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Stellaris Dev Diary #16 - Colony Events

Events in Stellaris will not be limited to the Anomalies you find in space. Another event category that you will encounter as you play the game are colony events. Fairly self-explanatory, colony events are events that can trigger on your colonies. Our goal with these events is to provide a bit of identity to the planets you colonize, and set them further apart.

Some events will have situations that you can respond to in a number of ways, and in many cases you will have to deal with the fallout (positive or negative) of your choices in follow-up events that can fire many years later.

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Minutes from the Board of Inquiry into the loss of colony NSD-578 (New Albion)
2279.244, 14:01 hours local station time


GIDDINGS, AMANDA (Advocate General, ISFA)
State your name for the record, please.

BORLAND, S. ERIC (PN-2344-D-1)
Eric Borland.

GIDDINGS
You served as the planetary governor of NSD-578, otherwise known as ‘New Albion’ to its inhabitants, for a period of seven years. Is this correct?

BORLAND
It is.

GIDDINGS
As I’m sure you’re aware, all contact was lost with New Albion four months ago, less than a year after your governorship ended. The relief expedition, led by the cruiser Vikramaditya, found no trace of the colonists.

BORLAND
I am aware of this, yes.

SWEENEY, LEONARD (Senior Representative, RCC)
We were hoping that you would be able to shed some light on what happened, Mr. Borland. The disappearance of an entire colony with over 100,000 inhabitants is a source of… some concern to us, as I’m sure you understand.

BORLAND
As I’ve said at all the other hearings you’ve put me through, these are things that can happen when you colonize a new planet. How many times do you want me to say this? There are always risks involved, especially when a colony is young!

ISHIKAWA, MIYU (Junior Commissioner, GTSA)
Would you care to elaborate?

BORLAND
It’s very simple. We are dealing with planets that are completely alien. Their ecosystems are still being mapped, and in many cases the planets in question have been visited, or even inhabited, by other spacefaring cultures.

ISHIKAWA
I’m not sure I see how this pertains to the situ-

BORLAND
The orbital surveys our Science Ships perform only reveal the tip of the iceberg. Once your colony starts growing, and you have thousands of colonists running around in the wild building settlements, you will sometimes run into things that weren’t in the survey reports. Look at what happened on Las Veredas, for example.

SWEENEY
I’m not quite up to speed on events from that sector. What exactly happened there?

HAGNER, L. TIMOTHY (Senior Investigator, BRSF)
I believe they found an old drone on the surface.

BORLAND
Not just one - there was a whole fleet. The drones evidently thought our colony belonged to whoever had originally built them, as they began to sporadically assist our colonists by gathering minerals and terraforming uninhabitable sections of the surface.

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SWEENEY
But it sounds like that had a positive effect on the development of the Las Veredas colony. What happened on New Albion is quite the opposite.

BORLAND
Of course it is, you pompous fool! We’re dealing with the unknown here! Our colonists will sometimes find that the planet they settled is even more valuable than the initial survey indicated, like when prospectors on Acrisia unearthed an intact battleship.

HAGNER
Really now, Mr. Borland, you need to -

BORLAND
Other times, the outcome can be disastrous, like when the colonists of Xianyang activated that ancient abandoned terraforming equipment, only to discover that the aliens who built it breathed ammonia!

GIDDINGS
Sit down, Mr. Borland! Sit down, or I will have security restrain you -

BORLAND
So what do I think happened on New Albion? I haven’t the slightest idea! Maybe the colonists were enslaved and brought underground by some kind of subterranean civilization. Maybe they were all consumed by a type of predator that hadn’t been encountered before! All I know is that while you’re sitting here safe and sound on your fat asses in low Earth orbit, there are… no, get your hands off me! Let me finish! There are colonists out there who -

GIDDINGS
Remove Mr. Borland from the room! The rest of us will reconvene in ten minutes.

BORLAND
<unintelligible shouting>

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Next week Game Director Henrik "Doomdark" Fåhraeus will tell to you about War, Peace, Influence and Claims!

Because of reasons, the "War, Peace, Influence and Claims!" Dev Diary has been postponed. The next Dev Diary will be about the ship designer instead. - BjornB
 
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*drool* Gimmegimmegimme.

Please, do take my money. All I ask for in return is the game. Any time really, just preferably...now?
 
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Subterranean invasion.
Hmm...

300px-SkavenArmy2.jpg
 
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This may lead to lots of !FUN!
 
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That was a great dev diary, one thing however...

A sealed underground vault...

On a tomb world...

Nope.

Nope nope nope nope noooooooooooooooooope.

Get the frak off that planet and call an exterminatus now.
 
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I seriously need to stop reading these developer's diaries. My anticipation level started at 11 and kept going up from there. Can't even figure out how to play Aurora 4x on my Mac to release some of the anticipation.
 
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Is there a way to explore the planet to possibly trigger one ? Or maybe find something dangerous. I've seen that mechanic in many games and think it would work well here.
 
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It’s very simple. We are dealing with planets that are completely alien. Their ecosystems are still being mapped, and in many cases the planets in question have been visited, or even inhabited, by other spacefaring cultures.
Are you saying that more than one spacefaring faction can have a pressence on the same planet?
 
