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Stellaris Dev Diary #144 - Megastructures, Habitats and Minor Artifacts

Hello everyone!

First of all, I’d like to follow up on last week’s dev diary by sharing some more things we’re trying out with Megastructures (and habitats!).

After all of that, we also have something new to talk about!

Let’s start from the beginning – which of course leads us to the Mega-Engineering technology itself.

As always, numbers may not be final and temporary things may be sighted.

Mega-Engineering
Mega-Engineering is still a rare technology, but will now be more likely to appear as you build more Habitats and Citadels. This means it is way more likely to appear if you are performing actions in the game that would lead you towards the route of building larger and more powerful structures.

Master Builders
The Master Builders ascension perk no longer unlocks mega-engineering or adds size to habitats, but instead increases the number of megastructures you can simultaneously build by +1. What about increased habitat size you ask? Well, keep on reading!

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Habitats & Voidborne
Habitats are no longer locked behind the Voidborne ascension perk but is rather a technology that branches off from the Star Fortress technology. Habitats now have a default of 80% habitability. We’re also experimenting with that some of the habitat’s districts will depend on which planet they are built over. In case you build one above a planet with mining deposits, this could happen:

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Voidborne ascension perk now increases habitat size by +2 and increases Habitat habitability by 20%. This should mean it becomes more of a choice for specialization, rather than feeling it is a non-choice.

As a final note on habitats, it might be worthwhile to reiterate my thoughts that I eventually want to add different levels/sizes to habitats. It is however not something for the immediate future, but a little further down the road.

Ring Worlds
We didn’t quite like how Ring Worlds ended up feeling like a vast farm, so we’re making some changes. Instead of being a size 50 with regular districts, we’re changing it to a size 5 with a unique type of districts – segments. A Ring World, as you know, has 4 planets. Each planet can now build 5 segments, which are very powerful districts with many jobs and a lot of housing.

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Minor Artifacts
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Some of you might recognize the icon for what was supposed to become arcane technology, that partially got into 2.2. It was something that I was personally working on, but that didn’t work out as I had imagined it, and that I didn’t get enough time to finish with other things taking priority.

In the next upcoming DLC, you will be able to come across Minor Artifacts. “Minor Artifacts” is a broad term that includes any smaller and nameless artifact left behind by ancient civilizations. They are never gained passively every month, but will rather have to be found.

What are they used for, I imagine you asking? Well, the basic functionality is that they can be consumed in so-called artifact actions. There are a bunch of different actions that can be performed by consuming Minor Artifacts, with varying effects for each.

Some of these actions will be locked behind a technology, which some may also recognize.

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Arcane Deciphering allows you to consume Minor Artifacts for a random technology-related bonus.

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That’s it for this week! Happy Easter everyone! Next week we’ll be back again :)

P.S. Attaching an Easter present

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Reworked habitats to be able to get minerals, made ringworlds not provide 50% of your empire sprawl, arcane technology revived, hints at a potential Precursor Storypack (I wanted fish but oh well), and a buff to Dyson and Matter Decompressor?

Are we living in Australia? Because Christmas came early!
 
Reworked habitats to be able to get minerals, made ringworlds not provide 50% of your empire sprawl, arcane technology revived, hints at a potential Precursor Storypack (I wanted fish but oh well), and a buff to Dyson and Matter Decompressor?

Are we living in Australia? Because Christmas came early!

or we're all gonna die.
 
I hope we can see some version of the "mini ring" from the Gigastructures mod, that can be used to expand a planet's district capacity. Though balanced in a way that you can only really do this for a few to a handful planets.
Yeah, they could use the same districts as the ring world even, but with 3 or 4 jobs/housing instead of 20, and add 5 of those to a planet. Maybe limited to planets with 75 pops or more.
 
I definitely like the slow "nerfing" of ascension perks and replacement of megastructures as technology. Ascension perks are starting to feel more balanced between each other like this, and while it might feel like the ascension perks are now less special per say, the megastructure perk was clearly a certain pick every single time, enough so to warrant megastructures and even habitats being merged into technologies.

+1 Good idea devs.

I don't know if anyone has said it and while I surely loved @Wiz the game is still taking a positive direction I feel and even with his departure from Stellaris it's still heading in a great direction and is still great. I can't wait to see this next upcoming DLC. Thankfully Imperator will hold me over while I wait! Great work!
 
