The assimilation is great addition indeed. Atm you have to biomod foreign pops if you want to make them into cyborgs. It's quite darn nonsensical, considering your society has infrastructre able to support fully cybernetic population.
DD78: Robomodding and changes Robomodding In the 1.8 update, it will now be possible to create different 'models' of Robot, Droid and Synth pops through a system similar to genemodding. By researching the 'Machine Templates' engineering technology, you will get access to robomodding and a single robot trait point. More robot trait points can be gained through further engineering research. Using these points, you can create templates with different configurations of traits. Rather than using the basic biological traits, robotic Pops have their own set of traits, some of which are not available to the more basic robotic types. Once a template is created, it is immediately available to be used when building robotic Pops on a planet, and existing robotic Pops can be converted into that template through a special Robomodding project that uses Engineering research. In addition to adding robomodding, we've also added support for switching Pop portraits into the genemodding and robomodding systems. If set to be permitted for a particular species class, that species class can have its portrait changed to any other portrait in the same species class as part of the template creation process. This system is also fully accessible to modders. But more on that in a later dev diary. One final note: Since the addition of traits to robotic Pops will make them, and Synthethically Ascended empires, stronger overall, we're going to be doing a balance pass on them and possibly making changes and/or buffing the other ascension paths before 1.8 comes out. Robot Building We've also made some improvements to how you build robotic pops. Robotic pops are now built through their own 'Build Pop' interface in the planet view, which lets you select what robotic model you want to build and also has the option to start building several Pops at a time. If this option is checked, you will be able to build robotic Pops on any number of tiles with one simple click each, massively cutting down on the clicking needed to fill up a planet. Note that this is only a UI change, and does not in any way change the mechanics of how robotic Pops are built. AI Policy & Techs The way the AI policy works has always seemed inconsistent: Outlawing AI prevents you from building dumb robotic workers, but does not prevent researching Sapient AI or installing it on a spaceship. To address this issue and open up for more varied use of robots, we've changed the AI policy to be about sapience rather than about robots, and reworked some related technologies. The Sentient AI technology has been renamed Positronic AI, and is no longer a dangerous technology in itself (its effect has also been reduced to +5% rather than +10% research speed). The AI policy will not appear until this technology has been researched, as it's simply not relevant up to that point. Once it *does* appear, it has the following effects: Outlawed: Sapient AI is outlawed. No effect on robots and droids. Prevents research and use of sapient combat computers. Synths can be researched and built, but have their sapience removed, removing their ability to feel happiness and essentially making them into slightly upgraded droids. Servitude: Sapient AI is allowed, but Sapient AIs are considered property and have their free will restricted. No effect on robots and droids. Synths can be researched and built, but have slight penalties to energy and research production as a result of these restrictions. They also cannot join factions. Citizen Rights: Sapient AIs are given full individual rights. No effect on robots and droids. Synths have citizen rights and can join factions, but some traits that depend on Synths being property (such as Domestic Protocols, which increases happiness for owner Pops) lose their effect and can no longer be added to new templates. Manual Disassembly Finally, since outlawing AI no longer purges robotic Pops, we've added back the option to manually disassemble them. This can be done to Robots, Droids and Synths without citizen rights, and works the exact same way as a regular 'extermination' purge, killing the Pop(s) off in a relatively short time. And if it wasn't obvious from the changes, spiritualists can now use robots and androids relatively freely. Spiritualist factions won't like free synths too much so they will be just another upgrade from androids. Still, nifty that spiritualist empires can use robotitc workforce for various purposes. Nice for RP too. Very good changes overall.
Never made sense that you couldn't have synths as well as robots/droids. There are probably jobs synths don't want to do.
Poor Interstellar Hazor Confederation.... trapped between the Baanthurian Directors and Fafossan Protectors both of which have just woken up in the last few years and now are rivals.... as far as I can tell it's the literal definition of a buffer state or in this case Belgium before the germans invade.
Once the 1.8.1 updates comes out and fixes the various issues I would like to get a event going where a bunch of us all just play this together. I would throw together a limited list of mods to go with it. Would anyone be interested in this?
I would if my dance card wasn't already full. It's really hard to coordinate with a lot of people in this game. My recommendation is to play on the smallest size map, chop planet count by 50%, and try to limit number of players to 4-6. The smaller map will mean less time focused on expanding/colonizing and more time conquering your enemies (faster game overall). Also, band together as a player alliance and don't let AI join your alliance. It will fuck you over more times than not. If you need added challenge, you can always buff the AI with advanced starts and what not.
That was strange. No idea what mod did it but one of the mods ended up making most weapons in the game do only 1 point of damage and have a range of 0.