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What a great dev diary. I love the style... It's like getting a little piece of genre microfiction along with the game info. As for the content, this reminds me a lot of the colonisation events from GalCiv only done right... With lots of variety in both subject and timing, divorced from a silly black/white ethics system, and creating chains that can let whole stories play out. Bravo! Very exciting!

Also exciting is next week's topic. Wow, I've been loving all the DDs giving us a little taste of the game's flavour and style, but next week sounds like a big one as far as core mechanics go. It is paradox, after all, so war and peace will be a huge part of how at least the mid game plays out,
 
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I'll definitely be looking forward to these colony events, especially if the options available to deal with them are varied, for example simply studying the subteranean creatures as they overrun your colony's defenses for a huge boost in learning how effective they are in combat and how to mold them into a soldier-species for your empire rather than simply send in troops and wipe them out.
 
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I cant wait too get my hands on this game. All this events and possibilitys this game will be a lot fun.
I just imagen the the story with the terraforming Maschine, sounds kinda hilarious.
Will we see the outcome of our choices like in EU4 or in CK2 befor we klick on a choice or will it be that we have to pick blind what we think its the better choice with out know whath happen if we click on it ?. I hope it is the second because it would be silly if you have this event with the terraforming and then its like turn it on ( your admosphere will become amonion) or keep it off line ( nothing happen). Because this is how it normaly work in the other games. But in this senario it would kill a lot of it.
(If that was said befor then im sorry for ask about it )
 
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Massive underground vault, you say?
meaning-of-vault-boy-thumbs-up.jpg
Yeah because that ended up just swell.

Are these colony events/decisions things that need to be done "now or never"? Like the underground vault, for example, do we have to decide immediately and irrevocably, or can we say "let's wait until our colony is more established before opening that" ?
Or until I have my army & navy standing by just in case. Then again delaying could be the wrong choice, perhaps what's down there wakes on their own, or some paranoid givernor blows it up, or a curious scientist opens it. Perhaps opening it at once let's you destroy a potential enemy before they awaken.
Actually perhaps standign with an army ooutside when you open it may be the exact thing that provokes a war.

I like the idea of delayed outcomes from events. Should discourage save-scumming.

"Hey, we opened the vault and everyone got a money boost from selling all the neat stuff inside"

20 years later: "Remember the stuff we took out of that vault we opened? Well, I've got bad news...."
I like this idea. Ongoing narratives are fun. Perhaps some events could dynamically pick from past events on the planet and cite them as the reason that the new event happens?

In the case of the underground vault, you will get a Special Project to open it which you can complete whenever you want. Of course, other events can lead to Special Projects that are timed. If you don't finish them on time, there may be consequences...
Wouldn't want it any other way.

I'm thinking that "claims" in Stellaris may be in the Old West frontier style, where you can lay claim to a sector of space before fully exploring/colonising it - which may lead to friction with other civilisations who already live there, or have claimed the same region.
Sounds good

Subterranean invasion.
Hmm...

300px-SkavenArmy2.jpg
Love those little guys... I miss warhammer fatnasy battles... damn age of sigmar.

That was a great dev diary, one thing however...

A sealed underground vault...

On a tomb world...

Nope.

Nope nope nope nope noooooooooooooooooope.

Get the frak off that planet and call an exterminatus now.
You think your puny weapons can harm them? Perhaps you just wake them.
 
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So I'm hoping/assuming the answer is yes, but for something like the subterranean civilization if you fend off their attempt to conquer your or whatever other sort of discovery of them, will they be a fully fleshed out alien species you can incorporate into your nation?
 
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Yeah because that ended up just swell.


Or until I have my army & navy standing by just in case. Then again delaying could be the wrong choice, perhaps what's down there wakes on their own, or some paranoid givernor blows it up, or a curious scientist opens it. Perhaps opening it at once let's you destroy a potential enemy before they awaken.
Actually perhaps standign with an army ooutside when you open it may be the exact thing that provokes a war.


I like this idea. Ongoing narratives are fun. Perhaps some events could dynamically pick from past events on the planet and cite them as the reason that the new event happens?


Wouldn't want it any other way.


Sounds good


Love those little guys... I miss warhammer fatnasy battles... damn age of sigmar.


You think your puny weapons can harm them? Perhaps you just wake them.
Cyclonic Torpedoes will get the job done.

I hope.
 
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Colonies?
^
Sarcastic < ----- > Looks Meh
V
Seens Awesome!

Colonies? = How do we colonize planets?
Looks Meh= I hoped for something more interactive
Seens Awesome! = This seens awesome! I can't wait for the game to come out! Imagine the wonders and horrors we will discover in our colonies
Sarcastic = Underground fallout shelter on a tomb planet destroyed by a nuclear war... Never heard about such thing before.​
 
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I'm wondering, will there be some kind of history tabs for colonies so you can see past events? I really hope there will be. My problem with these kind of event chains in other games is always that while they're great, once you've got more than say five planets, I really lose track and I just don't remember which planet had which event happening. So even while they're supposed to make planets unique, the planets still become differentiable anyways. It would be much better if there's somewhere where you can see the history to remind yourself.
 
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