Arcane Deciphering allows you to consume Minor Artifacts for a random technology-related bonus.

The random factor makes me not happy. Seeing how the Shroud works, you have a bunch of random options, only a handful of them are even worthwile.

Obviously I don't know what the general power of some of these bonuses is going to be, I just hope its not Ecumenopolis levels of powercreep. I would hate to have another 10 different outcomes, out of which 2 are absolutely bonkers, 5 are alright and 3 are mediocre. Don't design them like Shroud Events please.
 
The random factor makes me not happy. Seeing how the Shroud works, you have a bunch of random options, only a handful of them are even worthwile.

Obviously I don't know what the general power of some of these bonuses is going to be, I just hope its not Ecumenopolis levels of powercreep. I would hate to have another 10 different outcomes, out of which 2 are absolutely bonkers, 5 are alright and 3 are mediocre. Don't design them like Shroud Events please.
What do you mean? The Shroud events are fine. Besides, for there to be good outcomes, there have to be bad outcomes, and some RNG is good for the game to keep it from playing out like chess.
 
Can one of our Artifact Actions be to unlock a "Museum of the Ancients" building or some such thing to build on one of our planets, to churn out some Unity and Society Research?

Also, if there are Minor Artifacts, will there also be Major Artifacts?
 
Also, if there are Minor Artifacts, will there also be Major Artifacts?

My educated guess: Major artifacts are Precursor artifacts leading to their homeworld (aka, updated precursor chains and homesystems)
 
We’re also experimenting with that some of the habitat’s districts will depend on which planet they are built over. In case you build one above a planet with mining deposits, this could happen:

Dependant on the size of the mineral (etc) deposit? Otherwise you'd be incentivised to build your space mining habitats over the smallest possible deposit, which seems counter intuitive.
 
Dependant on the size of the mineral (etc) deposit? Otherwise you'd be incentivised to build your space mining habitats over the smallest possible deposit, which seems counter intuitive.

Yeah we tried that first, but it didn't feel as good/as interesting. We're still experimenting.
 
Yeah we tried that first, but it didn't feel as good/as interesting. We're still experimenting.
Will planet modifiers have any impact on the orbiting habitat? For example, I often see barren worlds with Mineral bonus that I can't use because the planet can't be settled. Would the habitat get the bonus instead if I built it there?
 
Can you do simultaneous upgrades to a Dyson sphere with the extra build capacity?

You still have to upgrade every step in sequence, if that is what you mean.

Will planet modifiers have any impact on the orbiting habitat? For example, I often see barren worlds with Mineral bonus that I can't use because the planet can't be settled. Would the habitat get the bonus instead if I built it there?

Looking into doing that, yeah.
 
Habitats are no longer locked behind the Voidborne ascension perk but is rather a technology that branches off from the Star Fortress technology. Habitats now have a default of 80% habitability. We’re also experimenting with that some of the habitat’s districts will depend on which planet they are built over. In case you build one above a planet with mining deposits, this could happen:

Have you considered dropping population from habitats entirely? Squeezing any non-trivial fraction of a planet's population into orbital tin cans seems absurd when you think hard about it, anyway.

Rather than being "constructed planets", they could be like customizable/upgraded space stations that have building slots (based on the size/radius of the planet they're built around, you can squeeze more structures into orbit around larger planets) and specialized buildings with fixed production/maintenance. They would come online and be fully productive much faster, and not affect sprawl. They could even be affected by space station production bonuses, rather than worker bonuses (which would make the "+20% research to space stations" techs not worthless).
 
Can you do simultaneous upgrades to a Dyson sphere with the extra build capacity?
Most likely not since the dyson sphere is a chain of upgrades and not like the ringworld.
 
Have you considered dropping population from habitats entirely? Squeezing any non-trivial fraction of a planet's population into orbital tin cans seems absurd when you think hard about it, anyway.

Habitats as portrayed in the game are essentially McKendree Cylinders, which could potentially fit a billion people in one of those with room to spare, since they have continental-scale surface area to work with. Of course, in Stellaris, habitats have the benefit of artificial gravity so they don't have to rely on spinning up to hold people to the floor.