There's some sweet shit coming with the next patch / expansion. Here’s the expansion features from the video description : Stellaris: Apocalypse redefines stellar warfare for all players with a host of new offensive and defensive options, alongside a few non-violent new features for those poor, unsuspecting empires not currently at war. Alongside a host of free updates coming to Stellaris, the new Apocalypse DLC will include: ● That’s No Moon, neither is That One, That One Might be a Moon, Wait, No: Keep the local systems in line with fear of the new “Colossus” planet-killer weapon – a technological terror that eliminates entire worlds from the universe ● All Your Base Are Belong to You: New enormous “Titan” capital ships can lead your fleets to conquest, offering tremendous bonuses to the vessels under their command. Meanwhile, fortify key systems with massive orbital installations and secure your homeworld as an impenetrable bastion among the stars. ● Pirates of the Constellation: Watch out for Marauders – space nomads who raid settled empires and carve out their lives on the fringe of civilization. Hire them as mercenaries in your own conflicts, but take care that they don’t unify and trigger a new late-game crisis! ● Some Non-Violent Features: New Ascension Perks and Civics are added in the expansion, along with new Unity Ambitions that provide new ways to spend Unity and customize your development Here's the dev forum post on the expansion: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ary-100-titans-and-planet-destroyers.1064560/ In general, the patch is going to dramatically re-do warfare, territory, and system control. My TLDR of it is that planets no longer control territory, you claim systems via constructing outposts in those systems which will/can be converted in the starbase / fortress of that system and also the thing which must be attacked/disabled to take control of the system. So no longer will you have a sphere of influence, rather individually picked systems which are yours. Dev blog post here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/dev-diary-91-starbases.1052064/ Warfare is completely revamped, too long for a TLDR so here's the forum post: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...is-dev-diary-93-war-peace-and-claims.1054054/ Overall I'm suuuuuuuper excited. Also everyone now starts with hyperlanes and other FTL methods are advanced research items.
Devstream talking about the new stuff. - Titans will be your fleets flagships with their large weapons, main guns and auras. Happy to see the ship auras to return. Really large empires can have max 3-4 of them. - The new pirates will work similar to pirates in Distant Worlds, if you are familiar with it. You'll be able to hire them to attack your rivals or hire specialized admirals or generals to your ranks. Different pirate clans can also join together under the KHAAAAAAN! and become new mid-game crisis. Should keep things interesting if mid-game ends up being comfortable expansion and building tall. - Lot of small interface improvements - Orbital bombardment is reworked and will destroy pops and buildings each "cycle". Defensive troops will now come from buildable fortifications, meaning you can create your own fortress worlds in really important choke point systems. Planetary shields are also buffed and reduce bombardment damage, slowing destruction down greatly. - Regarding bombardment, land armies now engage each other according to planets "widht"/size. So, planet of size 10 allows 10 armies to engage each other at a time. So, 10 defence armies versus 20 invading armies means 10 invading armies will wait in reserve to engage as attacking armies get destroyed. Also, you can't cheese with retreat/reinvade anymore. Retreating invasion armies will take losses as you'd expect. Attachements are completely removed (thank the effin' Omnissiah...) and armies will get unique research to improve them. Finally, armies can deal collateral damage and destroy pops and buildings. Those Xenomorphs and Mega Warforms you loved will now leave lovely mess for you to clean up. - Purifiers/Exterminators can bomb worlds into Tomb Worlds with Armageddon Bombardment. - Ion Cannons are pretty much late game defence option for the new star ports against titans and massed battleships. The new Ascension Perks and "Unity Ambitions" also sound interesting. My assumption is that Ambitions are resource sink buffs for empires that end up with max minerals, energy, influence or unity at some point. There's hint of them in the stream fairly early, in the edicts screen. There's big changes coming for FTL travel, star ports, ship combat and warfare. I haven't posted any reviews of the DD's lately for various reasons, but I highly recommend going through some of them here. 2.0 "Cherryh" update will be pretty darn good if you ask me.
Yup this is looking like one of the biggest and most exciting updates so far, completely and drastically changing core components of the game that, in all honesty, needed change. I'm hoping warfare will be much more dynamic and interesting. Territory control wasn't an issue for me but the new system looks cool as well.
OH MAN HIGH IDEA!!! I was thinking it'd be really nice if stars could occasionally go Nova, or even Super Nova. Of course there'd be signs in advanced, like a research mission for a Science ship. But it'd give you time to move your population, or even dismantle any mega structures... or even just move them.
"Hey, we know you spent all this effort to get to the end game and have this awesome stuff, but the dice gods have decided to destroy all of it because fuck you." No thanks.
Eh as a very rare event and an on/off option I could see stars going nova. But only if there was a minimum 100 years warning.
there should be a 'nearby' star going nova at some point with an option to research which would grant you a much larger window of protection, as well. And some technology related, possibly even the ability to trigger or counter a nova which could lead to some interesting warfare... though I think 100 years might maybe be too little time if you include research items.
