Hello and welcome to another Stellaris development diary! Today we will take a look at some of the minor features and changes in the coming 2.0 'Cherryh' update.

Quality of Life
We have added small icons to the outliner that lets you see if planets have buildings that can be upgraded, or if there are Pops that do not have a building they are working. Similarly, you will be able to see when a starbase has an empty module or building slot.

This should make it a lot easier for you to manage your planets and starbases.

In the fleet view it is now also possible to see which designs can be upgraded.

Hallowed Planets
Spiritualist empires will be able to designate an uncolonized Gaia World within their borders as a 'Holy World'. The Holy World will increase your empire's unity production as long as it remains uncolonized and within your borders.

In addition to being able to make uncolonized Gaia Worlds useful, Hallowed Planets will also make spiritualist factions happy.

War Doctrines
In addition to other changes to traditions, finishing the Supremacy traditions now allows you to set a War Doctrine for your empire. War Doctrines give you additional customization and specialization regarding how you utilize your fleets.

There are four different war doctrines with different strengths and weaknesses:
Defense in Depth: Defensive empires will have a bonus to their ship fire rate within their own borders
Hit and Run: This doctrine will increase the likelyhood of your ships making an emergency FTL in combat, and also reduce damage caused by emergency FTL
Rapid Deployment: Empires that choose to rely on quickly being able to respond to threats may choose this doctrine which increases sublight speed and ship weapon range
No retreat: Militarists and Gestalt Consciousness empires can choose to employ a doctrine of no retreat, increasing ship fire rate but removing the ability for individual ships to emergency FTL out of combat instead of being destroyed.

Psionic Awakening (Utopia)
Should you be playing a Psionic empire, introduced with Utopia, it will now be possible to help lesser species awaken their psionic potential. This works similar to Assimilation, where you can give another species the benefits of your chosen ascension path.

That's all for this week! Next week you will be able to read the full patch notes for the 2.0 'Cherryh' update!

 

[LughC]

Why spiritualists don't have access to "No retreat" doctrine? Because RP-wise it's like, "FOR <shroud covenant name>! NO RETREATS, FOR WE WILL JOIN OUR BROTHERS IN SHROUD!"

On the side note, will cordial/friendly ai be more willing (or willing at all) to trade non-colonizable systems with no megastructures?

because not all spiritualists are militant....

 

[Nighzmarquls]

Yes.

Praise be Wiz!

 

[terrycloth]

Then they should put "non psionic pops", otherwise it is confusing for others.

Once they become psionic they're a different subspecies with the original rights they had before you started psi-assimilation. It's less confusing when you see it in play (going by the cyborgization variant at least).

 

[GabeC1997]

Psionic Awakening (Utopia)
Should you be playing a Psionic empire, introduced with Utopia, it will now be possible to help lesser species awaken their psionic potential. This works similar to Assimilation, where you can give another species the benefits of your chosen ascension path.

...But Why??? This One can already hear their disgusting, rapid breeding thoughts from across the galaxy, why should This One give them the ability to actively project their psyche rather than just surface thoughts?

 

[Ur-Quan Lord 13]

Well, it depends on whether or not a holy world can also be made sacred by your empire. Pretty easy tradeoff in that case since you wouldn't touch the holy world anyway.

It can. And the spiritualist FE will actually get a boost to opinion, if you declare their holy world holy. Wiz covered it on Twitter.

Also, there is pristine jewel, a size 10 Gaia world. Or, any other small Gaia world. Especially if you don't have the new MoN.

If you're a wide spritiualist empire, keeping pristine jewel holy throughout the game for +10% unity is definitely worth it.

 

[Jedi515]

With new border system, a question suddenly arises - what if you technologically enlighten species, but the system already has a planet occupied by you? Will they be forever stuck with no starbase or will you lose your colony(/colonies)?

Edit 1:

Who would win:

a) Glorious megastructure, that took decades to construct, along with countless resources and manpower, the eye that percieves everything and nothing can escape its sight
b) Some space mist

(sentry array vs nebula that now blocks vision)

 

[Laaaaan]

Come on guys (those complaining about war policies)....Pacifism playthrough is already strong as hell due to infinite federation blobing (seriously, there should be a limit for fed. members..)...let the militarists have an edge for once... Besides as a peace-loving pacifist, you should not think about war in general....

Any alliance whose purpose is not the intention to wage war is senseless and useless.
- Adolf Hitler
no moderator, i do not support nazis - it's just a good quote

 

[Kinkness]

Not sure if the gaia world marked as a HOly World is worth it.. The amount of what you lose in energy/minerals just doesn't seem worth it.. Would make more sense that gaia worlds that are marked as Holy Worlds can be settled, but only farms, and specific unity buildings/cultural buildings can be built, and thats it. That way it gives more, but is still special?

