Hello everyone!

We’re back for this week’s installment of the Stellaris Dev Diary. This week we will covering a mix of paid and free features. More exactly, we’ll be talking about the Slave Market, Unity Ambitions and new Mandates. I bet I know which one you’ll want to read about first, so let’s start with that one.

Before we start I need to reiterate that this dev diary contains things that are WIP, with non-final numbers, interfaces or mechanics that might change.

The Slave Market (PAID)
To better facilitate slaver playstyles, we’ve added the Slave Market feature to MegaCorp. This will allow more easy transfer of slaves between empires. In MegaCorp, nothing can stand in the way of the pursuit of profit.

Access to the Slave Market is granted once the Galactic Market is founded. Only empires that also have access to the Galactic Market will be able to use the Slave Market. Only Pops that are currently Slaves are able to be sold on the Slave Market, but anyone can buy them (either to set them free or to put them to work). We're also considering making (non-Gestalt) robots that do not have citizen rights buyable and sellable on the market.

To sell a slave you select one or more Pop(s) on a planet (it must be enslaved). Right now the interface shows planets as the drop-down, but we will be changing it so that you first select a species, and then the list shows the different planets. We’re tweaking the interface right now, so some things might look a bit different as the next couple of weeks pass.

When you have decided which slaves to sell, they will be put on the market. The price of slaves is 500 ± the cost affected by traits. The traits that make them good slaves drives the price up, while things that make them bad slaves drives the price down. Many traits will not affect the cost of a slave.

To buy a slave, you select a destination planet and then simply click the buy button. This will complete the transaction and move the pop to your selected planet.

We are considering adding a simple bidding process as an additional step, but at this time we cannot promise that we will have time to add it before the release of MegaCorp.

Unity Ambitions (FREE)
Because of the changes to the economy system, with Unity coming from multiple sources and being a more integrated resource, we wanted to make sure that Unity is always useful. Previously a paid feature in Apocalypse, Unity Ambitions have now been made a free feature in 2.2 'Le Guin'.

Mandates (FREE)
Since we've added a bunch of new mechanics with 2.2 'Le Guin', we now have a lot more things that we can hook into. As a result of that, we have reworked and added a bunch of new mandates for democratic empires. They usually go along the lines of building more districts, building more stations to gather resource, to increasing monthly income etc.

That is what we have for this week. Next week we’ll return with a Dev Diary about what the community can expect in terms of new Modding capabilities for 2.2 (hint: It's a *lot* of new capabilities).

Don’t forget to tune into Twitch for the Dev Clash at 15:00 CET, so you can see us whack at each other with our new pointy sticks! You can also watch a summarized version on YouTube.

 

[WhapXI]

I understand the idea, I'm just saying that it wouldn't work in the game.

Monsanto does not sell sterile crops, they enforce it by different ways (in courts). I don't think anyone uses terminator genes right now...

But, like I said, it wouldn't work in the game. There is no court to enforce no reproduction and sterile trait can be easily removed by any empire who invented genetic engineering.

I beg your pardon, I see the point you were making now.

If they have genetic engineering that good then why do they even need to buy genemodded slaves?

I'm more thinking of this in the case of a bio-asc marauder emp selling superslaves to non-bio-asc emps. Basically fleshbots for slaving about. They go squish instead of beep. Very disconcerting stuff.

 

[Jin_Cardassian]

I need some abolitionist means to bring the system dowwwwn, man. It would be interesting to be able to sell fake slaves who are actually trained rabble rousers, that kind of thing. A little caveat emptor if you will.

Slaves usually gravitate toward Egalitarian anyway as a result of being slaves. The problem is that they end up just being slaves again at the destination.

This does however suggest that the slave market will be a super useful tool for anyone that wants to shift their empire toward Egalitarian. Just buy enough slaves that you're past the minimum required threshold.

 

[WhapXI]

Does this mean Hive Mind can buy races to assimilate as well, with the right tech and ascension perks?
Will Driven Assimilators be able to buy races to assimilate?
Will Rogue Servitors be able to buy slaves for use a bio trophies?

Sounds like slave market access is governed by galactic market access. IIRC gestalts can't access the GM, so I'm guessing a no on all three counts. Shame, really. Would love to do a Servitor run where I buy biotrophies like cheap funko pops.

Haha! Disregard that! See Wiz's post below. FunkoPOP collection here I come!

 

[Annihilat0r]

I think (fanatic) egalitarian empires should not be allowed to use the slave market. Even though they set the slaves free, they would be directly funding slaving empires and slavery. That should at least cause a massive happiness penalty for egalitarian factions.

 

[The Kombinator]

If I go Biological Ascension, why can’t I produce and sell Sterile slave POPs, ones that won’t reproduce?

