Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today, we're going to continue talking about the 2.1 'Niven' update accompanying the Distant Stars Story Pack. Everything mentioned in this dev diary is part of the free update, not the story pack.
Space Creature Research
In the Niven update, we've gone back to the space creatures (Amoebas, Crystals, etc) and improve on their special projects and rewards. Instead of the wildly inconsistent and unbalanced rewards we have now, we have changed the space creatures so that upon discovery and completion of the initial contact project, you will now generally get up to 3 options, depending on your ethics and the type of creature:
- Hunt: This will grant a permanent damage bonus towards this type of space creature, and rewards in the form of resources on killing them.
- Research: This is the most similar option to the old events, and unlocks a special project for detailed research of the space creature that will yield a reward in the form of technology and/or permanent empire buffs.
- Pacify: This will unlock a more expensive special project that allows you to turn the space creatures non-hostile, allowing you to co-exist with them and share their space, as well as potentially unlocking the ability to research special components or weapons that they use. It is not possible to pacify certain kinds of space creatures, such as mining drones.
Strategic Resource Discovery
Another thing we've tried to improve on in Niven is the discovery and exploitation of Strategic Resources. Previously, while exploring, you would not know if you had discovered any strategic resources unless you first had the related technology, which generally meant that you would explore, eventually research the tech, and suddenly discover a bunch of resources on places you had already built orbital stations on - not the most rewarding or strategic feeling. We've changed this so that strategic resources are now always visibile from the start, and you will get an event informing you when a science ship discovers a new strategic resource for the first time.
Some strategic resources will be able to be exploited immediately, while others will require a technology to be researched before you can build a mining station around that planet and gain access to the resource. Strategic Resources have generally been buffed and made more rare - we've removed their tendency to spawn in large clumps in certain areas of space, so if you find a particular resource and fail to claim that system before someone else does, you can no longer be assured that there will be another of its type nearby, and generally there won't be enough of any one strategic resource for every empire in the galaxy to have access to it.
Experimental Subspace Navigation
Lastly for today is a new order we've added for Science Ships called Experimental Subspace Navigation. This order is unlocked by a mid-game tech and allows the science ship to travel to any system which you have any level of intel on (that is, has been in sensor range at least once, or is part of another empire you have communications with) while ignoring the hyperlane network. The science ship will be considered MIA for the journey and simply arrive in the other system at the end of the order, bypassing any hostile creatures or closed borders along the way. This allows even empires that have been boxed in by hostile neighbors to continue exploring the galaxy and complete event chains that might otherwise require a war. Certain special systems (such as the L-Cluster) will not be possible to travel to using this method.
That's all for today! Next week is PDXcon, so there won't be a dev diary. There will, however, almost certainly be something related to Distant Stars talked about at the event itself, so stay tuned!
Space Creature Research
In the Niven update, we've gone back to the space creatures (Amoebas, Crystals, etc) and improve on their special projects and rewards. Instead of the wildly inconsistent and unbalanced rewards we have now, we have changed the space creatures so that upon discovery and completion of the initial contact project, you will now generally get up to 3 options, depending on your ethics and the type of creature:
- Hunt: This will grant a permanent damage bonus towards this type of space creature, and rewards in the form of resources on killing them.
- Research: This is the most similar option to the old events, and unlocks a special project for detailed research of the space creature that will yield a reward in the form of technology and/or permanent empire buffs.
- Pacify: This will unlock a more expensive special project that allows you to turn the space creatures non-hostile, allowing you to co-exist with them and share their space, as well as potentially unlocking the ability to research special components or weapons that they use. It is not possible to pacify certain kinds of space creatures, such as mining drones.
Strategic Resource Discovery
Another thing we've tried to improve on in Niven is the discovery and exploitation of Strategic Resources. Previously, while exploring, you would not know if you had discovered any strategic resources unless you first had the related technology, which generally meant that you would explore, eventually research the tech, and suddenly discover a bunch of resources on places you had already built orbital stations on - not the most rewarding or strategic feeling. We've changed this so that strategic resources are now always visibile from the start, and you will get an event informing you when a science ship discovers a new strategic resource for the first time.
Some strategic resources will be able to be exploited immediately, while others will require a technology to be researched before you can build a mining station around that planet and gain access to the resource. Strategic Resources have generally been buffed and made more rare - we've removed their tendency to spawn in large clumps in certain areas of space, so if you find a particular resource and fail to claim that system before someone else does, you can no longer be assured that there will be another of its type nearby, and generally there won't be enough of any one strategic resource for every empire in the galaxy to have access to it.
Experimental Subspace Navigation
Lastly for today is a new order we've added for Science Ships called Experimental Subspace Navigation. This order is unlocked by a mid-game tech and allows the science ship to travel to any system which you have any level of intel on (that is, has been in sensor range at least once, or is part of another empire you have communications with) while ignoring the hyperlane network. The science ship will be considered MIA for the journey and simply arrive in the other system at the end of the order, bypassing any hostile creatures or closed borders along the way. This allows even empires that have been boxed in by hostile neighbors to continue exploring the galaxy and complete event chains that might otherwise require a war. Certain special systems (such as the L-Cluster) will not be possible to travel to using this method.
That's all for today! Next week is PDXcon, so there won't be a dev diary. There will, however, almost certainly be something related to Distant Stars talked about at the event itself, so stay tuned!
