For example, the state of bio ascencion path, which has been in an unfortunate state ever since utopia released.
 
Would love to see more internal challenges and threats.

Seeing as we've lost nomads and soon to lose pirates, I'd love to see something that adds these to the game in a more meaningful (even playable) way too.

No expectations though; some DLCs have not excited me but grown on me, others were interesting ideas I'd never thought of - look forward to finding out what's next.

Just please don't time limit the exclusive piece, that really, really sucks.
 
If infernal is not a placeholder name, I would theorize it has to do with nomads.

We dont need volcanic species if we have lithoids.

And energy based beings is not only something the devs want to avoid but we already have versions of that. That is the shroud entities whose interactions with the galaxy are all weird, the lithoids again since some of them look like crystals possesed by enegy forces and virtuality where everyone is pure energy and data without being in the shroud.

I think nomads because hell is "a bad place" and the stellaris galaxy is not necesaryly that. Im thinking beings who enter the galaxy fromanother "terrible" place either for safety or to bring ruin with them.

This gets me thinking about them maybe expanding the hell portal mechanica, giving us new warped or evil species, new civics to detail why they became nomads and allowing nomad mechanics for all. And a new origin or two to materialize the actual hellscape in stellaris

I have to disagree, I think infernals being a synonym for nomads and the rationale that it is because the galaxy is a bad place is a considerable stretch (after all, the obvious description for a nomad species pack would be 'nomads'). I also doubt nomads would be a species pack, I see it as a mechanical option that promotes alternative play which would make the most sense as an origin, and as an option in a Doomsday playthrough.

I also think that the existence of lithoids doesn't disqualify a new set of molten world themed species. My own guess is that the pack will provide a set of fiery themed races. What is done with them though is anyone's guess.

Inhabitating a molten world could be an option the DLC provides (a new class of planet in other words). Perhaps all types of races will be able to select a molten world home.

Alternatively (and my preference given), molten worlds may only be selectable by those who have an infernal race (with the bespoke infernal trait) though I would argue Lithoids should be able to select molten worlds as well.
 
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Would love to see more internal challenges and threats.

Seeing as we've lost nomads and soon to lose pirates, I'd love to see something that adds these to the game in a more meaningful (even playable) way too.

No expectations though; some DLCs have not excited me but grown on me, others were interesting ideas I'd never thought of - look forward to finding out what's next.

Just please don't time limit the exclusive piece, that really, really sucks.

I believe nomads will return in a more interesting fashion at some point, as a player option.

Pirates are too cool an option NOT to return either, it is merely their current implementation has been hugely annoying. For some reason I believe they'll return together in a mechanical DLC, imagine playing pirates, moving from system to system with your pirate base and armada, preying on whatever you can (it would feel similar to how I would expect Nomads to work).

And they've collected a ton of feedback in the past few months that will stand them in good stead next year, when I think they have heavily hinted the game's weak politics will finally get the overhaul it deserves.
 
I have to disagree, I think infernals being a synonym for nomads and the rationale that it is because the galaxy is a bad place is a considerable stretch (after all, the obvious description for a nomad species pack would be 'nomads'). I also doubt nomads would be a species pack, I see it as a mechanical option that promotes alternative play which would make the most sense as an origin, and as an option in a Doomsday playthrough.

I also think that the existence of lithoids doesn't disqualify a new set of molten world themed species. My own guess is that the pack will provide a set of fiery themed races. What is done with them though is anyone's guess.

Inhabitating a molten world could be an option the DLC provides (a new class of planet in other words). Perhaps all types of races will be able to select a molten world home.

Alternatively (and my preference given), molten worlds may only be selectable by those who have an infernal race (with the bespoke infernal trait) though I would argue Lithoids should be able to select molten worlds as well.
You were right lol
 
I was wrong about the next expansion being Hive Mind centric specifically, though it does look like there will be lots of Hive Mind content along with the bio ascension updates so I was sort of on to something.

And while I was also wrong about the Infernals species pack being next, I was right about the overall themes and inclusion of Volcanic Worlds. Personally I think they are a natural inclusion since they are basically the difference between arctic worlds and frozen worlds. On a Volcanic World there is enough volcanism going on to dominate the climate, but not so much that the planet is completely unlivable for most life forms who are smart enough to stay away from the lava flows, while on a molten world it's so hot that stepping outside anywhere will result in most life forms being instantly cooked. I absolutely was not expecting a crisis path to be included in Infernals, but I don't think anyone was.
 
I guess my next question is going to be, will the shadows of the shroud be a similar level of psionic rework as machine/synths and bio paths are getting, or is that left for the next "major DLC". The info about shadows of the shroud is still a bit vague and doesn't mention if psionics are getting the base ascension path split into 3 paths treatment the other 2 paths received.
 
I guess my next question is going to be, will the shadows of the shroud be a similar level of psionic rework as machine/synths and bio paths are getting, or is that left for the next "major DLC". The info about shadows of the shroud is still a bit vague and doesn't mention if psionics are getting the base ascension path split into 3 paths treatment the other 2 paths received.

I don’t think it needs to be split in three in order to be considered fully reworked. From the sound of it the customisation is going to come from how our pops attune to the shroud and unlock abilities through the panel. Hopefully it won’t be linear and won’t require a patron pact.

Something else to consider is the bio rework mentions a mixing of traditions with us able to blend cloning, purity, and mutation. How that’s going to practically work we’ll have to see but sounds different again from the machine age split into three distinct traditions.
 
Because of how psionics works, I don't think they'll split it into multiple paths because patrons already divide up how you express the Psionic Ascension. So we'll probably see new patrons, updates to how you interact with patrons, and maybe even a "No Patron" patron

Regardless, I think in terms of the Ascension Path itself, this is going to be the big Psonics update.
 
I don’t think it needs to be split in three in order to be considered fully reworked. From the sound of it the customisation is going to come from how our pops attune to the shroud and unlock abilities through the panel. Hopefully it won’t be linear and won’t require a patron pact.

Something else to consider is the bio rework mentions a mixing of traditions with us able to blend cloning, purity, and mutation. How that’s going to practically work we’ll have to see but sounds different again from the machine age split into three distinct traditions.

I do think they should have 3 paths for it, just for feature parity with the 2 other ascension paths, and because if they don't it'll bother me to no end, but that's a personal issue.

Could be something as simple as with gods path, against gods path and become gods path or something. I just feel like they should have the initial variety as the rest of the paths have.