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Stellaris Dev Diary #146 - The Baol and The Zroni

Hello everyone!

As promised last week, we’re back to talk about something old that’s new – which, as many of you correctly guessed, is about new precursors. Adding new precursors has been something we’ve been wanting to do for quite a while now, and we’re very happy that we can now finally provide what’s been asked for.

In the next DLC you will be able to explore the fate of two new precursors, namely the Baol and the Zroni. To not spoil too much, I’ll only give a basic description of their respective backgrounds and lore.

The Baol
The Baol Organism was once a sprawling interstellar Hive Mind comprised of trillions of psychically-linked plantoids. With their ability to slowly terraform a planet's ecosystem and atmospheric gases via centuries of sustained photosynthetic processes, the Baol civilization produced a plethora of rich flora and fauna on otherwise unremarkable worlds. The Baol Organism curated lush planetary gardens and arboretums across many systems, forming mutualistic symbiotic relationships with local alien wildlife.

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The Zroni
The Zroni were possibly the most powerful psionics to have ever existed, or at least they were the first to discover the dimension which has come to be known as The Shroud. Once the Zroni population reached a certain critical mass it seems that their collective unconscious minds began to make contact with the proto-shroud in dreams, leading to mass lucid dreaming. Soon the phenomenon was studied and the Zroni discovered how to psionically project themselves into the Shroud, where they found that they could manipulate the very fabric of reality with their psionic powers. It wasn't long before the Zroni discovered they could physically enter the Shroud and live like Gods, transforming the dimension to suit their whims.

Precursor changes
One of the more impactful changes we’ve made is that we have now made the precursor spawns randomized so that they will no longer spawn in a specific part of the galaxy.

We have also added some more features and rewards to the old precursors. For example, after having found the Irassian home system, you can now spend minor artifacts to unravel some of the secrets of the Irassians. The new artifact actions aren’t the only new things though, and there’s some more cool things that you will be able to find.

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Additional precursor plans
Some of you have been asking about archaeology and adapting some of the old precursor content to use the new system. In regards to that question I will say that it is something that I always planned to do, but due to other things taking priority we can’t promise that it will happen immediately. If those changes don’t make it into the next update, it's very likely they will appear in the next big update after that. Changing that content would of course still be a part of the base game.

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That is all we had to share for this week’s dev diary. Next week we’ll be back again, which also happens to be the 3 year anniversary for Stellaris :)
 
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So, I assume it's a Story Pack DLC, then...
I always like good story packs! Games with good storylines, regardless of genre, are always hard to find!
I'd much rather have a good story pack any day over a "feature" pack (though both are good).
And a story pack about Precursors...
I can't wait!
Now just to hope the by the time it releases, I actually have the money to afford it!

Well so far we know they're also adding archeology and changes to mega-structures, so I believe it's going to be more than just a story pack.
 
Looks great. Looking forward to learning more about the new precursors. Hopefully soon tm?

Suggestion for the Cybrex. I feel like the Ruined Ringworld reward is a bit underwhelming compared to the First Leage where you get an Ecumenopolis. You still need the Mega-Engineering tech to repair the Ringworld, which may take a long time to get. And when you get it you usually also can get the Great Wonders tradition and build your own Ringworlds.

I would therefore suggest that it should be able to repair the Ringworld without that tech. Just as you can repair the First Leage Ecumenopolis without having the Arcology tradition. That way the Cybrex Ringworld would be usable earlier in the game and become more valuable as reward.

Yeah. If you go a ruined route for both, I feel the requirements could be reduced so you can repair 1 of the sections with only, say, Star fortress technology. And then the rest with Megaengineering. I think that's acceptable.
Then a ruined Ecum would be repairable after you get base terraforming, (maybe a couple others like Ecological adapt./climate rest.) and anti grav housing (isn't that the the requirement for regular Ecum?)
 
Well so far we know they're also adding archeology and changes to mega-structures, so I believe it's going to be more than just a story pack.
Distant Stars was a Story Pack, and it added in the L-gates and a ton of other unrelated anomalies, as well as a mid-game crisis.

This can easily be a Story Pack with the new Precursors and the Archaeology feature (with the megastructure changes and other tweaks being part of the free patch).
 
Yeah. I feel the requirements could be reduced so you can repair 1 of the sections with only, say, Star fortress technology. And then the rest with Megaengineering. I think that's acceptable.
Then a ruined Ecum would be repairable after you get base terraforming, (maybe a couple others like Ecological adapt./climate rest.) and anti grav housing (isn't that the the requirement for regular Ecum?)
Give the ringworld one intact segment covered in blockers, like the First League has.
 
Distant Stars was a Story Pack, and it added in the L-gates and a ton of other unrelated anomalies, as well as a mid-game crisis.

This can easily be a Story Pack with the new Precursors and the Archaeology feature (with the megastructure changes and other tweaks being part of the free patch).

I stand corrected. I've only been playing since 2.2 was released. Sounds like they regularly release more than just new stories/background info in Story Packs.
 
I stand corrected. I've only been playing since 2.2 was released. Sounds like they regularly release more than just new stories/background info in Story Packs.
"Story Pack" generally just means its DLC that adds in one or two new minor mechanics, some new fluff/lore in some form, and otherwise doesn't overhaul or significantly change other gameplay mechanics.

Leviathans added some special treasure-systems/"bosses", the War in Heaven conflict, and the Enclaves.

Synthetic Dawn added Machine Intelligence empires, a new Fallen Empire with special interactions with one of the Crisis factions, and the AI Uprising event chain.

These are opposed to non-storypack DLC like Utopia or Apocalypse or Megacorp, which tied in much more heavily with the free patch content that accompanied them and which represented larger shifts in Stellaris' gameplay.
 
While new precursors are cool and all, what about balancing existing ones? It's not exactly a rocket science that First League, currently, has the most powerful reward by far.
 
Buff the rewards of precursors, right now you want either first league or cybrex or its a reroll, it shouldn't be like that, and all precursor chains should be rewarding enough to be worth perusing.
 
I'm already loving this new DLC so far, can't wait to find out more. The narrative side of Stellaris can always use some more new and fresh content IMO.
 
Well so far we know they're also adding archeology and changes to mega-structures, so I believe it's going to be more than just a story pack.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the changes to megastructures going to be a free update for base-game, as it is CHANGES to previous content?
Also, I'm fairly certain Archeology, or at least some aspect of it, is also going to be base-game, as it is likely to be a widely used system in later DLC content. It wouldn't make much sense to me to create a whole new gameplay mechanic for a single DLC (look at Ascension Perks for example; originally for, and part of, Utopia until they made it part of base-game to be used in later DLC, like Apocalypse).

My point is: what all is actually going to be DLC-specific content? At the moment, it's looking like a Story Pack (which would follow their alternating pattern).
 
Will the AI now go out and discover precursor systems? Being able to go on a stellar crusade to conquer home systems would be cool. But the only one that gets discovered is the one in your part of the galaxy, because the ai seems to never get the anomalies.
 
So I think we can now assume that Zro is just the powdered remains of the Zroni. Our Psionic empires have been snorting dead aliens all this time...
Yeah xD I assume that their home system will have Zro. And then you get a higher, or guarenteed chance of getting psionics. But I wonder what the reward should be if you're a hive mind or ME.