Obviously, them being Sterile means that they’re worth less, but the idea is that them being Nerve-Stapled, Very Strong and Industrious more than compensates, and so other empires, including AI empires, should still want to buy them.

They would also have a time limit since they are mortals so they would die out slowly, if all sterile.

 

[MarKr]

Is the slave cost strictly set to energy credits or will it be possible to demand e.g. minerals as a payment for slaves?

 

[henzington]

Is the slave cost strictly set to energy credits or will it be possible to demand e.g. minerals as a payment for slaves?

You can use the regular market or internal market to trade for energy

 

[Ikael]

Really cool DD, some thoughts:

- Love how you can tailor made pops via genetic engineering for maximum slave market profit
- I wonder (and kinda hope) if selling pops to the slave market would have a lesser diplomatic penalty than outright purging (yet more than "just" having your own slaves)
- Mandates were due for a rework since a loooonggg time. Good stuff, but long overdue

Also, this is the most important thing of the DD to me:

Hello everyone!

Unity Ambitions (FREE)
Because of the changes to the economy system, with Unity coming from multiple sources and being a more integrated resource, we wanted to make sure that Unity is always useful. Previously a paid feature in Apocalypse, Unity Ambitions have now been made a free feature in 2.2 'Le Guin'.

I say HELL YES to this. About time that unity became an integral part of the game and unity builds become a thing. Love it!

 

[Calvax]

I understand the idea, I'm just saying that it wouldn't work in the game.

Easy way to make it work: make the sterile trait locked behind bio ascension. Make the bio ascension traits only removable by empires with bio ascension (representing that their mastery of genetic engineering is so advanced that other cultures can't fathom how to unravel their modifications to a genome without making it non-viable).

 

[Wizzington]

Does this mean Hive Mind can buy races to assimilate as well, with the right tech and ascension perks?
Will Driven Assimilators be able to buy races to assimilate?
Will Rogue Servitors be able to buy slaves for use a bio trophies?

Everyone except Exterminators, Purifiers and Devouring Swarms can buy.

 

[Olterin]

Loving the addition of the slave market, UI issues can surely be fixed should any still appear on the 13th December ..

On a different note: despite owning the Apocalypse DLC, I'm all in favor of making Unity Ambitions a free feature - but I do wonder, are some of them still going to be DLC-locked at present or is the entire presently-available spectrum being made free?

 

[Technoincubus]

@Wiz
What about bio-sabotage exploit? When you engeneer absolute trash of a species, who breed fast, absolutely useles and worthless and spam them to AI?

 

[Haccoude]

That is what we have for this week. Next week we’ll return with a Dev Diary about what the community can expect in terms of new Modding capabilities for 2.2 (hint: It's a *lot* of new capabilities).

ABSOLUTE YES. Also, this seems like a really late DD, so it seems release might be close(-ish).

 

[Ex Mudder]

Will there be an alert when slaves become available on the market, or some sort of auto-buy feature? How will a human player will know when to look?

 

[Thimeaux]

WOOO! everything in this dev diary is good stuff! Especially he unity ambitions being free is something I wanted for a long time!

I have a question though, is it possible to sell robots/droids/synths on the slave market?

EDIT: Whoops, didn't read it properly, that's embarrassing, especially to find out this late.

 

[Strigoi Tyrannus]

Will there be an alert when slaves become available on the market, or some sort of auto-buy feature? How will a human player will know when to look?

Was just gonna ask the same. Maybe you could mark somewhere that you are interested in buying slaves and then an alert would show up when slaves are available. Unless slaves are generally always available.

 

[Sinister2202]

Oh boy. Gonna have to go bio ascension again.

 

[WwAiRtRhIiOnR]

New mandate: buy x slaves from the market (and free them)

 

[Zebak]

..what? no getting a snack out of my lunch? pitty... ;P

..I see getting slaves as devouring swarms would be like buying chicken from cows.... still, would be nice, in a mad cult kind of way, some crazyed empire selling slaves to a devouring swarm in hopes of sating it so to eat them last... like mad cultists waking up ancient ones from slumber at sea... I know I would spare them for supplying with lil snacks on the galactic suppermarket..

maybe some trait or political choice to allow an empire to sell pops to devouring swarms? (if selling directly ever becomes an option, that is, so to have a diplomatic modifier to it (mad cooks // appeased hunger) for both sides).

 

[Chief of Staff]

Can non-slave empires buy slaves in order to liberate them? Such actions could even cause some consequences via event chains such as encouraging slaver empires to capture more slaves, thereby making this practice, while well intended, morally problematic. Would make for some interesting situations.