 

[Belaaron]

Not bad. Most of the changes are fairly good, and these little QoL changes are certainly nice.

Still not going to forgive you for ruining FTL.

 

[Belaaron]

Any alliance whose purpose is not the intention to wage war is senseless and useless.
- Adolf Hitler
no moderator, i do not support nazis - it's just a good quote

It's...really not? It's so logically fallacious that it's a wonder any rational person would ever consider that "good".

 

[Jedi515]

Still not going to forgive you for ruining FTL.

Personally, I don't understand the ftl issue. Not only hyperplane is the most strategical one (chokepoints and such), they also changed ftl-inhibitors so that they no more force-pull fleets towards them (thus making planet occupation later in the game much easier because ai always makes a def station on top of the planet) PLUS you no longer can safely bypass systems without such inhibitor, playing cat-and-mouse with ai where you just jump back and forth simply to catch their fleet... And then again, as they said, "just crank up ftl density bar and disable hyperplane connections in galaxy view"

 

[Elfwind]

It's...really not? It's so logically fallacious that it's a wonder any rational person would ever consider that "good".

Agreed! Not everything in quotes is right. Trade alliances exist and intelligence sharing alliances exist.

 

[LeSingeAffame]

...But Why??? This One can already hear their disgusting, rapid breeding thoughts from across the galaxy, why should This One give them the ability to actively project their psyche rather than just surface thoughts?

You aren't forced to open new species to the Shourd. If you don't want to, just don't give this right to the other species in your empire

Why spiritualists don't have access to "No retreat" doctrine? Because RP-wise it's like, "FOR <shroud covenant name>! NO RETREATS, FOR WE WILL JOIN OUR BROTHERS IN SHROUD!"

On the side note, will cordial/friendly ai be more willing (or willing at all) to trade non-colonizable systems with no megastructures?

... Because that's what a Militarist Spiritualist would say ?

 

[Jedi515]

... Because that's what a Militarist Spiritualist would say ?

I'd rather think that's what fanatical spiritualists would say when they are trying to defend against larger enemy fleets...

But, I don't know anything about spiritualist way with my fanatical materialism.

 

[Devanor]

Rapid Deployment sounds really powerful. I like it!

Reminds me of the flavour text I read in some game that increased mobility

Strength out of place is no strength at all.

 

[OxfordNik]

Not sure if the gaia world marked as a HOly World is worth it.. The amount of what you lose in energy/minerals just doesn't seem worth it.. Would make more sense that gaia worlds that are marked as Holy Worlds can be settled, but only farms, and specific unity buildings/cultural buildings can be built, and thats it. That way it gives more, but is still special?

I'm guessing this will be used fairly rarely - with the inability to terraform Gaia world in Cherryh without the relevant ascension perk - but still think that a 10% Unity bonus will have its uses, particularly in wide playthroughs when you might have lots of minerals/energy but are having to fork out tons of Unity for new traditions. Or if you are lucky enough to find a Gaia world near you, but it's only a size 7 planet or something.

 

[Axe99]

Cheers for the DD Grekulf and the extra info Wiz . New quality-of-life changes look good, and those icons on the outliner for free pops/upgradeable buildings aer much appreciated, much clicky-clicky will be saved there . Really like the idea of the war doctrines. Random thought (for the future, obviously not for Cherryh) - instead of having all war doctrines locked behind the supremacy tree, maybe have a couple for everyone, then better ones behind supremacy? The idea being that the gameplay element is available for all, but depth is unlocked by finishing the supremacy tradition. Idea could also be rubbish, please ignore if so .

 

[Yeekim]

While the mechanic itself is fine, "searching for a planet to make it Hallowed" sounds incredibly wrong somehow.

 

[nyah]

Any alliance whose purpose is not the intention to wage war is senseless and useless.
- Adolf Hitler
no moderator, i do not support nazis - it's just a good quote

Hitler was an idiot. There have been countless alliances throughout history whose purpose was to maintain peace.

There is nothing about Nazi philosophy that makes rational sense, which doesn't mean we shouldn't try to understand it and why people believed in it, but in doing so we should never give it credence because it is utterly insane and abhorrent.

 

[Sarno]

While the mechanic itself is fine, "searching for a planet to make it Hallowed" sounds incredibly wrong somehow.

A "searching for a planet to teraform..." from X Rebirth immediately poped into my mind (Xenon reference)